“Not at all. It was secured with cat-gut; the fag end of an E string that I happened to have in my pocket. You see, I had no needle or thread, so I made two holes in the cork with the marline spike in my pocket-knife, two similar holes in the coat, poked the ends of the fiddle-string through, tied a reef knot inside and there it was, tight as wax—paraffin wax.”
“It was very ingenious and resourceful of you,” Varney commented, “but the product wasn’t very happily disposed of on Dan’s coat—I mean as to your decorative label. I take it that Dan’s interest in marine worms is limited to their use as bait. Now if you could have fitted out Dr. Thorndyke with a set there would have been some appropriateness in it, since marine worms are the objects of his devotion; at least so I understand,” and he looked interrogatively at Margaret’s guest.
Dr. Thorndyke smiled. “You are draping me in the mantle of my friend, Professor D’Arcy,” he said. “He is the real devotee. I have merely come down for a few days to stay with him and be an interested spectator of the chase. It is he who should have the buttons.”
“Still,” said Varney, “you aid and abet him. I suppose you help him to dig them up.”
Phillip laughed scornfully. “Why, you are as bad as Dan, Varney. You are thinking in terms of bait. Do you imagine Dr. Thorndyke and the professor go a-worming with a bully-beef tin and a garden fork as you do when you are getting ready for a fishing jaunt?”
“Well, how was I to know?” retorted Varney. “I am not a naturalist. What do they do? Set traps for ’em with bits of cheese inside?”
“Of course they don’t,” laughed Margaret. “How absurd you are, Mr. Varney. They go out with a boat and a dredge; and very interesting it must be to bring up all those curious creatures from the bottom of the sea.”
She spoke rather absently, for her thoughts had gone back to Mr. Penfield’s letter. There was certainly something a little cryptic in its tone, which she had taken for mere professional pedantry, but which she now recalled with vague uneasiness. Could the old lawyer have stumbled on something discreditable and written this ambiguously worded letter as a warning? Her husband was not a communicative man and she could not pretend to herself that she had an exalted opinion of his moral character. It was all very disquieting.
The housekeeper, who had been retained with the furnished house, brought in the coffee, and, as Margaret poured it out she continued her reflections, watching Varney with unconscious curiosity as he rolled a cigarette. The ring-finger of his left hand had a stiff joint—the result of an old injury—and was permanently bent at a sharp angle. It gave his hand an appearance of awkwardness, but she noted that he rolled his cigarette as quickly and neatly as if all his fingers were sound. The stiff finger had become normal to him. And she also noted that Dr. Thorndyke appeared quite interested in the contrast between the appearance of awkwardness and the actual efficiency of the maimed finger.
From Varney her attention—or inattention—wandered to her guest. Absently she dwelt on his powerful, intellectual face, his bold, clean-cut features, his shapely mouth, firm almost to severity; and all the time she was thinking of Mr. Penfield’s letter.