If he had turned to me then and said, "I suppose I can count on you all right?" I would have been torn between duty and inclination. He did nothing of the sort. He made no reference to his offer of service, in fact he seemed to have completely forgotten it, and I thought it just as well to say nothing. The way he forebore from seizing a perfectly obvious advantage sent him up fifty per cent. in my estimation, and by the time we had reached the heart of the city I was quite willing to do anything he asked me.
"I'll park the car," he said, "and then we'll go off and have some dinner."
"Will we?" I said and eyed my tattered raiment ruefully. "I don't fancy I'm dressed for dinner."
"Um!" he said. "You're not. I'd quite overlooked that. That bars a public dinner. I don't fancy you'll be able to make much of one if you come down to my place. The cook's away. I didn't expect to be back so soon."
"Cook or no cook," I told him, "if you've got anything eatable in the house I'll guarantee to turn it up right. Give me the run of the kitchen and put me next to the meat-safe, and you'll see wonders. I don't know how you feel, but I'm so hungry that I'd make a meal off a pair of kid boots."
"In that case, Carstairs, I think I'd better take you home and see what sort of a culinary expert you are."
With that he twisted the car about and headed out for the eastern suburbs. The place was unfamiliar to me at the time—I hadn't the faintest idea of the street the man lived in—and in the face of what happened later I made no enquiries. As a matter of fact the rush of events crowded all such petty details out of my mind.
"Can you drive a car?" he asked abruptly.
"I can drive anything but an Andean mule," I told him. "I tried once in the Chilian foot-hills, but after the animal dislocated my shoulder I sort of lost heart."
"I gather from the retiring modesty of your last remark," he smiled, "that you consider yourself an expert as regards all other forms of animal and mechanical traction."