As for any punishment the law might give him, well, he would not be afraid of that. Public sympathy would be on his side, as Elaine would never dare to give as her reason for leaving him what she had overheard in his incoherent mutterings when he was coming out of unconsciousness from the motor accident. She would not face the scandal. He felt quite confident there.
Next, he looked about for an accomplice and fixed upon a Captain Hubert Blemming whose acquaintance he had made at a Maida Vale gambling club. What the man had ever been captain of no one seemed to know, but Percy had taken his measure, and quite correctly, too, as that of an unscrupulous blackguard who would do anything for money. The man was educated and had the speech and bearing of a gentleman, but he mixed with people of
