THE GREEN CAR
The atmosphere still held the chill of early morning as Sandy emerged,
vigorous and glowing and amazingly hungry, from his daily swim in the
sea. He dressed quickly in a small tent erected on the shore and then,
whistling cheerfully and with his towel slung over his shoulders, took
his way up the beach to where his bicycle stood propped against a
boulder.
A few minutes' pedalling brought him into St. Wennys, where he
dismounted to buy a packet of "gaspers" dispensed by the village
postmistress.
It was a quaint little village, typical of the West Country, with its
double row of small houses climbing the side of a steep hill capped at
the summit by an ancient church of weather-beaten stone. The bright
June sunshine winked against the panes, of the cottage windows and
flickered down upon the knobby surface of the cobbled pavements, while
in the dust of the wide road an indiscriminate group of children and
dogs played joyously together.
The warning hoot of a motor-horn sent them scuttling to the side of the
road, and, as Sandy smilingly watched the grubby little crowd's hasty
flight for safety, a big green car shot by and was swiftly lost to
sight in a cloud of whirling dust.
But not before Sandy's keen eyes had noted its occupants.
"Nan and the artist fellow!" he muttered.
Then, remembering that Nan had promised to go with him that afternoon
for a run in the "stink-pot," he stepped out into the middle of the
street and stood staring up the broad white road along which the car
had disappeared--the great road which led to London.
An ominous foreboding knocked at the door of his mind.
Where was Nan going with Rooke--driving at reckless speed at this hour
of the day on the way to London, when, according to arrangement, she
should have been ready later on to adventure herself in the "stink-pot"?
Of course it was just possible she had only gone out for a morning spin
with Maryon and proposed returning in time to keep her appointment with
him. But the hour was an unusually early one at which to make a start,
and the green car was ripping along at a pace which rather precluded
the idea of a pleasure jaunt.
Sandy was obsessed by a sense of misgiving that would not be denied.
Wheeling his bicycle round, he mounted and headed straight for Mallow
Court at break-neck speed.
He arrived to find Kitty composedly dividing her attention between her
breakfast and an illustrated paper, and for a moment he felt reassured.
She jumped up and greeted him joyfully.
"Hullo, Sandy! Been down to bathe? Come along and have some breakfast
with me. Or have you had it already?"
He shook his head.
"No, I've not been home yet."
"Then you must be famished. I'll ring for another cup. I'm all alone
in my glory. Barry and the Fentons departed yesterday on their fishing
trip, and Nan--"
"Yes. Where's Nan?" For the life of him he could not check the eager
question.
"She's gone off for the day with Maryon. He's driving her over to
Clovelly--she's never been there, you know."
Sandy's heart sank. He knew the quickest route from St. Wennys to
Clovelly--and the green car's nose had been set in quite a different
direction.
"She's fixed up to go out with me this afternoon," he said slowly.
"Tch!" Kitty clicked her tongue sharply against her teeth and,
crossing to the chimneypiece, took down a letter which, was resting
there. "I'd forgotten this! She left it to be given to you when you
called for her this afternoon. I wanted her to 'phone and put you off,
but she said you would understand when you'd read the letter and that
there was something she wanted you to do for her."
Sandy ripped open the envelope and his eyes flew down the page. Its
contents struck him like a blow--none the less hard because it had been
vaguely anticipated--and a half-stifled exclamation broke from him.
"Sandy dear"--it ran--"I'm going to vanish out of your life, but we've
been such good pals that I can't do it without just a word of good-bye,
not of justification--I know there's none for what I'm going to do.
But I know, too, that there'll be a little pity in your heart for me,
and that you, at least, will understand in a way why I've had to do
this, and won't blame me quite so much as the rest of the world. I'm
going away with Maryon, and by this afternoon, when you come to fetch
me for our motor spin, I shall have taken the first step on the new
road. Nothing you could have said would have altered my determination,
so you need never think that, Sandy boy. I know your first impulse
will be to put the 'stink-pot' along at forty miles an hour in wild
pursuit of me. But you can spare your petrol. Be very sure that even
if you overtook me, I shouldn't come back.
"I don't expect to find happiness, but life with Maryon can never be
dull. There'd never be anything to occupy my mind at Trenby--except
soup jellies. So it would just go running round and round in
circles--with the memory of all I've missed as the pivot of the circle.
I'm sure Maryon will at least be able to stop me from thinking in
circles. He's always flying off at a tangent--and naturally I shall
have to go flying after him.
"And now there's just one thing I want you still to do for me. _Tell
Kitty_. I couldn't leave a letter for her, as it might have been found
almost at once. You won't get this till you come over for me in the
afternoon, and by that time Maryon and I shall be far enough away.
