morning?"

"I'll send you a wire. I mayn't go there, after all. Nuisance having
to change again, isn't it?"

He hastened from the room, got into his air-man suit, covered it with
an overall, emptied his cash-box into his pocket, and returned to say
good-bye. Kate accompanied him to the door.

"Buck up, old girl," he said, as he kissed her. "I'll let you know
what happens, if I can. By the way, there's a globe in the shed I want
you to send back to Dawkins, the school-master, first thing to-morrow.
Good-bye! Send Roddy after me as soon as he has finished his grub."

He hurried through the park, and coming to the shed, switched on the
electric light, which revealed a litter of all sorts of objects:
models, parts of machinery, including an aero-cycle on which he had
spent many fruitless hours, and, on a bench, a small geographical
globe of the world. Taking up a piece of string, he made certain
measurements on the globe, jotting down sundry names and rows of
figures on a piece of paper. Then he went to a telephone box in a
corner of the shed, and rang up a certain club in London, asking if
Mr. William Barracombe was there. After the interval usual in trunk
calls, he began--

"That you, Billy? Good! Thought I'd catch you. Can you give me an
hour or two?... What?... No: not this time. No time for explanations
just now.... Right!... Exactly: nothing ever surprises you."
(A smile flickered on his face.) "Well, I want you to wire to
Constantinople--Con-stant-i-no-ple--to some decent firm, and arrange