“This charitubulorganisationtowhichIallude——”
Out of the night, sent from heaven, there came a crawling taxicab. Lord Tilbury poured himself in and sank back on the seat, a spent force.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SAM HEARS GOOD NEWS
KAY came out into the garden of San Rafael. Darkness had fallen now, and the world was full of the sweet, wet scents of an autumn night. She stood still for a moment, sniffing, and a little pang of home-sickness shot through her. The garden smelled just like Midways. This was how she always remembered Midways most vividly, with the shadows cloaking the flower beds, the trees dripping and the good earth sending up its incense to a starlit sky.
When she shut her eyes she could almost imagine that she was back there. Then somebody began to whistle in the road and a train clanked into the station and the vision faded.
A faint odour of burning tobacco came to her, and on the lawn next door she saw the glow of a pipe.
“Sam!” she called.
His footsteps crunched on the gravel and he joined her at the fence.
“You’re a nice sort of person, aren’t you?” said Kay. “Why didn’t you come back?”
“I had one or two things to think about.”