I had half a mind to turn back and thus throw him off the scent if he were a detective; nevertheless, compelled as I was to act warily, I strolled on through the village, and out upon the open road, up the hill in the direction of Gaythurst.
I glanced at my watch and found it already a quarter-past three. But nobody was yet in sight. Probably Dawnay was standing concealed somewhere behind the hedge in order to satisfy himself that the coast was quite clear before approaching me.
Behind, at some distance away, I heard the hum of an approaching motor-car, and, stepping to the side of the road, prepared to be suffocated by the thick white dust.
The car swung through the village and rushed up the hill, but as it came behind me slowed down, until it passed me at quite a slow pace. Then I saw it was a powerful limousine, painted and upholstered in stone-grey, and within sat a woman alone.
A few yards in front of me it stopped dead, and the woman leaned out of the door, when, to my utter amazement, I recognised her to be the same pretty young girl whom I had seen in Highgate Cemetery—the mysterious person who had so tenderly placed fresh flowers upon the grave of Melvill Arnold.
“Excuse me!” she exclaimed, addressing me in a musical voice, as she opened the door. “I believe you are Mr Kemball, are you not?”
“That certainly is my name,” I said, raising my straw hat instinctively.
“Well, I—I’ve come here to meet you,” she laughed merrily. “Would you come inside, and then I can tell you all.”
So at her invitation I got in beside her, when the ear moved off swiftly again, and next moment we were swinging along towards Northampton, the driver evidently having already received his instructions.
“I suppose I ought to explain, Mr Kemball, that Mr Harvey Shaw, the gentleman known to you as Dawnay, deemed it wiser not to come and meet you in person, because—well—” and she laughed sweetly, displaying even rows of pearly teeth. “I think you probably realise the reason.”