“Get back to Oakham as quickly as you can,” I said to him as I stepped into the car and slammed the door.

He turned his starting handle without result. He lifted the bonnet, and for a long time examined the machinery. Then, removing his coat, he wormed himself underneath the car, lying flat upon his back.

When at last he emerged he was red in the face and perspiring freely.

“Oh, by the way, sir,” he said suddenly, picking up his coat and thrusting his hand into one of its pockets, “I think you dropped this.”

As he stopped speaking he pulled his hand out and held out to me a little silver flask about four inches square.

I took it, and examined it.

“This isn’t mine,” I said. “Where did you find it?”

“Just there, sir,” and he pointed to the ground beside the car.

When I looked at the flask again, I noticed that the tiny shield in the middle was engraved. The engraving was a cipher, which, on scrutinising closely, I made out to be the letters “D.P.” intertwined.

I unscrewed the stopper and smelt the contents. The smell, though peculiar, was not wholly unfamiliar. Still, for the moment I could not classify it.

“Didn’t you drop it, sir?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps I had better take it,” and he held out his hand.

“No, I’ll keep it—you needn’t be anxious,” I said. “I have been staying here, and probably it belongs to somebody in the house, or to somebody who has called.”

I fumbled in my pocket and produced two half-crowns, which at once allayed any conscientious squeamishness afflicting the driver at the thought of handing over his treasure-trove to a stranger.

But where was Vera? Where, indeed, were the Thorolds?

The chauffeur continued to overhaul his engine and its complicated mechanism. While he was thus engaged I poured a little of the fluid out of the flask, which was quite full. The colour was a dark, transparent brown, almost the shade of old brandy. Somehow I could not help thinking that this flask might—

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