VI
Hood and Deering found Cassowary sitting in the machine in the inn yard reading a newspaper; this Hood promptly seized and scanned with his trained eye.
“Are the bags aboard? Ah, I see you have been forehanded, Cassowary!”
Deering went to the inn office and came out with a number of telegrams which he read as he slowly crossed the yard.
“What do you think of this?” he asked weakly. The yellow sheets shook in his hand and his face was white. “I wired to a bank and a club in San Francisco last night, and they’ve answered that father isn’t in San Francisco and hasn’t been there! And I wired the people Constance was to visit at Pasadena, and they don’t know anything about her. Just look at these things!”
“Sounds like straight information, but why worry?” remarked Hood, scanning the telegrams.
“But why should father lie to me? Why should Constance say she was going to California if she wasn’t?”
“My dear boy, don’t ask me such questions!” Hood remarked with an injured air. “You are guilty of the gravest error in sending telegrams without consulting me! How can we trust ourselves to Providence if you persist in sending telegrams! If you do this again, I shall be seriously displeased, and you mustn’t displease Hood. Hood is very ugly in his wrath.”