Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Seventy-Seven
I ignored several empty tables at
the front of the dreary restaurant and selected one not far from where the two
men sat. They stared at me with insolent, appraising eyes. I was confident that
the heavy-set man was the same fellow I had noticed near the Furstenberg
estate.
A waiter in a soiled white apron
shuffled up to take our order.
“Hot roast beef sandwich and
coffee,” said Jack. “With plenty of cream.”
“Make mine the same,” I said,
without looking at the menu.
All my attention was taken up by the
two men who were now talking together in low tones. After scrutinizing me for a
moment or two, they’d lost interest. I think Jack’s glares might have had
something to do with it, and now they did not even glance in our direction. The
heavy-set man bent nearer his companion and with the point of his knife drew a
pattern on the tablecloth.
“What do you think of this route,
Joe?” he asked.
“Too risky,” the other muttered.
“Once we start, we got to make a quick shot to the sea.”
“Any way we take we might run
into trouble. Y’know, I wish we had never agreed to do the job.”
“You and me both!”
“Dietz ain’t to be trusted,” the
heavy-set man said, and his shaggy eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “He’s
thinking first and last of his own skin. We’ve got to watch him.”
“And the girl, too. She’s a dumb
one and plenty apt to talk if the going gets rough.”
I lost the thread of the
conversation when Jack spoke to me.
“We couldn’t have picked a worse
place,” he complained. “Look at all the breakfast egg on the tablecloth. I’m in
favor of walking out, even now.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“What’s got into you anyway?
You’re acting mighty funny.”
“Notice those two men at the last
table?”
“What about them? I didn’t like
the way they were giving you the eye, but other than that?”
“See that heavy-set fellow with
the tattooed anchor on his arm? Well, I think he is the same boatman who
cruised near the Furstenberg estate yesterday afternoon.”
“He might well be, but that would
hardly be surprising. The Grassy is only a stone’s throw away. And this place
seems to be frequented by rivermen.”
I leaned across the table to
whisper in Jack’s ear.
“You didn’t hear what they were
saying? Listen!”
It gave me a tingly sensation to
lean in so close to him, and I pulled back quickly.
Jack immediately fell silent, but
the two men had lowered their voices so that only an occasional word could be
distinguished.
“What were they saying, anyway?”
Jack whispered.
Before I could answer, the
proprietor came from the kitchen bearing two plates of food which he set down
before us. The sandwiches were covered with a dark brown, watery gravy, the
potatoes bore a heavy coating of grease, and the coffee looked like last week’s
strained dishwater.
“Want anything else?”
“That’s all,” Jack said. “In
fact, it’s too much,” he muttered after the man had gone out of earshot.
The two men at the next table
stood up, paid their bill, and left the restaurant.
“Let’s leave too,” I said. “I
should like to see where they go.”
Jack pushed his plate aside.
“Suits me,” he agreed. “Even my
cast-iron stomach can’t wrestle with such food as this.”
Jack paid at the cash register,
and we went out into the night. I looked about for the two men and saw them
walking toward the river.
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