"But there was no dialogue, Curt. It began and ended in a duet of silence," he added sentimentally.
"Didn"t you say anything? Didn"t you try to make a date? Aren"t you going to see her again?"
"I don"t know. I am not sure what sweet occult telepathy might have pa.s.sed between us, Curtis... . Somehow I believe that all is not yet ended..... Pa.s.s the pork! ... I like to think that somehow, some day, somewhere----"
"Stop that! You"re ending it the way women end short stories in the thirty-five-centers. What I want to know is, why you think that your encounter with this girl has anything to do with our finding Reginald Willett."
There was a basin of warm water simmering on the ashes; Sayre used it as a finger-bowl, dried his hands on his shirt, lighted his pipe, and then slowly drew from his hip pocket a flat leather pocket-book. "Curt," he said, "I"m not selfish. I"m perfectly willing to share glory with you. You know that, don"t you?"
"Sure," muttered Langdon. "You"re a b.u.m cook, but otherwise moral enough."
Sayre opened the pocket-book and produced a photograph.
"Everybody who is searching for Willett," he said, "examined the few clues he left. Like hundreds of others, you and I, when we first entered these woods, went to his camp on Gilded Dome, prowled all over it, and examined the camera which had been picked up in the trail, didn"t we?"
"We did. It was a sad scene--his distracted old father----"
"H"m! Did you see his distracted old father, Curt?"
"I? No, of course not. Like everybody else, I respected the grief of that aged and stricken gentleman----"
"I didn"t."
"Hey? Why, you yellow dingo----"
"Curt, as I was snooping about the Italian Garden I happened to glance up at the mansion--I mean the camp--and I saw by the window a rather jolly old buck with a waxed moustache and a monocle, smoking a good cigar and perusing his after-breakfast newspaper. A gardener told me that this tranquil old bird was Willett Senior, who had arrived the evening before from Europe via New York. So I went straight into that house and I disregarded the butler, second man, valet, and seven a.s.sorted servants; and Mr. Willett Senior heard the noise and came to the dining-room door. "Well, what the devil"s the matter?" he said. I said: "I only want to ask you one question, sir. Why are you not in a state of terrible mental agitation over the tragic disappearance of your son?"
""Because," he replied, coolly, "I know my son, Reginald. If the newspapers and the public will let him alone he"ll come back when he gets ready."
""Are you not alarmed?"
""Not in the least."
""Then why did you return from Europe and hasten up here?"
""Too many newspaper men hanging around." He glanced insultingly at the silver.
"I let that go. "Mr. Willett," I said, "they found your son"s camera on the trail. Your butler exhibits it to the police and reporters and tells them a glib story. He told it to me, also. But what I want to know is, why n.o.body has thought of developing the films."
""My butler," said Mr. Willett, eyeing me, "did develop the films."
""Was there anything on them?"
""Some trees."
""May I see them?"
"He scrutinised me.
""After you"ve seen them will you take your friend and go away and remain?" he asked wearily.
""Yes," I said.
"He walked into the breakfast room, opened a silver box, and returned with half a dozen photographs. The first five presented as many views of foliage; I used a jeweller"s gla.s.s on them, but discovered nothing else."
"Was there anything to jar you on the sixth photograph?" inquired Langdon, interested.
Sayre made an impressive gesture; he was a trifle inclined toward the picturesque and histrionic.
"Curt, on the ground under a tree in the sixth photograph lay something which, until last evening, did not seem to me important." He paused dramatically.
"Well, what was it? A banders.n.a.t.c.h?" asked Langdon irritably.
"Examine it!"
Langdon took the photograph. "It looks like a--a hammock."
"What that girl held in her hand last night resembled a hammock."
"Hey?"
Sayre leaned over his shoulder and laid the stem of his pipe on the extreme edge of the photograph.
"If you look long enough and hard enough," he said, "you will just be able to make out the vague outline of a slender human hand among the leaves, holding the end of the hammock. See it?"
Langdon looked long and steadily. Presently he fished out a jeweller"s gla.s.s, screwed it into his eye, and looked again.
"Do you think that"s a human hand?"
"I do."
"It"s a slim one--a child"s, or a young girl"s."
"It is. She had be-u-tiful hands."
