He looked at his watch.

"It is half-past ten," he said. "You have hardly been unconscious an hour, though I expect you have been wondering how many days it has been. There is plenty of time for you to give me your answer and be back at the flat by the time your brother returns. And there is only one answer that you can possibly give."

Besides the huge flying Hirondel that was the apple of his eye, Simon Templar possessed another and much less conspicuous car which ran excellently downhill, and therefore he was able to descend upon Llancoed at a clear twenty miles an hour.

The car (he called it Hildebrand, for no reason that the chronicler, or anyone else in this story, could ever discover) was of the model known to the expert as "Touring," which is to say that in hot weather you had the choice of baking with the hood down, or broiling with the hood up. In wet weather you had the choice of getting soaked with the hood down, or driving to the peril of the whole world and yourself while completely encased in a compartment as impervious to vision as it was intended to be impervious to rain. It dated from one of the vintage years of Henry Ford, and the Saint had long ago had his money's worth out of it.

On this occasion the hood was up, and the side-curtains also, for it was a filthy night. The wind that whistled round the car arid blew frosty draughts through every gap in the so-called "all-weather" defenses seemed to have whipped straight out of the bleakest fastnesses of the North Pole. With it came a thin drizzle of rain that seemed colder than snow, which hissed glacially through a clammy sea mist, The Saint huddled the collar of his leather motoring coat up round his ears, and wondered if he would ever be warm again.

He drove through the little village, and came, a minute later, to his destination--a house on the outskirts, within sight of the sea.