I would do anything to help you

Mr. Hoopdriver watched the door shut. He had intended to step out into the middle of the room, fold his arms and say, "You are in trouble. I am a Friend. Trust me." Instead of which he stood panting and then spoke with sudden familiarity, hastily, guiltily: "Look here. I don't know what the juice is up, but I think there's something wrong. Excuse my intruding--if it isn't so. I'll do anything you like to help you out of the scrape--if you're in one. That's my meaning, I believe. What can I do? I would do anything to help you." Her brow puckered, as she watched him make, with infinite emotion, this remarkable speech. "YOU!" she said. She was tumultuously weighing possibilities in her mind, and he had scarcely ceased when she had made her resolve. She stepped a pace forward. "You are a gentleman," she said. "Yes," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "Can I trust you?" She did not wait for his assurance. "I must leave this hotel at once. Come here." She took his arm and led him to the window. "You can just see the gate. It is still open. Through that are our bicycles. Go down, get them out, and I will come down to you. Dare you? "Get your bicycle out in the road?" "Both. Mine alone is no good. At once. Dare you?" "Which way?" "Go out by the front door and round. I will follow in one minute." "Right!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, and went. He had to get those bicycles. Had he been told to go out and kill Bechamel he would have done it. His head was a MaeIstrom now. He walked out of the hotel, along the front, and into the big, blackshadowed coach yard. He looked round. There were no bicycles visible. Then a man emerged from the dark, a short man in a short, black, shiny jacket. Hoopdriver was caught. He made no attempt to turn and run for it. "I've been giving your machines a wipe over, sir," said the man, recognising the suit, and touching his cap. Hoopdriver's intelligence now was a soaring eagle; he swooped on the situation at once. "That's right," he said, and added, before the pause became marked, "Where is mine? I want to look at the chain."