Part 5 (1/2)
”Didn't you notice his wrists when he held them up to light his cigarette? Full of little scars.”
Peter whistled. ”So morphine is his trouble, is it? Listen!”
From down the river rose a faint roar, like the sound of many voices a long way off. While the two men listened, it subsided and then rose again.
”h.e.l.lo!” said Varney. ”Look at your student of manners and customs now.”
The man in the boat was still plainly discernible, his face picked out by the moon in greenish white. But there was no longer any lethargy in his manner. He was bending his back to his best stroke--an excellent one it was--and driving his light bark rapidly down the stream.
”My bet,” said Varney, ”is that he hears those shouts, and they mean something to him--something interesting and important.”
”Larry, be a sport! Let's follow this thing along and find out what it all means.”
”Oh, I'm willing to drop into town for a little reconnoissance, if you like. Maybe we can pick up something that will help us in our business.”
”Spoken like a scholar and a gentleman. One minute while I get on my clothes. Oh--by the way! Er--this new--robe of mine doesn't look like a Mother Hubbard, does it?”
”In my opinion,” said Varney, ”two things could not well be more utterly unlike.”
Peter was back in five minutes, clothed and in his right mind. His falling foot hit the center-line of the gig with a thump, and they shot away toward the town wharf.
They bade the boat wait their signal in the shadows a little upstream, and jumped out upon the old and rotting landing. A street ran straight before them, up a steep hill and into the heart of the town, and they took it, guided by a burst of still distant laughter and hoa.r.s.e shouts.
Toiling up the evil sidewalk, they looked about curiously at the town which was to engage their attention for the next day or so. Over everything hung that vague air of dejection and moral decay which is so hard to define and so easy to detect. The street was lit with feeble electric lights which did little more than nullify the moon. Gra.s.s grew at its pleasure through the broken brick pavement; and even in that dimness, it was very evident that the White Wing department had been taking a long vacation.
Varney's eye took in everything. It occurred to him that this was a most extraordinary place for the family of the exquisite and well-fixed Elbert Carstairs to live. Hard on the heels of that came another thought and he stopped.
”What's the matter?” said Peter.
”We simply mustn't get mixed up in any doings here, you know. Can't afford it. Whatever is going on, our role must be that of quiet onlookers only. Remember that.”
”Quiet onlookers it is. h.e.l.lo! Did you see that?”
”What?”
”Old duck in a felt hat walking behind us, a good distance off--I'd heard him for some time. He stopped when we stopped, and when I turned then I was just in time to see him go skipping up the side street.”
”Well, what of it?”
”Not a thing. I'm interested in the sights of the town, that's all.
Listen to those hoodlums, will you?”
In the middle of that block rose a great public building of florid and hideous architecture, absurdly expensive for so small a town, and running fast to seed. On the corner ahead, at the crest of the slope, stood the handsomest and most prosperous-looking building they had yet seen. Its long side was cut by many windows, all brilliantly lit up, and above the lower tier ran the gold-lettered legend:
WINES & LIQUORS. THE OTTOMAN. D. RYAN.
”When the saloon-keeper is the richest man in town,” observed Peter, ”look out for trouble.”
A roar of laughter, mingled with various derisive cries, broke out just then, now from very near. The next minute the two men reached the brow of the hill, and both stopped involuntarily, arrested by the tableau which met their gaze beyond.
They stood on the upper side of a little rectangular ”square,” at the lower edge of which, some fifty yards away, were gathered possibly thirty or forty jostling and noisy men. Facing them, standing on a carriage-block at the curb, stood a cool little man obviously engaged in making a speech. The commonness of the men and the rough joviality of their mood were the more accentuated by the supreme dignity of the orator. He was a very small man, with pink cheeks and eye-gla.s.ses, beautifully made and still more beautifully dressed; and for all their boisterous ”jollying” his auditors appeared rather to like him than the contrary.