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As soon as I got into the morning-room I made straight for the anthracite stove; I was nearly perished with cold from hanging about outside, though it was June. For some reason connected with the old man’s health a stove was kept burning in this room all through the summer; they had not turned on a light but had made up the stove to such an extent that it threw a warm glow all over the room. Compton was sitting on a chair in front of the stove clad only in a shirt, and pulling on a pair of very large grey flannel trousers. Miss Stevenson was moving quietly about the room in the semi-darkness collecting the materials for a meal. I stood warming myself by the fire, and for a time none of us spoke a word.

Compton finished his dressing, stood up, and turned to me. “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, “but I never asked you your name....”

“Stenning,” I said. “Philip Stenning.”

He nodded. “Yes. I don’t think I need try and tell you how grateful I am to you for—for this?” He glanced at the table and the room.

“I don’t think you need,” I said, and laughed. “What comes next?”

He did not seem to have heard my question. He stood for a long time staring down at his feet, warmly lit up in the glow from the stove.

“What comes next?” he said at last. “If I could tell you that I don’t suppose I should be—like this. Plato wanted to know that, didn’t he? and Sophocles—certainly Sophocles. But I’m so rusty on all that stuff now.”

“Come and have some supper,” said the girl from behind the table. “You must be frightfully hungry.”

He roused himself. “I’m not very hungry. But thanks, Joan. What’s that you’ve got there—ham? I’d like a bit of ham. And then I must cut off again.”

“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “Where are you going to?”

He shook his head. “God only knows,” he muttered. “I must lie low for a bit.”

I saw the girl pause in the dim light behind the table, and stare at him. “You must get out of the country somehow, Denis,” she said. “You must get to France.”

He looked at me vaguely. “I suppose that’s the thing to do,” he said at last. “But I’ve got to stay in England for the present.”

She looked at him in that uncomfortable, direct way that she had. “What do you mean—you’ve got to?”

He pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. “I don’t know if you imagine that I cut out of prison for fun,” he said heavily. “Anyway—I didn’t.” He relapsed into silence again, and sat for a time brooding with his eyes on the table.

The girl looked at me helplessly.

I cleared my throat. “I don’t want to butt in on any private business,” I said. “But isn’t this going a bit slowly? I don’t want you to tell me anything that you’d rather not talk about before a stranger. But I owe you a good bit for what you did this afternoon, and I’m ready to help in any way I can. I’ve come here prepared to do so.”

I hope that I may be forgiven for that lie. I thought for a minute, and then continued: “I didn’t quite realize from what you said this afternoon that you really mean to stay in the country. I’ve been thinking about getting you out. I’ll even go so far as to say that I’m pretty sure I can get you to France within the week. I mean that. But if there’s any other way in which I can help I hope you’ll let me know.”

“I don’t want to get you into trouble,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter a damn about me,” I said. “But it seems to me that by staying in England you run a great danger of being caught again—in fact, it’s pretty long odds against you. But—from now onwards you’ve got to think about Miss Stevenson here. If they get you they’ll pretty certainly be able to trace out everyone who’s been in contact with you, and that may mean trouble. I understand that you got out of prison for some reason—and by the way, it would be interesting to learn how you did it. The point I want to make is that if you stay in England it’s up to you to avoid being caught, and it seems to me that’s a far tougher proposition than getting you out of the country.”

“I see what you mean,” he said slowly. “Yes, I see that.”

He turned from me to the table and began to eat. He had had no food for thirty-six hours, he said; at the same time, he had very little appetite and ate a surprisingly small meal. I mixed myself a stiff whisky and sat down by the fire, wondering what on earth was going to happen to this chap. Now that I had time to study him more closely, I liked the look of him. He was much my own build with very much the same hair and complexion, though his hair was short while mine was long and brushed back over my head.

