“I dare say. He appears to have some knowledge of scientific subjects. Now what do you want me to do, Max?”
“Will you do it?”
“Implicitly—subject to the usual reservations.”
“Keep your man on Creake in town and let me have his reports after you have seen them. Lunch with me here now. ’Phone up to your office that you are detained on unpleasant business and then give the deserving Parkinson an afternoon off by looking after me while we take a motor run round Mulling Common. If we have time we might go on to Brighton, feed at the ‘Ship,’ and come back in the cool.”
“Amiable and thrice lucky mortal,” sighed Mr Carlyle, his glance wandering round the room.
But, as it happened, Brighton did not figure in that day’s itinerary. It had been Carrados’s intention merely to pass Brookbend Cottage on this occasion, relying on his highly developed faculties, aided by Mr Carlyle’s description, to inform him of the surroundings. A hundred yards before they reached the house he had given an order to his chauffeur to drop into the lowest speed and they were leisurely drawing past when a discovery by Mr Carlyle modified their plans.
“By Jupiter!” that gentleman suddenly exclaimed, “there’s a board up, Max. The place is to be let.”
Carrados picked up the tube again. A couple of sentences passed and the car stopped by the roadside, a score of paces past the limit of the garden. Mr Carlyle took out his notebook and wrote down the address of a firm of house agents.
“You might raise the bonnet and have a look at the engines, Harris,” said Carrados. “We want to be occupied here for a few minutes.”
“This is sudden; Hollyer knew nothing of their leaving,” remarked Mr Carlyle.