"Who?"
"That girl I saw last evening."
Langdon slowly turned and looked at Sayre.
"Well, what do you make of it?"
"Nothing yet--except a million different little romances."
"Of course, you"d do that anyway. But what scientific inference do you draw? Here"s a thing that looks like a hammock lying on the ground. One end seems to be lifted; perhaps that is a hand. Well, what about it?"
"I"m going to find out."
"How?"
"By--fishing," said Sayre quietly, rising and picking up his rod.
"You"re going back there in hopes of----"
"In hopes."
After a silence Langdon said: "You say she was unusually pretty?"
"Unusually."
"Shall I--go with you, William?"
"No," said Sayre coldly.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
III.
SAYRE had been fishing for some time with the usual result when the slightest rustle of foliage caught his ear. He looked up. She was standing directly behind him.
He got to his feet immediately and pulled off his cap. That was too bad; he was better looking with it on his head.
"I wondered whether you"d come again," he said, so simply and naturally that the girl, whose grey eyes had become intent on his scanty hair with a surprised and pained expression, looked directly into his smiling and agreeable face.
"Did you come to fish this pool?" he asked. "You are very welcome to. I can"t catch anything."
"Why do you think that I am out fishing?" she asked in a curiously clear, still voice--very sweet and young--but a voice that seemed to grow out of the silence instead of to interrupt it.
"You are fishing, are you not? or at least you came here to fish last evening?" he said.
"Why do you think so?"
"You had a net."
He expected her to say that it was a hammock which she was trailing through the woods in search of two convenient saplings on which to hang it.
She said: "Yes, it was a net."
"Did my being here drive you away from your favourite pool?"
She looked at him candidly. "You are not a sportsman, are you?"
"N--no," he admitted, turning red. "Why?"
"People who take trout in nets are fined and imprisoned."
"Oh! But you said you had a net."
"It wasn"t a fish net."
He waited. She offered no further explanation. Sometimes she looked at him, rather gravely, he thought; sometimes she looked at the stream. There was not the slightest hint of embarra.s.sment in her manner as she stood there--a straight, tall, young thing, grey-eyed, red-lipped, slim, with that fresh slender smoothness of youth; clad in grey wool, hatless, thick burnished hair rippling into a heavy knot at the nape of the whitest neck he had ever seen.
The stiller she stood, apparently wrapped in serious inward contemplation, the stiller he remained, as though the spell of her serene self-absorption consigned him to silence. Once he ventured, stealthily, to smack a mosquito, but at the echoing whack there was, in her slowly turned face, the calm surprise of a disturbed G.o.ddess; and he felt like saying "excuse me."
"Do they bite you?" she asked, lifting her divine eyebrows a trifle.
"Bite me! Good heavens, don"t they bite you? But I don"t suppose they dare----"
"What?"
"I didn"t mean "dare" exactly," he tried to explain, feeling his ears turning a fiery red, and wondering why on earth he should have made such a foolish remark.
"What did you mean?"
"N--nothing. I don"t know. I say things and--and sometimes," he added in a burst of confidence, "they don"t seem to mean anything at all." To himself he groaned through ground teeth: "What an a.s.s I am. What on earth is the matter with me?"
She considered him in silence, candidly; and redder and redder grew his ears as he saw that she was quietly inspecting him from head to foot with an interest perfectly unembarra.s.sed, innocently intent upon her inspection.
Then, having finished him down to his feet, she lifted her eyes, caught his, looked a moment straight into them, then sighed a little.
"Do you know," she said, "I ought not to have come here again."
"Why?" he asked, astonished.
"There"s no use in my telling you. There was no use in my coming. Oh, I realise that perfectly well now. And I think I"d better go----"
She lingered a moment, glanced at the stream running gold in the afternoon light, then turned away, bidding him good-bye in a low voice.
"Are you g-going?" he blurted out, not knowing exactly what he was saying.
She moved on in silence. He looked after her. A perfectly illogical feeling of despair overwhelmed him.
"For Heaven"s sake, don"t go away!" he said.
She moved on a pace, another, more slowly, hesitated, halted, leisurely looked back over her shoulder.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"I said--I said--I said----" but he began to stammer fearfully and could get no farther.