“Look!” cried Ella. “Why, that’s that fellow Benyon’s car—he’s a friend of Dad’s!”
Next moment it flashed past, and beneath the dim light at the head of the bridge they both caught a glimpse of two men within, one of whom was undoubtedly Theodore Drost.
“Quick!” cried Ella. “Let’s follow them! Fortunately you have to-night another car, unknown to them!”
In an instant Seymour Kennedy had started his engine, and slowly he drew out across the bridge, speeding after the retreating car over the river, along Bridge Road to Hammersmith Broadway and through Brook Green, in a direction due north.
Through the London streets it was not difficult at that hour to follow the red tail-light of the car in which Drost sat with his bosom friend George Benyon, a mysterious person who seemed to be an adventurer, and who lived somewhere in York or its vicinity.
“I wonder if they are going up to York?” Ella asked, as she sat in the deep seat of the coupé at her lover’s side.
“We’ll see. If they get on to the North Road we shall at once know their intentions,” was her lover’s reply.
Half-an-hour later the pseudo-Dutch pastor and his companion, driven by rather a reckless young fellow, were on the main Great North Road, and Kennedy, possessing a lighter and superior car, had no misgivings as to overtaking them whenever he wished.
On through the night they went, passing Barnet, Hatfield, Hitchin, the cross-roads at Wansford, and up the crooked pebbled streets of Stamford, until in the grey of morning they descended into Grantham, with its tall spire and quaint old Angel and Crown Hotel.
It was there that Drost and his companion breakfasted, while Ella and her lover waited and watched.