'You believe me,' I said gratefully.

'Of course I do,' and he held out his hand. 'I believe everything
out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.'

He was very young, but he was the man for my money.

'I think they're off my track for the moment, but I must lie close
for a couple of days. Can you take me in?'

He caught my elbow in his eagerness and drew me towards the
house. 'You can lie as snug here as if you were in a moss-hole. I'll
see that nobody blabs, either. And you'll give me some more
material about your adventures?'

As I entered the inn porch I heard from far off the beat of an
engine. There silhouetted against the dusky West was my friend,
the monoplane.

He gave me a room at the back of the house, with a fine outlook
over the plateau, and he made me free of his own study, which was
stacked with cheap editions of his favourite authors. I never saw the
grandmother, so I guessed she was bedridden. An old woman called
Margit brought me my meals, and the innkeeper was around me at
all hours. I wanted some time to myself, so I invented a job for him.
He had a motor-bicycle, and I sent him off next morning for the daily
paper, which usually arrived with the post in the late afternoon. I
told him to keep his eyes skinned, and make note of any strange
figures he saw, keeping a special sharp look-out for motors and
aeroplanes. Then I sat down in real earnest to Scudder's note-book.