“I don’t believe the one of them is any better than the other, and I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that they’ve been warned out of New York. I’m going to make some inquiries about them,” he said.
“Do they know that?” asked Gerard.
“I daresay they do by this time. I’ve made no secret of it since I found out I’d been cheated,” said the baronet angrily.
“Why didn’t you keep your plans to yourself? If you’re wrong, it’s rough upon them, but especially upon the ladies of the family, whom you surely don’t implicate in their brothers’ malpractices—if they are malpractices.”
“I’m not wrong, I can’t be wrong. And as for the ladies, I don’t accuse them of having anything to do with their brothers’ tricks, of course, but one can’t consider those points when one is dealing with rogues. And if you mean Miss Davison, I can only say I’m surprised to find her in such dubious company.”
Now Gerard, unfortunately, had been too much used to seeing Rachel in similar circumstances to be deeply offended by the suggestion. But, doubtful as he felt concerning the circumstances which had made her such an intimate friend of the Americans, he was bent on saving her from the punishment which he knew that they deserved, and which he hoped that she would contrive to escape.
“Well, if you’re right, you can’t be too cautious in the way you go to work to bring them to book. You had far better make inquiries yourself than at once put the matter into other hands,” he suggested.
The baronet shrugged his shoulders. Although he passed for “a bit of a fool,” he was very tenacious of his purpose when once he had made up his mind upon any point, and he had thoroughly resolved upon the course he meant to adopt now. So he said nothing in answer to this, and before Gerard had decided what to say next, they were both startled by an explosion, followed by another, and the next moment the tire of one of the back wheels of the motor-car had burst, and the car itself was on its side in the ditch by the side of the road.
Sir William was shot right over the wheel and into the hedge on the other side of the ditch, while Gerard was flung over the wind screen into the ditch itself.
A minute later he had scrambled out, unhurt but plastered with mud, and was standing, with the chauffeur by his side, looking at the wrecked car, while Sir William, who had regained his feet and was on the other side of the hedge in a stubble-field, was expressing his indignation and annoyance, and, as might have been expected, ascribing the accident to the agency of the Van Santens.