ment
would puzzle my pursuers if they should catch up with me.

But this I was determined they should not do. I made good going down
that stream and out into a lane which led from the downs to the
market-gardens round the city. I thanked Heaven I had got rid of the
aquascutum, for the August afternoon was warm and my pace was not
leisurely. When I was in secluded ground I ran, and when anyone was in
sight I walked smartly.

As I went I reflected that Bradfield would see the end of my
adventures. The police knew that I was there and would watch the
stations and hunt me down if I lingered in the place. I knew no one
there and had no chance of getting an effective disguise. Indeed I very
soon began to wonder if I should get even as far as the streets. For at
the moment when I had got a lift on the back of a fishmonger's cart and
was screened by its flapping canvas, two figures passed on
motor-bicycles, and one of them was the inquisitive boy scout. The main
road from the aerodrome was probably now being patrolled by motor-cars.
It looked as if there would be a degrading arrest in one of the suburbs.

The fish-cart, helped by half a crown to the driver, took me past the
outlying small-villadom, between long lines of workmen's houses, to
narrow cobbled lanes and the purlieus of great factories. As soon as I
saw the streets well crowded I got out and walked. In my old clothes I
must have appeared like some second-class bookie or seedy horse-coper.
The only respectable thing I had about me was my gold watch. I looked
at the time and found it half past five.

I wanted food and was casting about for an eating-house when I heard
the purr of a motor-cycle and across the road saw the intelligent boy
scout. He saw me, too, and put on the brake with a sharpness which
caused him to skid and all but come to grief under the wheels of a
wool-wagon. That gave me time to efface myself by darting up a side
street. I had an unpleasant sense that I was about to be trapped, for
in a place I knew nothing of I had not a chance to use my wits.

I remember trying feverishly to think, and I suppose that my
preoccupation made me careless. I was now in a veritable slum, and when
I put my hand to my vest pocket I found that my watch had gone. That
put the top stone on my depression. The reaction from the wild burnout
of the forenoon had left me very cold about the feet. I was getting
into the under-world again and there was no chance of a second