by Don Marquis
CHAPTER XI
REPARTEE AND PISTOLS
Loge dropped his gaze to the pistol, and the smile upon his lips slowlyturned into a sneer. But when he lifted his eyes to Cleggett's againthere was no fear in them.
"Put up your gun," he said, easily enough. "You won't have any use forit here."
"Thank you for the assurance," said Cleggett, "but it occurs to me thatit is in a very good place where it is."
"Oh, if it amuses you to play with it----" said Loge.
"It does," said Cleggett dryly.
"It's an odd taste," said Loge.
"It's a taste I've formed during the last few days on board my ship,"said Cleggett meaningly.
"Ship?" said Loge. "Oh, I beg your pardon. You mean the old hulk overyonder in the canal?"
"Over yonder in the canal," said Cleggett, without relaxing hisvigilance.
"You've been frightened over there?" asked Loge, showing his teeth in agrin.
"No," said Cleggett. "I'm not easily frightened."
Loge looked at the pistol under Cleggett's hand, and from the pistol toCleggett's face, with ironical gravity, before he spoke. "I shouldhave thought, from the way you cling to that pistol, that perhaps yournerves might be a little weak and shaky."
"On the contrary," said Cleggett, playing the game with a face like amask, "my nerves are so steady that I could snip that ugly-lookingskull off your cravat the length of this barroom away."
"That would be mighty good shooting," said Loge, turning in his chairand measuring the distance with his eye. "I don't believe you could doit. I don't mind telling you that _I_ couldn't."
"While we are on the subject of your scarfpin," said Cleggett, in whomthe slur on the Jasper B. had been rankling, "I don't mind telling YOUthat I think that skull thing is in damned bad taste. In fact, you aredressed generally in damned bad taste.--Who is your tailor?"
Cleggett was gratified to see a dull flush spread over the other's faceat the insult. Loge was silent a moment, and then he said, droppinghis bantering manner, which indeed sat rather heavily upon him: "Idon't know why you should want to shoot at my scarfpin--or at me. Idon't know why you should suddenly lay a pistol between us. I don't,in short, know why we should sit here paying each other left-handedcompliments, when it was merely my intention to make you a businessproposition."
"I have been waiting to hear what you had to say to me," said Cleggett,without being in the least thrown off his guard by the other's changeof manner.
"If you had not chanced to drop in here today," said Loge, "I hadintended paying you a visit."
"I have had several visitors lately," said Cleggett nonchalantly, "andI think at least two of them can make no claim that they were notwarmly received."
"Yes?" said Loge. But if Cleggett's meaning reached him he was toocool a hand to show it. He persisted in his affectation of abusinesslike air. "Am I right in thinking that you have bought theboat?"
"You are."
"To come to the point," said Loge, "I want to buy her from you. Whatwill you take for her?"
The proposition was unexpected to Cleggett, but he did not betray hissurprise.
"You want to buy her?" he said. "You want to buy the old hulk overyonder in the canal?" He laughed, but continued: "What on earth canyour interest be in her?"
There was a trace of surliness in Loge's voice as he answered: "YOUwere enough interested in her to buy her, it seems. Why shouldn't Ihave the same interest?"
Cleggett was silent a moment, and then he leaned across the table andsaid with emphasis: "I have noticed your interest in the Jasper B.since the day I first set foot on her. And let me warn you that unlessyou show your curiosity in some other manner henceforth, you willseriously regret it. A couple of your men have repented of yourinterest already."
"My men? What do you mean by my men? I haven't any men." Loge'simitation of astonishment was a piece of art; but if anything heoverdid it a trifle. He frowned in a puzzled fashion, and then said:"You talk about my men; you speak riddles to me; you appear to threatenme, but after all I have only made you a plain business proposition. Iask you again, what will you take for her?"
"She's not for sale," said Cleggett shortly.
Loge did not speak again for a moment. Instead, he picked up the spoonwith which Cleggett had stirred his highball and began to drawcharacters with its wet point upon the table. "If it's a question ofprice," he said finally, "I'm prepared to allow you a handsome profit."
Cleggett determined to find out how far he would go.
"You might be willing to pay as much as $5,000 for her--for the oldhulk over there in the canal?"
