what tame businesses these were compared to this I was now engaged in! When he

went to bed I sat up and finished Scudder. I smoked in a chair till daylight,

for I could not sleep.

 

About eight next morning I witnessed the arrival of two constables and a

sergeant. They put their car in a coach-house under the innkeeper’s

instructions, and entered the house. Twenty minutes later I saw from my window a

second car come across the plateau from the opposite direction. It did not come

up to the inn, but stopped two hundred yards off in the shelter of a patch of

wood. I noticed that its occupants carefully reversed it before leaving it. A

minute or two later I heard their steps on the gravel outside the window.

 

My plan had been to lie hid in my bedroom, and see what happened. I had a notion

that, if I could bring the police and my other more dangerous pursuers together,

something might work out of it to my advantage. But now I had a better idea. I

scribbled a line of thanks to my host, opened the window, and dropped quietly

into a gooseberry bush.

 

Unobserved I crossed the dyke, crawled down the side of a tributary burn, and

won the highroad on the far side of the patch of trees. There stood the car,

very spick and span in the morning sunlight, but with the dust on her which told

of a long journey. I started her, jumped into the chauffeur’s seat, and stole

gently out on to the plateau.

 

Almost at once the road dipped so that I lost sight of the inn, but the wind