“Get Miss Helga away.”
“She won’t come. I can’t persuade her to move,” said Dolly.
Everard came and knelt beside the girl. “Helga,” he said, “Helga, dear, you must go back home. We will bring him as soon as we can. Will you go back with me now, dear?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
Bending over, she kissed Haynes’ forehead. She got to her feet, and Everard and Dolly Ravenden led her away. Dick leaned over the dead face and looked down upon it with a great sense of sorrow and wrath. So gazing, he recalled the reporter’s half-jesting charge that he should take up the trail, “if my turn comes next.”
“It’s a promise, old man,” he said softly to the dead. “You might have left me your clue; but I’ll do my best. And until I’ve found your slayer or my turn comes I’ll not give up the work that you’ve left to me.”
Meantime Professor Ravenden had been examining the marks with every mark of deep absorption. “Professor Ravenden!” called Dick somewhat impatiently.
The professor turned reluctantly.
“This—is—a very interesting case,” he muttered brokenly. “I—I will notify the coast-guard.”
And Dick saw, with amazement, before the dry-as-dust scientist turned again to post down the beach, that his eyes were filled with tears.