“I have my own reasons for wanting to help you, Judge Kingsley, no matter what you believe about me. But if you feel as you talk, you can go to blazes just as soon as you like. I’m not going to try to round up all the revolvers, ropes, and razors in this town. That rope you have there seems to be a good strong one. Go as far as you like! And I’ll keep on in my way and will turn the money over to your estate—to your wife and your daughter. You are not the first coward who has knocked out the last prop and sluiced all the mess on to his women folks! Go on! I’ll be furnishing your wife bread and butter while you’re having insomnia in hell!”
Then I went back to the tavern.
I knew well enough that Zebulon Kingsley would not kill himself that night. In the first place, he was too mad. He came behind me, chattering his teeth like an angry squirrel. Then, again, I had stirred his curiosity, even if I had not given him any special hope. And my threat about handling his money after he had gone was enough to keep Zebulon Kingsley hanging around on top of the earth for a time. I knew his nature mighty well. I would have taken those means with him at first, but I had been hoping that he would accept me on a friendlier basis where I might coddle my hopes; and here was I handling him by the scruff of the neck!
I caught a glimpse of Celene through the sitting-room window when I passed the house. The light was behind her and her hair was like an angel’s halo. Ah! there was the inspiration which was keeping me on the lunatic’s job I had picked out for myself! As for that old hornbeam father, I was in a state of fury which prompted me to go back, use his ears for handles, and kick him around his premises until he promised to behave himself—and give me his daughter when my task was finished. Well, at least I had reached one interesting stage in my development—I was acting as guardian of the high and mighty Zebulon Kingsley and was rather despising my ward!
That evening I sat till late and went through my notebook and studied the affiliations, the methods, the lurking-places and all other information I had recorded in regard to one “Peacock” Pratt and his associates.
It seemed to me that I had a pretty good start on the thing, even though the future was, as Jodrey Vose used to say of dock water, in a “nebulous and gummy condition.”
But I went to bed, nevertheless, in a considerably exalted state of mind. With every day that passed I was getting farther into the affairs of the Kingsley family—and getting into those affairs—
I dreamed of Celene that night, but that was not a matter for special record; I dreamed of her every night.
In the morning I put on a business suit I had bought “off the pile” in Mechanicsville. I had wanted to show Levant that I had more than one suit of clothes. I reckoned that I would feel more sane and solid in that suit. And I did feel that way when I went down to breakfast. If ever a man had business ahead of him I was that one!
But that sane and normal feeling did not sit well on my conscience. I found myself brooding and getting depressed. I wondered why I had felt so exalted and optimistic the night before. How could I have made such confident promises to Kingsley?