I made no answer, but drove quietly through the town, and so by the old high road to St. Albans and thence to Hatfield. Truth to tell, the car interested me far more than old Benny or his plans. She was steaming beautifully, and I had six hundred pounds' pressure all the time. While that was so I didn't care the turn of a nut whether old Benny lunched at Watford or at Edinburgh, and as for his adventure with the girl--well, you couldn't expect me to go talking about another man's good luck. In fact, I had forgotten all about it long before we were at Hatfield, and when we had lunched and the old chap suddenly remembered that he would like to spend the night at Newmarket, I was not so surprised--for this is the motorist's habit all the world over, and there's the wonder of the motor-car, that, whether you wish to sleep where you are or a hundred miles distant, she'll do the business for you and make no complaint about it. Perhaps you will say that I ought to have been surprised, ought to have guessed that this man was up to no good and turned back to the nearest police station. It's easy to be a prophet after the event; and between what a man ought to do and what he does do on any given occasion, there is often a pretty considerable margin when it comes to the facts. I drove Benny willingly, not thinking anything at all about the matter. When he stopped in the town of Royston and said he would take a cup of tea with a cork to it, I thought it just the sort of thing such a man would do. And I was ready myself for a cigarette and a stroll round--for sitting all that time in the car makes a man's legs stiff, and no mistake about it. But I wasn't away more than ten minutes, and when I got back to the hotel "Benny" was already fuming at the door. "Where have you been to?" he asked in a voice unlike his own--the voice of a man who knows "what's what" and will see that he gets it. "Why weren't you with the car?" "Been to the telegraph office," said I quietly, for no bluster is going to unship me--not much. "Telegraph office!" and here his face went white as a sheet, "what the devil did you go there for?" "What people usually go for, sir--to send a telegram." We looked each other full in the face for a moment, and I could see he was sorry he had spoken. "I suppose you wanted to let your friends know," he put it to me. I said it was just that--for such was the shortest way out of it. "Then get the car out at once and keep to the Newmarket Road. I shall sleep at the Randolph Arms to-night."