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The spot suited me well; we had left the town behind us; here neither Dykeman's spotter nor any one he hired to help him could get within listening distance, I dropped down on a bank; Worth and Barbara disposed themselves, he sprawling his length, she sitting cross-legged, just below him. It wasn't easy to make a beginning.
Both girls shouted at me; they were going somewhere for something and would see me later. Getting down toward the Gilbert place, just beyond the corner, I flushed from the shadows of the pepper trees a bird I knew to be one of Dykeman's operatives.
It was a place of aggressive activity among placid surroundings, this plant of Dykeman's, for its setting was the Italian fisherman's home district; little frame shacks, before which they mended their long, brown nets, or stretched them on the sidewalks to dry; Fisherman's Wharf and its lateen rigged, gayly painted hulls, was under the factory windows.
There were men in my employ he couldn't shake. Perhaps those reports in Dykeman's desk might have offered some surprises to this cock-sure lad. My exasperation at Worth mounted as I listened to Vandeman talking. "Those bank people should do one thing or another," he gave his opinion.
I countered on him, and saw instantly that the Whipple end of the crowd hadn't known of Dykeman's spotters and trailers. "Well, why not?" Dykeman shrilled. "Why not? Who wouldn't shadow that crook? One hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars! Worked us like suckers come-ons !" he choked up and began to cough. Cummings came in where he left off. "See here, Boyne; we don't want to antagonize you.
It must have been through Cummings that she learned what was about to take place in Dykeman's private office. What had she told Cummings? I was ready to blurt out the question, when she fumbled in her bag with little, shaking hands, drew out and passed to me unopened the envelope addressed to Worth, with my detailed report of the Skeels chase.
"You'll talk now or never " Dykeman's shrill threat was interrupted by the shriller bell of the telephone. He yanked the instrument to him, and the "Hello!" he cried into it had the snap of an oath. He looked up and shoved the thing in my direction. "Calling for you, Boyne," he snarled.
Worth hailed it with, "Skeels lurks in the jungle! Life still holds a grain of interest." "Why the devil couldn't you keep me advised of your movements?" I demanded. "Dykeman's hounds," he grinned. "Had them guessing. They'd have picked me up if I'd gone to your office." "You could have written or wired. They've picked you up anyway," I grunted. "One's on the job now. Saw him as I came in." "Eh?
"Don't you see, Jerry, that the other side had all this before they encouraged Bowman to change his mind about when father was shot?" I did see it ought to have known from the first. This was what they had back of them last night in Cummings' room; this explained the lawyer's smug self-confidence, Dykeman's violent certainty that Worth was a criminal.
"I'll come now," I raised the transmitter to say, and quickly over the wire came the answer, "I told you not to speak in there! This is Barbara Wallace." I went away from there. Looking about me, I had guessed that pretty much every man in the room believed that it was Worth Gilbert with whom I had been talking over the phone. Dykeman's trailers would be right behind me.
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