uttering his name--"Drummond!" But the fellow proved too alert and quick
for him. Whitaker's hands closed on nothing more substantial than thin
air; at the same time he received a blow upon his bruised shoulder smart
and forcible enough to stagger him and evoke an involuntary grunt of
pain. And before he could regain his balance the fellow was thrashing
noisily away through the woodland underbrush.
Involuntarily Whitaker glanced through the window to see if the woman
had been alarmed. But apparently a succession of sonorous chords from
the piano had deafened her to all other sounds. She played on with every
sign of total unconsciousness.
Forthwith he struck off and blundered senselessly through the forest,
misled by its elusive phantasmagoria, until, realizing at length he did
but duplicate an earlier folly, he gave up the chase in disgust and
slowly made his way back to the bungalow.
And yet (for all the mystery and the wonder of his experience) it was
with a somewhat sheepish feeling that he took the precaution of locking
the doors and windows before turning in. After all, what grounds had he
for his suspicions? Merely a hasty guess at the identity of one who
might turn out to be nothing more than a hapchance tramp--a skulking
vagabond on the watch for a chance to pilfer and fly.
If he were Drummond and as murderous-minded as Ember claimed, why had he
neglected his dozen opportunities to ambush his prey in the woods?
A shade of incredulity insensibly began to color Whitaker's
apprehensions. In time, with impatience, he dismissed them altogether
from his mind.
He dozed off while dwelling upon the vision of a fair-haired woman
idling over a piano, swaying slightly as she played.
XI
THE SPY
Whitaker slept soundly but lightly: the adventures of the evening had
not been so fatiguing as to render his slumbers profound, after three
days of sheer loafing. And he awoke early, roused by a level beam of
blood-red light thrown full upon his face by the rising sun.
He lay for a time languid, watching the incarnadined walls and lazily
examining the curious thrill of interest with which he found himself
anticipating the day to come. It seemed a long time since he had looked
forward to the mere routine of existence with so strong an assurance of
emotional diversion. He idled in whimsical humour with an odd conceit to
the effect that the roots of his soul had somehow been mysteriously
watered, so that it was about to burgeon like a green bay tree--whatever
that might mean. And with this he experienced an exhilarating glow of
well-being that had of late been more a stranger to his body than he
liked to admit.
He wondered why. Was the change in the weather responsible? Or had the
mere act of withdrawing from the world for a little time wrought some
esoteric change in the inscrutable chemistry of his sentiments? Had the
recent innocuous waste of time somehow awakened him to the value of the
mere act of living? Or, again--absurd surmise!--was all this due simply
to the instinct of sex: was it merely the man in him quickening to the
knowledge that a pretty woman existed in his neighbourhood?
At this last he laughed openly, and jumped out of bed. At all events, no
healthy man had any business dawdling away a single minute of so rare a
morning.
Already the sun was warm, the faint breeze bland. Standing at the window
and shading his eyes against the glare, he surveyed a world new-washed
and radiant: the sun majestically climbing up and away from the purple
lattice-work of cloud that barred the nitid mauve horizon; the distant
beach, a violet-tinted barrier between the firmament and sea; the
landlocked bay dimpled with vagrant catspaws and smitten with sunlight
as with a scimitar of fire; the earth fresh and fragrant, steaming
faintly in the ardent glow of dawn.
In another moment he was at the kitchen door, interrupting Sum Fat's
first matutinal attentions to his teeth with a demand for a
bathing-suit. One of Ember's was promptly forthcoming, and by happy
accident fitted him indifferently well; so that three minutes later
found him poised on the end of the small dock, above fifteen feet of
water so limpid bright that he could easily discern the shapes of
pebbles on the bottom.
He dived neatly, coming to the surface with his flesh tingling with
delight of the cool water; then with the deliberate and powerful
movements of an experienced swimmer, struck away from the land.
Two hundred yards out he paused, rolled over on his back and, hands
clasped beneath his head, floated serenely, sunlight warming his
upturned face, his body rejoicing in the suave, clean, fluid embrace, an
almost overpowering sense of physical sanity and boundless strength
rioting through him. Quietly, intimately, he smiled at the sound, good
old world, athrill with the wonder and beauty of life.
