"The great game?" repeated Sedgwick inquiringly, giving the words Kent's own emphasis.

"Yes. The greatest of all games. You know the Kipling verse, don't you?"

"'Go stalk the red deer o'er the heather.

Ride! Follow the fox if you can!

But for pleasure and profit together Afford me the hunting of Man.'"

"So, we're man-hunting, then, to-night," said the artist quickly.

"Far from it," replied Kent, with fervency. "Let's drop the subject for the time being, won't you? I've had a morning none too pleasant to look back on, and I've got an evening coming none too pleasant to look forward to. Therefore, I shall probably give you the licking of your life on the tennis-court."

"As to the evening," began Sedgwick, "while I'm-"

"Frank," cried Kent, "there's a query trying to dislodge itself from your mind and get put into words. Don't let it!"

"Why?"

"Because at one single question from you I'll either bat you over the head with this racket or burst into sobs. It's a toss-up which." He threw the implement in the air. "Rough or smooth?" he called.

Kent played as he worked, with concentration and tenacity, backing up technical skill. Against his dogged attack, Sedgwick's characteristically more brilliant game was unavailing, though the contest was not so uneven but that both were sweating hard as, at the conclusion of the third set, they sought a breathing s.p.a.ce on the terraced bank back of the court.

"That's certainly a good nerve sedative," said the artist breathing hard; "and not such rotten tennis for two aged relics of better days, like ourselves."

"Not so bad by any means," agreed his opponent cheerfully. "If you had stuck to lobbing, I think you'd have had me, in the second set. Wonder how our spectator enjoyed it," he added, lowering his voice.

"What spectator? There's no one here, but ourselves."

"Oh, I think there is. Don't be abrupt about it; but just take a look at that lilac copse on the crest of the hill."

"Can't see any one there," said Sedgwick.

"No more can I."

"Then what makes you think there's any one?"

"The traditional little bird told me."

"Meaning, specifically?"

"Literally what I say. There's the bird on that young willow. You can see for yourself it's trying to impart some information."

"I see a gra.s.shopper-sparrow in a state of some nervousness. But gra.s.shopper-sparrows are always fidgety."

"This particular one has reason to be. She has a nest in that lilac patch. A few minutes ago she went toward it with a worm in her beak; hastily dropped the worm, and came out in a great state of mind. Hence I judge there is some intruder near her home."

"Any guess who it is?"

"Why it might be Gansett Jim," replied Kent in a louder voice. "Though it's rather stupid of him to pick out a bird-inhabited bush as a hiding-place."

The lilac bush shook a little, and Gansett Jim came forth.

"He went to Carr's Junction," said the half-breed curtly.

"You found his trail?" asked Kent.

The other nodded. "This morning," he said.

"Find anything else?"

"No. I kill him if I get him!" He turned and vanished over the rise of ground back of the court.

"Now what does that mean?" demanded Sedgwick in amazement.

"That is Gansett Jim's apology for suspecting you," explained Kent. "He is our ally now, and this is his first information. What a marvelous thing the bulldog strain in a race is! n.o.body but an Indian would have kept to an almost hopeless trail as he has done."

"The trail of the real murderer?" cried Sedgwick.

Kent shook his head. "You're still obsessed with dubious evidence," he remarked. "Let me see your time-table."

Having studied the schedules that the artist produced for him, he nodded consideringly. "Boston it is, then," he said. "As I thought. Sedgwick, I'm off for two or three days of travel-if we get through this night without disaster."

CHAPTER XV-THE TURN OF THE GAME

Night came on in murk and mist. As the clouds gathered thicker, Chester Kent's face took on a more and more satisfied expression. Sedgwick, on the contrary, gloomed sorely at the suspense. Nothing could be elicited from the director of operations, who was, for him, in rather wild spirits. The tennis match seemed to have sweated the megrims out of him.

He regaled his chafing friend with anecdotes from his varied career; the comedy of the dynamiter's hair; the tragedy of the thrice fatal telephone message at the Standard Club; the drama of the orchid hunt on Weehawken Heights. From time to time he thrust a hand out of the window.

Shortly after midnight there was a splatter of rain on the roof.

"Good!" said Kent, stretching elaborately. "Couldn't be better. Life's a fine sport!"

"Couldn't be worse, I should think," contradicted Sedgwick.

"Depends on the point of view, my boy. No longer can my buoyant spirit support your determined melancholy-without extraneous aid. The time has come for action. Be thankful. Get on your coat."

Sedgwick brightened at once. "Right-o!" he said. "Get your lamps lighted and I'll be with you."

"No lights. Ours is a deep, dark, desperate, devilish, dime-novel design."

"Ending, most likely, in the clutch of some night-hawk constable for violation of the highway laws."

"Possibly. We've got to chance it. 'Come into the garden, Maud,'"

chanted the scientist.

Sedgwick started. "I thought we were going to motor somewhere. What about the garden?"