[The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne]@TWC D-Link bookThe Wrecker CHAPTER X 25/41
He seemed considerable put out: I reckon it was a death." My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him away; and again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a moment in a vortex of untenable hypotheses. "What was he like, ma'am ?" Pinkerton was asking, when I returned to consciousness of my surroundings. "A clean shaved man," said the woman, and could be led or driven into no more significant description. "Pull up at the nearest drug-store," said Pinkerton to the driver; and when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the message sped to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's office--this was in the days before Spreckels had arisen--"When does the next China steamer touch at Honolulu ?" "The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past one," came the reply. "It's a clear case of bolt," said Jim.
"He's skipped, or my name's not Pinkerton.
He's gone to head us off at Midway Island." Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case, not known to Pinkerton--the fears of the captain, for example--that inclined me otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified Mr.Dickson into flight, though resting on so slender a foundation, clung obstinately in my mind. "Shouldn't we see the list of passengers ?" I asked. "Dickson is such a blamed common name," returned Jim; "and then, as like as not, he would change it." At this I had another intuition.
A negative of a street scene, taken unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought, rose in my memory with not a feature blurred: a view, from Bellairs's door as we were coming down, of muddy roadway, passing drays, matted telegraph wires, a Chinaboy with a basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner grocery with the name of Dickson in great gilt letters. "Yes," said I, "you are right; he would change it.
And anyway, I don't believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from a corner grocery beside Bellairs's." "As like as not," said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk with contracted brows. "Well, what shall we do next ?" I asked. "The natural thing would be to rush the schooner," he replied.
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