Mrs. Forbes, an aristocrat to the finger tips, greeted her guest with marked cordiality.

“I have been living during the past few hours like one of the characters one sees in the fearsome little plays produced on the stage of the Grand Guignol in Paris,” she said, gazing at him with frank brown eyes singularly like her daughter’s, “but I have contrived to gather one definite impression among the whirl of things, and that is that were it not for Mr. Frank Theydon, my daughter and I would now be in as bad a predicament as two women could possibly face anywhere.”

“I was lucky enough to be of some little use, but Mr. Handyside is the lion of today’s contest,” said Theydon.

“I am grateful to both of you, how grateful I can never find words to tell, but Mr. Handyside rivals you in modesty, Mr. Theydon.  He assured me that you were the deus ex machina, though he obtained the machine itself, and rode sixty miles to rescue me from my dragon.  By the way, where is the motor cyclist—­ what is his name?”

“Jackson, ma’am,” put in Handyside.  “He went back to Eastbourne—­ thought nothing of it.  I fixed him all right.  He’s coming to London next week.  I’ve hired him for a trip round the island.”

“In a side-car?” laughed Evelyn.

“No; I guess we’ll run to something more roomy.”

“Jim, dear,” said Mrs. Forbes to her husband, “get Mr. Jackson’s address.  Our thanks to him, at least, can take a tangible form.  No, Evelyn, I’m not going to bed.  I mean to sit up and talk.  I want to hear everything.  You men must smoke big strong cigars, please.  If I breathe tobacco smoke I shall not fancy I want to sneeze.”

“I, for one, am simply aching to hear what happened to you,” said Theydon.

Mrs. Forbes was equally ready to retail her trials.

“When a man who resembled a tall and well-built Japanese came to me on the Downs,” she said, “I really believed him to be what he said he was—­ assistant to an Eastbourne doctor.  I never dreamed he was Chinese, not that it mattered at all where I was concerned, only one becomes quite accustomed to meeting well-dressed Japanese men in society, but hardly ever a Chinaman.  I thought, too, I remembered his face, which is quite possible, since my husband tells me that this Wong Li Fu was once an attaché at the Chinese Embassy.  He spoke excellent English, with a strongly marked lisp; when he said that my daughter wished to see me at the Royal Devonshire Hotel, and that a Dr. Sinnett had sent a car for my convenience, I was mainly concerned in getting him to admit the real cause of his presence, because I naturally assumed that Evelyn had met with an accident.  No sooner had the car started than he seized my wrists, and gave them a queer twist, which seemed to render me powerless for a few seconds.  ’If you scream or resist I hurt you—­ so—­ only very bad,’ he said.  I was that astonished I hardly realized what was taking