“I don’t see the joke,” he said, but his look of cold anger was fading rapidly.
“The joke,” I said, “is a particularly funny one. I have quarrelled with the entire Jervaise family and their house-party. I have been openly accused by Frank Jervaise of having come to Thorp-Jervaise solely to aid you in your elopement; and my duplicity being discovered I hastened to run away, leaving all my baggage behind, in the fear of being stood up against a wall and shot at sight. I set out, I may add, to walk fourteen miles to Hurley Junction, but on the way I discovered this car, from which you seem to have extracted some vital organ. So I settled myself down to wait until you should return with its heart, or lungs, or whatever it is you removed. And now, my dear chap, I beseech you to put the confounded thing right again and drive me to Hurley. I’ve suffered much on your account. It’s really the least you can do by way of return.”
He stared at me in amazement.
“But, honestly, no kid…” he remarked.
I saw that, naturally enough, he could not make head or tail of my story.
“Oh! it’s all perfectly true, in effect,” I said. “I can’t go into details. As a matter of fact, all the Jervaises’ suspicions came about as a result of our accidental meeting on the hill last night. I said nothing about it to them, you understand; and then they found out that I hadn’t slept in the house, and Miss Tattersall discovered by accident that I knew you by sight—that was when you came up to the house this morning—and after that everything I’ve ever done since infancy has somehow gone to prove that my single ambition in life has always been to help you in abducting Brenda Jervaise. Also, I wanted to fight Frank Jervaise an hour or two ago in the avenue. So, my dear Banks, have pity on me and help me to get back to London.”
Banks grinned. “No getting back to London to-night,” he said. “Last train went at 3.19.”
“Well, isn’t there some hotel in the neighbourhood?” I asked.
He hesitated, imaginatively searching the county for some hotel worthy of receiving me.
“There’s nothing decent nearer than Godbury,” he said. “Twenty-three miles. There’s an inn at Hurley of a sort. There’s no town there to speak of, you know. It’s only a junction.”