★ 4 ★
Molly
“Why, Molly,” said the policeman, “what are you doing out of bed? I thought you were asleep.”
He placed a huge arm round her and drew her on to his lap. As she sat there his great bulk made her seem smaller than she really was. With her hair down, and her little red slippers dangling half a yard from the floor, she seemed a child. McEachern, looking at her, found it hard to realise that nineteen years had passed since the moment when the doctor’s raised eyebrows had reproved him for his monosyllabic reception of the news that the baby was a girl.
“Do you know what the time is?” he said. “Two o’clock.”
“Much too late for you to be sitting here smoking,” said Molly severely. “How many cigars do you smoke a day? Suppose you had married some one who wouldn’t let you smoke!”
“Never stop your husband smoking, my dear. That’s a bit of advice for you when you’re married.”
“I’m never going to marry. I’m going to stop at home and darn your socks.”
“I wish you could,” he said, drawing her closer to him. “But one of these days you’re going to marry a prince. And now run back to bed. It’s much too late——”
“It’s no good, father dear. I couldn’t get to sleep. I’ve been trying hard for hours. I’ve counted sheep till I nearly screamed. It’s Rastus’s fault; he snores so.”
Mr. McEachern regarded the erring bulldog sternly.
“Why do you have the brutes in your room?”
“Why, to keep the boogaboos from getting me of course. Aren’t you afraid of the boogaboos getting you? But you’re so big, you wouldn’t mind. You’d just hit them. And they’re not brutes—are you, darlings? You’re angels, and you nearly burst yourselves with joy because auntie had come back from England, didn’t you? Father, did they miss me when I was gone? Did they pine away?”
“They got like skeletons. We all did.”
“You?”
“I should say so.”
“Then why did you send me away?”
“I wanted you to see the country. Did you like it?”
“I hated being away from you.”
“But you liked the country?”
“I loved it.”
McEachern drew a breath of relief. The only possible obstacle to the great change did not exist.
“How would you like to go back to England, Molly?”
“To England. When I’ve just come home?”
“If I went, too?”
Molly twisted round so that she could see his face better.
“There’s something the matter with you, father. You’re trying to say something, and I want to know what it is. Tell me quick, or I’ll make Rastus bite you!”
“It won’t take long, dear. I’ve been lucky in some investments while you were away, and I’m going to leave the Force, and take you over to England and find a prince for you to marry—if you think you would like it.”
“Father! It’ll be perfectly splendid!”
She kissed him.
“What are you looking so thoughtful about, father?”
“Molly, I want to tell you something I have never told you before. I am English. I only took the name McEachern because they thought it would help me in the Force. Our real name is Forrest.”
“Father! But why haven’t you ever told me before?”
“I was afraid you might ask questions and find out things.”
She looked quickly at him.
“I was sent to America,” he went on, “because I was expelled from school for stealing.”
There was a silence. She caught the arm that was round her waist and gave it a little squeeze.
“What does it matter what you did when you were only a boy?” she said.
He did not look at her. There was a dull flush on his cheeks.
“We’ll go home, Molly,” he said. “I had a place in society over there till I threw it away, and, by Heaven, I’m going to get it back for you. You shall have a fair show, whatever I may have done. We shall not take the old name again. None of the return of the black sheep for me! I won’t have people looking down on you because your father——”
“But, father dear, it was so long ago. What does it matter? Who would remember?”
“Never mind. I couldn’t risk it. They might say what they pleased about me, but you’re going to start fair. Who’s to recognise me after all these years? I’m just John McEachern from America, and if anybody wants to know anything about me, I’m a man who has made money on Wall Street—and that’s no lie—and has come over to England to spend it.” Molly gave his arm another squeeze. Her eyes were wet.
“Father dear,” she whispered, “I believe you’ve been doing it all for me. You’ve been slaving away for me ever since I was born, stinting yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good time later on.”
“No, no!”
“It’s true,” she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. “I don’t believe you’ve had enough to eat for years. I believe you’re all skin and bone. Never mind. To-morrow I’ll take you out and buy you the best dinner you’ve ever had out of my own money. We’ll go to the Ritz, and you shall start at the top of the menu and go straight down till you’ve had enough.”