The girl came and sat down opposite me, but we said very little till Compton had finished his meal. I sat drowsing in front of the fire, whisky in hand, and tried to think what was the best line to take if he insisted on staying in England. I wanted to help him. It wasn’t only that he had saved my life; I knew as I sat there in the warm darkness that I should have helped him anyway. I looked round the room in the red light of the stove; it was a comfortable, decently furnished place. I could imagine from the room something of the nature of the owner of the house, the girl’s father. He was a collector of mezzotints; they stared down from all the walls, some beautiful, more grotesque, all very old. He liked old blue china, did the owner of the house; he liked books more for their old calf and vellum bindings than to read. There were soldiers among his ancestors, for the walls were scattered here and there with swords and cases of medals, and over my head there was a framed scroll of honour.

I glanced again at the man at the table, and realized suddenly why it was that I should have helped him in any case. It was because he was so like myself; he was just such a man as I might have been if things had gone a little differently. I might have gone to Oxford too. My father was a naval officer, my mother was a lady of the chorus in a Portsmouth music-hall. It didn’t last long. Soon after I was born there was trouble. I never learned what happened to my mother, but whatever it was my father died of it—of that and of malaria on the China Station. I was brought up all anyhow. That’s what I mean when I say that I would have helped him in any case. It might have been me; it would have been me if I had been the son of Mary instead of the son of Martha. I was Martha all over; I laughed quietly to myself as I thought of the only poet I had ever read:

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock,

It is their care that the gear engages, it is their care that the switches lock.

Yes, I was certainly Martha. I had thought that I was coming into this thing in a purely advisory capacity. I was wrong.

I finished my whisky in one gulp and sat up briskly, most frightfully bucked with life. I knew what we were going to do.

The girl noticed the movement, and asked me what was the matter.

“Nothing,” I said. “But I believe we can work this.”

Compton finished his meal and got up from the table. He turned to the girl. “I’m sorry to have come here like this, Joan,” he said. “It’s a pretty rotten thing to have done, but I didn’t dare to go anywhere where they’d look for me. I don’t know if you believe I had that money or not. That isn’t the point, though. I’m sorry to have come here like this.”

“I don’t believe you took a penny of it,” she said. “I never did.”

He smiled queerly. “Well,” he said, “I did. I took five pounds to tide me over the week-end because I’d forgotten to cash a cheque. I left the account open—I had to, you see, or I wouldn’t have been able to put it back. I was away till the Thursday over that motor accident—as you know. But I never knew anything about the other three thousand; that went into the account on Monday and out again on Tuesday. I couldn’t have laid myself more open to it. At the same time, he was a clever fellow.”

I gathered that he had been secretary to some sort of charitable association. Charity, it was evident, had not begun at home.

I heaved myself up out of my chair, crossed to the table, and took another whisky. “We’ve not got too much time,” I said. “Now look here. Is it quite definite that you’ve got to stay in England?”

He nodded. “I can’t leave England for the present,” he said. “I’ve got one or two things that I must see to before I go.”

His manner of putting it made me smile; he might have been speaking of a business appointment. I think it must have been then that I began to realize that he really cared very little what happened to him. I think it was this very casualness that probably carried him through.

“All right,” I said. “Now there’s just one thing we have to think about, and that’s this. If you get caught it means trouble for all of us. You’ve simply not got to get caught. How long will it be before you can leave the country?”

He thought for a minute. “This is June 6th,” he said. “The 15th.... I could leave England on the 18th. That’s in twelve days’ time, on Monday week.”

“Do you think they’ve tracked you to this part of the country?” I said.

He shook his head. “It’s very difficult to say,” he said. “But I had the most extraordinary luck. I came here by road. I wasn’t out an hour before I got into the back of a motor-lorry that was coming from the prison; I stayed there for about two hours, till it was dark. I don’t think they saw me there. Then we stopped outside a pub; I waited till the coast was clear and got into a field. The pub was on the London road, I think, because presently a motor furniture van stopped for a drink and I heard them talking about London. They were driving all night. I got on top of that and stayed there till daylight; we weren’t far away from here then, on the Henley road. I followed along across country till I got to earth in those woods this morning at about six o’clock. I don’t think anyone saw me.”

