Agatha Webb Part 31

XXVII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE Sc.r.a.p OF PAPER AND THE THREE WORDS

"What are you trying to do? Why do you fall over a man like that? Are you drunk?"

Sweet.w.a.ter drew himself up, made a sheepish bow, and muttered pantingly:

"Excuse me, sir. I'm in a hurry; I'm a messenger."

The man who was not in a hurry seemed disposed to keep him for a moment.

He had caught sight of Sweet.w.a.ter's eye, which was his one remarkable feature, and he had also been impressed by that word messenger, for he repeated it with some emphasis.

"A messenger, eh? Are you going on a message now?"

Sweet.w.a.ter, who was anxious to get away from the vicinity of Mr. Stone, shrugged his shoulders in careless denial, and was pushing on when the gentleman again detained him.

"Do you know," said he, "that I like your looks? You are not a beauty, but you look like a fellow who, if he promised to do a thing, would do it and do it mighty well too."

Sweet.w.a.ter could not restrain a certain movement of pride. He was honest, and he knew it, but the fact had not always been so openly recognised.

"I have just earned five dollars by doing a commission for a man," said he, with a straightforward look. "See, sir. It was honestly earned."

The man, who was young and had a rather dashing but inscrutable physiognomy, glanced at the coin Sweet.w.a.ter showed him and betrayed a certain disappointment.

"So you're flush," said he. "Don't want another job?"

"Oh, as to that," said Sweet.w.a.ter, edging slowly down the street, "I'm always ready for business. Five dollars won't last forever, and, besides, I'm in need of new togs."

"Well, rather," retorted the other, carelessly following him. "Do you mind going up to Boston?"

Boston! Another jump toward home.

"No," said Sweet.w.a.ter, hesitatingly, "not if it's made worth my while.

Do you want your message delivered to-day?"

"At once. That is, this evening. It's a task involving patience and more or less shrewd judgment. Have you these qualities, my friend? One would not judge it from your clothes."

"My clothes!" laughed Sweet.w.a.ter. Life was growing very interesting all at once. "I know it takes patience to WEAR them, and as for any lack of judgment I may show in their choice, I should just like to say I did not choose them myself, sir; they fell to me promiscuous-like as a sort of legacy from friends. You'll see what I'll do in that way if you give me the chance to earn an extra ten."

"Ah, it's ten dollars you want. Well, come in here and have a drink and then we'll see."

They were before a saloon house of less than humble pretensions, and as he followed the young gentleman in it struck him that it was himself rather than his well-dressed and airy companion who would be expected to drink here. But he made no remark, though he intended to surprise the man by his temperance.

"Now, look here," said the young gentleman, suddenly seating himself at a dingy table in a very dark corner and motioning Sweet.w.a.ter to do the same; "I've been looking for a man all day to go up to Boston for me, and I think you'll do. You know Boston?"

Sweet.w.a.ter had great command over himself, but he flushed slightly at this question, though it was so dark where he sat with this man that it made very little difference.

"I have been there," said he.

"Very well, then, you will go again to-night. You will arrive there about seven, you will go the rounds of some half-dozen places whose names I will give you, and when you come across a certain gentleman whom I will describe to you, you will give him--"

"Not a package?" Sweet.w.a.ter broke out with a certain sort of dread of a repet.i.tion of his late experience.

"No, this slip on which two words are written. He will want one more word, but before you give it to him you must ask for your ten dollars.

You'll get them," he answered in response to a glance of suspicion from Sweet.w.a.ter. Sweet.w.a.ter was convinced that he had got hold of another suspicious job. It made him a little serious. "Do I look like a go-between for crooks?" he asked himself. "I'm afraid I'm not so much of a success as I thought myself." But he said to the man before him: "Ten dollars is small pay for such business. Twenty-five would be nearer the mark."

"Very well, he will give you twenty-five dollars. I forgot that ten dollars was but little in advance of your expenses."

"Twenty-five if I find him, and he is in funds. What if I don't?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Except your ticket; that I'll give you."

Sweet.w.a.ter did not know what to say. Like the preceding job it might be innocent and it might not. And then, he did not like going to Boston, where he was liable to meet more than one who knew him.

"There is no harm in the business," observed the other, carelessly, pushing a gla.s.s of whiskey which had just been served him toward Sweet.w.a.ter. "I would even be willing to do it myself, if I could leave New Bedford to-night, but I can't. Come! It's as easy as crooking your elbow."

"Just now you said it wasn't," growled Sweet.w.a.ter, drinking from his gla.s.s. "But no matter about that, go ahead, I'll do it. Shall I have to buy other clothes?"

"I'd buy a new pair of trousers," suggested the other. "The rest you can get in Boston. You don't want to be too much in evidence, you know."

Sweet.w.a.ter agreed with. him. To attract attention was what he most dreaded. "When does the train start?" he asked.

The young man told him.

"Well, that will give me time to buy what I want. Now, what are your instructions?"

The young man gave him a memorandum, containing four addresses. "You will find him at one of these places," said he. "And now to know your man when you see him. He is a large, handsome fellow, with red hair and a moustache like the devil. He has been hurt, and wears his left hand in a sling, but he can play cards, and will be found playing cards, and in very good company too. You will have to use your discretion in approaching him. When once he sees this bit of paper, all will be easy.

He knows what these two words mean well enough, and the third one, the one that is worth twenty-five dollars to you, is FREDERICK."

Sweet.w.a.ter, who had drunk half his gla.s.s, started so at this word, which was always humming in his brain, that he knocked over his tumbler and spilled what was left in it.

"I hope I won't forget that word," he remarked, in a careless tone, intended to carry off his momentary show of feeling.

"If you do, then don't expect the twenty-five dollars," retorted the other, finishing his own gla.s.s, but not offering to renew Sweet.w.a.ter's.

Sweet.w.a.ter laughed, said he thought he could trust his memory, and rose.

In a half-hour he was at the depot, and in another fifteen minutes speeding out of New Bedford on his way to Boston.

He had had but one anxiety--that Mr. Stone might be going up to Boston too. But, once relieved of this apprehension, he settled back, and for the first time in twelve hours had a minute in which to ask himself who he was, and what he was about. Adventure had followed so fast upon adventure that he was in a more or less dazed condition, and felt as little capable of connecting event with event as if he had been asked to recall the changing pictures of a kaleidoscope. That affair of the packet, now, was it or was it not serious, and would he ever know what it meant or how it turned out?

Like a child who had been given a pebble, and told to throw it over the wall, he had thrown and run, giving a shout of warning, it is true, but not knowing, nor ever likely to know, where the stone had fallen, or what it was meant to do. Then this new commission on which he was bent--was it in any way connected with the other, or merely the odd result of his being in the right place at the right moment? He was inclined to think the latter. And yet how odd it was that one doubtful errand should be followed by another, in a town no larger than New Bedford, forcing him from scene to scene, till he found himself speeding toward the city he least desired to enter, and from which he had the most to fear!

But brooding over a case like this brings small comfort. He felt that he had been juggled with, but he neither knew by whose hand nor in what cause. If the hand was that of Providence, why he had only to go on following the beck of the moment, while if it was that of Fate, the very uselessness of struggling with it was apparent at once. Poor reasoning, perhaps, but no other offered, and satisfied that whatever came his intentions were above question, he settled himself at last for a nap, of which he certainly stood in good need. When he awoke he was in Boston.