“That will make up for everything. And now don’t you think you ought to be going to bed? You’ll be losing all that color you got on the ship.”
“Soon. Not just yet. I haven’t seen you for such ages.” She pointed at the bull-terrier. “Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He can’t believe I’ve really come back. Father, there was a man on the Mauretania with eyes exactly like Tommy’s—all brown and bright—and he used to stand and stare just like Tommy’s doing.”
“If I had been there,” said her father wrathfully, “I’d have knocked his head off.”
“No, you wouldn’t, because I’m sure he was really a very nice young man. He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn’t have got at him to knock his head off, because he was travelling second-class.”
“Second-class? Then you didn’t talk with him?”
“We couldn’t. You wouldn’t expect him to shout at me across the railing! Only whenever I walked round the deck he seemed to be there.”
“Staring?”
“He may not have been staring at me. Probably he was just looking the way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I don’t think you can make much of a romance out of it, father.”
“I don’t want to, my dear. Princes don’t travel in the second cabin.”
“He may have been a prince in disguise.”
“More likely a commercial traveller,” grunted Mr. McEachern.
“Commercial travellers are often quite nice.”
“Princes are nicer.”
“Well, I’ll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of. Come along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can’t you behave like Rastus? Still, you don’t snore, do you? Aren’t you going to bed soon, father? I believe you’ve been sitting up late and getting into all sorts of bad habits while I’ve been away. I’m sure you have been smoking too much. When you’ve finished that cigar you’re not even to think of another till to-morrow. Promise!”
“Not one!”
“Not one. I’m not going to have my father getting like the people you read about in the magazine advertisements. You don’t want to feel sudden shooting pains, do you?”
“No, my dear.”
“And have to take some awful medicine?”
“No.”
“Then promise.”
“Very well, my dear. I promise.”
As the door closed he threw away the stump he was smoking, and remained for a few moments in thought.
Then he drew another cigar from his case, lit it, and resumed the study of the little note-book.
★ 5 ★
A Thief in the Night
How long the light had been darting about the room like a very-much-enlarged firefly Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like hours, for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his; and for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he fancied that he was dreaming still. Then sleep left him, and he realised that the light, which was now moving slowly across the bookcase, was a real light.
That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or he would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be taking the room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly, and gripped the arms of the chair in readiness for a spring, the light passed from the bookcase to the table. Another foot or so to the left, and it would have fallen on Jimmy.
On it came. From the position of the ray Jimmy could see that the burglar was approaching on his side of the table. Though, until that day, he had not been in the room for two months, its geography was clearly stamped on his mind’s eye. He knew almost to a foot where his visitor was standing. Consequently when, rising swiftly from the chair he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no speculative dive. It had a conscious aim, and it was not restrained by any uncertainty as to whether the road to the burglar’s knees was clear or not.
His shoulder bumped into a human leg. His arms closed instantaneously on it and pulled. There was a yelp of dismay and a crash. The lantern bounced away across the room and wrecked itself on the roof of the steam-heater. Its owner collapsed in a heap on top of Jimmy.
Jimmy, underneath at the fall, speedily put himself uppermost with a twist of his body. He had every advantage. The burglar was a small man, and had been taken very much by surprise, and any fight there might have been in him in normal circumstances had been shaken out of him by the fall. He lay still, not attempting to struggle.
Jimmy half rose and, pulling his prisoner by inches to the door, felt up the wall till he found the electric-light button.
The yellow glow which flooded the room disclosed a short, stocky youth of obviously Bowery extraction. A shock of vivid red hair was the first thing about him that caught the eye. A poet would have described it as Titian. Its proprietor’s friends and acquaintances probably called it “carrots”. Looking up at Jimmy from under this wealth of crimson was a not unpleasing face. It was not handsome certainly, but there were suggestions of a latent good-humour. The nose had been broken at one period of its career, and one of the ears was undeniably of the cauliflower type; but these are little accidents which may happen to any high-spirited young gentleman. In costume the visitor had evidently been guided rather by individual taste than by the dictates of fashion. His coat was of rusty-black, his trousers of grey, picked out with stains of various colours. Beneath the coat was a faded red-and-white sweater. A hat of soft felt lay on the floor by the table.
