The Breaking Point - Page 189/275

"What I'm getting at is this," she said, examining her polished nails

critically. "If it does turn out that there was somebody, you'd have to

remember that it was all years and years ago, and be sensible."

"I only want him back," Elizabeth said. "I don't care how he comes, so

he comes."

Louis Bassett had become a familiar figure in the village life by that

time. David depended on him with a sort of wistful confidence that

set him to grinding his teeth occasionally in a fury at his own

helplessness. And, as the extent of the disaster developed, as he saw

David failing and Lucy ageing, and when in time he met Elizabeth, the

feeling of his own guilt was intensified.

He spent hours studying the case, and he was chiefly instrumental in

sending Harrison Miller back to Norada in September. He had struck up a

friendship with Miller over their common cause, and the night he was to

depart that small inner group which was fighting David's battle for

him formed a board of strategy in Harrison's tidy living-room; Walter

Wheeler and Bassett, Miller and, tardily taken into their confidence,

Doctor Reynolds.

The same group met him on his return, sat around with expectant faces

while he got out his tobacco and laid a sheaf of papers on the table,

and waited while their envoy, laying Bassett's map on the table,

proceeded carefully to draw in a continuation of the trail beyond the

pass, some sketchy mountains, and a small square.

"I've got something," he said at last. "Not much, but enough to work

on. Here's where you lost him, Bassett." He pointed with his pencil.

"He went on for a while on the horse. Then somehow he must have lost the

horse, for he turned up on foot, date unknown, in a state of exhaustion

at a cabin that lies here. I got lost myself, or I'd never have found

the place. He was sick there for weeks, and he seems to have stayed on

quite a while after he recovered, as though he couldn't decide what to

do next."

Walter Wheeler stirred and looked up.

"What sort of condition was he in when he left?"

"Very good, they said."

"You're sure it was Livingstone?"

"The man there had a tree fall on him. He operated. I guess that's the

answer."

He considered the situation.

"It's the answer to more than that," Reynolds said slowly. "It shows he

had come back to himself. If he hadn't he couldn't have done it."