o the tonneau
behind. He then threw a spade and a pick into the car, and covered
everything up with a water-proof spread. Lighting the lamps, he bade
his silent guest get up beside him, and so they started on their
fateful journey, taking the road past the spot where the sailor had
been murdered, and dashing down the long hill at fearful speed toward
London.

'Why do you take this direction?' asked Sir George. 'Wouldn't it be
more advisable to go further into the country?'

Doyle laughed harshly.

'Haven't you a place on Wimbledon Common? Why not bury him in your
garden?'

'Merciful motors!' cried the horrified man. 'How can you propose such
a thing? Talking of gardens, why not have buried him in your own,
which was infinitely safer than going forward at this pace.'

'Have no fear,' said Doyle reassuringly, 'we shall find him a suitable
sepulchre without disturbing either of our gardens. I'll be in the
centre of London within two hours.'

Sir George stared in affright at the demon driver. The man had
evidently gone mad. To London, of all places in the world. Surely that
was the one spot on earth to avoid.

'Stop the motor and let me off,' he cried. 'I'm going to wake up the
nearest magistrate and confess.'

'You'll do nothing of the sort,' said Doyle. 'Don't you see that no
person on earth would suspect two criminals of making for London when
they have the whole country before them? Haven't you read my stories?
The moment a man commits a crime he tries to get as far away from
London as possible. Every policeman knows that, therefore, two men
coming into London are innocent strangers, according to Scotland
Yard.'

'But then we may be taken up for fast driving, and think of the
terrible burden we carry.'

'We're safe on the country roads, and I'll slow down when we reach the
suburbs.'

It was approaching three o'clock in the morning when a huge motor car
turned out of Trafalgar Square, and went eastward along the Strand.
The northern side of the Strand was up, as it usually is, and the
motor, skilfully driven, glided past the piles of wood-paving blocks,
great sombre kettles holding tar and the general _debris_ of a
re-paving convulsion. Opposite Southampton Street, at the very spot so
graphically illustrated by George C. Haite on the cover of the _Strand
Magazine_, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stopped his motor. The Strand was
deserted. He threw pick and shovel into the excavation, and curtly
ordered his compa