The cut of the coat was poor, and the sit of it spoiled by a bulge in one of the pockets. Diagnosing this bulge correctly, Jimmy inserted his hand and drew out a dingy revolver.
“Well?” he said, rising.
Like most people, he had often wondered what he should do if he were to meet a burglar; and he had always come to the conclusion that curiosity would be his chief emotion. His anticipations had proved perfectly correct. Now that he had abstracted his visitor’s gun he had no wish to do anything but engage him in conversation. A burglar’s life was something so entirely outside his experience. He wanted to learn the burglar’s point of view. Incidentally, he reflected with amusement, as he recalled his wager, he might pick up a few useful hints.
The man on the floor sat up and rubbed the back of his head ruefully.
“Gee!” he muttered. “I t’ought some guy had t’rown de building at me.”
“It was only little me,” said Jimmy. “Sorry if I hurt you at all. You really want a mat for that sort of thing.”
The man’s hand went furtively to his pocket. Then his eye caught sight of the revolver, which Jimmy had placed on the table. With a sudden dash he seized it.
“Now den, boss!” he said, between his teeth.
Jimmy extended his hand towards him and unclasped it. Six cartridges lay in the palm.
“Why worry?” he said. “Sit down and let us talk of life.”
“It’s a fair cop, boss,” said the man resignedly.
“Away with melancholy,” said Jimmy. “I’m not going to call the police. You can go whenever you like.”
The man stared.
“I mean it,” said Jimmy. “What’s the trouble? I’ve no grievance. I wish, though, if you haven’t any important engagement, you would stop and talk awhile first.”
A broad grin spread itself across the other’s face. There was something singularly engaging about him when he grinned.
“Gee! If youse ain’t goin’ to call de cops, I’ll talk till de chickens roost again.”
“Talking, however,” said Jimmy, “is dry work. Are you a teetotaller?”
“What’s dat? Me? On your way, boss!”
“Then you’ll find a pretty decent whisky in that decanter. Help yourself. I think you’ll like it.”
A musical gurgling, followed by a contented sigh, showed that the statement had been tested and proved correct.
“Cigar?” asked Jimmy.
“Me fer dat,” assented his visitor.
“Take a handful.”
“I eats dem alive,” said the marauder jovially, gathering in the spoils.
Jimmy crossed his legs.
“By the way,” he said, “let there be no secrets between us. What’s your name? Mine is Pitt—James Willoughby Pitt.”
“Mullins is my monaker, boss. Spike, dey calls me.”
“And you make a living at this sort of thing?”
“Not so bad.”
“How did you get in here?”
Spike Mullins grinned.
“Gee! Ain’t de window open?”
“If it hadn’t been?”
“I’d a’ busted it.”
Jimmy eyed him fixedly.
“Can you use an oxyacetylene blow-pipe?” he demanded.
Spike was on the point of drinking. He lowered his glass and gaped.
“What’s dat?” he said.
“An oxyacetylene blow-pipe.”
“Search me,” said Spike blankly. “Dat gets past me.”
Jimmy’s manner grew more severe.
“Can you make soup?”
“Soup, boss?”
“He doesn’t know what soup is,” said Jimmy despairingly. “My good man, I’m afraid you have missed your vocation. You have no business to be trying to burgle. You don’t know the first thing about the game.”
Spike was regarding him with furtive disquiet over his glass. Till now the red-haired one had been very well satisfied with his methods, but criticism was beginning to sap his nerve. He had heard tales of masters of his craft who made use of fearsome implements such as Jimmy had mentioned; burglars who had an airy acquaintanceship, bordering on insolent familiarity, with the marvels of science; men to whom the latest inventions were as familiar as his own jemmy was to himself. Could this be one of that select band? Jimmy began to take on a new aspect in his eyes.
“Spike,” said Jimmy.
“Huh!”
“Have you a thorough knowledge of chemistry, physics——”
“On your way, boss!”
