Explore "The Amateur Crime" by Anthony Berkeley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When Mr. Priestley performed his masterly retreat from the scene of his crime it was without any definite plan in his head beyond reaching the waiting two-seater and reaching it very quickly. Blundering through shrubberies and over flower-beds, his speechless burden still in his arms, he made his way by a sort of blind instinct to the hedge that bordered the road. Through it he plunged manfully, heedless of the prickly twigs which scratched his face and hands and the dangling legs of his companion (a fact of which the companion herself was anything but heedless), and then at last set his burden on her feet.
But even then there was no time to waste in useless explanations or converse. Grabbing her handcuffed hand with a brief grunt, Mr. Priestley, that suddenly transformed man of leisure, set off at a round pace down the road. His companion, having no say in the matter, and no breath to say it with had she had one, followed. They reached the car and fell inside in a congested bundle.