"I'll go up to-night, and you'll be there in three days' time. Meanwhile I'll sing your praises, and you'll receive a warm welcome from everybody when you arrive. Take your decent kit with you, and act the gentleman. There's a level thousand each for us if we bring it off properly. But," he added, with further injunctions not to fall genuinely in love with the pretty Elfrida, "the whole thing rests upon you. The girl must be devoted to you--otherwise we can't work the trick." "What _is_ the trick?" asked Garrett, his curiosity aroused. "Never mind what it is, Garrett," he said, rising to dismiss him. "Have your lunch and get away. You've five hundred miles of bad roads and new metal before you, so the sooner you're off the better. Call and see Clayton at his rooms. He's got a bag, or something, to put in the car, I think. When we meet in Scotland, recollect that I'm Prince Albert _incognito_. We were at Bonn together, and have been friends for many years. Good luck to you!" And with that he left the Prince's cosy rooms, and soon found himself out in Dover Street again, much puzzled. The real object of his visit and his flirtation at a Scotch castle filled his mind as, in the dull light of that fading afternoon, he swept along the muddy Great North Road his exhaust opened and roaring as he went ascending through Whetstone and Barnet in the direction of Hatfield. The "sixty" repainted cream with narrow gilt lines upon it certainly presented a very smart appearance, but in the back he had a couple of false number-plates, together with three big pots of dark-green enamel and a brush, so that if occasion arose, as it had arisen more than once, he could run up a by-road, and in an hour transform its appearance, so that its own maker would scarcely recognise it. In the grey twilight as he approached Hitchin, swinging round those sharp corners at a speed as high as he dared, it poured with rain again, and he was compelled to lower the wind-screen and receive the full brunt of the storm, so blurred became everything through the sheet of plate-glass. The old "Sun" at Hitchin reached, he got a drink, lit his head-lamps, and crossing the marketplace, pushed forward, a long and monotonous run up Alconbury Hill and through Wansford to Stamford where, at the Stamford Hotel--which recalled memories of the Northovers--he ate a cold dinner and rested for an hour over a cigar.