"You're a knock-out, that's what you are, Mr. Sage," said Alf Pond, with admiring conviction. "_I'd_ never have thought of it all," he added, with the air of one desiring to be absolutely fair. "Finally," continued Malcolm Sage, "there was the car. It was a large car, a defect in one of the tyres enabled me to determine that by a steel rule. It was obviously heavily laden and the near back-wheel was out of track. This fact, of course, was of no help on the high-road, where other cars would blot out the track; but if I could show that someone who had been heavily backing Jefferson had a nose badly damaged, and a car with a near back-wheel out of track in just the same way that this particular wheel was out of track, and that its tyres were the same as those of the car that drew up outside Burns's training-quarters, then I should have a wealth of circumstantial evidence that it would be almost impossible to confute. "From a friend at Scotland Yard I obtained the number of the car belonging to the man whom this evidence involved. "As Stainton is off the Portsmouth Road, I telephoned to the Automobile Association patrols at Putney Hill, Esher, and Clandon Cross Roads. I was told that on the previous evening this particular car was seen going in the direction of Guildford. These patrols take the numbers of all cars that pass. As it had not passed Liss, where the next patrol is stationed, it was another link in the chain." "Well, I'm blowed!" The exclamation broke involuntarily from Kid. "As the patrols go off duty at dusk, I could get no further help from them," continued Malcolm Sage. "I sent a man to watch Jefferson's training-quarters, although I was fairly certain that he and his party were in no way involved." Malcolm Sage went on to narrate his call upon Nathan Goldschmidt, carefully omitting any mention of the name or address. His hearers listened with breathless interest. "I concluded that they had taken their prisoner to some lonely, empty house," he explained, "but there was not time to search all the empty houses in the home counties, so the man with the damaged nose had to come with me in my car, and his friends followed in his." "But how did you manage it?" gasped Mr. Papwith. "At first they showed fight," said Malcolm Sage, "and threatened to keep me prisoner until after the fight." "Gee!" exclaimed Kid. "I anticipated some such move, and had instructed my people that unless I were back by half-past four, they were to deliver certain packets to the editors of well-known London papers. In these packets was told the story as far as I had been able to trace it. This I informed them." "What did they say to that?" asked Mr. Doulton.