Part 4

That night was not a very comfortable one for Anthony. He lay awake for a long time, his straight-forward mind laboring with the facts of the day; when he did finally drop off, his sleep was not a deep one; it was thronged with grotesque images, and incidents that caricatured what he had seen and heard.

Once he awoke. It was a moon-lit night; through the window he could see the bell swinging in the tower across the way; he reasoned that it had just done striking, and the blows had awakened him. He tried to see the hour by his watch, but could not; so he arose and took it to the window. It was one o'clock. He stood moodily looking down into the street so silvered and quiet; from somewhere, a long way off, came the rumble of wheels and the notes of a coach horn; and he shivered as he thought of the harassed passengers, beginning a journey in the thin chill of the night.

He was about to turn from the window when a movement caught his eye in the shadow cast by the tower; it was a dim, leisurely movement, and well toward the edge, where the shadow met the moonlight sharply. Almost at once he saw its nature; the figures of two men came into the light and paused. They seemed on the point of separating, and the pause was for a parting word. They shook hands with the quick, hard clutch of persons well satisfied, and each turned away. But one, he who had faced eastward in the direction of the river, suddenly paused.

There was something familiar to Anthony in the gesture that stopped the other man; and the two joined once more in talk. However, it was but for a moment. The man with the familiar gesture seemed to ask a question, which the other answered, and in so doing lifted his hand and pointed at Anthony's window. The first man threw back his head; a ringing laugh broke the stillness, and Anthony at once recognized him; it was the man with the saddle-bags who had come ashore that morning from the New York packet.

Anthony watched the two separate; the one held steadily toward the river; the other crossed the street toward the inn; and a moment later Anthony heard the outer door open and close. He stood for a moment in the center of the floor and pondered; there was something in the scene he had just witnessed which started a cold shuddering in his blood--the same feeling he'd experienced on many a night as the wilderness closed around him, and he knew the shadows were peopled with gliding forms, each bearing a weapon that might let out his life.

But this was civilization! This was the capital city of the nation! The two men may have been cronies, detained somewhere by the flavor of a particular bottle. How was he to be sure that it was his window at which the man who had entered the inn had pointed? There were other windows; it may have been one of those. But, even though it had been his, what did it signify? A hundred reasons, each entirely innocent, might account for the gesture. The fancy that the thing held a danger amused his reason; but still the creeping continued in his blood, and instinct rang its warning in his pulse. He went to his chest, threw open the lid, and took out a heavy, knotted walking-stick, iron-shod and formidable. He was balancing this in his hand and regarding it from under frowning brows when he caught the sound of a light foot in the hall; it paused at his door; his head went up, and, clutching the cudgel, he stood listening.

The latch lifted softly; there was an instant's pause, and then the door began to push inward. Anthony saw a young man with a tall hat, a fashionably cut coat, with metal buttons, small-clothes, and shoes that had silver buckles. He carried himself very erect and with perfect composure. Closing the door after him, he advanced to the bedside, and took a chair. It was plain that in the uncertain light of the room, to which his eyes were not accustomed, he fancied the bed occupied, for he bent his head forward and addressed it.

"Now," said he, "if you'll be good enough to wake up, I'll have a few important words with you."

There was a pause, as he waited for the stirring of the sleeper; none followed, and he reached out his hand. As it met with only empty sheets, he exclaimed impatiently; and then out of the semi-darkness came the voice of Anthony.

"Perhaps," said he, "a little candle-light might improve matters."

"Oh," said the intruder, turning with perfect composure toward the sound, "so you are there? I took it for granted that at this hour you'd be abed."

Anthony struck a light and touched it to the wick of a candle; then, the knotted stick in his hand, he stood glowering at his visitor.

"I am sorry to disturb you," said the man. He placed his tall hat upon a table, and seemed quite at his ease. "Also," and he nodded at the cudgel, "I'm quite mortified to have given you alarm."

"You need not disturb yourself about that," said Anthony, grimly. "I'm accustomed to alarms, and also to what follows after." Then, with the sudden cut to his voice which always told of a rising temper, "What the devil do you mean by easing yourself into my room, like this?"

"Sit down," said the man, unruffled. "And let us talk."

"I warn you," said Anthony sharply, "that that won't do. I will not sit down, and I will have no talk with you except upon one subject. What are you doing here?"

The man crossed one leg upon the other and examined Anthony in the candle-light.

