"Hullo, Martin!" I exclaimed. "I thought I saw a customer here."
"When you came in there was. He went off with Cassim and Hawkins. They
was goin' to show him the road to Manton."
"Cassim?"
"Aye."
Martin growled and walked behind the bar-counter.
"You have some curious residents in this neighborhood."
"Too curious by half."
"Cassim, for instance, is not an English name."
Martin indulged in that rumbling sound which was his only form of
laughter.
"English!" he said. "He's as black as your hat!"
My hat chanced to be gray, but I followed the idea nevertheless, and:
"What!" I exclaimed, "a negro?"
"A blackamoor. That's all I know or care; and dumb!"
"Dumb! and a friend of Hawkins?"
"God knows. Things ain't right."
"Do you know if--a lady--resides with Dr. Greefe?"
"Maybe--maybe not. There _is_ tales told."
Substantially this was all I learned from mine host; but, having
lighted my pipe, I sat down on the bench before the door and set my
mind to work in an endeavor to marshal all the facts into some sort of
order.
The reputation locally enjoyed by Dr. Damar Greefe I could afford to
ignore, I thought, but from my personal observation of the man I had
come to the conclusion that there was much about him which I did not
and could not understand. In the first place, for any man to choose to
live, solitary, in such an abode as the Bell House was remarkable.
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