“We will do our best to prevent that,” said the man.
Clement knew they would. He knew that to get that ten minutes’ talk with Heloise would not be an easy matter.
He listened intently. Since they meant to prevent him speaking to the girl, they might say how they meant to do it. He might, thanks to his splendid good luck, overhear their plan for check-mating him. That would be a crowning triumph. A silence settled down on the other side of the door. Then, surprisingly, astoundingly, Neuburg growled, “But there is something else. Gunning has broken loose again.”
Clement gasped—and so did the woman. But where his gasp was one of astonishment, that of the woman was one of anger. “Ah, that was what made Joe look so sour on the quayside. I saw he was there,” she gasped. “Well—what is it now?”
“It is not revealed,” said Mr. Neuburg, being, apparently, sardonic. “Nor is it revealed to where he has—vanished.”
“Vanished—you mean he’s left Sicamous?”
“My dear Méduse, he always leaves Sicamous. He is behaving, as he always behaves—the slack-willed, backboneless swine.”
Clement registered that character reading of Henry Gunning in his mind. Assuredly fortune was smiling on him to-day with her most genial smile.
The woman on the other side of the door suddenly showed a flash of spirit.
“Just stop being clever, Adolf, and tell me exactly what Joe Wandersun told you on the quayside.”