The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales Part 10

Ten o'clock had struck, and it seemed improbable that any further company would arrive. The a.s.sembled guests, to the number of seven or eight, sat in their accustomed places around a goodly-sized table in the room behind the bar. Lapierre occupied an easy chair, placed near the door communicating with the bar, so as to be handy in case of his being needed there. Farmer Donaldson had just regaled the circle with his favorite ditty, The Roast Beef of Old England, which he flattered himself he could render with fine effect. Having concluded his performance, he sat modestly back in his elbow-chair, and bowed to the vociferous plaudits accorded to him. The tankards were then charged afresh, and each man devoted himself to the allaying of his thirst for the next minute or two. Mine host had promised to give Faintly as Tolls the Evening Chime in the course of the evening, and was now called upon to redeem his pledge.

"Ah," he remarked, "that vas alvays a faforite song of mine. And ton't you remember how font of it our frient Safareen used to pe? He used to call for it regular efery Sat.u.r.day night, schoost pefore supper in the old times. Ah, put that wa.s.s a strange peesiness. I haf never peen aple to think of it without perspiring." And so saying, he dived into the pocket of his white linen jacket, and produced therefrom a red silk handkerchief, with which he mopped his beaming countenance until it shone again.

"Ay," responded Farmer Donaldson, "that was the strangest thing as ever happened in these parts. I wonder if it will ever be cleared up."

"You know my opinion apout that," resumed the host, "I alvays said he vould turn up. But it is--let me see--yes, it is more that fife years ago. It wa.s.s on the night of the sefenteenth of Chooly, 1854; and here it is, the mittle of Aucust, 1859. Vell, vell, how the years go py!

Safareen was a coot sort. I thought much of him, and woot like to see him once acain."

"I don't say but what he was a good fellow," remarked one of the company; "but I can tell you he had a devil of a temper of his own when his blood was up. I remember one night in this very room when he had some words with Sam Dolsen about that black mare o' his'n. He fired up like a tiger, and that scar on his cheek glowed like a carbuncle. It seemed as if it was going to crack open. I made sure he was going to drop into Sam, and he would 'a done, too, if our landlord hadn't interfered and calmed him down."

"Yes, yes," interrupted Farmer Donaldson; "Savareen had his tempers, no doubt, when he had been drinking more free than common; but he was a jolly feller, all the same. I wish he was with us at this moment."

This sentiment was pretty generally re-echoed all round the festive board. Just then a rather heavy footstep was heard to enter the adjoining bar-room from outside. The landlord rose and pa.s.sed out through the doorway, to see if his services were required. The door of communication was left open behind him, so that the company in the inner room had no difficulty in seeing and hearing everything that took place.

In the middle of the bar room stood a short heavy-set man, whose dress and bearing p.r.o.nounced him to be a stranger in those parts. He was apparently middle-aged--say somewhere between thirty-five and forty.

His clothing was of expensive material, but cut after a style more _p.r.o.nonce_ than was then seen in Canada, or has ever since been much in vogue here. His hat was a broad-brimmed Panama, which cost twenty dollars if it cost a penny. His coat, so far as could be seen under his thin summer duster--was of fine bluish cloth, short of waist, long of skirt, and--the duster notwithstanding--plentifully besprinkled and travel-stained with dust. The waistcoat, which seemed to be of the same material as the coat, was very open-breasted, and displayed a considerable array of shirt front. Across the left side was hung a heavy gold watch-chain, from which depended two great bulbous-looking seals. On his feet he wore a pair of gaiters of patent leather, white from the dust of the road. In one hand he carried a light, jaunty Malacca cane, while the other grasped a Russian-leather portmanteau, called by him and by persons of his kind a valise. He wore no gloves--a fact which enabled you to see on the middle finger of his left hand a huge cl.u.s.ter diamond ring, worth any price from a thousand dollars upwards. His face was closely shaven, except for a prominent moustache.

