"Yew'd better not squawk," he assured her, to make it plain that he released her for his own reasons and not because of her command. They swung round the Victoria Memorial and entered Buckingham Gate. The car ran down the deserted thoroughfare and tacked down a side street on the left and left again into a dark mews. Mecklen stopped the car and took Susan's arm in a vise-like grasp. "Git outa here," he ordered. "An' jest yew see yew don't fergit wot I told yuh. One yap, an' yew git yores." She got down from the car, and he followed her. In the darkness he shifted his clutch to her left arm, and she felt something prick her breast, and saw the dull shimmer of steel. "Jest a _ree_minder," he said. "Move!" He unlocked a garage door and pulled her inside. She heard two bolts clang into place behind them, and then a switch clicked down and the place was dimly illuminated. She saw that what had seemed to be one solitary lock-up was in reality a huge garage which ran the whole length of that side of the mews behind the other dummy doors. Stored in it was a wonderful collection of motors--two aluminium-finished racing cars, four Rossleigh trucks, a Navarre limousine, a Carillon cabriolet, and one black closed-in van which she could not identify although something about it was vaguely familiar. And the noticeable fact about the collection was that none of them carried number plates; she saw the reason a moment later, in the shape of a stack of detached plates of different numbers from all counties, ranged along the wall. Mecklen dragged her across to what looked like a big tire cupboard. This he opened, revealing it to be empty, and fumbled with a bracket at the back. In a few seconds the false back slid sideways, laying bare a faintly lighted passage. Lew extinguished the garage light and made the girl precede him into the tunnel, while he shut the cupboard doors and slid home the inside panel. There were only a dozen feet to go, and they emerged into a spacious cellar. Here Mecklen paused, rubbing his scrubby chin as though wondering where to go next. At length he went over to a door which led off the vault in which they stood, and he seemed surprised to find it empty. He came back and seized her arm again. "In hyar," he rasped, and almost flung her inside. The door closed again, and she heard a bar thump into its socket on the outside.