The red-curtained windows reflected a ruddy chequer upon the trampled snow, and men were coming up by twos and threes from the river craft, one and all wending their way to that low-browed house which seemed to be doing such a roaring trade.
"Let's take a look inside," Ray suggested in a whisper. "We might hear something."
So together we turned back, and entered the low-built, old-fashioned place.
Within, we found them all discussing the mysterious death of Jim Pavely.
Mostly English were the bronzed, weather-beaten men of the sea and the longshoremen who were smoking and drinking, and talking so earnestly, but a few foreigners were among them. There were two or three Frenchmen, dapper fellows in well-made pea-jackets and berets, who had rowed ashore from the big white yawl flying the tricolour, which had been lying off Heybridge waiting, so we heard, for a change from the present icy weather before going to sea again; and there were also a fair number of Swedes and Norwegians from the two timber-ships whose spars, we had noticed, towered above the rows of smaller and stumpier masts belonging to the local and coasting craft which lay alongside the Hithe. Then there was the first mate of one of the timber-ships, supposed by most of those present to be a German. At any rate, he seemed to be trying hard to carry on a conversation with the fair-haired landlord, an undoubted immigrant from the Fatherland.
From one of the seafaring customers with whom I began to chat, I learned that the keeper of the place was named Leopold Bramberger, and that he had been established in that little river-side hostelry rather more than a year, and was now a well-known and more or less respected inhabitant of the borough of Maldon. He had made a little money--so it was generally understood--in the course of some years' service at the Carlton Hotel in London as waiter. And a good waiter he certainly was, as many people living in that part of the country could testify; since he found time to go out as "an extra hand" to many a dinner-party; his services being much appreciated and bringing him in quite a comfortable little addition to what he made by the sale of drink down by the Blackwater. But he did not seem very anxious to talk with his compatriot; indeed, so frequent were the demands made for "another pot of four 'arf," "two of gin 'ot," "another glass of Scotch," and other delectable beverages, that he and his better half had all they could do to grapple with the wants of their customers.