Eve digested this. It was rather a new idea, I suppose, that her word might not be good for much in a court of law.
Michael got up. “Well I’ve got to be getting back to work,” he said. “How do you feel, Hamish? All right?”
“I’m awful hungry!” said Hamish.
“Poor Hamish!” Eve cried. “Here we’ve been sitting talking while you were starving to death! And after that awful night!”
“Well it was kind of messy down there,” Hamish said. “It was lucky the bally old well was half filled up or I might have been a goner. You see I landed on a lot of leaves and old junk that had been thrown down there to get rid of it, I s’pose. So I just made myself as comfortable as I could and waited for daylight. I figured that somebody’d be along lookin’ for me soon as it got light. But it was kind of tiresome waitin’.”
“Tiresome! I think you had pretty good nerve!” I said. We all got up. “Hope my car’s all right,” Hamish said, “I guess I’ll get me one of those Turkish baths up at the hotel after I’ve had dinner.”
XVIII
Dig Here!
We tried to sew carpet rags that afternoon but it was rather a farce. So much had happened that morning that it seemed impossible to settle down to anything so prosaic. We kept talking of Michael and his awful predicament, and racking our brains to think of some way of helping him. Eve was inclined to blame Hamish for his part in the affair, for not coming forward when he saw Michael being taken into custody and vouching for his identity. But I pointed out that Hamish himself would have had some explaining to do and would probably have only made matters worse by trying to account for Michael’s presence in the house.
We had of course told Aunt Cal the whole story but, though she had been rather decent about the dandelion wine, she had not displayed very much sympathy either for Michael or Hamish. Her attitude was that they had got no more than they deserved for meddling in things that didn’t concern them. I felt that Aunt Cal was being rather unjust for after all Michael had only been seeking to aid the cause of justice.