He was seized from behind, thrown backwards and downwards, into, as it seemed, an atmosphere of chloroform. The last distinct sounds he heard were the pants of a motor and a strange voice saying, “Hurry up, there’s the car.” * * * * * At five minutes before midnight Anthony West rushed from the train to a telephone box and rang up Risk. “Colin hasn’t turned up,” he said, without preamble. For the first time Miss Risk heard her brother swear. But he did it without losing his calmness. “Then you must go on, Anthony, and carry out the programme as well as you can,” he replied. “You must use your own discretion a little more; that’s all. Don’t lose your train. Accidents will happen. Good luck to you.” He hung up the receiver, and turned to his sister, his face expressing grave concern. “Hayward has not arrived at Euston. Of course, he may have met with an accident—but now I could almost bet that Symington did not really go North this morning—or rather, he turned back before he had gone far. I ought to have given the beggar credit for more cunning.” Hilda considered before she asked: “But why in the world should Symington want to harm him?” “There may be several reasons. Perhaps I ought to tell you where Hayward disappeared that night you and Miss Carstairs were dining here. He went to Symington’s hotel, and gave the rascal a sound thrashing—” “Oh, splendid!” “Yes, but indiscreet.” He sighed. “I don’t like it. Cad as he is, I could almost trust Symington not to maltreat the girl, but. . . .” He returned to the telephone and rang up a police station on the route that a cab would naturally take to Euston. “But he would never dare,” began Hilda, and stopped short, remembering Symington’s face as she had seen it that night in the train. Cruel—that was the word—the face of a man who would inflict torture to gain his end. Risk had hit on the truth, Symington had not gone far North that morning. As a matter of fact he had left the train at Rugby, entered a powerful motor-car, and came South again—not to the Kingsway Grand Hotel, but to a rather dilapidated mansion situated at 336 Lester Road, Richmond. * * * * * At Dunford on the following evening, John Corrie found among the letters from the South one for himself. For the second time he gazed at a single pencilled word—“Arrested”—and shuddered ’twixt terror and hope. The man’s nerves seemed to be in rags, for he paled, started violently, and dropped the letter when the door of the post office opened. But it was only a tourist who entered. Corrie’s whole being bounded up in relief—only to drop sickeningly at the stranger’s first words— “I wish to see Miss Kitty Carstairs.” CHAPTER XXIII