It was now 2.25 a.m. Wenk began rapidly to make calculations as to the speed of the car, but just then Buchloe rang up again: “A second car has just come through, a small, open car with one person in it!” Ten minutes later Kaufbeuren gave the same report. “They are escaping in sections. The second car is going faster. Mabuse must be in that one, and his accomplices in the first,” thought Wenk. From Obergünzburg he had the announcement of both cars in the one communication, for the second went through just as the official had informed him about the first. Buchenberg told him the same. Then Wenk thought it time to call up Schachen. He gave directions to await the arrival of the two cars and then take action according to the plan arranged. The man whom it was above all important to secure would probably be in the uniform of a Munich constable, and they were not to be misled by this, for it would be Mabuse. “Now we have him at last,” said Wenk jubilantly, as he received one communication after another, all of them proving that Schachen was the destination aimed at. Place after place stood out on the map to Wenk, and through the night the villages and tiny towns called to him and ranged themselves on his side. He bound them together with phantom threads, reaching to the very limits of the Empire. He wrung the secret of the broad highroad out of it in the darkness, and the highroad knew nothing of its revelation. With one small lever he held the long, unending avenue, shrouded in darkness, in the hollow of his hand. The forces he had disposed were obedient to him, their general. “Hergatz” rang on the telephone, and the sound of its bell seemed to his ears as intimate as if it were his own name being called. “Yes,” he said, “it is the State Attorney, Wenk, speaking from Munich. “A little open car has just gone by very rapidly in the Lindau direction. Two persons were in it, but not clearly recognized.” “Thank you. Hold on a minute. There will be a second car through.” Wenk waited, hearing in the suspended lines all the sounds occurring through the night between Munich and a little place like Hergatz, which he had never yet visited. “Are you still connected?” he asked after a while. “Yes, sir.” “Hasn’t the second car come through?” “Not yet, sir.” After a time he inquired again, and once more he was told No. A quarter of an hour later he rang up Hergatz again, and the official said that no second car had been seen. Wenk opened out the map again and made a feverish search. Yes: Buchenberg--Isny--Gestratz--Opfenbach ... there was Hergatz! And behind Isny there was a highroad leading to Wangen and the Würtemberg district, or on the left another leading to Austria.