“So you expect the affair to be cleared up before Miss Vedant arrives, eh?” Grail asked. “What makes you say that, sergeant?”
Cato flushed a trifle. “Well, sir, if I may make so bold, it’s because I am banking on you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, sir.” He shifted his feet uneasily. “Excuse me, captain, if I go too far; but it is a cinch, to my mind, that you’ll never rest easy under this talk that’s going around.”
“You mean that there is a rumor that I am in some way responsible for Colonel Vedant’s disappearance?”
Cato nodded. “That was what made me so sure the thing would be straightened out,” he explained. “I knew you’d move heaven and earth before you’d let a charge like that stand against you.”
Grail was silent a moment. “Is the fact of the colonel’s disappearance pretty generally known among the men, sergeant?” he asked finally.
The other gave a significant shrug of the shoulders. “It’s the only thing they’re talking about over in the barracks, sir.”
“And do many of them believe this gossip connecting my name with it?”
Cato’s reluctance to answer was more eloquent than words. “You know what a bunch like that is, sir,” he said apologetically. “Let somebody tell ’em St. Peter is a crook, and they’ll be proving it to you in five minutes. That’s what made me a bit standoffish when I came in just now, captain. I knew you couldn’t help but be wise to the way the post is feeling, and I didn’t want to seem to be handing you out any sympathy.”