“I thought perhaps we could fix the time of the accident, if you had gone over the road before me,” he said quietly. “But I see we cannot.”
He turned away, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, and joined the others.
Brose Stovebridge gave a shiver as he saw him go. He had the desperate feeling of going to pieces; unless he could steady his nerves he felt that in a very few minutes he would give himself away.
Without a word to any one, he slipped through the big reception hall of the clubhouse and thence to the buffet. Here he tossed off another drink and then hurried out the side door.
The attendant looked after him with a shake of his head.
“He’s got something on his mind, he has,” he muttered. “Never knew him to take so much of a morning—and the very day he’s going to run, too.”
Stovebridge walked over to the automobile sheds. He was not likely to be disturbed there, and if some one did come around he could pretend to be fussing with his car.
He scarcely noticed Merriwell’s touring car, which had been put into the shed next to his own. At another time he would have examined it with interest, for he was a regular motor fiend. But now he passed it with a glance, and going up to his own car, lifted up the hood and leaned over the cylinders.
He had not been there more than a minute or two when he felt a hand grasp his shoulder firmly.
With a snarl of terror, he straightened up and whirled around.