suppose that perhaps, after all, it might have missed it.

"Did he say when he was coming back?" I asked, again casually.

"He isn't coming back, sir," said Parker. "He's took his luggage with him
and all."

"Of course," said Norah. "He's gone to see what they're doing at the War
Office. He said he would."

But I knew and she knew and Parker knew he hadn't--or, if he had, it was
only one of the things he had gone for. Because, if the War Office had
been all that he had in his mind he would have told us, and Viola would
have told us, and they would have gone openly together, instead of
dodging about like two clumsy criminals, one at Midhurst and the other at
Selham.

When Parker had left (he did it very quickly) Norah got on her feet.

She said, "Go and find Kendal and tell him to bring the car around at
once."

I asked her what she was going to do?

"Do?" she flashed at me. She had changed all in a moment into a woman
whom I did not know.

"I'm going to fetch her back," she said. She had wriggled into her coat.
"We'll overtake her before she gets to Selham, if you're quick."

I looked at my watch. It was barely half-past four. Yes, if we were
quick, if we started at once, if we let the new car rip we should
overtake her on the road, or at the station before she could get into
that train with Charlie Thesiger in it. I meant, and Norah's eyes meant,
that we would stop her going with him, if we had to drag her from the
platform.

We ran to the garage to find Kendal. The new car, the superb black and
white creature, stood in the middle of the courtyard, ready to start when
Jimmy's wire came. So far it was all right.

But we had reckoned without Kendal, the chauffeur.

Kendal, absolved from the four-sixteen train at Midhurst, was at his tea
in the servants' hall, and at my summons he came out slowly, munching as
he came. He was visibly outraged at our intrusion on his sacred leisure.
And when he was ordered to start at once for Selham, he refused. There
was no train from Victoria, he said, between the four-four that Mr.
Jevons hadn't come by and the five fifty-two. _If_, Kendal said, he did
come by Victoria, and he always came by Waterloo.

What was the sense, said Kendal, with his mouth full, of going to Selham
when we hadn't got a wire?

The sense of it, Norah told him, was that we had a message--an important
message--for Mrs. Jevons, which she _must_ get before she started.

At this Kendal left off mun