The driver nodded and hurried away. But he was back shortly, and five minutes later we were rolling inland. The sandy road gave place to an uneven dirt one and the smell of the sea to the mingled odors of dust and gasoline, with now and then a whiff of clover fields or flowering wayside bush. Not until we had embarked had either of us considered how we were to get back. I fondly hoped that, in case we had to walk, I would not have a case full of bottles to carry at any rate.
It proved to be quite a short ride, however, and in less than ten minutes we were climbing down at a country crossroads. When the driver had spoken of The Inn, my imagination had pictured a thriving hostelry—cars drown up at the door under a porte cochère, tables on a terrace, etc. It was with somewhat of a shock, therefore, as the bus rolled away that I perceived that there was neither a car nor a human being in sight. There were four houses, to be sure, but the nearest of these was boarded up and the others looked as if they might have been permanently abandoned.
“Quite a metropolis,” remarked Eve cheerfully. “Wonder which is the Inn?”
I picked up “Harry’s” luggage and trudged after her up one of the crossroads. In the yard of one of the houses, I perceived a woman digging dandelion greens. The sight cheered me greatly.
Over the wall, Eve inquired the way to the Inn. The woman rose from her stooping posture and surveyed us with some curiosity. “I ’spect you mean Trap’s place,” she said. “It’s the big house over on the other corner. But I wouldn’t recommend the rooms and they say the meals——”
“Oh, we weren’t thinking of stopping,” Eve assured her hastily. “It’s just—just an errand.”
From behind a damaged screen door, voices issued as we approached the side door of “Trap’s place.” Entering, we found ourselves in a narrow store. A woman sat behind the counter adding a column of figures on a brown paper bag. In the rear two men were smoking. A hurried glance told me that neither resembled the gentleman we sought.
Eve advanced to the counter and stated our errand.
“I guess likely it’s that Mr. Bangs you want,” the woman said when she had finished. I was aware as she eyed us of the same lively curiosity which had animated the dandelion digger. “He come in last night,” she went on. “I didn’t hear him say nothin’ ’bout no suitcase. Real estate’s his line, he said. He was makin’ inquiries about the old Craven House up Old Beecham way and I seen him start off in that direction this mornin’, though it’s the first I heard the place was for sale and what anybody’d want an old rattletrap like that for——”
This was rather of a facer; after we’d come all this way to find our bird flown. The woman must have seen the disappointment in our faces, for she added, “If you walked up there right away, maybe you could catch him. He ain’t been gone more’n half an hour.”