“Then there’s nothing more to be said; but I suppose I must admit that you meant well,” she answered, and giving him a level glance moved to the door.

Foster held it open and after she had gone went down to the smoking-room.  Perhaps he had been rash, but this did not matter.  On the whole, he did not think the girl would tell Daly about his warning, and if she did, he probably knew already that Foster was at the hotel.  In fact, it was rather significant that they had not met.  Still, as she was not going to Canada, he had not gained much, except perhaps by exciting her suspicions and so preventing Daly’s making some use of her in his plots.  This, however, was not Foster’s object, although he imagined Daly had some practical reason for his philandering.  It was for the girl’s sake he had interfered and her attitude puzzled him.

She could not have been altogether unsuspecting, or she would have bitterly resented his attack upon her lover, but her blush and confusion showed she had scruples and was rather the prey of a foolish infatuation than an accomplice.  She knew something, but he felt sure she did not know in what a serious crime her lover was implicated.  Foster, however, would not dwell on this.  He hoped she would return to Edinburgh, but if she did not, he had done his best.  He must be ready to follow Daly in the morning, and going to another garage hired a car and then warned Pete, whom he had sent to a different hotel.  A fast car would reach Liverpool in five or six hours.

There was only one thing that disturbed him; he had not heard from the police, but it would be dangerous to disobey an order by telegram, while if Gordon arrived before Daly left, awkward complications might arise.  Foster, however, could do nothing to prevent this and presently went to bed.

Getting up in the dark next morning, he went to the garage.  The air was very raw and a fog hung over the town, but one or two electric lights burned in the gloomy shed, where an attendant was doing something.  Daly’s car stood where Foster had last seen it, but the cover was off the engine and some tools and small springs lay about.  As there was no sign of the driver, it did not look as if Daly meant to start soon.

“You open early,” he said to the attendant.  “Nobody seems to be going away just yet.”

“I’m here earlier than I need have been,” the man grumbled.  “By the way the fellow who brought me has left his car, he won’t be ready for another hour.”

Foster, who had learned what he wanted to know, returned to the hotel and his breakfast was served in a comer of the big dining-room.  He imagined that Daly had seen it was a bad morning and had not got up as soon as he meant.  The dining-room was cold and only lighted near Foster’s table, which did not look as if anybody else was expected.

“I dare say you’d sooner have people who get up later,” he remarked to the waiter who brought him another dish.