I can’t say a millionth part of what I want to. I couldn’t even if
there were time. You’ve been so good to me—so good. And all you’ve had
for it is trouble. I’m sorry.
Good-night, Knight. D. C.
“Even if there were time.” As has been indicated, Jack Remsen’s mind
could, on occasion, work swiftly.
Time for what? Why should she be pressed for time? Obviously, because
she was going away. And she would leave that note only just before her
departure. That could mean only the eleven o’clock train from Meredith:
the train he had intended taking before she asked him to postpone his
departure until the morrow. Of course; so that he should get her note!
On her way to the station she would leave the explanatory and damnatory
letter for Helen Wood at the Island. Well, it would be a long time
before that letter reached its addressee!
Examination of the blanketed ground confirmed his reasoning. There were
the small, clear-set footprints, infinitely pathetic in the black
wildness of the night. As he well knew from experience, catching up
with Darcy Cole when she was set on getting somewhere was a job for the
undivided attention of the briskest pedestrian. He set out along the
road at a dogtrot.
His first stop was for the purpose of committing a felony, punishable
by several years in the Federal penitentiary. It took him about a
second to complete the crime, and, as he left the rifled mail-box
behind, his inside pocket quite bulged with the fat letter wherein
Darcy had set forth her circumstantial but by no means complete
confession which was to exculpate her partner and inculpate herself.
Remsen’s heart beat a little faster under that bulky epistle with its
contents of courage and self-sacrifice.
At the door of a late-autumnal cottage he borrowed a flash. With this
he could plainly discern the trail of the little feet, blurred but not
obliterated by the snowfall. His watch indicated a quarter after nine.
He jogged on with high hopes.
On a long, straight, level stretch he let himself out for a burst of
speed. Perhaps, from the summit of the hill in which it terminated, he
might catch a glimpse of her, for the moon was now trying its best to
send a struggling ray through the flying wrack of cloud. Tenderly he
pictured to himself the vision of her; head up to the storm, the
strong, lithe shoulders squared, skimming with that easy, effortless
pace of hers that had in it all the grace of perfectly controlled
vigor.
Halfway across the open space he slackened up to cast the light of the
flash on the road.
No footmarks were visible.
Remsen cried out, with the shock of his dismay. He cast about him on
all sides. No result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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