“You are all right, my friend. Get into
the back of the car and rest. You will be yourself
very quickly.”
And he half dragged the man from his seat and placed
him in the back of the car, where he fell inert and
unconscious.
The cigarette which The Sparrow had given to Hugh
only to be used in case of urgent necessity had certainly
done its work. The man, whether friend or enemy,
would now remain unconscious for many hours.
Hugh, having settled him in the bottom of the car,
placed a rug over him. Then, mounting to the
driver’s place, he turned the car and drove
as rapidly as he dared back over the roads to Salon.
Time after time, he wondered whether he had been misled;
whether, after all, the man who had driven him was
actually acting under The Sparrow’s orders.
If so, then he had committed a fatal error!
However, the die was cast. He had acted upon
his own initiative, and if a net had actually been
spread to catch him he had successfully broken through
it. He laughed as he thought of the police at
Cette awaiting his arrival, and their consternation
when hour after hour passed without news of the car
from Marseilles.
At Salon he passed half way through the town to cross
roads where he had noticed in passing a sign-board
which indicated the road to Avignon—the
broad high road from Marseilles to Paris.
Already he had made up his mind how to act. He
would get to Avignon, and thence by express to Paris.
The rapides from Marseilles and the Riviera
all stopped at the ancient city of the Popes.
Therefore, being a good motor driver, Hugh started
away down the long road which led through the valley
to Orgon, and thence direct to Avignon, which came
into sight about seven o’clock in the morning.
Before entering the old city of walls and castles
Hugh turned into a side road about two miles distant,
drove the car to the end, and opening a gate succeeded
in getting it some little distance into a wood, where
it was well concealed from anyone passing along the
road.
Then, descending and ascertaining that the driver
was sleeping comfortably from the effects of the strong
narcotic, he took his bag and walked into the town.
At the railway station he found the through express
from Ventimiglia—the Italian frontier—to
Paris would be due in twenty minutes, therefore he
purchased a first-class ticket for Paris, and in a
short time was taking his morning coffee in the wagon-restaurant
on his way to the French capital.
THE MAN CATALDI
On the day that Hugh was travelling in hot haste to
Paris, Charles Benton arrived in Nice early in the
afternoon.
Leaving the station it was apparent he knew his way
about the town, for passing down the Avenue de la
Gare, with its row of high eucalyptus trees, to the
Place Massena, he plunged into the narrow, rather
evil-smelling streets of the old quarter.
