wrote on the bottom of his piece of paper, underneath his message :
"Drive the car after dark into Poole, and see that you get a lock-up garage. We shall be staying in Bournemouth another two or three days."
She herself remained in the hotel that evening and all the next day. She had no fear that Miss Foxley would recognize George. She herself was the danger. George in his uniform and leggings was like any other stocky, superhuman chauffeur. In his flannel suit and little red beret, which, unbeknown to its owner, she had seen on his head several times, he was, in her view, like nothing on on earth. But then, red was not her favourite colour, particularly that shade of it referred to by Mr. Wooster as a fairly brightish scarlet. George, in his tomato-like crown, might, and did, attract a certain amount of notice, but he was not in the least likely to be connected in the mind of anyone who had only set eyes on him for a brief space of time, and at a distance, and at the wheel of a car, with Mrs. Bradley's sedate and respectable servant.
They had left Miss Foxley at her toll-house on Tuesday morning. On Friday morning George produced for Mrs. Bradley's inspection the developed and printed snapshots.
"Excellent, George," said Mrs. Bradley. "Get some enlargements postcard size, and then I think the hunt will be up."
"It will be all up, madam," replied George, "if she gets on our track before we've got all our proofs."
"The photographs should set the ball rolling, anyhow," said Mrs. Bradley. "I wonder whether she will have the hardihood to go to Pond to look for us."
"I shouldn't be surprised, madam, if she'd been. She hired a car yesterday and was driven in the right direction."
"Pity you couldn't have followed her," his employer suggested. George looked wounded.
"I've done better, madam, I fancy. I'm in touch with the bloke—chap—garage-proprietor who drove her. What's more, he did all the asking, I shouldn't wonder. I'll get on to him this afternoon, if he hasn't got a job on, and find out where they went and what they did. If he has got a job on, it will have to be this evening."
"Excellent," said Mrs. Bradley. Miss Foxley, it transpired, had gone to Pond. She had affected to take some interest in the ruins of Beaulieu Abbey, then they had come back across Beaulieu Heath to Brockenhurst, and so, by way of secondary roads, to Pond. There the driver had been asked to enquire whether a car answering to the description of Mrs. Bradley's— "pretty fair description, too, madam, according to what this chap said, but she hadn't been able to spot our number-plates" —had been seen in the neighbourhood. The occupants also had been described. "The car was referred to as 'chauffeur-driven,' madam," said George, "but she must have described you very carefully, very carefully indeed."
Mrs. Bradley cackled, but did not ask for a repetition of the description. She fancied that it might embarrass George to give it. She merely said :
"Strange that so observant a lady did not learn our number-plates by heart, George, was it not?"
George would not permit himself to wink at his employer, but his left eyelid trembled slightly.
"Perhaps not so very strange, madam," he replied.
"I see," said Mrs. Bradley. "Who sups with the devil must have a long spoon."
George assented, but did not know, either then or afterwards, whether his employer referred to himself, herself, or the painstaking and suspicious Miss Foxley, or whether the proverb was intended as a compliment or a reproach.
On the Saturday morning George was absent. At one o'clock, however, Mrs. Bradley was called away from the table to take a telephone call.
"I am in Minehead, madam, having come here by motorcycle," said George. "The lady returned home by hired car, leaving at eight-thirty this morning, and the hired car is returning to Bournemouth now. There is no possible train back to you until after four o'clock this afternoon, so if you thought of visiting Pond without fear of disturbance ..."
"Thank you very much, George. I will go at once," said Mrs. Bradley. Go she did, leaving her lunch unfinished, to the great grief of the head-waiter, who had personally supervised her choice. She took a taxi into Poole, retrieved the car—George having given up to her the key of the garage and the ignition key on the previous night—and drove to Pond by way of Christ-church and Milton, the most