Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-04-02
CHAPTER XIII.

L
Describes the Man From Nowhere.
Late that same night, in the small
and rather well-furnished dining room
of fat close to Addison Road sta
ton. the beetfe-broWed man known to
some as John Adams and to others
as Jean Adam was seated in com
sortable arm chair smoking cigar
cite.
He was no longer the shabby, half
famished looking stranger, who had
been watching outside Stathanls
house in Park Lane, but rather dan1-
flied in his neat dinner jacket, glossy
shirt-front, and black tie. Adventurer
was written. all. over his face. He
was a man whose whole life history
had been a romance and who had
knocked about in various odd and
out of the way corners of the world.
A cosmopolitan to the backbone, he.
like his friends Leonard Lyle, whom
he was at that moment expecting,
hated the trammels of civilized So
ciety. and their lives had mostly been
soent in places where human life was
- 80, and where Justice was I'M
known.
one in that small room where the
dinner cloth had been removed and
decanter and glasses had been placed
by his one elderly serving woman,
who had now gone for the night, he
was muttering to himself as he smok-
ed-murmuring incoherent words that
sounded much like threats.
1t was difficult to recognize in this
well-groomed gentlemanly looking
man, with the diamond in his shirt.
front and the sparkling ring upon his
finger, the low-looking tramp whose
eyes had encountered those of the
man whose ruin he now sought to en-
compass.
In half dozen capitals of the
world he was known us Jean Adam
for he spoke French perfectly, and
passed as a French subject, native
of Algiers; but in London, New York,
and Montreal he was known as the
wandering and adventurous English
man John Adams.
Whether he was really English was
doubtful True, he spoke English
without the slightest trace of accent,
yet sometimes, in his gesture. when
unduly excited. there was unconscious
ly betrayed his foreign birth
His French was as perfect as his
English. He spoke with an accent o!
that he could at the same time speak
the pure, unauthorized Cockney
slang.
He had just glanced at his watch
and knit his brows when the electric
bell rang, and lie rose to admit a
short, triangular-faced, queer-looking
little old man, whose back was bent
and whose body seemed too large fol
his legs He, too was in evening
dress. and carried his overcoat across
his arm.
81 began to fear. old chap. that YOU
couldn't come Adams exclaimed, as
he hung his friends coat in the mar
row hall "You didn't acknowledge m,
wire"
81 couldn't until too late. I was
out" the other explained, in a tone 0
apology. We'll" he asked, with
sigh, as he stretched himself before
he seated himself in the profferet
chair, what has happened?"
"a lot, my dear fellow. We shall
come out on top yet
BE more explicit. What do yo
mean?"
What ! say" was Adams re
sporse I've seen old Statham te
day"
''And he's seen you-eh?"
of course he has And he's scare
or Of his senses-thinks he's seen
ghost. most likely he laughed. in TT
umph. "But he'll find I'm much NOR
tran ghost before he's much olde
the canting old blackguard."
Lyle thought for a second.
1.-THE sight of you has forearme
him! 1t was rather iniudicious ju:
at this moment, wasn't it,"
mot at all / meant to give him
surprise. If I'd have gone up to til
house rung the bell, and asked to Sc
him, | should have been refused H
sees absolutely nobody, for there's
mystery connected with the hous
Nobody has ever been inside