The bus driver they pointed out to him had thick shoulders and sleepy,
competent-looking eyes. He was standing by the wall, smoking a
cigarette.
"Sure, she must have been in my bus," he told Norman after thinking a
moment. "A pretty woman, on the small side, in a gray dress, with a
queer-looking silver brooch like you mentioned. One suitcase. Light
pigskin. I figured her out as going to see someone who was very sick,
or had been in an accident, maybe."
Norman curbed his impatience. If it had not been for the
hour-and-a-half delay outside Jersey City, he would have been here well
ahead of the bus, instead of twenty minutes late.
He said, "I want, if possible, to get a line on where she went after
she left your bus. The man at the desk can't help me."
The driver looked at Norman. But he did not say, "Whatcha wanta know
for?"--for which Norman was grateful. He seemed to decide that Norman
was O. K.
He said, "I can't be sure, mister, but there was a local bus going down
the shore. I think she got on that."
"Would it stop at Bayport?"
The driver nodded.
"How long since it left?"
"About twenty minutes."
"Could I get to Bayport ahead of it? If I took a cab?"
"Just about. If you wanted to pay the bill there and back--and maybe
a little extra for the rubber he'd burn--I think Alec could take you."
He waved in casual recognition at a man sitting in a cab just beyond
the station. "Mind you, mister, I can't say for certain she got on the
shore bus."
"That's all right. Thanks a lot."
In the glow of the street lamp Alec's foxy eyes were more openly
curious than the bus driver's, but he did not make any comments.
"I can do it," he said cheerfully, "but we haven't any time to waste.
Jump in."
The shore highway led through lonely stretches of marsh and wasteland.
Occasionally Norman caught the sibilant rustle of the leagues of tall
stiff seagrass, and a brackish tang from the dark inlets crossed by
long low bridges. The odor of the Bay.
Indistinctly he made out factories and scattered houses.
"There's a dimout some places," Alec volunteered once. He was paying
close attention to the road.
They passed three or four busses without Alec making any comment.