Markfield seemed to reflect for a moment or two before answering.
“Tell you what,” he said at last, “I've got my car at the door—I'm just down from the Research Station. If you like, I'll pilot you to Silverdale's. I'll manage it better than you possibly could, on a night like this. You can drive behind me and keep your eye on my tail-light. You could get home again all right, I expect; it's easier, since you've only got to find your way to a main street and stick to it.”
Dr. Ringwood made no attempt to dissemble his relief at this solution of his difficulties.
“That's decent of you, Trevor. Just let me have a look at the map before we start. I'll take it with me, and I expect I'll manage to get home again somehow or other.”
He glanced ruefully round the comfortable room and then went to the window to examine the night.
“Thicker than ever,” he reported. “You'll need to crawl through that fog.”
In a few minutes, Dr. Ringwood had put on his boots, warned Shenstone to attend to the telephone in his absence, and got his car out of the garage. Meanwhile Markfield had started his own engine and was awaiting the doctor at the gate.
“Hoot like blazes the moment you lose sight of me,” he recommended. “If I hear your horn I'll stop and hoot back. That should keep us in touch if the worst comes to the worst.”
He climbed into his driving-seat and started slowly down the road. Dr. Ringwood fell in behind. The fog was denser than ever, and the headlights of the cars merely illuminated its wreaths without piercing them. As soon as his car had started, Dr. Ringwood felt that he had lost touch with all the world except the tail-light ahead of him, and a few square feet of roadway immediately under his eyes. The kerb of the pavement had vanished; no house-window showed through the mist. From time to time the pale beacon of a street-lamp shone high in the air without shedding any illumination upon the ground.
Once the guiding tail-lamp almost disappeared from view. After that, he crept up closer to the leading car, shifted his foot from the accelerator to the brake, and drove on the hand-throttle. His eyes began to smart with the nip of the fog and his throat was rasped as he drew his breath. Even in the saloon the air had a lung-catching tang, and he could see shadows in it, thrown by the nimbus of the headlights in the fog.