But Julius was really not interested in the escaping criminal. On the other hand, he was very much interested in his own emotions. For once he felt that the eyes of the world were on him.
“As I lay there,” he said, “the whole of my life flitted before me. I saw my old school and the schoolmaster waiting for me at the door with his cane behind his back. I saw the public-house what I used to use as a young man, and where I met my good lady, owing to taking her father home one night and helping the family to put him to bed——”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Bobbie, a little unkindly, “it must have been a dreadful experience. Now tell us how you came to be asleep whilst these people were breaking open the safe?”
Mr. Superbus raised his eyebrows and shut his eyes.
“Drugs,” he said. “The coffee must have been drugged last night. I’m a light sleeper. The slightest noise and I’m awake!”
Bobbie nodded.
“Oh, you did hear the pistol then?” he said.
Diana thought his remark somewhat offensive.
CHAPTER XXVI
With the remark that he had to go to his good lady or his good lady would have to come to him, Julius had taken his departure in a motor ambulance. He could as well have gone by taxi, but he expressed a preference for an ambulance. “One with a red cross,” he suggested. Diana had ’phoned a garage, and Julius Superbus made his exit dramatically, covered with blankets, flat on a stretcher, and smiling the smile of one who was not long for this world but wasn’t afraid to go.