"I can see," said he, "that they've spoken the truth. Your temper lifts too quickly for a northern climate. If you'll be advised, you'll go quietly back to--is it New Orleans?"

There was something very clear in the voice; it was the crisp utterance of a man who knew his own mind, and had complete confidence in what he said. Anthony, as he looked at him, saw that he had a slim, elegant figure, that his face was of classic regularity; but there was a cold assurance in the eyes and a sneer about the lips.

"Once more," said Anthony, "what are you doing here?" He took a step forward, and his right hand closed about the handle of the stick. "Jocular reflections upon my temper, and impertinent advice, are not answers. Come, now!"

The intruder smiled, easily.

"I suppose," said he, "you are one who prides himself upon sticking to a point. It's a good quality, enough; but one should never permit such a thing to blind one to matters of more interest." He looked at Anthony with the same easy smile, and through it were the sneer and the cold confidence of the eyes. "This port is no place for you," he said. "Be advised. There is a ship sailing to-morrow for Havana; from there to New Orleans is no distance at all."

Anthony waited for no more. Like a wolf he was upon the other and had hauled him to his feet; then the iron-shod stick lashed out, showering blows upon the man's head and shoulders. Overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack, the intruder fell back against the wall; Anthony threw open the door, seized him by the scruff of the neck, much as one might an offending cur, and, without a word, pitched him into the hall, and his hat after him and slammed the door. Then he stood his weapon in a corner, put out the candle, got back into bed and fell instantly asleep.

Quite early in the morning he arose; he descended the stairs briskly, his mind fully made up as to what he should do. He ate his breakfast of hot eggs, and cold sliced ham, and breast of fowl; and he drank his tea. Then he took up the knotted stick and went stumping determinedly through the bar on his way to the street.

"Mr. Stevens!"

It was the landlord who hailed him, a man with a paunch of fine proportions, and the face of a serious cherub. Anthony stopped.

"Last night," said the host solemnly, "you engaged in an altercation. I do not know the merits of the case, sir, but Mr. Tarrant will, I think, send some one during the day to meet you."

"Is Mr. Tarrant the gentleman whom I was compelled to pitch out of my room?"

"He claims that you mishandled him; but just how or why he did not say. Should he," and the landlord's cherubic countenance was filled with interest, "send a friend to converse with you, and you should chance to be out, what report am I to give of you?"

"None," said Anthony curtly. "I am not at the beck and call of Mr. Tarrant, or any of his friends."

"He has a rare eye at forty paces," said the host, with a nod. "A very rare eye. They say there was no better shot in the navy than he, at that distance."

But Anthony did not pause to make reply; out he went and down Chestnut Street at a clipping pace. There was to be no more vague talk; he'd had enough of that the day before; there were to be no more hintings, no more warnings without body enough behind them for a man to grasp. He would have plain speech, now; and short speech, or he'd know the reason why!

The hour was rather earlier than the hour he had started out on the morning before. There was no such hurrying of drays and porters as then; Water Street was stirring slightly, but the river front was still sluggish with sleep, and the deep sea ships in the docks and the stream were as silent as though deserted. He had no idea that Magruder would be in his place of business at this hour, but impatience would not permit him to wait; if he found the place closed, he could tramp about the docks, and return at an hour that promised better.

The shutters were still up at the windows that faced the wharves, and the heavy door was fast. Anthony, however, recalled that the trader had his counting-room at the back, with its windows opening upon an alley; and he made his way around the building on the chance that it was by a door on this side that Magruder usually entered. Here, too, the shutters were up; there was the door, as he expected, and it was standing slightly ajar.

Evidently Magruder, or a clerk, had just arrived, and had not yet time to let daylight into the place. Anthony shoved the door farther open and went in. He found himself in a sort of anteroom, cluttered with nail kegs, bits of plank and cordage, and all the rubbish and refuse of shipping; there was a dark passage that he felt led to the wareroom through which he had passed on the previous day; almost at his hand was a door leading into the counting-room. He lifted the latch of this, and it opened readily; the place was dark save for here and there a gray dart of day that came in at the chinks in the shutters.

"Hello!" Anthony spoke loudly, so that his voice might also carry down through the passage into the other parts of the building. "Magruder! Are you here?"

