Mackintavers gone! It upset all his calculations. However, he soon found himself engaged in sprightly discourse.
Lemonade and cigars made an incongruous accompaniment. This entire situation, in fact, was the most incongruous the professor had ever experienced. He could not make out whether Thady Shea were here as a guest or as an enemy, as a chance caller, or as a business acquaintance. Thady Shea kept a tight mouth on some things.
“You’d better take those horses into the shade,” reiterated the professor at length. “And that suitcase of yours—why, the sun will broil it!”
Thady Shea smiled slightly.
“I perceive dust upon the horizon,” he said, gesturing toward the road, “which doth to my mind betoken the speedy return of our host, and the conclusion of my business. As for the suitcase, sir, therein lie food for musing!”
“What’s in it then?” The professor chuckled. “A set of Shakespeare?”
“Nay, sir, of its contents I am ignorant.”
Thady Shea eyed the approaching dust cloud, which might give birth either to Mackintavers or to Abel Dorales. In his own fashion, he proceeded to tell his companion how he had acquired that suitcase, two hours previously, and while on his way here.
He had encountered a horse, saddled and bridled and still alive, lying in the road with a broken leg. Of the rider, there had been no sign. A little distance farther on Shea had come upon this battered little suitcase lying in the dust. Whether the suitcase appertained to the vanished horseman could not be told. There had been some sort of accident, yet there was no human being in evidence. All this upon the main highway.
“Did you notice the brand on the animal, or anything which might identify it?” queried the professor, who was well versed in the ways of the country.