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Madame Maür would be telling the tale to her husband; Follet would, of a certainty, be drunk; and Stires would be looking, I supposed, for French Eva. French Eva, I thought, would take some finding; but Stires was the best man for the job. It was certainly not my business to notify any one that night. So I chowed alone, out of the tins, and smoked a long time alone in the moonlight.
I was not speaking the strictest truth, but I saw no reason to pour out Madame Maür's revelations just then upon Stires's heated soul. Nor would I pursue the subject of Follet. Stires sank down on something that had once been an office-chair. Thence he glowered at me. I had no mind to endure his misdirected anger, and I turned to go.
Don't ask me. Whatever poor little posthumous success of the sort she may have hoped for, she at least paid for it heavily and in advance. And, as you see, her ghost never got what her body had paid for. It is just as well: why should Stires have paid, all his life?
"Unless you go in and cut him out," he meditated with a grin. "But I'm not in love with her," I protested. "You might take her to church." But I refused. Philandering was not my forte, and church, in any case, was the last thing I should venture to propose. "Why don't you go in yourself?" Stires scratched his head. The trident trailed upon the ground. "It's serious or nothing with me, I guess.
At all events, I would not tell Stires how seriously she had loved him. He was a very provincial person, and I think considering her pedigree it would have shocked him. French Eva's cerebrations are in some ways a mystery to me, but I am sure she knew what she wanted. I fancy she thought but, as I say, I do not know that the mode of her passing would at least make all clear to Stires.
The two men, Follet and Stires, faced each other for an instant. Then Follet swung round and dashed after Ching Po. I saw him clutch the loose black sleeve and murmur in the flat ear. Stires seemed to relent towards me now that Follet was gone. "Let 'em alone," he grunted. "The Chink won't do anything but tell him a few things.
He never told me just how things had stood between French Eva and him, but I am sure that he believed Ching Po at once, and that, from the moment Ching Po spoke, it was all over. It was no longer even real to him, so surely had his inborn prejudice worked. Stires was no Pierre Loti. In decency we had to mention her.
"He got his, eh?" was all he said. "Evidently. You don't seem to be much affected." "So long as she's shipped him, that's all right," he drawled. "I can't make out what your interest in the matter is," I suggested. "Sure you can't," Stires began to whistle creakily, and took up some nameless object to repair. "How long is Schneider staying round these parts?" "Not long, I guess.
And he noting this and in order to impress them all as favorably as possible merely gazed Stenerward with a steady air of intelligence and comprehension. The examination now came down to the matter of the particular check for sixty thousand dollars which Albert Stires had handed Cowperwood on the afternoon late of October 9, 1871. Shannon showed Stener the check itself. Had he ever seen it? Yes.
At the sight of Stires the thought in regard to the sixty thousand dollars' worth of city loan certificates, previously referred to, flashed suddenly through his mind.
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