But…
Today the front door of old Edgar Tyrrell's dwelling stood ajar. From just inside, Bill could hear children's voices, toddlers it sounded like. At least a pair of them.
And the area just in front of the house was no longer paved with a Park Service sidewalk, as he was sure that it had been last night. Now there was only a little un-paved footpath worn in the hard earth, leading to the front door.
Even as Bill stood gazing at that door, it opened wider. Out came a young woman and a little girl of four years old or so, in toddler's overalls. The young woman was garbed in a thirties dress, and a wide-brimmed gardening hat.
The little girl, thought Bill, had remarkable eyes. Their soft blue-gray reminded him much, very much, of the eyes of the girl named Cathy whom he had just left.
Both of them looked at the strange man who had stopped near their front door.
"How do," said Bill to the young woman, in his best mild country manner, and bobbed his head.
"How do," the young woman answered softly, as if perhaps she thought straight imitation was the safest course. Then she did a mild double-take as something in Bill's appearance appeared to register with her. "Can I help you?" she asked slowly.
"I didn't know," he said after a pause, "that anyone lived here. Beautiful place to live." That was certainly inadequate. "Oh, my name's Bill Burdon, by the way."
The young woman studied him for another ten or fifteen seconds. Then she introduced herself: "I'm Sarah Tyrrell." Pause. "If you're looking for my husband, he won't be back until after dark."
Chapter 10
On the morning after Bill Burdon's disappearance, Joe Keogh was awakened in his hotel room by a discreet tapping on the door. Cursing, Joe reached for his watch and learned that the time was eighta.m. He rolled off the bed, only to find himself barely able to stand. His twisted ankle had swollen and stiffened since last night, notwithstanding the fact that he had eventually applied ice packs. He was worse off now than when he'd taken off his shoes and thrown himself down on the bed barely four hours ago.
The tapping was repeated, and Joe muffled his curses and somehow hobbled to the door. Last night at the Tyrrell House he'd taken the next-to-last shift of waiting for Bill to call in again. Eventually, some time after midnight, he had abandoned that vigil and, at his client's urging, allowed John to help him back to his own room.
He reached the door, and called, "Who is it?"
"Maria." The answer was barely audible, but Joe recognized the voice. He relaxed and let her in.
The young woman, who had been up practically all night, naturally enough looked tired, but she said that in a couple of hours she'd be ready to go again. There wasn't much to report, she added, since nothing had happened at the Tyrrell House after Joe's departure. While delivering these remarks Maria was taking off her boots and unrolling her sleeping bag on the sofa.
"Mrs. Tyrrell didn't offer to let you sack out over there?"
"Nope. In fact, a little while ago she started hinting pretty strongly that I ought to go to my own hotel room, if I had one, and get some rest. Of course I said I had one."
Joe grunted, and stumped over to the window. Last night's clouds and fog were gone, and the sun, now about half an hour high, was having things its own way. At least, he thought, we ought to get a look at the scenery today.
Two seconds was all he could spare for scenery just now. Joe ran fingers through his hair. "I'm going to have to talk to John."
Maria, on the point of disappearing into her sleeping bag, hesitated. "Want me to get him on radio?"
"I'll do it. You'd better get some rest. We're going to need you later."
But Maria delayed again. "Boss? When do we go looking for Bill?"
"Soon. I promise, you won't miss out on that."
"And how come that person, or those people, whoever it was, was able to get past us last night?"
"I have some ideas on that. Ideas I want to talk over with you and Bill—as soon as he gets back."
"Sure." Maria, sounding really tired, had put her head down again and was already drifting off.
Trying to let her sleep, Joe moved into the next room, where he soon reached John on the radio.
In five minutes John Southerland entered the suite. He had nothing further to report regarding Bill. "Brainard was unhappy to see me leave. But I figure we're working for Aunt Sarah, and she seemed all in favor. Say, where'd Mr. Strangeways get to?"
"England, he said."
"What?"
"You heard. I have no real explanation. Why don't you get some sack time while there's a chance?" Maria's faint snores came drifting from the other room.
"At the moment I'm more hungry than tired."
"Okay, order up some room service. For three, I guess. I like pancakes."
Moments later, Joe was shutting himself in the bathroom. There he swallowed a couple of aspirins, and enjoyed—if that was the right word—a shower, conducted largely while balanced on one leg.
Emerging in fresh clothing, he found both Maria and John sleeping, she in her sleeping bag and John, boots off, stretched out on the floor, where he had wasted no time in creating a kind of padded nest with jackets and chair cushions. Joe, keeping as quiet as possible, established himself in a chair, where he silently cursed his injured ankle.
Staring at the phone on the little table at his elbow, he contemplated getting in touch with his home base in Chicago. John's wife Angie ought to be minding the office, and there might possibly be a thing or two that she could do to help.
Before Joe could make up his mind about the call, room service arrived, inevitably awakening his colleagues. Maria roused herself and stretched, catlike. "Strange dreams…" she murmured, her expression one of remote dissatisfaction.
The two younger people were glad to join Joe in an experience of white linen and what looked like silver, with food and coffee suggesting anything but proximity to the wilderness. Joe, with one foot propped up on cushions, consumed a delicious though unavoidably gloomy breakfast, then ordered an extra pot of coffee.
From time to time he glanced at Bill Burdon's unused sleeping bag, which lay accusingly in a corner of the room, still rolled up.
Over breakfast the three discussed the situation. They'd had only the brief and somewhat garbled radio messages from Bill, assuring them that he was all right, though having trouble finding his way back.
Maria said: "That just doesn't sound right to me. From the way Bill described his background, his experience, I'd expect him to be able to find his way home from the North Pole."
Joe looked at his watch. "I think it's still too early to call in the Park Rangers. He said he might have to wait for sunrise to start back, so let's give him a little longer. You two finish eating and get some rest. If we don't hear from him by ten o'clock or so, we'd better start looking."
Observing the difficulty with which Joe hobbled about the hotel room, Maria suggested that maybe he ought to see the local doctor. But he shook his head, reluctant to do that. He didn't think any bones were broken, and there was probably little any doctor would be able to do for him, except tell him that he ought to rest. He sat down with his foot propped up on the bed. At least the swelling wasn't any worse. John and Maria offered contradictory advice as to whether heat or cold would be best to apply at this stage.
As soon as they had finished eating, both John and Maria proclaimed themselves ready to get back into action. Joe, silently praising the resilience of youth, grunted approval. In a few minutes the two younger people had left the hotel and were descending in clouded winter daylight to search the slope immediately below the Tyrrell House. They were going to look for some clue to Bill's fate, or, failing that, anything that might help explain last night's strange events.