Because Adele was with us we started in good time, so that we could go by way of Hickory Hammer and Three Horse Hill.  That way would bring us on to the London road at a point five miles from Brooch, and, while the view from the hill was as fine as any in the neighbourhood, Hickory Hammer was not only extremely ancient, but generally accounted one of the most picturesque villages in the whole of England.

I was driving, with Nobby beside me, while Adele and Berry sat on the back seat.  Our thoughts were not unnaturally dwelling upon the sale, and now and again I caught fragments of conversation which suggested that my brother-in-law was commenting upon the power of money and the physiognomy of Mr. Dunkelsbaum—­whose photograph had appeared in the paper that very morning, to grace an interview—­with marked acerbity.  Once in a while a ripple of laughter from Adele came to my ears, but for the most part it was a grave discourse, for Berry felt very bitter, and Adele, whose father’s father was the son of an English squire, had taken to heart the imminent disseizure with a rare sympathy.

It was five minutes to two when we slid out of Lullaby Coppice and on to the London road.  A furlong ahead the road swung awkwardly to the left—­a bend which the unexpected debouchement of a by-road rendered a veritable pitfall for the unwary motorist.  I slowed for the turn cautiously, for I knew the place, but I was not surprised when, on rounding the corner, we found ourselves confronted with a state of affairs presenting all the elements of a first-class smash.

What had happened was transparently clear.

Huddled between a trolley and the nearside bank, which was rising sheer from the road, was a large red limousine, listing heavily to port and down by the head.  Both vehicles were facing towards Brooch.  Plainly the car had sought to overtake the trolley, which was in the act of emerging from the by-road, and pass it upon the wrong side.  The former, of course, had been travelling too fast to stop, and the burden which the latter was bearing had made it impossible for the other to pass upon the right-hand side.  Three sturdy oaks, new felled, one of them full fifty swaying feet in length, all of them girt by chains on to the trolley’s back, made a redoubtable obstruction.  The chauffeur had taken the only possible course and dashed for the narrowing passage on the left.  A second too late, the car had been pinched between the great wain and the unyielding bank, like a nut between the jaws of the crackers.  But for the action of the carter, who had stopped his team dead, the car would have been crushed to flinders.

The two occupants of the limousine were apparently unhurt, for, when I first saw them, they were standing in the middle of the road, looking anxiously in our direction.  The next moment they were signalling to us violently, spreading out ridiculous arms, as if the tree-trunks were not putting our passage of the road for the present out of the question.