l be floated you would haf
the better chance if----"

"Well?"

"You gif to us one-third interest."

"And that represents his chances?"

Van Diest nodded unpleasantly.

"But you will understand of course, that there iss not a lot of time to
lose."

"In a word you are prepared to call off your dogs for a matter of
millions."

"So!"

The bedroom door was flung open and Isabel burst excitedly into the
room.

"There are some horrible men watching the back of the flats," she
cried. "Are they ours?"

"Perhaps you would like to answer this young lady?" asked Mr.
Torrington.

But Van Diest only shrugged his shoulders. Isabel ran to the window.

"And there--down there," she pointed to the street below, "there are
more. What does it mean?"

The sound of her cries brought the others hurrying into the room.

"What is it now?" demanded Cassis.

But Hilbert Torrington was at the telephone. What he actually said
sounded incomprehensible, but what it actually meant to the man who
received it was an order to despatch a dozen men immediately to the
doors of the flats and distribute a sprinkling over the neighbouring
streets. There might be a fight, there probably would. If Barraclough
were seen a body guard was to be formed at once.

Isabel was repeating her question at the window.

"Those men! Who are they? What does it mean?"

It was Cranbourne who had the honesty to reply.

"Danger!"

CHAPTER 33.

A SMASH UP.

Flora's handling of the old Panhard was beyond praise. Accurate, well
judged and with just enough dash of risk at cross roads or in traffic
to steal an extra mile or two on the average speed per hour. The night
had chilled and Anthony Barraclough, wrapped in his mother's cloak
watched the girl beside him with a queer mixture of admiration and
impatience. Admiration for her faultless nerve and impatience that the
car for all its ancient virtue in no sense could be termed a
speed-monger. Flora's attitude amused him too, it was so tremendously
intense, so devoted to duty and withal so exactingly efficient. There
is no particular reason why it should be so, but it always tickles the
male sense of humour to watch a woman do a man's job as capably as a
man himself could do it. Her conduct when they punctured on the long
stretch between Wimbourne and Ringwood had been exemplary. She jacked
up, changed wheels and was away again in the shortest possible time.
True a little over a quart