The Mystery of the LocksHowe, E. W. (Edgar Watson)
General
The Mystery of the Locks
Howe, E. W. (Edgar Watson)
City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Nebraska -- Fiction
Davy looked like anything but a villain as he meekly watched the pair
from the other side of the room; indeed, he was thinking that Tug was
carrying the matter entirely too far, and was becoming alarmed. But Tug
did not share this feeling of apprehension, for he seemed desperately in
earnest as he held the lamp close to the woman's face, who tried to
shield it from his sight with her thin, trembling hands, and cried out
in the same weak voice: "Gentlemen! In the name of God! I appeal to you
as gentlemen!"
A very small woman, with shrivelled face and sharp features, was Tug's
booty, and she trembled violently as she piteously held out her hands to
the two men. Tug thought of her as the key to the problem he had been
attempting to solve, so he stood between her and the door to prevent
escape. But Silas felt sure that the woman had but lately risen from a
sick bed; for she was weak and trembling, and from sitting long in the
damp river air, there was a distressed and painful flush in her face.
"Come now, sister," Tug said, seating himself in front of her, and
frowning like a pirate. "Tell us what you know, and be carried back to
your boat. If you refuse to do it, we will take you on a journey to the
Hedgepath graveyard, in the woods over the river, where we will erect a
stone Sacred to the Memory of an Obstinate Woman. Which will you have?
Use your tongue; which will you have?"
But the woman made no other reply than to appeal to them as gentlemen,
in the name of God, and cry, and wring her hands.
"In case you ever see that foxy companion of yourn again, which is
extremely doubtful, for I have a companion who murders for the love of
it--(Here, now, take your hand off that knife, will you," Tug said, by
way of parenthesis to Silas, looking at him sharply. Then going over to
him, he pretended to take a knife out of Davy's inside coat pocket, and
hide it in the cupboard). "If you ever see your friend Sneak again, say
to him that I intend to get his head. He is bothering a friend of mine,
and I intend to create a commotion inside of him for it."
Tug walked over to the table where the lamp stood, and, taking the
package of poison from his pocket, carefully divided it into two doses;
a large one for a man, and the other for a smaller person, probably a
woman. He also took occasion, being near to Davy, to whisper to him that
the woman reminded him of his wife's sister Sis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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