as if you knew all about it."
The pair exchanged glances; then the man said:
"Mr. Beckwith, you are a simple-minded Englishman."
"And what are you--you're not Russian?"
"No; as it happens, I'm American. I was born in a small township in Wisconsin, which, as you may or may not be aware it is funny how much even educated Englishmen don't know about America is a state in the Upper Lake region of the greatest country on God's earth. Now and then I go to visit the place where I was raised but not too often. I am fond of motion, Mr. Hugh Beckwith, so I keep moving; there are few places on the surface of this small, round globe which I haven't moved over. I've interests business interests in quite a lot of them; and that's how I've come to have a kind of feeling in what happened to Stepan Korsunsky. I've business interests in St. Petersburg of rather a peculiar kind."
He pronounced those last words in a way I could not but feel he meant that I should notice. I did not quite like to ask what he meant by "a peculiar kind"; but, as I had made quite an inroad into that chicken, I was content to sit and stare and wonder. And as I sat I had my hands in the pocket of that nonsensical coat. Without thinking what I was doing I returned to what had occupied me in the cellar. In the centre of one side of the lining of the right-hand pocket was still that rounded something. I thrust my fingers through the place where I had torn away the stitches inside the lining. By some queer accident the hidden something wormed itself through what I felt to be a threadbare spot into my fingers. I closed them on it just in time to save it from dropping to the bottom of the coat. Gingerly I drew it out and looked at it.
I take it that there was something in my demeanour which struck them as peculiar. When they saw me staring intently at something which I held in my hand they both moved towards me as if to learn what I was staring at.
"What have you there?" asked the man. "Something worth looking at?"
"I don't know what it is," I answered; "I'm wondering. It looks to me as if it might be some sort of pill."
"Pill?" The man seemed startled; he came closer, bent down to see what I had, and almost at the same instant took me with his right hand by the throat and shouted: "You rogue! Hand that over."
I was taken by surprise when, so soon as I had knocked at the door, that huge fellow dragged me into that mysterious house; but I think I was even more surprised when that man accorded me such treatment. He had been so courteous, so pleasant, a man of peace, evidently the best type of American gentleman: that he should suddenly start strangling me was grotesquely unexpected. However, his onslaught only lasted a second. Snatching from my open palm what looked to me like a pill, he drew back, examining it closely with eager eyes.
"What is it?" the girl asked. "What have you there?"
"It's one of them." He did not speak loudly, but with a voice which seemed to be shaking with excitement.
"One of them?" She echoed not only his words but his manner of uttering them. She seemed all at once to be quivering.
"As I live and breathe, it's one of them! Of all the wonderful things! And I had given up hope."
"How did it get here?"
"How can I tell you! As if I knew! It has dropped from the skies."
"Where did it come from?"
"From--from--"He glared at me. "Mr. Hugh Beckwith, will you be so good as to tell me where it came from. None of your lies, none of your nonsense about the dried fruit trade! I felt, somehow, that you were too simple to be real. Out with it, man! You'll find that I, also, can be dangerous. Where did this come from? Tell me the truth if you want to keep your soul and body together."
I already had reason to know that by some mischance I had dropped into a region where strange things happened. I ought to have been prepared for anything; yet I was wholly unprepared for the sudden, startling, and quick change in his manner and bearing. As I looked at him I knew without his telling me that he, also, could be dangerous; that it would need very very little to induce him to treat me even worse than the others had done. What I had done to cause this amazing alteration in his demeanour was beyond my comprehension. I tried to tell him so.
"What I have done to induce you to take me by the throat, and to speak to me as if I were a dog--"
He cut me short.
"Never mind what you've done! Where did this come from?"
He held what looked like a pill in his finger and thumb.
"From the lining of this pocket."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say. I felt last night that there was something there, and I've been picking at it ever since with my fingers, trying to get it out. I've just succeeded; you saw me get it out."
"Do you mean to tell me you don't know what this is?"
"I've not a notion. If you'll permit me to look at it for a minute or two at close quarters I may be able to guess. From the glimpse I caught of it it looked to me like a pill."
He put his face quite close to mine, unpleasantly close.
"Are you acting? If you are--" He left his sentence unfinished. "Do you swear you don't know?"
"If you won't believe my simple statement you won't believe me if I swear. I tell you that I do not know."
He continued to glare at me for some instants longer, his face so close that I could feel his breath upon my cheek; and just as I was coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that he really meant to do me an injury he stood straight up, and said to the girl:
"Shall I believe him?"
Standing in front of me she regarded me with her clear, calm eyes as critically as if she were appraising some inanimate object.
"I think you may." This she said to the man; then she spoke to me. "Let us understand each other. You have already told us, but tell us again in detail how did you get that coat be very exact."
"I did not get it; they thrust me into it."
"They? Any particular person, or did they do it in a body?"
"In a body."
"Where did they get it from! Was it in the room when you saw it first, or did they bring it in?"
"It was lying with the other garments on an old horsehair couch, on the top of a brown paper wrapper which it had apparently come in."
"A wrapper? in which it had apparently come? What made you think it had come in the wrapper?"
"Something had come in it. There were labels on it marks where it had been sealed. I noticed that in more than one place there was a name and address. I noticed the name it was addressed to Isaac Rothenstein."
"Rothenstein!" The exclamation came from the man. He scared at the girl and the girl at him. Evidently something had moved them deeply.
"By the way," I went on, "I don't know what that pill-like object is, but I've a sort of notion that that is not the only one which is hidden in the lining of this coat. I believe there's one here I can feel it."
He
