Part 63

"Mr. Heron was in the car," Clo insisted gravely. "It was dark inside, but I saw his face at the window."

"You must have sharp eyes," said Justin. "The window looked black as a pocket to me."

"You think I imagined it. But I'm sure! Oh, Mr.--er--Justin, do let's go back and warn him! I have a presentiment that if we don't, it will be too late."

"Whatever you feel as if you must do shall be done," said Justin, with a tenderness in his voice of which few people would have believed him capable. "The doctor humoured you, and told me to, so here goes!" He called through the speaking-tube, and directed the chauffeur to turn. "Go back till you get within a few yards of that auto we passed hung up on the road," he added. And to Clo:

"Astonishing the interest you take in the Herons!" he teased.

"Not in them. In him. I don't think I like Mrs. Heron," she explained.

"You've worried about him ever since you came to yourself yesterday. But then, I'm used to John Heron's life being threatened. It used to happen about once a week. And he is alive to this day."

"I feel awfully responsible," said Clo. "You see, I heard Kit and Churn talking of the plot, and saying that Chuff was sure to have found someone else, after Pete died."

"I tried to get Heron three times on long distance yesterday," said O'Reilly, "and when he was always out, I wired."

"You couldn't explain clearly in the telegram."

"If you really saw him in the car, he's all right, up to date. There it is, still stranded. We shall soon know."

"Will you get out and talk to him seriously?" Clo urged.

"Yes. If it's he and not his ghost you saw. I'll get him to walk along the road with me, out of earshot from his wife."

The gray limousine slowed, and carefully stopped. The chauffeur had been told that, for his life, he must not let the car jolt or jerk.

Justin kissed his bride of a few hours good-bye for a few minutes, and jumped out.

While Clo kissed her hand, almost timidly, because Justin had kissed it, Justin himself walked on to the other car.

"You!" exclaimed Dolores Heron. "So it was you in the limousine that hailed us? Funny I didn't recognize your voice, but the chauffeur's tinkering made such a noise----"

O'Reilly was about to ask for Heron when Dolores introduced him to Mr. Hammersley-Fisher. "He's our host at Narragansett, and is taking us over to Roger Sands,'" she said. "Jack's in the car, very bored. I believe he's gone to sleep."

"No, he hasn't," Heron's voice answered rather testily, for he secretly disliked Dolores' habit of calling him "Jack." "He's only waiting for a chance to speak!"

O'Reilly went to the window of the car, and shook hands with his friends.

"It's not possible that you're going to the Sands'?" Heron said.

"I should have made the same remark about you a few days ago," retorted O'Reilly. "But--circumstances have altered cases with us both."

"My wife is the circumstance that has altered my case," Heron replied, in the tone of a man with a grievance.

"So is mine!" returned Justin, in a purposely subdued tone.

"Your--what?"

"My wife. But let's take a walk. Your friend's auto won't be ready to move for some time, I should judge."

The elder man, who had been feeling ill and tired, sprang out of the car with a sudden increase of liveliness. Dolores and Hammersley-Fisher stood with their backs to the two men. Heron's wife turned for a glance, but let them walk away without a question. She was flirting with her host.

Dolores was saying to Hammersley-Fisher: "I dislike Mrs. Roger Sands intensely. I wouldn't dream of going to her house if her husband hadn't at one time done quite a service--legally, I mean--to mine. I don't often talk like this about people I'm going to visit. But if I could tell you the things that woman has done you wouldn't blame me."