It seemed sent by Heaven. It was a seat, it went somewhere, and it was a hiding place. Seated amongst these people he felt intuitively that a viewless barrier lay between him and his pursuers, that it was the very last place a man in search of a runaway would glance at.

He was right. Whilst the char-a-banc still lingered on the chance of a last customer, the running policeman--he was walking now, appeared at the sea end of the street. He was a young man with a face like an apple, he wore a straw helmet--Northbourne serves out straw helmets for its police and straw hats for its horses on the first of June each year--and he seemed blown. He was looking about him from right to left, but he never looked once at the char-a-banc and its contents. He went on, and round the corner of the street he vanished, still looking about him.

A few moments later the vehicle started. The contents were cheerful and communicative one with the other, conversing freely on all sorts of matters, and Jones, listening despite himself, gathered all sorts of information on subjects ranging from the pictures then exhibiting at the cinema palace, to the price of b.u.t.ter.

He discovered that the contents consisted of three family parties--exclusive of the honeymoon couple--and that the appearance of universal fraternity was deceptive, that the parties were exclusive, the conversation of each being confined to its own members.

So occupied was his mind by these facts that they were a mile and a half away from Northbourne and in the depths of the country before a great doubt seized him.

He called across the heads of the others to the driver asking where they were going to.

"Sandbourne-on-Sea," said the driver.

Now, though the Sandbournites hate the Northbournites as the Guelphs the Ghibellines, though the two towns are at advertis.e.m.e.ntal war, the favourite pleasure drive of the char-a-bancs of Sandbourne is to Northbourne, and vice versa. It is chosen simply because the road is the best thereabouts, and the gradients the easiest for the horses.

"Sandbourne-on-Sea?" cried Jones.

"Yes," said the driver.

The vision of himself being carted back to Sandbourne-on-Sea with that crowd and then back again to Northbourne--if he were not caught--appeared to Jones for the moment as the last possible grimace of Fate. He struggled to get out, calling to the driver that he did not want to go to Sandbourne. The vehicle stopped, and the driver demanded the full fare--two shillings. Jones produced one of his sovereigns but the man could not make change, neither could any of the pa.s.sengers.

"I'll call at the livery stables as I go back," said Jones, "and pay them there."

"Where are you stayin' in the town?" asked the driver.

"Belinda Villa," said Jones.

It was the name of the villa against whose rails he had left the bicycle. The idiocy of the t.i.tle had struck him vaguely at the moment and the impression had remained.

"Mrs. Ca.s.s?"

"Yes."

"Mrs. Ca.s.s's empty."

This unfortunate condition of Mrs. Ca.s.s did not floor Jones.

"She was yesterday," said he, "but I have taken the front parlour and a bed-room this afternoon."

"That's true," said a fat woman, "I saw the gentleman go in with his luggage."

In any congregation of people you will always find a liar ready to lie for fun, or the excitement of having a part in the business on hand; failing that, a person equipped with an imagination that sees what it pleases.

This amazing statement of the fat woman almost took Jones' breath away.

But there are other people in a crowd beside liars.

"Why can't the gentleman leave the sovereign with the driver and get the change in the morning?" asked one of the weedy looking men. This scarecrow had not said a word to anyone during the drive. He seemed born of mischance to live for that supreme moment, diminish an honest man's ways of escape, and wither.

Jones withered him:

"You shut up," said he. "It's no affair of yours--cheek." Then to the driver: "You know my address, if you don't trust me you can come back with me and get change."

Then he turned and walked off whilst the vehicle drove on.

He waited till a bend of the road hid it from view, and then he took to the fields on the left.

He had still the remains of the packet of cigarettes he had bought at Sandbourne, and, having crossed four or five gates, he took his seat under a hedge and lit a cigarette.

He was hungry. He had done a lot of work on four Banbury cakes and an apple.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE ONLY MAN IN THE WORLD WHO WOULD BELIEVE HIM

The tobacco took the edge from his desire for food, increased his blood pressure, and gave rest to his mind.

He sat thinking. The story of "Moths" rose up before his mind and he fell to wondering how it ended and what became of the beautiful heroine with whom he had linked Teresa Countess of Rochester, of Zouroff with whom he had linked Maniloff, of Correze with whom he had linked himself.

The colour of that story had tinctured all his sea-side experiences. Then Mrs. Henshaw rose up before his mind. What was she thinking of the lodger who had flashed through her life and vanished over the back garden wall? And the interview between her and Hoover--that would have been well worth seeing. Then the boy on the bicycle and the screaming invalid rose before him, and that mad rush down the slope to the esplanade; if those children with spades and buckets had not parted as they did, if a dog had got in his way, if the slope had ended in a curve! He amused himself with picturing these possibilities and their results; and then all at once a drowsiness more delightful than any dream closed on him and he fell asleep.

It was after dark when he awoke with the remnant of a moon lighting the field before him. From far away and borne on the wind from the sea came a faint sound as of a delirious donkey with bra.s.s lungs braying at the moon. It was the sound of a band. The Northbourne bra.s.s band playing in the Cliff Gardens above the moonlit sea. Jones felt to see that his cigarettes and matches were safe in his pocket, then he started, taking a line across country, trusting in Providence as a guide.

Sometimes he paused and rested on a gate, listening to the faint and indeterminate sounds of the night, through which came occasionally the barking of a distant dog like the beating of a trip hammer.

It was a perfect summer's night, one of those rare nights that England alone can produce; there were glow worms in the hedges and a scent of new mown hay in the air. Though the music of the band had been blotted out by distance, listening intently he caught the faintest suspicion of a whisper, continuous, and evidently the sound of the sea.

An hour later, that is to say towards eleven o'clock, weary with finding his way out of fields into fields, into gra.s.sy lanes and around farm house buildings, desperate, and faint from hunger, Jones found a road and by the road a bungalow with a light in one of the windows.

A dauntingly respectable-looking bungalow in the midst of a well laid-out garden.

Jones opened the gate and came up the path. He was going to demand food, offer to pay for it if necessary, and produce gold as an evidence of good faith.

He came into the verandah, found the front door which was closed, struck a match, found the bell, pulled and pulled it. There was no response. He waited a little and then rang again, with a like result. Then he came to the lighted window.

It was a French window, only half closed, and a half turned lamp showed a comfortably furnished room and a table laid out for supper.

Two places were set. A cold fowl intact on a dish garnished with parsley stood side by side with a York ham the worse for wear, a salad, a roll of cowslip coloured b.u.t.ter, a loaf of home-made bread and a cheese tucked around with a snow-white napkin made up the rest of the eatables whilst a decanter of claret shone invitingly by the seat of the carver.

There was nothing wanting, or only the invitation.

The fowl supplied that.

Jones pushed the window open and entered. Half closing it again, he took his seat at the table placing his hat on the floor beside him. Taking a sovereign from his pocket, he placed it on the white cloth. Then he fell to.

You can generally tell a man by his claret, and judging from this claret the unknown who had supplied the feast must have been a most estimable man.