Some distance to the left along the Dragon's Rest Jenny was detaching a bicycle from the ivy and steadfastly refusing to look round. A light-haired young man in a sports-coat had just opened the central gate in the wall round Fleet House. Sauntering, her head high, a girl in a grey silk frock walked in the same direction. Though there was no visible sign of Dr. Laurier, you could hear a car-motor start up close at hand.
It had been a swift, decisive exodus. The emotional echoes still swung like bells inside your head. H.M., the corners of his mouth turned down, turned and surveyed Martin.
"You been havin' a good time?" he demanded.
"Listen, sir," Martin began. He paused for a few seconds, and tried again more calmly. "Yesterday, before Jenny and I left Willaby's, we told you pretty well everything."
"You did, son. Well?"
"But you didn't hear about the execution shed. You didn't hear—" Again Martin stopped. "Women!" he added, with one savage and sweeping gesture.
Then, shouting something, he also plunged out through the open door.
Chapter 7
Martin had slowed his run to a walk before he reached the central gate of Fleet House.
Well to the north and well to the south in the low stone wall there was a wide iron gate through which a gravelled carriage-drive curved up to the front terrace and returned to the road again like the arc of a bow. In the middle of the wall there was a smaller central gate; from it a narrower path, between lines of trees, ran straight up to the terrace like an arrow to the bow.