Gate address, and then held it up
before us. "See anything queer about this?"

We looked and saw that it was dated "Thursday."

"There's something fishy," said he. "Can I have the car?"

"Of course."

"I'm going to run 'em both to earth. I want Barbara to come along. I can
tackle men right enough, but when it comes to women, I seem to be a bit
of an ass. Besides--you'll come, won't you?"

"With pleasure, if I can get back early this afternoon."

"Early this afternoon? Why, my dear child, I want you to be prepared to
come to Havre--all over France, if necessary."

"You've got rather a nerve," said I, taken aback by the vast coolness of
the proposal.

"I have," said he curtly. "I make my living by it."

"I'd come like a shot," said Barbara, "but I can't leave Susan."

"Oh, blazes!" said Jaffery. "I forgot about that. Of course you can't."
He turned to me. "Then Hilary'll come."

"Where?" I asked, stupidly.

"Wherever I take you."

"But, my dear fellow--" I remonstrated.

He cut me short. "Send him to his bath, Barbara dear, and pack his bag,
and see that he's ready to start at ten sharp."

He strode out of the door. I caught him up in the corridor.

"Why the deuce," I cried, "can't you do your manhunting by yourself?"

"There are two of 'em and you may come in useful." He faced me and I met
the cold steel in his eyes. "If you would rather not help me to save a
woman we're both fond of from destruction, I can find somebody else."

"Of course I'll come," said I.

"Good," said he. "Ask Barbara to order a devil of a breakfast."

He marched away, looking in his bath-gown like twenty Roman heroes
rolled into one, quite a different Jaffery from the noisy, bellowing
fellow to whom I had been accustomed. He spoke in the normal tones of
the ordinary human, very coldly and incisively.

I rejoined Barbara. "My dear," said I, "what have we done that we should
be dragged into all these acute discomforts of other people's lives?"

She put her hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps, my dear boy, it's just
because we've done nothing--nothing otherwise to justify our existence.
We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and Susan. If we didn't
take a share of other people's troubles we should die of congestion of
the soul."

I kissed her to show that I understood my rare Barbara of the steady
vision. But all the same I fretted at having to start off at a moment's
notice for anywhere--perhaps Havre, perhaps Marseil