When
the detective had gone off to busy himself with that department of
the business, to telephone and write his report, when Herries had
gone back, probably to the brandy bottle, and the Prime Minister had
blandly sauntered away toward a comfortable armchair in another part
of the garden, Horne Fisher spoke directly to Harold March.
"My friend," he said, "I want you to come with me at once; there is
no one else I can trust so much as that. The journey will take us
most of the day, and the chief business cannot be done till
nightfall. So we can talk things over thoroughly on the way. But I
want you to be with me; for I rather think it is my hour."
March and Fisher both had motor bicycles; and the first half of
their day's journey consisted in coasting eastward amid the
unconversational noise of those uncomfortable engines. But when they
came out beyond Canterbury into the flats of eastern Kent, Fisher
stopped at a pleasant little public house beside a sleepy stream;
and they sat down to eat and to drink and to speak almost for the
first time. It was a brilliant afternoon, birds were singing in the
wood behind, and the sun shone full on their ale bench and table;
but the face of Fisher in the strong sunlight had a gravity never
seen on it before.
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