friendship. Let us go round to the garage.”
Dr. Renard was a mild man with monstrous wealth; his rooms were like the Musée de Cluny, and he had three motorcars. These, however, he seemed to use very sparingly, having the simple tastes of the French middle class, and when his impatient friends came to examine them, it took them some time to assure themselves that one of them even could be made to work. This with some difficulty they brought round into the street before the Doctor’s house. When they came out of the dim garage they were startled to find that twilight had already fallen with the abruptness of night in the tropics. Either they had been longer in the place than they imagined, or some unusual canopy of cloud had gathered over the town. They looked down the steep streets, and seemed to see a slight mist coming up from the sea.
“It is now or never,” said Dr. Bull. “I hear horses.”
“No,” corrected the Professor, “a horse.”
And as they listened, it was evident that the noise, rapidly coming nearer on the rattling stones, was not the noise of the whole cavalcade but that of the one horseman, who had left it far behind—the insane Secretary.
Syme’s family, like most of those who end in the simple life, had once owned a motor, and he knew all about them. He had leapt at once into the chauffeur’s seat, and with flushed face was wrenching and tugging at the disused machinery. He bent his strength upon one handle, and then said quite quietly—
“I am afraid it’s no go.”
As he spoke, there swept round the corner a man rigid on his rushing horse, with the rush and rigidity of an arrow. He had a smile that thrust out his chin as if it were dislocated. He swept alongside of the stationary