United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Tavernake exclaimed, pointing backwards. "A friend of mine was attacked here just now; a man tried to stab him. They are both in that house. The man ran away and my friend followed him. The door is closed and no one answers." The constable looked at Tavernake very much as the musician had done. "Do either of them live there, sir?" he asked. "How should I know!" Tavernake answered.
"We'll see," Pritchard laughed. "Say, Tavernake, it was a great trip of ours. Everything's turning out marvelously. The oil and the copper are big, man big, I tell you. I reckon your five thousand dollars will be well on the way to half a million. I'm pretty near there myself."
"You are too hasty, my dear father," she replied. "Let me assure you that there is nothing at all mysterious about Mr. Tavernake. The simple truth is that the young man rather attracts me." The professor gazed at her incredulously. "Attracts you! He!" "You have never perfectly understood me, my dear parent," she murmured.
"I ain't no sort of an idea," the man declared. "Take my word for it straight, guvnor, I know no more about where they went to than the man in the moon, except that I'm well shut of them, and there's a matter of eighteen and sixpence, if you care to pay it." "I'll give you a sovereign," Tavernake promised, "if you will tell me where they are now."
The head waiter shrugged his shoulders and departed; his other clients must be mollified. There was a finality which was unanswerable about Tavernake's methods. Tavernake ate and drank what they brought to him, ate and drank and suffered.
"I had supper with the professor and his daughter." "Not Elizabeth?" Pritchard asked swiftly. Tavernake shook his head. "With Miss Beatrice," he answered. Pritchard set down his glass. "Say, Tavernake," he inquired, "you are friendly with that young lady, Miss Beatrice, aren't you?" "I certainly am," Tavernake answered. "I have a very great regard for her."
"I have another idea," Elizabeth remarked, after a brief pause. "She will not come to me; very well, I must go to her. You must take me there." "I cannot do that," Tavernake answered. "Why not?" "Beatrice has refused absolutely to permit me to tell you or any one else of her whereabouts," he declared. "Without her permission I cannot do it." "Do you mean that?" she asked.
The two men dined together at Delmonico's and went afterwards to a roof garden, a new form of entertainment for Tavernake, and one which interested him vastly. They secured one of the outside tables near the parapets, and below them New York stretched, a flaming phantasmagoria of lights and crude buildings.
Here and there a dog barked, some lonely bird seeking shelter called to its mate, but of human beings there seemed to be no one in sight save the solitary traveler. Tavernake was in grievous straits. His clothes were caked with mud, his hair tossed with the wind, his cheeks pale, his eyes set with the despair of that fierce upheaval through which he had passed.
As the door swung back, he turned round as though to assure himself that he was not being followed. He did not at first see Tavernake. He sat on the arm of an easy-chair, his hands in his pockets, his eternal cigar in the corner of his mouth, his eyes fixed upon the doors through which he had issued. Without a doubt, something had disturbed him.
Word Of The Day