I did not ask him to sit down, and, just as I supposed him about to leave, he seated himself with a grin, remarking, "No use, Doc. Got to go into it this one time."
At this I naturally enough grew angry, and used several rather violent phrases.
"No use, Doc," remarked Stagers.
Then I softened down, and laughed a little, treated the thing as a joke, whatever it was, for I dreaded to hear.
But Stagers was fate. Stagers was inevitable. "Won't do, Doc,—not even money wouldn't get you off."
"No?" said I interrogatively, and as coolly as I could, contriving at the same time to move towards the window. It was summer, the sashes were up, the shutters drawn in, and a policeman whom I knew was lounging opposite, as I had noticed when I entered. I would give Stagers a scare anyhow; charge him with theft,—anything but get mixed up with his kind again.
He must have understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat. "Sit down," he said; "what a fool you are. Guess you've forgot that there coroner's business." Needless to say, I obeyed. "Best not try that again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment,"—and, rising, he closed the windows.
There was no resource left but to listen; and what followed I shall condense, rather than relate it in the language employed by my friend Mr. Stagers.
It appeared that another acquaintance, Mr. File, had been guilty of a cold-blooded and long-premeditated murder, for which he had been tried and convicted. He now lay in jail awaiting his execution, which was to take place at Carsonville, Ohio, one month after the date at which I heard of him anew. It seemed that, with Stagers and others, he had formed a band of counterfeiters in the West, where he had thus acquired a fortune so considerable that I was amazed at his having allowed his passions to seduce him into unprofitable crime. In his agony he unfortunately thought of me, and had bribed Stagers largely in order that he might be induced to find me. When the narration had reached this stage, and I had been made fully to understand that I was now and hereafter under the sharp eye of Stagers and his friends, that, in a word, escape was out of the question, I turned on my tormentor.
"And what does all this mean?" I said; "what does File expect me to do?"