They dined at the community lodge-Harry, Carradon, and Rundon. Lois Melvin was at their table, Because her presence would naturally be expected. By mutual consent, they took the girl into their confidence, enough so to curb her curiosity.
Lois could be trusted not to talk, and she wasn't the sort to fuss about anyone taking risks. The trouble was something that Harry should have anticipated. Informed briefly of what was to happen, Lois wanted to go along.
No argument would persuade her otherwise. Rundon became testy, in an undertone, and Lois displayed anger in her flashing eyes.
'Scorpio was right on one thing,' she told him. 'Gemini doesn't harmonize with Virgo. You turn facts to suit your wishes, Niles; while I only want things that facts permit me to have.'
'Just how does that apply in this case?' growled Rundon.
'Very definitely,' replied Lois, firmly. 'You want to trap Scorpio, and you've talked your friends into thinking that the three of you can do it.'
'It was Carradon's idea-'
'Your own, too, Niles,' interrupted Lois. 'You have good points, as well as faults. You are generous, overly so, in giving credit to others. But you haven't stuck to facts. You three are the last who should have been selected for this job.'
'Why?'
'Because Scorpio tricked all of you, and captured you in the bargain. Individually, you have demonstrated just one ability-that of being trapped.'
Rundon's eyes flashed fury. Carradon looked very much annoyed. But Harry eased the tension with a chuckle, as he told the others:
'Lois is right.'
'Perhaps,' said Rundon, regaining his calm. 'But tonight there are three of us.'
'Which doesn't change the case, returned Lois, sweetly. 'What you need is somebody that Scorpio can't catch.'
'Yourself, I suppose.'
'Exactly!' argued Lois. 'Think back, and you'll recall that I'm the one person who did manage to give Scorpio's bunch the slip. It's nearly dusk'-she glanced from the window-'so I'll go and change to my camping outfit. I'll meet you in the canoe.'
She looked to Harry and Carradon as they walked from the dining room. Both looked doubtful, yet neither could find a solid reason why the girl should not accompany them. It seemed that Virgo people were unbeatable, when it came to logical argument.
It was up to Rundon to spike the idea, if he could find a way, and Rundon was doing some quick thinking. Laughing, Lois said that he was giving a display of Gemini ingenuity; but she reminded him that this was a sporting proposition, which should also appeal to people born under the sign of the Twins.
Rundon paused by the clerk's desk, stalling while he watched Sheriff Kirk come into the lobby and enter a telephone booth. He whispered to the others:
'That's Denwood calling, asking Kirk to come over and talk to Cranston.'
'Which means it's time to start,' analyzed Lois. 'I'll go up and change.'
'Wait!'
Rundon turned to the clerk, asked him to hand over a pack of cards that lay near the telephone switchboard. Stepping to a table near the stairway, Rundon spread the pack in front of Lois.
'We'll make it a sporting proposition,' he decided. 'Take any card you want, and carry it up to your room. If it's a low card, you can get into that camping outfit and join us at the canoe.'
'And if it's a high one?'
'You're to go to bed and stay there, as a lesson that Virgo persons should not interfere with other people's business.'
Lois calculated, then asked how high the low cards went.
'I'll be generous, as usual,' conceded Rundon. 'I'll give you from deuces up through eights, which is more than half the pack.'
Lois drew a card, and snuggled it against her waist as she started up stairs. Reaching her room, she started the change to her camping garb, confident that her luck would hold. At the last moment, she turned the card face up.
It was a jack; a high card.
ANGRILY, Lois threw the card on the floor, her camping outfit with it. Obtaining pajamas instead, she finished undressing and flung herself into bed. Sullenly, she decided that people of her sign weren't good losers.
She wished that she hadn't taken up the proposition. By this time, the canoe had started, and she would have forgotten about it, ordinarily. She could have gone to the community movies instead, as everyone else was doing, judging from voices and laughter that she heard from the pier and the darkening ground outside her window.
Instead, she had sent herself to bed at sunset, by drawing the wrong card. It would be a miserable ordeal, lying awake for hours, listening to all the fun around the Community Center. But Virgo people always kept their agreements, just as they also cried over spilled milk.
They analyzed, too, as Lois had said, particularly when they had nothing else to do. It wasn't long before she began to wonder why Rundon had told her to take the card upstairs before she looked at it. The others should have seen it, too, to know whether or not they should wait in the canoe.
Scrambling from bed, Lois put on slippers and dressing gown; telephoning the clerk, she told him to send up the pack of cards that Rundon had borrowed.
The pack arrived. Closing the door, Lois examined the cards by the table lamp. Her lips compressed in anger. It was just what she expected; Rundon had carried his ingenuity too far. This was a forty-eight card pinochle pack; it didn't contain a card under a nine spot!
Guests on the veranda were suddenly disturbed by a shower of cards that came fluttering from a second- story window. Caught by a spanking breeze, the pinochle pack was distributed all over the lawn, as a token of Lois' sentiments toward it.
Stirred by the same breeze, the surface of Lake Calada was rolling wavelets in toward Claremont's shore, slowing the progress of the canoe.
Harry and his two companions had agreed to hug the shore very closely, and it was difficult, considering the choppy water, which frequently threatened to beach their craft too soon.
Carradon grumbled about it, claiming that they might be too late to trap Scorpio, but Rundon reassured him. The professor couldn't approach Claremont's by daylight; therefore, at best, he would still be on his way.
In Rundon's opinion, the waves helped matters. They would be an excuse for Cranston to keep the sheriff's boats well off Claremont's shore.
Beaching the canoe near Claremont's dock, the three men moved along the tree-shrouded frontage, guiding themselves by the starlight that had replaced the afterglow above the mountains.
Satisfied that no other boats had been here, they spread, working their way up toward the bungalow well back on the gently rising slope.
The building looked very small from the water because of the wide woods surrounding it, but its sprawling shape enlarged at close range. Evidently, Claremont had built on a larger scale than most persons supposed; but none of his neighbors had ever visited him, to find out what his residence was like.
Converging near a porch that jutted from the bungalow front, the three men held low conversation.
Rundon pointed toward the lake, black through the wavering trees, to little lights that dotted the waters.
'The sheriff's boats,' he undertoned. 'Cranston's keeping them well out.'
There were echoes of a spurting motor from the flotilla. One batch of lights headed down the lake; soon, another followed. Rundon chuckled softly.
'He's giving them the runaround, too,' he said. 'A good stunt, having them anchor off this shore as if by chance. If Scorpio sees those lights, he won't suspect trouble. They're thinning out very neatly.'
ACTUALLY, The Shadow was keeping the boats on the move, much to the mystification of Sheriff Kirk, who wondered what was in Cranston's mind. The sheriff had a lot to be puzzled about, because he wasn't in one of the
