Risking the crunch of pebbles, I turned down to the water’s edge again. I had seen no dark shape on the water that could have been a boat. There had been boats moored along this beach in the afternoon. With my feet in the water of the bay I still saw no boat. The storm could have scattered them, but I didn’t think it had. The island’s western height shielded this shore. The wind was strong here, but not violent.
My feet sometimes on the edge of the pebbles, sometimes in the water, I went on up the shore line. Now I saw a boat. A gently bobbing black shape ahead. No light was on it. Nothing I could see moved on it. It was the only boat on that shore. That made it important.
Foot by foot, I approached.
A shadow moved between me and the dark rear of a building. I froze. The shadow, man-size, moved again, in the direction from which I was coming.
Waiting, I didn’t know how nearly invisible, or how plain, I might be against my background. I couldn’t risk giving myself away by trying to improve my position.
Twenty feet from me the shadow suddenly stopped.
I was seen. My gun was on the shadow.
“Come on,” I called softly. “Keep coming. Let’s see who you are.”
The shadow hesitated, left the shelter of the building, drew nearer. I couldn’t risk the flashlight. I made out dimly a handsome face, boyishly reckless, one cheek dark-stained.
“Oh, how d’you do?” the face’s owner said in a musical baritone voice. “You were at the reception this afternoon.”
“Yes.”