With the advent of the guard, Hamar’s assailant was dragged off him, and he was locked up in a separate compartment, “to be given in charge,” so the indignant official announced, directly they got to Brighton.  But Hamar ordained it otherwise.  As soon as he had sufficiently recovered from the effects of the severe castigation the female furioso had inflicted on him, he became invisible, and when the train drew up at the Brighton platform, and a couple of policemen arrived to march him on, he was nowhere to be found!  This was his first experiment with the newly acquired property.  “In future,” he said to himself, “before I try any tricks, I’ll take very good care there are no Suffragettes about.”

In London there was, of course, no need for him ever to pay fares.  All he had to do, was to become invisible as soon as the taxi stopped, calmly step out of the vehicle, and walk away.  As for meals, he was able to enjoy many—­gratis.  He simply walked into a restaurant, fed on the very best, and then disappeared.  Of course, he could not repeat the trick in the same place, and cautious though he was, he was at last caught.  It appears that a description of him had been circulated among the police, and that private detectives were employed to watch for him in the principal hotels and restaurants.  Consequently, directly he entered the grill room at the Piccadilly Hotel, he was arrested and handcuffed before he had time to swallow a pill.

He was now in a most unpleasant predicament—­the tightest corner he had ever been in.  Supposing he could not escape—­his sentence would be at the least two years’ penal servitude—­what would happen?  Curtis and Kelson would never work the show without him.  Curtis would give himself entirely up to eating and drinking, Kelson would marry Lilian Rosenberg; the compact with the Unknown would be broken; and after that—­he dare not think.  He must escape!  He must get at the pills!  The police took him away in a taxi, and all the time he sat between them, he struggled desperately to squeeze his hands through the small, cruel circle that held them.  “It’s all right for Curtis and Kelson!” he said to himself, “all right at least—­now!  They know nothing!  They have never tried to think what the breaking of the compact means!  Their weak, silly minds are entirely centred on the present!  The present!  Damn the present!  They are fools, idiots, imbeciles who think only of the present—­it’s the future—­the future that matters!” He scraped the skin off his wrists, he sweated, he swore!  And it was not until one of the detectives threatened to rap him over the head, that he sullenly gave in and sat still.

The taxi drew up in front of the Gerald Road Police Station, and Hamar was conducted to an ante-room, prior to being taken before the inspector.  Just as a policeman was about to search him, he made one last desperate effort.

“Look here,” he said, “if I pledge you my word I’ll not attempt to do anything, will you let me have my hands—­or at least one of my hands—­free a moment.  Some grit has got in my eye and I cannot stand the irritation.”