To save Guy Rossett was easy enough; he had laid his plans very surely for that. But he had to save himself; also to save Violet Hargrave. In the plausible explanations that he would have to give in London, there must be no loopholes. Very early in the morning he again saw the Chief of Police, in company with Farquhar, who, now that the game was really afoot, was manifesting a keen interest in the chase. They rehearsed the whole programme all over again. "He is cleverer than I thought him at first," whispered Moreno to his friend, when the somewhat stout man had withdrawn for a moment to consult one of his lieutenants. "But I am relying on you to be constantly at his elbow. You are not the sort of chap to get flurried." And Farquhar, although quite a modest kind of fellow, agreed that he could keep his head in a crisis. At eleven o'clock, as arranged, Moreno presented himself at the lodgings of Mrs Hargrave. She looked very pale and there were dark rings round her eyes. It was easy to see that her night had been a perturbed one, that she had enjoyed little or no sleep. "You don't look in the best of health and spirits," he said kindly. "Well, you have got to pluck up your courage. You will want plenty of it for the next twenty-four hours." She shivered. "If I had known what I was going in for, I would never have yielded to Jaques' entreaties," she said. "You never quite know what you will be landed in when you embark in these enterprises," answered the young man lightly. "Well, now to business. You still want to be absent from that meeting to-night?" "If it is possible." "It is quite possible, but you will have to rely on me, and you will also have to be very brave." He drew out of his pocket a small, dark-coloured phial, and held it to the light. "You see that?" he asked. "Well, this is going to be your salvation." She shivered again; her nerves were very much out of order this morning, but she began to have an idea of what he was driving at. "This is the secret, then, that you would not tell me last night. I have got to drink that." Moreno nodded. "Yes, if you are still in the same mind as you were yesterday. In my very early youth I was apprenticed to a chemist. I very soon began to acquire a wide knowledge of drugs, and their properties." They had been standing up to the present. Moreno pointed to a sofa. "We can talk more easily if we sit. I have mixed you here a perfectly safe compound, which I want you to drink before I leave, so that I can take away the bottle; I would prefer it was not left lying about, you understand." She looked at him with eyes that expressed a great dread. "What effect will it have?" "I tell you frankly, about six or seven o'clock you will feel very ill, very faint. Those effects will last for the best part of twelve hours. A few hours after that, you will be yourself again."