s
after that reception?... And you should have seen my clothes! The doctor
says my lungs may never get over it.... That's what comes of admiration."

"It's what comes of behaving as no married man ought to behave."

"Did I say I was married?" asked the detective with an ingenuous air.
"Well, I may be. But I dare say I'm only married just about as much as you
are yourself, madam."

Upon this remark he raised his hat and departed along the grassy summit of
the sea-wall.

Audrey flushed for the second time that morning, and more strikingly than
before. She was extremely discontented with, and ashamed of, herself, for
she had meant to be the equal of the detective, and she had not been. It
was blazingly clear that he had indeed played with her--or, as she put it
in her own mind: "He just stuffed me up all through."

She tried to think logically. Had he been pursuing the motor-car all the
way from Birmingham? Obviously he had not, since according to Aguilar he
had been in the vicinity of Moze since the previous morning. Hence he did
not know that Audrey was involved in the Blue City affair, and he did not
know that Jane Foley was at Frinton. How he had learnt that Audrey belonged
to Moze, and why and what he had come to investigate at Moze, she could not
guess. Nor did these problems appear to her to have an importance at all
equal to the importance of hiding from the detective that she had been
staying at Frinton. If he followed her to Frinton he would inevitably
discover that Jane Foley was at Frinton, and the sequel would be more
imprisonment for Jane. Therefore Audrey must not return to Frinton. Having
by a masterly process of ratiocination reached this conclusion, she began
to think rather better of herself, and ceased blushing.

"Aguilar," she demanded excitedly, having gone back through the plantation.
"Did Miss Ingate happen to say where I was staying last night?"

"No, madam."

"I must run into the house and write a note to her, and you must take it
down instantly." In her mind she framed the note, which was to condemn Miss
Ingate to the torture of complete and everlasting silence about the episode
at the Blue City and the flight eastwards.

CHAPTER XXIX

FLIGHT

"Fast, madam, did you say?" asked the chauffeur, bending his head back from
the wheel as the car left the gates of Flank Hall.

"Fast."

"The Colchester road?"

"Yes."

"It's really just as quick to take the Frinton road for Colches