Then, with a jump as
it were:
"Of course he didn't tell me. Is it likely? But haven't I got eyes?
Haven't I got my common sense to tell me? I can see through people. By
the same token, he called on the Tesmans. Why did he call on the Tesmans
two days running, eh? You don't know? You can't tell?"
He waited complacently till Ricardo had finished swearing quite openly
at him for a confounded chatterer, and then went on:
"A fellow doesn't go to a counting-house in business hours for a chat
about the weather, two days running. Then why? To close his account with
them one day, and to get his money out the next! Clear, what?"
Ricardo, with his trick of looking one way and moving another approached
Schomberg slowly.
"To get his money?" he purred.
"Gewiss," snapped Schomberg with impatient superiority. "What else? That
is, only the money he had with the Tesmans. What he has buried or put
away on the island, devil only knows. When you think of the lot of hard
cash that passed through that man's hands, for wages and stores and all
that--and he's just a cunning thief, I tell you." Ricardo's hard stare
discomposed the hotel-keeper, and he added in an embarrassed tone: "I
mean a common, sneaking thief--no account at all. And he calls himself a
Swedish baron, too! Tfui!"
"He's a baron, is he? That foreign nobility ain't much," commented Mr.
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