“Damnation, yes!” answered a voice.  “I’ve run into this infernal wall and damaged my radiator.  Lost my mascot, too, damn it!  Sort of thing that always happens when you’re in a hurry.”

“Who is it?” said Dick sharply.

He was standing almost touching the car, but he could not see the speaker who seemed to be bent and hunting for something on the ground.

A sound that was curiously like a chuckle answered him out of the darkness, but no reply came in words.

Dick stood motionless.  “Saltash!” he said incredulously.  “Is it Saltash?”

“Why shouldn’t it be Saltash?” said a voice that laughed.  “Thank you, Romeo?  Come and help me out of this damn fix!  Oh, I’m fed up with playing benevolent fool.  It gives me indigestion.  Curse this fog!  Afraid I’ve knocked a few chips off your beastly wall.  Ah!  Here’s the mascot!  Now perhaps my infernal luck will turn!  What are you keeping so quiet about?  Aren’t you pleased to see me?  Not that you can—­but that’s a detail.”

“Are you—­alone?” Dick said, an odd tremor in his voice.

“Of course I’m alone!  What did you expect?  No, no, my Romeo, I may be a fool, but I’m not quite such a three-times-distilled imbecile as that amounts to.  Have you got a gun there?”

“No!” Dick’s voice sounded half-strangled, as though he fought against some oppression that threatened to overwhelm him.  “What have you come back for?  Tell me that!”

“I’ll tell you anything you like,” said Saltash generously; “including what I think of you, if you will help me to shove this thing into a more convenient locality and then take me in and give me a drink.”

“You’d better get the car up the drive here,” came Fielding’s voice out of the darkness.  “You can see more or less what you’re doing under the lamp.  Wait while I get my own out of the way!”

“Excellent!” said Saltash.  “I’m immensely grateful to you, sir, for not smashing me up.  What, Romeo?  Did I hear you say you wished he had?  I didn’t?  Then I must have sensed battle, murder and sudden death in your silence.”

But whatever Dick’s silence expressed he refused stubbornly to break it.  When the squire had manoeuvred his car out of the way, he lent his help to pushing Saltash’s across the road and up the drive into safety, but he did not utter a single word throughout the performance.

“A thousand thanks!” gibed Saltash.  “Now for the great reckoning!  I say, you will give me a drink, won’t you, before you send me to my account?  The villain always has a drink first.  He’s entitled to that, at least.”

Again Fielding’s voice came through Dick’s silence.  “Yes, come up to the schoolhouse!” he said.  “We can’t talk here.  Have you got the key, Dick?  Ah, that’s right.”

He found Dick and thrust a hand through his arm, leading him, stiffly unresponsive, across the road.

At the gate Dick stopped and spoke.  “Let him go in front!” he said.