Joey did not call the gardener. The Professor had gone; he would be no good now. She dashed through the side door, and fled like the wind to Miss Conyngham's room. It would be empty now, of course; there never was such an emptiness anywhere as there was about the College to-day. But the telephone was there, and the telephone was what she wanted just now. John was the one person she could think of as able and willing to help; one wouldn't go to Frances with an unsupported story like hers. Frances would look at you as though she was thinking "Not another lump--one is plenty, Miss Jocelyn," and there would be an end of it. But John would understand. She put the call through with feverish haste, and a hand that shook a little. Her knees were trembling too, and her mouth was dry, but it did not strike her that she had had no dinner. Other things were mattering so much. A maid's voice answered her. "Can I speak to Mr. John Sturt?" Joey asked, trying to sound ordinary and business-like. "Oh--would you give him a message and say it's dreadfully important, please? Say I'm coming, and I don't think the Professor is French after all--he'll know--and he's just gone off in a tearing hurry, and he took things from the Lab in his cigar case, and he's on a motorbike, and he locked me in." Joey jammed on the receiver, and, without waiting to get coat or hat, fled out of the front door and down the drive. She hoped Miss Conyngham wouldn't be very vexed by what she was going to do; but anyhow she would have to do it. She set out running through the iron gates and along that straight marsh road, along which the Professor must have gone first. She had forgotten to ask that a car should be sent to fetch her, but somehow she had no doubt that would be done. Only, she could not wait. Her faith in John was justified. John must have beaten all speed limits. She hadn't run a mile, battling with the fierce side-wind that seemed to take all her breath away, when a cloud of dust in front of her, resolved itself into a long-nosed grey racing-car; there was a rending screech, and John's voice hailed her. "Good! Thought I'd meet you; jump in. Mind my crutches." Joey scrambled up, and he backed and turned the car neatly. "Did you meet him?" she demanded breathlessly. "Who? The Professor? No." "Didn't you? I thought he'd go to the station or something," Joey said blankly. "John, I believe he's a German in disguise." "Bright Kid," John agreed. "I 'phoned to the Police Station before coming to meet you, but we could do with some more information. What's this about his locking you in?" Joey told breathless reams, without a single comma. John whistled. "H'm! Now, where's the beggar gone?--that's the question." The car had reached the point where the roads branched, to the right to Mote Deep Station and so on to the Grange; to the left towards the sea and Deeping Royal.