“Toxicology——”
“Search me!”
“Electricity and microscopy?”
“Nine, ten. Dat’s de finish. I’m down and out.”
Jimmy shook his head sadly.
“Give up burglary,” he said. “It’s not in your line. Better try poultry-farming.”
Spike twiddled his glass, abashed.
“Now I,” said Jimmy airily, “am thinking of breaking into a house to-night.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Spike, his suspicions confirmed at last. “I t’ought youse was in de game, boss. Sure, you’re de guy dat’s onto all de curves. I t’ought so all along.”
“I should like to hear,” said Jimmy amusedly, as one who draws out an intelligent child, “how you would set about burgling one of those up-town villas. My own work has been on a somewhat larger scale and on the other side of the Atlantic.”
“De odder side?”
“I have done as much in London as anywhere else,” said Jimmy. “A great town, London. Full of opportunities for the fine worker. Did you hear of the cracking of the new Asiatic Bank in Lombard Street?”
“No, boss,” whispered Spike. “Was dat you?”
“The police would like an answer to the same question,” he said self-consciously. “Perhaps you heard nothing of the disappearance of the Duchess of Havent’s diamonds?”
“Was dat——?”
“The thief,” said Jimmy, flicking a speck of dust from his coat-sleeve, “was discovered to have used an oxyacetylene blow-pipe.”
The rapturous intake of Spike’s breath was the only sound that broke the silence. Through the smoke his eyes could be seen slowly widening.
“But about this villa,” said Jimmy. “I am always interested even in the humblest sides of the profession. Now, tell me, supposing you were going to break into a villa, what time of night would you do it?”
“I always t’inks it’s best either late like dis or when de folks is in at supper,” said Spike respectfully.
Jimmy smiled a faint, patronizing smile, and nodded.
“Well, and what would you do?”
“I’d rubber around some to see isn’t dere a window open somewheres,” said Spike diffidently.
“And if there wasn’t?”
“I’d climb up de porch and into one of de bedrooms,” said Spike, almost blushing. He felt like a boy reading his first attempts at original poetry to an established critic. What would this master cracksman, this polished wielder of the oxyacetylene blow-pipe, this expert in toxicology, microscopy, and physics, think of his callow outpourings?
“How would you get into the bedroom?”
Spike hung his head.
“Bust de catch wit me jemmy,” he whispered shamefacedly.
“Burst the catch with your jemmy?”
“It’s de only way I ever learned,” pleaded Spike.
The expert was silent. He seemed to be thinking. The other watched his face humbly.
“How would youse do it, boss?” he ventured timidly, at last.
“Eh?”
“How would youse do it?”
“Why, I’m not sure,” said the master graciously, “whether your way might not do in a case like that. It’s crude, of course, but with a few changes it would do.”
“Gee, boss! Is dat right?” queried the astonished disciple.
“It would do,” said the master, frowning thoughtfully. “It would do quite well—quite well.”
Spike drew a deep breath of joy and astonishment. That his methods should meet with approval from such a mind!
“Gee!” he whispered. As who should say, “I am Napoleon.”
★ 6 ★
An Exhibition Performance
Cold reason may disapprove of wagers, but without a doubt there is something joyous and lovable in the type of mind which rushes at the least provocation into the making of them, something smacking of the spacious days of the Regency. Nowadays the spirit seems to have deserted England. When Mr. Lloyd George became Premier of Great Britain no earnest forms were to be observed rolling pea-nuts along the Strand with a toothpick. When Mr. George is dethroned it is improbable that any Briton will allow his beard to remain unshaved until his pet party returns to office. It is in the United States that the wager has found a home. It is characteristic of some minds to dash into a wager with the fearlessness of a soldier in a forlorn hope, and, once in, to regard it almost as a sacred trust. Some men never grow up out of the schoolboy spirit of “daring”.
To this class Jimmy Pitt belonged. He was of the same type as the man in the comic opera who proposed to the lady because somebody bet him he wouldn’t. There had never been a time when a challenge, a “dare”, had not acted as a spur to him. In his newspaper days life had been one long series of challenges. They had been the essence of the business. A story had not been worth getting unless the getting were difficult.
