Conacher affected to laugh, while his hungry eyes sought her averted face. Loseis could have read there that he didn’t want to go; but she wouldn’t look. “Oh, going downstream’s a cinch,” said Conacher. “Two of us can sleep at a time in the dug-out, while the third man keeps her in the middle of the current.”
Loseis was silent.
“To-night!” said Gault. “Ah, that’s too bad! . . . However, I can take my measures before you go . . . Does your father employ a man of business, a lawyer, outside?” he asked Loseis.
“None that I know of,” she said, “except John Gruber.”
“Ah, Gruber,” said Gault in his purring voice (Moale at the other end of the row, listened to all this with a face like a sardonic mask), “an excellent fellow, too. But too ignorant a man to serve you in this crisis. . . . I am sure your father must have had wide interests outside of the fur business,” he said insinuatingly.
“If he had, I know nothing about it,” said Loseis. “He got business letters every year when the outfit came in, but he did not show them to me. I know nothing of business.”
“Of course not,” said Gault soothingly. “Have you looked for those letters since his death?” he asked, betraying more eagerness than was perhaps in the best of taste.
“No,” said Loseis, shortly.
Gault was pulled up short. “Hm!” he said, stroking his chin. “Hm! . . .” Finally he got a fresh start. “Well, if Blackburn employed an attorney outside, Gruber will know his name. Gruber carried all his letters out, and brought the answers back. I will write to Gruber. And if Blackburn has no lawyer already, I will send for the best one obtainable, and will arrange special means of transport for him. We’ll have him here in five or six weeks at the outside. Lastly I will send for a sergeant and detail of the police, so that the murder of Jimmy Moosenose can be investigated. Until they come, in order that the Slavis may not take fright, we will allow them to suppose that the murder has been forgotten.”
Conacher nodded in agreement with this; Loseis felt that she was being crowded to one side.