"I've been - I - have - been having - tea with - with a fellow," announced the youth.
"Strong tea. I should go home now if I were you." 'Thash - what I was going to do," said the youth. "He's a fellow I met - th'other day. He's a nice fellow. I don' care what anyone says, he's a nishe — a nice fellow. Shirley - Shirley doesn't like him. What I shay - say is bloody snob'ry. Thash what I say."
Mr. Amberley's expression changed from contemptuous amusement to sudden interest. "Shirley," he repeated.
"Thash right," nodded the youth. He looked hazily at Amberley, yet with a certain cunning in his face. "She's my sister."
"If you get into my car I'll return you to her," said Amberley.
The youth's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I'm not going to - to tell you anything. See?"
"All right," Amberley said peaceably and managed to thrust him into the car.
He was not an easy passenger. While he babbled aimlessly all went well, but when he had switched off the engine for the second time Amberley came near to losing his temper.
Mark cringed a little before the wrath in his face and wanted to get out. He seemed to become obsessed all at once with the idea that he was being kidnapped. It was with considerable difficulty that Amberley succeeded in allaying his fears, and then he began to talk about the murder. Very little of what he said made sense, nor did Amberley press him to be more explicit. He said several times that no one was going to make a cat's-paw of him, maundered a little of hidden dangers and of dark plots, and asserted loudly that whoever else got murdered it would not be himself. As Amberley swung the car into the lane that led to Ivy Cottage he suddenly grasped his sleeve and said earnestly: "I didn't think there was anything in it. Shirley thought so, but I didn't. A hoax. Thash what I thought. But it isn't. I see it isn't now. I've got to be careful. Not speak to anyone. Not give anything away."
"I shouldn't," said Amberley, drawing up at the gate of the cottage. He got out of the car and went up the flagged path to the front door. He knocked, heard a dog bark, and in a few minutes was confronting Shirley Brown.