The Destroying Angel Part 25

But even with its aid, his progress toward the boat necessarily consumed a tedious time. It was impossible to favour the injured foot to any great extent. Between occasional halts for rest, Whitaker hobbled with grim determination, suffering exquisitely but privately. The girl considerately schooled her pace to his, subjecting him to covert scrutiny when, as they moved on, his injury interested him exclusively.

He made little or no attempt to converse while in motion; a spirit of bravado alone, indeed, would have enabled him to pay attention to anything aside from the problem of the next step; and bravado was a stranger to his cosmos then, if ever. So she had plenty of opportunity to make up her mind about him.

If her eyes were a reliable index, she found him at least interesting.

At times their expression was enigmatic beyond any rending. Again they seemed openly perplexed. At all times they were warily regardful.

Once she sighed quietly with a pa.s.sing look of sadness of which he was wholly unaware....

"Odd--about that fellow," he observed during a halt. "I was sure I knew him, both times--last night as well as to-day."

"Last night?" she queried with patent interest.

"Oh, yes: I meant to tell you. He was prowling round the bungalow--Ember's, I mean--when I first saw him. I chased him off, lost him in the woods, and later picked him up again just at the edge of your grounds. That's why I thought it funny that he should be over here this morning, shadowing you--as they say in detective stories."

"No wonder!" she commented sympathetically.

"And the oddest thing of all was that I should be so sure he was Drummond--until I saw--"

"Drummond!"

"Friend of mine.... You don't by any chance know Drummond, do you?"

"I've heard the name."

"You must have. The papers were full of his case for a while. Man supposed to have committed suicide--jumped off Washington Bridge a week before he was to marry Sara Law, the actress?"

"Why ... yes. Yes, I remember. But.... 'Supposed to have committed suicide'--did you say?"

He nodded. "He may have got away with it, at that. Only, I've good reason to believe he didn't.... I may as well tell you: it's no secret, although only a few people know it: Ember saw Drummond, or thinks he did, alive, in the flesh, a good half-hour after the time of his reported suicide."

"Really!" the girl commented in a stifled voice.

"Oh, for all that, there's no proof Ember wasn't misled by an accidental resemblance--no real proof--merely circ.u.mstantial evidence. Though for my part, I'm quite convinced Drummond still lives."

"How very curious!" There was nothing more than civil but perfunctory interest in the comment. "Are you ready to go on?"

And another time, when they were near the boat:

"When do you expect Mr. Ember?" asked the girl.

"To-night, probably. At least, he wired yesterday to say he'd be down to-night. But from what little I've seen of him, you can never be sure of Ember. He seems to lead the sedentary and uneventful life of a flea on a hot griddle."

"I shall be glad to see him," said the girl in what Whitaker thought a curious tone. "Please tell him, will you? Don't forget."

"If that's the way you feel about him, I shall be tempted to wire him not to come."

"Just what do you mean by that?" asked the woman sharply, a glint of indignation in her level, challenging stare.

"Merely that your tone sounded a bit vindictive. I thought possibly you might want to have it out with him, for the sin of permitting me to infest this neck o' the woods."

"Absurd!" she laughed, placated.

When finally they came to the end of the dock, he paused, considering the three-foot drop to the deck of the motor-boat with a dubious look that but half expressed his consternation. It would be practically impossible to lower himself without employing the painful member to an extent he didn't like to antic.i.p.ate. He met the girl's inquiring glance with one wholly rueful.

"If it weren't low tide...." he explained, crest-fallen.

She laughed lightly. "But, since it is low tide, you'll have to let me help you again."

Cautiously lowering himself to a sitting position on the dock, feet overhanging the boat, he nodded. "'Fraid so. Sorry to be a nuisance."

"You're not a nuisance. You're merely masculine," the girl retorted, jumping lightly but surely to the c.o.c.kpit.

She turned and offered him a hand, eyes dancing with gay malice.

Whitaker delayed, considering her gravely.

"Meaning--?" he inquired pleasantly.

"Like all men you must turn to a woman in the end--however brave your strut."

"Oh, it's that way, is it? Thank you, but I fancy I can manage."

And with the aid of the clothes-prop he did manage to make the descent without her hand and without disaster.

"Pure _blague_!" the girl taunted.

"That's French for I-think-I'm-smart-don't-I--isn't it?" he inquired with an innocent stare. "If so, the answer is: I do."

Her lips and eyes were eloquent of laughter repressed.

"But now?" she argued, sure of triumph. "You've got to admit you couldn't do without me now!"

"Oh, I can manage a motor, if that's what you mean," he retorted serenely; "though I confess there are a few new kinks to this one that might puzzle me a bit at the start. That chain-and-cogwheel affair to turn the flywheel with, for instance--that's a new one. The last time I ran a marine motor in this country we had to break our backs and run chances of breaking our arms as well, turning up by hand."

The girl had gone forward, over the cabin roof, to cast off. She returned along the outboard, pushing the boat clear, then, jumping back into the c.o.c.kpit, started the engine with a single, almost effortless turn of the crank which Whitaker had mentioned, and took the wheel as the boat swung droning away from the dock. Not until she had once or twice advanced the spark and made other minor adjustments, did she return attention to her pa.s.senger.

Then, in a casual voice, she inquired: "You've been out of the country for some time, I think you said?"

"Almost six years on the other side of the world--got back only last spring."

"What," she asked, eyes averted, spying out the channel--"what does one do on the other side of the world?"

"This one knocked about, mostly, for his health's sake. That is, I went away expecting to die before long, was disappointed, got well and strong and--took to drifting.... I beg your pardon," he broke off hastily; "a civil answer to a civil question needn't necessarily be the history of one's life."

The girl put the wheel down slowly, swinging the boat upon a course direct to the landing-stage at Half-a-loaf Lodge.

"But surely you didn't waste six years simply 'drifting'?"

"Well, I did drift into a sort of business, after a bit--gold mining in a haphazard, happy-go-lucky fashion--did pretty well at it and came home to astonish the natives."