Chapter 9

Here he pulled up, for the first time alive to the intrinsic idiocy of his conduct, and diverted besides by the discovery that his impression of the early evening, that the cottage was tenanted, had been well founded.

The ground floor windows shone with a dim but warm illumination. There was one quite near him, a long window opening upon the railed veranda, through which he could see distinctly part of a living-room rather charmingly furnished in a summery way. At its farther end a dark-haired woman in a plain black dress with a short apron and lace cap sat reading by lamplight: evidently a maid. Her mistress--judged by appearances--was outside on the lawn below the veranda, strolling to and fro in company with a somewhat short and heavy man who wore an automobile duster and visored cap. By contrast, her white-clad figure, invested with the illusion of moonlight, seemed unusually tall. Her hair was fair, shining like a head-dress of palest gold as she bent her head, attentive to her companion. And Whitaker thought to discern an unusual quality in her movements, a quality of charm and a graciousness of mien rarely to be noticed even in the most beautiful of the women he had known.

Of a sudden the man paused, produced a watch from beneath his duster, consulted it briefly and shut the case with a snap. He said something in a brusque tone, and was answered by what sounded like a pleasant negative. Promptly, as if annoyed, he turned and strode hastily away, disappearing round the house.

Alone, the woman watched him as long as he was in sight, her head to one side with an effect of critical amusement. Then with a low laugh she crossed the veranda and entered the lighted room. At the same time, Whitaker, lingering and watching without in the least understanding or even questioning why he was doing this thing so contrary to his instincts, heard the heavy rumble of a motor-car on the far side of the house and saw the machine swing off across the clearing and into the woods.

In the living-room the woman was saying: "You may go now, Elise. I'll be ready for bed before long."

"Yes, madam." The maid rose and moved briskly out of sight.

Her mistress, casting aside a scarf of embroidered Chinese brocade, moved about the room with an air at once languid and distrait. Pausing beside a table, she took up a book, opened it, shut it smartly, discarding it as if hopeless of finding therein any sort of diversion. She stood for a moment in deep thought, her head bowed, the knuckle of a slender forefinger tapping her chin--charmingly posed. Whitaker abruptly understood why it was he loitered, peeping: she was absolutely beautiful, a creature both exquisite and superb, a matchless portrait for the galleries of his memory.

With a sigh and a quick movement of impatience, seating herself at a cottage piano she ran her fingers over the keys. Whitaker recognized the opening bars of something or other of Beethoven's--he couldn't say precisely what, at the instant; and even as he tried a thing happened which drove the music altogether from his mind: in short, he discovered that he was not the only watcher below the window.

Something--a movement or perhaps a slight sound--had drawn his attention from the woman. He saw the other man standing boldly in full moonlight, all his attention concentrated on the brilliant picture framed by the window. He was unquestionably without knowledge of the nearness of the other--of Whitaker in the shadows. And though his back was to the moon and his face further shadowed by a peaked cap, Whitaker was absolutely sure of the man: he was certainly Drummond.

Without pause for thought he sprang toward him, in a guarded voice 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 débris 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.