While two constables picked him up and carried him away to a cell, Barney completed the formalities. He then asked the Sergeant to telephone a message to Special Branch for immediate relay by wireless to Inspector Thompson. It was simply to the effect that he would not, after all, be participating in the raid, so the Inspector must take over the job of doing his utmost to secure the incriminating photographs.

Immediately he was back in his car he got out his maps and soon located Fulgoham as a village near the southern end of the county and about five miles east-south-east of Cambridge. It was barely fifty miles from the centre of London and only just over half an hour had elapsed since he had waylaid Ratnadatta in the cul-de-sac. He reckoned that if he stepped on it, he should get to Fulgoham well before eleven o'clock.

At this hour the roads, apart from those in west-central London, were fairly free of traffic, so he decided it would be quicker to go by way of Kensington and Cricklewood until he struck the North Circular Road beyond Golders Green. There he turned north-east and made good going along the broad by-pass till he reached the Great Cambridge Road which took him to within a few miles of his destination.

In Fulgoham village there were still a number of American Servicemen about, mostly with girls whom they had picked up in Cambridge and brought out for the evening on motor cycles or in small cars. After enquiring of several men for Colonel Washington's house, Barney found a Top Sergeant who was able to give him definite directions to it. The Cedars lay two miles further on along the road to Six Mile Bottom. It was on the right side of the road and a white-painted, five barred gate stood at the entrance of a drive leading to it.

Barney heaved a sigh of relief. The fact that Colonel Washington was known in Fulgoham and that he lived at the Cedars on the road to Six Mile Bottom was the first confirmation he had had that Ratnadatta had not been lying; at all events as far as the Colonel was concerned. It now remained to see if he was right in his belief that Mary had been taken to the house and was still there.

Fifty yards past the gate, Barney ran his car on to the grass verge, pulled up and got out. Fully aware that he was now about to enter on a desperate venture, he made certain that his pistol was in working order, then walked to the gate, opened it, slipped through and shut it softly behind him.

The drive was only about a hundred yards long, and there was sufficient moonlight for him to see the house at the end of it. Ratnadatta had thought it pretty, but it was in fact an Edwardian monstrosity of jumbled roofs and half-timbered stucco.