“Kemper?” the gambler with the dirty face said, rising from his stool. “I’ve heard of a cove called Kemper. A cheat, they call him.”

“Then they lie, don’t they?” Kemper told him. “Now sit back down, ye piebald cur.”

“I’ll not sit at table with a card sharp!”

“Play, or leave, ’tis all the same to me.”

“You’ve been taking my wages all day!” the gambler shouted. “Let me see those damned cards of yours. They must be marked!”

“Sit an’ play,” Kemper repeated.

Malden jumped back as the gambler grabbed up the table and hurled it aside. Coins and cards went flying as he rushed at Kemper, his belt knife suddenly in his hand. Kemper did not rise from his seat as the gambler thrust the knife again and again into his chest.

There were screams and shouts from every corner of the room, and the barkeep stormed out from his post with a hand spike, but it was already over. The gambler had gone milky white and stared at the knife in his hand. There was no blood on it. He staggered backward, and Malden saw that Kemper was unharmed, sitting with perfect composure on his stool, still holding his cards.

“Clean this up, then,” Kemper said to the gambler, “and get back t’playin’, a’ready.”

The dirty-faced gambler ran gibbering from the barroom. The others eased away from Kemper as if they’d seen a demon jump up and save him from the knife. All but one of the cardsmen, anyway, who bent down to anxiously grab up coins from the floor.

“Leave ’em,” Kemper insisted. “They’s mine. For me trouble, like.”

The greedy gamester nodded and hurried off.

“Ah, lad, yer timin’ is not of the best. Yet I’m glad to see ye, I am,” Kemper said, and finally rose from his stool. He pushed his cards in his pocket and stepped toward Malden.

“That knife—his aim was deadly serious,” Malden said. He wondered if his face showed as much shock as he felt. “Yet there’s no drop of blood on you.”

Kemper laughed. “Here, shake me hand an’ see why.” He held out a callused and scarred hand, and Malden reached to take it.

It could not be done, however. Malden’s hand passed right through Kemper’s as though it weren’t there. He felt nothing more than a cold clamminess, as if he’d tried to hold a wisp of fog. He gasped and grabbed at the man’s arms and then his hair, unbelieving. He could not touch the man at all. He might as well try to grapple with his own reflection in a mirror.

“You’re—a ghost,” Malden said.

“A livin’ ghost,” Kemper agreed. “Which’s the saddest contrary I ken.”

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Four