The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5891]
It so happened that the chief clerk was standing in the booth with his back turned to the main door, and did not see the colonel enter. And the latter, coming in with easy steps, as he always went everywhere, heard a snatch of the talk over the telephone that made him wonder.
Though the little booth was meant to keep sounds from entering, as well as coming out, the door was not tightly closed and as LeGrand Blossom spoke rather loudly Colonel Ashley heard distinctly.
"Yes," said the head clerk over the wire, "I'll pay the money tonight sure. Yes, positive." There was a period of waiting, while he listened, and then he went on: "Yes, on the Allawanda. I'll be there. Yes, sure! Now don't bother me any more."
Colonel Ashley, through the glass door of the telephone booth, saw LeGrand Blossom make a move as though to hang up the receiver. And then the detective turned suddenly, and swung back, as though he had entered the room at the moment Blossom had emerged from the booth.
"Oh!" exclaimed the head clerk, and, for a second, he seemed nonplused. But Colonel Ashley took up the talk instantly.
"I will keep you but a minute," he said. "Miss Viola asked me to leave these bills for you. I came in to town to buy some bait. There they are. I'm going fishing," and before LeGrand Blossom could answer the colonel was saying good-bye and making his way out.
"I wonder," mused the colonel, as he started for the car where Jean awaited him, "what or who or where the Allawanda is? I must find out."
He found further cause for wonder as he started off in the car with the French chauffeur for the boat dock, at the conduct of Jean himself.
For the man appeared to be a wholly different person. His face was all smiles, and there was a jaunty air about him as though he had received good news. His management of the car, too, left nothing to be desired. He started off swiftly, but with a smoothness that told of perfect mastery of the clutch and gears. He took chances, too, as he dashed through town, cutting corners, darting before this car, back of the other until, used as the colonel was to taxicabs in New York, he held his breath more than once.
"What's the matter - in a hurry?" he asked Jean, as they narrowly escaped a collision.
"Oh, no, monsieur, but this is the way I like to drive. It is much more - what you call pep!"
"Yes," mused the colonel to himself, "it's pep all right. But I wonder what put the pep into you? You didn't have it when we started out. Some French dope you take, I'll wager. Well, it may put pep into you now, but it'll take the starch out of you later on.
Jean left the colonel at the dock, whither Shag had already made his way, coming in a more prosaic trolley car from The Haven, and soon they were ready to row down the inlet in a boat.
"Shall I call for you?" asked Jean, as he prepared to drive back.
"No," answered the colonel, "I can't tell what luck I'll have. We'll come home when it suits us."
"Very good, monsieur."
And so the colonel went fishing, and his thoughts were rather more on the telephone talk he had overheard than on his rod and line.
Contrary to the poor luck that had held all week, so the dockman said, the colonel's good luck was exceptional. Shag had a goodly string of snappers of large size to carry back with him.
"How'd you do it?" asked the boatman, as he made fast the skiff.
"Oh, they just bit and I hauled `em in," said he colonel. "By the way," he went on, "is there a place around here called Allawanda?"
"Yes, there's a little village named that, about ten miles back in the country," said the boatman.
"Nothing there, though, but a few houses and one store."
"Oh, I thought it might be quite a place."
"No, and nobody'd know it was there if there wasn't a boat around here named after it."
"Is there a boat called that?" asked the colonel, and he tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
"Yes. The