"Is that young-looking man a police-officer?" I asked, much surprised.

"Yes; he's older than he looks. I ought never to have dared to go to Totnes."

"Why not Totnes?" I asked.

"I was lying low—for a certain reason, Mr Kemball. All of us have to wash in dirty water sometimes, you know," he smiled grimly. "You are an honest man, no doubt—I too was, once."

"And now the police are in search of you—eh?" I asked. So my estimate of the man was not very far wrong.

He nodded slowly in the affirmative.

A silence fell between us. This discovery, coupled with Arnold's mysterious connection with the trial of the adventuress who called herself Lady Lettice Lancaster, caused me to ponder. Arnold had warned me not to trust him entirely.

The train was now rushing down the incline, and in a few moments would be at Newton Abbot, the junction for Torquay.

Without a word, my companion suddenly sprang to his feet, and taking a railway key from his pocket, went out into the corridor and locked both doors at either end of the carriage so that no one could pass along.

Then, returning to me, he said—Perhaps it would be better, Mr Kemball, if you went into the next compartment while we are stopping. We must not appear to have knowledge of each other." Scarcely had I time to enter the adjoining compartment when the train pulled up. I lit a cigarette, and sat gazing lazily out of the window, when, sure enough, the man in the straw hat who had travelled in the rear of the train strolled aimlessly along, and as he passed the compartment occupied by Dawnay glanced in to satisfy himself that he was still there. 

The wait was long, for the corridor coaches from Torquay for London were being joined on. But at last we moved off again, and as soon as we did so I returned to the mysterious fugitive. 

"Tell me, Mr Dawnay, something concerning Mr Arnold," I urged earnestly, without preamble. "He did me the honour of entrusting me with certain purely personal matters, but gave me no information as to who or what he was." 

"Melvill Arnold was a most remarkable person," declared the man in the red tie. "He divided his time between life in London and exploring the remains of the extinct civilisation in Egypt." 

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