He had crisp, curling black hair, worn tolerably short. His eyes were rather dull and vacant, not because he was either slow or stupid, but because he felt or affected to feel, a sublime indifference to all things sublunary. You would have taken him for a man who had run the gauntlet of all human experiences--a man to whom nothing presented itself in the light of a novelty, and who disdained to appear much interested in anything you might say or do. Taken altogether he had that foreign or rather cosmopolitan look characteristic of the citizen of the United States who has led an unsettled, wandering life. His aspect was fully borne out by his accent, when he began to speak.

"Air you the landlord?" he asked, as the host stepped forward to greet him.

He received a reply in the affirmative.

"This, then, is the Royal Oak tavern, and your name is Lapierre?"

Two nods signified the host's further a.s.sent to these undeniable propositions.

"Have you got a spare bedroom, and can you put me up from now till Monday morning?"

The landlord again signified his a.s.sent, whereupon the stranger put down his cane and portmanteau on a bench and proceeded to divest himself of his wrapper.

"You haf had supper?" asked Lapierre.

"Well, I had a light tea down to Millbrook, but I know your Sat.u.r.day night customs at the Royal Oak, and if you hain't got any objections I'd like to take a hand in your eleven o'clock supper. To tell the truth, I'm sharp-set, and I know you always have a bite of something appetizing about that time."

Upon being informed that supper would be ready at the usual hour, and that he would be welcome to a seat at the board, he signified a desire to be shown to his room, so that he could wash and make himself presentable. In response to an enquiry about his horse, he intimated that that animal for the present consisted of Shank's mare; that he had ridden up from town with Squire Harrington, and dismounted at that gentleman's gate. "The Squire offered to drive me on as far as here,"

he added; "but as it was only a short walk I reckoned I'd come on afoot."

Without further parley the guest was shown to his chamber, whence he emerged a few minutes later, and presented himself before the company a.s.sembled in the room behind the bar.

"Hope I ain't intruding, gentlemen," he remarked, as he took a vacant seat at the lower end of the table; "I've often heard of the good times you have here on Sat.u.r.day nights. Heard of 'em when I was a good many hundred miles from here, and when I didn't expect ever to have the pleasure of joining your mess. Guess I'd better introduce myself. My name's Thomas Jefferson Haskins. I live at Nashville, Tennessee, where I keep a hotel and do a little in horseflesh now an' agin. Now, I shall take it as a favor if you'll allow the landlord to re-fill your gla.s.ses at my expense, and then drink good-luck to my expedition." All this with much volubility, and without a trace of bashfulness.

The company all round the table signified their hearty acquiescence, and while the landlord was replenishing the tankards, the stranger proceeded to further enlighten them respecting his personal affairs. He informed them that a man had cleared out from Nashville about six months ago, leaving him, the speaker, in the lurch to the tune of twenty-seven hundred dollars. A few days since he had learned that the fugitive had taken up his quarters at Spotswood, in Upper Canada, and he had accordingly set out for that place with intent to obtain a settlement. He had reached Millbrook by the seven o'clock express this evening, only to find that he was still fifteen miles from his destination. Upon inquiry, he learned that the stage from Millbrook for Spotswood ran only once a day, leaving Millbrook at seven o'clock in the morning. There would not be another stage until Monday morning. He was on the point of hiring a special conveyance, and of driving through that night, when all of a sudden he had remembered that Lapierre's tavern was on the Millbrook and Spotswood road, and only three miles away. He had long ago heard such accounts of the Royal Oak and its landlord, and particularly of the Sat.u.r.day night suppers, that he had resolved to repair thither and remain over for Monday's stage. "I was going to hire a livery to bring me out here," he added, "but a gentleman named Squire Harrington, who heard me give the order for the buggy, told me he lived close by the Royal Oak, and that I was welcome to ride out with him, as he was just going to start for home. That saved me a couple of dollars. And so, here I be."

Lapierre could not feel otherwise than highly flattered by the way the stranger referred to his establishment, but he was wholly at a loss to understand how the fame of the Royal Oak, and more especially of the Sat.u.r.day night suppers, had extended to so great a distance as Nashville. In response to his inquiries on these points, however, Mr.

Thomas Jefferson Haskins gave a clear and lucid explanation, which will be found in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

THE GUEST CREATES A SENSATION AT THE ROYAL OAK.

