Now the grey Daimler swept through Chatterham, and the wind stroked his face with cool fragrance. In the sky the fiery streaks had paled; there were white, and violet, and a smokiness of shadow creeping up from the lowlands. There were a few dark clouds, like slow sheep. He remembered the first evening he had walked into Chatterham with Dorothy Starberth, through this mysterious hour of the gold-darkened sky and the faint jangling bells; when a wind ran across the green corn, and the smell of hawthorn grew stronger with dusk. Remembering it, he did not believe that it had been only ten days ago.
"Tomorrow there is an afternoon train from London," he could hear Dr. Fell speaking in the Hag's Nook. "We will meet that train."
The words had finality….
Sir Benjamin said nothing. The Daimler roared against the whipping breeze. Dorothy in New York. Dorothy as his wife. Lord! but it had a funny sound! — every time he thought of that, he thought of himself sitting in a class last year and thinking that if he flunked economics (which, like all intelligent people, he detested), it would be the end of the world. Possessing a wife, he would become suddenly a citizen, with a telephone number and a cocktail-shaker and everything; and his mother would have hysterics; and his father, up twenty-five floors in a law-office at Number One West Forty-Second Street, would drowsily lift an eyebrow and say, "Well, how much do you need?"
The Daimler stopped with a slur of tires in the road. They would have to wait for this respectable citizenship; they would have to wait for a murderer.
In the darkening lane which led to Yew Cottage several figures were awaiting them. Dr. Fell's voice boomed out:
"How is he? Getting better? — I thought so. Well, we're ready." He made a gesture with one cane. "Everybody who was on the scene the night Martin was murdered, everybody who can give evidence, is going to be in at the death now. Miss Starberth didn't want to come, and neither did the rector. But they're both here. I think there will be others waiting for us at the railway station." He added, testily, "Well, climb in, climb in!"
The rector's huge figure loomed out of the lane. He almost stumbled as he assisted Dorothy into the car.
"I'm quite willing, of course," he said. ` `But I don't understand what you said about needing me―"
They had come out of the lane's shadow now. Dr. Fell struck his stick in the dust. He said: