VI
Death by violence was no new thing to Anthony Stevens; no man could sail the seas he'd sailed, or penetrate the regions he had gone through, and not have seen sudden and bloody ends a-plenty. But there was an unexpected terror in this one; death had flipped its hand here with a grotesquery that was horrible, and the young man felt himself grow sick.
His eyes went about the counting-room: there was none of the litter that shows a place hastily ransacked; the drawers of the desk were closed; the cupboard was as it had been the day before; a strong box set against the wall was securely locked and unmolested. The thing had not been done for robbery, then. Revenge, perhaps? A man who dealt as closely as Magruder would be likely to anger many; no niggard, in Anthony's experience, had ever gone scot-free. Your clutching, greedy trader always, at some place or other, over-stepped the line, and was it to be wondered at if—
But Anthony, with a sharp gesture and a tightening of the mouth, put this whole train of thought from him. It was like the drugs some shipmen brought with them from the East; it lulled and gave false ease. In this very room, the previous morning, Magruder had said:
"Outside there, in the docks, there are a score or more of fine, deep-water ships; on the wharves and in the warehouses there is much rich stuff. But if they, to the last block and spar, to the last bale and barrel, were offered me as the price of making it known that I'd brought you north, as I have, I'd refuse."
Anthony shivered a little. The place seemed cold; his flesh was damp; his huge shadow, cast upon the wall by the flare of the candle, seemed bent with the same fear that had filled the man now dead. As he stood there Anthony tried to sense the shape of this dread; and each time a sort of blankness came upon him. The house of Rufus Stevens' Sons, as his mind drew it toward him, was plain, solid, normal; he could not imagine fear trailing through its doors. But there could be no doubt about Magruder; he had sensed the thing, and because he had spoken of it he had paid with his life.
As Anthony looked at the dead man, his breath caught sharply, and he frowned down at him. Then, taking the candle, he held it closer; the blood upon the neck-cloth was hard and dark, not fluid and red as it would have been had the crime been newly done. He touched the body; it was rigid.
The young man put down the candle. The crime, then, was not of that morning. It was some hours old. It had been done during the night. Because of some urgency of business, probably the arrival of his brig Bristol Pride, Magruder had remained in his counting-room until late, with his bills of lading, and what not; and death had walked in on him out of the night.
Walked in on him! What had occurred to himself in the night came back to Anthony; and his mind tightened about it. Again he saw the two men in the moonlight; again he saw the one point to his window, and directly afterward come tramping into his room with his orders to leave the city. And the other! He had gone toward the river; he had gone in the direction of this very place!
Facing a tangible possibility, Anthony no longer felt that the room was cold; his skin grew normal; his pulse beat calmly; the shadow on the wall no longer had the cringe of infectious fear.