The latter thought decided him.

“I’m sure it’s awfully good of Mrs. Bond whom I know so slightly to invite me to stay with her.”

“Nothing, my dear boy.  She’s a very old friend of mine.  I once did her a rather good turn when Maxwell was alive, and she’s never forgotten it.  She’s one of the best women in the world, I assure you,” Benton declared.  “I’ll run along to a garage I know in Knightsbridge and get a car to take us down to Shapley.  It’s right out in the country, and as long as you keep clear of the town of Guildford—­where the police are unusually wary under one of the shrewdest chief constables in England—­then you needn’t have much fear.  Pack up your traps, Hugh, and I’ll call for you at the end of the road in half an hour.”

“Yes.  But I’ll want a dress suit and lots of other things if I’m going to stay at a country house,” the young man demurred.

“Rot!  You can get all you want in Aldershot, Farnham or Portsmouth.  Come just as you are.  Mrs. Bond will make all allowances.”

“And probably have her suspicions aroused at the same time?”

“No, she won’t.  This is a sudden trip into the country.  I told her you had been taken unwell—­a nervous breakdown—­and that the doctor had ordered you complete rest at once.”

“I wish I had stayed in Monte Carlo and faced the charge against me,” declared Hugh fervently.  “Being hunted from pillar to post like this is so absolutely nerve-racking.”

“Why did you go to that woman’s house, Hugh?” Benton asked.  “What business had you that led you to call at that hour upon such a notorious person?”

Hugh remained silent.  He saw that to tell Benton the truth would be to reopen the whole question of the will and of Louise.

So he merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Won’t you tell me what really happened at the Villa Amette, Hugh?” asked the elder man persuasively.  “I’ve seen Brock, but he apparently knows nothing.”

“Of course he does not.  I was alone,” was Hugh’s answer.  “The least said about that night of horror the better, Benton.”

So his father’s friend left the house, while Hugh sought Mrs. Mason, settled his bill with her, packed his meagre wardrobe into a suit-case, and half an hour later entered the heavy old limousine which he found at the end of the road.

They took the main Portsmouth road, by way of Kingston, Cobham and Ripley, until in the cold grey afternoon they descended the steep hill through Guildford High Street, and crossing the bridge, instead of continuing along the road to Portsmouth, bore to the right, past the station, and up the steep wide road over that long hill, the Hog’s Back, whence a great misty panorama was spread out on either side of the long, high-up ridge which in the sunshine gives such a wonderful view to motorists on their way out of London southward.

Presently the car turned into the gravelled drive, and Hugh found himself at Shapley.