With the conclusion of his newspaper life came a certain flatness into the scheme of things. There were times, many times, when Jimmy was bored. He hungered for excitement, and life appeared to have so little to offer. The path of the rich man was so smooth, and it seemed to lead nowhere. This task of burgling a house was like an unexpected treat to a child. With an intensity of purpose which should have touched his sense of humour, but which, as a matter of fact, did not appeal to him as ludicrous in any way, he addressed himself to the work. The truth was that Jimmy was one of those men who are charged to the brim with force. Somehow the force had to find an outlet. If he had undertaken to collect birds’ eggs, he would have set about it with the same tense energy.
Spike was sitting on the edge of his chair, dazed but happy, his head still buzzing from the unhoped-for praise. Jimmy looked at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock. A sudden idea struck him. The gods had provided gifts—why not take them?
“Spike!”
“Huh?”
“Would you care to come and crack a crib with me now?”
“Gee, boss!”
“Would you?”
“Surest t’ing you know, boss.”
“Or, rather,” proceeded Jimmy, “would you care to crack a crib while I come along with you? Strictly speaking, I am here on vacation, but a trifle like this isn’t real work. It’s this way,” he explained. “I’ve taken a fancy to you, Spike, and I don’t like to see you wasting your time on coarse work. You have the root of the matter in you, and with a little coaching I could put a polish on you. I wouldn’t do this for every one, but I hate to see a man bungling who might do better! I want to see you at work. Come right along and we’ll go up-town and you shall start in. Don’t get nervous. Just work as you would if I were not there. I shall not expect too much. Rome was not built in a day. When we are through I will criticise a few of your mistakes. How does that suit you?”
“Gee, boss! Great! And say, I knows just de places. A friend of mine puts me wise to it. Leastways, I didn’t know he was me friend, but I falls for him now. It’s a——”
“Very well, then. One moment, though.”
He went to the telephone. Before he had left New York on his travels, Arthur Mifflin had been living at an hotel near Washington Square. It was probable that he was still there. He called up the number. The night-clerk was an old acquaintance of his.
“Hullo, Dixon!” said Jimmy, “is that you? I’m Pitt. Pitt. Yes. I’m back. How did you guess? Yes, very pleasant, thanks. Has Mr. Mifflin come in yet? Gone to bed? Never mind, ring him up, will you? Thanks.” Presently the sleepy and outraged voice of Mr. Mifflin spoke at the other end of the line.
“What’s wrong? Who the devil’s that?”
“My dear Arthur! Where you pick up such expressions I can’t think. Not from me.”
“Is that you, Jimmy? What in the name of——”
“Heavens! what are you kicking about? The night’s yet young. Arthur, touching that little arrangement we made—cracking that crib, you know. Are you listening? Have you any objection to my taking an assistant along with me? I don’t want to do anything contrary to our agreement, but there’s a young fellow here who’s anxious that I should let him come along and pick up a few hints. He’s a professional all right. Not in our class, of course, but quite a fair rough workman. He——Arthur! Arthur! These are harsh words! Then am I to understand you have no objection? Very well. Only don’t say later on that I didn’t play fair. Good night.”
He hung up the receiver and turned to Spike.
“Ready?”
“Ain’t youse goin’ to put on your gum-shoes, boss?”
Jimmy frowned reflectively, as if there was something in what this novice suggested. He went into the bedroom, and returned wearing a pair of thin patent leather shoes.
Spike coughed tentatively.
“Won’t youse need your gun?” he hazarded.
Jimmy gave a short laugh.
“I work with my brains, not guns,” he said. “Let us be going.”
There was a taxi-cab near by, as there always is in New York. Jimmy pushed Spike in.
The luxury of riding in a taxi-cab kept Spike dumb for several miles. At One Hundred and Fiftieth Street Jimmy stopped the cab and paid the driver, who took the money with that magnificently aloof air which characterizes the taxi-chauffeur. A lesser man might have displayed some curiosity about the ill-matched pair. The chauffeur, having lit a cigarette, drove off without any display of interest whatsoever. It might have been part of his ordinary duties to drive gentlemen in evening clothes and shock-headed youths in parti-coloured sweaters about the city at three o’clock in the morning.
