“Now exactly who are you?” I inquired, as he dropped the paper. “Private or government operative?”
He refrained from laying back his coat impressively to display a shining star. Apparently they do that only on the stage, or in the “sets” out in Los Angeles. Also he lacked the scintillating line of language I’d been led to expect by the Actors’ Equity. Somehow, since actually playing about with Jerry’s friends, I’ve lost my feeling for the crook drama.
“You may consider me government, if you prefer; and you may call me Dibley,” “Iron Age” confided indulgently and with complete trust. Hereafter, when any one questions me, I’ll remember the stupifying effect of cheese quotations. I never saw anything lull a mind so. The trouble was—or perhaps it was an advantage—“Iron Age” now considered me not only harmless but probably childish.
“Have you any idea who that fellow was who wedged the door in front of you?” he asked.
“Did he wedge the door?” I asked, innocently. I wasn’t growing any keener about “Iron Age” Dibley, but I saw no harm in gratifying him.
“Didn’t you realize that? Well, he’s Stanley Sydenham—St. James Stanley, he’s sometimes called—the title tapper.”
“What?” I really didn’t know that.
“Land swindler. He’s out of Colorado State penitentiary last April after serving five years in the long house on his last irrigated-land transaction. Has he talked to you?”
“A few words,” I said truthfully.
“Probably he’ll talk to you again,” Dibley suggested, in a tone which hinted that he believed that George, having made a start with the simplest person on the train, would probably continue imposing on a good thing. “Also meet, if you can, Miss Doris Wellington and her maid in compartment E of car No. 424. Then don’t let any of them see you and me talking together.”