Loge stopped playing with the spoon and looked searchingly intoCleggett's face. Then he said:
"I will. Turn her over to me the way she was the day you bought her,and I'll give you $5,000." He paused, and then repeated, stressing thewords: "MIND YOU, WITH EVERYTHING IN HER THE WAY IT WAS THE DAY YOUBOUGHT HER."
Cleggett fumbled with his fingers in a waistcoat pocket, drew out thetorn piece of counterfeit money which he had taken from the dead hand,and flung it on the table.
"Five thousand dollars," he said, "in THAT kind of money?"
Loge looked at it with eyes that suddenly contracted. Cleverdissembler that he was, he could not prevent an involuntary start. Helicked his lips, and Cleggett judged that perhaps his mouth felt alittle dry. But these were the only signs he made. Indeed, when hespoke it was with something almost like an air of relief.
"Come," he said, "now we're down to brass tacks at last on thisproposition. Mr. Detective, name your real price."
Cleggett did not answer immediately. He appeared to consider his realprice. But in reality he was thinking that there was no longer anydoubt of the origin of the explosion. Since Loge practicallyacknowledged the counterfeit money, the man who had died with thispiece of it in his hand must have been one of Loge's men. But he onlysaid:
"Why do you call me a detective?"
Loge shrugged his shoulders. Then he said again: "Your real price?"
"What," said Cleggett, trying him out, "do you think of $20,000?"
The other gave a long, low whistle.
"Gad!" he cried, "what crooks you bulls are."
"It's not so much," said Cleggett deliberately, "when one takeseverything into consideration."
Loge appeared to meditate. Then he said: "That figure is out of thequestion. I'll give you $10,000 and not a cent more."
"You want her pretty badly," said Cleggett. "Or you want what's onher."
"Why," said Loge, with an assumption of great frankness, "between youand me I don't care a damn about your boat. I think we understand eachother. I'm buying her to get what's on her."
"Suppose I sell you what's on her for $10,000 and keep the ship," saidCleggett, wondering what WAS on the Jasper B.
"Agreed," said Loge.
"Since we're being so frank with one another," said Cleggett, "wouldyou mind telling me why you didn't come to me at the start with anoffer to buy, instead of making such a nuisance of yourself?"
"Eh?" Loge appeared genuinely surprised. "Why should I pay you anymoney if I could get it, or destroy it, without that? Besides, how wasI to know you could be bought?"
Cleggett wondered more than ever what piece of evidence the hold of theJasper B. contained. He felt certain that it was not merelycounterfeit bills. Cleggett determined upon a minute and thoroughsearch of the hold.
"You'll send for it?" said Cleggett, still trying to get a moredefinite idea of what "it" was, without revealing that he did not know.
"I'll come myself with a taxicab," said Loge.
Cleggett rose, smiling; he had found out as much as he could expect tolearn.
"On the whole," he said, "I think that I prefer to keep the Jasper B.and everything that's in her. But before I leave I must thank you forthe pleasure I have derived from our little talk--and the informationas well. You can hardly imagine how you have interested me. W
ill youkindly step back and let me pass?"
Loge got to his feet with a muttered oath; his face went livid and amuscle worked in his throat; his fingers contracted like the claws ofsome big and powerful cat. But, out of respect for Cleggett's pistol,he stepped backward.
"You have confessed to making counterfeit money," went on Cleggett,enjoying the situation, "and you have as good as told me that there arefurther evidences of crime on board the Jasper B. You can rest assuredthat I will find them. You have also betrayed the fact that youplanned to blow my ship up, and there are several other little matterswhich you have shed light upon.
"I am not a detective. Nevertheless, I hope in the near future to seeyou behind the bars and to help put you there. It may interest you toknow that my opinion of your intellect is no higher than my opinion ofyour character. You seem to me to have a vast conceit of your owncleverness, which is not justified by the facts. You are a very stupidfellow; a--a--what is the slang word? Boob, I believe."
But while Cleggett was finishing his remarks a subtle change stole overLoge's countenance. His attitude, which had been one of baffled rage,relaxed. As Cleggett paused the sneer came back upon Loge's lips.
"Boob," he said quietly, "boob is the word. Look above you."
