There came silence. Not a sound broke the stillness of the late afternoon.
Gramont, listening, lay bewildered and breathless. Ben Chacherre, the sneak thief—how had Chacherre come here? Gramont knew nothing of any tie between Jachin Fell and Chacherre; he could only lie in the grass and wonder at the man's presence. What "place" was it that the sheriff of Houma had been looking over? And what was it that he, Gramont, was supposed to have done?
Confused and wondering, Gramont waited. And, as he waited, he caught a soft sound from the marshy ground beside him—a faint "plop" as though some object had fallen close by on the wet grass. At the moment he paid no heed to this sound, for again the uncanny silence had fallen.
Listening, Gramont fancied that he caught slow, stealthy footsteps amid the undergrowth, but derided the fancy as sheer imagination. His brain was busy with this new problem. Houma, he knew, was the seat of the parish or county. This Ben Chacherre appeared to have suddenly and unexpectedly encountered the sheriff, to his obvious alarm, and the sheriff had for some reason decided to arrest him; so much was clear.
Chacherre had something to do with the "place"—did that mean the adjacent property, or the Ledanois farm? In his puzzled bewilderment over this imbroglio Gramont for the moment quite forgot the trickle of oil at his feet.
But now the deep silence became unnatural and sinister. What had happened? Surely, Ben Chacherre had not been arrested and taken away in such silence! Why had the voices so abruptly ceased? Vaguely uneasy, startled by the prolongation of that intense stillness, Gramont rose to his feet and peered among the trees.
The two speakers seemed to have departed; he could descry nobody in sight. A step to one side gave Gramont a view of the land adjoining the Ledanois place. This was cleared of all brush, and under some immense oaks to the far left he had a glimpse of a large summer cottage, boarded up and apparently deserted. Nearer at hand, however, he saw other buildings, and these drew his attention. He heard the throbbing pound of a motor at work, and as there was no power line along here, the place evidently had its own electrical plant. He scrutinized the scene before him appraisingly.
There were two large buildings here. One seemed to be a large barn, closed, the other was a long, low shed which was too large to be a garage. The door of this was open, and before the opening Gramont saw three men standing in talk; he recognized none of them. Two of the talkers were clad in greasy overalls, and the third figure showed the flash of a collar. The sheriff, Ben Chacherre, and some other man, thought Gramont. He would not have known Chacherre had he encountered him face to face. To him, the man was a name only.
The mention of his own name by Chacherre impelled him to go forward and demand some explanation. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he had made a mistake; it would have been very easy, for he was not certain that Chacherre had referred to him. There could be other Gramonts, or other men whose name would have much the same sound in a Creole mouth.
"I'd better attend to my own business," thought Gramont, and turned away. He noticed that the motor had ceased its work. "Wonder what rich chap can be down here at his summer cottage this time of year? May be only a caretaker, though. I'd better give all my attention to this oil, and let other things alone."