Then he opened the marked jars and poured out their contents into a bucket. In another corner of the garage was a pile of little tins, and in each jar the Saint placed one of these tins, padding the space that was left with cotton wool to prevent rattling. The jars so treated were replaced one by one and the case in its turn was also nailed up again and roped as before-after the Saint, with a little smile plucking at the corners of his mouth, had carefully laid a souvenir of his intervention on the top of the last layer of wood shavings. He had worked quickly. Only an hour and a half had elapsed from the time when he drove into the garage to the time when he lifted the last case back into the van; and when that had been done he unbarred the garage doors and opened them wide.

The remains of the car-washing parade looked up puzzledly as the van came backing out of the garage; it registered an even greater perplexity when the van proceeded to drive out of the mews and vanish in the direction of Bond Street. It yelled to the driver that he had forgotten to close his garage after him, but Mr. Marks either did not hear or did not care. And when the parade perceived that Mr. Marks had gone for good, it went and pried into the garage, and scratched its head over the litter of wood shavings on the floor, the mallet and chisel and nails and hammer, and the two or three tins which the Saint had found no space for, and which he had accordingly left behind. But the bucket of white powder was gone, riding beside Mr. Marks in the front of the van; and very few people ever saw Mr. Marks again.

The van drove to an address in the West End, and there Mr. Marks delivered the cases, secured a signature to a receipt, and departed, heading further west. On his way, he stopped at St. George's Hospital, where he left his bucket. The man who took charge of it was puzzled, but Mr. Marks was in a hurry and had neither time nor the inclination to enlighten him. "Take great care of it, because it's worth more money than you'll ever have," he di­rected. "See that it gets to one of the doctors, and give him this note with it."