I thought of the Stokenchurch constable and realized that if the country had been up in arms over an escaped convict in the neighbourhood I must surely have heard of it.

I drained my tumbler and slammed it down on to the mantelpiece with a sharp rap.

“Now look here,” I said curtly. “You’ve not got a dog’s chance, acting on your own. If you cut off now they’ll have you back in prison again within two days. There’s just one thing we can do for you that will give you a sporting chance. We’ve got to get the attention of the police off you and on to something else. We’ve got to lay a few red herrings. I think I’d better cut off tonight and start laying them.”

I don’t know to this day what made me say that. It may have been a sudden flash from the whisky; I know that the moment I had said it I wished I hadn’t. I wasn’t fit; I was still feeling rotten from the crash and I was most frightfully tired. But even so I was glad at the way the girl took me up.

She looked me straight in the face in that embarrassing way of hers. “What do you mean?” she said.

I laughed, not very merrily. “Why, safety first. If he gets caught it’s all up with us—all the lot of us. We’re all in the same boat now. I don’t know if it would mean quod, but there’d be the hell of a scandal. Now I’m pretty much the same build as Compton. Look at me. Think if I had my hair cut and walked with a limp and wore clothes that didn’t fit me ... I don’t say that anyone who had the photograph of Compton in his hand would mistake us for a minute. But for the others ... I could lay a pretty hot scent.”

“Oh ...” she said. “You can’t do that. It’s not safe.”

I took my glass and helped myself to another whisky.

“It’s not safe to sit here doing nothing,” I said shortly. “I could work out that scheme all right. If anyone’s got a better one, let’s have it.”

“That might work all right for a day or two,” said Compton slowly. “It doesn’t appeal to me much. But you couldn’t possibly keep it up; if you laid a strong enough trail to direct their attention to you they’d get you long before the 18th.”

I shot the whisky down and felt better. “I can fix that all right,” I said. “And incidentally, I’ll get you over to France at the end of that time if you want to go.”

He eyed me steadily. “How would you do that?”

I set down my glass, feeling more myself than I had since the crash. “What I think of doing is this,” I said slowly. “I start off from here and lay a trail to the coast—to Devonshire. I take two days getting down there, perhaps three. I can do that. I can fix it so that they’re damn certain they’re tracing you, and I can do it without being caught myself. In Devonshire I pick up a seven-ton yacht, the Irene, belonging to a pal of mine, and get away to sea on her.”

“Oh ...” said Compton.

I thought for a little. “That would be about the 9th,” I said. “I’d have to leave a pretty clear trail to show which way I’d gone, and get away to sea. Then I’d simply have keep at sea till the 18th; it’s a long time to be single-handed in a small vessel, but I can do it all right. On the evening of the 18th I stand inshore, pick you up, and trot you over to France. Then I think I should cruise on up Channel for a bit to throw off the scent, and come back a week or so later.”

“It’s possible,” said Compton. “Where would you pick me up?”

“The best place would be the Helford River,” I said.

“That’s near Falmouth, you know.”

We discussed the details of the business for half an hour or so. At last I got fed up.

“Well, there it is,” I said. “It’s a perfectly sound scheme and it’ll get you out of the country as soon as you’ve finished whatever it is you want to do.” I looked at my watch; it was a quarter to one. “If I’m going to start off on this I must be well away from here by dawn,” I said. “Now, what is it to be?”

Nobody spoke for a bit, and then Joan Stevenson said: “I can’t see why you should do all this for us, Mr Stenning.”

“Better to be doing this than to be dead,” I said. I turned to the telephone. “That’s settled then. Now, I’ve got one or two things to fix up before I go. May I use your phone?”

We tied a table napkin round the bell to prevent it from ringing and then I got down to it. First I rang up Dorman, the owner of the Irene. He lives in a residential club near Marble Arch; they told me on the phone that he was out dancing and wasn’t back yet. I left a message for him to ring me up, and impressed its urgency on the porter.

