They passed the gates of the Hoover establishment. It was open, and an attendant was gazing up and down the street. He looked at the car but he did not recognize the occupant, then several more residential roads were left behind, a highly respectable cemetery, a tin chapel, and the car, taking a hill as Fords know how, dropped Sandbourne-on-Sea to invisibility and surrounded itself with vast stretches of green and sun warmed country, June scented, and hazy with the warmth of summer.
They passed hop gardens and hamlets, broad meadows and grazing cattle, bosky woods and park lands.
Jones, though he had taken the goggles off, saw little of the beauty around him. He was recognising facts, and asking questions of himself.
If Hoover or the police were to call at the garage, what would happen? Knowing the route of the car could they telegraph to towns on the way and have him arrested? How did the English law stand as regards escaped gentlemen with hallucinations? Could they be arrested like criminals? Surely not—and yet as regards the law, who could be sure of anything? Jim, the speechless driver, could tell him nothing on these points.
Towards dusk they reached a fairly big town, and in the very centre of the main street, Jim stopped the car to light the headlamps. A policeman, passing on his beat, paused to inspect the operation and then moved on, and the car resumed its way, driving into a world of twilight and scented hedges, where the glowworms were lighting up, and over which the sky was showing a silvery sprinkle of stars.
Two more towns they passed unhindered, and then came the fringe of London, a maze of lights and ways and houses, tram lines, and then an endless road, half road, half street, lines of shops, lines of old houses and semi gardens.
Jim turned in his seat. “This here’s the Kent Road,” said he. “We’re about the middle of it, which part did you want?”
“This will do,” said Jones, “pull her up.”
He got out, took the four and sixpence from his pocket, and gave Jim two shillings for a tip.
“Going all the way back to-night?” asked he, as he wriggled out of the coat, and handed it over with the goggles.