No one was there. Hervey looked out upon the dissolving night; already the familiar scene was emerging in the gray drawn—the white rail fence, the gravel walk with its bordering whitewashed stones, the big whitewashed tub that caught the rain-water from the roof trough. He smelled the mist. There was no one anywhere about; no sound but the slow dripping into the tub. Drop, drop, drop; it was from the rain of two or three days ago. How audible it was in the stillness! He crept upstairs again and went to bed. But he did not sleep. He wished that dreadful satchel were off his hands. Over a hundred dollars!
He arose in the morning before the household was astir and stole out with his guilty burden. He knew that Kipp’s Railroad Lunch was open all night and that it had a telephone. He would look in the telephone book for Manners. That way he would find the address. He thought of leaving the satchel at the Manners’ door, ringing the bell, and running away. The recovery of the money would end the trouble. But suppose the satchel should be stolen again—not again; but suppose it should be stolen? Of course, it had not been stolen before.... Just the same he was desperate to get it off his hands.
Things looked strange about the station so early in the morning; there were so few people to be seen, and no shops open. Somehow the very atmosphere imparted a guilty feeling to Hervey. He felt a little like a fugitive.
He could not find the name of Manners in the ’phone book and thus baffled, he felt nervous. For while he was losing time, the victim and the authorities were probably not wasting any time. He thought he would wait in the station a little while and try to decide what to do. He knew that the family of Denny Crothers, a scout, was identified with the big white church. There was an idea! Denny would know where Horton Manners lived, or could soon find out. Perhaps he might even take Denny into his confidence. It is worth considering that in his extremity he was willing not only to use, but to trust, this scout whose troop he had repudiated.
Well, he would sit in the station a little while (it was still very early) and if he could not think of any other plan, he would go to Denny’s house. It would seem strange to the Crothers, seeing him there so early. And it would seem stranger still to Denny to be approached by an arch enemy. But Hervey’s troubled thoughts could not formulate any better plan.
The station was not yet open and he strolled back and forth on the platform where a very few people were waiting for the early train—a workman wearing a reefer jacket and carrying a dinner-pail, a little group of girls who worked in the paper mill at Brierly, and a couple of youngish men near the end of the platform. These two were chatting and one of them gave a quick glance at Hervey. It seemed to him that the talk which followed had reference to himself. He wished that the station would open, for it was a raw fall morning; there was a penetrating chill in the air. He wanted to sit down; he was tired of holding that dreadful satchel, yet he would not set it down for so much as a moment.
Suddenly, a rattling old car drove up and a brisk young man in an overcoat got out and dragged two huge oilcloth grips to the platform. He looked as if he might be a salesman who had completed his assault on Farrelton. He stopped and lighted a cigarette, and while he was doing this the two men strolled over and spoke to him. He seemed annoyed, then laughed as he took out some papers which the two men examined. Hervey overheard the word hardware. And he overheard one of the men say, “K.O., Buddy.” They handed back the papers, nodded sociably, and moved away. It seemed by the most casual impulse that they approached Hervey. But he trembled all over.
“You’re out early, kiddo,” said one of them. “Waiting for the train?”
Why, oh why, did he flush and stammer and answer without thinking? “No—y-yes—I guess it’s late, hey?”
“Guess not,” said the man with a kind of leisurely pleasantry. “What you got in the bag, kiddo?”