“We will now,” said Jimmy, “stroll on and prospect. It might excite comment if we drove up to the door. It is up to you, Spike. Lead me to this house you mentioned.”
They walked on, striking eastward out of Broadway. It caused Jimmy some surprise to find that much-enduring thoroughfare extended as far as this. It had never occurred to him before to ascertain what Broadway did with itself beyond Times Square. He had spent much of his time abroad, in cities where a street changes its name every hundred yards or so without any apparent reason.
It was darker now that they had moved from the centre of things, but it was still far too light for Jimmy’s tastes. He was content, however, to leave matters entirely in his companion’s charge. Spike probably had his method for evading publicity on these occasions.
Spike, meanwhile, plodded steadily onwards. Block after block he passed, until finally the houses began to be more scattered.
At length he stopped outside a fair-sized detached house. As he did so a single rain-drop descended with a splash on the nape of Jimmy’s neck. In another moment the shower had begun—jerkily at first, then, as if warming to its work, with the quiet persistence of a shower-bath.
“Dis is de place, boss,” said Spike.
From a burglar’s point of view it was an admirable house. It had no porch, but there was a handy window only a few feet from the ground. Spike pulled from his pocket a small bottle and a piece of coarse paper.
“What’s that?” inquired Jimmy.
“Treacle, boss,” said Spike deferentially.
He poured the contents of the bottle on to the paper, which he pressed firmly against the window-pane. Then, drawing out a short steel instrument, he gave the paper a sharp tap. The glass beneath broke, though the sound was almost inaudible. The paper came away with the glass attached, then Spike inserting his hand in the opening, shot back the catch and softly pushed up the window.
“Elementary,” said Jimmy; “elementary, but quite neat.”
There was now a shutter to be negotiated. This took longer, but in the end Spike’s persuasive methods prevailed.
Jimmy became quite cordial.
“You have been well grounded, Spike,” he said. “And, after all, that is half the battle. The advice I give to every novice is, ‘Learn to walk before you try to run.’ Master the A B C of the craft first. With a little careful coaching you will do. Just so. Pop in.”
Spike climbed cautiously over the sill, followed by Jimmy. The latter struck a match and found the electric light switch. They were in a parlour furnished and decorated with surprising taste. Jimmy had expected the usual hideousness, but here everything, from the wall-paper to the smallest ornaments, was wonderfully well selected.
Business, however, was business. This was no time to stand admiring artistic efforts in room-furnishing. There was that big J to be carved on the front door. If ’twere done, then ’twere well ’twere done quickly.
He was just moving to the door, when from some distant part of the house came the bark of a dog. Another joined in. The solo became a duet. The air was filled with their clamour.
“Gee!” cried Spike.
The remark seemed more or less to sum up the situation.
“’Tis sweet,” says Byron, “to hear the watch-dog’s honest bark.” Jimmy and Spike found two watch-dogs’ honest barks cloying. Spike intimated this by making a feverish dash for the open window. Unfortunately for the success of this manoeuvre, the floor of the room was covered, not with a carpet, but with tastefully scattered rugs, and underneath these rugs it was very highly polished. Spike, treading on one of these islands, was instantly undone. No power of will or muscle can save a man in such a case. Spike skidded. His feet flew from under him. There was a momentary flash of red hair, as of a passing meteor. The next moment he had fallen on his back with a thud which shook the house, and probably the rest of Manhattan Island as well. Even in that crisis the thought flashed across Jimmy’s mind that this was not Spike’s lucky night.
Upstairs the efforts of the canine choir had begun to resemble the “A che la morte” duet in Il Trovatore. Particularly good work was being done by the baritone dog.
Spike sat up, groaning. Equipped though he was by nature with a skull of the purest and most solid ivory, the fall had disconcerted him. His eyes, like those of Shakespeare’s poet, rolling a fine frenzy, did glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. He passed his fingers tenderly through his vermilion hair.
