“Scarcely that, seeing that we have struck a northerly current, and are travelling at the rate of thirty miles an hour, perhaps. That’s Broad Law to the south of us, as I make it out.”
“But why descend at all?”
“Because it sticks in my head that some one in the crowd called you by a name that wasn’t Ducie; and by a title, for that matter, which didn’t sound like ‘Viscount.’ I took it at the time for a constable’s trick; but I begin to have my strong doubts.”
The fellow was dangerous. I stooped nonchalantly on pretence of picking up a plaid; for the air had turned bitterly cold of a sudden.
“Mr. Byfield, a word in your private ear, if you will.”
“As you please,” said he, dropping the valve-string.
We leaned together over the breastwork of the car. “If I mistake not,” I said, speaking low, “the name was Champdivers.”
He nodded.
“The gentleman who raised that foolish but infernally risky cry was my own cousin, the Viscount de Saint-Yves. I give you my word of honour to that.” Observing that this staggered him, I added, mighty slily, “I suppose it doesn’t occur to you now that the whole affair was a game, for a friendly wager?”
“No,” he answered brutally, “it doesn’t. And what’s more, it won’t go down.”