There, by a pretended accident, he contrived
to introduce the question of the money; but you had no light to volunteer
on the subject, Larcher, and Davenport didn't see fit to press you. As
for your knowing him to have the money in his possession, and your
eventual inferences if he should disappear without using it for Bagley,
the fact would come out anyhow as soon as Bagley returned to New York.
And whatever you would think, either in condemnation or justification,
would be thought of the old Murray Davenport. It wouldn't matter to the
new man. During that last talk with you, Davenport had such an impulse of
communicativeness--such a desire for a moment's relief from his
long-maintained secrecy--that he was on the verge of confiding his
project to you, under bond of silence. But he mastered the impulse; and
you had no sooner gone than he made his final preparations.
"He left the house next morning immediately after breakfast, with as few
belongings as possible. He didn't even wear an overcoat. Besides the
Bagley money, he had a considerable sum of his own, mostly the result of
his collaboration with you, Larcher. In a paper parcel, he carried a few
instruments from those he had kept since his surgical days, a set of
shaving materials, and some theatrical make-up pencils he had bought the
day before. He was satisfied to leave his other possessions to their
fate. He paid his landlady in advance to a time by which she couldn't
help feeling that he was gone for good; she would provide for a new
tenant accordingly, and so nobody would be a loser by his act.
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