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"Been in town long?" asked Allerdyke, wanting to say something and impelled to this apparently trite question by the New Yorker's own observations. "Since the first week in April," answered Van Koon, "And as this is my first visit to England, I'm endeavouring to do everything well. Fullaway tells me, Mr. Allerdyke, that you come from Bradford, the big manufacturing city up north.
Allerdyke! this affair is too serious for any hole-and-corner work. I shall tell Van Koon that what we know, or fancy, must be thrown into the common stock of knowledge! The thing is to get at the people who've been behind this poor chap Ebers, or Federman, or Herman, or whatever his name is. Allerdyke! we must go right into things." Allerdyke laughed sardonically.
He had already heard of Van Koon and of his sudden disappearance from the hotel after the chance encounter with Chilverton, and he now regarded him with professional interest. "The tall man, you mean?" he asked. "Just so," answered Allerdyke. "The other man I don't know. But that's Van Koon. What's he here for, now? Is he in this, after all?" The chief made no reply.
He turned into the restaurant and ordered his lunch, and while it was being brought sat drumming his fingers on the table, staring vacantly at the people about him and wondering over the events of the morning. Rayner's, or Ramsay's, vague hint that something might suddenly clear everything up; Fullaway's announcement that he and Van Koon had put their heads together; Mrs.
Beebe and the gentle Koon Ying Phan nursed me tenderly, bringing me water, deliciously cool, in which the fragrant flower of the jessamine had been steeped, both to drink and to bathe my temples.
"That's why Van Koon turned back, Fullaway," he said in a low voice. "He recognized Chilverton. Now, then why did that recognition make him run? And who is he?" For a moment Fullaway stood in the doorway of the hotel, staring towards the mouth of Kingsway, around the corner of which Chilverton's cab had already disappeared.
"That chap's going to spoil everything. What is he after? Confound you, Fullaway! why couldn't you keep quiet for a minute? Look there!" Van Koon had turned and seen Chilverton. So, too, had Van Koon's companion. So, also, had Miss Slade and the man she was walking with. That man, too, saw the apparent idlers closing in upon him.
"Seen anything of Mr. Van Koon?" he asked. "Mr. Van Koon? yes, sir. He came back a few minutes after you and Mr. Allerdyke and he had gone out, got a suit-case from upstairs, left word that he'd be away for the night, and went off in a taxi, sir," answered the man. "Seemed to be in a great hurry, sir!" Before Fullaway could speak, Chilverton seized the hall-porter's arm.
And Fullaway pulled out his watch with an air of annoyance. "Too bad of Van Koon," he said. "Time's going, and I know Delkin lunches at two o'clock. Come on, Allerdyke," he continued, rising, "we'll go over to Delkin. If Van Koon comes, he'll find us. He's probably gone off with that other man, though he's an absent-minded chap in some things, and too much given to the affair of the moment.
They are the Minetarres, with whom Captain Lewis's party had a conflict on their return from the Missouri. They have about four hundred and fifty or five hundred tents; their language is very guttural and difficult. "Second, the Peganoo-eythinyoowuc Pegans, or Muddy River Indians, named in their own language Peganoe`-koon, have four hundred tents.
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