softly hollow, Tim heard footsteps coming toward him over the planking of the pier. They were coming fast but not running. Then they slowed, and two figures emerged cautiously from between two buildings near the entrance to the pier. They paused and seemed to be whispering together. It looked to Tim as if they had been rattled by the apparition of the rowboat, and he decided that it might be a good idea to rattle them some more before they recovered.
He put on his sternest classroom voice. “What goes on?” he called.
“Mother of God,” cried one of the figures aloud. It wasn’t a curse, either. It sounded, rather, like a man who was used to cursing and had to put special appeal in his voice when he wanted it to count.
Simultaneously the other figure sent the beam of the flashlight in Tim’s direction. Tim dropped behind the dune and closed his fingers on the Luger’s butt. “Come, come,” he called, “speak up.” It occurred to him immediately afterward that, this phrase smacked all too much of the classroom.
The man with the flashlight spoke. “Take it easy, Mac,” he said. “Don’t get excited.”
“I’m not excited,” said Tim. “Just curious.”
“Wise guy, eh?” This came from the first figure, who had evidently been reassured by Tim’s attempt to sound tough. The other man shushed him.
“Okay, Mac,” he said. “We been fishin’, that’s all.”
“At this time of night?” asked Tim.
“Hell, yes. It’s the best time.”
This, for all Tim knew, was true. Whether it was or not, he didn’t see what he could do about it. The pier, presumably, was public. No riparian rights seemed to be involved. As a man whose only immediate interest was to go back to bed, he felt he had done his duty.
“Okay,” he said. “Skip it.”
“Okay,” said the man with the flashlight.
“Wait a minute,” said the other man. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“Shut up, you damned fool,” said the other. “So long, Mac.”
“So long,” said Tim. He felt more than ever as he had when his conquering hero’s entry wound up among the Etruscan vases.
The flashlight was doused and the two men sauntered down the boardwalk with what struck Tim as elaborate carelessness. As far as he was aware, though, nobody was ever hanged for elaborate carelessness.
He waited, crouched among the dunes, until the two figures had melted into the darkness. A minute or so later, as he turned back toward the house, he heard the sound of an automobile starting.
At the front porch, he sat down and emptied the sand out of his shoes. He carried them into the house and upstairs.
Sybil, in her blue pajamas, sat on the edge of the bed, smoking. “I was watching through the window,” she said. “What was it all about?”
“Damned if I know,” said Tim. “Couple of guys said they’d been fishing. Maybe they had.”
“Did they have any fish?”
“Not that I noticed. But that wouldn’t prove they weren’t fishing.”
“Were they the sporting type?”
“I’m no judge of the sporting type.”
“A pity,” said Sybil. “Maybe I should have gone after all.”
“They’d certainly have taken you for the sporting type if you had.”
Sybil snuggled warm against him. “In a ladylike way,” she said, “I am.”
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