Jimmy nodded, unabashed. "One chance is good enough for me. Nothing can kill me this trip, I tell you. I'm good for anything. Lucky star's over me. I knew it all the time."
Straker turned a disgusted face toward Agatha. "He's crazy as a loon! Isn't he?" he questioned glumly. But Jimmy knew his man.
"No, not crazy, Mr. Straker. Only a touch o' sun! And it's glorious, isn't it, Miss Redmond?"
She loved him for his boyish laughter, for the rollicking spirit in his voice, but her eyes suddenly filled as she pondered the meaning back of his extraordinary story. With Mr. Straker gone at last, it was she who came to Jim with outstretched hands.
"You mean you heard me call for help, there on the hill?"
"And you followed to rescue me if you could?"
Jim's small-boy expression beamed from his eyes. "I followed the Voice and the Face--as I told you once before. Don't you remember?"
His seven-year-old mood was suddenly touched with poetic dignity. "I could naught else," he said, looking into her face. It was all tenderness; and she did not resist when he drew her gently down, till her lips touched his.
Monsieur Chatelard's disappearance was as complete as though he had dropped off the earth. The sheriff, with his warrant in his pocket, hid his chagrin behind the sugar and flour barrels whose sale occupied his time when he wasn't losing malefactors. Chamberlain, having once freed his mind to the grave-like Hand, maintained absolute silence on the subject, so far as the audience at the old red house was concerned. But he went into consultation with Aleck, and together they laid a network of police inspection about Ilion and Charlesport.
"It won't do any good," grumbled Chamberlain. "We'll have to catch him and choke him with our own hands, if it ever gets done."
Nevertheless, they left nothing to chance. Telegraph and telephone were brought into requisition, and within twenty-four hours after the disappearance every station on the railroad, as well as every village along the coast, was warned to arrest the fugitive if he came that way. Mr. Chamberlain took the white motor and went off on long, mysterious journeys, coming back only to go into secret conclave with Aleck, or mysteriously to rush off again.