Part 14

The Dear Me was not anchored, but moored to the pier by a pulley and tackle. Before the diverted Gerard guessed his purpose, Corrie had hauled in the boat's bow by the running line attached and swung himself raging into the craft below. There was a choked oath, a sound of rending canvas, then the clatter and thud of combat in close quarters.

It was over before Gerard could do more than haul the reeling, water-drenched boat again within reach. A great splash, a cry changing to a smothered gurgle, announced a threat fulfilled.

"I don't want any help," panted Corrie, standing erect and dishevelled, fiery blue eyes on his floundering enemy. "He's had enough, I fancy. Here, the water is only five feet deep, you chump! Not that way! Throw me an oar, Gerard--he'd drown himself in a saucer. Here, catch hold, you. What's the matter with you?"

"You pitched him into pretty cold water," Gerard reproached, between amusement and pity. "Got him? Look out! You'll capsize!"

Corrie had him, by the collar, and brought him to the pier, a streaming, shivering wreck.

"Man's size, am I?" demanded the victor. "Here, what are you shaking like that for? You'll kill yourself, man."

The captive looked at him, speechless, shuddering miserably in the boisterous rush of wind that wrapped his wet garments about him like a sheath of ice.

"You silly idiot," Corrie snapped impatiently. "Why didn't you do as I told you? Open the basement door, won't you, Gerard, while I bring him? We'll be sure to find a fire there. Are you going to come quietly, yes?"

The victim followed tamely to the lower part of the building, where Corrie threw open a furnace-door and installed him in the red glow of heat.

"Take off your clothes," he commanded. "Trying to get pneumonia, are you, so I will feel like a brute? Oh, I'll give you something to wear; I've got a lot of old duds in my locker here. What are you laughing at, Allan Gerard?"

"The responsible man's burden. Never mind me, go on with your rescue."

"I should like to throw something at you."

"Haven't you got enough on your hands?"

The raillery struck some note in the man's pride. He looked from Gerard to Corrie, who was bringing an armful of assorted clothing, with a reawakening defiance not so much evil as primitive.

"You couldn't have put it over me so easy," he announced sombrely, "if I'd had the feed I bet you got this morning."

The garments escaped Corrie's grasp.

"Feed? You're hungry?"

"What you think I was sleepin' in your dinky boat for, if I had the price of anythin'? It had a blanket in it an' was better than the open, that's why."

"Why didn't you say so," Corrie stormed at him hotly. "Get into those clothes and come upstairs. Or, no; I'll bring it down, stay there."

It was an elaborate lunch-hamper that presently was brought in and set down.

"Eat it," was the concise direction. "That vacuum-bottle is full of hot coffee; drink it. For Heaven's sake stop shivering--why couldn't you speak? Rupert is coming, Gerard. I heard the motor-horn down the road."

Gerard discreetly had turned his back to the scene, reading a last-season bulletin of yacht racing that was fixed to the wall at the end of the room.

"You want to start?" he interpreted, as Corrie joined him.

"Well--I hope you won't mind, but I don't see how we can. I have got to stay here until that chattering, shaking----"

"'Brimstone pig,'" supplied Gerard, with a recollection of the unforgettable Mrs. Smallweed.

"Thanks. Until he finishes and can leave, for the steward will put him out if he finds him here alone."

"That cannot be long."

"No, but," he hesitated, engagingly confused. "But we are miles from a restaurant, you know, and I had to feed him somehow, and there wasn't anything except our luncheon that I had sent over for the trip. So I suppose we had better drive home and get some eats there. It is a shabby way to treat you, all right, after bringing you out."