Without a second glance at him, I allowed the car to gather speed, and in a few moments was running across a flat, level plain at quite fifty miles an hour. Upton lay insensible, and the longer he remained so the farther afield I should be able to get without information being sent before me.
Mine was now a dash for liberty. Having gone twenty miles, I pulled up, and, unfastening one of the lockers within the car, I drew out the complete disguise which Bindo always kept there for emergencies. I had purposely halted in a side road, which apparently only led to some fields, and, having successfully transformed myself into a grey-bearded man of about fifty-five, I drew out a large tin of dark-red enamel and a brush, and in a quarter of an hour had transformed the pale-blue body into a dark-red one. So, within half an hour, both myself and the car were utterly disguised, even to the identification-plates, both back and front. The police would be on the look-out for a pale-blue car, driven by a moustached young man in a leather-peaked motor-cap, while they would only see passing a dark-red car driven by its owner, a respectable-looking middle-aged man in a cloth golf-cap, gloves, and goggles.
I looked at myself in satisfaction by aid of the little mirror, and then I regarded the hastily-daubed car. Very soon the dust would cling to the enamel, and thus effectually disguise the hurriedness of my handiwork. There was, of course, no doubt that Upton and Dyer would move heaven and earth to rediscover me, therefore in my journey forward I was compelled to exercise all caution.
On consulting my road-book I found that the spot where I had pulled up was about three miles from Wurzen, on the main Leipzig road, therefore I decided to give the latter city a wide berth, and took a number of intricate by-roads towards Magdeburg, hoping to be able to put the car in safe keeping somewhere, and get thence by rail across to Cologne and Rotterdam, in which city I might find a safe asylum.
Any attempt to reach Turin was now impossible, and when late that night I entered the little town of Dessau I sent a carefully worded telegram to Bindo at the little newspaper-shop in the Tottenham Court Road, explaining that, though free, I was still in peril of arrest.
Shortly after midnight, while passing through a little town called Zerbst, half-way between Dessau and Magdeburg, I heard a loud shouting behind me, and, turning, saw a policeman approaching hurriedly.
“Where are you from?” he inquired breathlessly.
“From Berlin,” was my prompt answer. “I left there at six o’clock this evening.” I know a little German, and made the best use I could of it.
By the light of his lantern he examined my identification-plates, and noted the colour of the car.