Crowley was informed of that confirmation, and grinned and again patted his breast and claimed the credit.
“All right,” allowed the chief, “you’re in for your slice of the fee. But if you’re lying about Kennard I’ll make you suffer for deserting her.”
“I stand by what I have said. She was double-crossing us.”
Later, Crowley began to inquire casually from time to time whether Miss Kennard had sent in any word. He was not good at concealing his thoughts, and he was manifestly worried by the prospect of possible developments, but Mern was not able to pin him down to anything specific. As a matter of fact, Crowley had not fathomed the mystery of Miss Kennard’s actions in Adonia and was not in a way to do so by any processes of his limited intelligence; he admitted as much to himself.
He was clumsy in his efforts to extract from the chief something in regard to the report which supposedly had been sent in by Miss Kennard, and Mern’s suspicions were stirred afresh. He gave Crowley no information on that point; one excellent reason why he did not do so was this: Miss Kennard had not sent in any report. Mern was still waiting to hear from her as to certain details; he wanted to talk with her. Crowley ventured to state that she had left Adonia, and he suggested that she was on the trail of Latisan. The operative, pressed for reasons why she was still pursuing Latisan, if the drive master had been separated from his job by Crowley, averred that, according to his best judgment, the girl had gone crazy. That statement did not satisfy Mern, but it enabled Crowley to avoid tripping too often over inconsistencies.
Under those circumstances the uneasy feeling persisted in Chief Mern that the Latisan case was not finished, in spite of Craig’s compliments and Crowley’s boasts and Miss Elsham’s bland agreement as to facts as stated, though with avoidance of details.
Mern usually shut down the cover on a case as soon as the point had been won; he had found in too many instances that memory nagged; he had assured Craig that having to do what a detective chief was called on to do in his business had not given him the spirit of a buccaneer.
But in this case the lack of candor in his operatives disturbed him, though he did not presume to arraign them; he could not do that consistently; in the interests of his peace of mind he had always assured his workers that they need not trouble him with details after a job had been done.
Crowley, mystified, had said nothing about the amazing love affair. It occurred to him that the protestations of Miss Kennard might have been a part of her campaign of subtlety, interrupted by his smashing in; he was more than ever convinced that his was not the kind of mind that could deal with subtlety.
Miss Elsham never mentioned Latisan’s apparent infatuation; she had been sent north in the rôle of a charmer and did not propose to confess to Mern that she had failed utterly to interest the woodsman.