REPARTEE AND PISTOLS
Loge dropped his gaze to the pistol, and the smile upon his lips slowly turned into a sneer.But when he lifted his eyes to Cleggett's again there was no fear in them.
"Put up your gun," he said, easily enough."You won't have any use for it here.""Thank you for the assurance," said Cleggett, "but it occurs to me that it is in a very good place where it is.""Oh, if it amuses you to play with it--" said Loge."It does," said Cleggett dryly.
"It's an odd taste," said Loge.
"It's a taste I've formed during the last few days on board my ship," said Cleggett meaningly.
"Ship?" said Loge."Oh, I beg your pardon.You mean the old hulk over yonder in the canal?""Over yonder in the canal," said Cleggett, without relaxing his vigilance.
"You've been frightened over there?" asked Loge, showing his teeth in a grin.
"No," said Cleggett."I'm not easily frightened."Loge looked at the pistol under Cleggett's hand, and from the pistol to Cleggett's face, with ironical gravity, before he spoke."I should have thought, from the way you cling to that pistol, that perhaps your nerves might be a little weak and shaky.""On the contrary," said Cleggett, playing the game with a face like a mask, "my nerves are so steady that I could snip that ugly-looking skulloff your cravat the length of this barroom away.""That would be mighty good shooting," said Loge, turning in his chair and measuring the distance with his eye."I don't believe you could do it.I don't mind telling you that _I_ couldn't.""While we are on the subject of your scarfpin," said Cleggett, in whom the slur on the Jasper B.had been rankling, "I don't mind telling YOU that I think that skull thing is in damned bad taste.In fact, you are dressed generally in damned bad taste.--Who is your tailor?"Cleggett was gratified to see a dull flush spread over the other's face at the insult.Loge was silent a moment, and then he said, dropping his bantering manner, which indeed sat rather heavily upon him: "I don't know why you should want to shoot at my scarfpin--or at me.I don't know why you should suddenly lay a pistol between us.I don't, in short, know why we should sit here paying each other left-handed compliments, when it was merely my intention to make you a business proposition.""I have been waiting to hear what you had to say to me," said Cleggett, without being in the least thrown off his guard by the other's change of manner.
"If you had not chanced to drop in here today," said Loge, "I had intended paying you a visit.""I have had several visitors lately," said Cleggett nonchalantly, "and I think at least two of them can make no claim that they were not warmly received.""Yes?" said Loge.But if Cleggett's meaning reached him he was too cool a hand to show it.He persisted in his affectation of a businesslike air."Am I right in thinking that you have bought the boat?""You are."
"To come to the point," said Loge, "I want to buy her from you.What will you take for her?"The proposition was unexpected to Cleggett, but he did not betray his surprise.
"You want to buy her?" he said."You want to buy the old hulk overyonder in the canal?"He laughed, but continued:"What on earth can your interest be in her?"There was a trace of surliness in Loge's voice as he answered: "YOU were enough interested in her to buy her, it seems.Why shouldn't I have the same interest?"Cleggett was silent a moment, and then he leaned across the table and said with emphasis: "I have noticed your interest in the Jasper B.since the day I first set foot on her.And let me warn you that unless you show your curiosity in some other manner henceforth, you will seriously regret it.A couple of your men have repented of your interest already.""My men? What do you mean by my men? I haven't any men." Loge's imitation of astonishment was a piece of art; but if anything he overdid it a trifle.He frowned in a puzzled fashion, and then said: "You talk about my men; you speak riddles to me; you appear to threaten me, but after all I have only made you a plain business proposition.I ask you again, what will you take for her?""She's not for sale," said Cleggett shortly.
Loge did not speak again for a moment.Instead, he picked up the spoon with which Cleggett had stirred his highball and began to draw characters with its wet point upon the table."If it's a question of price," he said finally, "I'm prepared to allow you a handsome profit."Cleggett determined to find out how far he would go.
"You might be willing to pay as much as $5,000 for her--for the old hulk over there in the canal?"Loge stopped playing with the spoon and looked searchingly into Cleggett's face.Then he said:
"I will.Turn her over to me the way she was the day you bought her, and I'll give you $5,000." He paused, and then repeated, stressing the words: "MIND YOU, WITH EVERYTHING IN HER THE WAY IT WAS THE DAY YOU BOUGHT HER."Cleggett fumbled with his fingers in a waistcoat pocket, drew out the torn piece of counterfeit money which he had taken from the dead hand,and flung it on the table.
"Five thousand dollars," he said, "in THAT kind of money?"Loge looked at it with eyes that suddenly contracted.Clever dissembler that he was, he could not prevent an involuntary start.He licked his lips, and Cleggett judged that perhaps his mouth felt a little dry.But these were the only signs he made.Indeed, when he spoke it was with something almost like an air of relief.
"Come," he said, "now we're down to brass tacks at last on this proposition.Mr.Detective, name your real price."Cleggett did not answer immediately.He appeared to consider his real price.But in reality he was thinking that there was no longer any doubt of the origin of the explosion.Since Loge practically acknowledged the counterfeit money, the man who had died with this piece of it in his hand must have been one of Loge's men.But he only said:
"Why do you call me a detective?"
