This was too much.
“O-o-oh!” cried Rosemary. “I wasn’t going——” She stopped dead there and swallowed violently. “I wasn’t going to—to tell you,” she continued desperately. “But I saw a car going fast the other day. Not—not so fast as that, though,” she added with a sickly smile.
P.C. Albert Bloke put a hand to his head.
With shaking fingers, Major Peruke was lighting a cigarette: as he did so a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his nose. Virginia looked as though about to burst into hysterical laughter. The idiotic grin which had lately inhabited Derry’s face seemed to have shifted bodily to that of Roger.
Once again the constable referred to his notes.
“I called upon them to stop, but they took no notice.”
“Perhaps—perhaps they didn’t hear you,” blurted Derry Peruke.
“That’s their look-out, sir. One can’t do no more than shout.” He turned to Virginia. “And now if you please, madam, I’d like to take your statemen’.”
A rustle of consternation greeted this curt announcement.
As the fellow felt for a pencil—