Then I rang up Morris. It was no use trying the aerodrome at that time of night, of course, so I rang him at his home. The exchange said they couldn’t get any answer, but I kept them at it and got him in the end. He sounded pretty sleepy.

“Hullo, Morris,” I said, “having a good night? This is Stenning speaking—Stenning. Look here, I’m not coming back to work for a bit—I’m taking three weeks’ holiday. What? No, I’m not coming back to London at all. I’m tired to death. I can’t go on flying like this. I don’t care a damn about that. I’m sending you a report of the crash that you can send on to the Ministry. If you think I’m coming up to Town simply to fill in one of your pink leave forms you’re ruddy well mistaken. I’m taking this leave on medical grounds. I’m not fit to fly for a bit. I told you I wasn’t fit. Now I’m going off for three weeks, as soon as I’ve sent you my report. No, I’m damned if I will.”

He asked where I was speaking from.

“Giggleswick,” I said at random, and rang off.

I turned to the girl. “May I have some paper and a pen, please?” I said. “To write that report.” I crossed to the table and took another whisky. “Then I shall want you to cut my hair for me, if you will.”

She brought me the paper from another room and I settled down at the table to write my report, the glass at my elbow. Compton and the girl sat by the fire close together, talking earnestly in a low tone. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but concentrated my attention on putting my report into official language for the benefit of the Ministry. Their conversation put me off; I never was very good at letter writing, and I don’t suppose I was at my best that evening. I didn’t try to follow what they were saying, but the name Mattani came up over and over again; it had a staccato ring that stood out clearly in their low murmurs. I finished my report at last, read it through, and was annoyed to find that I had said that the engine failed completely at a point about three miles south of Marazan. For a moment I stared at it blankly, wondering if Marazan was a place or a person. Then I struck it out, and wrote in Stokenchurch.

I put the report in an envelope, addressed it to Morris, and gave it to Joan Stevenson to post in the morning. Then I sat down in a chair and she cut my hair; for a first attempt she made a pretty good job of it. When she had finished I went and looked at myself in the glass.

“I believe this is going to work all right,” I said.

Then she got some warm water and bathed the cut over my eyebrow for me. It was a pretty deep cut, one that would serve to identify me for the remainder of my life, but it wasn’t bleeding and it looked healthy enough. She washed it in something that stung me up all right; then she put a bit of clean lint on it and stuck it up with plaster again. Then I changed clothes with Compton. When that was done I went and had another look at myself in the glass.

I was surprised at the change. With my hair cropped and the clothes that Compton had been wearing I really wasn’t at all a bad imitation of him. Joan Stevenson was busy with another meal; I sat down at the table, wrote out a cheque to her for thirty pounds, and gave it to her to cash in the morning. We agreed that she should post the money to “Mr E. C. Gullivant, The Post Office, Exeter—to await arrival.” I had about eight pounds on me, which would carry me to Exeter.

Then Dorman rang up.

“Is that Dorman?” I said. “Stenning speaking—yes, Stenning. I say, I want to borrow the Irene for a bit. Yes. I’d like to take her on charter if I may—I want her for about three weeks. No, really, if you can spare her I’d rather have her that way. I’ll give you six guineas. You’re sure you don’t need her? All right. Now, I want her at once; I want to start the day after tomorrow if I can. She’s at Salcombe? I know it’s pretty short notice. You’ll telegraph to Stevens about her? Good man. Look. Tell him to fill her up full of water, will you? And about two stone of potatoes. The rest of the stuff I’ll have to get in Salcombe.”

Joan Stevenson touched me on the arm. “Tell him that I’ll go down and provision her for you,” she said. “You won’t be able to.”

I covered the transmitter and did some rapid thinking. It would be very convenient to find the vessel already provisioned and ready for sea; at the same time, the girl must be kept out of it.

“You won’t have time to get any food,” she said. “They’ll be after you by that time. I’ll go down tomorrow and fix up everything, if you’ll tell me what to do.”

