But her manœuvre had not passed unobserved. Again she felt the iron grip of the man’s hand close around her wrist, and he muttered in her ear.

“Window’s shut, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“This.” He leaned across her, turned a little key which was in the door of the car, and then sank back in his seat. His eyes had been glued to the road ahead. He had not for a moment looked either at her or at the door, but she now found, when she tried to open the window of the car, that it was locked.

She could have cried with vexation. Her only chance of leaving some sort of clue behind her, some little thing (for her hand-kerchief, though tiny, was marked with her full name) which would enable Harry Baker or Mr. Fairhurst or the police, or all the three in collaboration, to get on her trail and rescue her before it was too late!

Now they swung into some big town. She gazed out of the window helplessly, trying to see where it could be, but was unable to catch any glimpse of a post office or anything else which would enable her to identify the town or city through which they were passing.

“Where are we?” she asked at length, but her companion merely shook his head, never uttering a word. Violet had never felt so helpless in her life. Where on earth could they be? What on earth could be the meaning of this wild dash through the night? It seemed the craziest thing, and yet, when she looked at the grim, determined face of her captor, the black beard on his chin waggling as he muttered to himself disjointed words in some uncouth Eastern tongue, she felt that he would not do anything unless it was in complete accord with some preconceived plan. It seemed utterly impossible that he would catch her and take her away like this unless there was some very real method in his madness, unless he had every intention of carrying out a plan matured to the last detail.

What could it be? She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly, and peered out into the darkness ahead. The rain had stopped now, but the roads still shone like sheets of polished glass in the vivid light of the car’s headlamps. Not so many cars passed them now, though an occasional lorry rumbled past, its burly weight almost shaking the road as it rattled along.

Surely, she thought to herself, they could not be going for long like this. Then they came to another town, and this time she determined to make an effort to attract attention. Although they were going at a fair speed, she thought that it would not be too dangerous to throw herself out. She felt so desperate that anything would be better than to continue in this forced captivity, hurtling across England to an unknown fate in an unknown destination.