CHAPTER XVII
ALL that afternoon and well into the evening, Darcy Cole, at the Farmhouse, sat and wrote and wrote and wrote.
All that afternoon and well into the evening, Jack Remsen, at the Bungalow, sat and smoked and mused and let his pipe go out and relighted it and mused again.
All that afternoon and well into the evening, the four amateur sleuths at the Lodge waited for a reply from Washington which didn’t come.
At a point a mile or so above these human processes a large, cold cloud sprung a million leaks and sifted down a considerable quantity of large, soft snowflakes, and continued so to do until the air was darkened and the earth whitened with them.
Through this curtain, after a time, frightened but determined, tramped Darcy Cole. Through this curtain tramped also Jack Remsen, deep in such trouble of heart as he had never known before, and most undetermined. Both were headed for the same spot, the mailbox at the entrance from the main road to the byway which leads up to the Bungalow.
Having started considerably earlier than Jack, Darcy got there first. She opened the box, dropped in her note, and proceeded to another mail-box some distance along the road and opposite the Island, where she deposited a second epistle. That left her two and a half hours in which to make the ten miles of dark, heavy road to Meredith. If it were too little, she had learned of a trail through meadowland and forest which would cut off nearly two miles. Darcy didn’t like woods at night—most of us don’t, if we’re honest with ourselves—but she proposed to catch that train.
Now, an all-wise government has ordained that upon rural delivery boxes there shall be a metal flag which works automatically with the raising and the lowering of the lid. Upon reaching the Bungalow box, shortly after the wayfarer from the Farmhouse had passed, Jack Remsen observed with surprise that the flag, which he knew to have been down, was raised.
“How’s this?” inquired the wayfarer, addressing the box. “I’ve been here and got the noon delivery, and the postman comes only once a day. Yet you’re flying signals.”
As the box did not respond, Remsen opened it and felt inside. Darcy’s note rewarded his explorations. By the light of successive matches and at the cost of scorched fingers, he read it: