Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/186

“Our object,” said Turnbull, shortly, “is to make an effective demonstration”; and after that word, MacIan looked at his vision again and found it smaller than ever.

“It would be in the newspapers, of course,” said the girl. “People read the newspapers, but they don’t believe them, or anything else, I think.” And she sighed again.

She drove in silence a third of a mile before she added, as if completing the sentence: “Anyhow, the whole thing’s quite absurd.”

“I don’t think,” began Turnbull, “that you quite realise— Hullo! hullo — hullo — what’s this?”

The amateur chauffeur had been forced to bring the car to a staggering stoppage, for a file of fat, blue policemen made a wall across the way. A serjeant came to the side and touched his peaked cap to the lady.

“Beg your pardon, miss,” he said with some embarrassment, for he knew her for a daughter of a dominant house, “but we have reason to believe that the gentlemen in your car are—” and he hesitated for a polite phrase.

“I am Evan MacIan,” said that gentleman, and stood up in a sort of gloomy pomp, not