Jones, on the stroke of the Colonel, had risen from the seat, and with the aid of a wall-trained plum tree, had reached the top of the wall and dropped on the other side into a bed of mignonette. It was a hockey day at the school, and there were no girls in the garden. He ran across it to the open front gate and reached the road, ran down the road, which was deserted, and burning in the late afternoon sunshine, reached a side road and slackened his pace. All the roads were of the same pattern, broad, respectable, and lined with detached and semi-detached houses set in gardens, and labelled according to the owner's fancy. Old Anglo-Indian colonels and majors lived here, and one knew their houses by such names as "Lucknow," "Cawnpore," etc., just as one knows azaleas by their blossoms. Jones, like an animal making for cover, pushed on till he reached a street of shops. A long, long street, running north and south with the shop fronts on the eastern side, sun-blinded and sunlit. A peep of blue and perfect sea shewed at the end of the street, and on the sea the white sail of a boat. Sandbourne-on-Sea is a pleasant place to stay at, but Jones did not want to stay there. His mind was working feverishly. There was sure to be a railway station somewhere, and, as surely, the railway station would be the first place they would hunt for him. London was his objective. London and the National Provincial Bank, but of the direction or the distance to be travelled, he knew no more than the man in the moon. CHAPTER XXIV HE RUNS TO EARTH As the fox seeks an earth, he was seeking for a hole to hide in. Across the road a narrow house, set between a fishmonger's shop and a sea-side library, displayed in one of its lower windows a card with the word "Apartments." Jones crossed the road to this house and knocked at the hall door. He waited a minute and a half, ninety seconds, and every second a framed vision of Hoover in pursuit, Hoover and his assistants streaming like hounds on a hot scent. Then he found a decrepit bell and pulled it. Almost on the pull the door opened, disclosing a bustless, sharp-eyed and cheerful-looking little woman of fifty or so, wearing a cameo brooch and cornelian rings. She wore other things but you did not notice them. "Have you rooms to let?" asked Jones. "Well, sir, I have the front parlour unoccupied," replied the landlady, "and two bed-rooms on the top floor. Are there any children?" "No," said Jones. "I came down here alone for a holiday. May I see the rooms?" She took him to the top front bed-room first. It was clean and tidy, just like herself, and gave a cheery view of the shop fronts on the opposite side of the street.