He took off his gloves, and chafed his hands before the blaze. He took off his hat, holding its inside to the fire to warm. He had the appearance of a man of perhaps fifty, with face withered and sunburnt. His hair was black, his mustache waxed, his beard pointed. He looked like a fashion plate from Paris, handsome in his way, but his skin and eyes gave the impression of pain impatiently borne. The sense of being an aristocrat was written large all over him. His cat's-eye pin, the cutting of his seal ring, answered true to the glare of the firelight. Having shown himself, as it would appear accidentally, he put on his hat and buttoned up his collar.
Durgan took a card from a well-filled and well-worn card-case and read it aloud, "Mr. Adolphus Courthope." It gave as an address a club in New Orleans.
"I heard a few days ago that a namesake of mine, a scoundrelly fellow, whose mother was one of our niggers, is lying in jail at Hilyard, charged with murder. Of course, I have no responsibility for the fellow—never saw him till to-day. Still, his mother was my foster-sister, the daughter of the good old mammy who nursed me. She gave him my name, and—damn it—I don't care to have the fellow publicly hanged. Seems in a bad way now with lung trouble; but he'll revive—that's the way with these cases."
Durgan disliked this man, but was surprised to find that he pitied him still more. The terror that he had just shown, the illusive resemblance in his eyes to someone—perhaps someone more worthy of pity—the very disparity of physical size and strength, all inspired in Durgan an unreasoning instinct to protect him.
The other went on. "Only reached Hilyard to-day. The poor fellow would have it that there was a woman called Smith, who kept a small summer hotel, or something of the kind, located here, who alone could give the evidence that would get him off; and that there was a clever lawyer boarding with her who would take up the case on her evidence. Would have it there was nothing for it but for me to come straight on here. I'm not the man to give up what I've undertaken, but if I'd known what the roads were like, confound it if I'd not have stayed in New Orleans. I say this to you, sir, because I see you are a man of my own class—damn it, there are few enough of us left."
Certain now that this man had been sent by 'Dolphus, Durgan perceived that till now he had had some vague hope that 'Dolphus, as some deus ex machina, would contrive to trick Beardsley himself into their power. The production of this man, beguiled hither by a lie, was evidently the mulatto's supreme effort; but this man, whoever he was, was certainly not Charlton Beardsley, for however accomplished an actor he might be, Durgan felt certain he had never been a man of plebeian origin.
"Is there no hotel that I can sleep in to-night?" asked the other shortly. "Has that cursed nigger not told me the truth?"
"Not precisely. Had he any reason for endeavoring to mislead you?"
"Well, I should rather think not. Trial coming on in two days. If he had his senses about him, he'd go only the quickest road to success."
This sounded genuine.