“What time is it due away from Penge?” He waited in a fume of impatience whilst the official consulted a time-table. “Eleven eighteen,” was the reply. There was time. Just a little over half an hour. He fled from the house. No taxi was in sight; but there was a rank at no great distance. He had not gone far, however, before an empty cab overtook him. “Penge Station,” he said. “I’ll give you a sovereign over your fare if you get there within half an hour.” The chauffeur’s face expressed his doubt. “I’ll try,” he said. Through London that day a taxi-cab moved at a rate which was considerably in excess of the speed limit. Clear of the crowded West End, the road was unhampered by traffic to any great extent, but it was seventeen minutes past eleven when the cab pulled up before Penge Station. The train was already at the platform and Whitey went up the stairs two at a time. “Ticket,” demanded the collector. “I’ve no ticket--I’ll pay on the train.” “You can’t come on without a ticket, sir,” said the man. The train was within a few feet of him and was slowly moving, and Whitey made a dart, but a strong hand grasped him and pushed him back and the gate clanged in his face. He stood leaning against the wall, his face white, his fingers working convulsively. Something in his appearance moved the collector. “Can’t be helped, sir,” he said. “I had----” He stopped and looked in the direction of the departing train. Swiftly he leant down and unlocked the door. “Here--quick,” he said, “she’s stopped outside the station--there’s a signal against her. You’ll just catch it.” The rear carriages were not clear of the platform, and Whitey, sprinting along, scrambled into the guard’s van just as the train was moving off again. He sank down into the guard’s seat. Whitey was a man of considerable vitality. Ordinarily the exertion he had made would not have inconvenienced him, but now he was suffering from something more than physical distress. “On me!” he muttered again and again, “to put them on me!” It was not the loss of the money that hurt him, it was not Lambaire’s treachery--he knew Lambaire through and through. It was the substitution of the notes and the terrible risk his estimable friend had inflicted on him. In his cold way Whitey had decided. He had a code of his own. Against Amber he had no grudge. Such spaces of thought as he allowed him were of a complimentary character. He recognized the master mind, paid tribute to the shrewdness of the man who had beaten him at his own game. Nor against the law which pursued him--for instinct told him that there would be no mercy from Amber now.