Certainly it was a wet week-end when he met Ruth Eden, though he happened to be driving home along that lonely stretch of the Windsor road after a strictly lawful occasion.
To her, at first, he was only the providential man in the glistening leather coat who came striding across from the big open Hirondel that had skidded to a standstill a few yards away. She had seen his lights whizzing up behind them, and had managed to put her foot through the window as he went past — Mr. Julian Lamantia was too strong for her, and she was thoroughly frightened. The man in the leather coat twitched open the nearest door of the limousine and propped himself gracefully against it, with the broken glass crunching under his feet. His voice drawled pleasantly through the hissing rain.
"Evening, madam. This is Knight Errants Unlimited. Anything we can do?"
"If you're going towards London," said the girl quickly, "could you give me a lift?"
The man laughed. It was a short soft lilt of a laugh that somehow made the godsend of his arrival seem almost too good to be true.
An arm sheathed in wet sheepskin shot into the limousine — and Mr. Lamantia shot out. The feat of muscular prestidigitation was performed so swiftly and slickly that she took a second or two to absorb the fact that it had indubitably eventuated and travelled on into the past tense. By which time Mr. Lamantia was picking himself up out of the mud, with the rain spotting the dry portions of his very natty check suit and his vocabulary functioning on full throttle.
He stated, amongst other matters, that he would teach the intruder to mind his own unmentionable business; and the intruder smiled almost lazily.
"We don't like you," said the intruder.
He ducked comfortably under the wild swing that Mr. Lamantia launched at him, collared the raving man below the hips, and hoisted him, kicking and struggling, onto one shoulder. In this manner they disappeared from view. Presently there was a loud splash from the river bank a few yards away, and the stranger returned alone.
"Can your friend swim?" he inquired interestedly.