Mr. Amberley brought his Bentley to a standstill alongside the little Austin and leaned across the vacant seat beside him. "Is anything wrong?" he said, not without a touch of impatience. Really, if on the top of having lost his way he was going to have to change a wheel or peer into the bowels of the Austin's engine, it would be the crowning annoyance.

The girl - he guessed rather than saw that she was quite young - did not move. She was standing by the off door of the Austin with her hands thrust into the pockets of her raincoat. "No, nothing," she said. Her voice was deep. He got the impression that something was wrong, but he had not the smallest desire to discover the cause of the underlying agitation in her curt words.

"'Then can you tell me if I'm on the right road for Greythorne?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said ungraciously.

A somewhat sardonic gleam shot into Mr. Amberley's eyes. "A stranger to these parts yourself, no doubt?"

She moved her head and he saw her face for a moment, a pale oval with a mouth he thought sulky. "Yes, I am. Practically. Anyway, I've never heard of Greythorne. Good night."

This was pointed enough, but Mr. Amberley ignored it. His own manners were, his family informed him, abrupt to the point of rudeness, and the girl's surliness rather pleased him. "Tax your brain a little further," he requested. "Do you know the way to Upper Nettlefold?"

The brim of her hat threw a shadow over her eyes, but he was sure that she glowered at him. "You ought to have taken a turning to the left about a mile back," she informed him.