Heavy footsteps were descending the stairs. In the distance the soprano dog had reached A in alto and was holding it, while his fellow-artiste executed runs in the lower register.
“Get up!” hissed Jimmy. “There’s somebody coming! Get up, you idiot, can’t you?”
It was characteristic of Jimmy that it never even occurred to him to desert the fallen one and depart alone. There was once an Italian convict who, in planning a jail-breaking, assigned to his brother felons such duties as shooting the governor and strangling the warders, reserving for himself the task of making “da gran’ escape”. Jimmy was the exact opposite of this strategist. Spike was his brother-in-arms. He would as soon have thought of deserting him as a sea-captain would have abandoned his ship.
Consequently, as Spike, despite all exhortations, continued to remain on the floor, rubbing his head and uttering “Gee!” at intervals in a melancholy voice, Jimmy resigned himself to fate, and stood where he was, waiting for the door to open.
It opened the next moment as if a cyclone had been behind it.
★ 7 ★
Getting Acquainted
A cyclone entering the room is apt to alter the position of things. This one shifted a footstool, a small chair, a rug, and Spike. The chair struck by a massive boot, whirled against the wall. The footstool rolled away. The rug crumpled up and slid. Spike, with a yell, leaped to his feet, slipped again, fell, and finally compromised on an all-fours position, in which attitude he remained, blinking.
While these stirring acts were in progress there was the sound of a door opening upstairs, followed by a scuttering of feet and an appalling increase in the canine contribution to the current noises. The duet had now taken on quite a Wagnerian effect.
There raced into the room first a white bull-terrier, he of the soprano voice, and—a bad second—his fellow-artiste, the baritone, a massive bulldog, bearing a striking resemblance to the big man with the revolver.
And then, in theatrical parlance, the entire company “held the picture”. Up-stage, with his hand still on the door, stood the large householder; down-stage Jimmy. Centre, Spike and the bulldog, their noses, a couple of inches apart, inspected each other with mutual disfavour. On the extreme O.P. side the bull-terrier, who had fallen foul of a wickerwork table, was crouching with extended tongue and rolling eyes, waiting for the next move.
The householder looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the householder. Spike and the bulldog looked at each other. The bull-terrier distributed his gaze impartially around the company.
“A typical scene of quiet American home-life,” murmured Jimmy.
The man with the pistol glowered.
“Hands up, you devils!” he roared, pointing a mammoth revolver.
The two marauders humoured his whim.
“Let me explain,” said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily round in order to face the bull-terrier, who was now strolling in his direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.
“Keep still, you blackguard!”
Jimmy kept still. The bull-terrier, with the same abstracted air, was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser-leg.
Relations between Spike and the bulldog, meanwhile, had become more strained. The sudden flinging up of the former’s arms had had the worst effect on the animal’s nerves. Spike, the croucher on all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the semaphore, inspired him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective manner. His eye was full of purpose.
It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder. Till then he had been too busy to gaze elsewhere, but now the bulldog’s eye had become so unpleasant that he cast a pathetic glance up at the man by the door.
“Gee!” he cried, as he did so. “It’s de boss! Say, boss, call off de dawg. It’s sure goin’ to nip de old head of me.”
The other lowered his revolver in surprise.
“So it’s you, is it, you limb of Satan?” he remarked. “I thought I had seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my house?”
Spike uttered a moan of self-pity.
“Boss,” he cried, “I’ve had a raw deal. Dere’s bin coarse work goin’ on. Listen! It’s dis way. Honest, I didn’t know dis was where you lived. A fat Swede—Ole Larsen his monaker is—tells me dis house belongs to a widder-loidy what lives here all alone, and has all kinds of silver and all dat, and she’s down Sout’ visiting, so dat de house is empty. Gee, I’m onto his curves now. I’m wise. Listen, boss. Him and me starts a scrappin’ last week over somet’in, and I t’inks he’s got it in bad for me, because I puts it all over him. But t’ree days ago up he comes and says, ‘Let’s be fren’s,’ and puts me wise on dis joint. I’ll soak it to dat Swede! Dis was what he was woikin’ for. He knows you lives here, and he t’inks to put me in bad wit youse. It’s a raw deal, boss!”
