“My opinion is, they’re just neighbors. They were here years before the Wandersuns showed up. My opinion is that they are not in with Neuburg.”
Gatineau thought a while. “We’ll risk it, anyhow,” he said. “Look here, Mr. Seadon, you’d better not show, but I will. I’ll go ’long an’ talk to them.... Got a boat to take us along the lake, Cager?”
“Not a power boat, just now. You can have a skiff or a canoe.... Skiff? Well, that’s less dangerous in a scuffle. I’ll get one ready while you’re going to the Bloss’s.” He went to the window. “That path leading up hill. It’s one of them two shacks you c’n see. There’s a chintz settee on the porch.”
Gatineau was back in half-an-hour, his face was puzzled.
“Some news, Mr. Seadon,” he said. “Lucas—that’s Siwash, they don’t know his real name, they’re on the square all right—Lucas will be back to-morrow to meet the ladies.” He glanced deliberately at Clement. “He’s gone up the lake to sit at the bedside of his dear cousin Henry Gunning.”
“What!” cried Clement.
“Sure thing. Cousin Henry Gunning—he’s lying at death’s door.”
Clement stared at him in amazement. That Gunning was dangerously ill seemed incredible.... Suddenly he remembered a passage in the Joe Wandersun letter to Heloise at Banff. He remembered a passage in Neuburg’s note to Méduse. He remembered the buying at the drug stores in Revelstoke, and Mrs. Wandersun’s going to a sick friend. He smiled grimly. “That’s the shock,” he said. “Remember Méduse was to be prepared for one, and to play up to it. She won’t expect to learn that a quite healthy man is abruptly at death’s door.”
“But I wonder what it means, just how it fits in with the scheme of that blackguard Neuburg? Don’t you see, it’s saddling that outfit with a sick man—even though he’s faking.”
“He’s got more time than he thought,” said Clement. “We’re at Montreal, don’t forget.”