"Who is it?" said Dick sharply.
He was standing almost touching the car, but he could not see the speaker who seemed to be bent and hunting for something on the ground.
A sound that was curiously like a chuckle answered him out of the darkness, but no reply came in words.
Dick stood motionless. "Saltash!" he said incredulously. "Is it Saltash?"
"Why shouldn't it be Saltash?" said a voice that laughed. "Thank you, Romeo? Come and help me out of this damn fix! Oh, I'm fed up with playing benevolent fool. It gives me indigestion. Curse this fog! Afraid I've knocked a few chips off your beastly wall. Ah! Here's the mascot! Now perhaps my infernal luck will turn! What are you keeping so quiet about? Aren't you pleased to see me? Not that you can—but that's a detail."
"Are you—alone?" Dick said, an odd tremor in his voice.
"Of course I'm alone! What did you expect? No, no, my Romeo, I may be a fool, but I'm not quite such a three-times-distilled imbecile as that amounts to. Have you got a gun there?"
"No!" Dick's voice sounded half-strangled, as though he fought against some oppression that threatened to overwhelm him. "What have you come back for? Tell me that!"
"I'll tell you anything you like," said Saltash generously; "including what I think of you, if you will help me to shove this thing into a more convenient locality and then take me in and give me a drink."
"You'd better get the car up the drive here," came Fielding's voice out of the darkness. "You can see more or less what you're doing under the lamp. Wait while I get my own out of the way!"