"None," said Anthony curtly. "I am not at the beck and call of Mr. Tarrant, or any of his friends."
"He has a rare eye at forty paces," said the host, with a nod. "A very rare eye. They say there was no better shot in the navy than he, at that distance."
But Anthony did not pause to make reply; out he went and down Chestnut Street at a clipping pace. There was to be no more vague talk; he'd had enough of that the day before; there were to be no more hintings, no more warnings without body enough behind them for a man to grasp. He would have plain speech, now; and short speech, or he'd know the reason why!
The hour was rather earlier than the hour he had started out on the morning before. There was no such hurrying of drays and porters as then; Water Street was stirring slightly, but the river front was still sluggish with sleep, and the deep sea ships in the docks and the stream were as silent as though deserted. He had no idea that Magruder would be in his place of business at this hour, but impatience would not permit him to wait; if he found the place closed, he could tramp about the docks, and return at an hour that promised better.
The shutters were still up at the windows that faced the wharves, and the heavy door was fast. Anthony, however, recalled that the trader had his counting-room at the back, with its windows opening upon an alley; and he made his way around the building on the chance that it was by a door on this side that Magruder usually entered. Here, too, the shutters were up; there was the door, as he expected, and it was standing slightly ajar.
Evidently Magruder, or a clerk, had just arrived, and had not yet time to let daylight into the place. Anthony shoved the door farther open and went in. He found himself in a sort of anteroom, cluttered with nail kegs, bits of plank and cordage, and all the rubbish and refuse of shipping; there was a dark passage that he felt led to the wareroom through which he had passed on the previous day; almost at his hand was a door leading into the counting-room. He lifted the latch of this, and it opened readily; the place was dark save for here and there a gray dart of day that came in at the chinks in the shutters.
"Hello!" Anthony spoke loudly, so that his voice might also carry down through the passage into the other parts of the building. "Magruder! Are you here?"
But there was no reply. He then rapped with his stick upon the floor, but no one came in answer. Making his way through the passage, he came to the wareroom, dark, heavy smelling, and with rats scuttling about; again he called, but still received no reply. Back at the counting-room door, he looked in; by this time his eyes had grown more used to the dimness, and he began to make things out. There was the cupboard bulging with papers; there was the high desk where Magruder had stood when he first saw him. There must be a pewter candle-stick upon one end of this; Anthony had noted it the day before because the candle end had guttered so, and trailing down the metal holder was the "ghost's shrowd" held by believers in omens to be a sign of peculiar portent.
Anthony felt for this and found it; with his fusee he struck a light, and in a moment had the candle stump burning with a long flame. His shadow danced hugely upon the wall as he turned to look about; and it was then that he saw Magruder, sitting in a chair, hunched in a horridly crooked way, his mouth open in a frozen cry, great clots of blood darkening his neck-cloth, and dead!