"If we can get Joyce well enough to move away from Nigel's damned cordon of police," I said, "and if we can hide her somewhere till Friday week, friend Gartside's yacht is going to solve a good many problems."

"It's not going to find Sylvia," he answered.

That was unquestionably true.

"I don't know how that's going to be managed," I said.

We sat without speaking until dinner-time, and ate a silent dinner. At eleven o'clock he left the room, changed out of his dress clothes into a tweed suit, and put on a hat and brown walking boots.

"Where are you off to?" I asked when he came back.

"I'm going to find Sylvia."

The expression in his eyes convinced me—if I wanted any convincing—that the strain of the last few days had proved too much for him.

"Leave it till the morning," I said in the tone one adopts in talking to lunatics and drunken men.

"She wants me now."