The gusty wind had died down.

In the silence of the night I listened to the receding noise of the motor-cycle as it swept down the hill into Cromer town, where I knew Rayner would be on the alert.

The sound died away, therefore I relit my pipe, and mounting again into the driver's seat, sat back thinking—thinking mostly of Lola, and my ill-luck at having missed her.

Before me, in the white glare of the lamps upon the road, where insects of the night, attracted by the radiance, were dancing to their deaths, there arose before me that sweet, perfect face, the face that had so attracted me. I saw her smile—smile at me, as she did when first we had met. Ah! How strange had been our friendship, stranger than novelist had ever imagined. I had loved her—loved as I had never loved before, and she had loved me, with that bright, intense look in her wonderful eyes, the woman's look that can never lie.

There is but one love-look. A man knows it by his instinct, just as does a woman. A woman knows by intuition that the fool who takes her out to the theatre and supper, and is so profuse in his protestations of undying admiration, is only uttering outpourings of vapid nonsense. Just so, a man meets insincerity with insincerity. The woman gets to know in time how much her vain, shallow admirer is good for, for she knows he will soon pass out of her life, while the man's instinct is exactly the same. In a word, it is life—the life of this, our Twentieth Century.

The man laughed at and derided to-day, is a hero ten years hence.

A few years ago Mr. John Burns carried a banner perspiringly along the Thames Embankment, in a May Day procession, and I assisted him. To-day he is a Cabinet Minister. A few years ago my dear friend, George Griffith, wrote about air-ships in his romance, The Angel of the Revolution, and everybody made merry at his expense. To-day airships are declared to be the chief arm of Continental nations.

Ah, yes! The world proceeds apace, and the unknown to-morrow ever brings its amazing surprises and the adoption of the "crank's" ideas of yesterday.

Lola had called to see me. That fact conjured up in my imagination a thousand startling theories.

Why?

Why had she called, after all that had passed between us?

I waited, waited for the coming of that mysterious cyclist, who arose from nowhere, and whose business with Jules Jeanjean was of such vast and secret importance.

The very fact of Jeanjean being in Cromer had staggered me. As I sat there smoking, and listening, I recollected when last I had heard mention of his name. Hamard—the great Hamard—Chief of the SÛretÉ of Paris, had been seated in his private bureau in the offices of the detective police.

He had leaned back in his chair, and blowing a cloud of tobacco-smoke from his lips, had said in French—

"Ah! Mon cher Vidal, we are face to face in this affair with Jules Jeanjean, the most ingenious and most elusive criminal that we have met this century in France. In other walks of life Jeanjean would have been a great man—a millionaire financier, a Minister of the Cabinet, a great general—a leader of men. But in the circumstances this arch-adventurer, who slips through our fingers, no matter what trap we set for him, is a criminal of a type such as Europe has never known within the memory of living man. Personally I admire his pluck, his energy, his inventiveness, his audacity, his iron nerve, and his amazing cunning. Truly, now, cher ami, he is a marvel. There is but one master-criminal, Jules Jeanjean."

That was the character given him by Monsieur Hamard, the greatest French detective since Lecoq.

And now this master-criminal was beneath the railway arch at Cromer meeting in secret a mysterious cyclist!

What evil was now intended?

I waited, my ears strained to catch every sound. But I only heard the distant rumble of the thunder, away across the North Sea, and, somewhere, the dismal howling of a dog.

I waited, and still waited. The sky grew brighter, and I grew perceptibly colder, so that I turned up my coat-collar, and shivered, even though the previous day had been so unusually warm. The car smelt of petrol and oil—a smell that nauseated me—and yet my face was turned to the open country ready to follow and track down the man who had swept past me to keep that mysterious tryst in the darkness.

Looking back, I saw, away to the right, the white shafts of light from the high-up lighthouse, slowly sweeping the horizon, flashing warning to mariners upon that dangerous coast, while, far away in the distance over the sea, I could just discern a flash from the lightship on the Haisboro' Sands.

In the valley, deep below, lay Cromer, the street-lamps reflecting upon the low storm-clouds. At that moment the thunder-storm threatened to burst.

Yet I waited, and waited, watching the rose of dawn slowly spreading in the Eastern sky.

Silence—a complete and impressive silence had fallen—even the dog had now ceased to howl.

And yet I possessed myself in patience, my ears strained for the "pop-pop" of the returning motor-cycle.

A farmer's cart, with fresh vegetables and fruit for the Cromer shops on the morrow, creaked slowly past, and the driver in his broad Norfolk dialect asked me—

"Any trouble, sir?"

