Schomberg went to the door and greeted
the customers outside, but did not join them. He remained blocking
half the doorway, with his back to the room, and was still there when
Davidson, after sitting still for a while, rose to go. At the noise
he made Schomberg turned his head, watched him lift his hat to Mrs.
Schomberg and receive her wooden bow accompanied by a stupid grin, and
then looked away. He was loftily dignified. Davidson stopped at the
door, deep in his simplicity.
"I am sorry you won't tell me anything about my friend's absence," he
said. "My friend Heyst, you know. I suppose the only course for me now
is to make inquiries down at the port. I shall hear something there, I
don't doubt."
"Make inquiries of the devil!" replied Schomberg in a hoarse mutter.
Davidson's purpose in addressing the hotel-keeper had been mainly to
make Mrs. Schomberg safe from suspicion; but he would fain have heard
something more of Heyst's exploit from another point of view. It was
a shrewd try. It was successful in a rather startling way, because the
hotel-keeper's point of view was horribly abusive. All of a sudden, in
the same hoarse sinister tone, he proceeded to call Heyst many names, of
which "pig-dog" was not the worst, with such vehemence that he actually
choked himself. Profiting from the pause, Davidson, whose temperament
could withstand worse shocks, remonstrated in an undertone:
"It's unreasonable to get so angry as that.
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