第38章

That same day I started in on the course of iniquity that this uneventful city forced upon me.I was in the town only two days, but in that time I managed to lie shamelessly by telegraph, and to be an accomplice--after the fact, if that is the correct legal term--to a murder.

As I rounded the corner nearest my hotel the Afrite coachman of the ploychromatic, nonpareil coat seized me, swung open the dungeony door of his peripatetic sarcophagus, flirted his feather duster and began his ritual: "Step right in, boss.Carriage is clean--jus' got back from a funeral.Fifty cents to any--"And then he knew me and grinned broadly."'Scuse me, boss; you is de gen'l'man what rid out with me dis mawnin'.Thank you kindly, suh.""I am going out to 861 again to-morrow afternoon at three," said I, "and if you will be here, I'll let you drive me.So you know Miss Adair?" I concluded, thinking of my dollar bill.

"I belonged to her father, Judge Adair, suh," he replied.

"I judge that she is pretty poor," I said."She hasn't much money to speak of, has she?"For an instant I looked again at the fierce countenance of King Cettiwayo, and then he changed back to an extortionate old Negro hack driver.

"She ain't gwine to starve, suh," he said slowly."She has reso'ces, suh; she has reso'ces.""I shall pay you fifty cents for the trip," said I.

"Dat is puffeckly correct, suh," he answered humbly."I jus' _had_to have dat two dollars dis mawnin', boss."

I went to the hotel and lied by electricity.I wired the magazine:

"A.Adair holds out for eight cents a word."

The answer that came back was: "Give it to her quick you duffer."Just before dinner "Major" Wentworth Caswell bore down upon me with the greetings of a long-lost friend.I have seen few men whom I have so instantaneously hated, and of whom it was so difficult to be rid.I was standing at the bar when he invaded me;therefore I could not wave the white ribbon in his face.I would have paid gladly for the drinks, hoping, thereby, to escape another;but he was one of those despicable, roaring, advertising bibbers who must have brass bands and fireworks attend upon every cent that they waste in their follies.

With an air of producing millions he drew two one-dollar bills from a pocket and dashed one of them upon the bar.I looked once more at the dollar bill with the upper right-hand corner missing, torn through the middle, and patched with a strip of blue tissue paper.It was my dollar bill again.It could have been no other.

I went up to my room.The drizzle and the monotony of a dreary, eventless Southern town had made me tired and listless.Iremember that just before I went to bed I mentally disposed of the mysterious dollar bill (which might have formed the clew to a tremendously fine detective story of San Francisco) by saying to myself sleepily: "Seems as if a lot of people here own stock in the Hack-Driver's Trust.Pays dividends promptly, too.

Wonder if--" Then I fell asleep.

King Cettiwayo was at his post the next day, and rattled my bones over the stones out to 861.He was to wait and rattle me back again when I was ready.

Azalea Adair looked paler and cleaner and frailer than she had looked on the day before.After she had signed the contract at eight cents per word she grew still paler and began to slip out of her chair.Whitout much trouble I managed to get her up on the antediluvian horsehair sofa and then I ran out to the sidewalk and yelled to the coffee-colored Pirate to bring a doctor.With a wisdom that I had not expected in him, he abandoned his team and struck off up the street afoot, realizing the value of speed.In ten minutes he returned with a grave, gray-haired and capable man of medicine.In a few words (worth much less than eight cents each)I explained to him my presence in the hollow house of mystery.He bowed with stately understanding, and turned to the old Negro.

"Uncle Caesar," he said calmly, "Run up to my house and ask Miss Lucy to give you a cream pitcher full of fresh milk and half a tumbler of port wine.And hurry back.Don't drive--run.Iwant you to get back sometime this week."

It occurred to me that Dr.Merriman also felt a distrust as to the speeding powers of the land-pirate's steeds.After Uncle Caesar was gone, lumberingly, but swiftly, up the street, the doctor looked me over with great politeness and as much careful calculation until he had decided that I might do.