By and by he
motioned again for paper.
"I think so. I am not sure," he miswrote.
I did NOT think so, and as the sum total of his descriptions of
his assailant during the past several days amounted to "a tall
man, rather short, with a face and two eyes"--he was very
insistent about the eyes, which is the reason the doll-eyed boy
had fallen into the drag-net--I permitted myself to accept my own
opinion as evidence. The Peruvian was in all likelihood in no
condition to recognize a man from a loup-garou by the time the
fracas started. Much ardent water had flowed that night. I took
the suspects down to Ancon station and let them cool off in porch
rocking-chairs. Then I gave them passes back to Pedro Miguel for
the evening train. The doll-eyed boy smiled girlishly upon me as
he descended the steps, but the correspondent strode slowly away
with the downcast, cheerless countenance of a man who has been
hurt beyond recovery.
There were strangely contrasted days in the "gum-shoe's" calendar.
Two examples taken almost at random will give the idea. On May
twentieth I lolled all day in a porch rocker at Ancon station,
reading a novel. Along in the afternoon Corporal Castillo drifted
in. For a time he stood leaning against the desk-rail, his felt
hat pushed far back on his head, his eyes fixed on some point in
the interior of China.
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