The Woman in the Alcove Part 20

His calculation was a correct one. The store was crowded with people.

Taking his place in the line drawn up before the post-office window, he awaited his turn, and when it came shouted out the name which was his one talisman--James Wellgood.

The man behind the boxes was used to the name and reached out a hand toward a box unusually well stacked, but stopped half-way there and gave Sweet.w.a.ter a sharp look.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"A stranger," that young man put in volubly, "looking for James Wellgood. I thought, perhaps, you could tell me where to find him. I see that his letters pa.s.s through this office."

"You're taking up another man's time," complained the postmaster. He probably alluded to the man whose elbow Sweet.w.a.ter felt boring into his back. "Ask d.i.c.k over there; he knows him."

The detective was glad enough to escape and ask d.i.c.k. But he was better pleased yet when d.i.c.k--a fellow with a squint whose hand was always in the sugar--told him that Mr. Wellgood would probably be in for his mail in a few moments. "That is his buggy standing before the drug-store on the opposite side of the way."

So! he had netted Jones' quondam waiter at the first cast! "Lucky!" was what he said to himself, "still lucky!"

Sauntering to the door, he watched for the owner of that buggy. He had learned, as such fellows do, that there was a secret hue and cry after this very man by the New York police; that he was supposed by some to be Sears himself. In this way he would soon be looking upon the very man whose steps he had followed through the Fairbrother house a few nights before, and through whose resolute action he had very nearly run the risk of a lingering death from starvation.

"A dangerous customer," thought he. "I wonder if my instinct will go so far as to make me recognize his presence. I shouldn't wonder. It has served me almost as well as that many times before."

It appeared to serve him now, for when the man finally showed himself on the cross-walk separating the two buildings he experienced a sudden indecision not unlike that of dread, and there being nothing in the man's appearance to warrant apprehension, he took it for the instinctive recognition it undoubtedly was.

He therefore watched him narrowly and succeeded in getting one glance from his eye. It was enough. The man was commonplace,--commonplace in feature, dress and manner, but his eye gave him away. There was nothing commonplace in that. It was an eye to beware of.

He had taken in Sweet.w.a.ter as he pa.s.sed, but Sweet.w.a.ter was of a commonplace type, too, and woke no corresponding dread in the other's mind; for he went whistling into the store, from which he presently reissued with a bundle of mail in his hand. The detective's first instinct was to take him into custody as a suspect much wanted by the New York police; but reason a.s.sured him that he not only had no warrant for this, but that he would better serve the ends of justice by following out his present task of bringing this man and the Englishman together and watching the result. But how, with the conditions laid on him by Mr. Grey, was this to be done? He knew nothing of the man's circ.u.mstances or of his position in the town. How, then, go to work to secure his cooperation in a scheme possibly as mysterious to him as it was to himself? He could stop this stranger in mid-street, with some plausible excuse, but it did not follow that he would succeed in luring him to the hotel where Mr. Grey could see him. Wellgood, or, as he believed, Sears, knew too much of life to be beguiled by any open clap-trap, and Sweet.w.a.ter was obliged to see him drive off without having made the least advance in the purpose engrossing him.

But that was nothing. He had all the evening before him, and reentering the store, he took up his stand near the sugar barrel. He had perceived that in the pauses of weighing and tasting, d.i.c.k talked; if he were guided with suitable discretion, why should he not talk of Wellgood?

He was guided, and he did talk and to some effect. That is, he gave information of the man which surprised Sweet.w.a.ter. If in the past and in New York he had been known as a waiter, or should I say steward, he was known here as a manufacturer of patent medicine designed to rejuvenate the human race. He had not been long in town and was somewhat of a stranger yet, but he wouldn't be so long. He was going to make things hum, he was. Money for this, money for that, a horse where another man would walk, and mail--well, that alone would make this post-office worth while. Then the drugs ordered by wholesale. Those boxes over there were his, ready to be carted out to his manufactory. Count them, some one, and think of the bottles and bottles of stuff they stand for. If it sells as he says it will--then he will soon be rich: and so on, till Sweet.w.a.ter brought the garrulous d.i.c.k to a standstill by asking whether Wellgood had been away for any purpose since he first came to town. He received the reply that he had just come home from New York, where he had been for some articles needed in his manufactory. Sweet.w.a.ter felt all his convictions confirmed, and ended the colloquy with the final question:

"And where is his manufactory? Might be worth visiting, perhaps."

The other made a gesture, said something about northwest and rushed to help a customer. Sweet.w.a.ter took the opportunity to slide away. More explicit directions could easily be got elsewhere, and he felt anxious to return to Mr. Grey and discover, if possible, whether it would prove as much a matter of surprise to him as to Sweet.w.a.ter himself that the man who answered to the name of Wellgood was the owner of a manufactory and a barrel or two of drugs, out of which he proposed to make a compound that would rob the doctors of their business and make himself and this little village rich.

