inety." The car, a four-cylinder, had
no flexibility, and was a perfect terror in traffic. The noise it caused
was as though it had no silencer, while the police everywhere looked
askance as we crept through the Strand, dodged the motor-buses in Oxford
Street, or put on a move down Kensington Gore.

While Bob Brackenbury--as he was known to his friends of the
"Savoy"--was out one day, I was in his bedroom with William, when the
latter opened one of the huge wardrobes there. Inside I saw hanging a
collection of at least fifty coats of all kinds, some smart and of
latest style, others old-fashioned and dingy, while more than one was
greasy, out-at-elbow, and ragged. I made no remark. Never in my life had
I seen such an extensive collection of clothes belonging to one man.
Surely those ragged coats were kept there for purposes of disguise! Yet
would it not be highly necessary for a member of the Secret Service to
possess certain disguises, I reflected!

William noticed my interest, and shut the doors hurriedly.

I drove Brackenbury hither and thither to various parts of London, for
he seemed to possess many friends. Once we took two pretty young ladies
from Hampstead down to the "Mitre" at Hampton Court, and on another
afternoon we took a young French girl and her mother from the "Carlton"
down to the "Old Bridge House" at Windsor.

To me it was apparent that Bob Brackenbury was very popular with a
certain set at the Motor Club, at the Automobile Club, and at other
resorts.

My duties were not at all arduous, and such a thoroughgoing sportsman
was my master that he treated me almost as an equal. When out in the
country he compelled me to have lunch at his table "for company," he
said. My people, I told him, had been wealthy before the South African
War, but had been ruined by it, and though I had been at Rugby and had
done one year at Balliol College, Oxford, I hid the fact now that I was
compelled to earn my living as a mere chauffeur. He had no idea that I
was a barrister, with chambers in New Stone Buildings.

One morning after breakfast Mr. Brackenbury called me into the little
dining-room, wherein stood his capacious roll-top desk against the wall,
with the telephone upon it, and inviting me to a seat opposite the
fireplace, said in a voice which betrayed just the faintest accent:

"Nye, I want to speak confidentially to you for a few minutes. You
recollect that the day before yesterday when down at Windsor I w