But there was no reply. He then rapped with his stick upon the floor, but no one came in answer. Making his way through the passage, he came to the wareroom, dark, heavy smelling, and with rats scuttling about; again he called, but still received no reply. Back at the counting-room door, he looked in; by this time his eyes had grown more used to the dimness, and he began to make things out. There was the cupboard bulging with papers; there was the high desk where Magruder had stood when he first saw him. There must be a pewter candle-stick upon one end of this; Anthony had noted it the day before because the candle end had guttered so, and trailing down the metal holder was the "ghost's shrowd" held by believers in omens to be a sign of peculiar portent.

Anthony felt for this and found it; with his fusee he struck a light, and in a moment had the candle stump burning with a long flame. His shadow danced hugely upon the wall as he turned to look about; and it was then that he saw Magruder, sitting in a chair, hunched in a horridly crooked way, his mouth open in a frozen cry, great clots of blood darkening his neck-cloth, and dead!

VI

Death by violence was no new thing to Anthony Stevens; no man could sail the seas he'd sailed, or penetrate the regions he had gone through, and not have seen sudden and bloody ends a-plenty. But there was an unexpected terror in this one; death had flipped its hand here with a grotesquery that was horrible, and the young man felt himself grow sick.

His eyes went about the counting-room: there was none of the litter that shows a place hastily ransacked; the drawers of the desk were closed; the cupboard was as it had been the day before; a strong box set against the wall was securely locked and unmolested. The thing had not been done for robbery, then. Revenge, perhaps? A man who dealt as closely as Magruder would be likely to anger many; no niggard, in Anthony's experience, had ever gone scot-free. Your clutching, greedy trader always, at some place or other, over-stepped the line, and was it to be wondered at if--

But Anthony, with a sharp gesture and a tightening of the mouth, put this whole train of thought from him. It was like the drugs some shipmen brought with them from the East; it lulled and gave false ease. In this very room, the previous morning, Magruder had said:

"Outside there, in the docks, there are a score or more of fine, deep-water ships; on the wharves and in the warehouses there is much rich stuff. But if they, to the last block and spar, to the last bale and barrel, were offered me as the price of making it known that I'd brought you north, as I have, I'd refuse."

Anthony shivered a little. The place seemed cold; his flesh was damp; his huge shadow, cast upon the wall by the flare of the candle, seemed bent with the same fear that had filled the man now dead. As he stood there Anthony tried to sense the shape of this dread; and each time a sort of blankness came upon him. The house of Rufus Stevens' Sons, as his mind drew it toward him, was plain, solid, normal; he could not imagine fear trailing through its doors. But there could be no doubt about Magruder; he had sensed the thing, and because he had spoken of it he had paid with his life.

As Anthony looked at the dead man, his breath caught sharply, and he frowned down at him. Then, taking the candle, he held it closer; the blood upon the neck-cloth was hard and dark, not fluid and red as it would have been had the crime been newly done. He touched the body; it was rigid.

The young man put down the candle. The crime, then, was not of that morning. It was some hours old. It had been done during the night. Because of some urgency of business, probably the arrival of his brig _Bristol Pride_, Magruder had remained in his counting-room until late, with his bills of lading, and what not; and death had walked in on him out of the night.

Walked in on him! What had occurred to himself in the night came back to Anthony; and his mind tightened about it. Again he saw the two men in the moonlight; again he saw the one point to his window, and directly afterward come tramping into his room with his orders to leave the city. And the other! He had gone toward the river; he had gone in the direction of this very place!

Facing a tangible possibility, Anthony no longer felt that the room was cold; his skin grew normal; his pulse beat calmly; the shadow on the wall no longer had the cringe of infectious fear.

There came a sound from the depths of the building. Once more Anthony went into the passage and along its length; at the far end of the wareroom a door stood open; a porter was taking down the shutters. Anthony was about to call to him; but his lips closed upon the sound, and he turned and made his way quietly to the door by which he had come in. He looked out; he saw no one in the alley; and in a moment he was walking away, with all the unconcern he could call into his manner.

In trudging from the Half Moon to Magruder's, Anthony had worked himself up to a high pitch of exasperation; more than once he made the stout stick whistle as he slashed it through the air. He had formulated certain questions that must be answered. To the devil with all this tongue-wagging, and nothing coming of it.

But now he knew all he desired; and he had not asked a question. Also he knew what he had to face. It was men! And it was blows! Good! They were things he understood. When he came face to face with the men he'd know what to say; and when the time came for the blows--Anthony smiled here--rather grimly, to be sure; but it was the first smile of the morning.

