“What are we to do?” I asked.
“Well,” said Brent, “we can’t be of any use to him, and we don’t want to be mixed up in the business—come along.”
He took me by the arm and led me off. He was a practical man and right enough, I suppose, we could give no clue, the murderer, whoever he might be, was well away, a thousand to one he was a brother Chink and we knew all the bother there would be over the inquest,—still I felt a qualm, but it was so slight I easily drowned it in a whisky and soda at a bar we stopped at. Then I went home and went to bed and put out the light, and with the darkness the moonlit street showed up before my mind’s eye—and the Chink.
“Suppose,” I thought, “suppose someone saw us leaving that street, suppose by any chance we got connected with the business—what would people say? Might they say we had committed the murder?” Absolute nonsense, but there you are, my imagination had got away with me. I couldn’t sleep, and next morning when I met Brent he asked me what was wrong with me and I told him. He took me out for a sail in the harbour where we spent the day cruising about, and after luncheon Brent tackled me over the stupidity of “fancying things.”
“What’s the use of fancying things?” said Brent, “ain’t there enough troubles in the world without breeding them. Suppose you were had over that Chink, where’s the damage, you didn’t kill him—and you ain’t going to be. Forget it. Lord o’ mercy, I’ve seen more guys fooled by their fancies than I can remember the names of. Did I ever tell you of Billy Broke? Brooke was the real name, only some fool of an English ancestor or another left out one of the o’s, so the poor chap was saddled with a nameplate only fit for a hoodoo. Nature not to be behind in the business, fitted him with a set of nerves and an imagination worse than yours and then turned him out into the cold world to make his living. On top of everything he was pious beyond the ordinary, bashful beyond believing and trusting in every man, which isn’t a quality which makes for success in American business circles.
“He’d gone bankrupt four or five times when the Almighty, thinking maybe it was a shame that one of his creatures should be used like that, married him to a common-sense woman with a bit of money and they started a dry goods store in Los Angeles and would have done well enough only for Billy’s nerves and imagination.
“He wouldn’t speculate a bit in his business for fear of ruining himself, an’ his fear of what was going to happen in the future took all the pep and energy out of him. Worst of it was he would be boss of the show and not leave things to his wife. I’m not meaning anything personal, but chaps with high-geared nerves and X-ray imaginations generally have a pretty good opinion of themselves in private. Billy had, and the result was that he’d near brought the dry goods store to bankruptcy when one day a wholesale firm in ’Frisco began to give trouble over a bill that was owing and Billy determined to go and interview them.
“Mrs. B. wanted to go, but he wouldn’t let her, and the unfortunate woman, knowing the fool he was, got in such a temper, she wouldn’t even pack his grip. The hired girl did the packing. She was Irish and given to mistakes, one of them dreamy, acushla sort of red-headed Irishwomen with her heart on her sleeve and her head in the clouds, regular at attending mass and smashing china and dependable to shove anything that came handy into the pie she was making or the bag she was packing.
“The Irish girl did the packing and Billy with the grip in his hand kissed the back of his wife’s neck, for she wouldn’t give him her lips, and started off for the station. He got to ’Frisco without losing himself and put up at the ‘Paris.’
“Now that day me and Slane were at Long Wharf, ’Frisco, on board the Greyhound ready to put out. We’d got five thousand dollars’ worth of trade under the hatch, and we were bound for Nanuti in the Gilberts, that’s to say right under the Line.