It took only a moment to transfer a passenger, to explain that she hoped to find the boy who had been lost—no, she would not use such a strenuous word as kidnapped—and would they complete their kindness by not mentioning the affair to any one? One hated so to get into the papers. And would they let her see them again to thank them? Then, as she sank back on the cushions, she remarked, as much to the expectant chauffeur as to Janet: “Yes, I think it is all right. I think we shall see Archie to-night.”
CHAPTER XII
A BLOW
There was no one but Mrs. Winter to welcome the colonel when, jaded, warm and dusty, he tapped on Aunt Rebecca’s parlor door. Mrs. Millicent was bristling with a sense of injury; one couldn’t touch her conversationally without risk of a scratch. The colonel put up the shield of his unsuitable appearance, his fatigue and his deplorable need of a bath, and escaped into his own apartment. But he made his toilet with reckless haste. All the time he was questioning his recent experience, trying to sort over his theories, which had been plunged into confusion by Mercer’s confession. “I suppose,” he reflected, “that I had no right to give Mercer that hint at the door.” The hint had been given just as they parted. It was in a single sentence:
“By the way, Mercer, if that pillar in the patio is of importance in your combination, you would better keep an eye on it; it has a trick of cracking.”
“The devil it has!” grunted Mercer. Then he thanked him, with a kind of reluctant admiration in his tone.
“You are sure you don’t object to my detective’s staying?” questioned the colonel.
“No, suh; prefer to have him. You told him to have his men in and overhaul the house?”
“I did. I warned you I should have to. You promise there shall be no racket? But I—I think I’ll take Haley.”
“Thank you. That’s right kind of you, suh. Good-by, suh.”
This had been the manner of their parting—assuredly a singular one, after the sinister suspicions and the violent promises which the soldier had made himself in regard to this very man. After leaving, he had motored into town, down to the police courts, to discover no records of the arrest and no trace of Archie. Thence, discouraged, perplexed and more worried than he liked to admit, he had repaired to the hotel. His aunt was gone, Miss Smith was gone, and Randall could only relate how Mrs. Winter “had flewed like a bird, sir, into a big red motor-car and gone off, and then Miss Smith and a lady and gentleman had got into a white car and gone off in the same direction.”