Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/117

"You are wasting your young life," said T. X. bitterly. "You ought to be a fortune teller."

"This settles the matter," he said, in the cab on the way back. "Find out the first train for Tavistock in the morning and wire the George Hotel to have a car waiting."

"Why not go to-night'?" suggested the other. "There is the midnight train. It is rather slow, but it will get you there by six or seven in the morning."

"Too late," he said, "unless you can invent a method of getting from here to Paddington in about fifty seconds."

The morning journey to Devonshire was a dispiriting one despite the fineness of the day. T. X. had an uncomfortable sense that something distressing had happened. The run across the moor in the fresh spring air revived him a little.

As they spun down to the valley of the Dart, Mansus touched his arm.

"Look at that," he said, and pointed to the blue heavens where, a mile above their heads, a white-winged aeroplane, looking no larger than a