"What!" I cried, opening my eyes wide, "she Dolly St. John! Well, you do surprise me; and she gone to Dover this very afternoon—leastwise, if it isn't to Dover, it's to Folkestone—but Biggs would tell us. Are you quite sure about it, sir?"
He swore he was sure, and went on to tell me that if I hadn't been the greatest chump in Europe I would have known it from the start.
"Where are your eyes?" he kept asking me; "do you mean to say you can drive a woman for ted days in London and not dow her again three months afterwards? A fine sort of chap you are. You deserve a statue in the Fools' Museum, upod my word you do. Now take me to the car, and let's see what's the matter. I'll have more to say to you whed we're in London, you mark that, my man."
I didn't give him any cheek, much as I would have liked to. My game was to protect Miss Dolly as far as I was able, and to hold my tongue for her sake.
Clearly her position was perilous. If this dun of a Jew went up to the house, and told them her name was not More, but St. John, the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance, and her chance of marrying John Sarand about equal to mine of mating with the crowned heads of Europe. What to do I knew no more than the dead. I had no messenger to send up to the house; I dare not leave Moss to get talking to the people of the inn; and there I was, helping him to fit and time the new magneto, and just feeling I'd pay ten pounds for the privilege of knocking him down with his own spanner.
We finished the job in about half an hour, and the Renault started up at once. Moss hadn't spoken of Miss Dolly while we were at work; but directly the engine started he remembered his business, and turned on me like a fury.
"Whed did you say she started off?" he asked.
"About two this afternoon, I think."
"In whose car?"
"Why, his lordship's, of course."