Amaryllis, if the word may be used of a sound so pleasant, giggled.
"Well, daddy dear," she replied, "I admit that your friend has a shiny streak running through his horridness. And I like him for worshipping you with his dog's eyes. And I shouldn't wonder if you often find those silver veins in queer places, dad."
She said it like a question but received no response.
"If I've caught on to Pépe's topography," he said, "the road to the right there runs on an easy downward grade for two miles, then dips sharply for another. At the lowest point—they call it Gallowstree Dip—there's another road, to the left, which runs straight to Harthborough Junction—the place we want. But at Gallowstree Dip, says Pépe, we shall find a motor-bike and side-car with two men ready to put our lights out on contact—if there aren't too many witnesses. So when we pass them we've got to be a larger party than two. So we start by going into the bar here, and you're going to swallow bread and cheese and beer, there's a good daughter."
Amaryllis nodded. "But, Dick," she said, "if they aren't at Gallowstree Dip?"
"We've got to make our plans as we go, and change 'em when we must. It'd seem incredible, wouldn't it—if it weren't for what you've seen and suffered since last night. England! And you and I as much cut off from Bobbies and Bow Street as if we were in Petrograd or Central New Guinea. Suppose we could find a village constable in a cottage—they'd kill him as gaily as they would you or me—but it isn't his at-home day, he's at Timsdale-Horton Races. When this gaff's over, the belated soothsayers will tell me: 'you ought to have roused the police and laid your case before them,' in one of the three great towns that I drove through last night. And what yarn was I to pitch? That there might be murder going to be done at a place called 'The Myrtles'? And what time had I to tell it in? And where'd you be now, daughter, if I'd been two minutes later than I was?"
Ever so gently Amaryllis squeezed his arm against her side in gratitude, and then quivered a little, remembering the horror of Dutch Fridji and her knife—and where last she had seen it.
But Dick went on, as if he had noticed nothing, to tell her of the two letters which had barely yet, he supposed, reached Scotland Yard. He had no certainty, indeed, that the second, given to the landlord of "The Coach and Horses," had even been posted. Before nightfall, at the earliest, therefore, no help could be counted upon from the police.
"Either," said Dick, "we must break through the bars of Melchard's cage, or keep hidden inside it. The bosses of this mob, you see, won't give a damn how many of their people get strafed as long as they suppress us, and get back what I've got in my pocket."
They were now not fifty yards from the horse-trough in front of "The Goat in Boots."