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Page 16
"Not so much as a postage stamp, so far as I know. Money's always been
in the family, and his Wall Street friends have shown him how to double
what he has, from time to time. Just for the sport of the thing some
old fellows go in for crockery, some for pictures, and some for horses.
The admiral just hunts treasures. Half-past six; you'll excuse me.
There'll be some train despatches in a minute."
Fitzgerald gave him a good cigar, took up his bag, and started off for
the main street; and once there he remembered with chagrin that he had
not asked the agent the most important thing of all: Had the admiral a
daughter? Well, at eight o'clock he would learn all about that.
Pirates! It would be as good as a play. But where did he come in?
And why was courage necessary? His interest found new life.
Swan's Hotel was one of those nondescript buildings of wood which are
not worth more than a three-line paragraph even when they burn down.
It was smelly. The kitchen joined the dining-room, and the dining-room
the office, which was half a bar-room, with a few boxes of sawdust
mathematically arranged along the walls. There were many like it up
and down the coast. There were pictures on the walls of terrible
wrecks at sea, naval battles, and a race horse or two.
The landlord himself lifted Fitzgerald's bag to the counter.
"A room for the night and supper, right away."
"Here, Jimmy," called the landlord to a growing, lumbering boy, "take
this satchel up to number five."
The boy went his way, eying the labels respectfully and with some awe.
This was the third of its kind he had ported up-stairs in the past
twenty-four hours.
Fitzgerald cast an idle glance at the loungers. There were half a
dozen of them, some of them playing cards and some displaying talent on
a pool table, badly worn and beer-stained. There was nothing
distinctive about any of them, excepting the little man who was reading
an evening paper, and the only distinctive thing about him was a pair
of bright eyes. Behind their gold-rimmed spectacles they did not waver
under Fitzgerald's scrutiny; so the latter dismissed the room and its
company from his mind and proceeded into dinner. As he was late, he
dined alone on mildly warm chicken, greasy potatoes, and muddy coffee.
He was used often to worse fare than this, and no complaint was even
though of. After he had changed his linen he took the road to the
house at the top of the hill. Now, then, what sort of an affair was
this going to be, such as would bend a girl of her bearing to speak to
him on the street? Moreover, at a moment when he was playing a
grown-up child's game? She had known that he was prevaricating when he
had stated that he represented a charitable organization; and he knew
that she knew he knew it. What, then? It could not be a joke; women
never rise to such extravagant heights. Pirates and treasures; he
wouldn't have been surprised at all had Old Long John Silver hobbled
out from behind any one of those vine-grown fences, and demanded his
purse.
The street was dim, and more than once he stumbled over a loose board
in the wooden walk. If the admiral had been the right kind of
philanthropist he would have furnished stone. But then, it was one
thing to give a country town something and another to force the town
council into accepting it. The lamp-posts, also of wood, stood
irregularly apart, often less than a hundred feet, and sometimes more,
lighting nothing but their immediate vicinity. Fitzgerald could see
the lamps, plainly, but could separate none of the objects round or
beneath. That is why he did not see the face of the man who passed him
in a hurry. He never forgot a face, if it were a man's; his only
difficulty was in placing it at once. Up to this time one woman
resembled another; feminine faces made no particular impression on his
memory. He would have remembered the face of the man who had just
passed, for the very fact that he had thought of it often. The man had
come into the dim radiance of the far light, then had melted into the
blackness of the night again, leaving as a sign of his presence the
creak of his shoes and the aroma of a cigarette.
Fitzgerald tramped on cheerfully. It was not an unpleasant climb, only
dark. The millionaire's home seemed to grow up out of a fine park.
There was a great iron fence inclosing the grounds, and the lights on
top of the gates set the dull red trunks of the pines a-glowing. There
were no lights shining in the windows of the pretty lodge. Still, the
pedestrians' gate was ajar. He passed in, fully expecting to be
greeted by the growl of a dog. Instead, he heard mysterious footsteps
on the gravel. He listened. Some one was running.
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