Part 10

"It is peculiar," said he, "that your father should appear so unexpectedly in this country. It would almost seem," and he looked at the girl with elevated brows and a face of mild interest, "that he had been sent for." Once more the girl failed to speak, and he went on. "But, then, that is most unlikely. Who would send for him, if it were not Rufus Stevens' Sons? and that they did not is shown by their amazement at his appearance."

Mr. Sparhawk during the next fifteen minutes said a number of things; he said some of them gently, others were uttered guardedly, still others had that insinuating quality which usually forces an answer. But the girl merely sat and listened, her eyes fixed upon Mr. Sparhawk's face. At length he arose to go; and then she spoke.

"If it is common rumor that my father and myself were seen at Mr. Magruder's place of business on the night of his death, why do not the police of the city take action?"

"It is not common rumor," stated Mr. Sparhawk. "Far from it. There is a whisper going about that a woman is somehow concerned; but it is only a whisper, and a vague one. Neither your father's name nor yours has been mentioned. And the reason for this," Mr. Sparhawk smoothed the nap of his hat with careful touch, "is that, excepting those who saw you, no one knows them in connection with the matter but myself."

The girl regarded him quietly.

"In that you are wrong," she said. "There is, at least, one other person who knows."

"No!" said Mr. Sparhawk, and his leisurely manner became suddenly swift. "No!"

"At least one other," repeated the girl. "He mentioned it to me several days ago!"

"May I ask," and Mr. Sparhawk tilted his head sideways with his bird-like manner, "who it was?"

"Captain Weir," said the girl.

"I see," said Mr. Sparhawk, softly; "I see."

And when he had bidden the girl good night, and the maid had shown him down-stairs, and he stood in Water Street, buttoning up his coat against the chill air, Mr. Sparhawk once more carried between his brows the little frown of interrogation.

XV

Winter crept in. The water in the docks froze; later, great white blocks were drifting in the river. Then, one bitter night, the stream was sealed, and shipping was over until the spring, or some unlooked-for stretch of mild weather.

Anthony had changed his quarters to a neat old house in Sassafras Street, where he had a bedroom facing the west, and a small snuggery with a window overlooking the south. Each morning, while the bells in the towers were ringing seven, his boots were crunching through the frozen snow on the way to Rufus Stevens' Sons. Always, by half-past seven on the word of the clock on the counting-house wall, he'd reached there, hung his great blue coat in a closet, and whipped into the work at hand.

There never was such a counting-house for order as Rufus Stevens' Sons. Anthony found that out when he'd only been there a few days. Its ledgers were models; its clerks had the vanity of perfection; its windows shone like crystal, the floor planks were white with scrubbing, and its brass work snapped with the light from fireplaces whose hearths were ever swept clean of smut.

The deep, cave-like warehouses were equally well kept; the goods in cases, barrels, and bales were ranked in massive and severe array; the carts and drays were smart with paint, their horses strong and well conditioned.

Anthony's place in the counting-house was somewhat unsettled; the business was so methodical, so well arranged that a new hand, no matter what it touched, or how lightly, seemed superfluous. And this very fact he was quick to seize upon, and turn to his purpose.

"I don't think I'll have any real use here," he told his uncle, "until I can digest the history of the house; I'll have, especially, to arrange in my mind all its doings of a decade past. I want to grow up with it, in a sense."

Charles smiled at this. Weir's stone-like eyes were fixed on the young man's face in an oddly watchful way.

"That has a very thorough sound," Charles said. "But," with a shake of the head, "it implies a deal of labor."

"I can understand his attitude," said Captain Weir quite gravely. "There is nothing like becoming saturated with the thing one starts out to understand." To Anthony he said, and there was now nothing but encouragement in the singular eyes, "Your plan is an excellent one; and, fortunately, you can escape most of the drudgery of it, for there are people still in the employ of the house who can tell you all you'll need to know."

Anthony permitted himself to drift with the measured trade of the winter months, and, during this time, he looked about him. Those who saw to the routine in the counting-room were Whitaker, a new-comer in the place; the affable man--who Anthony learned was named Griggs; and then there was Tom Horn, who stood all day at his tall desk and entered items in his books; also a gray, quiet man named Twitchell, who had a great pride in the house and glowed when it was spoken of. Anthony began with Whitaker and carefully led him into speech.

"Of course," said the fop, as he played with a bunch of seals at his watch-fob, "my service only goes back five years; and most of that was spent in other places. This is a great house; every one says so. I never had any trouble disposing of cargo; and I never had any trouble securing accounts. Of course there were those two ships that went down--very unfortunate occurrences. Oh, yes, it's a very considerable house."

