Grabman emitted a fearful and tremulous chuckle,—a laugh like the laugh of a superstitious man when you talk to him of ghosts and churchyards. He chuckled, and his hair bristled. But after a pause, in which he seemed to wrestle with his own conscience, he said: “Well, well, you are a strange man, Jason; you love your joke. I have nothing to do except to find out this ultimate remainderman; mind that!”
“Perfectly; nothing like subdivision of labour.”
“The search will be expensive.”
“There is oil for your wheels,” answered Jason, putting a note-book into his confidant’s hands. “But mind you waste it not. No tricks, no false play, with me; you know Jason, or, if you like the name better, you know the Rattlesnake!”
“I will account for every penny,” said Grabman, eagerly, and clasping his hands, while his pale face grew livid.
“I do not doubt it, my quill-driver. Look sharp, start to-morrow. Get thyself decent clothes, be sober, cleanly, and respectable. Act as a man who sees before him 5,000 pounds. And now, light me downstairs.”
With the candle in his hand, Grabman stole down the rugged steps even more timorously than Beck had ascended them, and put his finger to his mouth as they came in the dread vicinity of No. 7. But Jason, or rather Gabriel Varney, with that fearless, reckless bravado of temper which, while causing half his guilt, threw at times a false glitter over its baseness, piqued by the cowardice of his comrade, gave a lusty kick at the closed door, and shouted out: “Old grave-stealer, come out, and let me finish your picture. Out, out! I say, out!” Grabman left the candle on the steps, and made but three bounds to his own room.
At the third shout of his disturber the resurrection-man threw open his door violently and appeared at the gap, the upward flare of the candle showing the deep lines ploughed in his hideous face, and the immense strength of his gigantic trunk and limbs. Slight, fair, and delicate as he was, Varney eyed him deliberately, and trembled not.
“What do you want with me?” said the terrible voice, tremulous with rage.
“Only to finish your portrait as Pluto. He was the god of Hell, you know.”