The Stolen Singer Part 36

"No."

Jim turned in his tracks and left the wood.

Two hours later, at supper, Jim was inquired for.

"Our last supper together, and Mr. Hambleton not here!" mourned Chamberlain.

Agatha felt guilty, but could scarcely confess it. "You are all invited for next year, you know," she said.

"And we're all coming," announced Melanie. "But poor Mr. Hambleton will miss his supper tonight."

The "poor Mr. Hambleton" struck Agatha. "I think Mr. Hambleton is doing very well indeed. I saw him start off for a walk this afternoon."

"Jim's a chump. Give him a cold potato," jeered Aleck.

But after supper was over, and the twilight deepened into darkness, Agatha sought Aleck where she could speak with him alone.

"I--I think Mr. Hambleton was troubled when he left here this afternoon," she said. "Can you think where he would be likely to go?

He is not strong enough to bear much hard exercise yet."

Aleck looked at her keenly.

"If he went anywhere, I think he'd go straight to the yacht."

"I feel a little anxious, someway," confessed Agatha.

Chamberlain's voice broke in upon them. "Anybody ready to take me down to the _Sea Gull_ in the car?"

As Aleck started for the machine, the anxiety in Agatha's face perceptibly lightened. "And may I go with you?" she asked eagerly.

CHAPTER XXIV

AFTER YOU, MONSIEUR?

Jim had no desire to create a sensation among his friends at the old red house; but as he left the pine grove all his instincts led him to flee in another direction. He did not fully realize just what had happened to him, but he was conscious of having received a very hard jolt, indeed. The house, full of happy a.s.sociations as it was, was just now too tantalizing a place. Aleck had won out, and he and Melanie were radiating that peculiar kind of lover's joy which shines on the eve of matrimony. Jim wished them well--none better--but he also wished they wouldn't make such a fuss over these things. Get it done and out of the way, and the less said about it the better. In fact, Jim's buoyant and sunny spirit went into eclipse; he lost his holiday ardor, and trudged over the hill and into the sh.o.r.e road in a state of extreme dejection.

But he lingered on the way, diverted almost against his will by the sight of fishing smacks putting into harbor, an island steamer rounding a distant cliff, and the _Sea Gull_ lying motionless just within the breakwater. Women may be unkind, but a ship is a ship, after all. One can not nurse the pain even of a shattered heart when running before a stiff wind with the spinnaker set and an open sea ahead.

The thought decided him. The sea should be his bride. Jim did not stop to arrange, at the moment, just how this should be brought about, but his determination was none the less firm. He became sentimental to the extent of reflecting, vaguely, that this was but philosophic justice. The sea had not conquered him--far from it; neither should She conquer him. He would follow the sea, the path of glamour, the home of the winged foot and the vanishing sail, the road to alien and mysterious lands--

Thus Jimmy, in reaction from the Arctic douche to which his emotional self had been subjected. He was, figuratively speaking, blue with the cold, but trying valiantly to warm himself.

As he gazed at the _Sea Gull_, asleep on the flood tide, cutting a gallant figure in the glowing sunset, he felt an overmastering longing to be aboard. He would stay on the yacht until Chamberlain came, at least; possibly all night.

Having made up his mind on this point, James persuaded himself that he felt better. Philosophy is a friend in need, after all. Why should one failure in getting one's desires crush the spirit? He would make a right-about-face, travel for a year on a sailing vessel, see the world.

That was it. Hang the shoe business!

Immersed in mental chaos such as these fragments of thought suggest, Jim did not perceive that he was being overtaken, until a slow greeting came to his ears.

"Good evening, friend." It was the deliberate, wide-eyed youth of the Reading-room.

"Ah, good evening."

"If you are on your way to the Sailors' Reading-room, I wish to inform you that I have been obliged to lock up for to-night, on account of an urgent errand at the village." Jimmy stared vacantly for a moment at the pale, washed-out countenance of his interlocutor. "I thought I'd tell you," the youth went on in his copy-book style, "so as to save your taking the long walk. I am the librarian of the Reading-room."

"Ah, thank you. But I wasn't going to the Reading-room to-night. I am on my way to the village."

"Well, there's a large majority of people do go to the Reading-room, first and last," the youth explained with pride. "And some of them are not worthy of its privileges. I am on my way now to prevent what may be a frightful accident to one who has enjoyed the benefits of our work."

Jim gazed at the youth. "A frightful accident! Then why in Heaven's name don't you hurry?"

The youth exhibited a slightly injured air, but did not hasten.

"I was just about to continue on my way," he said, "when it occurred to me that you might be interested to know."

"That's good of you. But what is it all about?"

"Some time ago, a very profane and impatient gentleman, waiting for money to be telegraphed to him from New York--"

"Well, man, go on! Where is he?"

"I know nothing about the movements of this unG.o.dly person, but it appears that to-day, for the first time in its history, the quarry up yonder has been robbed. Circ.u.mstances lead the manager to suspect that this same gentleman was the perpetrator of the theft, and I am on my way to further the ends of justice."

"No need to be so particular about calling him a gentleman. But what is the 'accident' likely to be?"

"It is feared that the thief may not be aware of the nature of the article he has stolen, and it is very dangerous."

"What on earth is it?"

"It is a fairly large-sized stick of dynamite."

The youth might have been discussing a fancy dance, so suave and polite was he. Jim interrupted rudely.

"Dynamite, is it? Good. If it's old Chatelard, he ought to blow up.

Serve him right."

"I'm surprised and pained at your words, my dear friend. No soul is utterly--"

"Yes, it is. Which way did he go? Where is he?"

"I don't know. The manager sent me to inform the sheriff."

"It won't do any good. But you'd better go, all the same."

The judge in chancery went on his dignified way. He would not have hurried if he had heard Angel Gabriel's trump. The news he had brought was in the cla.s.s to be considered important if true, but there was nothing in it to alter Jimmy's plans. He took the shortest cut to the sh.o.r.e, found a fiat-bottomed punt that was regarded by the village as general property, and pushed off.