Beggar’s Choice Read Online Free PDF

business. He wanted me to be a sort of agent— you know .”
    â€œI don’t yet.”
    â€œHow dull of you!”
    â€œYes. What was the business?”
    Fay blew out a cloud of smoke. It hung in the air like a shifting veil. She could have wished it thicker, because Car’s eyes——
    â€œWell, that’s just it.” She laughed, not very successfully. “That’s just it, you see—because I suppose it’s a sort of smuggling.”
    â€œWhat sort?”
    â€œI can’t see why people shouldn’t have those things if they want them and like to pay for them,” said Fay airily.
    â€œWhat things?”
    â€œOh, Car, for the Lord’s sake stop saying ‘What’!”
    â€œI will when I get an answer. What things?”
    â€œDrugs,” said Fay in a sullen whisper.

IV
    Half an hour later Car felt as if he was still playing blindman’s buff in the crowd of Fay’s evasions—shifting, half caught, but never plainly grasped. If she made a statement, it was only to qualify it with the next breath. If he thought he had touched fact, it slipped from him and was gone. From standing over her, he had taken to pacing the room as a relief to his impatience. He had come to anchor now astride of a chair, his arms across its back, and in the silence that had fallen he tried to sort her story, or stories, out.
    She had taken money from Delphine and replaced it with what Fosicker had given her. But she could only have replaced it partially, since she spoke of Delphine’s finding her out. Or perhaps she had replaced it all, and had again found it convenient to “borrow.” When pressed, she slid away. Fosicker frightened her. “If he gets his knife into you, you’re done —every one says so. There was a girl—” And then Fay’s bitten lip, and the jerk of the head which sent a shower of ash all over her bare neck. One thing emerged with the utmost clearness—Fay was frightened, and the farther they got with this game of blindman’s buff, the more plainly did it appear that she had reason.
    As far as he could piece it together, Fosicker carried on a lucrative business selling forbidden drugs. But Fosicker took care to run no risks himself. Why should he when he could get fools like Fay to take them for him? And if they kicked, they could be threatened with exposure to Delphine. Yes, that was how it was worked.
    He looked over the top of Fay’s head rather grimly. It was a pity the great Lymington smash hadn’t happened just one week earlier. Car’s cynicism decided that Fay Everitt would probably not have entered into matrimony with the son of a ruined man. It seemed to him that Peter was likely to pay pretty dear for his secret marriage. Meanwhile Peter was in America and Fay was his wife, and some one had got to get her out of this beastly mess.
    â€œI think you might say something,” said Fay.
    â€œI don’t know what to say. You’ve pretty well torn it, haven’t you?”
    â€œIf I had five hundred pounds——”
    â€œYes—what would you do with it?”
    â€œSquare things up and get out of the country.”
    â€œYou owe Delphine five hundred pounds?” The euphemism left a bitter flavor in his mouth. Owe? Good Lord, she’d stolen the money! But five hundred—even in the most careless establishment!
    â€œNo, of course not!” Her tone was virtuously surprised.
    â€œWhat do you—owe?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know. Fosicker gave me fifty last week, and that—let me see——” She plunged into calculations. “It’s awfully hard to say exactly—but not more than three hundred or three-fifty.”
    â€œOh, not more than that!”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. You see it all goes through my hands, and sometimes I’m nearly square, and then sometimes I’m a good bit down.”
    â€œI