CHAPTER XVII
It was midnight and worse before the lately belted knight of fortune had outworn the hilarious and entered upon the somnolent stage of the little journey insensate, and when the thing could be done, Jeffard put him to bed with a pæan of thanksgiving which was none the less heartfelt for being unvocalized.
Having thus set his hand to Garvin's plough, there was no alternative but to turn the furrow to the end; wherefore, to guard against surprises, he hid the boots of the bottle-mad one, barricaded the door with his own bed, and lay down to doze with eyelids ajar. At least that was the alert determination; but the event proved that he was weary enough to sleep soundly and late, and it was seven o'clock, and the breakfast caller was hammering on the door, when he opened his eyes on the new day. Naturally, his first thought was for his companion, and the sight of the empty bed in the farther corner of the room brought him broad awake and afoot at the same saltatory moment. The son of fortune was gone, and an open door into the adjoining room accounted for the manner of his going.
Five minutes later, picture an anxious brother-keeper making pointed inquiries of the day-clerk below stairs. Instant question and answer fly back and forth shuttle-wise, one may suppose, weaving suspicion into a firm fabric of fact. Two men whose names, or whose latest aliases, were Howard and Lantermann, had occupied the room next to Jeffard's,—quite chancefully, the clerk thinks. They had left at an early hour; their call was for—one moment, and he (the clerk) will ascertain the exact time.
Whereupon one may fancy an exasperated bearwarden cursing exactnesses and beating with impatient fist upon the counter for the major fact. The fact, extorted at length, is simple and conclusive. The two men had come down some time between five and six o'clock, with a third as a middle link in a chain of locked arms. One of the two had paid the bill, and they had all departed; by way of the bar-room and the side entrance, as the clerk remembers.
Whereat Jeffard is moved to swear strange oaths; is swearing them, in point of fact, when the omnibus from an early train shunts its cargo of arrivals into the main entrance. Among the incomers is a big fellow with a drooping mustache and square-set shoulders, who forthwith drops his handbag and pounces upon Jeffard with greetings boisterous.
"Well, I'll be shot!—or words to that effect" (hand-wringings and shoulder-clappings). "Now where on top of God's green earth did you tumble from? Begin away back yonder and give an account of yourself; or, hold on,—let me write my name in the book and then you can tell me while we eat. By Jove, old man! I'm foolishly glad to see you!"
Jeffard cut in quickly between the large-hearted protest and the signing of the register.
"Just a second, Bartrow; let the breakfast wait, and listen to me. I'm in no end of a tangle, and you're the man of all others to help me out if any one can. Do you happen to know a fellow named Garvin?"
"Don't I? 'Tennessee Jim, P. P.,'—that stands for perennial prospector, you know. Sure. He's of the salt of the earth; rock salt, but full flavored. I know him like a book, though I hadn't seen him for a dog's-age until—but go on."