Whitaker then went on to speak of the ports he'd visited in the firm's service, the food to be had in them, the beauty of their women, and the splendor of their climates. Cooling drinks under the shade of awnings, with dusky servants to fan one; strange, sweet music that stole through languorous nights; journeys into the interior on the invitation of merchants or agents; the magnificence of the lives of the rajahs: robes studded with jewels; carpets worth fabulous sums, thrown upon the ground; harems crowded with loveliness; dark eyes everywhere; adventure; whisperings; wealth; plenty; little effort.

But there was nothing that attracted the sharply focussed mind of Anthony. He noted that Whitaker was one who never saw the reality of anything in which he was engaged, except by accident. For a time Anthony strove to come upon such an occasion; but, except for the loss of the _Two Brothers_, and the _Sea Mew_, there was nothing outstanding.

"It was a singular chance," said Whitaker, "those two ships going down. I've often thought about it. Both were well found, finely officered, with American crews. Rich cargoes, too, and fully insured."

"Then there was no loss," said Anthony.

"Not a dollar, except to the insurance people."

There was another point upon which Anthony desired information; and he carefully led Whitaker to it.

"You had a narrow escape with the _Sea Mew_," said he. "Your not sailing in her from Lisbon was quite providential."

"I'd gone down like a stone," said the dandy. "It was only the house's hurry to get me to Brest, with those papers for Lafargue, that saved me."

"I remember you mentioned some papers," said Anthony, "but I forget what you said they were."

Whitaker took on the same resentful look he'd worn when he first spoke of the matter at Dr. King's.

"I never knew," said he. "Devil of a way, wasn't it? sending me pelting off like that, and never knowing what it was about. I felt like a fool! And that old Lafargue's a close-mouthed gentleman, I can tell you. No danger of any one ever worming anything out of him."

"You thought yourself badly treated, then?" said Anthony.

"Candidly, I did."

"Have you ever said so, here in the counting-house, to any one in authority?"

"Yes, once in a conversation with Mr. Weir I saw an opportunity to mention the matter, and did so. Mr. Weir is always considerate and listened to what I had to say. Then he told me I'd better speak to Mr. Stevens. But, you know, Mr. Stevens seldom bothers about things like that; so I took the thing no further. I have no doubt, though, that I was treated like a junior clerk; for whatever the word was I took to Lafargue it made a particular stir in his place of business."

"Did you ask no questions, then?"

"You may be sure I did. But no one answered them. It was quite mortifying."

One day, at the hour for such things, Anthony found himself in a snug corner of a near-by ale house; quite by chance the affable clerk, Griggs, who had also come in for a snack, was seated beside him. Griggs seemed quite put out of countenance by the weather.

"The ice in the river," said he, "is so thick that the whole population seems skating on it of a night. Access to the Jerseys is very easy now; carts are going to and fro by the dozens; and venison and wild fowl are very cheap. But when will an anchor be lifted? When will another ship get up, to discharge her merchandise? They say the ice is solid all the way to New Castle."

"And yet," said Anthony, "you must have seen many a winter that was as bad."

Griggs nodded. He was of that comfortable temper that loves reminiscence; and, then, his mug of ale was mulled to his liking, hot and delectable, and smelling of ginger, a drink well suited to keeping the winter out of the system.

"The last winter Clinton's men held the city was a cold one," said he. "You are too young to recall it. Their big ships of war were so thick with ice that it looked as though they were to be cased in it forever. I try not to speak ill of any one," said the affable clerk, "but those men of Clinton's were a loutish lot; such guzzlers of malt liquor you never saw. You'd thought, from the way they acted, that a plain man such as myself hadn't so much as a mouth on him. In the spring, when the ice had gone, they left; and glad enough we were to see their backs. Your grandfather was one of the first to come tearing into the city afterwards; they'd driven him out two years before, and he'd carried on what business he could from Baltimore, New London, and other places. I sat in this very bar, with a mug of this selfsame ale in my hand, and saw him go by on a fine roan horse. In a fortnight those of his ships that were left were running in and out, around the capes, under the very noses of the blockaders. He was a forthright man, was old Mr. Stevens."

"Was it after that time that you came into his employ?" asked Anthony.

"Oh, no," said Griggs. "Before. In fact, Tom Horn and myself have almost grown up in Rufus Stevens' Sons. I was a boy, keeping tally on the docks, when your grandfather was still master of one of Brownlow's ships; an Indiaman, she was. And when he began to adventure for himself he selected me to be clerk in his counting-room. And very proud I was of it."