I replied in the negative, whereupon he whipped up his horse, bade me a cheery "good morning," and descended the hill. For a long time, as I refilled and relit my pipe, I could hear the receding wheels, but no sound of a motor-cycle could I hear.

Time passed, the flush of dawn crept over the sea, brightened swiftly, and then overcast night gave place to a calm and clear morning. The larks, in the fields on either side, rose to greet the rising sun, and the day broke gloriously. Many a dawn had I witnessed in various parts of the world, from the snows of Spitzbergen to the baking sands of the Sahara, but never a more glorious one than that June morning in Poppyland, for Cromer is one of the few places in England where you can witness the sun both rise from, and set in the sea.

My headlights had burned themselves out long ago. It was now four o'clock. Strange that the nocturnal cyclist did not return!

All my preparations had, it seemed, been in vain.

I knew, however, that I was dealing with Jules Jeanjean, a past-master in crime, a man who, no doubt, was fully aware of the inquiries being made by the plain-clothes officers from Norwich, and who inwardly laughed them to scorn.

The man who had defied the Paris SÛretÉ would hardly entertain any fear of the Norfolk Constabulary.

Many country carts, most of them going towards Cromer, now passed me, and their drivers wished me "Good morning," but I remained at my lonely vigil until five o'clock. Then I decided that Jeanjean's friend must have taken another road out of Cromer, either the Sheringham, the Holt, or the Overstrand, the three other main roads out of the town.

What had Rayner done, I wondered? Where was he?

I sat down upon the grassy bank at the roadside, still pondering. Of all the mysteries of crime I had assisted in investigating, in order to write down the details in my book, this was assuredly the most remarkable.

I knew that I was face to face with some great and startling affair, some adventure which, when the truth became known, would amaze and astound the world. Jules Jeanjean was not the man to attempt small things. He left those to smaller men. In his profession he was the master, and a thousand escrocs, all over the Continent, forgers, international thieves, burglars, coiners, rats d'hotel—most ingenious of malefactors—regarded the name of Jeanjean with awe.

One of his exploits was well known up and down the Continent—for the Matin had published the full story a year ago. Under another name, and in the guise of a wealthy rentier of Paris, he made the acquaintance of one of the Inspectors of the Paris detective service. Inviting him to his private sitting-room in the HÔtel Royale, on the Promenade des Anglais, he gave him an aperitif which in less than three minutes caused the police official to lose consciousness. Thereupon Jeanjean took from the Inspector's pocket his card of authority as a detective—a card signed by the Prefect of Police—and at once left the hotel.

Next night, at the CafÉ AmÉricain in Paris, he went up to a wealthy German who was spending a harmless but gay evening at that well-known supper-resort and arrested him for theft, exhibiting his warrant of authority.

In a taxi he conducted him to the Prefecture of Police, but on their way the German asked him if they could come to terms. The pseudo-Inspector hesitated, then told the taxi-driver to go to a small hotel opposite the Gare du Nord. There he and his prisoner discussed terms, it being eventually agreed that the German—a well-known shipowner of Hamburg—should in the morning telegraph to his bank for eighty thousand marks, for which sum he would be allowed to go at liberty.

It was well known, of course, to Jeanjean that his "prisoner" had been guilty of the offence for which he had "arrested" him, and the coup was quite easy.

He kept the German in the hotel till ten o'clock next morning, and then the pair went to the CrÉdit Lyonnais together. At four o'clock—the bogus Inspector still with his "prisoner,"—the money was brought to the obscure hotel, and after Jeanjean had carefully counted through the notes he allowed his prey to go at liberty, advising him to take the next train back to Germany.

At six o'clock, the sun shining out warm and brightly, my patience was exhausted. I had spent the night hours there in vain. Yet I dare not drive the car into Cromer, for I intended to repeat my effort on the following night. Therefore I started the engine, and was soon back in the yard of the small hotel in Aylsham.

There I put up the car, breakfasted, and then taking the first train to North Walsham, arrived in Cromer about half-past nine o'clock.

When I entered my room at the HÔtel de Paris the maid came quickly along, saying—

"Will you please go up to see your servant, sir! He's very unwell!"

"Unwell?" I said. "Why, what's the matter?"

"I don't know, sir. The police brought him in about half an hour ago. He's been out all night, they say. And they found him very ill."

I darted upstairs and entered Rayner's room without knocking.

He was lying upon the bed, still dressed, his face pale as death.

"Ah, sir!" he gasped, "I—I'm so glad you've come back! I—I wondered whether anything had happened to you. I—I——"

He stretched out his hand to me, but no other word escaped his lips.

I saw that he had fainted.