The Woman in the Alcove

  XVII. SWEETWATER IN A NEW ROLE

  A few days later three men were closeted in the district attorney'soffice. Two of them were officials--the district attorney himself, andour old friend, the inspector. The third was the detective, Sweetwater,chosen by them to keep watch on Mr. Grey.

  Sweetwater had just come to town,--this was evident from the gripsackhe had set down in a corner on entering, also from a certain tousledappearance which bespoke hasty rising and but few facilities for properattention to his person. These details counted little, however, in theastonishment created by his manner. For a hardy chap he looked strangelynervous and indisposed, so much so that, after the first shortgreeting, the inspector asked him what was up, and if he had had anotherFairbrother-house experience.

  He replied with a decided no; that it was not his adventure which hadupset him, but the news he had to bring.

  Here he glanced at every door and window; and then, leaning forward overthe table at which the two officials sat, he brought his head as nearlyto them as possible and whispered five words.

  They produced a most unhappy sensation. Both the men, hardened as theywere by duties which soon sap the sensibilities, started and turned aspale as the speaker himself. Then the district attorney, with one glanceat the inspector, rose and locked the door.

  It was a prelude to this tale which I give, not as it came from hismouth, but as it was afterward related to me. The language, I fear, ismostly my own.

  The detective had just been with Mr. Grey to the coast of Maine.Why there, will presently appear. His task had been to follow thisgentleman, and follow him he did.

  Mr. Grey was a very stately man, difficult of approach, and wasabsorbed, besides, by some overwhelming care. But this fellow was onein a thousand and somehow, during the trip, he managed to do him somelittle service, which drew the attention of the great man to himself.This done, he so improved his opportunity that the two were soon on thebest of terms, and he learned that the Englishman was without a valet,and, being unaccustomed to move about without one, felt the awkwardnessof his position very much. This gave Sweetwater his cue, and whenhe found that the services of such a man were wanted only during thepresent trip and for the handling of affairs quite apart from personaltendance upon the gentleman himself, he showed such an honest desireto fill the place, and made out to give such a good account of himself,that he found himself engaged for the work before reaching C--.

  This was a great stroke of luck, he thought, but he little knew how biga stroke or into what a series of adventures it was going to lead him.

  Once on the platform of the small station at which Mr. Grey had biddenhim to stop, he noticed two things: the utter helplessness of the man inall practical matters, and his extreme anxiety to see all that wasgoing on about him without being himself seen. There was method in thiscuriosity, too much method. Women did not interest him in the least.They could pass and repass without arousing his attention, but themoment a man stepped his way, he shrank from him only to betray thegreatest curiosity concerning him the moment he felt it safe to turnand observe him. All of which convinced Sweetwater that the Englishman'serrand was in connection with a man whom he equally dreaded and desiredto meet.

  Of this he was made absolutely certain a little later. As they wereleaving the depot with the rest of the arrivals, Mr. Grey said:

  "I want you to get me a room at a very quiet hotel. This done, you areto hunt up the man whose name you will find written in this paper, andwhen you have found him, make up your mind how it will be possible forme to get a good look at him without his getting any sort of a look atme. Do this and you will earn a week's salary in one day."

  Sweetwater, with his head in air and his heart on fire--for matters werelooking very promising indeed--took the paper and put it in his pocket;then he began to hunt for a hotel. Not till he had found what he wished,and installed the Englishman in his room, did he venture to open theprecious memorandum and read the name he had been speculating over foran hour. It was not the one he had anticipated, but it came near to it.It was that of James Wellgood.

  Satisfied now that he had a ticklish matter to handle, he prepared forit, with his usual enthusiasm and circumspection.

  Sauntering out into the street, he strolled first toward thepost-office. The train on which he had just come had been a mail-train,and he calculated that he would find half the town there.

  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, heawaited his turn, and when it came shouted out the name which was hisone talisman--James Wellgood.

  The man behind the boxes was used to the name and reached out a handtoward a box unusually well stacked, but stopped half-way there and gaveSweetwater a sharp look.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  "A stranger," that young man put in volubly, "looking for JamesWellgood. I thought, perhaps, you could tell me where to find him. I seethat his letters pass through this office."

