g fitfully on a bench facing
Green Park.

It was not a lucky drive since it included three punctures and some
engine trouble. They came into Windsor about 7.30 in the morning.
Cranbourne made a hurried breakfast and set out to interview the
photographers of the town. The particular one he sought did not arrive
until nearly nine but on being questioned proved himself amiable and
anxious to help. He produced Eton school groups of fifteen years
antiquity and Cranbourne spent an hour anxiously scanning the faces of
the boys in the hope of tracing a likeness to Barraclough. But boys
are very much alike and very dissimilar from the men they grow into and
though there were several dozen who might well have passed for
Barraclough in infancy no particular one could have been selected with
positive assurance. Cranbourne made a list of twenty names and
Frencham Altar's was not among them.

Rather despondent he said goodbye to the photographer and entered the
taxi.

"Think I'll go back by the Bath Road," said the driver, "it's a better
surface."

"Please yourself," said Cranbourne and settled himself within.

He was beginning to feel a trifle done. His eyes had the sense of
having been sand papered and his lips were dry and parched from want of
rest. He glanced at his watch and shook his head.

"Only thirteen hours left," he said and closed his eyes.

Sleep comes very suddenly to the weary--like a pistol shot out of the
dark. Cranbourne's head pitched forward against his chest and his
hands slithered inertly from his knees.

He awoke with a start to the sound of smashing glass, a sharp rattle of
imprecations and a sense of being turned upside down. The front
nearside wheel of the taxi was in a ditch, the wind screen broken and a
large dray horse was trying to put its fore hoof through the buckled
bonnet. The taxi driver had fallen out and lay cursing gently on the
grass slope to the left, one of his legs was up to the knee in water.
Through the offside window Cranbourne caught a glimpse of the man in
charge of the dray horses--a powerful person, high perched, his weight
thrown bask against the tightened reins--his face purple with effort.
From his mouth came an admirable flow of oaths, choicely adjusted to
suit the occasion. Then Cranbourne saw something else. Beneath the
man's vibrating jaw showed the pleasant colours of an Old Etonian tie.
There could be no mistaking it--neither could there be any reason why