“Oh, Lord!” groaned Storm. “What an infernal mess! We’ll never get it straightened out, George!”
The other made no response. He was running a practised eye over the conglomeration, and at length he glanced up.
“Where is that four-and-a-half-ounce rod?” he demanded.
“Isn’t it there? We must have overlooked it.” Storm rose wearily from the top of the trunk where he had perched himself. “It wasn’t with the others, so I may have quite a search for it, worse luck!”
“Let me——” George offered, but Storm shook his head.
“No. I want to be sure I didn’t leave any candles burning up there, anyway.”
While Storm was gone George made a swift inventory. In his own mind he believed privately that his impulsive companion would tire in a few days of the discomforts of camping without a guide and would himself suggest going to the nearest club. That would be the Reel and Rifle, George reflected, and there was a passable nine-hole course there. Storm would want his golf sticks along, but where were they? Surely they had not been taken to town . . . .
Then he closed his eyes and his face contorted in a spasm of swift pain. The last time he had seen those golf sticks they were lying across the table in the den while Leila’s body, mercifully composed on the couch after the coroner’s visit, lay awaiting the last sad offices.
They were there still in all probability, and George decided to get them himself before Storm returned. It would be needless cruelty to suggest that his friend enter that room again.
Taking a candle, he made his way down the hall. The den door was closed but not locked, and he threw it open and stepped reverentially across the threshold.