He rose and took both her hands in his.
“The moment anything definite happens, you shall know. Meanwhile, try to put it all out of your mind for a bit, anyhow till you’re stronger. Edward was right when he said you ought never to have been mixed up in this.”
She sank back on her pillows with a tired sigh.
“All right. I can rest more easily if I know that I can trust you to keep me posted. And come again soon, Hatter, please!”
He looked back as he reached the door and saw that her eyes were already closed. Evidently his visit, short as it had been, had taken what little strength she possessed.
He went straight from her room to the garage where he had housed his bicycle. One of the chauffeurs had cleaned and overhauled it and had it waiting in readiness. Now that his first stiffness was past Fayre was beginning to enjoy this despised method of getting about the country and he pedalled down the drive and out onto the highroad quite unperturbed by the grin on Bill Staveley’s face as he rode past him on the chestnut mare he had put at Fayre’s disposal at the beginning of his visit. Fayre, who had promised himself some hunting next winter, looked after him with only a passing feeling of regret. His mind was busily engaged with other things.
He kept a sharp lookout on the fields on either side of the road, but he had gone some distance before he found one that apparently interested him sufficiently to make him dismount and stand for a minute or two looking into it.
Lord Staveley had been having the gates on the estate repainted and this one had evidently only been finished that day; nevertheless Fayre leaned heavily against it, with the result that, during his absorbed contemplation of three cows and a diminutive donkey, he managed to adorn his coat with a long smear of bright green paint. He took the misfortune with commendable fortitude and, picking up his bicycle, rode quickly off in the direction of Gregg’s house.
Arrived there he went straight round to the garage at the back of the house. He found the doctor’s man polishing the brass of a small two-seater.
“I don’t know whether the doctor’s in,” he said genially. “If he is, I’ll go round in a minute and have a few words with him, but I’ve just discovered this beastly stuff on my coat and I wondered if you could let me have a drop of petrol to clean it off with. I must have got it leaning over a gate near here.”