IX.
The Bone
He might hardly have been in the Hall of the Moth all afternoon, had my impressions been evidence—so quiet he had kept, relapsed out of the main light of the room into the shadow between the beetling chimney-mantel and the old long-case clock. Perhaps the indefatigable quaffing of whiskey-and-sodas, which industry is surely his favourite, had proved soporific in that dusky alcove, whence only his crossed feet had appeared, shod sparklingly, spatted sprucely. But now Charlton Oxford, glazed to a hair, waxed to a needle, was standing in the aperture of the opened french windows, and his look, whatever his legs might be, was steady.
His eyes were fixed upon the gap in the lawn shrubs where Sean Cosgrove had disappeared. Surely that was an unguarded moment; his speech, although low, was vehement, since it was addressed to a man now far out of sight and hearing:
“Your code, hey? Your damned code.” He wiped the back of his fist savagely across his mouth; the heartiness of his baleful speech may have given him the satisfaction of deep drink.
I, who alone had heard, tiptoed close behind him, and like the tempter spoke softly over his shoulder.
“And what may your code be, Mr. Oxford?”
Frightened, he swung, caught his heel on the carpet edge and thudded heavily against the corner of the age-blackened mantel, face bleached and eyes popping.
“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Bannerlee,” he exclaimed with much relief, and attempted to pass his alarm off in jest.
“Yes, and really, what did you mean? I’m interested.”
“What’s my code, you say? Ha, ha, Mr. Bannerlee, ’s too long, sir, to put it in so many words, if you know what I mean. . . . But there’s one thing”—for emphasis he dug a flabby forefinger into my ribs—“one thing I’d never do that our fine C‑Cosgrove wouldn’t have the decency, the decency, sir, if y’understand—and the common sense, too, damme, if it comes to that, you know—’s much common sense in it as anything else . . . y’understand . . .”