He learned they were the wife and the younger sister of a surgeon
living at Stanmore, who had come in the small hours from a dangerous
case at Pinner, and heard at some railway station on his way of the
Martian advance.  He had hurried home, roused the women--their servant
had left them two days before--packed some provisions, put his
revolver under the seat--luckily for my brother--and told them to
drive on to Edgware, with the idea of getting a train there.  He
stopped behind to tell the neighbours.  He would overtake them, he
said, at about half past four in the morning, and now it was nearly
nine and they had seen nothing of him.  They could not stop in Edgware
because of the growing traffic through the place, and so they had come
into this side lane.