Victoria Street office. I had not bothered about them at the time, for
when you are being tried for your life other matters are apt to assume
a certain degree of unimportance. Besides, although I had told George
of their existence, I knew very well that, being jotted down in a
private cypher, no one except myself would be able to make head or
tail of what they were about.

Still they would naturally have been of immense help to me now if I
could have got hold of them. Clear as the main details were in my
mind, I saw I should have to go over a good bit of old ground before
I could make out the exact list of my requirements which McMurtrie
needed.

All that afternoon and the whole of the following day I stuck steadily
to my task. I had little to interrupt me, for with the exception
of Sonia who brought me up my meals, and the old deaf-and-dumb
housekeeper who came to do my room about midday, I saw or heard
nobody. McMurtrie did not appear again, and Savaroff, as I knew, was
away in London.

I took an hour off in the evening for the purpose of studying the
_Daily Mail_, which proved to be quite as entertaining as the previous
issue. There were two and a half columns about me altogether, the
first consisting of a powerful if slightly inaccurate description of
how I had stolen the bicycle, and the remainder dealing with various
features of my crime and my escape. It was headed:

STILL AT LARGE
NEIL LYNDON'S FIGHT FOR LIBERTY