He looked out, a moment, at the woolly Highland cattle in the distant meadow, at the age-old beech-trees and the dark, swift, silent water, and then the upper part of his big body settled in the chair.
“I thought it was a slick trick, but maybe it was God Almighty. Anyway when the thing was pulled off I slid up to Bar Harbor and set down in a hotel. I figured it out like this—you look for a crook in the places that crooks go, and you look for a gentleman in the places where gentlemen go. I’ll switch it.
“I got me some quiet clothes. I limped a little to show that I wasn’t golf-fit and I didn’t talk. I just set about with the New York Times and the Financial Register and let the days pass. When there was doings in the hotel I was there in my all-right evening clothes, in a chair against the wall, and I limped along the sea path in the afternoon for a little exercise.
“I looked some bored to keep the proper form. But I wasn’t bored. I was seeing something new and I was getting more light on it all the time.
“I was seeing that this bunch was living up to a standard that nearly all the people I’d ever seen were only pretending. That was the difference, I soon figured it out.”
He flung up his hand in a curious, expressive gesture.
“I’m a crook, keep that in your head, and the thing was like a theater to me. I began to watch the actors; then I saw her and Westridge.”
He moved in his chair.
“She was there with an old faded grandmother that read novels and smoked cigarettes—and was a lady. And right there is where this real bunch has got the goods! They don’t let down because they do some things that would make you cross your fingers on the other set.”
He leaned back in the chair.