“Down the shore road,” repeated Kennedy, reflectively. “I wonder what she could have wanted down there. The wireless impulses came from the water side. Walter would you mind going down on the dock and telling that young man of mine he had better get a bite to eat right away and that then he can begin getting the stuff unpacked and set up!”
While Watkins took a hasty dinner at the Lodge, I relieved him of watching the packages he had brought. It was a tiresome wait, for I longed to be with Kennedy.
One thing, however, broke the monotony. Once when I looked up I caught sight of a launch putting out from the Sybarite and feathering over the choppy waves in the direction of the dock. As it came closer I saw that it contained Shelby Maddox, still alone. He came ashore and, as he walked up the dock, saw me and nodded absently. Evidently he was thinking of something else.
I was glad to rejoin Kennedy a few minutes later when Watkins returned and began to unwrap the packages, as Craig had ordered. Fortunately for the sake of my curiosity, nothing had occurred during my absence, except that Craig and Burke had seen Shelby enter, although he had done nothing.
It was the dinner hour and the guests were beginning to enter the dining-room. Shelby had already done so, selecting a table where he was in sight of that usually occupied by the Walcotts. Their table seemed deserted to-night. Johnson Walcott was not yet back, and Irene Maddox now sat at another table, with those of her family who had come to be with her at the funeral. Winifred did not come down to dinner at all, which seemed to vex Shelby, for it looked as though she were avoiding him. The only person at the table was Frances Walcott.
Convinced that no one else was coming in, Shelby glumly hurried through his meal, and finally, unable to stand it any longer, rose, and on the way out stopped to talk with his sister.
What was said we could not guess. But it was more like a parley during an armistice than a talk between brother and sister, and it did not seem to do Shelby much good.
Finally he drifted out aimlessly into the lobby again. As he stood undecided, we caught a glimpse of the petite figure of Paquita flitting from an alcove in his direction. Before he could avoid her she spoke to him.
However unwelcome the meeting might have been to Shelby—and his face showed plainly that it was so—there could be no doubt of Paquita’s eagerness to see him. As I looked at her I could only wonder at the strangeness of life. She whom men had pursued and had found elusive, even when they thought they had her captured, was now herself in the anomalous rôle of pursuer. And the man whom she pursued cared no more for her than she for those who pursued her. Nay more, he was openly, hopelessly in love with another woman, in every respect the antithesis of herself. Much as I disliked Paquita’s type, though realizing her fascination as a study, I could not help seeing the potential tragedy and pathos of the situation.
She did not accuse or upbraid. On the contrary, she was using every art of which she was a past mistress to fascinate and attract. I did not need prompting from Kennedy to see the strange romance of the situation. The little dancer was subtly matching all the charm and all the knowledge of men and the world which she possessed against the appeal that Winifred had made to a hitherto latent side of Shelby’s nature. The struggle between the two women was no less enthralling than the unraveling of the mystery of Marshall Maddox’s death.