Suiting the action to the word, she moved one or two of the upper mats more to her liking, and then stretched her lithe young frame luxuriously on the improvised couch. In a moment she was on her feet again, staring in dismay at her hastily vacated nest, while every nerve in her body tingled with apprehension.
Something had moved—"squirmed," she called it afterwards—beneath the mats. Something soft and yielding, horribly suggestive of a human body discomfited by her weight.
But there was no further movement. Relieved of its incubus, the thing that had wriggled its dumb protest had reverted to its previous quiescence, and was as uncannily still as it had been all the time she had been in the grotto. Enid felt that she must do one of two things—either scream at the top of her voice, or fathom the mystery of what, or who, it was that lay concealed.
She was no screamer, so screwing up her lips tightly she chose the second course. A few vigorous tugs sent the mats flying hither and thither, and disclosed a man lying prone upon his face on the wooden seat, flattened out like a gigantic lizard. Enid shrank back a little as the figure rose slowly, uncoiling its cramped limbs and peering and blinking up at her. Intuitively she recoiled further still when she saw the ferocity in the haggard eyes.
But even as she looked the fierceness died out, giving place to an expression of patient sadness. The man, who was clad in a cotton blouse and blue jean trousers, made a half-respectful, half-deprecating gesture.
"Ah, so it is not Louise," he said gently in French. "So much the better for the traitress, and for me, perhaps." Then he added in broken English, "Ma'amselle must not be frighted. I do her no harm. I only poor sailor man from onion ship, come in naice cool place for rest."
On the instant Enid's self-possession returned to her. She remembered what her father had said to Reggie Beauchamp—that the clue to the murder of Levison was probably connected with a French lugger engaged in the onion trade, at present lying at Exmouth. It was on the cards that her adventure was not to turn out so fruitless as she had feared. But the man would require careful handling, for she did not lose sight of the fact that she might be in the presence of a murderer. And she was handicapped by not knowing what were the relations between Travers Nugent and this foreigner.
In coming to a conclusion on the latter point, her inherited powers of deduction came to her aid. She shrewdly reasoned that if the man were well disposed towards the owner of The Hut, he would hardly be lurking in the grounds, hidden under a pile of matting.
"I was not frightened—only startled," she replied pleasantly. "You see I am an intruder here, just as much as I expect you are yourself. I am afraid it will be as awkward for you as for me—my getting myself locked in by that horrid creature."
Pierre Legros laughed grimly. "It no matter to me, so long as the right person come to unlock the door," he said.