A little way along the porch, Hank Reefe gazed at him steadily from the rocking chair where he sat with his gun belt across his knees, and said, “You come back alone?”
“Yes. I dropped Papa off where the station wagon was ditched yesterday. He was going to change the wheel and bring it in.”
“You didn’t see him after that?”
Little electric needles stitched a ghostly seam up the Saint’s spine.
“No. The station wagon wasn’t there when I came by just now. I thought he’d be back here.”
“He hasn’t been back.”
Jean Morland came through the kitchen door and set bowls on the table.
“We’d better go ahead and eat,” she said. “Hank must be starving too.”
The foreman came over silently and sat down on the other side of her. He sat looking at Jean, and the Saint looked at her too. Her eyes went to one of them after the other, and she smiled again, rather quickly and nervously. Reefe stretched out his big hand and took hold of her arm gently.
He said, “You might be worrying about nothing, Jean. He could’ve remembered something he forgot to buy, and gone back into town for it. Or maybe he thought he’d have another try at getting hold of the sheriff or somebody.”