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"Excellency," he admitted, "I have definite information of his plans which I did not seek." "And the source?" "Miss Westfall's servant." "Ah!" "There are certain atmospheric conditions," regretted Philip, "intensely bad for hay-camps, wherefore I found myself obliged to seek an occasional understudy who would not only blaze the trail for me but do faithful sentry duty in my absence.
I showed the seal to Jud and replaced it on the mantelpiece. He slapped his leg. "Twiggs brought that," he said, "an' he's gone on to Westfall's. What does it say?" "I didn't read it," I answered. The man heaved his shoulders up almost to his ears. "Quiller," he said, "you can't root, if you have a silk nose."
There was no mention of the Indian wife. Hurriedly she opened each tiny drawer and panel. They were for the most part empty. Only in one, a small drawer within a drawer, lay a faded packet of letters directed to Ann Westfall in the hand that had penned the manuscript Norman Westfall's.
Artistically the carven thing was splendid. Cursing himself for a notional fool, Carl jerked the candlestick from the fire and beat out the flames. The heavy top snapped off in his hands. The falling wood disclosed a hollow receptacle below the branches . . . a charred paper. Well, there was always some insane whim of Norman Westfall's coming to light somewhere and this doubtless was one of them.
As this crime against society loomed clear to James Westfall's understanding, he sat down on the nearest piece of furniture, and heedless of his wife's tears and his exchanged children, broke into unregenerate laughter. Doubtless after his sharp alarm about the bear, he was unstrung.
To the wild, out-of-the-world hunting lodge in the Adirondack wilderness of tree and lake and trout-haunted mountain stream which had been part of Norman Westfall's heritage, came, one twilight of cloud and wind, Diane, tanned with the wind and sun of a year's wandering and very tired.
Spring was stealing lightly over the Connecticut hills, a shy, tender thing of delicate green winging its way with witch-rod over the wooded ridges and the sylvan paths of Diane Westfall's farm.
"Having discharged it myself, Poynter, I might er trust to you to report its consequences. There are possibilities of confidences over a camp fire " "You expected me to spy upon Miss Westfall?" "Even so. "Pray believe," said Philip stiffly, "that any confidence of Miss Westfall's would have been to me as your own."
"I I'm sure I don't know when he will be home," she said helplessly after a while. . . . "He went barely a minute ago and very foolish too, I said, with the storm coming. . . . At dinner he spoke some of going to the camp Miss Westfall's camp. . . . I I really don't know. . . . I wish I did but I don't." The lightning blazed at the window and left it black.
Westfall's the practical member he makes Norm pipe down, pins him down to facts, and makes it possible to put his hunches and wild flashes of genius into workable form. Quince is a...." "Now you pipe down! I've heard you rave so much about those two I'd lots rather rave about you, and with more reason. I wish that sounder would start sounding." "Our first message hasn't gone half way yet.