So half an hour later Hugh was driving up the steep High Street of Guildford on his way to London.

He alighted in Piccadilly, at the end of Half Moon Street, soon after eleven, and, dismissing Mead, made his way to Ellerston Street to the house of Mr. George Peters.

He rang the bell at the old-fashioned mansion, and a few moments later the door was opened by the manservant he had previously seen.

In an instant the servant recognized the visitor.

“Mr. Peters will not be in for a quarter of an hour,” he said.  “Would you care to wait, sir?”

“Yes,” Hugh replied.  “I want to see him very urgently.”

“Will you come in?  Mr. Peters has left instructions that you might probably call; Mr. Henfrey, is it not?”

“Yes,” replied Hugh.  The man seemed to possess a memory like that of a club hall-porter.

Young Henfrey was ushered into a small but cosy little room, which, in the light of day, he saw was well-furnished and upholstered.  The door closed, and he waited.

A few moments after he distinctly heard a man’s voice, which he at once recognized as that of The Sparrow.

The servant had told him that Mr. Peters was absent, yet he recognized his voice—­a rather high-pitched, musical one.

“Mr. Henfrey is waiting,” he heard the servant say.

“Right!  I hope you told him I was out,” The Sparrow replied.

Then there was silence.

Hugh stood there very much puzzled.  The room was cosy and well-furnished, but the light was somewhat dim, while the atmosphere was decidedly murky, as it is in any house in Mayfair.  One cannot obtain brightness and light in a West End house, where one’s vista is bounded by bricks and mortar.  The dukes in their great town mansions are no better off for light and air than the hard-working and worthy wage-earners of Walworth, Deptford, or Peckham.  The air in the working-class districts of London is not one whit worse than it is in Mayfair or in Belgravia.

Hugh stood before an old coloured print representing the hobby-horse school—­the days of the “bone-shakers”—­and studied it.  He awaited Il Passero and the advice which he had promised to give.

His ears were strained.  That house was curiously quiet and forbidding.  The White Cavalier, whom he had believed to be the notorious Sparrow, had been proved to be one of his assistants.  He had now met the real, elusive adventurer, who controlled half the criminal adventurers in Europe, and had found in him a most genial friend.  He was there to seek his advice and to act upon it.

As he reflected, he realized that without the aid of The Sparrow he would have long ago been in the hands of the police.  So widespread was the organization which The Sparrow controlled that it mattered not in what capital he might be, the paternal hand of protection was placed upon him—­in Genoa, in Brussels, in London—­anywhere.