Dead Man's Quarry by Ianthe Jerrold Read Free Book Online Page B

resourceful Rampson was serenading the inn with his motor-horn.
    His efforts soon had the desired effect. There was a heavy thump overhead, and the tramping of feet on the stairs. Then a gruff but lusty voice shouted:
    â€œWhat the hell’s going on, Ada?”
    The owner of the voice and inn appeared on the lower stairs, clinging to the hand-rail, a burly figure attired in a night-shirt and mackintosh, with ruffled hair standing on end behind a high bald forehead and an eye filmed with sleep or beer.
    â€œOh, Father, these gentlemen—” began the girl timidly, but John interrupted her and explained the situation.
    The innkeeper, drawing his mackintosh majestically round his corpulent waist, heavily descended to the bottom stair but one. From this vantage-point he explained at picturesque length his view of the ultimate destination of such abandoned persons as couldn’t wait till morning for their drinks.
    â€œWe don’t want drink,” said John patiently.
    â€œEh?”
    â€œI say, we don’t want drink. I keep saying it, but you won’t listen. We never drink. We’re total abstainers. We advocate strict temperance and the abolition of the public-house. Now!”
    â€œEh?” repeated mine host owlishly. “Wellim-damned.”
    Words failed him. He sat down suddenly and heavily on the stairs.
    â€œThen,” he said ponderously at last, with surprising moderation, “what you come knocking public-house up after closing-time for? That’s what I wants to know. Everybody got a right to opinions, no doubt. But want to bolish public-house, keep way from it. See?”
    â€œOh, let’s go,” said Felix impatiently. “We’ll never get any sense out of this fellow.”
    But a renewed explanation from the more patient John elicited the information that at about half-past five that afternoon mine host had served a young man answering to Charles’s description with a double whisky, and that the same young man had stood drinks to him and to two or three loungers in the bar.
    â€œFriend o’ yours?” inquired the landlord, endeavouring to cover his bare ankles with the flaps of his mackintosh. “He bain’t no total abstainer, not be a long way.”
    â€œI dare say not,” said Felix dryly. “Can you tell us which way he went when he left the inn?”
    The landlord looked at him dreamily, and as Felix was about to repeat the question, said with some asperity:
    â€œShut the door, young gentleman. My ankles be cold.”
    Felix rather irritably did as he was requested, and the innkeeper, pointedly addressing himself to the more sympathetic John, went on:
    â€œIn a manner of speaking I did see which way the young gentleman went. He went into the quarry field, just across the road.”
    â€œInto the field!” exclaimed Felix. “But surely he came back again?”
    â€œI doesn’t know, I’m sure, and that’s why I said in a manner of speaking. I didn’t see he come back.”
    â€œHad he his bicycle with him?”
    â€œAh!” assented their host. “He took his bicycle, and an elderly gentleman.”
    â€œAn elderly gentleman! What elderly gentleman?”
    â€œTs, ts, ts! Please to take it easy, young man. How can I say what elderly gentleman? An elderly gentleman as happened to be outside with his car.”
    â€œWhat kind of car?”
    â€œWhat kind o’ car? A large car,” replied the landlord, measuring a distance of about a yard and a half between his hands. “Yes, a large green car. And very nice too,” he finished abruptly, on a penetrating hiccough.
    â€œDid the other man, the old one, come back, do you know?” asked John.
    â€œNot as I saw him. But in a manner of speaking I suppose he must a done. Because half an hour arter-wards the car’d gone.”
    The girl, who had been hovering anxiously in the passage during this conversation, here