Mrs. Forbes smiled again at that.
"What in the world should each of us have thought if we had both been bound and gagged in that car?" she cried.
"I know what I think," said her husband emphatically. "You are going straight to bed now, and you'll take ten grains of bromide before lying down. Evelyn, I appoint you nurse. Don't leave your mother till she is sound asleep."
Mrs. Forbes rose at once. She admitted, though reluctantly, that a night's rest was necessary to steady her nerves.
"Ah!" she sighed, "I shall be so glad when all this turmoil is ended, and we are settled for the season in Sutherland."
"Sutherland, ma'am," inquired Handyside. "Isn't that in the far north of Scotland?"
"Yes."
"It would be, just as the North Foreland is in Kent."
Theydon explained his friend's theory of geographical names in the British Isles, and on that lightly humorous note the ladies disappeared. When they were gone Forbes quickly gave a sinister turn to their talk. He produced a letter from his pocket.
"Listen to this," he said.