Sweet.w.a.ter made only one stop on his way to Mr. Grey's hotel rooms, and that was at the stables. Here he learned whatever else there was to know, and, armed with definite information, he appeared before Mr. Grey, who, to his astonishment, was dining in his own room.

He had dismissed the waiter and was rather brooding than eating. He looked up eagerly, however, when Sweet.w.a.ter entered, and asked what news.

The detective, with some semblance of respect, answered that he had seen Wellgood, but that he had been unable to detain him or bring him within his employer's observation.

"He is a patent-medicine man," he then explained, "and manufactures his own concoctions in a house he has rented here on a lonely road some half-mile out of town."

"Wellgood does? the man named Wellgood?" Mr. Grey exclaimed with all the astonishment the other secretly expected.

"Yes; Wellgood, James Wellgood. There is no other in town."

"How long has this man been here?" the statesman inquired, after a moment of apparently great discomfiture.

"Just twenty-four hours, this time. He was here once before, when he rented the house and made all his plans."

"Ah!"

Mr. Grey rose precipitately. His manner had changed.

"I must see him. What you tell me makes it all the more necessary for me to see him. How can you bring it about?"

"Without his seeing you?" Sweet.w.a.ter asked.

"Yes, yes; certainly without his seeing me. Couldn't you rap him up at his own door, and hold him in talk a minute, while I looked on from the carriage or whatever vehicle we can get to carry us there? The least glimpse of his face would satisfy me. That is, to-night."

"I'll try," said Sweet.w.a.ter, not very sanguine as to the probable result of this effort.

Returning to the stables, he ordered the team. With the last ray of the sun they set out, the reins in Sweet.w.a.ter's hands.

They headed for the coast-road.

XVIII. THE CLOSED DOOR

The road was once the highway, but the tide having played so many tricks with its numberless bridges a new one had been built farther up the cliff, carrying with it the life and business of the small town. Many old landmarks still remained--shops, warehouses and even a few scattered dwellings. But most of these were deserted, and those that were still in use showed such neglect that it was very evident the whole region would soon be given up to the encroaching sea and such interests as are inseparable from it.

The hour was that mysterious one of late twilight, when outlines lose their distinctness and sea and sh.o.r.e melt into one ma.s.s of uniform gray.

There was no wind and the waves came in with a soft plash, but so near to the level of the road that it was evident, even to these strangers, that the tide was at its height and would presently begin to ebb.

Soon they had pa.s.sed the last forsaken dwelling, and the town proper lay behind them. Sand and a few rocks were all that lay between them now and the open stretch of the ocean, which, at this point, approached the land in a small bay, well-guarded on either side by embracing rocky heads.

This was what made the harbor at C--.

It was very still. They pa.s.sed one team and only one. Sweet.w.a.ter looked very sharply at this team and at its driver, but saw nothing to arouse suspicion. They were now a half-mile from C--, and, seemingly, in a perfectly desolate region.

"A manufactory here!" exclaimed Mr. Grey. It was the first word he had uttered since starting.

"Not far from here," was Sweet.w.a.ter's equally laconic reply; and, the road taking a turn almost at the moment of his speaking, he leaned forward and pointed out a building standing on the right-hand side of the road, with its feet in the water. "That's it." said he. "They described it well enough for me to know it when I see it. Looks like a robber's hole at this time of night," he laughed; "but what can you expect from a manufactory of patent medicine?"

Mr. Grey was silent. He was looking very earnestly at the building.

"It is larger than I expected," he remarked at last.

Sweet.w.a.ter himself was surprised, but as they advanced and their point of view changed they found it to be really an insignificant structure, and Mr. Wellgood's portion of it more insignificant still.

In reality it was a collection of three stores under one roof: two of them were shut up and evidently unoccupied, the third showed a lighted window. This was the manufactory. It occupied the middle place and presented a tolerably decent appearance. It showed, besides the lighted lamp I have mentioned, such signs of life as a few packing-boxes tumbled out on the small platform in front, and a whinnying horse attached to an empty buggy, tied to a post on the opposite side of the road.

"I'm glad to see the lamp," muttered Sweet.w.a.ter. "Now, what shall we do?

Is it light enough for you to see his face, if I can manage to bring him to the door?"

Mr. Grey seemed startled.

"It's darker than I thought," said he. "But call the man and if I can not see him plainly, I'll shout to the horse to stand, which you will take as a signal to bring this Wellgood nearer. But do not be surprised if I ride off before he reaches the buggy. I'll come back again and take you up farther down the road."

"All right, sir," answered Sweet.w.a.ter, with a side glance at the speaker's inscrutable features. "It's a go!" And leaping to the ground he advanced to the manufactory door and knocked loudly.