His sunburned skin was black with the surge of blood in it, and his tobacco-stained teeth were exposed by the snarling lips. Jim shivered and involuntarily cowered. There was death in the man he looked at. Only the night before that black-faced man had killed another with his hands, and it had not hurt his sleep. And in his own heart Jim was aware of a sneaking guilt, of a train of thought that merited all that was threatened.
Matt passed out, leaving him still shivering. Then a hatred twisted his own face, and he softly hurled savage curses at the door. He remembered the jewels, and hastened to the bed, feeling under the pillow for the bandanna bundle. He crushed it with his fingers to make certain that it still contained the diamonds. Assured that Matt had not carried them away, he looked toward the kerosene stove with a guilty start. Then he hurriedly lighted it, filled the coffee-pot at the sink, and put it over the flame.
The coffee was boiling when Matt returned, and while the latter cut the bread and put a slice of butter on the table, Jim poured out the coffee. It was not until he sat down and had taken a few sips of the coffee, that Matt pulled out the morning paper from his pocket.
'We was way off,' he said. 'I told you I didn't dast figger out how fat it was. Look at that.'
He pointed to the head-lines on the first page.
'SWIFT NEMESIS ON BUJANNOFF'S TRACK,' they read. 'MURDERED IN HIS SLEEP AFTER ROBBING HIS PARTNER.'
'There you have it!' Matt cried. 'He robbed his partner-robbed him like a dirty thief.'
'Half a million of jewels missin',' Jim read aloud. He put the paper down and stared at Matt.
'That's what I told you,' the latter said. 'What in hell do we know about jools? Half a million!-an' the best I could figger it was a hundred thousan'. Go on an' read the rest of it.'
They read on silently, their heads side by side, the untouched coffee growing cold; and ever and anon one or the other burst forth with some salient printed fact.
'I'd like to seen Metzner's face when he opened the safe at the store this mornin',' Jim gloated.
'He hit the high places right away for Bujannoff's house,' Matt explained. 'Go on an' read.'
'Was to have sailed last night at ten on the Sajoda for the South Seas -steamship delayed by extra freight-'
'That's why we caught 'm in bed,' Matt interrupted. 'It was just luck-like pickin' a fifty-to-one winner.'
'Sajoda sailed at six this mornin'-'
'He didn't catch her,' Matt said. 'I saw his alarm-clock was set at five. That'd given 'm plenty of time… only I come along an' put the kibosh on his time. Go on.'
'Adolph Metzner in despair-the famous Haythorne pearl necklace-magnificently assorted pearls-valued by experts at from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars.'
Jim broke off to swear vilely and solemnly, concluding with, 'Those damn oyster-eggs worth all that money!'
He licked his lips and added, 'They was beauties an' no mistake.'
'Big Brazilian gem,' he read on. 'Eighty thousan' dollars-many valuable gems of the first water-several thousan' small diamonds well worth forty thousan'.'
'What you don't know about jools is worth knowin',' Matt smiled good-humouredly.
'Theory of the sleuths,' Jim read. 'Thieves must have known-cleverly kept watch on Bujannoff's actions-must have learned his plan and trailed him to his house with the fruits of his robbery-'
'Clever-hell!' Matt broke out. 'That's the way reputations is made… in the noospapers. How'd we know he was robbin' his pardner?'
'Anyway, we've got the goods,' Jim grinned. 'Let's look at 'em again.'
He assured himself that the door was locked and bolted, while Matt brought out the bundle in the bandanna and opened it on the table.
'Ain't they beauties, though!' Jim exclaimed at sight of the pearls; and for a time he had eyes only for them. 'Accordin' to the experts, worth from fifty to seventy thousan' dollars.'
'An' women like them things,' Matt commented. 'An' they'll do everything to get 'em-sell themselves, commit murder, anything.'
'Just like you an' me.'
'Not on your life,' Matt retorted. 'I'll commit murder for 'em, but not for their own sakes, but for sake of what they'll get me. That's the difference. Women want the jools for themselves, an' I want the jools for the women an' such things they'll get me.'
'Lucky that men an' women don't want the same things,' Jim remarked.
'That's what makes commerce,' Matt agreed; 'people wantin' different things.'
In the middle of the afternoon Jim went out to buy food. While he was gone, Matt cleared the table of the jewels, wrapping them up as before and putting them under the pillow. Then he lighted the kerosene stove and started to boil water for coffee. A few minutes later, Jim returned.
'Most surprising,' he remarked. 'Streets, an' stores, an' people just like they always was. Nothin' changed. An' me walking along through it all a millionaire. Nobody looked at me an' guessed it.'
Matt grunted unsympathetically. He had little comprehension of the lighter whims and fancies of his partner's imagination.
'Did you get a porterhouse?' he demanded.
'Sure, an' an inch thick. It's a peach. Look at it.'
He unwrapped the steak and held it up for the other's inspection. Then he made the coffee and set the table, while Matt fried the steak.
'Don't put on too much of them red peppers,' Jim warned. 'I ain't used to your Mexican cookin'. You always season too hot.'
Matt grunted a laugh and went on with his cooking. Jim poured out the coffee, but first, into the nicked china cup, he emptied a powder he had carried in his vest pocket wrapped in a rice-paper. He had turned his back for the moment on his partner, but he did not dare to glance around at him. Matt placed a newspaper on the table, and on the newspaper set the hot frying-pan. He cut the steak in half, and served Jim and himself.
'Eat her while she's hot,' he counselled, and with knife and fork set the example.
'She's a dandy,' was Jim's judgment, after his first mouthful. 'But I tell you one thing straight. I'm never goin' to visit you on that Arizona ranch, so you needn't ask me.'
'What's the matter now?' Matt asked.
'Hell's the matter,' was the answer. 'The Mexican cookin' on your ranch'd be too much for me. If I've got hell a-comin' in the next life, I'm not goin' to torment my insides in this one. Damned peppers!'
He smiled, expelled his breath forcibly to cool his burning mouth, drank some coffee, and went on eating the steak.
'What do you think about the next life anyway, Matt?' he asked a little later, while secretly he wondered why the other had not yet touched his coffee.
'Ain't no next life,' Matt answered, pausing from the steak to take his first sip of coffee. 'Nor heaven nor hell, nor nothin'. You get all that's comin' right here in this life.'
'An' afterward?' Jim queried out of his morbid curiosity, for he knew that he looked upon a man that was soon to die. 'An' afterward?' he repeated.
'Did you ever see a man two weeks dead?' the other asked.
Jim shook his head.
'Well, I have. He was like this beefsteak you an' me is eatin'. It was once steer cavortin' over the landscape. But now it's just meat. That's all, just meat. An' that's what you an' me an' all people come to-meat.'
Matt gulped down the whole cup of coffee, and refilled the cup.
'Are you scared to die?' he asked.
Jim shook his head. 'What's the use? I don't die anyway. I pass on an' live again-'
'To go stealin', an' lyin' an' snivellin' through another life, an' go on that way forever an' ever an' ever?' Matt sneered.
'Maybe I'll improve,' Jim suggested hopefully. 'Maybe stealin' won't be necessary in the life to come.'
He ceased abruptly, and stared straight before him, a frightened expression on his face.
'What's the matter!' Matt demanded.
'Nothin'. I was just wonderin''-Jim returned to himself with an effort-'about this dyin', that was all.'
