When George woke again it had grown completely dark outside, and McHarg was up and stirring about in the bedroom, evidently looking for the light. George got up and switched the light on in the sitting-room, and McHarg came in.
Again there was an astonishing transtormation in him. His short sleep seemed to have restored his vitality, and restored it to a degree and in a direction George had not wanted. He had hoped that a few hours of sleep would calm McHarg and make him see the wisdom of getting a really sound rest before proceeding farther on his travels. Instead, the man had wakened like a raging lion, and was now pacing back and forth like a caged beast, fuming at their delay and demanding with every breath that George get ready to depart instantly.
“Are you coming?” he said. “Or are you trying to back out of it? What are you going to do, anyway?”
George had waked up in a semi-daze, and he now became conscious that the door-bell was ringing, and had been ringing for some time. It was probably this sound which had aroused them both. Telling McHarg that he’d be back in a moment, George ran down the stairs and opened the door. It was, of course, McHarg’s chauffeur. In the excitement and fatigue of the afternoon’s event he had completely forgotten him, and the poor fellow had been waiting all this time there in his glittering chariot drawn up before Webber’s modest door. It was not yet quite five o’clock in the afternoon, but dark comes early in the dismal wintry days of London’s ceaseless fog and drizzle, and it was black as midnight outside. The street lights were on, and the shop fronts were shining out into the fog with a blurred and misty radiance. The street itself was still and deserted, but high up over the roof-tops the wind was beginning to swoop in fitful gusts, howling faintly in a way that promised a wild night.
The little chauffeur stood patiently before George when he opened the door, holding his visored cap respectfully in his hands, but he had an air of restrained anxiety about him which he could not conceal. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but I wonder if you know whether Mr. Mc’Arg ‘as changed ‘is plans?”
“Plans? Plans?” George stammered, still not quite awake, and he shook his head like a dog coming out of the water in an effort to compose himself and bring order to his own bewilderment. “What plans?”
“About going to Surrey, sir,” the little man said gently, yet giving George a quick and rather startled look. Already the painful suspicion, which later in the evening was to become a deep-rooted conviction, that he was alone and under the criminal direction of two dangerous maniacs, had begun to shape itself in the chauffeur’s consciousness, but as yet he betrayed his apprehension only by an attitude of solicitous and somewhat tense concern. “You know, sir,” he continued quietly, in a tone of apologetic reminder, “that’s where we started for hearlier in the hafternoon.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Yes, I remember,” George said, running his fingers through his hair and speaking rather distractedly. “Yes, we did, didn’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” he said gently. “And you see,” he went on, almost like a benevolent elder speaking to a child—“you see, sir, one is not supposed to park ‘ere in the street for so long a time as we’ve been ‘ere. The bobby,” he coughed apologetically behind his hand, “‘as just spoken to me, sir, and ‘as told me that I’ve been ‘ere too long and will ‘ave to move. So I thought it best to tell you, sir, and to find out if you know what Mr. Mc’Arg intends to do.”
“I—I think he intends to go on with it,” George said. “That is, to go on to Surrey as we started out to do. But—you say the bobby has ordered you to move?”
“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur said patiently, and held his visored cap and looked up at George and waited.
“Well, then—” George thought desperately for a moment, and then burst out: “Look here, I’ll tell you what you do. Drive round the block—drive round the block----”
“Yes, sir,” the chauffeur said, and waited.
“And come back here in five minutes. I’ll be able to tell you then what we’re going to do.”
“Very good, sir.” He inclined his head in a brief nod of agreement, put on his cap, and got into his car.
George closed the door and went back up the stairs. When he entered the sitting-room, McHarg had on his overcoat and hat and was pacing restlessly up and down.
“It was your driver,” George said. “I forgot about him, but he’s been waiting there all afternoon. He wants to know what we’re going to do.”
“What we’re going to do?” McHarg shrilled. “We’re going to get a move on! Christ Almighty, man, we’re four hours late already! Come on, come on, George!” he rasped. “Let’s get going!”