CHAPTER FOURTEENMacdonald stayed and talked to Elizabeth Meldon for well over half an hour, and it was almost dark before he drove on. About a mile from Garthmere he made out a man’s figure walking ahead of him in the gloom and he slowed up as he overtook and called, “Would you like a lift?”
“Thanks! Would I not! Footslogging isn’t my idea of bliss.”
Charles Garth scrambled into the car beside Macdonald saying, “I’ve come out for a drink. The fact that I’m willing to walk two and a half miles to a pub and then two and a half miles back may give you an idea of how much I want a drink.”
“You don’t care for your village local?”
“My God!” groaned Charles. “Think it out—and have a heart. If I go into the bar there’s a sudden deathly hush—and then they start talking about the weather in hear
