The Black Box Part 56

"Don't you worry, Miss Lenora," French cried from out of the window. "You can take my word for it the job's finished this time. Good-bye, all of you! Good-bye, Miss Laura!"

Laura waved her hand gaily. They all stood and watched the train depart.

Then they turned away from the depot.

"Now for a little holiday," Quest declared, pa.s.sing Lenora's arm through his. "We'll just have a look round the city and then get down to San Diego and take a look at the Exposition there. No responsibilities, no one to look after, nothing to do but enjoy ourselves."

"Capital!" the Professor agreed, beaming upon them all. "There is a collection of fossilised remains in the museum here, the study of which will afford me the greatest pleasure and interest."

The girls laughed heartily.

"I think you and I," Quest suggested, turning to them, "will part company with the Professor!"

Quest and Lenora turned away from the window of the hotel, out of which they had been gazing for the last quarter of an hour. Stretched out before them were the lights of the Exposition, a blur of twinkling diamonds against the black garb of night. Beyond, the flas.h.i.+ng of a light-house and a faint background of dark sea.

"It's too beautiful," Lenora sighed.

Quest stood for a moment shaking his head. The Professor with a pile of newspapers stretched out before him, was completely engrossed in their perusal. Laura, who had been sitting in an armchair at the further end of the apartment, was apparently deep in thought. The newspaper which she had been reading had slipped unnoticed from her fingers.

"Say, you two are no sort of people for a holiday," Quest declared. "As for you, Laura, I can't think what's come over you. You never opened your mouth at dinner-time, and you sit there now looking like nothing on earth."

"I am beginning to suspect her," Lenora chimed in. "Too bad he had to hurry away, dear!"

Laura's indignation was not altogether convincing. Quest and Lenora exchanged amused glances. The former picked up the newspaper from the floor and calmly turned out the Professor's lamp.

"Look here," he explained, "this is the first night of our holiday. I'm going to run the party and I'm going to make the rules. No more newspapers to-night or for a fortnight. You understand? No reading, nothing but frivolity. And no love-sickness, Miss Laura."

"Love-sickness, indeed!" she repeated scornfully.

"Having arranged those minor details," Quest concluded, "on with your hats, everybody. I am going to take you out to a cafe where they play the best music in the city. We are going to have supper, drink one another's health, and try and forget the last few months altogether."

Lenora clapped her hands and Laura rose at once to her feet. The Professor obediently crossed the room for his hat.

"I am convinced," he said, "that our friend Quest's advice is good. We will at any rate embark upon this particular frivolity which he suggests."

2.

Quest took the dispatch which the hotel clerk handed to him one afternoon a fortnight later, and read it through without change of expression.

Lenora, however, who was by his side, knew at once that it contained something startling.

"What is it?" she asked.

He pa.s.sed his arm through hers and led her down the hall to where the Professor and Laura were just waiting for the lift. He beckoned them to follow him to a corner of the lounge.

"There's one thing I quite forgot, a fortnight ago," he said, slowly, "when I suggested that we should none of us look at a newspaper all the time we were in California. Have you kept to our bargain, Professor?"

"Absolutely!"

"And you, girls?"

"I've never even seen one," Lenora declared.

"Nor I," Laura echoed.

"I made a mistake," Quest confessed. "Something has happened which we ought to have known about. You had better read this message--or, wait, I'll read it aloud:--

"To Sanford Quest, Garfield Hotel, San Diego.

"Injured in wreck of Limited. Recovered consciousness today.

Craig reported burned in wreck but think you had better come on."

"FRENCH, Samaritan Hospital, Allguez."

"When can we start?" Laura exclaimed excitedly.

Lenora clutched at Quest's arm.

"I knew it," she declared simply. "I felt perfectly certain, when they left San Francisco, that something would happen. We haven't seen the end of Craig yet."

Quest, who had been studying a time-table, glanced once more at the dispatch.

"Look here," he said, "Allguez isn't so far out of the way if we take the southern route to New York. Let's get a move on to-night."

Laura led the way to the lift. She was in a state of rare discomposure.

"To think that all the time we've been giddying round," she muttered, "that poor man has been lying in hospital! Makes one feel like a brute."

"He's been unconscious all the time," Quest reminded her.

"Might have expected to find us there when he came-to, any way," Laura insisted.

Lenora smiled faintly as she caught a glance from Quest.

"Laura's got a heart somewhere," she murmured, "only it takes an awful lot of getting at!"...

They found French, already convalescent, comfortably installed in the private ward of a small hospital in the picturesque New Mexican town.

Laura almost at once established herself by his side.

"You're going to lose your job here, nurse," Quest told her, smiling.

The nurse glanced at French.

"The change seems to be doing him good, any way," she remarked. "I haven't seen him look so bright yet."

"Can you remember anything about the wreck, French?" Quest enquired.

The Inspector pa.s.sed his hand wearily over his forehead.