"Not much," responded Demorest, dryly; "but if people choose to believe this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase their importance and secure their immunity--they can.But here's Manuel to tell us supper is ready."He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which Ezekiel had not penetrated on account of its obscurity and solitude, but which now seemed to be peopled with peons and household servants of both sexes.At the end of a long low-ceilinged room a table was spread with omelettes, chupa, cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around which half a dozen attendants stood gravely in waiting.The size of the room, which to Ezekiel's eyes looked as large as the church at North Liberty, the profusion of the viands, the six attendants for the host and solitary guest, deeply impressed him.Morally rebelling against this feudal display and extravagance, he, who had disdained to even assist the Blandfords' servant-in-waiting at table and had always made his solitary meal on the kitchen dresser, was not above feeling a material satisfaction in sitting on equal terms with his master's friend and being served by these menials he despised.He did full justice to the victuals of which Demorest partook in sparing abstraction, and particularly to the fruit, which Demorest did not touch at all.Observant of his servants'
eyes fixed in wonder on the strange guest who had just disposed of a second melon at supper, Demorest could not help remarking that he would lose credit as a medico with the natives unless he restrained a public exhibition of his tastes.
"Ez ha'aw?" queried Ezekiel.
"They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.""That'll do for lazy stomicks," said the unabashed Ezekiel."When they're once fortified by Jones' bitters and hard work, they'll be able to tackle the Lord's nat'ral gifts of the airth at any time."Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a quid of tobacco, which he gravely took from a tin box in his pocket, and to the astonished eyes of the servants apparently obliterated any further remembrance of the meal, he accompanied his host to the veranda again, where, tilting his chair back and putting his feet on the railing, he gave himself up to unwonted and silent rumination.
The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half-reclining on a settee, had once or twice glanced towards the misshapen cactus.
"Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other than we knew before we left the States?""Wa'al, no," said Ezekiel, thoughtfully."The last idea was that he'd got control of the hoss after passin' the bridge, and had managed to turn him back, for there was marks of buggy wheels on the snow on the far side, and that fearin' to trust the hoss or the bridge he tried to lead him over when the bridge gave way, and he was caught in the wreck and carried off down stream.That would account for his body not bein' found; they do tell that chunks of that bridge were picked up on the Sound beach near the mouth o' the river, nigh unto sixty miles away.That's about the last idea they had of it at North Liberty." He paused and then cleverly directing a stream of tobacco juice at an accurate curve over the railing, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and added, slowly:
"Thar's another idea--but I reckon it's only mine.Leastways Iain't heard it argued by anybody."
"What is that?" asked Demorest.
"Wa'al, it ain't exakly complimentary to E.Blandford, Esq., and it mout be orkard for YOU.""I don't think you're in the habit of letting such trifles interfere with your opinion," said Demorest, with a slightly forced laugh; "but what is your idea?""That thar wasn't any accident."
"No accident?" replied Demorest, raising himself on his elbow.
"Nary accident," continued Ezekiel, deliberately, "and, if it comes to that, not much of a dead body either.""What the devil do you mean?" said Demorest, sitting up.
"I mean," said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, "that E.
Blandford, of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, '50, ez nigh bein'
bust up ez any man kin be without actually failin'; that he'd been down to Boston that day to get some extensions; that old Deacon Salisbury knew it, and had been pesterin' Mrs.Blandford to induce him to sell out and leave the place; and that the night he left he took about two hundred and fifty dollars in bank bills that they allus kept in the house, and Mrs.Blandford was in the habit o'
hidin' in the breast-pocket of one of his old overcoats hangin' up in the closet.I mean that that air money and that air overcoat went off with him, ez Mrs.Blandford knows, for I heard her tell her ma about it.And when his affairs were wound up and his debts paid, I reckon that the two hundred and fifty was all there was left--and he scooted with it.It's orkard for you--ez I said afore--but I don't see wot on earth you need get riled for.Ef he ran off on account of only two hundred and fifty dollars he ain't goin' to run back again for the mere matter o' your marrying Joan.