“Hallo!” cried Graham.  “Is that you, A.C.?  You remember Mario Escobar?  Good.  I have Hillyard here from the Mediterranean with a clear case.  I’ll come over and see you.”

Mr.  “A.C.”, whose real name was Adrian Carruthers, thereupon took up the conversation at the other end of the line.  The lines deepened upon the Commodore’s forehead as he listened.  Then he turned to Hillyard, and swore softly and whole-heartedly.

“Mario Escobar has vanished.”

“But I saw him myself,” Hillyard exclaimed.  “I saw him in London.”

“When?”

“On Monday afternoon.”

Graham lifted the mouthpiece to his lips again.

“Wait a bit, A.C.  Hillyard saw the man in London on Monday afternoon.”

Again A.C. spoke at the other end from an office in Scotland Yard.  Graham put down the instrument with a bang and hung up the receiver.

“He vanished yesterday.  Could he have seen you?”

Hillyard shook his head.

“I think not.”

“Oh, we’ll get him, of course.  He can’t escape from the country.  And we will get him pretty soon,” Graham declared.  He looked out of the window on to the river.  “I wonder what in the world alarmed him, since it wasn’t you?” he speculated slowly.

But both Scotland Yard and Commodore Graham were out of their reckoning for once.  Mario Escobar was not alarmed at all.  He had packed his bag, taken the tube to his terminus, bought his ticket and gone off in a train.  Only no one had noticed him go; and that was all there was to it.

CHAPTER XX

LADY SPLAY’S PREOCCUPATIONS

“It’s a good race to leave alone, Miranda,” said Dennis Brown.  “But if you want to back something, I should put a trifle on Kinky Jane.”

“Thank you, Dennis,” Miranda answered absently.  She was standing upon the lawn at Gatwick with her face towards the line of bookmakers upon the far side of the railings.  These men were shouting at the full frenzy of their voices, in spite of the heat and the dust.  The ring was crowded, and even the enclosure more than usually full.

“But you won’t get any price,” Harold Jupp continued, and he waved an indignant arm towards the bookmakers.  “I never saw such a crowd of pinchers in my life.”

“Thank you, Harold,” Miranda replied politely.  She was aware that he was advising her, but the nature of the advice did not reach her mind.  She was staring steadily in front of her.

Dennis Brown and Harold Jupp looked at one another in alarm.  They knew well that sibylline look on the face of Miranda Brown.  She was awaiting the moment of inspiration.  She was all wrapped up in expectation of it.  At times she glanced at her race-card, whilst a thoughtful frown puckered her pretty forehead, as though the name of the winning filly might leap out in letters of gold.

Dennis shook his head dolefully.  For the one thing sure and certain was that the fatal moment of inspiration would come to Miranda in time to allow her to reach the railings before the start.  Suddenly a name uttered by an apoplectic gentleman in a voice breaking with fine passion reached her ears, with the odds attached to it of nine to one.