The policeman pointed to the window.
“Out you get,” he said abruptly. “I’ve had enough of you. And don’t you forget to come to my office.”
Spike, still deeply mistrustful of the bulldog Rastus, jumped at the invitation. He was through the window and out of sight in the friendly darkness almost before the policeman had finished speaking. Jimmy remained.
“I shall be delighted——” he had begun, when he stopped. In the doorway was standing a girl—a girl whom he recognized. Her startled look told him that she too had recognized him.
Now for the first time since he had set out from his flat that night in Spike’s company Jimmy was conscious of a sense of the unreality of things. It was all so exactly as it would have happened in a dream. He had gone to sleep thinking of this girl, and here she was. But a glance at McEachern brought him back to earth. There was nothing of the dream-world about the police-captain.
The policeman, whose back was towards the door, had not observed the addition to the company. Molly had turned the handle quietly and her slippered feet made no sound. It was the amazed expression on Jimmy’s face that caused him to look towards the door.
“Molly!”
She smiled, though her face was still white. Jimmy’s evening clothes had reassured her. She did not understand how he came to be there, but evidently there was nothing wrong. She had interrupted a conversation, not a conflict.
“I heard the noise and you going downstairs, and I sent the dogs down to help you, father,” she said. “And then, after a little while, I came down to see if you were all right.”
Mr. McEachern was perplexed. Molly’s arrival had put him in an awkward position. To denounce him as a cracksman was impossible. Jimmy knew too much about him. The only real fear of the policeman’s life was that some word of his moneymaking methods might come to his daughter’s ears.
Quite a brilliant idea came to him.
“A man broke in, my dear,” he said. “This gentleman was passing and saw him.”
“Distinctly,” said Jimmy. “An ugly-looking customer!”
“But he slipped out of the window and got away,” concluded the policeman.
“He was very quick,” said Jimmy. “I think he may have been a professional acrobat.”
“He didn’t hurt you, father?”
“No, no, my dear.”
“Perhaps I frightened him,” said Jimmy airily.
Mr. McEachern scowled furtively at him.
“We mustn’t detain you, Mr.——”
“Pitt,” said Jimmy. “My name is Pitt.” He turned to Molly. “I hope you enjoyed the voyage.”
The policeman started.
“You know my daughter?”
“By sight only, I’m afraid. We were fellow-passengers on the Mauretania. Unfortunately I was in the second cabin. I used to see your daughter walking the deck sometimes.”
Molly smiled.
“I remember seeing you—sometimes.”
McEachern burst out:
“Then you——”
He stopped and looked at Molly. Molly was bending over Rastus, tickling him under the ear.
“Let me show you the way out, Mr. Pitt,” said the policeman shortly. His manner was abrupt, but when one is speaking to a man whom one would dearly love to throw out of the window abruptness is almost unavoidable.
“Perhaps I should be going,” said Jimmy.
“Good night, Mr. Pitt,” said Molly.
“I hope we shall meet again,” said Jimmy.
“This way, Mr. Pitt,” growled McEachern, holding the door.
“Please don’t trouble,” said Jimmy. He went to the window, and, flinging his leg over the sill, dropped noiselessly to the ground.
He turned and put his head in at the window again.
“I did that rather well,” he said pleasantly. “I think I must take up this sort of thing as a profession. Good night.”
In the days before the Welshman began to expend his surplus energy in playing Rugby football he was accustomed, whenever the monotony of his everyday life began to oppress him, to collect a few friends and make raids across the border into England, to the huge discomfort of the dwellers on the other side. It was to cope with this habit that Dreever Castle, in Shropshire, came into existence. It met a long-felt want. In time of trouble it became a haven of refuge. From all sides people poured into it, emerging cautiously when the marauders had disappeared. In the whole history of the castle there is but one instance recorded of a bandit attempting to take the place by storm, and the attack was an emphatic failure. On receipt of a ladleful of molten lead, aimed to a nicety by one John, the Chaplain—evidently one of those sporting parsons—this warrior retired, done to a turn, to his mountain fastnesses, and is never heard of again. He would seem, however, to have passed the word round among his friends, for subsequent raiding parties studiously avoided the castle, and a peasant who had succeeded in crossing its threshold was for the future considered to be “home” and out of the game.
