“I was . . . _scared_!” the girl murmured. “Bliss told me that an Englishman would meet me, and I thought, when I saw you, that I had got into the wrong box. I didn’t dare go out into the promenade again on account of the man outside . . .” “You were followed here?” The girl nodded. “All the way from Berlin. I thought I had given him the slip at the station here, but, if I did, he evidently picked up my trail again.” “What’s he like, this man who shadowed you?” “A young man, slim and fair. He has a long white scar on his face and . . .” “H-sst!” Desmond pressed her arm. The handle of the box door was being slowly turned. They drew back behind the door as it opened. Then in the mirror hanging on the velvet tapestry of the opposite wall Desmond saw a face, bloodless and crafty, barred with a livid cicatrice, the face of Heinrich, Clubfoot’s aide. He, on his side, must have seen Desmond mirrored in the glass, for he gasped audibly. The face disappeared. “He’s gone to warn the others!” Desmond whispered. He glanced across the house. “And Clubfoot’s left his box. If only this turn would finish! They wouldn’t dare to attack us when the lights are up . . .” But the tumblers were the star turn, the top of the bill. With shrill cries, to the lilt of that never-ending quick-step, they bounced and whirled across the stage, working up to their grand climax. Desmond turned to the girl. “Are you game for a dash?” he demanded. He plucked the door wide. The corridor was deserted. Behind them, as they stepped quickly outside, the theatre now rang with the applause that marked the fall of the curtain. Desmond, the girl behind him, darted softly down a staircase marked “Sortie d’Incendie” in red lights, that stood almost opposite the box door. They descended unmolested and Desmond congratulated himself on his forethought in having made that preliminary reconnaissance as he pushed outwards the emergency door at the foot of the flight. In the street without, by the side of the theatre, the red Minerva waited. Desmond thrust the girl inside, sprang in after her, the self-starter whirred, the engine throbbed, and they glided out into the broad and brightly lighted avenues of Brussels. CHAPTER XIX A FLIGHT AND WHAT CAME OF IT From the barrier of the aerodrome, where the Minerva pulled up, Desmond could see the machine destined for their night journey. What a puny thing it looked, stranded there, forlorn and solitary, in the centre of the vast open space swept by the glare of the lights of the night landing-station and surrounded by the long, low sheds whose roofs were now silvered by the effulgence of the moon!