"Can you tell me the way----" began the man, and then the flickering light of a street lamp swaying in the wind fell across his face, and Teal let out an exclamation. "You're Carl Schwesen," he said, "and you were deported six months ago for----" So far he got before the driver's fist shot out and ripped into his face. Half-stunned with pain, the detective staggered back, tripped on the kerb, and fell. As he did so the car jumped forward. He was fumbling for his whistle when he saw it had slowed up again, and he struggled to regain his feet. And then a heavy-calibre revolver thundered from the interior, and his hat went flying. He got out his whistle and blew a piercing blast, but the driver of the car accelerated and dashed up the empty road into the obscurity of the streaming rain. He saw the car speed over the bridge, and knew that he had no hope of catching it, but the number was firmly imprinted on his memory. Inspector Teal continued towards his dinner with a furrowed brow, for he well knew the brilliance and unscrupulousness of the erstwhile deported Austrian chemist. Without being able to give any logical reason for his suspicion, he had more than an idea that Schwesen's return was not unconnected with the sudden inrush of other dangerous men into London, and he wondered what this fresh activity of the Triangle might mean. CHAPTER XI EZRA SURCON DIGS There was a man named Ezra Surcon who owned much land in London. He did not court publicity; there were no paragraphs about him in the gossip columns of the newspapers, and as a matter of fact his name was never mentioned, even in whispers, among the Real Estate Kings of the metropolis. He made his purchases quickly and without ostentation, and the fact remains that in the space of three days he acquired the freehold of no less than seven properties. There was a gloomy house in Buckingham Gate, and another, equally gloomy, in College Street. For a large sum he secured a vacant building in Great Windmill Street; the imposing mansion in Queen's Gate cost him less; and a modest erection in Orange Street was comparatively cheap. He paid reasonable prices for No. 94, Carter Lane and No. 53, Montague Street. In all, he must have expended five considerable figures of hard cash, but since he transacted his business under seven different aliases no one was startled by the magnitude of his investments. He was a tall loose-limbed man of rising sixty, yet the elasticity of his gait as he walked down Constitution Hill that evening showed that the years had made only superficial inroads on his physique. The benevolence of his expression was emphasised by the large horn-rimmed spectacles he wore, and contradicted by the tightness of his mouth and the angularity of his jaw. A studious stoop took some inches off his height and the shabbiness of his clothes gave no indication of the wealth to which his lavish expenditures in other directions testified.