II
Hammond and Slack were soon out of Acey Smith’s thoughts. He paced the floor in slow, thoughtful strides, every now and then pausing to gaze at a certain point near the door. An onlooker would have been amazed at the metamorphosis that had come over the man. The harsh lines had receded from his face and a something came in their place that in another might have been taken for the light of a tender sentiment.
Memory of a gentle presence gripped him, gripped him with the thrill of a golden song and an abandonment to its witchery that was a back-cry from a youth this man of iron had never lived in its fullness.
In his mental eye he could see her standing as she had stood in his doorway, hesitant and waiting for him who was for the moment held too spell-bound to speak. God, what eyes! They had seemed to play into the very soul of him as shafts of the morning sun golden and gladden the dourest recesses of the wilderness hills. This was no toy of a girl, merely pretty and pleasing to the eye. She was a beautiful woman in all the wonderfully potential things that simple phrase conjures in the fancy of a man who has seen the world and what tawdry stuff lies behind much of its glint and glitter. He was totally unprepared for such a discovery; he had never thought of things turning out so. He had listened to her voice as one listens to melody whose reminiscent notes carry him back into a nebula of forgotten things, faint and elusive, yet hauntingly familiar. Yet Acey Smith had never set eyes on this woman before.
She had introduced herself as Miss Josephine Stone, of Calgary, Alta., who had taken up temporary residence on Amethyst Island, a picturesque reef formerly used as a summer resort and situated about a mile and a half northwest of the docks of the Nannabijou Limits. She had come there from the West, accompanied by a woman companion, Mrs. Johnson, in compliance with a letter she had received from Mr. J. C. Eckes, of the North Star Towing and Contracting Company, who had intimated that information of vital interest to her could only be communicated to her sometime within the next few weeks, and, to accommodate her and any companions and servants she thought necessary to bring with her, a cottage had been prepared for her occupancy on Amethyst Island. A cheque, drawn on the North Star Company, to cover her expenses, had been enclosed with the letter, which enjoined her to the strictest secrecy, but she was directed to call upon Mr. A. C. Smith, superintendent at the limits, at her earliest convenience after she got settled on Amethyst Island. Mr. Smith would see to her welfare till such time as it was possible for her to be put in possession of the information referred to.
“It is all so mysterious,” she concluded. “It is more like something you would read about in a book.”
“But it is all very real, I assure you, Miss Stone,” replied Acey Smith. “Won’t you be seated?”
“Oh, I’m afraid I cannot remain long. Mrs. Johnson came over with me from the island and I left her waiting in the motorboat at the dock.”
“You find things comfortable and congenial at the island?”
“Very. I think it is such a delightful spot. Just like a holiday for me, and I can get over and back to the city so conveniently in the motorboat provided.”
“You would not be averse to remaining there for say, three to four weeks, if necessary?”
“Oh.” She had not, evidently, been prepared for such a request. “In the meantime, am I to know what this is all about, Mr. Smith?”
“I am very sorry I am not in a position to fully explain to you what must seem like a very queer proceeding,” he answered, “and I can only ask you to be content to await developments.”
“But Mr. Eckes—when am I to meet him?”
“J.C.X.?” Acey Smith pronounced it short and in a cautious whisper.
“Yes.”
“That would be out of the question.”
“But I understood I was to meet him here.”
“You have misinterpreted the letter, Miss Stone. Nowhere does it refer to such a meeting.”
The girl bit her nether lip. Her eyes flashed dangerously. “If that’s the answer,” she said coldly, “we may as well end this farce at once. I will return to Calgary to-morrow.”
Genuine alarm came into Acey Smith’s face. “But, Miss Stone,” he cried, “you don’t know how much it is in your own interests that you stay—how greatly you would jeopardise matters by leaving!”
“That is just it—I don’t know! I feel I have a right to know if I am to be asked to remain.”
There could be no mistaking the determination in her voice and manner. Plainly she was poignantly disappointed. The superintendent gazed fixedly into space for a silent period. “Give me time,” he requested. “Give me time to find out what I may tell you. Will you do that?”
“To-morrow?”
“To-morrow morning, if you say so.”
“Shall I call here?”
“No. I will go to the island—with your permission.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smith. I will look for you at 10.30.”
He accompanied her, hat in hand, to the door. She softly declined his offer of escort to the dock, a declination that left no hurt. She was a Western girl with a Western girl’s notions of independence in such matters.
Acey Smith had reluctantly applied himself to another pressing matter with thoughts of her forcing themselves uppermost. Then Hammond had come. Hammond—oh, well, he wanted to forget Hammond and those other things for just now.
In spite of the predicament the girl’s ultimatum had apparently placed him in, Acey Smith had pleasure in anticipating the keeping of that appointment at Amethyst Island on the following day. Before retiring he took from a wardrobe in his private quarters a neatly pressed dark suit of tailor-made clothes and laid it out in his room with fine shoes and immaculate white linen.
Awakening the following morning he sat up in bed, and, gazing at the city garments, laughed a harsh, soulless laugh.
“Fool,” he syllabled grimly. “Fool—double-fool!” He garbed himself in his bush clothes and placed the fine raiment back in the wardrobe.