"Not by train," said Nigel. "Every station's watched...."
"By car."
"By airship, equally. The woman's seriously ill; you'd kill her."
Paddy Culling looked at his friend a little enviously.
"You know a lot about the inside of that house," he said.
"By the simple expedient of the sovereign in season to the kitchen-maid, who, like the rest of her class, was unquestionably loyal, but more unquestionably impecunious. The woman Davenant's in London, and they'll find her in three days. Where she is, I can't tell you. I may know more when I've seen the officers' reports to-morrow morning. Sylvia I'll undertake to find within a week. The woman Millington will give her away, and if she doesn't, the woman Davenant will have to."
"When you've caught her," said Culling quietly.
"Not even when you've caught her," said Gartside with greater knowledge. "I know the breed. It's pedigree stock."
Nigel lit a cigarette with ostentatious elaboration.
"Even pedigree stock has its less spirited moments," he said. "For example, when it's seriously ill. I fancy I could make the woman Davenant tell me all I wanted in three minutes."