"Yes. Do so. And let's get on the road as soon as possible."
"Very well, sir," responded the man as he entered the car and began packing our suit-cases together while almost immediately the two ladies emerged, the elder one, whose voice was harsh and squeaky, and who was, I noticed, very deformed, thanking me profusely.
We stowed them away as comfortably as possible, and just as the cathedral chimes rang out half-past ten, the ladies gave parting injunctions to their chauffeur, and we drew out of the yard.
I apologised for the dampness and discomfort of an open car, and briefly explained my long journey and its object. But both ladies—the name of the queer little old widow I understood to be Sandford—only laughed, and reassured me that they were all right.
That night I drove myself. With the exhaust opened and roaring, and the siren shrieking, we sped along through the dark, rainy night up by old Sarum, through Netheravon, and across Overton Heath into Marlborough without once changing speed or speaking with my passengers. As we came down the hill from Ogbourne, I had to pull up suddenly for a farmer's cart, and turned, asking the pair behind how they were faring.
As I did so I noticed that both of them seemed considerably flurried, but attributed it to the high pace we had been travelling when I had so suddenly pulled up on rounding the bend.
Three-quarters of an hour later I deposited them at their destination, the "Goddard Arms," in Old Swindon, and, descending, received their profuse thanks, the elder lady giving me her card with an address in Earl's Court Road, Kensington, and asking me to call upon her when in London.
It was then half an hour past midnight, but Bennett and I resolved to push forward as far as Oxford, which we did, arriving at the "Mitre" about half-past one, utterly fagged and worn out.
Next day was brighter, and we proceeded north to Birmingham and across once again to the east coast, where the bulk of my work lay.
About a fortnight went by. With the assistance of two well-known staff-officers I had been reconnoitring the country around Beccles, in Suffolk, which we had decided upon as a most important strategical point, and one morning I found myself at that old-fashioned hotel "The Cups," at Colchester, taking a day's rest. The two officers had returned to London, and I was again alone.