Part 35 (2/2)

Down near the Dodge dock, along the sh.o.r.e, walked a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a plain suit of duck. His prim collar and tie comported well with his smoked gla.s.ses. Instinctively one would have called him ”Professor”, though whether naturalist, geologist, or plain ”bugologist”, one would have had difficulty in determining.

He seemed, as a matter-of-fact, to be a naturalist, for he was engrossed in picking up specimens. But he was not so much engrossed as to fail to hear the approach of footsteps down the gravel walk from Dodge Hall to the dock. He looked up in time to see Del Mar coming, and quietly slipped into the shrubbery up on the sh.o.r.e.

On the dock, Del Mar stood for some minutes, waiting. Finally, along the sh.o.r.e came another figure. It was the emissary to whom Del Mar had telephoned and who had searched me. The naturalist drew back into his hiding-place, peering out keenly.

”Well?” demanded Del Mar. ”What luck?”

”We've got him,” returned the man with brief satisfaction. ”Here's the letter she was sending to the Secret Service.”

Del Mar seized the note which the man handed to him and read it eagerly. ”Good,” he exclaimed. ”That would have put an end to the whole operations about here. Come on. Get into the boat.”

For some reason best known to himself, the naturalist seemed to have lost all interest in his specimens and to have a sudden curiosity about Del Mar's affairs. As the motor-boat sped off, he came slowly and cautiously out of his hiding-place and gazed fixedly at Del Mar.

No sooner had Del Mar's boat got a little distance out into the harbor than the naturalist hurried down the Dodge dock. There was tied Elaine's own fast little runabout. He jumped into it and started the engine, following quickly in Del Mar's wake.

”Look,” called the emissary to Del Mar, spying the Dodge boat with the naturalist in it, skimming rapidly after them.

Del Mar strained his eyes back through his gla.s.s at the pursuing boat.

But the naturalist, in spite of his smoked gla.s.ses, seemed not to have impaired his eyesight by his studies. He caught the glint of the sun on the lens at Del Mar's eye and dropped down into the bottom of his own boat where he was at least safe from scrutiny, if his boat were not.

Del Mar lowered his gla.s.s. ”That's the Dodge boat,” he said thoughtfully. ”I don't like the looks of that fellow. Give her more speed.”

Del Mar had not been gone long before Elaine decided to take a ride herself. She ordered her horse around from the stables while she donned her neat little riding-habit. A few minutes later, as the groom held the horse, she mounted and rode away, choosing the road by which I had gone, expecting to meet me on the return from town.

She was galloping along at a good clip when suddenly her horse s.h.i.+ed at something.

”Whoa, Buster,” pacified Elaine.

But it was of no use. Buster still reared up.

”Why, what is the matter?” she asked. ”What do you see?”

She looked down at the ground. There was a spot of blood in the dust.

Buster was one of those horses to whom the sight of blood is terrifying.

Elaine pulled up beside the road. There was a revolver lying in the gra.s.s. She dismounted and picked it up. No sooner had she looked at it than she discovered the initials ”W. J.” carved on the b.u.t.t.

”Walter Jameson!” she exclaimed, realizing suddenly that it was mine.

”It's been fired, too!”

Her eye fell again on the blood spots. ”Blood and--footprints--into the brus.h.!.+” she gasped in horror, following the trail. ”What could have happened to Walter?”

With the revolver, Elaine followed where the bushes were trampled down until she came to the place where I had been bound. There she spied some pieces of paper lying on the ground and picked them up.

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