But that very evening an incident occurred which, though trifling, revived all their suspicions and threw them once again into a sea of doubt.
Believing that the Coburns would by that time have returned, they left the launch about five o’clock to call. Reaching the edge of the clearing almost directly behind the house, they passed round the latter and rang.
The door was opened by Miss Coburn herself. It happened that the sun was shining directly in her eyes, and she could not therefore see her visitors’ features.
‘You are the gentlemen who wished to see Mr Coburn, I presume?’ she said before Merriman could speak. ‘He is at the works. You will find him in his office.’
Merriman stepped forward, his cap off.
‘Don’t you remember me, Miss Coburn,’ he said earnestly. ‘I had the pleasure of meeting you in May, when you were so kind as to give me petrol to get me to Bordeaux.’
Miss Coburn looked at him more carefully, and her manner, which had up to then been polite, but coolly self-contained, suddenly changed. Her face grew dead white and she put her hand sharply to her side, as though to check the rapid beating of her heart. For a moment she seemed unable to speak, then, recovering herself with a visible effort, she answered in a voice that trembled in spite of herself:
‘Mr Merriman, isn’t it? Of course I remember. Won’t you come in. My father will be back directly.’
She was rapidly regaining self-control, and by the time Merriman had presented Hilliard her manner had become almost normal. She led the way to a comfortably furnished sitting-room looking out over the river.
‘Hilliard and I are on a motor launch tour across France,’ Merriman went on. ‘He worked from England down the coast to Bordeaux, where I joined him, and we hope eventually to cross the country to the Mediterranean and do the Riviera from the sea.’
‘How perfectly delightful,’ Miss Coburn replied. ‘I envy you.’
‘Yes, it’s very jolly doing these rivers and canals,’ Hilliard interposed. ‘I have spent two or three holidays that way now, and it has always been worth while.’
As they chatted on in the pleasant room the girl seemed completely to have recovered her composure, and yet Merriman could not but realise a constraint in her manner, and a look of anxiety in her clear brown eyes. That something was disturbing her there could be no doubt, and that something appeared to be not unconnected with himself. But, he reasoned, there was nothing connected with himself that could cause her anxiety, unless it really was that matter of the number plates. He became conscious of an almost overwhelming desire to share her trouble whatever it might be, to let her understand that so far from willingly causing a shadow to fall across her path there were few things he would not do to give her pleasure; indeed, he began to long to take her in his arms, to comfort her …
Presently a step in the hall announced Mr Coburn’s return.
‘In here, daddy,’ his daughter called and the steps approached the door.
Whether by accident or design it happened that Miss Coburn was seated directly opposite the door, while her two visitors were placed where they were screened by the door itself from the view of any one entering. Hilliard, his eyes on the girl’s face as her father came in, intercepted a glance of what seemed to be warning. His gaze swung round to the newcomer, and here again he noticed a start of surprise and anxiety as Mr Coburn recognised his visitor. But in this case it was so quickly over that had he not been watching intently he would have missed it. However, slight though it was, it undoubtedly seemed to confirm the other indications which pointed to the existence of some secret in the life of these two, a secret shared apparently by the good-looking driver and connected in some way with the lorry number plates.
Mr Coburn was very polite, suave and polished as an accomplished man of the world. But his manner was not really friendly, in fact, Hilliard seemed to sense a veiled hostility. A few deft questions put him in possession of the travellers’ ostensible plans, which he discussed with some interest.
‘But,’ he said to Hilliard, ‘I am afraid you are in error in coming up this River Lesque. The canal you want to get from here is the Midi, it enters the Mediterranean not far from Narbonne. But the connection from this side is from the Garonne. You should have gone up-stream to Langon, nearly forty miles above Bordeaux.’
‘We had hoped to go from still farther south,’ Hilliard answered. ‘We have penetrated a good many of the rivers, or rather I have, and we came up here to see the sand-dunes and forests of the Landes, which are new to me. A very desolate country, is it not?’
Mr Coburn agreed, continuing courteously:
‘I am glad at all events that your researches have brought you into our neighbourhood. We do not come across many visitors here, and it is pleasant occasionally to speak one’s own language to some one outside one’s household. If you will put up with pot-luck I am sure we should both be glad—’ he looked at his daughter ‘—if you would wait and take some dinner with us now. Tomorrow you could explore the woods, which are really worth seeing though monotonous, and if you are at all interested I should like to show you our little works. But I warn you the affair is my hobby, as well as my business for the time being, and I am apt to assume others have as great an interest in it as myself. You must not let me bore you.’
Hilliard, suspicious and critically observant, wondered if he had not interrupted a second rapid look between father and daughter. He could not be sure, but at all events the girl hastened to second her father’s invitation.
‘I hope you will wait for dinner,’ she said. ‘As he says, we see so few people, and particularly so few English, that it would be doing us a kindness. I’m afraid that’s not very complimentary—’ she laughed brightly—‘but it’s at least true.’
They stayed, and enjoyed themselves. Mr Coburn proved himself an entertaining host, and his conversation, though satirical, was worth listening to. He and Hilliard talked, while Merriman, who was something of a musician, tried over songs with Miss Coburn. Had it not been for an uneasy feeling that they were to some extent playing the part of spies, the evening would have been a delight to the visitors.
Before they left for the launch it was arranged that they should stay over the following day, lunch with the Coburns, and go for a tramp through the forest in the afternoon. They took their leave with cordial expressions of good will.
‘I say, Merriman,’ Hilliard said eagerly as they strolled back through the wood, ‘did you notice how your sudden appearance upset them both? There can be no further doubt about it, there’s something. What it may be I don’t know, but there is something.’
‘There’s nothing wrong at all events,’ Merriman asserted doggedly.
‘Not wrong in the sense you mean, no,’ Hilliard agreed quickly, ‘but wrong for all that. Now that I have met Miss Coburn I can see that your estimate of her was correct. But any one with half an eye could see also that she is frightened and upset about something. There’s something wrong, and she wants a helping hand,’
‘Damn you, Hilliard, how you talk,’ Merriman growled with a sudden wave of unreasoning rage. ‘There’s nothing wrong and no need for our meddling. Let us clear out and go on with our trip.’
Hilliard smiled under cover of darkness.
‘And miss our lunch and excursion with the Coburns tomorrow?’ he asked maliciously.
‘You know well enough what I mean,’ Merriman answered irritably. ‘Let’s drop this childish tomfoolery about plots and mysteries and try to get reasonably sane again. Here,’ he went on fiercely as the other demurred, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do if you like. I’ll have no more suspicions or spying, but I’ll ask—her—if there is anything wrong: say I thought there was from her manner and ask her the direct question. Will that please you?’