I did not.
“Who is Miss Baldwin?”
Pierce suddenly snapped his teeth together, and the look that came upon his freckled countenance puzzled me for days to come.
“God knows—and the boss,” he said enigmatically. “She—she’s——”
He shook his head vigorously, then sprang into the launch. His serious moment had gone.
“Now get in while I’m holding ’er steady, Mr. Pitt. That’s right.” And now, putt-putt said the engine, and bearing its precious freight the launch sped across the blue water to the noble yacht. “Ah, ha! And there’s old ‘Frozen Face,’ the Boss’s valet, waiting to welcome you on board.”
II
I followed the direction of Pierce’s outstretched arm and on the deck of the Wanderer made out the stiff, precise figure of Chanler’s man, Simmons, waiting in exactly the same pose with which he admitted one to his master’s bachelor apartments in Central Park West. It was Simmons who welcomed me on board, and he did it ill, for it irked his serving-man’s soul to countenance his master’s friendship with persons of no wealth.
“Mr. Chanler is in his room, sir. You are to come there at once. This way, if you please, sir.”
He led the way in his stiffest manner to a stateroom in the forward part of the yacht and knocked diffidently on the door.