came
necessary to slacken speed. Forrest immediately resumed the conversation
at the point where we had broken off, and questioned me closely with
regard to what Mannering had said to me. Once and again I endeavoured
to ascertain what had induced him to take out the warrant; but he would
not satisfy my curiosity, declaring that it was of more importance that
he should know all that I could tell him first. There seemed little
likelihood of my learning anything, for we soon left Norwich behind us,
and were running at full speed on the road to Thetford and Newmarket,
slackening speed only slightly as we swept through the villages and
trusting to the continuous toot-toot of the horn to clear our path. Our
progress was uninterrupted until we had reached and left the little town
of Attleborough five or six miles behind us, when Forrest was afforded
an opportunity, much to his chagrin, of giving me the reasons for his
haste.

Incidentally, I may remark, that the occurrence which afforded this
opportunity came very near depriving me of the chance of hearing
anything from anybody, or him from ever opening his lips again, for
while we swept along at our top speed there was a sudden hissing sound,
a sudden succession of jars, and the car swerved violently, nearly
overturning. I jammed on both my breaks, and by good fortune the car did
not overturn. I guessed what had happened, and there was no need for me
to get a light to make sure--my sense of touch informed me that the off
back tyre was as flat as a pancake.

I hoped that the injury was only slight, but my hopes faded the moment I
examined the injury. The tyre had picked up a curved and pointed piece
of iron, and had been irreparably damaged. No patching was of any use.
There was nothing for it but to replace the tyre with a new one.
Fortunately, I was prepared with a spare outer cover as well as inner
tubes, and, with a muttered curse, I threw off my coat and set about the
job. Then when that was done, and it took me a good hour to complete the
task, I discovered, on restarting the car, that a further misfortune had
befallen us. Either owing to the jumping of the car when the tyre went,
or more likely because of the sudden application, the footbreak had
seized, and the transmission was so far injured that I could not get the
car along above seven or eight miles an hour. I did my best to put the
damage right. I lay on my back in the middle of the road, and used all
the langua