"Won't you come in?" asked Elaine as we got out.
"Thank you, I believe I will for a few minutes," consented Del Mar, concealing his real eagerness to follow me. "I'm all shaken up."
As we entered the living-room, I was thinking about the map. I opened a table drawer, hastily took the plan from my pocket and locked it in the drawer. Elaine, meanwhile, was standing with Del Mar who was talking, but in reality watching me closely.
A smile of satisfaction seemed to flit over his face as he saw what I had done and now knew where the paper was.
I turned to him. "How are you now?" I asked.
"Oh, I'm much better—all right," he answered. Then he looked at his watch. "I've a very important appointment. If you'll excuse me, I'll walk over to my place. Thank you again, Miss Dodge, ever so kindly."
He bowed low and was gone.
. . . . . . .
Down the road past where we had turned, before a pretty little shingle house, the taxicab chauffeur stopped. One of the bullets had taken effect on him and his shoulder was bleeding. But the worst, as he seemed to think it, was that another shot had given him a flat tire.
He jumped out and looked up the road whence he had come. No one was following. Still, he was worried. He went around to look at the tire. But he was too weak now from loss of blood. It had been nerve and reserve force that had carried him through. Now that the strain was off, he felt the reaction to the full.