With a happy sigh, he turned his back once and for all and walked rapidly away. But he did not go toward the electric-car line, which he knew must lie a few blocks to the west. Instead, he retraced the course they had come, for he had decided to visit the university campus once more and try to discover what had become of Maku, and more especially of the other Japanese, who had secured the papers. That he would be recognized and connected with the attack on Maku, was unlikely.
When he came to the corner of Sheridan Road and Chicago Avenue, he hesitated for a moment. Should he go north through the campus and seek a trace of the Japanese who had escaped? Nearly half an hour had gone since the adventure among the trees, and the man must have got completely away by this time. Having the papers, he surely would not linger to learn the fate of Maku.
Orme found himself wondering how the Japanese had got to Evanston. Granting that it had not taken them long to solve the abbreviated directions on the five-dollar bill, they could hardly have come by motor-car, for they had had a good half-hour start, and yet Orme had discovered them before their work was completed. Only on the assumption that their car had broken down on the way could Orme admit that they had used a motor-car. Moreover, how were two Japanese, whose appearance did not indicate the possession of much ready money—how were they likely to have a car, or even to rent one? And had they believed that they might be pursued? Would they not have come to Evanston by an obvious route of train or trolley.
These considerations led Orme to think that the car which he and the girl had heard in the distance could not have been occupied by the escaping Japanese.
The fellow, then, had probably made for the electric-car line, and in that event he would be well on his way to Chicago by this time. The car he had caught must have gone southward from Evanston about ten forty-five. The conductor would be likely to remember having had a Japanese on board; perhaps he would even remember where the Oriental had got off. The natural course for Orme, therefore, was to take a car himself and, if he did not meet the other car returning, to get off at the car-barns and make inquiries. The possibility that the Japanese had changed to the elevated road on the North Side was great, but the conductor might remember if the change had been made.
But Orme did not turn at once toward the car-line. Though his logic pointed in that direction, he was irresistibly influenced by a desire to walk eastward along the drive where it skirted the southern end of the campus. A half-hour might go by, and still he would not be too late to meet, on its return, the car which the Japanese would have taken. He started, therefore, eastward, toward the lake, throwing frequent glances through the iron fence at his left and into the dark shadows of the oaks.
He came to the lake without encountering anyone. The road here swept to the southward, and on the beach near the turn squatted the low brick building which the girl had told him was the life-saving station. A man was standing on the little veranda. His suit of duck was dimly white in the light from the near-by street-lamps.
“One of the crew,” Orme surmised, and he sauntered slowly down the little path.
The beach sloped grayly to the edge of the lake, where a breakwater thrust its blunt nose out like a stranded hulk. The water was calm, lapping the sand so gently that it was hard to believe that so gentle a murmur could ever swell into the roar of a northeaster. A launch that was moored at the outer end of the breakwater lay quiet on the tideless surface.
“Good-evening,” said Orme, as the man turned his head. “Are you on watch?”