“Then I’ll go with you,” was his prompt reply. “My wife has a bad headache, and won’t go out to-day. Gibbs, too, is full of business in the town. So let’s go together.”
Instantly I saw the ruse. He had been awaiting me, and did not mean that I should go for a run unaccompanied.
“Certainly,” I replied promptly. “Shall you be ready in half an hour?”
“I’m ready now. I’ve had my coffee.” His response was, to say the least, disconcerting. How was I to get rid of him? My only chance lay in remaining perfectly calm and indifferent. A witness to testify to my identity was, no doubt, on his way out from England, and the two detectives were holding me up until his arrival.
Together we walked to the car, and for nearly half an hour I was occupied in filling the petrol-tank and putting everything in order for a long and hard journey. A breakdown would probably mean my arrest and deportation to Bow Street. My only safety lay in flight. During the night I had studied the road-book with infinite care, and decided to make a dash out of Dresden along the Elbe bank as far as Meissen, and thence by Altenburg across to Erfurt. Upton’s self-invitation to go with me had, however, entirely upset my plans.
At last I returned to my room, obtained my motor-cap, coat, and goggles, and, having started the engine, got up at the wheel. My unwelcome friend swung himself up beside me, and we glided out into the Prager-strasse and through the fine capital of Saxony.
My friend, in his smart motor coat and cap, certainly gave no outward sign of his real profession. Surely no one would have taken him to be an emissary of the Metropolitan Police. As he sat beside me he chatted merrily, for he possessed a keen sense of humour, and it must have struck him that the present position was really amusing—from his point of view.
In half an hour we were out upon a fine level road running on the left bank of the Elbe. It was a bright sunny autumn morning, and, travelling swiftly as we were, it was delightfully exhilarating. Passing through old-world Meissen, with its picturesque gabled houses, we continued on another fifteen miles to a small place called Riesa, and when about three miles farther on I summoned courage to carry out a scheme over which, during the run, I had been deeply pondering.
We were in a lonely part of the road, hidden by the long row of poplars lining the broad winding river. On the one side were the trees, and on the other high sloping vine-lands. The road curved both before and behind us, therefore we were well concealed.
Pulling up suddenly, I said—