“There were certainly explosives in the cellar, and there was an electric light wire which led down to it. There was also a slight tincture of what I have since learnt to call bluff.” Mr Steinherz smiled genially. “You must have been an awfully cool hand!” “Coolness was needed in our circumstances. I calculated that we had nine hours’ grace at the outside. The laboratory was in a secluded part of the garden, the servants had been sent to bed, and the walls and door were strong. The only windows were in the roof. Unless any accident happened, my friends were safe until they were missed in the morning, and then it would take some little time to release them, and organise a pursuit. But, you will say, there was the train, which could be stopped at any point by telegraph. True, but it was Martin Richter, disguised in my fur coat and cap, who travelled by the train, and with him was the old nurse. We had calculated with the greatest nicety how far he could hope to get before the telegraph was set at work, and just before that point was reached he was to have the train stop at a wayside station, where horses were ready. We had arranged every imaginable expedient for baffling pursuit, and from thence he and the old woman were to travel by unfrequented routes to a quiet bay on my own estate, where the yacht was to be lying, having slipped out of harbour in the night. The train was merely a blind. For Konstantia, her maid and myself, I had procured English passports and circular tickets--money can do much--and we joined a large personally conducted party of returning tourists which was leaving Vindobona that night. The two girls had gone straight to the station as soon as they left the laboratory. The conductor was watching out for them, and added them to his flock without the slightest fuss or mystery. I followed, after making such changes in my personal appearance as might prevent a chance recognition--nothing theatrical, merely precautionary touches. We did not venture to show that we knew one another, and those hours of terror, which were bound to elapse before the frontier was reached, we spent in separate compartments. We crossed the frontier safely. So far my _ruse_ was unsuspected, but I can’t describe to you the excitement that beset me all through that journey. The approach of an official gave me a bad half-second, for my dash for freedom might be brought to an ignominious end at any moment. But we reached Calais, crossed the Channel, and arrived safely at Charing Cross, without having exchanged a word since we left Vindobona. I would not trust even the conductor, who might afterwards put two and two together. Konstantia knew what she had to do. We took tickets for Bradcross, a decayed riverside suburb which had once been a great shipbuilding centre. I knew it well, for I had explored it thoroughly on a former visit to England--the same visit, by the way, in which I danced with