  "You're taking up another man's time," complained the postmaster. Heprobably alluded to the man whose elbow Sweetwater felt boring into hisback. "Ask Dick over there; he knows him."

  The detective was glad enough to escape and ask Dick. But he was betterpleased yet when Dick--a fellow with a squint whose hand was always inthe sugar--told him that Mr. Wellgood would probably be in for his mailin a few moments. "That is his buggy standing before the drug-store onthe opposite side of the way."

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

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

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

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

  He therefore watched him narrowly and succeeded in getting one glancefrom his eye. It was enough. The man was commonplace,--commonplace infeature, dress and manner, but his eye gave him away. There was nothingcommonplace in that. It was an eye to beware of.

  He had taken in Sweetwater as he passed, but Sweetwater was of acommonplace type, too, and woke no corresponding dread in the other'smind; for he went whistling into the store, from which he presentlyreissued with a bundle of mail in his hand. The detective's firstinstinct was to take him into custody as a suspect much wanted by theNew York police; but reason assured him that he not only had nowarrant for this, but that he would better serve the ends of justice byfollowing out his present task of bringing this man and the Englishmantogether and watching the result. But how, with the conditions laidon him by Mr. Grey, was this to be done? He knew nothing of the man'scircumstances or of his position in the town. How, then, go to work tosecure his cooperation in a scheme possibly as mysterious to him as itwas to himself? He could stop this stranger in mid-street, with someplausible excuse, but it did not follow that he would succeed in luringhim to the hotel where Mr. Grey could see him. Wellgood, or, as hebelieved, Sears, knew too much of life to be beguiled by any openclap-trap, and Sweetwater was obliged to see him drive off withouthaving made the least advance in the purpose engrossing him.

  But that was nothing. He had all the evening before him, and reenteringthe store, he took up his stand near the sugar barrel. He had perceivedthat in the pauses of weighin
g and tasting, Dick talked; if he wereguided with suitable discretion, why should he not talk of Wellgood?

  He was guided, and he did talk and to some effect. That is, he gaveinformation of the man which surprised Sweetwater. If in the past and inNew York he had been known as a waiter, or should I say steward, he wasknown here as a manufacturer of patent medicine designed to rejuvenatethe human race. He had not been long in town and was somewhat of astranger yet, but he wouldn't be so long. He was going to make thingshum, he was. Money for this, money for that, a horse where another manwould walk, and mail--well, that alone would make this post-office worthwhile. Then the drugs ordered by wholesale. Those boxes over there werehis, 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 itsells as he says it will--then he will soon be rich: and so on, tillSweetwater brought the garrulous Dick to a standstill by asking whetherWellgood had been away for any purpose since he first came to town. Hereceived the reply that he had just come home from New York, where hehad been for some articles needed in his manufactory. Sweetwater feltall his convictions confirmed, and ended the colloquy with the finalquestion:

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

  The other made a gesture, said something about northwest and rushed tohelp a customer. Sweetwater took the opportunity to slide away. Moreexplicit directions could easily be got elsewhere, and he felt anxiousto return to Mr. Grey and discover, if possible, whether it would proveas much a matter of surprise to him as to Sweetwater himself that theman who answered to the name of Wellgood was the owner of a manufactoryand a barrel or two of drugs, out of which he proposed to make acompound that would rob the doctors of their business and make himselfand this little village rich.

  Sweetwater 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 toknow, 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. Helooked up eagerly, however, when Sweetwater entered, and asked whatnews.

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

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

  "Wellgood does? the man named Wellgood?" Mr. Grey exclaimed with all theastonishment 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 amoment of apparently great discomfiture.

  "Just twenty-four hours, this time. He was here once before, when herented 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 meto see him. How can you bring it about?"

  "Without his seeing you?" Sweetwater asked.

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

  "I'll try," said Sweetwater, not very sanguine as to the probable resultof this effort.

  Returning to the stables, he ordered the team. With the last ray of thesun they set out, the reins in Sweetwater's hands.

  They headed for the coast-road.