‘Daemonic. And when they break the shell for good… Poor Ferse!’
Fleur’s voice came back to them.
‘She’s beginning to go a bit wonky; I must fill up, Uncle Hilary. There’s a station close here.’
‘Right-o! ’
The car drew up before the filling station.
‘It’s always slow work to Dorking,’ said Fleur, stretching: ‘we can get along now. Only thirty-two miles, and a good hour still. Have you thought?’
‘No,’ said Hilary, ‘we’ve avoided it like poison.’
Fleur’s eyes, whose whites were so clear, flashed on him one of those direct glances which so convinced people of her intelligence.
‘Are you going to take him back in this? I wouldn’t, if I were you.’ And, taking out her case, she repaired her lips slightly, and powdered her short straight nose.
Adrian watched her with a sort of awe. Youth, up to date, did not come very much his way. Not her few words, but the implications in them impressed him. What she meant was crudely this: Let him dree his weird – you can do nothing. Was she right? Were he and Hilary just pandering to the human instinct for interference; attempting to lay a blasphemous hand on Nature? And yet for Diana’s sake they must know what Ferse did, what he was going to do. For Ferse’s sake they must see, at least, that he did not fall into the wrong hands. On his brother’s face was a faint smile. He at least, thought Adrian, knew youth, had a brood of his own, and could tell how far the clear hard philosophy of youth would carry.
They started again, trailing through the traffic of Dorking’s long and busy street.
‘Clear at last,’ said Fleur, turning her head, ‘if you really want to catch him, you shall;’ and she opened out to full speed. For the next quarter of an hour they flew along, past yellowing spinneys, fields and bits of furzy common dotted with geese and old horses, past village greens and village streets, and all the other evidences of a country life trying to retain its soul. And then the car, which had been travelling very smoothly, began to grate and bump.
‘Tyre gone!’ said Fleur, turning her head: ‘That’s torn it.’ She brought the car to a standstill, and they all got out. The off hind tyre was right down.
‘Pipe to!’ said Hilary, taking his coat off. ‘Jack her up, Adrian. I’ll get the spare wheel off.’
Fleur’s head was lost in the tool-box, but her voice was heard saying: ‘Too many cooks, better let me!’
Adrian’s knowledge of cars was nil, his attitude to machinery helpless; he stood willingly aside, and watched them with admiration. They were cool, quick, efficient, but something was wrong with the jack.
‘Always like that,’ said Fleur ‘when you’re in a hurry.’
Twenty minutes was lost before they were again in motion.
‘I can’t possibly do it now,’ she said, ‘but you’ll be able to pick up his tracks easily, if you really want to. The station’s right out beyond the town.’
Through Billingshurst and Pulborough and over Stopham bridge, they travelled at full speed.
‘Better go for Petworth itself,’ said Hilary, ‘if he’s heading back for the town, we shall meet him.’
‘Am I to stop if we meet him?’
‘No, carry straight on past and then turn.’
But they passed through Petworth and on for the mile and a half to the station without meeting him.
‘The train’s been in a good twenty minutes,’ said Adrian, ‘let’s ask.’
A porter had taken the ticket of a gentleman in a blue overcoat and black hat. No! He had no luggage. He had gone off, towards the Downs. How long ago? Half an hour, maybe.
Regaining the car hastily they made towards the Downs.
‘I remember,’ said Hilary, ‘a little further on there’s a turn to Sutton. The point will be whether he’s taken that or gone on up. There are some houses there somewhere. We’ll ask, they may have seen him.’
Just beyond the turning was a little post-office, and a postman was cycling towards it from the Sutton road.
Fleur pulled the car to a walk alongside.
‘Have you seen a gentleman in a blue coat and bowler hat making towards Sutton?’
‘No, Miss, ’aven’t passed a soul.’
‘Thank you. Shall I carry on for the Downs, Uncle Hilary?’
Hilary consulted his watch.
‘If I remember, it’s a mile about to the top of the Down close to Duncton Beacon. We’ve come a mile and a half from the station; and he had, say, twenty-five minutes’ start, so by the time we get to the top we should have about caught him. From the top we shall see the road ahead and be able to make sure. If we don’t come on him, it’ll mean he’s taken to the Down – but which way?’