“It’s only for one night,” I remarked.
“Oh! yes,” he said, obviously thinking of something else.
“Too far for you to go?” I asked.
He glanced at his wrist watch. “Quarter past five,” he said. “It’d take me the best part of two hours to get there and back—the road’s none too good.”
“You don’t want to go?” I said.
“Well, no, honestly I don’t,” he replied. “The fact is I want to see Mr. Jervaise again.” He smiled as he added, “My little affair isn’t settled yet by a good bit, you see.”
I sheered away from that topic; chiefly, I think, because I wanted to avoid any suggestion of pumping him. When you have recently been branded as a spy, you go about for the next few days trying not to feel like one.
“Isn’t there any place in the village I could go to?” I asked.
He shook his head. “There’s one pub—a sort of beerhouse—but they don’t take people in,” he said.
“No lodgings?” I persisted.