"Beg pardon, sir," interposed Antrim curtly. Antrim had been looking steadily at me. "I understood that this fellow's name was Butler."
"Well, it was Blake when I met him in London," answered Stone, regarding him curiously. "But it's possible that he's going round in disguise as well as the rest of 'em. I'm getting a little tired of all this."
"It's possible he is," said Antrim in a curious voice-and then his big figure disappeared through the gap in the hedge. Stone blinked. There was a pause.
"I'm sorry if I've spoiled anything, he said calmly, "I wouldn't have, if I'd known. But that took me off balance, and if you intend to go around giving false names you ought to let me know in advance. I've always regarded the English as a pretty level-headed sort of people, but, so help me Jinny, this is the queerest country I ever got into! I ought to be in Bristol to-night. And if I ever do catch up with Merrivale, which seems unlikely —‘
I let in the clutch. "He's up there. But there's one thing I'd ask and plead of you: for God's sake stop harping on that tedious joke about disguise — particularly when you meet H.M. And whatever else you do, don't mention his hat."
The car moved down into the main road. I had the satisfaction of seeing Stone put up a hand bewilderedly to his pince-nez, and of creating some mystification on my own account. He seemed to be puffing vigorously at his cigar. But Antrim had bolted like a rabbit at the mention of a false name: why? I had lost any chance I might have had of learning something from Antrim, though it was some consolation to reflect that I hadn't the remotest notion as to the subject on which I might have learned something. It was all a game in the dark, and very shortly I would literally be playing a very dangerous game in the dark.
I took my time over that drive to Moreton Abbot, leaving Torquay by a roundabout way through the deep lanes. But, when I wound into Moreton Abbot, the first street I found was Valley Road. It was very long, very broad, not too well-lighted, and a picture of suburban respectability. There were long ranks of detached and semi-detached houses, neat and low-built, in stucco or brick or stone, imaginatively or sedately painted, but all looking curiously alike in their mere closeness to each other. Each had a small front-garden minutely laid out with flowers. Each had a brown-painted gate inscribed with some more or less relevant name. Most of the houses were lighted; cyclists toiled along the road with plodding pedals; and through an open window a radio was talking hoarsely.
Though it is usually next to impossible to find a house by name rather than by number, I cruised past "The Larches" almost at once. The name was fresh-painted on the gate. It had (surprisingly) a larch like a stunted pine-tree growing on either side of a white-painted front door, and it looked even more respectable than its neighbours. But I was relieved to see that the houses on either side were already dark. There appeared to be an alley running along the rank at the rear, and it might have been the safest way in unobserved; but alleys usually mean watchdogs.
I drove on for several hundred yards, and swung into a gloomy turning labelled Liberia Avenue, where I could stop the car and consider. The question was how far away I should park the car. I pulled up to the kerb and lit a cigarette.
And at the same time a hand fell on my shoulder from behind.