Duff had finished a two-page equation before it occurred to him that a “moonlight stroll” was the sort of thing which he had agreed with Eleanor ought to be watched. He turned his heavy book face down on his desk. He stepped into the dark hall and looked out the window. Through the trees, on the coral-white road, he could see Ellings walking slowly, apparently aimlessly, toward the west. Duff hurried down the back stairs, saying nothing of his departure, and started along the drive. The coral crackled, so he stepped on the grass, reflecting that he was poorly equipped by nature for any act, such as stealthy pursuit, that required a lack of clumsiness.
By walking along the roadside in the shadow of trees, Duff managed, however, to gain enough on Ellings to get him in view. And Duff was surprised — or was he, he asked himself — to find that the star boarder stopped now and again, looked back and seemed to listen, as if he worried over the possibility of pursuit.
The road was crossed by another about a half mile from the house. Harry turned.
After walking some distance, he came to a region where there were no houses at all — an area of pines, palmettos and cabbage palms which was cross-hatched with weedy streets and sidewalks and provided here and there with the ghostly remnants of lampposts. This area, a quarter of a century ago, had been laid out as a real-estate subdivision. Then the boom had burst, and since that time the vegetation of South Florida had worked its way — vegetation aided by storms, heat and the rain. Harry walked with accelerated speed in this moonlit, ruin-like place, following the cracked and broken line of a sidewalk. Duff took off his shoes and stayed behind in the shadows.
Harry was certainly headed somewhere. Beyond the ruined development was a rock pit with a moonlit pond in its bottom, used now as a trash dump. Duff thought Harry might be on his way there, but he stopped short of it. He stood still. His cigar shone brighter, twice.
He turned clear around, looking. Then he whistled.
From the undergrowth almost beside him, a figure rose. Duff thought its rise would never stop — thought it was a shadow, an optical illusion. For the man, who must have been squatting there, was one of the tallest Duff had ever seen — almost a freak, all but a circus giant.
The cigar, perhaps having served its purpose, was stamped out. The two men began to talk. Duff couldn’t hear and did not dare go closer.
When the conference ended, Duff took a short cut home. He reached his room before Harry returned. He was sitting there, appalled by Harry’s companion, and sure now that a direct and dreadful suspicion of the boarder was justified, when he heard voices in the driveway and the slam of a car door, followed by Eleanor’s running feet and her voice,
“Mother! You still up? Guess what? Scotty Smythe, that rich boy in Omega, proposed tome!”