"We need not detain you, sir," said the detective. The policeman squared his shoulders and hitched up his belt. The station official looked nervous. Dr. Sarakoff, with a gesture of indifference, picked up the bag and, taking me by the arm, passed out on to the brilliantly-lit platform. "_Pyocyaneus_," he muttered in my ear; "_pyocyaneus_, indeed! Confound the fellow. He might have got me into no end of trouble if he had known the truth, Harden." "But what is it?" I asked. "What have you got in the bag?" He stopped under a sizzling arc-lamp outside the station. "The bag," he said touching the worn leather lovingly, "contains six tubes of the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus. Yes, I have added your name to it. I will make your name immortal--by coupling it with mine." "But what is the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus?" I cried. He struck an attitude under the viperish glare of the lamp and smiled. He certainly did look like an anarchist at the moment. He loomed over me, huge, satanic, inscrutable. A thrill, almost of fear, passed over me. I glanced round in some apprehension. Under an archway near by I saw Lord Alberan looking fixedly at us. The expression of suspicion had returned to his face. "You mean----?" He nodded. I gulped a little. "You really have----?" He continued to nod. "Then we can try the great experiment?" I whispered, dry throated. "At once!" The detective passed us, brushing against my shoulder. I caught Sarakoff by the arm. "Look here--we must get away," I muttered. I felt like a criminal. Sarakoff clasped the bag firmly under his free arm. We began to walk hurriedly away. Our manner was furtive. Once I looked back and saw Alberan talking, with excited gestures, to the detective. They were both looking in our direction. The impulse to run possessed me. "Quick," I exclaimed, "there's a taxi. Jump in. Drive to Harley Street--like the devil." Inside the cab I lay back, my mind in a whirl. "We begin the experiment to-morrow," said Sarakoff at last. "Have you made plans as I told you?" "Yes--yes. Of course. Only I never believed it possible." I controlled myself and sat up. "I fixed on Birmingham. It seemed best--but I never dreamed----" "Good!" he exclaimed. "Birmingham, then!" "Their water supply comes from Wales." We spoke no more till I turned the key of my study door behind me. It was in this way that the germ, which made so vast and strange an impression on the course of the world's history, first reached England. It had lain under the very nose of Lord Alberan, who opposed everything new automatically. Yet it, the newest of all things, escaped his vigilance. We decided to put our plans into action without delay, and next morning we set off, carrying with us the precious tubes of the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus. Throughout the long journey we scarcely spoke to each other. Each of us was absorbed in his picture of the future effects of the germ.