The Lloyd’s garage he mentioned was in Bloomsbury, a place kept for the accommodation of motor-thieves. Many a car which disappeared quickly found its way there, and in a few hours the engine numbers were removed and fresh ones substituted, while the bodies were repainted and false number-plates attached.
As I put down the telephone receiver, it suddenly occurred to me that already the Bristol police might have telephoned a description of the car along the various roads leading out of the city. Therefore it would be too risky to remain there. Hence, as though in sudden decision, I paid the “boots” for my bed, and five minutes later was again on the road speeding towards London.
I chose the road to Salisbury, and after “blinding” for half an hour, I stopped and put on the false number-plates and license with which Rayne always provided me.
It was as well that I did so, for in the gray morning as I went through Salisbury a police-sergeant and a constable hailed me just as I turned into St. John Street, near the White Hart, calling upon me to stop. I could see by their attitude that they were awaiting me, therefore pretending not to hear I quickened my pace and, knowing the road, soon left the place behind me.
Again, in a village some ten miles farther on, a constable shouted to me as I continued my wild flight, hence it seemed apparent that a cordon had been formed around me, and I now feared that to enter Winchester would be to run right into the arms of the police.
The only way to save myself was to abandon the car and get back to London by rail. As I contemplated this I was already passing beside the high embankment of the South Western Railway, where half a mile farther on I found a little wayside station. Therefore I turned the car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture was palpable. But why?
I was in the service of the man who controlled that vast criminal organization which the police of Europe were ever trying to break up. But why should I be sent to meet the mysterious hunchback Tarrant on Clifton Bridge?
“There seemed to have been a little flaw in our plans, Hargreave,” said the alert, good-looking man as I sat with him in his cosy chambers in Half Moon Street that morning. “The police evidently got wind of the fact that old Morley was meeting you, and Benton tried to impersonate him. I know Benton. He’s always up against me. He might have succeeded had he made the hump on his back a hard one, eh?” he laughed, as though rather amused than otherwise.