dear Mr. Narkom, I won't insult your intelligence by explaining that. All you have to do is to turn that tracing upside down and look _through_ it--or at it in a mirror--and you'll have the answer for yourself. What's that? The parcel the girl gave Edgburn to carry out on the pretext of taking it to an orphanage? Oh, that was how they were slowly getting rid of the victims' clothes. Cutting them up into little pieces and throwing them into the river, I suppose, or if not----" He stopped suddenly, his ear caught by a warning sound; then turned in his seat and glanced through the little window at the back of the limousine. "I thought as much," he said, half aloud; then leaned forward, caught up the pipe of the speaking tube, and signalled Lennard. "Look sharp--taxi following us!" he said. "Put on a sudden spurt--that chap will increase speed to keep pace with us--then pull up sharp and let the other fellow's impetus carry him by before he can help himself. Out with the light, Mr. Narkom--out with it quick!" Both Lennard and his master followed instructions. Of a sudden the lights flicked out, the car leapt forward with a bound, then pulled up with a jerk that shook it from end to end. In that moment the taxi in the rear whizzed by them, and Narkom, leaning forward to look as it flashed past, saw seated within it the figure of Count Waldemar of Mauravania. "By James! Did you see that, Cleek?" he cried, and switched round and made a grab for Cleek's arm. But Cleek was not there. His seat was empty, and the door beside it was swinging ajar. "Well, I'll be jiggered!" exclaimed the superintendent, fairly carried out of himself--for, even in his old Vanishing Cracksman's days, when he had slipped the leash and eluded the police so often, the man had not made a more adroit, more silent, more successful getaway than this. "Of all the astonishing----! Gad, an eel's a fool to him for slipping out of tight places. When did he go, I wonder, and where?" Never very strong on matters of detail, here curiosity tricked him into absolute indiscretion. Sliding along the seat to the swinging door he thrust it open and leaned out into the darkness, for a purpose so evident that he who ran might read. That one who ran _did_, he had good reason to understand in the next instant, for, of a sudden, the taxi in advance checked its wild flight, swung round with a noisy scroo-op, and pelted back until the two vehicles stood cheek by jowl, so to speak, and the glare of its headlights was pouring full force upon Mr. Narkom and into the interior of the red limousine. "Here! Dash your infernal impudence," began he, blinking up at the driver through a glare which prevented him seeing that the taxicab's leather blinds had been discreetly pulled down, and its interior rendered quite invisible; but before he could add so much as another word to his protest the chauffeur's voice broke in with a blandness and an accent which told its own story.