Then something disturbed him: a dull fluttering, vibrant upon his
submerged eardrums. Extending his arms and moving his hands gently to
preserve his poise, he lifted his head from the water. The neighbouring
shore-line leaped flashing to his vision like an exquisite disclosure of
jewelled marquetry. His vision ranged quickly from Ember's landing-stage
to that on the water-front of the Fiske place, and verified a surmise
with the discovery of a motor-boat standing out from the latter. The
churning of its propeller had roused him.
Holding its present course, the boat would clear him by several hundred
yards. He lay quiet, watching. Despite its generous proportions--it was
a fair-sized cabin cruiser, deep-seaworthy in any ordinary weather--he
could see but a single person for all its crew. Seated astern, dividing
her attention between the side steering-wheel and the engine, she was
altogether ignorant of the onlooker. Only her head and shoulders showed
above the coaming: her head with its shining golden crown, her shoulders
cloaked with a light wrap gathered at the throat.
Whitaker, admiring, wondered....
Sweeping in a wide arc as it gathered speed, the boat presently shot out
smartly on a straight course for the barrier beach.
Why? What business had she there? And at an hour so early?
No affair of his: Whitaker admitted as much, freely. And yet, no reason
existed why he should not likewise take an impersonal interest in the
distant ocean beach. As a matter of fact (he discovered upon
examination) he was vastly concerned in that quarter. Already he was
beginning his fourth day on the Great West Bay without having set foot
upon its Great South Beach! Ridiculous oversight! And one to be remedied
without another hour's delay.
Grinning with amused toleration of his own perverse sophistry, he turned
over on his side and struck out in the wake of the motor-boat. He had
over a mile to go; but such a distance was nothing dismaying to a
swimmer of Whitaker's quality, who had all his life been on very
friendly terms with the sea.
No one held a watch on him; but when at length he waded ashore he was
complacent in the knowledge that he had made very good time.
He found the motor-boat moored in shallow water at the end of a long and
substantial dock. The name displayed in letters of brass on its stern
was, frankly, _Trouble_. He paused waist-deep to lean over the side and
inspect the cockpit; the survey drew from him an expression of approval.
The boat seemed to be handsomely appointed, and the motor exposed by the
open hatch of the engine pit was of a make synonymous with speed and
reliability. He patted the flanks of the vessel as he waded on.
"Good little boat!" said he.
A weather-beaten sign-board on the dock advertised a surf-bathing
station. Ashore a plank walk crossed first a breadth of sedge marsh and
then penetrated a tumbled waste of dunes. Where the summits of the
latter met the sky, there were visible a series of angular and unlovely
wooden edifices.
Whitaker climbed up on the walk and made seawards. He saw nothing of the
lady of the motor-boat.
In fact, for some time he saw nothing in human guise; from other
indications he was inclined to conclude that the bathing station was
either closed for the season or else had been permanently abandoned
within a year or so. There was a notable absence of rowboats and sailing
craft about the dock, with, as he drew nearer to the shuttered and
desolate cluster of bath-houses, an equally remarkable lack of garments
and towels hanging out to dry.
Walking rapidly, he wasn't long in covering the distance from shore to
shore. Very soon he stood at the head of a rude flight of wooden steps
which ran down from the top of a wave-eaten sand bluff, some ten or
twelve feet in height, to the broad and gently shelving ocean beach.
Whipping in from the sea, a brisk breeze, from which the dunes had
heretofore sheltered him, now cooled his dripping bathing-suit not
altogether pleasantly. But he didn't mind. The sight of the surf
compensated.
He had long since been aware of its resonant diapason, betokening a
heavy sea; but the spectacle of it was one ever beautiful in his sight.
Whitecaps broke the lustrous blue, clear to its serrated horizon.
Inshore the tide was low; the broad and glistening expanse of naked wet
sand mirrored the tender blueness of the skies far out to where the
breakers weltered in confusion of sapphire, emerald and snow. A mile
offshore a fishing smack with a close-reefed, purple patch of sail was
making heavy weather of it; miles beyond it, again, an inward-bound
ocean steamship shouldered along contemptuously; and a little way
eastwards a multitude of gulls with flashing pinions were wheeling and
darting and screaming above something in the sea--presumably a school of
fish.