"Have you always been stationed in the city?"

"Always, except for a few times when I went in a schooner to Havana, or one of the islands, to see to some small matter."

"I understand the house is one that's always been quite steady--that there's been few ups and downs."

"No house has had fewer," said Griggs. "A solid, stable business, if there ever was one. Of course," with a deprecating wave of the hand, "there have been flurries now and then. Little things, that were somewhat annoying. But, then, one can't always control excitable people."

"Flurries!" said Anthony, his interest fixed. "What sort of flurries? And who were the people who were excited?"

"Misfortune, at times, overtakes every one," said the affable clerk. "And we have had our full share of it on the sea, from time to time. Ships have been lost, and there have been discussions about insurance, and such-like."

"I see; the excited persons were insurance people." Anthony stroked his long jaw. "What were the discussions about?"

Griggs gestured his contempt.

"Why, I don't rightly know," said he. "I make it a rule never to listen to foolish clacking. If a ship is lost, say I, she's lost; and the insurance should be paid over without delay. A few times--in the matter of the _Sea Mew_, particularly--I was afraid these people would grow offensive with their prying and their questioning. Mr. Sparhawk, who is well known to your uncle, seemed to be specially forward in this. I don't see how Captain Weir kept his patience at times, for it was usually the captain who received him, and Mr. Sparhawk's persistence must have been very trying."

Sparhawk! Anthony recalled the perky little man whom he had met at Dr. King's, and he stored the name away for future reference. This conversation with Griggs occupied the best part of an hour, but Anthony got nothing from it; several times during the same week he returned to the task, but the result was the same. Griggs was a good-natured, honest, competent man in his work, but thick-headed.

And so Anthony turned to Twitchell. When the subject of the house was touched upon, the gray old clerk began to beam. It was, so he held, a model for all other establishments; and that it was so highly regarded was most gratifying. When one mentioned its name to any one, a sound footing was entered upon at once. It was a pleasure to be connected with such a house; indeed, it was almost like being in government employ. And its ships were so famous! The merchandise it dealt in was so sought after! And every one about the premises, from the boy who swept the warehouse to the head of the business, had some jolly or endearing quality, so that it was the most enjoyable thing imaginable to be associated with them.

Twitchell, with his silver-rimmed spectacles mounted upon his forehead, and his quill underscoring in the air all his points, maintained this level of unalloyed gratification and belief whenever Anthony approached the subject which interested him most. And finally the young man gave it up and took to sitting at a window and glowering at the winter street, the ice-choked river, and the empty ships, hung with their thousand crystal points of light.

"First I have a dandy," growled Anthony, "who thinks of little but dress, pretty women, and his own importance. Next, a good-natured dunce; then a kindly soul, blinded by his own optimism. None of them ever see anything except what they are asked to see; and so what chance have I of coming on anything by way of them."

Of course there was still Tom Horn. And Anthony smiled as he thought of him. Tom Horn never spoke to any one unless he was spoken to. All day he added, and subtracted, and multiplied, and dotted his "i's" and crossed his "t's." His white, nervous hands seemed tireless; his thin body was bent over the high desk where the great books of the house lay open before him. On the first morning Anthony spent in the counting-room Griggs said, behind his hand:

"Don't mind Tom. A kindly chap and harmless, but queer."

Once Anthony mentioned the man to his uncle; Charles smiled and said;

"Poor Tom! I'm very fond of him. But I'm afraid there _is_ too much moon-glow in his mind. He was shipwrecked once, and I think that was the cause of it. But he's a shrewd hand at accounts; I've seen no better anywhere, and he's as dependable as might be. But he's queer."

The queerness Anthony was prepared to grant; but after a few days in the place, when he'd got settled down sufficiently to notice details, he began to feel it manifest itself in ways that carried a disquieting touch. Should he pass Tom Horn's desk, Anthony would see him bent over, scratching away at his figures; but as soon as the young man got by he had the feeling that the bent head had been lifted and that the man was following him with his eyes. Sometimes Anthony would sit with a heap of the routine work of the place before him or turning some vexed thing over in his mind; then an odd, restless feeling would come over him, and he'd look up, irritated. Over the edge of the tall desk he'd see the peculiarly glowing eyes of the man fixed upon him. This Anthony noted quite often, and in various ways. In the street he'd see Tom Horn standing behind a bale of goods or a hogshead, watching him guardedly; or it might be that his vantage-place would be a doorway, or behind the jutting edge of a sharp window. But always he had the same steady stare, his brows bent, a difficult something apparently revolving in his troubled mind. Tom was always first in the counting-room of a morning; an old porter told Anthony that he was there very often as early as four o'clock.

