re
portable.

"Hulloa!" he cried cheerily. "What are you doing to-day--eh?"

"Well," I said, with apparent indifference, "I'm just going to look
round the car before breakfast. Perhaps I'll go for a run later on. The
roads are still in perfect condition."

"Then I'll go with you," was his prompt reply. "My wife has a bad
headache, and won't go out to-day. Gibbs, too, is full of business in
the town. So let's go together."

Instantly I saw the ruse. He had been awaiting me, and did not mean that
I should go for a run unaccompanied.

"Certainly," I replied promptly. "Shall you be ready in half an hour?"

"I'm ready now. I've had my coffee." His response was, to say the least,
disconcerting. How was I to get rid of him? My only chance lay in
remaining perfectly calm and indifferent. A witness to testify to my
identity was, no doubt, on his way out from England, and the two
detectives were holding me up until his arrival.

Together we walked to the car, and for nearly half an hour I was
occupied in filling the petrol-tank and putting everything in order for
a long and hard journey. A breakdown would probably mean my arrest and
deportation to Bow Street. My only safety lay in flight. During the
night I had studied the road-book with infinite care, and decided to
make a dash out of Dresden along the Elbe bank as far as Meissen, and
thence by Altenburg across to Erfurt. Upton's self-invitation to go with
me had, however, entirely upset my plans.

At last I returned to my room, obtained my motor-cap, coat, and goggles,
and, having started the engine, got up at the wheel. My unwelcome friend
swung himself up beside me, and we glided out into the Prager-strasse
and through the fine capital of Saxony.

My friend, in his smart motor coat and cap, certainly gave no outward
sign of his real profession. Surely no one would have taken him to be an
emissary of the Metropolitan Police. As he sat beside me he chatted
merrily, for he possessed a keen sense of humour, and it must have
struck him that the present position was really amusing--from his point
of view.

In half an hour we were out upon a fine level road running on the left
bank of the Elbe. It was a bright sunny autumn morning, and, travelling
swiftly as we were, it was delightfully exhilarating. Passing through
old-world Meissen, with its picturesque gabled houses, we continued on
another fifteen miles to a small place called Riesa, and when about
three miles farth