He was unquestionably in a parlous state. Bare-headed, unarmed, he could not fail to attract attention in a district where every resident knew the other, nor could he resist capture when the hue and cry went forth. What to do he knew not. Even if he managed to reach the railway station unchallenged, the last train of the day had left for London soon after eleven, and the earliest next morning was timed for five o'clock, too late by many hours to serve his desperate need.
Could he hire a motor car or bicycle? The effort was fraught with every variety of risk. There was a small garage at Easton, but those cunning detectives would be raising the countryside already, and the telephone would close every outlet. For the first time in his life Hilton Fenley realized that the world is too small to hold a murderer. He was free, would soon have the choice of a network of main roads and lanes in a rural district at the dead hour of the night, yet he felt himself securely caged as some creature of the jungle trapped in a pit.
Crossing Jackson's farmyard, not without disturbing a dog just quieting down after the preceding racket, he hurried into the village street, having made up his mind to face the inevitable and arouse the garage keeper. By the irony of fate he passed the cottage in which Police Constable Farrow was lying asleep and utterly unaware of the prevalent excitement, to join in which he would have kept awake all that night and the next.
Then the turn of Fortune's wheel befriended Fenley again. Outside a house stood Dr. Stern's car, a closed-in runabout in which both the doctor and his chauffeur were sheltered from inclement weather. The chauffeur was lounging on the pavement, smoking a cigarette, and Fenley, of course, recognized him. His heart leaped. Let him be bold now, and he might win through. A handkerchief wiped some of the blood off his face where the skin had been broken by the trees, and he avoided the glare of the lamps.
"Hello, Tom," he said, "where is the doctor?"
"Inside, sir," with a glance toward an upper room where a light shone. "What's happened at The Towers, sir? Was it shooting I heard a while since?"
"Yes. A false alarm, though. The police thought they had found some suspicious character in the grounds."
"By jing, sir, did they fire at him?"
Fenley saw that the story was weak, and hastened to correct it.
"No, no," he said. "The police don't shoot first. That was my brother, Robert. You know what a harebrained fellow he is. Said he fired in order to make the man double back. But that is a small matter. Can I have one word with Dr. Stern?"