At intervals he looked at his mirror.  The motor-bicycle had vanished into the past, and as it failed to reappear he gradually grew confident and disdainful.  But just as the car was going down the short hill into the outskirts of Colchester the motor-bicycle came into view once more.

“Where to, madam?” inquired the chauffeur.

“This is Colchester, isn’t it?” she demanded nervously, though she knew perfectly well that it was Colchester.

“Yes, madam.”

“Straight through!  Straight through!”

“The London road?”

“Yes.  The London road,” she agreed.  London was, of course, the only possible destination.

“But breakfast, madam?”

“Oh!  The usual thing,” said Audrey.  “You’ll have yours when I have mine.”

“But we shall run out of petrol, madam.”

“Never mind,” said Audrey sublimely.

The chauffeur, with characteristic skill, arranged that the car should run out of petrol precisely in front of the best hotel in Chelmsford, which was about half-way to London.  The motor-bicycle had not been seen for several miles.  But scarcely had they resumed the journey, by the Epping road, when it came again into view—­in front of them.  How had the fellow guessed that they would take the longer Epping road instead of the shorter Romford road?

“When shall we be arriving in Frinton?” Musa inquired, beatific.

“We shan’t be arriving in Frinton any more,” said Audrey.  “We must go straight to London.”

“It is like a dream,” Musa murmured, as it were in ecstasy.  Then his features changed and he almost screamed:  “But my violin!  My violin!  We must go back for it.”

“Violin!” said Audrey.  “That’s nothing!  I’ve even come without gloves.”  And she had.

She reassured Musa as to the violin, and the chauffeur as to the abandoned Gladstone bag containing the chauffeur’s personal effects, and herself as to many things.  An hour and twenty minutes later the car, with three people in it, thickly dusted even to the eyebrows, drew up in the courtyard of Charing Cross railway station, and the motor-cycle was visible, its glaring red somewhat paled, in the Strand outside.  The time was ten-fifteen.

“We shall take the eleven o’clock boat train for Paris,” she said to Musa.

“You also?”

She nodded.  He was in heaven.  He could even do without his violin.

“How nice it is not to be bothered with luggage,” she said.

The chauffeur was pacified with money, of which Audrey had a sufficiency.

And all the time Audrey kept saying to herself: 

“I’m not going to Paris to please Musa, so don’t let him think it!  I’m only going so as to put the detective off and keep Jane Foley out of his clutches, because if I stay in London he’ll be bound to find everything out.”

While Musa kept watch for the detective at the door of the telegraph office Audrey telegraphed, as laconically as possible, to Frinton concerning clothes and the violin, and then they descended to subterranean marble chambers in order to get rid of dust, and they came up to earth again, each out of a separate cellar, renewed.  And, lastly, Audrey slipped into the Strand and bought a pair of gloves, and thereafter felt herself to be completely equipped against the world’s gaze.