“If you do, let me offer you a piece of advice,” observed Geoffrey, “and that is not to take your eye off that man for a single instant. He is a slippery customer, and you run a fair chance of not seeing my money at all, if you give him the smallest loophole.”
The detective considered McVay carefully from head to foot. Then he said gravely:
“Is there any way of getting to this place of yours by water? I don’t see my way to taking this customer in a Pullman car. If he chooses to slip overboard from a boat, why no one would be any the worse, unless maybe the sharks.”
“Very true,” agreed Geoffrey amiably. “Fortunately you can get a steamer in New York.”
It soon became apparent that the detective failed to see any good reason for declining so advantageous an offer as Geoffrey’s, and they were presently deep in the discussion of their plans, McVay meanwhile studying the map with unfeigned interest in the situation of his future residence.
Cecilia, fortunately, gave them plenty of time for their arrangements, for she had fallen asleep again, after the alarm of the early morning, and the men must have been talking for two hours when she appeared at the library door.
She cast a look of surprise at the addition to their party and Geoffrey saw with a sort of paralysis that she was inclined to set him down as the burglar whose footsteps she had heard in the night. To prevent any betrayal of this opinion, Geoffrey advanced a few steps to meet her, although as he did so, he realised that he had nothing to answer when she asked, as of course she did ask: “Who is that?”
A sort of desperation, the cowardice that will sometimes attack the brave took hold of Geoffrey. He looked at her hopelessly and would perhaps in another instant have told her the truth, had not McVay, not the least disconcerted, taken the lead.
“This, Cecilia,” he said exuberantly, laying his hand on the detective’s shoulder, “is my old friend Picklebody,—Henderson Picklebody. You have heard his name often enough, and he, yours, too. Eh, Henderson, in the old Machita days?”
The detective, whose name was George P. Cook, was so taken up with his surprise at the apparition of a beautiful woman that he scarcely heard McVay. He began to guess something of the motives that led Holland to shield this offender against the law, nor had he ever found it unwise to yield to the whims of young millionaires.