the words left my lips, I heard a subdued gasp, then an exclamation. It came from the rear section of my car! I flung one startled glance over my shoulder, then I switched off the mag and put on the brakes. As we came to a halt, I half turned in my seat and stared blankly at the young lady and the suitcase.
She was staring at me just as blankly—more so, in fact; she seemed undeniably frightened. She had the suitcase on the short rear seat beside her, and it was a very good suitcase, of expensive make.
“Who—who—what are you doing in this car?” she stammered, anger creeping into her voice.
I was up against it, somehow; just how, I was not at all sure. She seemed perfectly sane, and I liked her voice immensely. I liked her face, too. It was a healthy, sensible sort of face, and it was exquisite into the bargain. She was dressed in a traveling suit which spelled something better than California tailoring.
“Who are you?” she demanded, half startled and half angry. “Answer me! What are you doing with this car?”
“Driving it, madam,” I answered. “I—er—I trust you don’t mind?”
She stared at me again. I removed the big, yellow goggles, pushed up my cap, and threw open my duster.
“Now,” I said comfortably, “we’re on an even basis. Since you wear gloves, I presume you are not a Californian—probably a mere Californiac. I hope you won’t think me offensive when I say that this is literally a charming surprise! Probably there’s been a mistake somewhere. I don’t see possibly how I can have got into the wrong car—”
“Stop that nonsense!” she cried out; and I observed that he had very blue eyes, and remarkably pretty eyes. “Drive this car back instantly!”
“Back—where?” I inquired. “Back—”
“Have you stolen this car?” she flung at me as if she really thought I had.
“No,” I said, and laughed. “No, madam. This car is protected from theft by reason of its color. No thief would attack it! The car belongs to me, it really does,” I went on, for her appearance of fright sobered me. “If you doubt it, look at the prescribed card here by the dash, which was legally affixed before I left Los Angeles. It bears my name and the car’s number—”
“Do you dare pretend that you are John Balliol?” she flashed out scornfully.
“Heaven forbid!” I said gravely. “Balliol’s dead. I bought the car, madam, day before yesterday. Only an hour ago I saw in the paper an account of his death—”
I curse the impulsive words. For she stared at me, her eyes slowly widening in horror, the color ebbing out of her face; then she collapsed in a dead faint.
CHAPTER III
I Receive A Warning
I had never had a fainting lady on my hands before, except once when Mrs. Wanderhoof, of Peoria, saw the Fifth Avenue apartment I had decorated for her, and looked at the bill. In that instance, Mr. Wanderhoof had assumed charge. But in this instance—
We were out of sight of Paso Robles, and there was not a soul nor a house in view. There was no water to throw on the girl’s face—she was no more than a girl, I judged—and the radiator water was apt to be dirty. So, not knowing what else to do, I swung over into the rear seat beside her and set her slim, drooping body upright against the cushions. As I did so, I was relieved to see her blue eyes flutter open.
Then I remembered a flask of whisky in the door-pocket, and produced it. I got the screw-cup to her lips, but at the first taste she pushed it away.
“Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “I—I am very well now.”
She seemed unable to take her eyes from me; the color slowly crept back into her cheeks, but in her eyes I read a bewildered fear.
Then she said something strange:
“You said—they killed Jack after all!”
I was puzzled. Jack! Oh, she must mean John Balliol. The poor girl—I must have given her a stiff jolt!
“No,” I said gently. “No one killed Balliol, madam. I have the paper here with an account of it; it was suicide. May I ask if you are a friend of his?”
She seemed to shudder slightly, and drew a long breath.
“Yes. I am a—a friend,” she said in a low voice, and flushed. I had the uneasy conviction that she was lying to me. “Your words were—a shock. I saw him only last night, before my train left—or, rather, yesterday afternoon.
“When this car passed the train this morning I felt that it was he; I knew we were ahead at Paso Robles, so I left the train and waited—and I saw the car and got in. When you came along, I thought it was Jack—and meant to surprise him—and when you spoke I discovered—”
She broke off, the words failing her. That told me the whole story, of course. Even from the train she had not been able to mistake this accursed car!
“But it was only six last night when I saw him! And my train did not leave until nearly midnight—there’s been a wreck somewhere, and the trains were all held up. It never occurred to me that he was not in the car—”
She broke off again, starting at me.
“My name is Yorke Desmond,” I said, trying to make matters smooth. To my dismay, I saw her eyes widen again with that same startled expression. I could have sworn that she had heard my name before.
“I met Mr. Balliol two days since, on business. I bought a ranch from him, in fact, and bought this car to boot. I’m on my way up to the ranch now. If, as I presume, you were en route to San Francisco, I shall be very glad to place the car at your disposal.”
She looked away from me, looked at the horizon with a fixed, despairing gaze. My dismay became acute when I perceived that she was going to cry. And she did.
“Oh!” She flung up her hands to her face suddenly. “Oh—and to think that it took place last night—right afterward! And now it’s too late—”
A spasm of sobbing shook her body. Not knowing what else to do, and feeling that I had been a blundering ass, I went for a walk and let her cry it out. All my married friends tell me that crying it out is the only solution.
As I paced down the roadside, I found myself extremely puzzled, even suspicious. She had admitted to me that she had seen Balliol the previous evening. But first, when she had not been on guard at all, she had cried out: “They killed Jack after all!” Upon hearing that Balliol was dead, she had immediately taken for granted that “they” had killed him! Things looked rather badly.
The initials on her suitcase, which I had seen, were M. J. B. Was she a Balliol? No; she had said that she was a friend, and had distinctly said “friend,” not “relative.” And she had been lying about it, somehow; a minute later she had lied when she told of seeing Balliol the previous night. For her train had not been late! It had left Los Angeles a little before midnight, on regular schedule. “Regular as clockwork,” had said the garage man as the train had passed us. I remembered that incident now.
This girl must have known