Such was Dreever in the olden times. To-day the Welshman having calmed down considerably, it had lost its militant character. The old walls still stood, grey, menacing, and unchanged, but they were the only link with the past. The castle was now a very comfortable country-house, nominally ruled over by Hildebrand Spencer Poyns de Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever (“Spennie” to his relatives and intimates), but in reality the possession of his uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Julia Blunt.
Spennie’s position was one of some embarrassment. At no point in their history had the Dreevers been what one might call a parsimonious family. If a chance presented itself of losing money in a particularly wild and futile manner, the Dreever of the period had invariably sprung at it with the vim of an energetic bloodhound. The South Sea Bubble absorbed £200,000 of good Dreever money, and the remainder of the family fortune was squandered to the ultimate farthing by the sportive gentleman who had held the title in the days of the Regency, when Watier’s and the Cocoa Tree were in their prime, and fortunes had a habit of disappearing in a single evening. When Spennie became Earl of Dreever there was about eighteenpence in the old oak chest.
This is the point at which Sir Thomas Blunt breaks into Dreever history. Sir Thomas was a small, pink, fussy, obstinate man, with a genius for trade and the ambition of a Napoleon, probably one of the finest and most complete specimens of the came-over-Waterloo-Bridge-with-half-a-crown-in-my-pocket-and-now-look-at-me class of millionaire in existence. He had started almost literally with nothing. By carefully excluding from his mind every thought except that of making money, he had risen in the world with a gruesome persistence which nothing could check. At the age of fifty-one he was chairman of Blunt’s Stores, Ltd., a member of Parliament, silent as a wax figure, but a great comfort to the party by virtue of liberal contributions to its funds, and a knight. This was good, but he aimed still higher; and, meeting Spennie’s aunt, Lady Julia Coombe-Crombie, just at the moment when, financially, the Dreevers were at their lowest ebb, he had effected a very satisfactory deal by marrying her, thereby becoming as one might say, the chairman of Dreever, Ltd. Until Spennie should marry money, an act on which his chairman vehemently insisted, Sir Thomas held the purse, and, except in minor matters ordered by his wife, of whom he stood in uneasy awe, had things entirely his own way.
One afternoon, a year after the events recorded in the preceding chapter, he was in his private room, looking out of the window. The view from that window was very beautiful. The castle stood on a hill, the lower portion of which, between the house and the lake, had been cut into broad terraces. The lake itself, with its island with the little boathouse in the centre, was a glimpse of Fairyland.
But it was not altogether the beauty of the view that had drawn Sir Thomas to the window. He was looking at it more because the position enabled him to avoid his wife’s eye; and, just at the moment, he was rather anxious to avoid his wife’s eye. A somewhat stormy board meeting was in progress, and Lady Julia, who constituted the board of directors, had been heckling the chairman. The point under discussion was one of etiquette, and in matters of etiquette Sir Thomas felt himself at a disadvantage.
“I tell you, my dear,” he said to the window, “I am not easy in my mind.”
“Nonsense!” snapped Lady Julia. “Absurd! Ridiculous!”
Lady Julia Blunt, when conversing, resembled a Maxim gun more than anything else.
“But your diamonds, my dear?”
“I can take care of them.”
“But why should you have the trouble? Now, if we——”
“It’s no trouble.”
“When we were married there was a detective——”
“Don’t be childish, Thomas. Detectives at weddings are quite customary.”
“But——”
“Bah——”
“I paid twenty thousand pounds for that rope of pearls,” said Sir Thomas obstinately. Switch things on to a cash basis and he was more himself.
“May I ask if you suspect any of our guests of being criminals?” inquired Lady Julia, frostily.
Sir Thomas looked out of the window. At the moment the sternest censor could have found nothing to cavil at in the movements of such of the house-party as were in sight. Some were playing tennis, some clock golf, and others were smoking.
“Why not,” he began.
“Of course. Absurd! Quite absurd!”
“But the servants. We have engaged a number of new servants lately.”
“With excellent recommendations.”