Midway between the sand bluff and the breaking waters stood the woman
Whitaker had followed. (There wasn't any use mincing terms: he _had_
followed her in his confounded, fatuous curiosity!) Her face was to the
sea, her hands clasped behind her. Now the wind modelled her cloak
sweetly to her body, now whipped its skirts away, disclosing legs
straight and slender and graciously modelled. She was dressed, it
seemed, for bathing; she had crossed the bay for a lonely bout with the
surf, and having found it dangerously heavy, now lingered, disappointed
but fascinated by the majestic beauty of its fury.
Whitaker turned to go, his inquisitiveness appeased; but he was aware of
an annoying sense of shame, which he considered rather low on the part
of his conscience. True, he had followed her; true, he had watched her
at a moment when she had every reason to believe herself alone with the
sky, the sand, the sea and the squabbling gulls. But--the beach was free
to all; there was no harm done; he hadn't really meant to spy upon her,
and he had not the slightest intention of forcing himself upon her
consciousness.
Intentions, however, are one thing; accidents, another entirely. History
is mainly fashioned of intentions that have met with accidents.
Whitaker turned to go, and turning let his gaze sweep up from the beach
and along the brow of the bluff. He paused, frowning. Some twenty feet
or so distant the legs of a man, trousered and booted, protruded from a
hollow between two hummocks of sand. And the toes of the boots were
digging into the sand, indicating that the man was lying prone; and that
meant (if he were neither dead nor sleeping) that he was watching the
woman on the beach.
Indignation, righteous indignation, warmed Whitaker's bosom. It was all
very well for him to catch sight of the woman through her cottage
window, by night, and to swim over to the beach in her wake the next
morning, but what right had anybody else to constitute himself her
shadow?... All this on the mute evidence of the boots and trousers:
Whitaker to his knowledge had never seen them before, but he had so
little doubt they belonged to the other watcher by the window last night
that he readily persuaded himself that this must be so.
Besides, it was possible that the man was Drummond.
Anyway, nobody was licensed to skulk among sand-dunes and spy upon
unescorted females!
Instantly Whitaker resolved himself into a select joint committee for
the Promulgation of the Principles of Modern Chivalry and the
Elucidation of the Truth.
He strode forward and stood over the man, looking down at his back. It
was true, as he had assumed: the fellow was watching the woman. Chin in
hands, elbows half-buried in sand, he seemed to be following her with an
undeviating regard. And his back was very like Drummond's; at least, in
height and general proportion his figure resembled Drummond's closely
enough to leave Whitaker without any deterring doubt.
A little quiver of excitement mingled with anticipative satisfaction ran
through him. Now, at last, the mystery was to be cleared up, his future
relations with the pseudo suicide defined and established.
Deliberately he extended his bare foot and nudged the man's ribs.
"Drummond...." he said in a clear voice, decided but unaggressive.
With an oath and what seemed a single, quick motion, the man jumped to
his feet and turned to Whitaker a startled and inflamed countenance.
"What the devil!" he cried angrily. "Who are you? What do you want? What
d'you mean by coming round here and calling me Drummond?"
He was no more Drummond than he was Whitaker himself.
Whitaker retreated a step, nonplussed. "I beg pardon," he stammered
civilly, in his confusion; "I took you for a fr--a man I know."
"Well, I ain't, see!" For a moment the man glowered at Whitaker, his
features twitching. Apparently the shock of surprise had temporarily
dislocated his sense of proportion. Rage blazed from his bloodshot,
sunken eyes, and rage was eloquent in the set of his rusty, square-hewn
chin and the working of his heavy and begrimed hands.
"Damn you!" he exploded suddenly. "What d'you mean by butting in--"
"For that matter"--something clicked in Whitaker's brain and
subconsciously he knew that his temper was about to take the
bridge--"what the devil do _you_ mean by spying on that lady yonder?"
It being indisputably none of his concern, the unfairness of the
question only lent it offensive force. It was quite evidently more than
the man could or would bear from any officious stranger. He made this
painfully clear through the medium of an intolerable epithet and an
attempt to land his right fist on Whitaker's face.
The face, however, was elsewhere when the fist reached the point for
which it had been aimed; and Whitaker closed in promptly as the fellow's
body followed his arm, thrown off balance by the momentum of the
unobstructed blow. Thoroughly angered, he had now every intention of
administering a sound and salutary lesson.
