Appearances may be against us--'
"'Look here,' she chipped in. 'Have you been drinking too?'
"'A little,' I admitted. 'But you may trust me to be discreet.
How this responsibility comes to be mine, I can't guess: but it is
urgent that I restore you to your home, or at any rate find you a
decent lodging for the night. Where is your home?' I asked.
"'Walsall,' said she. 'And I wish I had never left it!'
"'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'I won't be so ungallant as to echo that
regret. But, speaking for the moment as a taxi-driver, I put it that
Walsall is a tidy distance. Were you, by some process that passes my
guessing, on your way to Walsall when we, as it seems, intercepted
you in Piccadilly?'
"'Not at all,' she answered. 'On the contrary, I was wanting to get
to Shorncliffe Camp.'
"I mused. 'From Walsall? . . . They must have opened a new route
lately.'
"'It's this way,' she told me. 'My husband's a sergeant in the Royal
Artillery. He's stationed at Shorncliffe: and I was to meet him
there to-night, travelling through London. When I got to London,
what with the shops and staring at Buckingham Palace, and one thing
and another, I missed the last train down.
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