"Well, he never got home," snapped Julie. "And you'd best get your clothes on and help me find him. You were both as drunk as pigs, I suppose. If he's lying dead in a ditch it's you that'll have the blame."
"Aw now, Julie!"
"Don't Julie me, you fool! Get dressed and do something."
"I'll come. You wait," and he went inside, and put his head into a basin of water, and threw on his clothes, and came out presently looking anxious and disturbed now that his sluggish brain had begun to work.
"Where you been looking?" he asked.
"Nowhere. I expected to find him here."
"We had a glass or two and then he started off home. He could walk all right.... Did you.... You didn't see anything wrong ... anything ... at the Coupée?" he asked, with a quick anxious look at her.
"No, I didn't. What do you mean? Oh, mon Dieu!" and she started down the road at a run, with Peter lumbering after her and the neighbours in a buzzing tail behind.
The cold douche had cooled Peter's hot head, the running quickened his blood and his thoughts, a sudden grim fear braced his brain to quite unusual activity.
As he ran he recalled the events of the night before; their meeting with Gard and Nance; Tom's scurrilous insults.