The Valley of Fear, Arthur Conan Doyle [books to read in your 30s TXT] 📗

versed in the life of the cities of the North, of Detroit, and the lumber camps of Michigan, and finally of Chicago, where he had worked in a planing mill. And afterwards came the hint of romance, the feeling that strange things had happened to him in that great city, so strange and so intimate that they might not be spoken of. He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy⁠—those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love.

McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper; for he was a well-educated man. This kept him out most of the day, and he had not found occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge of the Eminent Order of Freemen. He was reminded of his omission, however, by a visit one evening from Mike Scanlan, the fellow member whom he had met in the train. Scanlan, the small, sharp-faced, nervous, black-eyed man, seemed glad to see him once more. After a glass or two of whisky he broached the object of his visit.

“Say, McMurdo,” said he, “I remembered your address, so I made bold to call. I’m surprised that you’ve not reported to the Bodymaster. Why haven’t you seen Boss McGinty yet?”

“Well, I had to find a job. I have been busy.”

“You must find time for him if you have none for anything else. Good Lord, man! you’re a fool not to have been down to the Union House and registered your name the first morning after you came here! If you run against him⁠—well, you mustn’t, that’s all!”

McMurdo showed mild surprise. “I’ve been a member of the lodge for over two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that duties were so pressing as all that.”

“Maybe not in Chicago.”

“Well, it’s the same society here.”

“Is it?”

Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly. There was something sinister in his eyes.

“Isn’t it?”

“You’ll tell me that in a month’s time. I hear you had a talk with the patrolmen after I left the train.”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, it got about⁠—things do get about for good and for bad in this district.”

“Well, yes. I told the hounds what I thought of them.”

“By the Lord, you’ll be a man after McGinty’s heart!”

“What, does he hate the police too?”

Scanlan burst out laughing. “You go and see him, my lad,” said he as he took his leave. “It’s not the police but you that he’ll hate if you don’t! Now, take a friend’s advice and go at once!”

It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more pressing interview which urged him in the same direction. It may have been that his attentions to Ettie had been more evident than before, or that they had gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his good German host; but, whatever the cause, the boardinghouse keeper beckoned the young man into his private room and started on the subject without any circumlocution.

“It seems to me, mister,” said he, “that you are gettin’ set on my Ettie. Ain’t that so, or am I wrong?”

“Yes, that is so,” the young man answered.

“Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain’t no manner of use. There’s someone slipped in afore you.”

“She told me so.”

“Vell, you can lay that she told you truth. But did she tell you who it vas?”

“No, I asked her; but she wouldn’t tell.”

“I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to frighten you avay.”

“Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment.

“Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him. It is Teddy Baldwin.”

“And who the devil is he?”

“He is a boss of Scowrers.”

“Scowrers! I’ve heard of them before. It’s Scowrers here and Scowrers there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are the Scowrers?”

The boardinghouse keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone did who talked about that terrible society. “The Scowrers,” said he, “are the Eminent Order of Freemen!”

The young man stared. “Why, I am a member of that order myself.”

“You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it⁠—not if you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a week.”

“What’s wrong with the order? It’s for charity and good fellowship. The rules say so.”

“Maybe in some places. Not here!”

“What is it here?”

“It’s a murder society, that’s vat it is.”

McMurdo laughed incredulously. “How can you prove that?” he asked.

“Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milman and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a voman in this valley vat does not know it?”

“See here!” said McMurdo earnestly. “I want you to take back what you’ve said, or else make it good. One or the other you must do before I quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, a stranger in the town. I belong to a society that I know only as an innocent one. You’ll find it through the length and breadth of the States, but always as an innocent one. Now, when I am counting upon joining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murder society called the Scowrers. I guess you owe me either an apology or else an explanation, Mr. Shafter.”

“I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bosses of the one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it is the other vat vill strike you. We have proved it too often.”

“That’s just gossip⁠—I want proof!” said McMurdo.

“If you live here long you vill get your proof. But I forget that you are yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as the rest. But you vill find other