Sir Thomas was on the point of suggesting that the recommendations might be forged, but his courage failed him. Julia was sometimes so abrupt in these little discussions. She did not enter into his point of view. He was always a trifle inclined to treat the castle as a branch of Blunt’s Stores. As proprietor of the stores he had made a point of suspecting everybody, and the results had been excellent. In Blunt’s Stores you could hardly move in any direction without bumping into a gentlemanly detective efficiently disguised. For the life of him Sir Thomas could not see why the same principle should not obtain at Dreever. Guests at a country house do not as a rule steal their host’s possessions, but then it is only an occasional customer at a store who goes in for shop lifting. It was the principle of the thing, he thought. Be prepared against every emergency. With Sir Thomas Blunt suspiciousness was almost a mania. He was forced to admit that the chances were against any of his guests exhibiting larcenous tendencies, but, as for the servants, he thoroughly mistrusted them all except Saunders, the butler. It had seemed to him the merest prudence that a detective from a private inquiry agency should be installed at the castle while the house was full. Somewhat rashly he had mentioned this to his wife, and Lady Julia’s critique of the scheme had been terse and unflattering.
“I suppose,” said Lady Julia sarcastically, “you will jump to the conclusion that this man whom Spennie is bringing down with him to-day is a criminal of some sort?”
“Eh? Is Spennie bringing a friend?”
There was not a great deal of enthusiasm in Sir Thomas’s voice. His nephew was not a young man whom he respected very highly. Spennie regarded his uncle with nervous apprehension, as one who would deal with his shortcomings with vigour and severity. Sir Thomas, for his part, looked on Spennie as a youth who would get into mischief unless he had an eye fixed on him. So he proceeded to fix that eye.
“I had a wire from him just now.”
“Who is his friend?”
“He doesn’t say. He just says he’s a man he met in London.”
“H’m!”
“And what does ‘H’m!’ mean?” demanded Lady Julia.
“A man can pick up strange people in London,” said Sir Thomas judicially.
“Nonsense.”
“Just as you say, my dear.”
Lady Julia rose.
“As for what you suggest about the detective, it is, of course, absolutely absurd.”
“Quite so, my dear.”
“You mustn’t think of it.”
“Just as you say, my dear.”
Lady Julia left the room.
What followed may afford some slight clue to the secret of Sir Thomas Blunt’s rise in the world. It certainly suggests singleness of purpose, which is one of the essentials of success.
No sooner had the door closed behind Lady Julia than he went to his writing-table, took pen and paper, and wrote the following letter:
“To the Manager, Wragge’s Detective Agency, Holborn Bars, London, E.C.
“Sir,—With reference to my last of the 28th ult., I should be glad if you would send down immediately one of your best men. Am making arrangements to receive him. Kindly instruct him to present himself at Dreever Castle as applicant for position of valet to myself. I will see and engage him on his arrival, and further instruct him in his duties.—Yours faithfully, Thos. Blunt.
“P.S.—I shall expect him to-morrow evening. There is a good train leaving Paddington at 2.15.”
He read it over and put in a couple of commas, then placed it in an envelope, and lit a cigar with the air of one who can be checked—yes, but vanquished, never.
On the night of the day on which Sir Thomas Blunt wrote his letter to Wragge’s, Jimmy Pitt was supping at the Savoy.
If you have the money and the clothes, and do not object to being turned out into the night just as you are beginning to enjoy yourself, there are few things pleasanter than supper at the Savoy Hotel, London. But as Jimmy sat there, eyeing the multitude through the smoke of his cigarette, he felt, despite all the brightness and glitter, that this was a flat world and that he was very much alone in it.
A little over a year had passed since the merry evening at Police-Captain McEachern’s. During that time he had covered a good deal of new ground. His restlessness had reasserted itself. Somebody had mentioned Morocco in his hearing, and a fortnight later he was in Fez.
Of the principals in that night’s drama he had seen nothing more. It was only when walking home on air, rejoicing over the strange chance which had led to his finding and having speech with the lady of the Mauretania—he had reached Fifty-Ninth Street—that he realised that he had also lost her. It suddenly came home to him that not only did he not know her address, but was also ignorant of her name. Spike had called the man with the revolver “boss” throughout—only that and nothing more. Except that he was a police captain, Jimmy knew as little about him as he had done before their meeting. And Spike, who held the key to the mystery, had vanished. His acquaintances of that night had passed out of his life like figures in a waking dream. As far as the big man with the pistol was concerned, this did not distress him. He had only known that massive person for about a quarter of an hour, but to his thinking that was ample. Spike he would have liked to have met again, but he bore the separation with fortitude. There remained the girl of the ship, and she had haunted him with unfailing persistence during every one of the three hundred and eighty-four days which had passed since their meeting.
