The Best Wadsworth Camp Mysteries. Charles Wadsworth Camp
turned. It was growing dark even in this high room. Miller could not read the other’s face—could not be sure it confessed any emotion stronger than surprise.
Morgan spoke with a little difficulty. His voice was hard.
“My daughter! How have you—What do you know of her?”
Miller felt himself placed in the wrong. He was conscious of the hot blood in his cheeks. After all, perhaps, he had been tactless, for Anderson had told him that the girl troubled her father, and he had seen sufficient evidence of that himself.
“The Andersons,” he said, “mentioned that you had a daughter.”
His choice lay between that and an avowal of his encounter with the girl. He did not care to surrender that memory or her secret. At the moment he found he couldn’t.
Morgan started down the ladder.
“My daughter,” he said coldly, “is not to be judged ordinarily. She is—peculiar. She keeps a good deal to herself.”
They descended to the library in silence. Miller resented the constraint that had arisen between them at the mention of this girl in whom he felt so strong an interest. When he took his leave, however, Morgan resumed his cordial tone.
“It’s pretty dark,” he said. “I hadn’t realised it was so late. You have had experience of that path. Perhaps you wouldn’t find it pleasant walking, particularly after your vigil of the other night. Let me run you out in my launch.”
Miller laughed a little.
“No. I suppose I should be glad it’s dark, so I can go through those woods grinning at the feeling with which they oppressed me the other night. But of course that’s nonsense. The path’s really all right. Besides my man is waiting for me around the house, and we have the dingy on the shore. I can’t inconvenience you and myself for atmosphere.”
Morgan laughed back at him.
“After all that’s the talk. But mind you don’t fancy things in the dark. I want you to come again.”
“When you’ve lunched or dined on the Dart.” Miller answered.
“Gladly. How about a lantern?”
“There’s one in the dingy. I think I can manage that far.”
He started around the house.
“Good night,” Morgan called after him.
It was really night in the avenue. Miller walked cautiously to avoid stumbling.
He was disappointed more than he would have thought possible. Primarily he had come to see the girl. She had not appeared. He had misread the fancied obedience in her eyes.
He paused and lighted his pipe. After the match expired it was darker than before. He had not realised it was so late. He smiled at the thought of Tony’s terror of the darkness in this place. But where was the man! A slight uneasiness drove the smile away. He called :
“Tony!”
He waited, listening. The night was very still.
His uneasiness increased. Perhaps, though, the native had gone back to the dingy. Yet, Miller felt, he would not have taken that path at dusk alone without some irresistible reason.
He went on. He knew he must be near the end of the avenue, that those dark masses directly ahead were the ruined slave quarters. He wondered why the night was so still. There should be insects, birds, animals, but he heard nothing save the slight scuffling of his feet among dead leaves.
Abruptly he stopped. Miller was not easily startled, yet now his throat tightened. Something was moving ahead—a blacker shadow in the black shadow of a crumbling wall. It stepped out towards him.
“Who’s there?” he muttered.
But now he guessed, and he was exultant. She came to him quickly. Her hand was on his arm. He heard her heavy breathing. The girl was frightened. He fought back a quick impulse to put his arms around her, to draw her close. He knew it was unjustifiable. For a moment it was incomprehensible to him. He strangled it.
“I told myself you would see me,” he said. “I asked you to see me.”
“I have obeyed.”
She caught her breath.
“Listen—”
“What is your name?” he asked. “This time you will tell me your name.”
“Listen!” she began again.
“Won’t you tell me your name?”
She burst out impatiently:
“I have no name for you.”
She reached up. She pulled at the lapel of his coat.
“Listen to me—”
Again, as on the beach, a sense of social isolation set him beyond the standards he knew. The logic of reason no longer dovetailed. The impulse grew too strong. His arms were around her. His lips tried to find hers. But he could not find her lips at first.
She spoke hurriedly with an odd catch in her voice.
“This is madness. You cannot do that.”
“But I can,” he said defiantly.
He drew her head back. He kissed her mouth. Without warning she relaxed.
“You have taken too much,” she said in a hard voice. “Now go.”
“Yes,” he answered, “I shall go, but tomorrow on the beach—”
He released her and walked towards the ruins. He was aware of no shame. Instead a steely triumph filled his heart. He was for the moment a man strange to himself.
He had reached the edge of the underbrush when she caught him and grasped his arm. She was trembling.
“No. Even now you must not go that way. “
“Why?”
“Listen! The night is very still.”
“Yes. Why have I done this! Is it love?”
“Don’t say that. You must not go this way. Come back.”
“I shall go this way.”
Her voice rose.
“Not tonight. The woods are not safe tonight.”
“Not safe?”
She whispered :
“The throats of the snakes—their fangs are out.”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I know,” she cried. “You shall not go this way tonight?”
Suddenly he stiffened. A choked and horrible cry arose from the path ahead of them—the cry of a man in agony. It seemed to break into a thousand sounds and fill the woods.
She shrank back. Then she recovered and tried to catch at his arm. But he realised. He threw off her hand and plunged blindly down the path. He shouted :
“Tony!”
He heard her faintly.
“Come back! Come back!”
But he stumbled on in the direction of the cry. He could see nothing. He kept to the path by instinct, running, thrusting aside the branches and fronds that reached out to hold him back. At last he heard Tony’s gasping breath. The man was just ahead. He was running, too, but slowly, heavily, as one who struggles from the paralysing bonds of fear.
“Tony! It was you! What—”
The man staggered forward. Miller took his arm and hurried him.
“Were you—? Were you—?”
But he scarcely