第40章 BOOK II:AS SEEN BY DETECTIVE SWEETWATER(19)

Fascinated by the question,Sweetwater died a hundred deaths in his awakened fancy,as he followed the sharp short instructions which fell with cool precision from the other's lips.A hundred deaths,I say,but with no betrayal of his folly.The anxiety he showed was that of one eager to please,which may explain why on the conclusion of his task,Mr.Brotherson gave him one of his infrequent smiles and remarked,as he buried the model under its cover,"You're handy and you're quiet at your job.Who knows but that I shall want you again.Will you come if I call you?""Won't I?"was the gay retort,as the detective thus released,stooped for the book still lying on the floor."Paolo and Francesca,"he read,from the back,as he laid it on the table."Poetry?"he queried.

"Rot,"scornfully returned the other,as he moved to take down a bottle and some glasses from a cupboard let into another portion of the wall.

Sweetwater taking advantage of the moment,sidled towards the shelf where that empty space still gaped with the tell-tale hole at the back.He could easily have replaced the missing book before Mr.

Brotherson turned.But the issue was too doubtful.He was dealing with no absent-minded fool,and it behooved him to avoid above all things calling attention to the book or to the place on the shelf where it belonged.

But there was one thing he could do and did.Reaching out a finger as deft as Brotherson's own,he pushed a second volume into the place of the one that was gone.This veiled the auger-hole completely;a fact which so entirely relieved his mind that his old smile came back like sunshine to his lips,and it was only by a distinct effort that he kept the dancing humour from his eyes as he prepared to refuse the glass which Brotherson now brought forward:

"None of that!"said he."You mustn't tempt me.The doctor has shut down on all kinds of spirits for two months more,at least.

But don't let me hinder you.I can bear to smell the stuff.My turn will come again some day."But Brotherson did not drink.Setting down the glass he carried,he took up the book lying near,weighed it in his hand and laid it down again,with an air of thoughtful inquiry.Then he suddenly pushed it towards Sweetwater."Do you want it?"he asked.

Sweetwater was too taken aback to answer immediately.This was a move he did not understand.Want it,he?What he wanted was to see it put back in its place on the shelf.Did Brotherson suspect this?The supposition was incredible;yet who could read a mind so mysterious?

Sweetwater,debating the subject,decided that the risk of adding to any such possible suspicion was less to be dreaded than the continued threat offered by that unoccupied space so near the hole which testified so unmistakably of the means he had taken to spy upon this suspected man's privacy.So,after a moment of awkward silence,not out of keeping with the character he had assumed,he calmly refused the present as he had the glass.

Unhappily he was not rewarded by seeing the despised volume restored to its shelf.It still lay where its owner had pushed it,when,with some awkwardly muttered thanks,the discomfited detective withdrew to his own room.

XVIII

WHAT AM I TO DO NOW

Early morning saw Sweetwater peering into the depths of his closet.

The hole was hardly visible.This meant that the book he had pushed across it from the other side had not been removed.

Greatly re-assured by the sight,he awaited his opportunity,and as soon as a suitable one presented itself,prepared the hole for inspection by breaking away its edges and begriming it well with plaster and old dirt.This done,he left matters to arrange themselves;which they did,after this manner.

Mr.Brotherson suddenly developed a great need of him,and it became a common thing for him to spend the half and,sometimes,the whole of the evening in the neighbouring room.This was just what he had worked for,and his constant intercourse with the man whose secret he sought to surprise should have borne fruit.But it did not.

Nothing in the eager but painstaking inventor showed a distracted mind or a heavily-burdened soul.Indeed,he was so calm in all his ways,so precise and so self-contained,that Sweetwater often wondered what had become of the fiery agitator and eloquent propagandist of new and startling doctrines.

Then,he thought he understood the riddle.The model was reaching its completion,and Brotherson's extreme interest in it and the confidence he had in its success swallowed tip all lesser emotions.

Were the invention to prove a failure -but there was small hope of this.The man was of too well-poised a mind to over-estimate his work or miscalculate its place among modern improvements.Soon he would reach the goal of his desires,be praised,feted,made much of by the very people he now professedly scorned.There was no thoroughfare for Sweetwater here.Another road must be found;some secret,strange and unforeseen method of reaching a soul inaccessible to all ordinary or even extraordinary impressions.

Would a night of thought reveal such a method?Night!the very word brought inspiration.A man is not his full self at night.

Secrets which,under the ordinary circumstances of everyday life,lie too deep for surprise,creep from their hiding-places in the dismal hours of universal quiet,and lips which are dumb to the most subtle of questioners break into strange and self-revealing mutterings when sleep lies heavy on ear and eye and the forces of life and death are released to play with the rudderless spirit.

It was in different words from these that Sweetwater reasoned,no doubt,but his conclusions were the same,and as he continued to brood over them,he saw a chance -a fool's chance,possibly,(but fools sometimes win where wise men fail)of reaching those depths he still believed in,notwithstanding his failure to sound them.