While the skirmish between Stanley Fyles and Kate Seton was going on, the object of it was discussing the doings of the police and the prospect of the coming struggle with Big Brother Bill on the veranda of his house.
He was leaning against one of its posts while Bill reposed on the hard seat of a Windsor chair, seeking what comfort he could find in the tremendous heat by abandoning all superfluous outer garments.
Charlie’s face was darkly troubled. His air was peevishly irritable.
“Bill,” he said, with a deep thrill of earnestness in his voice, as he thrust his brown, delicate hands into the tops of his trousers. “All the trouble in the world’s just about to start, if I’m a judge of the signs of things. There’s a whole crowd of the police in the valley now. They’re camped higher up. They think we don’t know, but we do—all of us. I wonder what they think they’re going to do?”
His manner became more excited, and his voice grew deeper and deeper.
“They think they’re going to get a big haul of liquor. They think they’re going to get me. I tell you, Bill, that for men trained to smelling things out, they’re blunderers. Their methods are clumsy as hell. I could almost laugh, if—if I didn’t feel sick at their coming around.”
Bill stirred uneasily.
“If there were no whisky-running here they wouldn’t be around,” he said pointedly.
Charlie eyed him curiously.