It was the thought of her that had made New York seem cramped. For weeks he had patrolled the more likely streets, the Park, and Riverside Drive in the hope of meeting her. He had gone to the theatres and restaurants, but with no success. Sometimes he had wandered through the Bowery on the chance of meeting Spike. He had seen red heads in profusion, but none that belonged to his young disciple in the art of burglary. In the end he had wearied of the search, and, to the disgust of Arthur Mifflin and his other friends of the Strollers’, had gone out again on his wanderings. He was greatly missed, especially by that large section of his circle which was in a perpetual state of wanting a little to see it through till Saturday. For years Jimmy had been to these unfortunates a human bank on which they could draw at will. It offended them that one of those rare natures which are always good for two dollars at any hour of the day should be allowed to waste itself on places like Morocco and Spain—especially Morocco, where, by all accounts, there were brigands with almost a New York sense of touch.
They argued earnestly with Jimmy. They spoke of Raisuli and Kaid Maclean. But Jimmy was not to be stopped. The gadfly was vexing him, and he had to move.
For a year he had wandered, realising every day the truth of Horace’s philosophy for those who travel—that a man cannot change his feelings with his climate, until finally he had found himself, as every wanderer does, at Charing Cross.
At this point he had tried to rally. This running away, he told himself, was futile. He would stand still and fight the fever in him.
He had been fighting it now for a matter of two weeks, and already he was contemplating retreat. A man at lunch had been talking about Japan——
Watching the crowd, Jimmy had found his attention attracted chiefly by a party of three a few tables away. The party consisted of a girl, rather pretty; a lady of middle-age and stately demeanour, plainly her mother; and a light-haired, weedy young man in the twenties. It had been the almost incessant prattle of this youth and the peculiarly high-pitched, gurgling laugh which shot from him at short intervals which had drawn Jimmy’s notice upon them. And it was the curious cessation of both prattle and laugh which now made him look again in their direction.
The young man faced Jimmy; and Jimmy, looking at him, could see that all was not well. He was pale. He talked at random.
Jimmy caught his eye. There was a hunted look in it.
Given the time and the place, there were only two things which could have caused that look. Either the light-haired young man had seen a ghost, or he had suddenly realised that he had not enough money to pay the bill.
Jimmy’s heart went out to the sufferer. He took a card from his case, scribbled the words, “Can I help?” on it, and gave it to a waiter to take to the young man, who was now in a state bordering on collapse.
The next moment the light-haired one was at his table, talking in a feverish whisper.
“I say,” he said, “it’s frightfully good of you, old chap; it’s frightfully awkward. I’ve come out with too little money. I hardly like to——. You’ve never seen me before——”
“Don’t rub in my misfortunes,” pleaded Jimmy. “It wasn’t my fault.”
He placed a £5 note on the table.
“Say when,” he said, producing another.
“I say, thanks fearfully,” the young man said. “I don’t know what I’d have done.” He grabbed at the note. “I’ll let you have it back to-morrow. Here’s my card. Is your address on your card? I can’t remember. Oh, by Jove, I’ve got it in my hand all the time.” The gurgling laugh came into action again, freshened and strengthened by its rest. “Savoy Mansions, eh? I’ll come round to-morrow. Thanks frightfully again, old chap. I don’t know what I should have done.”
“It’s been a treat,” said Jimmy deprecatingly.
The young man flitted back to his table, bearing the spoil. Jimmy looked at the card he had left. “Lord Dreever,” it read, and in the corner the name of a well-known club. The name Dreever was familiar to Jimmy. Every one knew of Dreever Castle, partly because it was one of the oldest houses in England, but principally because for centuries it had been advertised by a particularly gruesome ghost-story. Every one had heard of the secret of Dreever, which was known only to the Earl and the family lawyer, and confided to the heir at midnight on his twenty-first birthday. Jimmy had come across the story in corners of the papers all over the States, from New York to Onehorseville, Iowa. He looked with interest at the light-haired young man—the latest depository of the awful secret. It was popularly supposed that the heir, after hearing it, never smiled again: but it did not seem to have affected the present Lord Dreever to any great extent. His gurgling laugh was drowning the orchestra. Probably, Jimmy thought, when the family lawyer had told the light-haired young man the secret, the latter’s comment had been, “No, really? By Jove, I say, you know!”
