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To Kill A Man
by
“Not in this burg,” he commented bitterly. “I’ve walked two inches off the bottom of my legs trying to find a job. Honest, I was a fine large man once… before I started looking for a job.”
The merry laughter with which she greeted his sally obviously pleased him, and she was quick to note and take advantage of it. She moved directly away from the door and toward the sideboard.
“Come, you must tell me all about it while I get that drink for you. What will it be? Whisky?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, as he followed her, though he still carried the big revolver at his side, and though he glanced reluctantly at the unguarded open door.
She filled a glass for him at the sideboard.
“I promised to drink with you,” she said hesitatingly. “But I don’t like whisky. I… I prefer sherry.”
She lifted the sherry bottle tentatively for his consent.
“Sure,” he answered, with a nod. “Whisky’s a man’s drink. I never like to see women at it. Wine’s more their stuff.”
She raised her glass to his, her eyes meltingly sympathetic.
“Here’s to finding you a good position–“
But she broke off at sight of the expression of surprised disgust on his face. The glass, barely touched, was removed from his wry lips.
“What is the matter!” she asked anxiously. “Don’t you like it? Have I made a mistake?”
“It’s sure funny whisky. Tastes like it got burned and smoked in the making.”
“Oh! How silly of me! I gave you Scotch. Of course you are accustomed to rye. Let me change it.”
She was almost solicitiously maternal, as she replaced the glass with another and sought and found the proper bottle.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. No smoke in it. It’s sure the real good stuff. I ain’t had a drink in a week. Kind of slick, that; oily, you know; not made in a chemical factory.”
“You are a drinking man?” It was half a question, half a challenge.
“No, ma’am, not to speak of. I HAVE rared up and ripsnorted at spells, but most unfrequent. But there is times when a good stiff jolt lands on the right spot kerchunk, and this is sure one of them. And now, thanking you for your kindness, ma’am, I’ll just be a pulling along.”
But Mrs. Setliffe did not want to lose her burglar. She was too poised a woman to possess much romance, but there was a thrill about the present situation that delighted her. Besides, she knew there was no danger. The man, despite his jaw and the steady brown eyes, was eminently tractable. Also, farther back in her consciousness glimmered the thought of an audience of admiring friends. It was too bad not to have that audience.
“You haven’t explained how burglary, in your case, is merely collecting what is your own,” she said. “Come, sit down, and tell me about it here at the table.”
She maneuvered for her own seat, and placed him across the corner from her. His alertness had not deserted him, as she noted, and his eyes roved sharply about, returning always with smoldering admiration to hers, but never resting long. And she noted likewise that while she spoke he was intent on listening for other sounds than those of her voice. Nor had he relinquished the revolver, which lay at the corner of the table between them, the butt close to his right hand.
But he was in a new habitat which he did not know. This man from the West, cunning in woodcraft and plainscraft, with eyes and ears open, tense and suspicious, did not know that under the table, close to her foot, was the push button of an electric bell. He had never heard of such a contrivance, and his keenness and wariness went for naught.
“It’s like this, Miss,” he began, in response to her urging. “Old Setliffe done me up in a little deal once. It was raw, but it worked. Anything will work full and legal when it’s got few hundred million behind it. I’m not squealin’, and I ain’t taking a slam at your pa. He don’t know me from Adam, and I reckon he don’t know he done me outa anything. He’s too big, thinking and dealing in millions, to ever hear of a small potato like me. He’s an operator. He’s got all kinds of experts thinking and planning and working for him, some of them, I hear, getting more cash salary than the President of the United States. I’m only one of thousands that have been done up by your pa, that’s all.