In pursuance with this design, he grappled and put forth his strength to
throw the man.
What followed had entered into the calculations of neither. Whitaker
felt himself suddenly falling through air thick with a blinding, choking
cloud of dust and sand. The body of the other was simultaneously
wrenched violently from his grasp. Then he brought up against solidity
with a bump that seemed to expel every cubic inch of air from his lungs.
And he heard himself cry out sharply with the pain of his weak ankle
newly twisted....
He sat up, gasping for breath, brushed the sand from his face and eyes,
and as soon as his whirling wits settled a little, comprehended what had
happened.
Half buried in the debris of a miniature landslide, he sat at the foot
of the bluff, which reared its convex face behind and over him.
Immediately above his head a ragged break in its profile showed where
the sand, held together solely by beach grass, had given way beneath the
weight of the antagonists.
A little distance from him the other man was picking himself up,
apparently unhurt but completely surfeited. Without delay, with not even
so much as a glance at Whitaker, he staggered off for a few paces, then
settled into a heavy, lumbering trot westward along the beach.
This conduct was so inconsistent with his late belligerent humour that
Whitaker felt inclined to rub his eyes a second time. He had
anticipated--as soon as in condition to reason at all--nothing less than
an immediate resumption of hostilities. Yet here was the fellow running
away. Incomprehensible!
And yet, save at the first blush, not so incomprehensible: the chief of
the man's desire had been unquestionably to see without being seen; his
rage at being detected had led him to a misstep; now he was reverting to
his original plan with all possible expedition. He did not wish the
woman to recognize him; therefore he was putting himself out of her way.
For she was approaching.
When Whitaker caught sight of her, she was already close at hand. She
had been running. Now as their glances met, hers keenly inquiring of
Whitaker's still bewildered eyes, she pulled up abruptly and stood
astare. He saw, or fancied, something closely akin to fright and
consternation in her look. The flush in her cheeks gave way to a swift
pallor. The hands trembled that drew her beach-cloak close about her.
She seemed to make an ineffectual effort to speak.
On his part, Whitaker tried to get up. A keen twinge in his ankle,
however, wrung an involuntary grunt from him, and with a wry grimace he
sank back.
"Oh!" cried the woman, impulsively. "You're hurt!" She advanced a pace,
solicitous and sympathetic.
"Oh, not much," Whitaker replied in a tone more of hope than of
assurance. He felt tenderly of the injured member. "Only my
ankle--twisted it a few days ago, and now again. It'll be all right in a
moment or two."
Her gaze travelled from him to the edge of the bluff.
"I didn't see--I mean, I heard something, and turned, and saw you trying
to sit up and the other man rising."
"Sorry we startled you," Whitaker mumbled, wondering how the deuce he
was going to get home. His examination of the ankle hadn't proved
greatly encouraging.
"But I--ah--how did it happen?"
"A mere misunderstanding," he said lightly. "I mistook the gentleman for
some one I knew. He resented it, so we started to scrap like a couple of
schoolboys. Then ... I wish to Heaven it had been his leg instead of
mine!"
"But still I hardly understand...."
She was now more composed. The colour had returned to her face. She
stood with head inclined a trifle forward, gaze intent beneath delicate
brows; most distractingly pretty, he thought, in spite of the
ankle--which really didn't hurt much unless moved.
"Well, you see, I--ah--I'm visiting Ember--the cottage next to yours, I
believe. That is, if I'm not mistaken, you have the Fiske place?"
She nodded.
"And so, this morning, it struck me as a fine young idea to swim over
here and have a look at the beach. I--ah--you rather showed me the way,
with your motor-boat. I mean I saw you start out."
He felt better after that: open confession is a great help when one
feels senselessly guilty. He ventured an engaging smile and noted with
relief that it failed either to terrify or to enrage the young woman.
On the other hand, she said encouragingly: "I see."
"And then I found that chap watching you--"
That startled her. "How do you mean--watching me?"
"Why--ah--that's what he seemed to be doing. He was lying at full length
up there, half hidden--to all appearances watching you from behind a
screen of beach grass."
"But--I don't understand--why should he have been watching me?"
"I'm sure I don't know, if you don't."
She shook her head: "You must be mistaken."
