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Updated: June 19, 2025
The detective smiled a little. "Never mind him, Alexander. Anything that you find you bring to me right off." He clinked a little money in his pocket and looked at him. But Achilles's gaze had no returning gleam. "When I find her," he said, "I tell you I tell everybody." His face had lightened now. The detective laughed. "All right, Alexander! You're game, all right!"
Alcibiades was strong not well enough, perhaps, to go out with the new push-cart that had replaced the old one, and waited outside, but strong enough to make change and fill up the holes in the piles of oranges as they diminished under the swift rush of trade. Achilles's eyes rested on him fondly. It had been lonely in the shop but now the long days of waiting were repaid... they had their clue.
With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert Durer.
The boy's hands were everywhere, as he spoke, dispensing fruit, smashing carts and filling up the broken words with horror and a flow of blood. Achilles's face grew grave. The Greeks were not without persecution in the land of freedom, and his boy had lain all day suffering while he had been lost in the great house by the lake. He took off his coat and turned back his sleeves.
Achilles's face held its steady light. "I think we find her," he said. The inspector did not laugh. He studied the man's face slowly, whistling a little between his teeth. "What's your plan?" he said. Achilles shook his head. "When I see those men I go follow." The detective smiled a little line of smile... that did not scorn him. "When you see them yes!" he said softly.
And while the soldiers under Achilles's immediate authority seemed still to treat him as their superior officer, and appeal to him for the word of command, it became more and more evident that the slightest degree of suspicion which should be excited, would be the instant signal for his being placed under arrest.
The heavy wagon creaked into motion, and caught its rhythm and rumbled on. Achilles's ears followed it with deepest caution. The creaking mass of sound had passed the flat-spread coat without stop, and gathered itself away into a slow rumble, and passed on in the blurring dark. Beyond it, the little, low lights still twinkled and the suburb waited with its trailing cars.
Each step, the city lights grew larger, and sparkled more, and spread apart farther, and a low rumble came creeping on the plain jarring with swift jolts the clang of cars and lifting life... and, in the distance, a line of light ran fire swiftly on the air, and darted, red and green, and trailed again in fire... and Achilles's finger pointed to it. "That fire will take us home," he said.
Then they went more slowly, and Achilles's long finger traced the heavens for her the Greek gods up there in their swinging orbits... the warm, August night of the world. Betty Harris had never known the stars like this. Safe from her window, she had seen them twinkle out.
A little smile curved her lips, quick and wondering, as the transfer was made, thread by thread, till the gorgeous thing rested on her own palm. She looked up. "What shall I do with it?" It was a shining whisper. Achilles's eyes sought the door. They moved toward it slowly, light as breath. In the open doorway they paused. Above the tall buildings the grey rim of sky lifted itself.
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