“Deputy Jenney,” she said.
“There is,” said Evan, “a phrase which I have noted in the public prints. It is, ‘strangling competition.’”
“What do you mean?”
“Why—er—if you were engaged in a—profitable enterprise, and some individual—er—encroached, you would abate him, would you not? That is the ethics of business.”
“Do you infer this drummer was abated as a competitor?”
“Oh, not in the least—not in the least!” He spoke airily, as one who disposes of a troublesome child.
The incident, small as it was, troubled her. Evan Pell, by his cryptic utterances, set her thinking.... If her imagination had not tricked her wholly there was a reticence about Gibeon; there was something Gibeon hid away from her.... A thing was transpiring which Gibeon did not wish to be known—at least the powerful in Gibeon.... She had encountered whisperings and slynesses.... She laughed at herself. She would be seeing specters presently, she told herself.... But there was the disappearance of Sheriff Churchill. There was the warning note to herself. There were many petty incidents such as the one in Lancelot Bangs’s studio. But why connect them with illicit traffic in intoxicants?... It was absurd to imagine an entire town debauched by the gainfulness of whisky running.... It were a matter best left alone.
And so, pursuing her policy of feeling her way, the current issue of the Free Press was quite innocuous—save for what is known technically as a “follow-up” on the subject of Sheriff Churchill, and an editorial in which was pointed out the lethargy of official Gibeon in assailing the mystery.
As she was leaving the hotel after luncheon that day, she encountered Abner Fownes making his progress down the street. It was a slow, majestic progress, and quite impressive. Mr. Fownes carried himself with an air. He realized his responsibilities as a personage, and proceeded with the air of a statesman riding in a victoria through a cheering crowd. He spoke affably and ostentatiously to everyone, but when he met Carmel face to face, he paused.
“Um!... A hum!... I have read the paper—read it all.”