"
"Yes, sir."
"I haven't time to fetch my own," he explained.
"Where are you off to?"
"I am off to see the Chief Constable, Knox. Aylesbury must be
superseded at whatever cost. If the Chief Constable fails I shall not
hesitate to go higher. I will get along to the garage. I don't expect
to be more than an hour. Meanwhile, do your best to act as a buffer
between Aylesbury and the women. You understand me?"
"Quite," I returned, shortly. "But the task may prove no light one,
Harley."
"It won't," he assured me, smiling grimly. "How you must regret, Knox,
that we didn't go fishing!"
With that he was off, eager-eyed and alert, the mood of dreamy
abstraction dropped like a cloak discarded. He fully realized, as I
did, that his unique reputation was at stake. I wondered, as I had
wondered at the Guest House, whether, in undertaking to clear Colin
Camber, he had acted upon sheer conviction, or, embittered by the death
of his client, had taken a gambler's chance. It was unlike him to do
so. But now beyond reach of that charm of manner which Colin Camber
possessed, and discounting the pathetic sweetness of his girl-wife, I
realized how black was the evidence against him.
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