Theydon could not even guess at a plausible explanation.  He leaned back in the cab and closed his eyes.  Really, there were times in life when it would be a relief to faint!

CHAPTER X

 Captures on both sides

Though Theydon was in first-rate athletic trim, that blow on the throat had nearly stunned him.  The effort to rise promptly and bear a hand in the imminent capture of one whom he regarded as something akin to a homicidal maniac had imposed a further strain on his resources, and it was possible that he did actually lose his senses during a couple of seconds.

In all likelihood, too, he changed color slightly, because the next thing he was aware of was the note of alarm in Evelyn’s voice when she cried excitedly: 

“Mr. Theydon is really very ill.  I’m sure we ought to try and revive him.”

At that he reopened his eyes and looked at her whimsically.  Nature, in fact, had put forth a supreme effort; from that moment he recovered rapidly.

Winter took a calmly professional view of the younger man’s collapse.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Miss Forbes,” he assured the agitated girl.  “Our friend has just escaped being knocked insensible, if not killed.  He was hardly prepared for such a vicious attack, I fancy.  Most certainly that scoundrel took me by surprise, or he would not have slipped through my fingers like an eel.  Next time, either Mr. Theydon or I may be trusted to balance matters.”

Theydon grinned and nodded.  He signaled with his eyes that Winter was to make Evelyn Forbes understand that she had just escaped being the victim of an extraordinary outrage.  Muddled as his thoughts were, he grasped the essential fact that Scotland Yard was better posted in the secret history of the Innesmore Mansions crime than he had given the department credit for before the dramatic meeting with Furneaux that morning.

And, indeed, the chief inspector lost no time in justifying that belief.

“You must have imagined that the world had suddenly turned topsy-turvy,” he said, smiling at the mystified and distraught Evelyn, as though the whirl of events outside the station were part and parcel of the humdrum routine of life.  “When Mr. Theydon regains his speech he will tell us how he came to suspect that an attempt would be made to kidnap you today.  In my own case, intervention was the outcome of sheer and simple logical deduction.  You see, I represent the Criminal Investigation Department—­ or Scotland Yard, as it is familiarly described—­ and I have reason to believe that your father is, and has been for some time, the object of unpleasant attentions by a political society in China, whose members are nothing more nor less than criminal fanatics.  Probably this is the first you have heard of the matter, Miss Forbes.  Your father would wish, no doubt,