“Then they’ll get you.”

“No, they won’t. I’ll be back in London twelve hours before you get to Salcombe.”

I uncovered the transmitter. “I say, Dorman,” I said. “There’s a cousin of mine here, a Miss Fellowes, who’s going down to Salcombe to buy the stores for me and put them on board. Tell Stevens to expect a lady with the stores tomorrow or on Friday. Yes, old Stevens knows me. What? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. What did he die of? Really. I’m very sorry. I don’t think I know the son. Anyway, you’ll tell him to expect me the day after tomorrow and to expect a lady first with the grub. It’s all right—I’m not taking the lady on board. I won’t do anything to sully the fair name of the Irene. Oh, just up and down the Channel—I’ve got a holiday sudden-like. You’ll telegraph first thing in the morning? Right you are. Good night.”

I rang off and turned to Joan Stevenson. “Bit of luck there,” I said. “The boatman doesn’t know me. Now look here. I said I’d be there the day after tomorrow—that’s Friday. I probably shan’t get there till the Saturday, but it will keep them up to the scratch if they think I’m coming earlier than I am. Can you go down there tomorrow?”

She nodded. “I can say I’m going up to London for a night,” she said. “I often do that. Then I can catch an express at Reading and be there by tomorrow night.”

“That spendid,” I said. The whisky had killed my fatigue and my mind was in good form for once. I pulled a sheet of notepaper towards me and set to work with her to make a list of the things that she had to get in Salcombe and put on board the Irene.

Twenty minutes later I turned to her. “Now you’ve got to get all that on board on Friday morning,” I said. “You’ve got to catch an afternoon train back to Town. I want to make that pretty clear, please. Anything that you can’t buy or that you haven’t got time to get you must leave to the boatman, Stevens. I don’t want there to be any mistake about that. You’ve got to be out of Salcombe and on your way back to London by two o’clock on Friday. That ought to give you a clear day in which to get away before things start to get warm there. On the other hand, I may be pressed and have to run for Salcombe ahead of my schedule. I may want to get to sea on Friday. If I get there and find you in the neighbourhood still I shall have to dodge back on my tracks. That may be unfortunate for me.”

She nodded. “I’ll be away by two o’clock,” she said.

“Right. Now there’s one thing more. The Irene will be lying in the Bay probably—that’s up the river. I want you to see her brought down to her summer anchorage off the jetty. Tell the boatman that I want her there in order that I can get off at once. See that done yourself: it’s important. And remember, your name is Miss Fellowes, and I’m your cousin.”

I made her repeat her instructions till I was sure she had them perfect, and then I sat down and had a meal. She offered to make me some coffee, but I refused that, had another whisky, and followed it down with a couple of plates of cold ham. One thing she got me, though, that went down well, and that was a little bottle of aspirin. I took four or five of them and they eased off my headache a bit, so that by the time I’d finished my meal I was very nearly fit.

I looked at my watch; it was a little after three. I lit a pipe and strolled to the window. It was a wonderful night. The clouds and the wind were all gone and there was a full moon dying down upon the horizon, big and red. Faint, earthy, flowery smells came in from the garden, and away in the field there was something squeaking plaintively, continuously, as it had been while I was waiting to enter the house. I leaned on the window-sill smoking and wondering what should be my first move; it was clear that I must begin operations at a considerable distance from Stokenchurch. It seemed to me that Abingdon, five miles south of Oxford, would be a good place to lay my first red herring; it was fully twenty-five miles away and on my road to Salcombe.

The curtain was pulled aside and Compton came and stood staring beside me. He didn’t speak, but stood there staring moodily out over the garden, his hands in his pockets. And presently I heard him mutter to himself: “The New Utopia....”

“Eh?” said I. “What’s that?”

He didn’t answer, but began to ask me how I was going to pick him up at the Helford River. I told him about a little beach that there is there close to the entrance; we fixed that I should be there from eleven o’clock till three on the night of the 18th-19th, and again, if he didn’t turn up, on the night of the 19th-20th. If he weren’t there then I would give it up and return to Salcombe.

