He laughed. Of course it was. He had taken shelter from the rain under the hood of the car for an hour. Then, when the cottage door opened, he had scrambled out and waited for the owner. There had been a few words of explanation. By luck, it was Doctor Stansfield of Fanstead——
“Dr. Stansfield—why——”
“Why of course. He knows you inside and out. A charming fellow. He dropped me here, or rather I dropped him.”
“And he never came in to look after you—a man in your condition? I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I see him.”
He soothed the indignant lady. The good doctor was unaware that anything particular was wrong with him. Poor man, he had been on the go since five o’clock the previous morning—human beings are born inconsiderate of the feelings of others—and he was dog-tired. Too dog-tired even to argue. He would have given a lift to Judas Iscariot, or the Leper of Aosta, so long as he wasn’t worried.
“He nearly pitched us over, at a curve called Hell’s Corner—you know. The near front wheel was just an inch off the edge. And then he stopped dead and flung his hands over his eyes and said: ‘Oh, my God!’ He had lost his nerve. Then when I told his I had driven everything from a General’s Rolls Royce to an armoured car all over Russia in the war, he let me take the wheel. And that’s the whole thing.”
He chatted boyishly, in high spirits, and smoked a cigarette. Mrs. Pettiland went for a clinical thermometer. To her secret disappointment, his temperature was only just above normal. She would have loved to keep him in bed a few days and have the proper ordering of him. A woman loves to have an amazing fool of a man at her mercy, especially if she is gifted with a glimmer of humour. When she left him, he laughed out loud. Well, he had had his adventure with a vengeance. A real old Will-o’-the-Wisp chase, which had landed him, as ever, into disaster. Yet it had been worth it, every bit, until his leg gave out on the quarry hill. Even his slumber he did not regret. His miserable journey back, recalling old days, had its points. It was good to get the better of circumstances.
As to his money which was to have started him in life among coral reefs and conch-shells, that had gone irretrievably. Of course, he could have gone to the nearest police-station. But if the miscreants were arrested, he would have to prosecute. Highway robbery was a serious affair; the stolen belt packed with bank notes, a romantic one. The trial would provide a good newspaper story. There would be most undesirable publicity; and publicity is the last thing a man dead to the world would desire. He shrugged philosophic shoulders. Let the money go. The humour of the situation tickled his vagabond fancy. He was penniless. That was the comical end of his pursuit of the ignis fatuus. The freak finality and inevitability of it stimulated his sense of the romantic. If he had been possessed of real courage, he would have made over all his money, months ago, to Olivia and disappeared, as he was now, into the unknown. His experience of life ought to have taught him the inexorable fatality of compromise. What would he do? He did not know. Drowsy after the day’s fatigue, and very warm and comfortable, he did not care. He curled himself up in the bed and went to sleep.
One afternoon, a week afterwards, he limped into Mrs. Pettiland’s post-office with a gay air.