Читать книгу The Dark Ships - Footner Hulbert - Страница 4

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Following the direction of Eyster’s glance, Neill saw a tall, dark, handsome man coming in from the street. At first glance he scarcely looked the thirty-nine years he confessed to, but as he came closer Neill judged him about five years more than that. He was in the pink of condition, with a skin as fresh as a baby’s. His black eyes were set close together, giving him a foxy look; they were the kind of eyes that turn continually and overlook nothing. A hard face, but rendered superficially attractive by a good-natured smile. A crook, and a slick one, thought Neill.

Fanning, nodding pleasantly to his acquaintances in the lobby, strolled on into the bar. After giving him a moment or two, Neill followed.

He found Fanning leaning negligently on the mahogany, watching the bartender stir him up an old-fashioned cocktail. Neill lined up near by and looked him over in the mirror without appearing to. Fanning was wearing a perfectly-cut gray flannel suit and an expensive Panama hat. His shirt and tie were just a little different from anybody else’s. Evidently a man who gave a good deal of thought to his dress. Neill, who bought good clothes without thinking about them, resented it. Just the sort of thing that would catch a woman’s eye!

Since it was the hour before dinner when nobody is in a rush and each of them was alone at the bar, it was natural to fall into talk. When Neill also ordered an old-fashioned, Fanning said, with his ready smile:

“Great minds think alike!”

“Great ones and small ones, too,” said Neill.

Fanning laughed. “Are you registered here?”

“No. At the Stafford.”

“My name is Prescott Fanning.”

“I’m Walter Patton.”

“Where from?”

“New York.”

“That’s my town, too. But I’m thinking of retiring and settling in Baltimore.”

“You’re a young man to be talking about retiring.”

“Oh, well, I’m not ambitious,” said Fanning. “Forty or fifty thousand a year is ample for my needs. I’m looking for a place in the Green Spring Valley. Nothing opulent or showy, you understand, a small place, but perfect in every appointment. That’s my ideal. Two or three blooded horses in the stable, a flat field where I can land and take off in my own plane.”

Blow-hard! thought Neill. “Are you married?” he asked, pleasantly.

“No indeed!” said Fanning, laughing. “I’m too fond of the sex to tie myself down to one. Women are like wines; you want a different type with every course. I wouldn’t give up champagne just because I like Johannisberger.”

Neill fingered his glass longingly. He had a terrible yen to fling the contents in the man’s face. “Tell me, how did you make enough to retire so early?” he asked, laughing. “That’s something every man is interested in.”

“In the Street,” said Fanning, carelessly. “Things are coming back.”

“As an operator or a broker?”

“Both.... You hear a lot about the cleverness of Wall Street men, but believe me it’s all a myth. They’re so dumb that a fellow of just ordinary intelligence like me can go in and clean up in short order.” He laughed. “What’s your line?” he asked.

“Contact man for a firm of contractors. What’s your firm?”

“I’m out of the Street now.” ... “Have you heard this one?”

He told a funny story about Wall Street. While his mouth was full of humorous friendly talk the foxy black eyes never relaxed their vigilance. Neill had the sense that he was being keenly sized up in his turn.

He matched Fanning’s story with another. Fanning laughed and clapped him on the back. “I like you, Patton! You and I speak the same lingo.” He beckoned to the bartender. “Set ’em up, Jim. This round is on me.”

Neill reciprocated. By the time they had had three a perfect barroom friendship had developed. But while the drink appeared to loosen Fanning’s tongue, he made no disclosures about himself. When Neill asked a question he told a funny story. From time to time he slipped in a shrewd question of his own. Neill answered with seeming frankness, but Fanning’s sharp eyes hardened.

He is suspicious of me, Neill thought, and he doesn’t mean to let me go until he’s found out what I’m after. Well, two can play at that game.

After they had fenced in this manner for some time, Fanning asked: “What you doing tonight?”

“Eating alone, worse luck,” said Neill.

“Look, I’m having a little party, and I need another man. I’d be darn glad to have you join us. I like the cut of your jib, Patton. We must see more of each other.”

Neill grinned inwardly at the thought of Janet’s face when Fanning brought him to the party. It would be a pretty little revenge. “Certainly is nice of you to ask me,” he said. “I haven’t my evening clothes with me.”

“It doesn’t matter, my boy! The girls will dress up, bless their hearts! but we don’t have to. You’re a good-looking young guy, Patton, damned if you’re not, and you’ll be a credit to my party just as you are.”

“Well, thanks a lot,” said Neill.

“Let’s go up to my suite and wash up, and we can start out from here.”

“Okay.”