He understood what he was to do all right, but for the rest he was distrait and moody. I knew all the time that I was talking to him that I held only a part of his attention; he seemed incapable of concentrating his mind on the measures that I was working out for his own safety. I am surprised that this didn’t irritate me; as it is, I can only remember thinking how woefully unfitted he was for the business that he had taken on. I was sorry for him, I think.

He roused himself at last and turned from the window. “I’d have done better on a pig farm,” he said, a little bitterly.

For the moment I didn’t quite see what he was driving at. “I’ve always thought myself that there was money in pigs if you go about it the right way,” I said. “But it needs a good bit of capital. And they say there’s a lot in the breed—more than you’d think. I was talking to a man at Amesbury about it last month.”

He looked at me curiously. “I always had a great fancy to keep pigs,” he said. “Live-stock of all sorts—but pigs in particular. I don’t know why. My grandfather was the same. I used to look forward to it as a thing that I might do when I retired from business. I suppose I hadn’t the courage to break off into it when I was young.”

He paused for a minute, and then he said: “Shall I ever be able to come back to England?”

I knew that the girl was watching us; I could feel her looking at me for my reply, I couldn’t see her, but I knew that she would be standing very straight, looking straight at me from her grave, deep eyes. I knew then what it was that embarrassed me whenever she spoke to me, something that I suppose I had never met in a girl before. Behind her were centuries of tradition, the traditions of a good college, of a good regiment, of a good club. She could have answered his question so much better than I could—but then, I don’t suppose he’d have paid much attention to her.

I checked the emphatic negative, and turned to him. “Man alive,” I said slowly, “you’ve been a ruddy fool over this. What on earth made you break prison?”

He was going to speak, but I stopped him. “I don’t know what it is that you’ve got on hand,” I said, “and I don’t want to. If all goes well we can get you out of the country all right. But—is it worth it?”

He didn’t speak, but stood staring out into the dim shadow of the woods. I went on:

“You’ll never be able to come back to England now, you know, unless it’s under a false name.” It was as if I had been speaking to a child. “You’ve done with England. Your best line—the one that I should try if I were you—is to try and ship before the mast on a French vessel. Become a sailor for a year or two and see where that takes you to. Maybe you’ll end up in America. But you’ve done with England.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I’ve done with England.”

“There’s the alternative,” I said.

“What’s that?”

I knocked my pipe out sharply upon the window-sill. “That you should go back and finish your sentence,” I said. “When you’ve finished it, set up a piggery somewhere here in the south. There’s money in that. In that case I’ll borrow the car and run you up to Scotland Yard in the morning. Don’t think that I’m suggesting this because I’m lazy.”

I turned round and saw the girl standing close behind us. “Don’t you think that would be the best thing to do?” she said.

He shook his head. “I can’t do that,” and from his tone I knew that that was final.

“Right you are,” I said. “It’s time that I was starting. I must be well away from here by daylight.”

The girl produced a rucksack from a cupboard; I had decided that I would pose as an art student or somebody of that sort on a walking tour. I chose an art student because I had knocked about a bit with them in their less artistic moments both in London and Paris, and I knew enough of the jargon to pass with anyone but an artist. The girl helped me to pack the bag with the convict suit and one or two things that she thought would come in handy, including an immense packet of ham sandwiches that she had been cutting all evening.

As she bent over the thing on the floor, tightening its straps, she leaned towards me. “It was frightfully good of you to say that,” she muttered.

“I’m only sorry that he won’t do it,” I said.

She tugged at a strap. “You mustn’t think it’s going to be any easier for him this way,” she said. “I do wish he could tell you about it. You’ve been such a good friend to us.”

We finished with the rucksack. Then we tidied up the room as well as we could, and made sure that there was no trace of Compton left behind us. We couldn’t entirely do away with all evidence that the room had been occupied; the girl would have to see to that with the maids. Then we got out of the window, closed it quietly behind us, and went round to the garage. We had to be pretty quiet here to avoid waking the servants; for silence we pushed the car outside the gate and a hundred yards down the lane. There we started her up, got in, and trundled off for Oxford.

