Walker of the Secret Service

by Melville Davisson Post

I could see them with a good lens, but I could not see the sleek look, and I moved toward the tray on the counter to get a close view. I did not move directly ahead; I moved to one side—and I discovered two persons who had come into the shop behind me.

I took up my diamond, and stood out of the way at once. I had no wish to delay a customer. I was only idling with a laboratory diamond, and Bartoldi had to sell jewels to keep his shop going. I could not take up his time unless he happened to be at leisure.

The two persons who had come in at once attracted my attention. They would have attracted the attention of anybody, even if there had been nothing to follow. If one had chanced to observe them, one would have stopped and considered them anywhere.

One would have been forced to think about them. They would have stimulated one’s curiosity. No one could have passed those two persons without undertaking to formulate some explanation; and to me there was something more than their mere appearance.

In my mind there was a vague impression that I had seen them in some other place. I could not at the moment remember the place; it was what psychologists call subconscious, I suppose. At any rate it did not crystallize into a memory. But it remained as a sort of atmosphere behind the vivid impression they made on me.

The two persons were an old man and a girl. The two words go together, but the two persons did not go together in any sense. The girl was not past sixteen, and the man was past seventy. That would be all right, an old man and his granddaughter, you would say.

But it was not all right. That was just exactly the impression that was so cryingly conspicuous. It was not all right!

The man was very well dressed; everything about him was of the best quality, and distinguished—perhaps just a little too distinguished, a little too vivid. When one thought about it, one saw that he was dressed somewhat for a younger part. There was a bit of color, a suggestion of youth that the man did not have.

He was an old man, but he was a vigorous old man, and he had the air and manner of wealth about him. I can’t precisely point out these indicatory signs, but they were easily to be marked, and they are not often successfully assumed. I suppose a clever actor could do it. Walker used to say that the best actors were not on the stage; they were in Joliet.

Now, that is what the man looked like—one of the idle rich, grown old in an atmosphere of luxury. He ought to have had, as I figured him up, a town house, a country estate, a yacht, and very nearly every vice! His eyes, his bad mouth and his fat ears were good evidential signs. I thought I knew the type!