Wherefore, after the woman came and the first shock of her coming wore off, he made a point of being seen in Major Foxmaster’s company as much as possible. The share of notoriety the association brought him was dear to his withered, slack-valved old heart. In his manner and his look, in the very way he cocked his hat and waggled his stiffened legs, you discerned that he wished to divide with his friend the responsibility for the presence of his friend’s trailing shadow.
But, for all this and all that, he did not dare ever to speak of her to Major Foxmaster. Joel Bosler dared to, though, he being one of the meagre-minded breed proverbially reputed to go rushing in where angels fear to tread. This Joel Bosler was a policeman; his beat included the Gaunt House corner and both sides of the street upon which the Gaunt House fronted. He was a kindly enough creature; a long slab-pole of a man, with the face of an old buck sheep. For some reason—which he least of all could fathom—Joel Bosler had contracted a vague sort of attachment for the Major. They [143] met occasionally on the sidewalk outside the hotel; and, since the Major always responded with iced and ceremonial politeness to the policeman’s salute, it may have been that this, to Bosler’s limited mind, was proof of a friendly understanding existing between them.
One day, about a month after the woman moved into the old Gresham place, Bosler, having first scratched his head assiduously for a space of minutes to stimulate the thought, was moved to invade the Gaunt House lobby and send his name upstairs to the Major’s rooms. A negro bell boy brought word back that the Major would be very glad to see Policeman Bosler, and Policeman Bosler accordingly went up. The Major was in the sitting room of his suite of rooms on the second floor. Bosler, bowing, came in and shut the door behind him with an elaborate carefulness.
“Good morning, sir?” said Major Foxmaster formally, with the note of polite interrogation in his tone; and then, as Bosler stood fingering his blue cap and shuffling his feet: “Well, sir; well?”
“Major Foxmaster, suh,” began Bosler, “I—er—I kinder wanted to say somethin’ to you privatelike.”
He halted lamely. Before the daunting focus of those frigid blue eyes his speech, carefully rehearsed beforehand, was slipping away from him.
“Except for ourselves, there is no one within [144] hearing,” stated the Major. “Kindly proceed—if you will be so good.”
“Well, suh,” faltered Bosler, fumbling his words out—“well, suh, Major Foxmaster, it’s this-a-way: I’ve been—been a-thinkin’ it over; and if this here lady—this woman that wears black all the time—the one that’s moved into the old Gresham place acrost the street—if she pesters you any by follerin’ you round every wheres, the way she does—I thought I’d be very glad—if you said the word—to warn her to quit it, else I’d—I’d have to take steps agin her by law or somethin’. And so—and so——” He stopped altogether. He had been chilled at the moment of his entrance; now he was frozen mentally to below the zero point.
The Major spoke, and his syllables battered on Joel Bosler’s unprotected head like hailstones.
“Have you ever observed that the person to whom you refer has spoken to me?” he demanded.