He hesitated a moment, then added: "This will be all."
Clegett nodded. "It might, and it might not," he asserted; "but you
can't jam me. You're welcome to that, anyhow. It was coming to you. I
wondered when you'd be round."
It was not far from the theater to a glittering hardware store, a place
that specialized in sporting goods. There were cases of fishing reels,
brilliant tied flies and varnished, gayly wrapped cane rods, gaffs and
coiled wire leaders, and an impressive assortment of modern pistols,
rifles and shotguns.
"Something small and neat," Doret told the man in charge of the
weapons.
He examined a compact automatic pistol, a blunted shape no larger than
his palm. It was a beautiful mechanism, and as with his silken razors,
merely to hold it, to test the smooth action, gave him a sense of
pleasure.
Later, seated in a quiet cafe, an adjunct of the saloon below, he could
not resist the temptation of taking the pistol in its rubber holster
from his pocket, merely to finger the delicate trigger. There was no
hurry. He knew his world thoroughly: it was a small land in which the
inhabitants had constant knowledge of each other. A question in the
right place would bring all the information he needed. Lemuel was
absolutely composed, actually he was a little sleepy; longing and inner
strife, dreams, were at an end; only an old familiar state, a
thoroughly comprehensible purpose remained.
A girl--she could have been no more than fourteen--was hurriedly
slipping a paper of white crystalline powder into a glass of
sarsaparilla.
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