“I noticed how you managed to create that impression,” Nona admitted. “You were very—very——”
“Adroit,” Rock suggested dryly.
“That’s the word.” She smiled.
“You certainly have——”
“I meant to be,” Rock interrupted, frowning. “I value my scalp, and I never like to scrap over nothing.”
He looked intently at her.
“See here: If people around here persist in taking me for Doc Martin, why not let it go at that?” he suggested.
“Why do you want to pass for him?” she demanded. “Are you on the dodge for something?”
Rock shook his head. He didn’t want to explain to her the possibility of Elmer Duffy starting a blood feud with him over Mark’s death. He had disarmed Duffy, he thought, in his rôle of Doc Martin, no longer jealously hostile toward any ambitious male who came wooing Nona Parke. And Rock was quite willing to chance some unknown enemy of the dead rider. Pity and wonder had stirred in his breast when he looked at his double stretched on the bed, and when he helped to bury him. He had a sense of outrage in a man being murdered from ambush. He was puzzled about that shooting—curious about the how and why.
“No,” he said. “I have told you my name, and where I came from. I have nothing to hide. Just the same, I have a notion to play Doc Martin for a while. I might find out who killed him. Duffy didn’t.”