He stopped in his search suddenly and listened. Above his head he heard a light patter of feet, and smiled. It was his boast that he never forgot a voice or a footfall.
"That's my little friend on her way back, running like the deuce, to tell the doctor," he said. "I have something under an hour before the shooting starts!"
CHAPTER XXIII
AT THE DOCTOR'S FLAT
Dr. van Heerden did not hurry his departure from his Staines house. He spent the morning following Oliva's marriage in town, transacting certain important business and making no attempt to conceal his comings and goings, though he knew that he was shadowed. Yet he was well aware that every hour that passed brought danger nearer. He judged (and rightly) that his peril was not to be found in the consequences to his detention of Oliva Cress well.
"I may have a week's grace," he said to Milsom, "and in the space of a week I can do all that I want."
He spent the evening superintending the dismantling of apparatus in the shed, and it was past ten o'clock on Tuesday before he finished.
It was not until he was seated by Milsom's side in the big limousine and the car was running smoothly through Kingston that he made any further reference to the previous afternoon.