They paid for their drinks and went up in an elevator, Fanning talking and laughing. At the same time there was a glitter in his black eyes that spelled danger. Neill’s job had accustomed him to that. He was armed.

Fanning’s suite was one of the most expensive in the hotel. High above the street, it looked over the lower part of town and across the harbor to Federal Hill. Neill noted that, though Fanning presumably had occupied it for several weeks, there were no photographs or knick-knacks, no personal belongings of any kind on display; nothing to give him a line on the man’s past.

They made themselves ready for the party, Fanning keeping up a running fire of humorous stories. As they were slipping into their coats again there was a knock at the door of the parlor. Fanning went to answer it, but held the door in such a manner that Neill could not see who was outside. A whispered conversation took place. The caller was a man.

Presently Fanning opened the door farther, but still Neill could not see who was on the other side of it. As the crack between door and frame widened he had a sense that an eye was applied to it on the other side. Somebody was giving him the once over.

The conversation continued. Though the voices were low, Neill suspected that they were disputing. Finally he heard Fanning say, “Well, you’ll have to lump it then! ...”

“Aah! I never thought to get this from you,” rumbled the other voice, sorely.

“Shh!” said Fanning.

He went out, pulling the door almost to behind him, and Neill heard the two of them walking away. Tiptoeing to the door, he put an eye to the crack and saw the two figures moving in close converse toward the elevators. They were gesticulating angrily. Fanning’s visitor was a rough-looking man of enormous physical strength. His shoulders were so heavy they were bowed forward, and his big hands hung almost to his knees.

Neill retired from the door, leaving it exactly as he had found it. The telephone rang, and he picked it up. A man’s voice said cautiously over the wire:

“That you, Pres?”

Neill subdued his voice to a husky whisper. “Right.”

“What’s the matter?” asked the voice, sharply.

“Nothing. There are others in the room here.”

“Oh! I just wanted to tell you that everything is all right. The old girl hasn’t squawked.”

“Who did you say?”

The unknown speaker evaded the trap. “I say the old girl hasn’t squawked.”

“Good!”

“Shall I see you tomorrow as agreed?”

“Right. Where are you speaking from?”

Again he drew a blank. “Read’s drug store. So long.”

“So long.”

Neill hung up. Eyster might be mad, but even the few words he had heard were enough to confirm the fact that Fanning was a crook! As yet, however, he had secured no concrete evidence to lay before Janet. He looked around the room sharply. There was no time to make a search. Anyhow, he supposed that Fanning would never have left him alone had there been anything incriminating in the place.

Fanning returned with his made-to-order laugh, saying: “These darn realtors call on you at all hours. It’s almost impossible to get rid of them.”

“That’s right,” agreed Neill. He was thinking, that was no realtor, old man!

Fanning fetched a sealed bottle of Scotch from a cabinet. “We must have one last spot before we go,” he said.

“Just a short one for me,” said Neill.

“This is something special,” said Fanning. “A friend of mine brought it from abroad. Such whisky as this is not ordinarily shipped to our country.”

Neill was on his guard, but there seemed to be no danger in drinking from an unopened bottle, since Fanning was preparing to drink from the same bottle. Fanning took two glasses into the bathroom where he could be heard washing them. He brought them back still wet; and opened the bottle with care.

“When I get my own little place I’ll have a cellar, Patton, stocked with the choicest wines and liquors that the world produces. I’m not a heavy drinker, but I must have the best!” He poured two drinks. “Here’s how,” he said, raising his glass.

“Same to you,” said Neill. He waited until he saw the liquor actually running down Fanning’s throat, and then tossed off his own. Certainly it was superfine whisky.

“Let’s go,” said Fanning.

His last act before leaving was to take a packet of one hundred new five-dollar bills from a drawer of the bureau and drop it in his wallet. “Just an evening’s pleasure!” he said.

“Well, you’re no piker,” said Neill.

They descended in the elevator and hailed a taxi at the door of the hotel. “To the Belvedere,” Fanning said to the driver. “That’s where we pick up the girls,” he added to Neill.

From Hanover Street they turned into Fayette and then into Charles. The pavements of Baltimore’s best street were almost empty now. Fanning began to tell another funny story, but his voice seemed far away.

Neill felt great. He had never found the streets at evening so beautiful. A delicious languor was stealing through his limbs. He seemed to be reclining on a fleecy cloud that was being wafted away into space. By a certain tone in Fanning’s voice he realized that he had come to the point of his story, and he laughed politely. Fanning began another. Meanwhile Neill was being wafted farther and farther away from all earthly cares. He passed into unconsciousness.