“They’ll be plausible,” said Clement. “Their excuse will be logical. You must remember that this Gunning fellow is not supposed to know she is coming to him. However erratic his movements may seem, they’re his own, or appear to be his own. If they tell her at Cobalt that Gunning has left the town, gone off to a shack, or a mine in the wilds, she can’t say anything. That’s the sort of thing he would do, and she has to adapt herself to him. That’s how they’ll get her away. Gunning will go off somewhere—and she’ll follow.”
“It’s a tough problem,” said the little detective. And both men fell silent, thinking this tough problem out.
This was a new difficulty to cap the old one. Already Clement had felt that Heloise would be taken to some place hard to find in Cobalt, and now he felt that, thanks to Siwash’s message, she would be doubly hard to discover. And then suddenly, as he began to dwell upon Siwash’s unpleasant presence on the train he smiled.
“By Gad,” he cried, “it is just luck after all.”
The little detective looked at him sharply. Clement answered that look by saying:
“From our brother Siwash’s antics do you feel that he thinks we know he is on this train?”
“Why, no,” said the detective. “From the way he acted I think he thought we hadn’t seen him, and he hoped we wouldn’t.”
“That’s my conclusion,” smiled Clement. “He has us under his eye and expects no guile from us, simply because he thinks us innocent of his presence. And that’s going to help us.”
The detective’s eyes showed that he hadn’t grasped what Clement was driving at.
“This is what I mean. He, personally, fears nothing from us. He is confident that he can do his job without any suspicion or threat to himself. Now, what is his job—it’s to shadow us to Cobalt, see us safely there, and report. Do you agree with that; I mean do you think there might be something further for him to do?”