Shadow Varne! Who was the fool who dared to challenge Shadow Varne!
He was smiling now—but his lips were thin and merciless.
It could no longer be held attributable to some crazed, irresponsible act, that shot on shipboard, which chance had elected should be fired through his stateroom window rather than through any other. Logic now denied that. The man who had fired that shot, and the man who had screamed out in taunting mockery at him last night, were one and the same. Well, who was it, then, who had been on the liner, and was now on Manwa Island?
There were only two. Runnells and Locke!
Had Runnells had time to change his shoes, or, granting the time, had cunning enough to have thought of doing so? No; the chances were a thousand to one against it. Locke, then? But Runnells had said that Locke hadn't left the Talofa. Were Runnells and Locke in cahoots together? They had been extremely friendly on the way down. But Locke—it was preposterous! He knew who Locke was—a young American business man of good family. It was curious, though, that Polly should have made that remark to-day—about a trip like this on such short acquaintance. No; there was nothing in that. It had happened too naturally. Locke had a good many pairs of shoes. Like Runnells', none of them had been wet; but he was not sure he had found all of them in the darkness in the cabin with Locke—supposedly at least—asleep there on the opposite bunk. Locke could easily have hidden a tell-tale pair; and Locke was decidedly the kind of man who would have had the intelligence to do so.
But how could Locke know him as Shadow Varne?
Well, there was Runnells!
His jaws set with a snap. Was it Runnells? There was one way to find out—within the next ten minutes—with his hands at Runnells' throat! No; that would not do—not yet—save as a last resort. If it were not Runnells, then any act like that on his part would disclose his hand, arouse Runnells' suspicions that this trip to Manwa Island was perhaps, after all, not entirely a holiday jaunt!
He began to pace up and down the room—but noiselessly, without sound. His subconscious mind imposed the necessity for silence.
His hands clenched until the nails bit into the palms. Who was it? What did it mean? What was at the bottom of it? There was no answer that solved the question even to the satisfaction of a tormented brain that would have grasped with eager relief at even a plausible conclusion. The law? If the law had proof that he was Shadow Varne, he would not be an instant at liberty—though he would never be taken alive again—not even under the helpless condition that had done him down in Paris for the first and only time, as that old busybody, Sir Harris Greaves, the fool who loved to play with lighted matches over a powder cask, had so unctuously set forth. But perhaps the law did not have proof, had only suspicion—was only playing a game to trip him into disclosing his identity. Revenge? Then why not another shot last night, as on the liner; why—