"What spectator? There's no one here, but ourselves."
"Oh, I think there is. Don't be abrupt about it; but just take a look at that lilac copse on the crest of the hill."
"Can't see any one there," said Sedgwick.
"Then what makes you think there's any one?"
"Literally what I say. There's the bird on that young willow. You can see for yourself it's trying to impart some information."
"I see a grasshopper-sparrow in a state of some nervousness. But grasshopper-sparrows are always fidgety."
"This particular one has reason to be. She has a nest in that lilac patch. A few minutes ago she went toward it with a worm in her beak; hastily dropped the worm, and came out in a great state of mind. Hence I judge there is some intruder near her home."
"Why it might be Gansett Jim," replied Kent in a louder voice. "Though it's rather stupid of him to pick out a bird-inhabited bush as a hiding-place."
The lilac bush shook a little, and Gansett Jim came forth.
"He went to Carr's Junction," said the half-breed curtly.
The other nodded. "This morning," he said.
"No. I kill him if I get him!" He turned and vanished over the rise of ground back of the court.
"Now what does that mean?" demanded Sedgwick in amazement.
"That is Gansett Jim's apology for suspecting you," explained Kent. "He is our ally now, and this is his first information. What a marvelous thing the bulldog strain in a race is! Nobody but an Indian would have kept to an almost hopeless trail as he has done."
"The trail of the real murderer?" cried Sedgwick.
Kent shook his head. "You're still obsessed with dubious evidence," he remarked. "Let me see your time-table."
Having studied the schedules that the artist produced for him, he nodded consideringly. "Boston it is, then," he said. "As I thought. Sedgwick, I'm off for two or three days of travel--if we get through this night without disaster."
Night came on in murk and mist. As the clouds gathered thicker, Chester Kent's face took on a more and more satisfied expression. Sedgwick, on the contrary, gloomed sorely at the suspense. Nothing could be elicited from the director of operations, who was, for him, in rather wild spirits. The tennis match seemed to have sweated the megrims out of him. He regaled his chafing friend with anecdotes from his varied career; the comedy of the dynamiter's hair; the tragedy of the thrice fatal telephone message at the Standard Club; the drama of the orchid hunt on Weehawken Heights. From time to time he thrust a hand out of the window. Shortly after midnight there was a splatter of rain on the roof.