The act was perfunctory. Well he knew that telephone or special
messenger would speedily have advised him if news of the _Andromeda_
had arrived since he left the office on Saturday afternoon. But it is
said that drowning men clutch at straws, and the metaphor might be
applied to Verity with peculiar aptness. He was sinking in a sea of
troubles, sinking because the old buoyancy was gone, sinking because
many hands were stretched forth to push him under, and never one to
draw him forth.
There was no cablegram, of course. Dickey Bulmer, who had become a
waking nightmare to the unhappy shipowner, had said there wouldn't
be--said it twelve hours ago, after wringing from Verity the astounding
admission that Iris was on board the _Andromeda_. It was not because
the vessel was overdue that David confessed. Bulmer, despite his
sixty-eight years, was an acute man of business. Moreover, he was
blessed with a retentive memory, and he treasured every word of the
bogus messages from Iris concocted by her uncle. They were lucid at
first, but under the stress of time they wore thin, grew disconnected,
showed signs of the strain imposed on their author's imagination.
Bulmer, a typical Lancashire man, blended in his disposition a genial
openhandedness with a shrewd caution.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234