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Before Roy could reply the elderly man and the two women appeared at the open door of the car.

“This is most kind of you, gentlemen. Most kind,” quavered the elderly man, as he helped his wife and daughter into the car. “We had almost given up hope———.”

“Mind the handle on that side,” Roy warned, cutting short the thanks decisively. “It’s a bit loose.”

He turned to the elder of the two women.

“Not afraid of a bit of fast going, madam?” he asked, with a smile.

The younger woman answered him.

“You cannot go too fast for us,” she said, in a low, strained tone, as she sank back in the seat between her parents.

Roy nodded appreciatively and looked at her with frank admiration.

“That suits me,” he said, then turned about in embarrassment as her head dropped upon her breast.

Harley curbed his anger with the greatest difficulty. He felt that he was being deliberately cheated by the driver: and the thought that Patricia should be the subject of ribald comment in the idle moments of taxi-drivers infuriated him. The knowledge that his domestic affairs were the common property of the town filled him with a desire to murder.

“O.K.!” said the bowser-hand, as Roy paid him. “Keep a sharp look-out this side of Waipukurau. The road begins to break somewhere on the hill, I believe.”

“Thanks,” replied Roy.

He started the engine and let in the clutch.

“What do you know of Pat Weybourn?” Harley demanded again, as the car swung out of the Square.

He spoke in a low, tense voice. Roy pretended that he had not heard, and continued to drive with his gaze fixed upon the road ahead. Harley repeated the question a little louder.