The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5890]
Viola hesitated a moment. This might give her an opportunity for talking with the colonel in secret and confidence. But she put it aside.
"No, thank you," she answered. "I'll go another time. I must stop at the office and leave some bills that have come here to the house. Mr. Blossom attends to the payment."
"Let me leave them for you," offered the colonel. "I have to go into town for some bait, and I can easily stop at the office for you."
"If you will be so good," returned Viola, and she got the bundle of bills - some relating to Mr. Carwell's funeral and others that had been mailed to the house instead of to the office.
The colonel might have sent Shag to purchase the shedder crabs he was going to use for bait that day in fishing in the inlet, and the colored servant might have left the bills. But the colonel was particular about his bait, and would let none select it but himself. Consequently he had Jean Forette drive him in, telling Shag to meet him at a certain dock where they would drop down the inlet and try for "snappers," young bluefish, elusive, gamy and delicious eating.
"You have not yet found a place?" asked the colonel of the chauffeur, as they rolled along.
"No, monsieur - none to my satisfaction, though I have been offered many. One I could have I refused yesterday."
"You liked it with Mr. Carwell, then?"
"Truly the situation was in itself delightful. But I could not manage the big car as he liked, and we had to part. There was no other way."
The detective narrowly observed the driver beside whom he sat. Jean did not look well. He had much of the appearance of the "morning after the night before," and his hand was not very steady as he shifted the gear lever.
"How much longer have you to stay here, Jean?"
"About two weeks. My month will be up then."
"And then you go - "
"I do not know, monsieur. Probably to New York. That is a great headquarters."
"So I believe."
"If monsieur should hear of a family that - "
"Yes, I'll bear you in mind, Jean. You are steady and reliable, I presume?" and the colonel smiled.
"I have most excellent letters!" he boasted, and for the moment he seemed to rouse himself from the sluggishness that marked him that morning.
"I'll bear it in mind," said the colonel again.
But as they drove on, and Colonel Ashley noted with what exaggerated care Jean Forette passed other cars - giving them such a wide berth that often his own machine was almost in the ditch - the impression grew on the detective that the Frenchman was not as skillful as he would have it believed.
"He drives Like an amateur, or a woman out alone in her machine for the first time," mused the colonel. "He'd never do for a smart car. Wonder what ails him. He wasn't drunk last night by any means, and yet - "
They reached the town, and paused at the only place where there was any congestion of traffic - where two main seashore highways crossed in the center of Lakeside. Jean held the runabout there so long, waiting for other traffic to pass, that the officer who was on duty called:
"What's the matter - going to sleep there?"
Then Jean, with a start, threw in the clutch and shot ahead.
"That's queer," mused the colonel. "He seems afraid."
The purchase of the shedder crabs was gone into care fully, and having questioned the bait-seller as to the best location in the inlet, the detective again got into the machine and was driven to the office of the late Horace Carwell. It was a branch of the New York office, and thither, every summer, came LeGrand Blossom and a corps of clerks to manage affairs for their employer.
Colonel Ashley, who by this time was known to the office boy at the outer gate, was admitted at once.
"Mr. Blossom is at the telephone," said the lad, "but you can go right in and wait for him."
This the colonel did, having left Jean outside in the car.
The telephone in LeGrand Blossom's