It was about half past four. The girl drove and I sat with Compton in the back seat. He was deep in his own thoughts; for a while he tried absently to make conversation, but soon relapsed into a silence that stretched unbroken through the miles. I remember he asked me if I had any ties in particular, if I was married or engaged.

“Lord, no,” I said. “Nothing like that about me.”

I think he may have learned more from the tone in which I spoke than from my words, because he nodded slowly.

“There’s safety in numbers,” he said. “And it’s really the happiest way, I suppose. Just take what you can get, and be thankful.” He relapsed into silence again, but something in the way he said that had given me a nasty start. It may have been that I was tired. It may have been that it was the sanest, most horrible hour of the twenty-four, when the cold grey dawn comes creeping up over the fields and means the beginning of another blasted day. I only know that my whole life was summed up in those words of his. I only know that they’ve come back to me time after time, and always with the same bitter ring in them. “Take what you can get,” he said, “and be thankful.”

A little later I said: “It’s getting quite light.”

He smiled. “Hassan,” he said, and I wondered what on earth he was talking about.

Thy dawn, O Master of the world, thy dawn;

The hour of the lilies open on the lawn,

The hour the grey wings pass behind the mountains,

The hour of silence, when we hear the fountains,

The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder,

The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder—

He stopped short, it seemed to me in the middle of a sentence. I didn’t remember all this stuff, of course, but long afterwards Joan built up the quotation from my garbled memories, and she wrote down a copy of the lines and gave it to me. I kept that carefully and I have it still—not for the poem, but for another reason.

It was very cold. The rush of cold air made my head sing and throb painfully; I wanted to concentrate on my plans, but couldn’t focus my mind at all. Then I realised that I’d made a slip; I should have brought a flask of that whisky with me. I was sobering up. That meant that I should be no good at all until I had been to sleep; indeed, it was imperative that I should get some sleep soon. I was frightfully done. I had intended to lay my first red herring that very morning and clear off out of the neighbourhood; I saw now that that was impossible. I must lay my red herring after I had slept, or I should be an easy mark.

We went through Stokenchurch, down the Aston Rowant hill, and on over the plain through Tetsworth and finally by Wheatley. I should have gone on through Oxford, but the girl knew a trick worth two of that, and we turned off in Wheatley and for half an hour went wandering through lanes that seemed to lead to nowhere in particular. Presently she stopped the car by the side of the road and pointed to a spire about a couple of miles away.

“That’s Abingdon,” she said.

I took my rucksack and got out of the car. She gave me the map that was kept in the pocket of the car; it was a fine large road map covering the whole of the south of England. We bent over it together and she showed me where I was, about two miles to the west of Abingdon.

“Right you are,” I said. “Now you’d better get along back.” She was to drop Compton at a railway station; it was his business to lie low till the hue and cry was finally established after me. Then she was to get back to Stokenchurch before the servants got downstairs, and be ready to make an excuse and start for Salcombe after breakfast.

She turned to the car, and for a minute we stood together in the road, unwilling to separate. Then I shook hands with them and wished them luck. The girl got in and I started up the car for her, wondering if I should ever see either of them again. Then they drove off. The last I saw of them was Compton looking back at me, white and impassive as he had been all the time. It worried me, that look of his.

Well, there I was. It was about half past five in the morning, and to all appearance it was going to be as hot a day as the day before had been before the rain. I picked up my rucksack and trudged along the road, only half awake, looking for somewhere to sleep.

And then I saw the haystack. It stood by itself in the corner of a field; it was a fairly low one with a tarpaulin pitched over it like a tent. There was nobody about; I summoned up the last of my strength and climbed up on top of it. There was a space about two feet high beneath the tarpaulin. I took off my boots, dug myself a nest, made myself thoroughly comfortable, and fell fast asleep.