“We were watching you, dear,” Lenora said quietly.  “Somehow it didn’t seem to us that you were particularly anxious to get away.”

The Inspector chuckled.

“That’s one for Miss Laura,” he declared, with an air of satisfaction.  “Little bit hard on me generally.”

“Oh!  I’m all right if I’m left alone,” Laura retorted, bustling around.  “Come along, you folks, if we are going to have any supper to-night.”

They sat round the opening before Lenora’s tent till the moon was high in the heavens.  Quest, who had been on the outside of the circle for some little time, suddenly rose to his feet and crossed over to the cook wagon.  Long Jim, who was sitting on the steps, glanced up a little surlily.

“Who’s inside there?” Quest asked.

Long Jim removed his pipe from his teeth.

“That don’t sound none too civil a question for a guest,” he remarked, “but if you want to know, our new Chinese cookie is there.”

Quest nodded.

“Sorry if I seemed abrupt,” he apologised.  “You’ve been very good to us and I’m sure we are uncommonly obliged to you, Jim.  The only reason I asked the question was that I saw a face in the door there and it gave me a start.  For a moment I thought it was Craig back again.”

“He’s gone to New York, or going to-morrow morning,” Jim replied.  “I don’t think he’s so powerful fond of your company that he’d come round here looking for it.”

Quest strolled off again and glanced at his watch as he rejoined the little group.

“Well,” he said, “I think we’ll turn in.  Seven o’clock to-morrow morning, Inspector.  Jim’s sending one of the boys with us and we shall catch the Eastern Limited at the junction.”

The Inspector yawned.

“This open-air life makes me sleepy,” he confessed.

“To bed, all of us,” Quest concluded, turning away.

3.

Quest awoke the next morning, stretched out his hand and glanced at the watch by the side of his bed.  It was barely six o’clock.  He turned over and dozed again, looked again at half-past six, and finally, at a few minutes to seven, rose and made a hasty toilet.  Then, in the act of placing his watch in his waistcoat pocket, he gave a sudden start.  By its side, half covered by the handkerchief which he had thrown upon the little table, stood a small black box!  For a moment he was motionless.  Then he stretched out his hand, removed the lid and drew out the usual neatly folded piece of paper:—­

    “Even time fights you.  It loses that you may lose.

    “THE HANDS.”

Quest for a moment was puzzled.  Then he hurried into the next tent, where the Professor was sleeping peacefully.

“Say, Professor, what’s the time by your watch?” Quest asked, shaking him gently.

The Professor sat up and drew his chronometer from under his pillow.

“Seven o’clock,” he replied, “five minutes past, maybe.”