"Well," said Haskins, "I didn't hear of you quite so far off as Nashville. It was when I was travelling in Kentucky buying horses, last year. At Lexington I fell in with an English chap named Randall, who used to live in this neighborhood. I hired him to buy horses for me. He was with me about three months, an' if I could only 'a' kept him sober he'd been with me yet, for he was about as keen a judge of a horse as ever I came across in my born days, and knew mighty well how to make a bargain. Well, we hadn't been together a week afore he begun to tell me about a place where he used to live in Canada West, where he said a little money went a long way, and where good horses could be bought cheap. He wanted me to send him up here to buy for me, and I don't know but I should 'a' done it if I'd found he was to be trusted. But he would drink like all creation when he had money. Old Bourbon was a thing he couldn't resist. He had an awful poor opinion of all the rest of our American inst.i.tootions, and used to say they wa'n't o' no account as compared to what he used to have to home in England; but when it come to Bourbon whisky, he was as full-mouthed as Uncle Henry Clay himself. He 'lowed there wa'n't anything either in England or in Canada to touch it. An' when he got four or five inches of it inside him, there was no gittin' along with him nohow. There wa'n't anything on airth he wouldn't do to git a couple of inches more, and when he got them he was the catawamptiousest critter I ever did see. You couldn't place any more dependence on him than on a free n.i.g.g.e.r. Besides, he used to neglect his wife, and a man who neglects his wife ain't a man to trust with a couple o' thousand dollars at a time. No sir-ree! Not much, he ain't. But, as I was sayin', the way he used to harp on this place o' Lapierre's was a caution. Whenever we used to git planted down in one of our cross-road taverns, he'd turn up his nose till you could see clean down his throat into his stommick. The fact is, our country taverns ain't up to much, an' sometimes I could hardly stand 'em myself. When we'd come in after a hard day's ridin', and git sot down to a feed of heavy short-cake and fat pork, then Randall 'ud begin to blow about the grub up here at Lapierre's. He used to tell about the hot suppers served up here to a pa.s.sel o' farmers on Sat.u.r.day nights till I most got sick o' hearing him. But I see your mugs air empty again, gentlemen. Landlord, please to do your dooty, and score it up to yours truly."

During this long harangue the a.s.sembled guests alternately scanned the speaker and each other with inquiring but vacant countenances. They were puzzling themselves to think who this Randall could be, as no man of that name had ever been known in that community. When Mr. Haskins paused in his discourse, and gave his order for replenishment, Farmer Donaldson was about to remonstrate against this second treat at the expense of a stranger, and to propose that he himself should stand sponsor for the incoming refreshments. But before he could get out a word, the landlord suddenly sprang from his seat with a white, agitated face.

"Tell me," he said, addressing the stranger--"What like is this Rantall? Please to tescripe his features."

"Well," drawled the person addressed, after a short pause--"there ain't much to describe about him. He's a tallish feller--fully four inches taller'n I be. He's broad and stout--a big man ginerally.

Weighs, I should say, not much under a hundred and ninety. Ruther light complected, and has a long cut in his face that shows awful white when he gits his back up. Thunder! he pretty nearly scared me with that gash one night when he was drunk. It seemed to open and shut like a clam-sh.e.l.l, and made him look like a Voodoo priest! You'd think the blood was goan to spurt out by the yard."

By this time every pair of eyes in the room was staring into the speaker's face with an expression of bewildered astonishment. Not a man there but recognized the description as a vivid, if somewhat exaggerated portraiture of the long-lost Reginald Bourchier Savareen.

The stranger from Tennessee readily perceived that he had produced a genuine sensation. He gazed from one to another for a full minute without speaking. Then he gave vent to his surcharged feelings by the exclamation: "For the land's sake!"

An air of speechless bewilderment still pervaded the entire group. They sat silent as statues, without motion, and almost without breath.

Lapierre was the first to recover himself. By a significant gesture he imposed continued silence upon the company, and began to ask questions.

He succeeded in eliciting some further pertinent information.

