said when we were discussing him one day. “After all, he’s a real good sportsman!”

So according to Rayne’s orders I met the hunchback Tarrant at the Three Nuns Hotel at Aldgate. I had taken another car from Lloyd’s garage—a Fiat landaulette, stolen, no doubt—and in it, at the old man’s directions, I drove out to Maldon, in Essex, where at a small house outside the town I found, to my surprise, Rayne already awaiting us.

What, I wondered, was in progress?