“I reckon I’ve forgot the name, but the message was that this fellow—Sullivan was his name—was at M——, and if the man had escaped from the wreck would he come to see him.”
“He wouldn’t have sent that message to me,” I said to McKnight, rather crestfallen. “He’d have every object in keeping out of my way.”
“There might be reasons,” McKnight observed judicially. “He might not have found the papers then.”
“Was the name Blakeley?” I asked.
“It might have been—I can’t say. But the man wasn’t there, and there was a lot of noise. I couldn’t hear well. Then in half an hour down came the other twin to say the gentleman was taking on awful and didn’t want the message sent.”
“He’s gone, of course?”
“Yes. Limped down here in about three days and took the noon train for the city.”
It seemed a certainty now that our man, having hurt himself somewhat in his jump, had stayed quietly in the farm-house until he was able to travel. But, to be positive, we decided to visit the Carter place.
I gave the station agent a five-dollar bill, which he rolled up with a couple of others and stuck in his pocket. I turned as we got to a bend in the road, and he was looking curiously after us.
It was not until we had climbed the hill and turned onto the road to the Carter place that I realized where we were going. Although we approached it from another direction, I knew the farm-house at once. It was the one where Alison West and I had breakfasted nine days before. With the new restraint between us, I did not tell McKnight. I wondered afterward if he had suspected it. I saw him looking hard at the gate-post which had figured in one of our mysteries, but he asked no questions. Afterward he grew almost taciturn, for him, and let me do most of the talking.