“You’re sure they’ll be on this train?”
And he saw the interlocutor’s head nod.
“The boy’s with them?”
An inaudible reply, but another nod.
“And you’re sure of Miss Smith?”
This time the other’s profile was toward the listener, who heard the reply, “Plumb sure. I wish I were as sure of some other things. Have we settled everything? It is better not to be seen together.”
“Yes, I think you’ve put me wise on the main points. By the way, what is the penalty for kidnapping?”
Again an averted head and hiatus, followed by the younger man’s sparkling smile and exclamation: “Wow! Riskier than foot-ball—and even more fun!” Something further he added, but his arms hid his mouth as he thrust them into his greatcoat, preparing to move away. He went alone; and the other, after a moment’s gloomy meditation, gathered up coat and bag and followed. During that moment of arrested decision, however, his features had dropped into sinister lines which the colonel remembered.
“Dangerous customer, or I miss my guess,” mused the soldier, who knew the passions of men. “I wonder—they couldn’t mean my Aunt Rebecca? She’s old; she has millions of money—but she’s not on this train. And there’s no Miss Smith in our deck. I’m so used to plotting I go off on fake hikes! Probably I’m getting old and dotty. Mercer, poor fellow, may have his brain turned and be an anarchist or a bomb-thrower or a dirty kidnapper for revenge; but that boy’s a decent chap; I’ve licked too many second lieutenants into shape not to know something of youngsters.”
