Violet had felt a considerable access of pleasure when she made her way from Henry Fairhurst’s home out to the place where she was to catch a bus for home. It really seemed as if they were on the track of something, and as if her young man had some chance of getting free before long. All the way home she went over the situation in her mind. The whole matter seemed incredibly complicated, and she felt little doubt that Harry Baker had been “framed-up” by some unknown but implacable enemy. That she herself might be in any danger never occurred to her, and it was with considerable surprise that she greeted the strange-looking man with greasy black hair and a ragged black beard who accosted her in the bus as it drew up in Pinner High Street. He seemed quite a young man, and she was surprised at the apparent carelessness in his personal appearance.

“Miss Arnell, I think,” he said in the guttural tones of one to whom English is a foreign language.

“Yes,” said Violet. “Who are you?”

“I,” he said in tones which seemed to suggest the urgency of complete secrecy, “am your friend. I want to tell you that our mutual friend Mr. H. B. is in trouble, and he has sent me to fetch you.”

“Has he escaped?” asked Violet excitedly.

“I cannot answer any questions just yet,” replied the man. “In any case, we can’t talk here. If you’ll just come a little way with me I can assure you that I’ll lead you straight to him.”

He suddenly grasped her wrist in fingers of iron, and, almost before she came to any realisation of what was happening, Violet found herself being led off the bus, and into the waiting car—a low, rakish model of the aggressive kind. Almost without opposition she let herself be led into it. It was possible, she told herself, that this was a trap, that there was really something curiously “fishy” about the whole affair, and yet she did not hesitate, for if Harry really was in trouble she could not hesitate. Her duty, after all, was to be by his side.

As soon as they had moved off, however, she felt qualms of distrust sweeping over her. The personality of the queer man by her side was not precisely such as to inspire her with much confidence, and she began to ask him questions.

“Has Harry escaped, and are we going to him?” she asked, but her companion shook his head grimly.

“I fear that I can answer no questions,” he said. “My orders are to drive you to our destination without telling you anything about where we are going, or why.”