d again recognised you," Ray replied.
"It seems that he must have followed you to London, where, having told
Lucien Carron, or 'the Baron,' of your return, they formed a plot to
avenge your action up at Elswick."

"Then I was entrapped by that woman Julie, eh?" I exclaimed, my head
still feeling sore and dizzy.

"Without a doubt. The spies have made yet another attempt upon your
life, Mr. Jacox," Vera remarked.

"But why did they take me out in a motor-car to Hitchin?"

"To make it appear like a case of suicide," Ray said. "Remember that
both of us, old chap, are marked men by Hartmann and his unscrupulous
friends. But what does it matter if we have managed to preserve the
secret of our new gun? We'll be even with our enemies for this one day
ere long, mark me," he laughed, as he lit a fresh cigarette.

CHAPTER X

THE SECRET OF THE CLYDE DEFENCES

A curious episode was that of the plans of the Clyde Defences. It was a
February evening. Wet, tired, and hungry, I turned the long grey touring
car into the yard of the old "White Hart," at Salisbury, and descended
with eager anticipation of a big fire and comfortable dinner.

My mechanic Bennett and I had been on the road since soon after dawn,
and we yet had many miles to cover. Two months ago I had mounted the car
at the garage in Wardour Street and set out upon a long and weary
ten-thousand-mile journey in England, not for pleasure, as you may well
imagine--but purely upon business. My business, to be exact, was
reconnoitring, from a military stand-point, all the roads and by-roads
lying between the Tyne and the Thames as well as certain districts
south-west of London, in order to write the book upon similar lines to
_The Invasion of 1910_.

For two months we had lived upon the road. Sometimes Ray and Vera had
travelled with me. When Bennett and I had started it was late and
pleasant autumn. Now it was bleak, black winter, and hardly the kind of
weather to travel twelve or fourteen hours daily in an open car. Day
after day, week after week, the big "sixty" had roared along, ploughing
the mud of those ever-winding roads of England until we had lost all
count of the days of the week; my voluminous note-books were gradually
being filled with valuable data, and the nerves of both of us were
becoming so strained that we were victims of insomnia. Hence at night,
when we could not sleep, we travelled.

In a great portfolio in the back of the car I carried the