I wanted to call on Mr. Ed. Dwight, of sewing machine fame.
And now I was the helpless victim in the hands of the ruthless and inquisitive Larkins.
He knew Ed. Dwight "like a book." Ed. always "put up" with him, and he was a "right good fellow, any way you could fix it." In short, Larkins was ready and willing to act as my pilot to Amora; he had "got a flyin' span of roans," and would drive me over to Amora in "less than no time"; he "didn't mind seeing Ed. himself," etc., etc.
There was no help for it. Larkins evidently did not intend to trust his roans to my unskilled hands, so I accepted the situation, and was soon bowling over the road to Amora, téte-â-téte with the veriest interrogation point in human guise that it was ever my lot to meet.
Larkins did not converse; he simply asked questions. His interest in myself, my social and financial standing, my occupation, my business or pleasure in Trafton, my past and my future, was something surprising considering the length, or more properly the brevity of our acquaintance.
Even my (supposed) relatives, near and remote, came in for a share of his generous consideration.
To have given unsatisfactory answers would have been to provoke outside investigation.
A detective's first care should be to clear up all doubt or uncertainty concerning himself. Let an inquisitive person think that he knows a little more of your private history than do his neighbors, and you disarm him; he has now no incentive to inquiry. He may ventilate his knowledge very freely, but by so doing he simply plays into your hands.
If the scraps of family history, which I dealt out to Larkins during that drive, astonished and edified that worthy, they would have astonished and edified my most intimate friend none the less.