plaintiff's solicitor. I'm not a tall man. She could probably reach my
face, and I don't want to have Scarsby mending up my teeth afterwards."

"My impression is," said Gorman, "that Mrs. Scarsby would allow anyone
to kick her husband up and down Piccadilly if she thought she'd be able
to entertain royalty afterwards. I don't think she ever got higher than
a Marquis before. By the way, poor Konrad Karl is to have a throne at
the end of her drawing-room, and I'm to present her. You really ought to
come, Dane-Latimer."

XII. A COMPETENT MECHANIC

The car swept across the narrow bridge and round the corner beyond it.
Geoffrey Dane opened the throttle a little and allowed the speed to
increase. The road was new to him, but he had studied his map carefully
and he knew that a long hill, two miles or more of it, lay before him.
His car was highly powered and the engine was running smoothly. He
looked forward to a swift, exhilarating rush from the river valley
behind him to the plateau of the moorlands above. The road was a lonely
one. Since he left a village, three miles behind him, he had met nothing
but one cart and a couple of stray cattle. It was very unlikely that he
would meet any troublesome traffic before he reached the outskirts of
Hamley, the market town six miles beyond the hill and the moorland. The
car swept forward, gathering speed. Geoffrey Dane saw the hand of his
speedometer creep round the dial till it showed forty miles an hour.

Then rounding a bend in the road he saw another car motionless in the
very middle of the road. Greoffrey Dane swore abruptly and slowed down.
He was not compelled to stop. He might have passed the obstructing car
by driving with one wheel in the ditch. But he was a young man with
a troublesome conscience, and he was a member of the Royal Automobile
Club. He was bound in honour to render any help he could to motorists in
distress on the high road.

On a stone at the side of the road sat a girl, smoking a cigarette. She
was, apparently, the owner or driver of the motionless car. Greoffrey
Dane stopped.

"Anything wrong?" he asked.

The girl threw away the cigarette she was smoking and stood up.

"Everything," she said.

Geoffrey Dane stopped his engine with a sigh and got out of his car.
He noticed at once that the girl was dishevelled, that her face,
particularly her nose, was smeared with dirt, and that there was a good
deal of mud on her frock. He recognised the sig