"I always have a fire for Mr. Horn," said the man. "There's no telling when he'll come in and start his day. He's an early bird, indeed, Mr. Horn is."

Anthony always bade the eccentric clerk the time of day; but Tom Horn never replied except with a questioning look that continued long after the young man had turned away. But one morning Anthony had occasion to hand him some bills for entry, and Tom surprised him by saying in his peculiarly hushed voice:

"Every one gives me figures. I see figures in my sleep."

"I don't doubt it," smiled Anthony.

"Each figure," said Tom Horn, "is made up of parts of other figures. Have you ever thought of that? Each leads into each; and so they make a circle. All circles are open, but they grow narrower. Sometimes they do it themselves; sometimes," and he nodded his head, his eyes fast upon Anthony's face, "we make them do it. There's a law for it; it's a law every one should study."

He again nodded his head, and remained looking after Anthony until the young man went out of the room. After that, when Anthony saw the strange eyes upon him,--and this was likely to occur at any hour of the day,--Tom Horn always nodded to him; and, oddly enough, Anthony fancied he detected in it something of approval--something, too, of encouragement.

But the days of the early winter dragged. There was none of the stir of vessels arriving and departing; none of the receiving of stores of new merchandise, none of the sudden bustlings and gossip of trade, and of money and exchange, that quickened things when the river was open. And, as each slow day went by, Anthony was weighted more and more with the conviction that no arresting sign would show itself in the midst of this commercial usualness; no sign _could_ show itself. He watched minutely; he carefully balanced what he saw against the indefinite things he suspected. But the result was emptiness. His mind met with polished perfection; his thoughts seemed to slip futilely about among the smooth ways of the business. Not one thing threw even the shadow of a promise across his path.

One early morning, as he shook the snow from his cloak and stamped it from his boots before the counting-room fire, Tom Horn was arranging his books upon the desk; and Anthony said, smilingly:

"You'll be a very wise man one day, Tom. All this poring over books should lead to something."

"The books of the world, hold the world's knowledge," said Tom Horn. "And too few people give attention to them."

"That's true," said Anthony, "most of us do not employ ourselves with as many of them as we should."

"Sometimes," said the clerk, "men try to draw their knowledge from the things in which they find themselves. In that way they limit their possibilities; for there are always other and wider things that might serve them better. One man can only hope to gain a little from the world as it turns, and that little is not of much service. But the accumulated findings of many men are ready written down. If you desire to make plain what's keenest in your mind, go to books, study them diligently, study many of them; it will cost you but the price of so much lamp-oil, or so many candles, and the use of evening hours that you'd otherwise throw away."

Anthony smiled.

"That's excellent advice, Tom," he said. "And I've no doubt I'd do well to follow it."

The nights were long and cold and dark that winter; Anthony had no desire for social diversions, and he resisted the calls made upon him by his uncle, by Dr. King, by Whitaker; he desired to hold his mind to one thing, and every hour was given to its solution.

When he'd shut the door of the counting-room of a night, leaving the trusty old porter to draw the fires and put out the lamps, he'd trudge away to some tavern and have a lonely supper; then he'd be off through the snow, for the weather held sharp, and there was little thaw, to his lodgings in Sassafras Street, where he'd sit and brood by candle-light. Now and then he'd allow himself the pleasure of a visit to Christopher Dent; and there, in the back room, he'd smoke and listen to the little apothecary's pleased reminiscences of days that had long gone by. Once or twice during these visits Tom Horn also chanced in to warm his legs by Christopher's stove, before seeking the room he had in a court off Front Street. But on these occasions he'd say nothing. Stamping the snow from his heels, he'd hang his hat upon a peg and take his accustomed chair by the stove. And while Christopher talked and Anthony smoked and listened, Tom Horn would keep his eyes fixed upon the young man's face; what he saw there must have pleased him, for every now and then he'd break forth into a series of approving nods, and he'd rub his well-warmed worsted stockings smartly and with much confidence.

Of course, Anthony knew who Christopher's lodgers were; he'd frowned when he first heard it, and when he reached his rooms that night his thoughts were far from pleasant. He could never quite forget the beautiful, spirited creature he'd seen on the first morning after his arrival in the city; he could never quite forget the tremble in her rich voice as she appealed to him for aid. Also, and his brow grew dark at this, he could never forget the look she'd given him that night at the Crooked Billet, that cold, stabbing look of scorn; and her head had turned away so that she might not see him, and she had walked into the conference of his enemies.