“As I said before, you need a husband very badly.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she laughed.

The result of Aleck’s moment of grave thought came a few days later, with the arrival of two quietly-dressed, unostentatious men.  He told Melanie that one man was her chauffeur for the white machine, and the other was an extra hand he had engaged for the return trip on the Sea Gull.  The chauffeur, however, for one reason or another, rarely took the wheel, and could have been seen walking at a distance behind Melanie whenever she stirred abroad.  The extra hand for the Sea Gull did just the same as the chauffeur.

From the day of the arrival of the manager, Mr. Hand’s rather mysterious but friendly temper underwent a change for the worse.  He not only continued silent, which might easily be counted a virtue, but he became almost sulky, which could only be called a crime.  There was no bantering with Sallie in the kitchen, scarcely a friendly smile for Agatha herself.  Mr. Hand was markedly out of sorts.

On the morning following Mr. Straker’s request that Hand should repair the car, the manager found him tinkering in the carriage shed near the church.  The car was jacked up on a horse-block, while one wheel lay near the road.  Mr. Hand was as grimy and oily as the law allows, working over the machinery with a sort of vicious earnestness.  Mr. Straker hovered around for a few moments, then addressed Hand in that tone of pseudo-geniality that marks a certain type of politician.

“Look here, Colonel, I understand you were in the employ of that French anarchist.”

It was an unlucky moment for attack, though Mr. Straker did not at once perceive it.  Hand carefully wiped the oil from a neat ring of metal, slid down on his back under the car and screwed on a nut.  As Mr. Straker, hands in pockets and feet wide apart, watched the mechanician, there came through the silence and the sweet air the sound of thrushes calling from the wood beyond.  Mr. Straker craned his head to look out at the church, then at the low stone wall, as if he expected to see the songsters performing on a stage before a row of footlights.  He turned back to Mr. Hand.

“That’s right, is it?  You worked for the slippery Mounseer?”

“Uh-m,” Hand grumbled, with a screw in his mouth.  “Something like that.”

“What’d you do?”

“I’ve found where she was wrenched in the turn-over.  Got to have a new pin for this off wheel before she goes much farther.”

“All right, I’ll order one by telegraph to-day.  What ’d you do, I asked.”

Hand wriggled himself out from under the car and got on his feet.  He thrust his grimy hands deep into his pockets, stood for a moment contemplative and belligerent, as if undecided whether to explode or not, and then silently walked away.

As Mr. Straker watched his figure moving slowly toward the kitchen, he started a long low whistle, expressive of suspicion and doubt.  Midway, however, he changed to a lively tune whose title was “I’ve got him on the run”—­a classic just then spreading up and down Broadway.  He took a few turns about the car, looked at the gearing with a knowing air, and then went into the house.