One November day, some years before this time of which I propose to write, he woke early and looked from his kitchen window and saw a deer feeding on the windfalls in his orchard. He shot the animal through the open window; and the spike horns, still attached to a fragment of the skull, were kept on the marble-topped table in the parlor of the farmhouse. The shooting of this deer was the most exciting, the most interesting thing that had ever happened to Jeff until that series of incidents in which romance and drama were so absorbingly mingled, and which is to be here set down.
It was a day in October. He had planned to go down into his woodlot and manufacture stove wood, to be stored for use during the winter that was still twelve months away. But when he awoke in the morning a cold rain was lashing his window, and a glance at the sky assured him the rain would continue all that day. He decided to postpone the outdoor task. A few errands in town wanted doing, so he put before his animals sufficient water for their needs till night, threw a thing or two into the tonneau of his car, secured the curtains, cranked the engine and started for East Harbor. Since the road was muddy and somewhat rutted, and he had no chains, it was necessary for him to drive slowly; and his late start made it almost noon when he slid down the steep and muddy hill into the town. He parked his car at an angle in the middle of the street and went to the restaurant presided over by Bob Bumpass for his midday meal. Eating at a restaurant on his trips to town was one of the things Jeff accounted luxuries.
Bob, fat and amiable as a Mine Host out of Dickens, asked Jeff what he wanted; and Jeff ordered Regular Dinner Number Three: Vegetable soup, fried haddock, pie and coffee; thirty-five cents. Not till he had given his order did Jeff perceive that a certain excitement was in the air.
There were two other customers having lunch near where he sat. One was Dolph Bullen, whose haberdashery was among the most prosperous of East Harbor mercantile establishments; the other was the chief of police, Sam Gallop, a wordy man. Bob Bumpass, having taken Jeff’s order and served his soup, leaned against the counter to talk with these two men. Jeff perceived that Sam was telling over again a story that had evidently been told before.
“Yes, sir,” said Sam, “he came right along when I took a hold of him. And he had the necklace in a kind of a leather case in his pocket the whole time.”
“You took him right off the Boston boat, didn’t you?” Dolph asked.
“Yep,” said Sam. “Right out of his stateroom. He had his suitcase open on the bunk when I knocked on the door. I didn’t wait for him to let me in. Just opened her right up and went in; and he looked at me kind of impudent; and he says, ‘Hullo,’ he says. ‘What’s the matter?’ Cool as you want.”
“He come in here one day this summer, when the yacht was in here,” Bob commented. “I kind of liked his looks.”
Sam shook his head ponderously. “Them’s the worst kind. But he didn’t fool me.”
“Name’s Gardner, isn’t it?” Dolph asked.