The Snake-Oil Dickens Man

‘Damn right I have, you old fool,’ Merriweather cried. ‘We’ve been robbed. Somebody cleared out the safe!’

I looked at Merriweather, his face crimson with emotion, his small black eyes fixed on me like the sights of twin rifles. Amory regarded us both, coolly and dispassionately and then Merriweather too, with equal impartiality.

‘Does something go forth here, is something afoot, gentlemen?’ he breathed, with the sibilance of snakes. Elijah rocked in his chair and continued to stare at a vacancy somewhere between us all.

Chapter Five

I

ELIJAH BROKE A moment’s silence.

‘So you have been robbed of a few days’ takings. What of it? I don’t suppose it amounted to much,’ he said.

‘I’m smashed, you fool,’ said Merriweather. ‘And by heaven if you had anything to do with this, I’ll break you too.’

‘Keep a tongue, Merriweather. Everyone gets robbed sooner or later, one way or another.’

I had seen Merriweather out of sorts before, enraged and in a drunken fury more often than I would ever want to remember but this was something different. He was frightened, abstracted, his eyes publishing the turmoil of his mind as he circled Elijah’s chair like a coyote about a big fire. Elijah followed the sound of his boot heels and said: ‘How can you be smashed?’

‘I ain’t about to explain my business,’ Merriweather snapped, fixing us both with his squinty gaze. ‘You tell me what you know now ‘fore the trail goes cold.’

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