"Is the young lady a member of your party?"
"Heavens, no," I answered quickly. "Oh, no," I vigorously repeated. "We don't know her, at all—none of us!"
An ominous silence followed this emphatic denial, and I could actually feel him making up his mind about us. It was an awful moment. At last Tommy flecked the ash from his cigar and, with great deliberation, asked:
"Colonel, do you believe in ghosts?"
"If you're serious," Hardwick snapped, "I certainly do not!"
"I'm serious, all right," Tommy purred, and I knew, from the unusually soft quality of his voice, that, indeed, he was—"for, if you don't believe in ghosts, you believe we're a bunch of damn crooks—oh, yes you do!—and I may say that if you don't, you're a damn fool. Now you see how serious I am, and how serious this affair is! This man was telling the exact truth when he said that none of us have ever heard that voice. If we actually did hear it just now, the coincidence that brought a small boat past us at this time of night, and prompted some woman in it to speak when and what she did, is more inexplicable to me than you think it is to you—because you've made up your mind to understand it. I can, however, understand how any sweet voice on a night like this might make my friend skid off his usually sane and normal track, because——" he hesitated, adding slowly: "Hardwick, I can't go into my friend's private affairs, but I wish to tell you that he's had a hell of a jolt, and on account of a memory—a memory, Hardwick—we're at Key West tonight. I trust, sir, that you won't misjudge, but rather fit these fragments and supply the needed others; for I know that your appreciation of—er—things is too delicate to allow me to proceed."
Be it noted that Tommy did tell but the simple truth; and, what is more, he told it with such sincerity that, in a large measure, our embarrassment became shifted over to our guests. Personally, I felt like a howling ass to be staked out and exhibited as somebody's jilted Romeo, but this was a welcome compromise; thrice welcome, since Hardwick's next words showed that he had forgotten, or dismissed, the prelude to my burst of confidence about "a man in the restaurant," for arising he said:
"Well, we've kept you longer than we should. If this gentleman will give my government good money for its revenue we'll bid you bon voyage. I suppose there's no objection to my keeping those?" He pointed to the spurious bills.
"I have paid dearly for them," the professor remonstrated.
"I'm sorry, but you won't lose any more than you've already lost—nor gain more, as you won't think of using them!"