“There may be a telephone in that old mine,” suggested the detective, with no great conviction.
“Oh, there may be,” said the driver. “There may be a Packard de luxe only waiting to take us back. Anyhow, to look won’t mean any harm. An’ it’ll be an occupation. There’s all the night yet.”
Clement and the detective went round by the trail to the abandoned mine. They felt their way carefully with their torches, and they carried their pistols ready. There was no need for the latter. The mine was dark and empty, its buildings degenerating into rot, its workings choked with weeds. There was not a telephone.
They had left another torch with the driver, and he had spent his time carefully surveying the position of the car in the rather vague hope that she might be got out of the slime lake on her own power. As Clement and his companion returned, he called out to them, “Nothin’ doing with th’ old girl. It’ll take a team to pull her clear, and an overhaul in a garage when she is clear an’ back at Cobalt. But she won’t sink any more, so she’s safe to sleep in.”
“We’ll send back that team,” said Clement. He turned to the detective. “Or, rather, I will; there’s no need for you to walk in, I’ll send back another car.”
“I’ll come along,” said Gatineau.
“A hell of a walk on a dark night with a trail bad enough to be easily missed. You’re risking a lot,” said the driver.
“We’ve got to,” answered Clement. “You see, the reason we were lured out here, and marooned, is, as I look at it, that those people in the car want to get us out of the way and keep us out of the way for a long time.... Isn’t that the way you see this, Mr. Gatineau?”
“That’s the only reason in it,” agreed the detective. “I should say that we got to Cobalt before Neuburg and his lot were ready for us. They had to decide on this desperate trick to get us out into the wilds and maroon us. I take it that the man in the car signaled to Siwash directly he saw him.”
“I agree in the main,” said Clement, who had been thinking hard. “But this thing has been well planned. They knew if they could get us out here we might be landed helpless.... And to get us out here, well, Siwash must have been the bait. I don’t see how they knew we knew of his presence on the train——”