Haskins was unable to say when Randall had acquired a familiarity with the ways and doings of the people residing in the vicinity of the Royal Oak, but it must have been some time ago, as he had lived in the States long enough to have become acquainted with various localities there. As to when and why he had left Canada the stranger was also totally ignorant. He knew, however, that Randall was living in the city of New York about three months ago, as he had seen him there, and had visited him at his lodgings on Amity street in May, when he (Haskins) had attended as a delegate to a sporting convention. At that time Randall had been employed in some capacity in Hitchc.o.c.k's sale stable, and made a few dollars now and again by breeding dogs. He lived a needy hand-to-mouth existence, and his poor wife had a hard time of it. His drinking habits prevented him from getting ahead in the world, and he never staid long in one place, but the speaker had no doubt that he might still be heard of at Hitchc.o.c.k's by anybody who wanted to hunt him up. "But," added Mr. Haskins, "I hope I haven't got him into trouble by coming here to-night. Has he done anything? Anything criminal, I mean?"

After a moment's deliberation, Lapierre told the whole story. There was no doubt in the mind of any member of the company that Randall and Savareen were "parts of one stupendous whole." The one important question for consideration was: What use ought to be made of the facts thus strangely brought to light?

By this time supper was announced, and the stranger's news, exciting as it was, did not prevent the guests from doing ample justice to it.

Haskins was loud in his praises of the "spread," as he termed it. "Jack Randall," he remarked, "could lie when he had a mind to, but he told the holy truth when he bragged you up as far ahead of the Kentucky cooks. Yes, I don't mind if I do take another mossel of that frickersee. Dog me if it don't beat canvas-backs."

Before the meeting broke up it was agreed on all hands that for the present it would be advisable for the guests to allow the morrow to pa.s.s before saying anything to their wives or anyone else about Mr.

Haskins' disclosures. It was further resolved that that gentleman should accompany Lapierre to Millbrook after breakfast in the morning, and that Mrs. Savareen's father should be made acquainted with the known facts. It was just possible, after all, that Jack Randall might be Jack Randall, and not Savareen, in which case it was desirable to save the lost man's wife from cruel agitation to no purpose. It would be for her father, after learning all that they knew, to communicate the facts to her or to withhold them, as might seem best to him. On this understanding the company broke up on the stroke of midnight. I am by no means prepared to maintain that their pledges were in all cases kept, and that they each and every one went to sleep without taking their wives into confidence respecting the strange disclosures of the night.

CHAPTER X.

NO. 77 AMITY STREET.

The next day was Sunday, but this circ.u.mstance did not deter Lapierre from hitching up his horse and conveying his guest down to Millbrook at an early hour. The pair called at the house of Mrs. Savareen's father before ten o'clock, and had a long interview with him. Church services began at eleven, but it was remarked by the Methodist congregation, and commented upon as a thing almost without precedent, that Mrs. Savareen and her father were both absent on that day.

The old gentleman was much disturbed by what he heard from Mr. Haskins.

His daughter had pa.s.sed through an ordeal of great suffering, and had finally become reconciled to her lot. To tell her this news would be to open the old wounds afresh, and to bring back the domestic grief which time had about dispelled. Yet his course seemed clear. To tell her the truth was an imperative duty. It would be shameful to permit her to go on mourning for one who was in every way unworthy, and who might turn up at any unexpected moment to the destruction of her peace of mind.

Moreover, the secret was already known to too many persons to admit of any hope that it would be permanently kept. She must be told, and there could be no question that her father was the proper person to tell her.

She would, however, wish to personally see and converse with the man who had brought the news, so there was no time to be lost. Leaving his two visitors to await his return, the old man set out with a sad heart for his daughter's house. He found her and her little boy just ready to set out for church, but the first glance at her father's face told her that something had happened, and that there would be no church-going for that day. She sat pale and trembling as she listened, and the old man himself was not much more composed. He broke the news as gently as he could, and she bore it better than he had expected, suppressing her agitation and taking in all the details without interruption. Even when all the circ.u.mstances had been laid before her, her self-command did not desert her. Yes, she must see the stranger from Tennessee. Possibly she might extract something from him which others had failed to elicit.

Her father accordingly went back to his own home, and brought Mr.

Haskins over. The three spent several hours in talking of the affair, but the stranger had nothing more to tell, and finally took his leave, promising to call on his way back from Spotswood.