“We very likely shan’t find out a thing,” Quest reminded her.  “French and his lot have had a try and come to grief.”

“Inspector French isn’t like you, Mr. Quest,” Lenora ventured.

Quest laughed bitterly.

“Just now, at any rate, we don’t seem to be any great shakes,” he remarked.  “However, I’m glad we’re on this job.  Much better to find out what has become of the fellow really, if we can.”

Lenora’s voice suddenly grew steady.  She turned round in her place and faced her companion.

“Mr. Quest,” she said, “I like my work with you.  You saved me from despair.  Sometimes it seems to me that life now opens out an entirely new vista.  Yet since this matter has been mentioned between us, let me tell you one thing.  I have known no rest, night or day, since we heard of—­of James’s escape.  I live in terror.  If I have concealed it, it has been at the expense of my nerves and my strength.  I think that very soon I could have gone on no longer.”

Quest’s only reply was a little nod.  Yet, notwithstanding his imperturbability of expression, that little nod was wonderfully sympathetic.  Lenora leaned back in her place well satisfied.  She felt that she was understood.

By Quest’s directions, the automobile was brought to a stand-still at a point where it skirted the main railway line, and close to the section house which he had appointed for his rendezvous with Laura.  She had apparently seen their approach and she came out to meet them at once, accompanied by a short, thick-set man whom she introduced as Mr. Horan.

“This is Mr. Horan, the section boss,” she explained.

Mr. Horan shook hands.

“Say, I’ve heard of you, Mr. Quest,” he announced.  “The young lady tells me you are some interested in that prisoner they lost off the cars near here.”

“That’s so,” Quest admitted.  “We’d like to go to the spot if we could.”

“That’s dead easy,” the boss replied.  “I’ll take you along in the hand car.  I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Quest, some time ago.”

“How’s that?” the criminologist asked.

Mr. Horan expelled a fragment of chewing tobacco and held out his hand for the cigar which Quest was offering.

“They’ve been going the wrong way to work, these New York police,” he declared.  “Just because there was a train on the other track moving slowly, they got it into their heads that Macdougal had boarded it and was back in New York somewhere.  That ain’t my theory.  If I were looking for James Macdougal, I’d search the hillsides there.  I’ll show you what I mean when we get alongside.”

“You may be right,” Quest admitted.  “Anyway, we’ll start on the job.”

The section boss turned around and whistled.  From a little side track two men jumped on to a hand-car, and brought it round to where they were standing.  A few yards away, the man who was propelling it—­a great red-headed Irishman—­suddenly ceased his efforts.  Leaning over his pole, he gazed at Quest.  A sudden ferocity darkened his coarse face.  He gripped his mate by the arm.