Seven Faces by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2015-04-04T22:00:00+00:00

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XVII. — POT-SHOT

WHEN the train reached Jackson, newspapers and telegrams came aboard at once, the telegrams first. In the distribution Angus Campbell received three of the open-faced yellow envelopes. Two of them were in fact for him, but the third was addressed to that fellow with the black eyebrows and the red mouth, Grosvenor.

Campbell ruthlessly opened it and read:

MEET YOU CLIFTON CHICAGO WITH FIRST INSTALLMENT

The signature was: ‘Partner.’ The place of sending was the town of Lassiter, Minnesota.

‘Here,’ Campbell called to the lounge car waiter. ‘This was given to me by mistake. Know anybody called Grosvenor?’

‘That gentleman right back there,’ said the waiter. ‘Thank you, sir.’

He took the opened telegram back to the end of the car where Grosvenor was just rising from his chair to stretch his legs on the platform. At the same time a pair of riveters, at work on new building or repair work in the station, opened up with a frightful roar.

Grosvenor, receiving the telegram, scanned it and then looked sharply towards Campbell, and Campbell, from the corner of his eye, was aware of that half startled, fixed, angry surveillance. He said to himself, as he opened his own message: ‘Rotten. Something rotten about Grosvenor. In stateroom… rotten.’

Something rotten about Grosvenor, something odd about the fear that had been in Grosvenor’s face when he realized that a detective had opened his telegram. A detective must weave suspicions as fragile as spider threads until he has made a net strong enough to catch a tiger. Campbell felt a sudden tugging along his nerves, as though prey already were caught in the net.

He bought a newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and went on with his telegrams. The tall, stalking form of Grosvenor passed down the aisle before him, eyes fixed upon a proud future, disdaining the littleness of ordinary men.

The first wire was from Buffalo, reading:

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