Give Kitty all my love, and tell her I feel a beast to leave her like
this after her angel goodness to me. And say to her, too, that I will
write very soon.
"Good-bye, Sandy boy."
"Well? Well?" Kitty's patience was getting exhausted. Moreover there
was something in the set look on Sandy's face that frightened her.
He handed her the letter.
"She's bolted with Maryon Rooke," he said simply.
When Kitty had absorbed the contents of the letter she looked up at him
blankly. The shock of it held her momentarily speechless. Then, after
what seemed to her an endless silence, she stammered out:
"Nan--gone! And it's too late to stop her!"
"It's not!" The words leapt from Sandy's lips. "We _must_ stop her!"
The absolute determination in his voice infected Kitty. She felt her
courage rising to the emergency.
"What can we do?" she asked quietly. She was as steady as a rock now.
Sandy dropped into a chair, absent-mindedly lighting one of the
"gaspers" he had so recently purchased.
"We must work it out," he said slowly. "Rooke told you they were going
to Clovelly, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"Well, they're not going anywhere near. That was just a blind. They
took the London road."
"Even that mightn't mean they were going to London. They could branch
off anywhere."
"They could," agreed Sandy, puffing thoughtfully at his cigarette.
"But we've got to remember Rooke has a house in Westminster--nice
little backwater. It's just on the cards they might go there
first--wherever else they intended going on to afterwards--just to pick
up anything Rooke might want, arrange about letters and so on."
"Yes?" There was a keen light in Kitty's eyes. She was following
Sandy's thought with all a woman's quickness. "And you think you might
overtake them there?"
"I must do more than that. I must _be there first_--to receive them."
"Can you do it in the time?"
"Yes. By train. They're travelling by car, remember."
Kitty glanced at the clock.
"It's too late for you to catch the early train from St. Wennys Halt.
And there's no other till the afternoon."
"I shan't risk the afternoon train. It stops at every little wayside
station and if it were ten minutes late I'd miss the express from
Exeter."
"Then you'll motor?"
"Yes, I'll drive to Exeter, and catch the train that gets in to town
about half-past seven. Maryon isn't likely to reach London till about
an hour or so after that."
"That's settled, then. The next thing is breakfast for two," said
Kitty practically. "I'd only just begun when you came, and I--I'll
start again to keep you company. You must be absolutely starving by
now."
She rang the bell and gave her orders to the servant who appeared in
answer.
"What about Aunt Eliza?" she went on when they were alone again. "I'll
'phone her you're having breakfast here, shall I?"
"Yes. And, look here, we've got to make things appear quite ordinary.
The mater knows I'm supposed to be taking Nan for a run this afternoon.
You'd better say I'm coming straight back to fetch the car, as we're
starting earlier."
Kitty nodded and hurried off to the telephone.
"It's all right," she announced, when she returned. "Aunt Eliza took
it all in, and merely remarked that I spoilt you!" She succeeded in
summoning up a faint smile.
"Then that coast's clear," said Sandy. "Who else? There's Roger.
What shall you do if he comes over to-day?"
"He won't. Lady Gertrude had a heart attack yesterday, and as Isobel
Carson's away, Roger, of course, has to stay with his mother. He
'phoned Nan last night."
"I think that safeguards everything this end, then," replied Sandy,
heaving a sigh of relief. "Allah is very good!"
After that, being a man with a long journey in front of him, he
sensibly applied himself to the consumption of bacon and eggs, while
Kitty, being a woman, made a poor attempt at swallowing a cup of tea.
Half an hour later he was ready to start for home.
"It's the slenderest chance, Kitty," he reminded, her gravely. "They
may not go near London. . . . But it's the _only_ chance!"
"I know," she assented with equal gravity.
"And in any case I can't get her back here till the morning. . . .
Good heavens!"--a new thought striking him. "What about the mater?
She'll be scared stiff if I don't turn up in the evening! Probably
she'll ring up the police, thinking we've had a smash-up in the car.
That would settle everything!"
"Don't worry about it," urged Kitty. "I'll invent something--'phone
her later on to say you're stopping here for the night."
Sandy nodded soberly.
"That'll do it, and I'll--Oh, hang! What about your servants? They'll
talk."
"And I shall lie," replied Kitty valiantly. "Nan will be staying the
night with friends. . . . Each of you stopping just where you
aren't!"--with a short strained laugh. "Oh, leave things to me at this
end! I'll manage, somehow. Only bring her back--bring her back,
Sandy!"