"Well, things are not as I expected," Uzali admitted. "And the worst of it is we are bound to lose time in picking up information. We shall have to go to my rooms to get Bradshaw. My dear friend, don't ask any unnecessary questions. The loss of every moment annoys me. What an extraordinary thing it is that you never see a cab in the street when you want one."
At length they reached the flat where Uzali immediately consulted his Bradshaw. When he came to what he wanted, something like an execration broke from his lips as he glanced at the clock on the mantel-piece.
"We have missed the down express by ten minutes," he exclaimed. "If we had been a quarter of an hour earlier we might have had the pleasure of travelling in the same train as Mr. Jansen. But it can't be helped. Now here is the position of things. It is half past one. London is fast asleep, and we are thirty miles from Maldon Grange. What I want you to tell me is this. How are we to get there in an hour and a half?"
Russell shook his head. He was bound to confess that the problem was beyond him. The feat could not be accomplished. Uzali glanced at him with something like contempt in his narrow dark eyes.
"I thought it was always your boast," he said, "that day or night this London of yours could produce anything you required. Don't you know any place that you could ring up on the telephone and get a motor-car? Mind, I don't care what I pay for it. The only stipulation is this—it must be here in a quarter of an hour and I must drive it myself. We cannot afford to have any curious outsiders in this business. Can you manage that? I have plenty of ready cash and am prepared to put it down if you find the owners of the machine at all suspicious."
Russell thought for a moment. Surely the thing ought not to be impossible. He might learn what he wanted at the nearest police or fire station. He strode out of the house and accosted the first policeman he met. A judicious half-crown produced the desired information.
"Oh, that is an easy enough matter, sir," the officer said. "There are one or two livery-stable-keepers hereabouts who have been investing in motors lately, and no doubt you could hire one, providing your references are right. Come with me, sir, and I'll see what I can do."
The thing was not so easily achieved as the policeman had prophesied. The livery-stable-keeper listened suspiciously, but was won over by the sight of a five-pound note and an offer to pay for the hire before it left the yard. At the end of half an hour Russell was back at Uzali's flat with a smart-looking car, which was handed over on receipt of twenty pounds in hard cash. All Uzali's irritation seemed to disappear. He threw himself heart and soul into the management of the car which, before long, was speeding Citywards.
"This isn't the way," Russell protested. "You ought to have taken the Hampstead Road."
"And so I will," Uzali said gaily. "We are not going to Maldon Grange alone. I will take those countrymen of mine with me. They'll be all right in the bottom of the car. We'll just slip round to the back of the house in Gray's Inn Road and you shall go up to Jansen's room and hand them down to me as if they were sacks of flour. I admit there is an element of risk in the job, but it must be done. I can't get on without them."