The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [3616]
With a preoccupied air, the man thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled out a coin, and handed it to him. Then he walked hurriedly off. Evidently the news was welcome to him. But Sweetwater stood rooted to the ground. The man had given him a five-dollar gold piece instead of the nickel he had evidently intended.
How hungrily Sweetwater eyed that coin! In it was lodging, food, perhaps a new article or so of clothing. But after a moment of indecision which might well be forgiven him, he followed speedily after the man and overtook him just as he reached the house from which the woman's veil had floated.
"Sir, pardon me; but you gave me five dollars instead of five cents. It was a mistake; I cannot keep the money."
The man, who was not just the sort from whom kindness would be expected, looked at the money in Sweetwater's palm, then at the miserable, mud-bespattered clothes he wore (he had got that mud helping the poor market-woman), and stared hard at the face of the man who looked so needy and yet returned him five dollars.
"You're an honest fellow," he declared, not offering to take back the gold piece. Then, with a quick glance up at the window, "Would you like to earn that money?"
Sweetwater broke out into a smile, which changed his whole countenance.
"Wouldn't I, sir?"
The man eyed him for another minute with scrutinising intensity. Then he said shortly:
"Come up-stairs with me."
They entered the house, went up a flight or two, and stopped at a door which was slightly ajar.
"We are going into the presence of a lady," remarked the man. "Wait here until I call you."
Sweetwater waited, the many thoughts going through his mind not preventing him from observing all that passed.
The man, who had left the door wide open, approached the lady who was awaiting him, and who was apparently the same one who had sent Sweetwater on his errand, and entered into a low but animated conversation. She held a telegram in her hand which she showed him, and then after a little earnest parley and a number of pleading looks from them both toward the waiting Sweetwater, she disappeared into another room, from which she brought a parcel neatly done up, which she handed to the man with a strange gesture. Another hurried exchange of words and a meaning look which did not escape the sharp eye of the watchful messenger, and the man turned and gave the parcel into Sweetwater's hands.
"You are to carry this," said he, "to the town hall. In the second room to the right on entering you will see a table surrounded by chairs, which at this hour ought to be empty. At the head of the table you will find an arm-chair. On the table directly in front of this you will lay this packet. Mark you, directly before the chair and not too far from the edge of the table. Then you are to come out. If you see anyone, say you came to leave some papers for Mr. Gifford. Do this and you may keep the five dollars and welcome."
Sweetwater hesitated. There was something in the errand or in the manner of the man and woman that he did not like.
"Don't potter!" spoke up the latter, with an impatient look at her watch. "Mr. Gifford will expect those papers."
Sweetwater's sensitive fingers closed on the package he held. It did not feel like papers.
"Are you going?" asked the man.
Sweetwater looked up with a smile. "Large pay for so slight a commission," he ventured, turning the packet over and over in his hand.
"But then you will execute it at once, and according to the instructions I have given you," retorted the man. "It is your trustworthiness I pay for. Now go."
Sweetwater turned to go. After all it was probably all right, and five dollars easily earned is doubly five dollars. As he reached the staircase he stumbled. The shoes he wore did not fit him.
"Be careful, there!" shouted the woman, in a shrill, almost frightened voice, while the man stumbled back into the room in a haste which seemed wholly uncalled for. "If you let the packet