“Excuse me, Miss Beddingfeld, but I’m just going down in a car. I can drop you and Mrs. Blair at the station.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said hastily. “But there’s no need to trouble you. I—”
“No trouble at all, I assure you. Put the luggage in, porter.”
I was helpless. I might have protested further, but a slight warning nudge from Suzanne urged me to be on my guard.
“Thank you, Mr. Pagett,” I said coldly.
We all got into the car. As we raced down the road into the town, I racked my brains for something to say. In the end Pagett himself broke the silence.
“I have secured a very capable secretary for Sir Eustace,” he observed. “Miss Pettigrew.”
“He wasn’t exactly raving about her just now,” I remarked.
Pagett looked at me coldly. “She is a proficient shorthand typist,” he said repressively.
We pulled up in front of the station. Here surely he would leave us. I turned with outstretched hand—but no.
“I’ll come and see you off. It’s just eight o’clock, your train goes in a quarter of an hour.”
He gave efficient directions to porters. I stood helpless, not daring to look at Suzanne. The man suspected. He was determined to make sure that I did go by the train. And what could I do? Nothing. I saw myself, in a quarter of an hour’s time, steaming out of the station with Pagett planted on the platform waving me adieu. He had turned the tables on