Part 14 (1/2)

”This settles the matter,” he said, in the cab on the way back. ”Find out the first train for Tavistock in the morning and wire the George Hotel to have a car waiting.”

”Why not go to-night?” suggested the other. ”There is the midnight train. It is rather slow, but it will get you there by six or seven in the morning.”

”Too late,” he said, ”unless you can invent a method of getting from here to Paddington in about fifty seconds.”

The morning journey to Devons.h.i.+re was a dispiriting one despite the fineness of the day. T. X. had an uncomfortable sense that something distressing had happened. The run across the moor in the fresh spring air revived him a little.

As they spun down to the valley of the Dart, Mansus touched his arm.

”Look at that,” he said, and pointed to the blue heavens where, a mile above their heads, a white-winged aeroplane, looking no larger than a very distant dragon fly, s.h.i.+mmered in the sunlight.

”By Jove!” said T. X. ”What an excellent way for a man to escape!”

”It's about the only way,” said Mansus.

The significance of the aeroplane was borne in upon T. X. a few minutes later when he was held up by an armed guard. A glance at his card was enough to pa.s.s him.

”What is the matter?” he asked.

”A prisoner has escaped,” said the sentry.

”Escaped--by aeroplane?” asked T. X.

”I don't know anything about aeroplanes, sir. All I know is that one of the working party got away.”

The car came to the gates of the prison and T. X. sprang out, followed by his a.s.sistant. He had no difficulty in finding the Governor, a greatly perturbed man, for an escape is a very serious matter.

The official was inclined to be brusque in his manner, but again the magic card produced a soothing effect.

”I am rather rattled,” said the Governor. ”One of my men has got away. I suppose you know that?”

”And I am afraid another of your men is going away, sir,” said T. X., who had a curious reverence for military authority. He produced his paper and laid it on the governor's table.

”This is an order for the release of John Lexman, convicted under sentence of fifteen years penal servitude.”

The Governor looked at it.

”Dated last night,” he said, and breathed a long sigh of relief. ”Thank the Lord!--that is the man who escaped!”

CHAPTER VIII

Two years after the events just described, T. X. journeying up to London from Bath was attracted by a paragraph in the Morning Post. It told him briefly that Mr. Remington Kara, the influential leader of the Greek Colony, had been the guest of honor at a dinner of the h.e.l.lenic Society.

T. X. had only seen Kara for a brief s.p.a.ce of time following that tragic morning, when he had discovered not only that his best friend had escaped from Dartmoor prison and disappeared, as it were, from the world at a moment when his pardon had been signed, but that that friend's wife had also vanished from the face of the earth.

At the same time--it might, as even T. X. admitted, have been the veriest coincidence that Kara had also cleared out of London to reappear at the end of six months. Any question addressed to him, concerning the whereabouts of the two unhappy people, was met with a bland expression of ignorance as to their whereabouts.

John Lexman was somewhere in the world, hiding as he believed from justice, and with him was his wife. T. X. had no doubt in his mind as to this solution of the puzzle. He had caused to be published the story of the pardon and the circ.u.mstances under which that pardon had been secured, and he had, moreover, arranged for an advertis.e.m.e.nt to be inserted in the princ.i.p.al papers of every European country.