ich isn't half a mile
from this very door."

He came a step nearer and thrust the ten-pound note under my very nose.
"It's Lord Hailsham's place--straight up the hill to the right and on
to the high road from Bishop's Stortford. There's a party for a silver
wedding, and Miss Davenport is staying there with her father and
mother. Bring her to this house and I'll give you fifty pounds.
There's ten as earnest money. She's over age and can do what she
likes--and it's no responsibility of yours, anyway."

I took the note in my hand and put a question.

"Do I drive to the front door--I'm thinking not?"

"You drive to the edge of the spinney which you'll find directly you
turn the corner. Wait there until Miss Davenport comes. Then drive
her straight here and your money is earned. I'll answer for the rest
and she shall answer for herself."

I nodded my head, and, folding up the note, I put it in my pocket. The
night was clear when I drove away from the inn, but there was some mist
in the fields and a goodish bit about the spinney they had pointed out
to me. A child could have found the road, however, for it was just the
highway to Newmarket; and when I had cruised along it a couple of
hundred yards, to the very gates of Lord Hailsham's house, I turned
about and stood off at the spinney's edge, perhaps three hundred yards
away. Then I just lighted a cigarette and waited, as I had been told
to do.

It was a funny job, upon my word. Sometimes I laughed when I thought
about it; sometimes I had a bit of a shiver down my back, the sort of
thing which comes to a man who's engaged in a rum affair, and may not
come well out of it. As for the party Lord Hailsham was giving, there
could be no doubt about that. I had seen the whole house lighted up
from attic to kitchen, and some of the lights were still glistening
between the pollards in the spinny; while the stables themselves seemed
alive with coachmen, carriages, and motor-cars. The road itself was
the only secluded spot you could have pointed out for the third of a
mile about--but that was without a living thing upon it, and nothing
but a postman's cart passed me for an hour or more.

I should have told you that I had turned the car and that she now stood
with her headlights towards home. The mists made the night very cold,
and I was glad to wrap myself up in one of the guvnor's rugs and smoke
a packet of cigarettes while I waited. From time to time I could he