At Water Street and Mulberry, Christopher Dent's apothecary shop was open, and Anthony went in. The little man was eating broiled fish in his laboratory and had a big book in the Latin tongue propped up before him. He shoved his spectacles up on his forehead and greeted his visitor.

"Sit down," said he. "And take some of the halibut. I'll get you a plate. It came fresh into the market this morning."

He began bustling about; but Anthony stopped him.

"I've had breakfast," said the young man. "An hour ago."

Christopher settled into his place at the table once more.

"You are an early riser," said he. "But, then, you always were. Many and many a time we'd cross the river before sun-up in the spring, when the dandelions were beginning."

Many of the tricks of boyhood persist in later life; and one of Anthony's had been, when he was perplexed, to go to Christopher Dent. The little apothecary had earned a great name among the youth of the old city district by his wisdom as to stone-bruises and warts, stubbed toes and lacerated shins; and because of this it was taken for granted that he also spoke with authority on other things. And now the old instinct became active in Anthony, and he told the apothecary of how he found Magruder. Christopher shoved his spectacles still farther up on his head, closed the book, and forgot about the fish.

"Dead!" said he.

"As a stone," said Anthony.

"And no one was about--the shutters were up, and the door was standing open?"

"Yes."

The little old apothecary stared with round eyes.

"I knew Mr. Magruder," said he. "At odd times he'd come here for a pennyworth of dragon-root, which he used for an asthma. A close man; he spent little and said less. He so seldom mixed with people that I'd have ventured he'd not a friend, nor an enemy, anywhere. What manner of blow killed him?"

"I did not look narrowly," said the young man, "but it seemed in the nature of a stab."

"There are some desperate rogues going about," said Christopher, shaking his head. "Desperate, and cunning, too. Did you speak with the watch after you gave the alarm?"

"I gave no alarm," said Anthony. Then he told of how Magruder had written him at New Orleans, of his interview with him on the day before, of his talk with Dr. King, and of his visitor at the Half Moon in the small hours of the morning.

"God bless us!" said Christopher Dent, his eyes wider than before. "What can it all mean?"

"I thought," said Anthony, "it would be best to come away quietly from Magruder's and say nothing. As it is, the porters or clerks will find the body in good time; then my name will be in no way connected with the matter, and that, I think, will be of service to me."

The little apothecary considered a moment, and then gravely nodded.

"Yes," said he, "you are right. You are quite right. The city will be in a state over this; the officers will be much exercised. If you'd made the thing known, they'd have asked questions of you. To keep yourself from any touch with this villainy you would have given guarded answers. The officers are not without perception; they would have noted your hesitancy and would, like as not, have insisted upon a clearer statement. And that," with a look of great knowingness, "you'd probably not be inclined to give just now. Yes, you are quite right to say nothing; the body will be found in due course, as you say, and so no harm will be done."

A man came into the outer shop, and the apothecary went out to him.

"I want," said the man, in a voice that Anthony seemed to recognize, "a few pennyworth of Spanish flies, and pitch enough to make a plaster of some size."

"For man or beast," asked Christopher dubiously.

"For a horse--a gelding with a hurt shoulder."

"I would not advise the pitch," said the apothecary; "when cold, it grows hard, and will dull the virtue of even cantharides."

"But it will stick," maintained the other, "and no kicking or rubbing will get it off. And this horse is the very devil for kicking and stumbling and knocking against things."

"A small quantity of Venice turpentine," said Christopher, "and a little yellow wax--"

"I will have pitch," interrupted the man. "You may be able to doctor humans, Mr. Dent, but you don't understand horses. They need strong medicines and strong words, else they'll get entirely out of hand. There'd have been no accident last night if I'd been able to speak properly to the beast; but having a lady passenger I had to mind my tongue."

Anthony changed his position so that he could see the man. Yes, it was the coachman with whom he had talked at the Half Moon; and the young man went hastily into the shop. The man gave him a nod of recognition and a thick-shouldered salute.

"An accident, did you say?" questioned Anthony. "It wasn't serious, I hope."

"Only for the horse," said the man. "He's young and not much used to being driven at night; and the way along the river as you turn the end of the fish-market is not very light. 'Twas there he stumbled, and I could go no further."

Anthony cocked a questioning eye at the man.

"The way along the river?" said he. "And turning the end of the fish-market? What were you doing there?"