he said; "but the young lady--Hutchins is her name, I believe?--will see you here and come after you, of course."
Well, there was no denying that, spy or no spy, his presence was a comfort. He offered to swim back to the island and be a prisoner again, but Tish said magnanimously that there was no hurry. On Aggie"s offering half of her tarpaulin against the wind, which had risen, he accepted.
"Your Miss Hutchins is reckless, isn"t she?" he said when he was comfortably settled. "She"s a strong swimmer; but a canoe is uncertain at the best."
"She"s in no danger," said Tish. "She has a devoted admirer watching out for her."
"The deuce she has!" His voice was quite interested. "Why, who on earth--"
"Your detective," said Aggie softly. "He"s quite mad about her. The way he follows her and the way he looks at her--it"s thrilling!"
Mr. McDonald said nothing for quite a while. The canoe party had evidently eaten everything they could find, and somebody had brought out a banjo and was playing.
Tish, unable to vent her anger, suddenly turned on Mr. McDonald. "If you think," she said, "that the grocery list fooled us, it didn"t!"
"Grocery list?"
"That"s what I said."
"How did you get my grocery list?"
So she told him, and how she had deciphered it, and how the word "dynamite" had only confirmed her early suspicions.
His only comment was to say, "Good Heavens!" in a smothered voice.
"It was the extractor that made me suspicious," she finished. "What were you going to extract? Teeth?"
"And so, when my Indian was swimming, you went through his things! It"s the most astounding thing I ever--My dear lady, an extractor is used to get the hooks out of fish. It was no cipher, I a.s.sure you. I needed an extractor and I ordered it. The cipher you speak of is only a remarkable coincidence."
"Huh!" said Tish. "And the paper you dropped in the train--was that a coincidence?"
"That"s not my secret," he said, and turned sulky at once.
"Don"t tell me," Tish said triumphantly, "that any young man comes here absolutely alone without a purpose!"
"I had a purpose, all right; but it was not to blow up a railroad train."
Apparently he thought he had said too much, for he relapsed into silence after that, with an occasional muttering.
It was eight o"clock when Hutchins"s canoe came into sight. She was paddling easily, but the detective was far behind and moving slowly.
She saw the camp with its uninvited guests, and then she saw us. The detective, however, showed no curiosity; and we could see that he made for his landing and stumbled exhaustedly up the bank. Hutchins drew up beside us. "He"ll not try that again, I think," she said in her crisp voice. "He"s out of training. He panted like a motor launch. Who are our visitors?"
Here her eyes fell on Mr. McDonald and her face set in the dusk.
"You"ll have to go back and get some gasoline, Hutchins."
"What made you start out without looking?"
"And send the vandals away. If they wait until I arrive, I"ll be likely to do them some harm. I have never been so outraged."
"Let me go for gasoline in the canoe," said Mr. McDonald. He leaned over the thwart and addressed Hutchins. "You"re worn out," he said. "I promise to come back and be a perfectly well-behaved prisoner again."
"Thanks, no."
"I"m wet. The exercise will warm me."
"Is it possible," she said in a withering tone that was lost on us at the time, "that you brought no dumb-bells with you?"
If we had had any doubts they should have been settled then; but we never suspected. It is incredible, looking back.
The dusk was falling and I am not certain of what followed. It was, however, something like this: Mr. McDonald muttered something angrily and made a motion to get into the canoe. Hutchins replied that she would not have help from him if she died for it. The next thing we knew she was in the launch and the canoe was floating off on the current. Aggie squealed; and Mr. McDonald, instead of swimming after the thing, merely folded his arms and looked at it.
"You know," he said to Hutchins, "you have so unpleasant a disposition that somebody we both know of is better off than he thinks he is!"
Tish"s fury knew no bounds, for there we were marooned and two of us wet to the skin. I must say for Hutchins, however, that when she learned about Aggie she was bitterly repentant, and insisted on putting her own sweater on her. But there we were and there we should likely stay.
It was quite dark by that time, and we sat in the launch, rocking gently. The canoeing party had lighted a large fire on the beach, using the driftwood we had so painfully acc.u.mulated.
We sat in silence, except that Tish, who was watching our camp, said once bitterly that she was glad there were three beds in the tent. The girls of the canoeing party would be comfortable.
After a time Tish turned on Mr. McDonald sharply. "Since you claim to be no spy," she said, "perhaps you will tell us what brings you alone to this place? Don"t tell me it"s fish--I"ve seen you reading, with a line out. You"re no fisherman."
He hesitated. "No," he admitted. "I"ll be frank, Miss Carberry. I did not come to fish."
"What brought you?"
"Love," he said, in a low tone. "I don"t expect you to believe me, but it"s the honest truth."
"Love!" Tish scoffed.
"Perhaps I"d better tell you the story," he said. "It"s long and--and rather sad."
"Love stories," Hutchins put in coldly, "are terribly stupid, except to those concerned."
"That," he retorted, "is because you have never been in love. You are young and--you will pardon the liberty?--attractive; but you are totally prosaic and unromantic."
"Indeed!" she said, and relapsed into silence.
"These other ladies," Mr. McDonald went on, "will understand the strangeness of my situation when I explain that the--the young lady I care for is very near; is, in fact, within sight."
"Good gracious!" said Aggie. "Where?"
"It is a long story, but it may help to while away the long night hours; for I dare say we are here for the night. Did any one happen to notice the young lady in the first canoe, in the pink tam-o"-shanter?"
We said we had--all except Hutchins, who, of course, had not seen her.
Mr. McDonald got a wet cigarette from his pocket and, finding a box of matches on the seat, made an attempt to dry it over the flames; so his story was told in the flickering light of one match after another.