A sharp metallic click overhead gave point to Loge's words. Looking up,Cleggett saw that a trap-door had opened in the ceiling, and throughthe aperture Pierre, who had left the room some moments before with thebartender, was pointing a revolver, which he had just cocked, atCleggett's head. He sighted along the barrel with an eager,anticipatory smile upon his face; Pierre would, no doubt, havepreferred to see a man boiled in oil rather than merely shot, butshooting was something, and Pierre evidently intended to get all thedelight possible out of the situation.
Cleggett's own pistol was within an inch of Loge's stomach.
"I was willing to pay you real money," said Loge, "for the sake ofpeace. But you're a damned fool if you think you can throw me down andthen walk straight out of here to headquarters." Then he added,showing his yellow teeth: "You WOULD bring pistols into theconversation, you know. That was YOUR idea. And now you're in a devilof a fix."
The man certainly had an iron nerve; he spoke as calmly as ifCleggett's weapon were not in existence; there was nothing but thepressure of a finger wanting to send both him and Cleggett to eternity.Yet he jested; he laid his strong and devilish will across Cleggett'smentality; it was a duel in which the two minds met and tried eachother like swords; the first break in intention, and one or the otherwas a dead man. Cleggett felt the weight of that powerful and evilsoul upon his own almost as if it were a physical thing.
"You are not altogether safe yourself," said Cleggett grimly, with hiseyes fixed on Pierre's and his pistol touching Loge's waistband. "IfPierre so much as winks an eye--if you move a hair's breadth--I'll puta stream of bullets through YOU. Understand?"
How long this singular psychological combat might have lasted before anerve quivered somewhere and brought the denouement of a double death,there is no telling. For accident (or fate) intervened to pluck theseantagonists back into life and rob the gloating Pierre of the happinessof seeing two men perish without danger to himself. Something ofuncertain shape, but of a blue color, loomed vaguely behind Pierre'shead; loomed and suddenly descended to the accompaniment of a piercingshriek. Pierre's pistol went off, but he had evidently been strickenbetween the shoulders; the ball went wild, and the pistol itselfdropped from his hand, another cartridge exploding as it hit the floor.The next instant Pierre tumbled headlong through the hole, landing uponLoge, who, not braced for the shock, went down himself.
As the two men struggled to rise a strange figure precipitated itselffrom the room above, feet first, and hit both of them, knocking themdown again. It was a tall man, thin and lank, clad only in a suit ofsilk pajamas of the color known as baby blue; he was barefoot, andCleggett, with that lucid grasp of detail which comes to men oftener innightmares than in real life, noticed that he had a bunion at the largejoint of his right great toe.
If the man was startling, he was no less startled himself. Leaping fromthe struggling forms of Pierre and Loge, who defeated each other'sfrantic efforts to rise, he was across the barroom in three wildbounds, shrieking shrilly as he leaped; he bolted through the west doorand cleared the verandah at a jump.
Loge, gaining his feet, was after the man in blue in an instant,evidently thinking no more of Cleggett than if the latter had been inMadagascar. And as for Cleggett, although he might have shot down Logea dozen times over, he was so astonished at what he saw that thethought never entered his head. He had, in fact, forgotten that heheld a pistol in his hand. Pierre scrambled to his feet and followedLoge.
Cleggett, running after them, saw the man in the blue pajamas sprintingalong the sandy margin of the bay. But Loge, his hat gone, his coattails level in the wind behind him, and his large patent leather shoesflashing in the morning sunlight, was overhauling him with long andpowerful strides. Cleggett saw the quarry throw a startled glance overhis shoulder; he was no match for the terrible Loge in speed, and hemust have realized it with despair, for he turned sharply at rightangles and rushed into the sea. Loge unhesitatingly plunged after him,and had caught him by the shoulder and whirled him about before he hadreached a swimming depth. They clinched, in water mid-thigh deep, andthen Cleggett saw Loge plant his fist, with scientific precision andawful force, upon the point of the other's jaw. The man in the bluepajamas collapsed; he would have dropped into the water, but Logecaught him as he fell, threw his body across a shoulder with littleapparent effort, and trotted back into the house with him.
Cleggett had left his sword cane in the barroom, but he judged it wouldbe just as well to allow it to remain there for the present. He turnedand walked meditatively across the sands towards the Jasper B.