"Daresay. I generally am when I jump at conclusions. Anyway, he didn't
like it much when I called him out of his name. I gathered, in fact,
that he was considerably put out. Silly, wasn't it?"
"Rather!" she agreed gravely.
For a moment or two they eyed one another in silence, Whitaker wondering
just how much of a fool she was thinking him and dubiously considering
various expedients to ingratiate himself. She was really quite too
charming to be neglected, after so auspicious an inauguration of their
acquaintance. Momentarily he was becoming more convinced that she was
exceptional. Certain he was he had never met any woman quite like
her--not even the fair but false Miss Carstairs of whom he had once
fancied himself so hopelessly enamoured. Here he divined an uncommon
intelligence conjoined with matchless loveliness. Testimony to the
former quality he acquired from eyes serenely violet and thoughtful. As
for the latter, he reflected that few professional beauties could have
stood, as this woman did, the acid test of that mercilessly brilliant
morning.
"I don't seem to think of anything useful to say," he ventured. "Can you
help me out? Unless you'd be interested to know that my name's
Whitaker--Hugh Whitaker--?"
She acknowledged the information merely by a brief nod. "It seems to
me," she said seriously, "that the pressing question is, what are you
going to do about that ankle? Shall you be able to walk?"
"Hard to say," he grumbled, a trifle dashed. He experimented gingerly,
moving his foot this way and that and shutting his teeth on groans that
the test would surely have evoked had he been alone. "'Fraid not. Still,
one can try."
"It isn't sprained?"
"Oh, no--just badly wrenched. And, as I said, this is the second time
within a week."
With infinite pains and the aid of both hands and his sound foot, he
lifted himself and contrived to stand erect for an instant, then bore a
little weight on the hurt ankle--and blenched, paling visibly beneath
his ineradicable tan.
"I don't suppose," he said with effort--"they grow--crutches--on this
neck of land?"
And he was about to collapse again upon the sands when, without warning,
he found the woman had moved to his side and caught his hand, almost
brusquely passing his arm across her shoulders, so that she received no
little of his weight.
"Oh, I say--!" he protested feebly.
"Don't say anything," she replied shortly. "I'm very strong--quite able
to help you to the boat. Please don't consider me at all; just see if we
can't manage this way."
"But I've no right to impose--"
"Don't be silly! Please do as I say. Won't you try to walk?"
He endeavoured to withdraw his arm, an effort rendered futile by her
cool, firm grasp on his fingers.
"Please!" she said--not altogether patiently.
He eyed her askance. There was in this incredible situation a certain
piquancy, definitely provocative, transcending the claims his injury
made upon his interest. Last night for the first time he had seen this
woman and from a distance had thought her desirable; now, within twelve
hours, he found himself with an arm round her neck!
He thought it a tremendously interesting neck, slender, not thin, and
straight and strong, a milk-white column from the frilled collar of her
bathing-cloak to the shimmering tendrils that clustered behind her ears.
Nor was the ear she presented to his inspection an everyday ear, lacking
its individual allure. He considered that it owned its distinctive
personality, not unworthy of any man's studious attention.
He saw her face, of course, en profile: her head bowed, downcast lashes
long upon her cheeks, her mouth set in a mould of gravity, her brows
seriously contracted--signifying preoccupation with the problem of the
moment.
And then suddenly she turned her head and intercepted his whole-hearted
stare. For a thought wonder glimmered in the violet eyes; then they
flashed disconcertingly; finally they became utterly cold and
disdainful.
"Well?" she demanded in a frigid voice.
He looked away in complete confusion, and felt his face burning to the
temples.
"I beg your pardon," he mumbled unhappily.
He essayed to walk. Twenty feet and more of treacherous, dry, yielding
sand separated them from the flight of steps that ascended the bluff. It
proved no easy journey; and its difficulty was complicated by his
determination to spare the woman as much as he could. Gritting his
teeth, he grinned and bore without a murmur until, the first stage of
the journey accomplished, he was able to grasp a handrail at the bottom
of the stairs and breathe devout thanks through the medium of a gasp.
"Shall we rest a bit?" the woman asked, compassionate, ignoring now the
impertinence she had chosen to resent a few moments ago.
"Think I can manage--thanks," he said, panting a little. "It'll be
easier now--going up. I shan't need help."