The big man listened to this sad tale of Grecian gifts in silence. Not so the bulldog, which growled ominously from start to finish. Spike glanced nervously in its direction.
“De dawg,” he persisted uneasily. “Won’t you call on de dawg, boss?”
The big man stooped and grasped the animal’s collar, jerking him away.
“The same treatment,” suggested Jimmy, with approval, “would also do a world of good to this playful and affectionate animal—unless he is a vegetarian, in which case don’t bother.”
The householder glowered at him.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“My name,” began Jimmy, “is——”
“Say,” said Spike, “he’s a champion burglar, boss——”
“Eh!” he said.
“He’s a champion burglar from de odder side. He sure is. From Lunnon. Gee, he’s de guy! Tell him about the bank you opened, and de jools you swiped from de duchess, and de what-d’ye-call-it blow-pipe.”
It seemed to Jimmy that Spike was showing a certain want of tact. When you are discovered by a house-holder—with revolver—in his parlour at half-past three in the morning, it is surely an injudicious move to lay stress on your proficiency as a burglar. The householder may be supposed to take it for granted. The side of your character which should be advertised in such a crisis is the non-burglarious. Allusion should be made to the fact that as a child you attended Sunday-school regularly, and to what the curate said when you took the Divinity prize. The idea should be conveyed to the householder’s mind that, if let off with a caution, your innate goodness of heart will lead you to reform and avoid such scenes in future.
With some astonishment, therefore, Jimmy found that these revelations, so far from prejudicing the man with the revolver against him, had apparently told in his favour. The man behind the gun was regarding him rather with interest than disapproval.
“So you’re a crook from London, are you?”
Jimmy did not hesitate. If being a crook from London was a passport into citizens’ parlours in the small hours, and, more particularly, if it carried with it also a safe-conduct out of them, Jimmy was not the man to refuse the role. He bowed.
“Well, you’ll have to come across now you’re in New York. Understand that. And come across good.”
“Sure, he will,” said Spike, charmed that the tension had been relieved and matters placed upon a pleasant and business-like footing. “He’ll be good. He’s next to de game, sure.”
“Sure,” echoed Jimmy courteously. He did not understand; but things seemed to be taking a turn for the better, so why disturb the harmony?
“Dis gent,” said Spike respectfully, “is boss of de cops. A police-captain,” he corrected himself.
A light broke upon Jimmy’s darkness. He wondered he had not understood before. He had not been a newspaper-man in New York for a year without finding out something of the inner workings of the police force. He saw now why the other’s manner had changed.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “We must have a talk together one of these days.”
“We must,” said the police-captain significantly.
“Of course, I don’t know your methods on this side, but anything that’s usual——”
“I’ll see you at my office. Spike Mullins will show you where it is.”
“Very well. You must forgive this preliminary informal call. We came in more to shelter from the rain than anything.”
“You did, did you?”
Jimmy felt that it behoved him to stand on his dignity. The situation demanded it.
“Why,” he said, with some hauteur, “in the ordinary course of business I should hardly waste time over a small crib like——”
“It’s banks for his,” murmured Spike rapturously. “He eats dem alive. And jools from duchesses.”
“I admit a partiality for jewels and duchesses,” said Jimmy. “And now, as it’s a little late, perhaps we had better—— Ready, Spike? Good night, then. Pleased to have met you.”
“I’ll see you at my office.”
“I may possibly look in. I shall be doing very little work in New York, I fancy. I am here merely on a vacation.”
“If you do any work at all,” said the policeman coldly, “you’ll look in at my office, or you’ll wish you had when it’s too late.”
“Of course, of course. I shouldn’t dream of omitting any formality that may be usual. But I don’t fancy I shall break my vacation. By the way, one little thing. Have you any objection to my carving a ‘J’ on your front door?”
The policeman stared.
“On the inside. It won’t show. It’s just a whim of mine. If you have no objection.”
“I don’t want any of your——” began the policeman.
“You misunderstand me. It’s only that it means paying for a dinner. I wouldn’t for the world——”