“I believe that she might,” Peggy replied.
Evan Tudor had noted Peggy’s startled pause, and Leslie’s question concerning the date. He had a particular interest in matters here which he was not disclosing yet, but he welcomed anything which threw any light upon it. When Peggy and Jack went away after their short visit, he walked beside Peggy’s horse for some distance till it was necessary to strike off from the trail or bridle path to his own little camp. Several notes went into his small pocket notebook that night before he went to sleep. He was inclined to go abroad to do a little investigating, but he decided that first he should get some familiarity with the woods and coast by daylight. It might be just as well, too, to have one good night’s rest. He expected to have few before the twenty-eighth.
Early the next morning Evan Tudor was at the roadside, waiting, and who should come to meet him there but Tom Carey, who then rode to the town at the railroad and sent a telegram, written at length, and signed E. T. It was very innocent and related to a certain article which would be ready for the press to meet the editor’s date.
“Are you deeply engaged in the affairs of a certain man here named Bill?” Evan Tudor facetiously asked Tom, as he handed him the written message.
“No, sir. I catch fish for him,” said Tom. “I might be doing something else, perhaps, if he meant some things that he said to me, but what I do I do in the open.”
“Do you know what it is that Bill meant?”
“No; I thought that it was liquor, but I am not so sure now.” Tom dug his shoe into the turf by the side of the road with a troubled face.
“Would you consider finding out for me, if I should take you into my employ without interfering with your work for Bill? Indeed, that would be a part of it.”
Tom looked up quickly. “You are after Bill!”
“I am not sure that I am at all. Something is wrong up here. Can I count on you not to betray me?”