Jimmy paid his bill and got up to go.
It was a perfect summer night—too perfect for bed. Jimmy strolled on to the Embankment, and stood leaning over the balustrade, looking across the river at the vague, mysterious mass of buildings on the Surrey side.
He must have been standing there for some time, his thoughts far away, when a voice spoke at his elbow.
“I say. Excuse me, have you—Halloa!”
It was his light-haired lordship of Dreever.
“I say, by Jove! Why, we’re always meeting!”
A tramp on the bench close by stirred uneasily in his sleep as the gurgling laughter ripped the air.
“Been looking at the water?” inquired Lord Dreever. “I have. I often do. Don’t you think it sort of makes a chap feel—oh, you know. Sort of—I don’t know how to put it.”
“Mushy?” said Jimmy.
“I was going to say poetical. Suppose there’s a girl——”
He paused and looked down at the water. Jimmy was with him there. There was a girl.
“I saw my party off in a taxi,” continued Lord Dreever, “and came down here for a smoke. Only I hadn’t a match. Have you?”
Jimmy handed over his match-box. Lord Dreever lit a cigar, and fixed his gaze once more on the river.
“Ripping it looks,” he said.
Jimmy nodded.
“Funny thing,” said Lord Dreever. “In the daytime the water here looks all muddy and beastly. Damn depressing, I call it. But at night——” He paused. “I say,” he went on, after a moment, “did you see the girl I was with at the Savoy?”
“Yes,” said Jimmy.
“She’s a ripper,” said Lord Dreever devoutly.
On the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of a summer morning, there is no such thing as a stranger. The man you talk with is a friend, and if he will listen—as, by the etiquette of the place, he must—you may pour out your heart to him without restraint. It is expected of you.
“I’m fearfully in love with her,” said his lordship.
“She looked a charming girl,” said Jimmy.
They examined the water in silence. From somewhere out in the night came the sound of oars, where the police-boat moved on its patrol.
“Does she make you want to go to Japan?” asked Jimmy suddenly.
“Eh?” said Lord Dreever, startled. “Japan?”
Jimmy adroitly abandoned the position of confidant and seized that of confider.
“I met a girl a year ago. Only really met her once, and even then—oh, well. Anyway, it’s made me so restless that I haven’t been able to stay in one place for more than a month on end. I tried Morocco, and had to quit. I tried Spain, and that wasn’t any good either. The other day I heard a fellow say that Japan was a pretty interesting sort of country. I was wondering whether I wouldn’t give it a trial.”
Lord Dreever regarded this travelled man with interest.
“It beats me,” he said wonderingly. “What do you want to leg it about the world like that for? What’s the trouble? Why don’t you stay where the girl is?”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Don’t know?”
“She disappeared.”
“Where did you see her last?” asked his lordship, as if Molly were a mislaid penknife.
“New York.”
“But how do you mean, disappeared? Don’t you know her address?”
“I don’t even know her name.”
“But dash it all, I say, I mean! Have you ever spoken to her?”
“Only once. It’s rather a complicated story. At any rate, she’s gone.”
Lord Dreever said that it was a rum business. Jimmy conceded the point.
“Seems to me,” said his lordship, “we’re both in the cart.”
“What’s your trouble?”
“Oh, well, it’s only that I want to marry one girl, and my uncle’s dead set on my marrying another.”
“Are you afraid of hurting your uncle’s feelings?”
“It’s not so much hurting his feelings. It’s—oh, well, it’s too long to tell now. I think I’ll be getting home. I’m staying at our place in Eaton Square.”
“How are you going? If you’ll walk I’ll come some of the way with you.”
“Right you are. Let’s be pushing along, shall we?”
They turned up into the Strand, and through Trafalgar Square into Piccadilly. Piccadilly has a restful aspect in the small hours. Some men were cleaning the road with water from a long hose. The swishing of the torrent on the parched wood was musical.
Just beyond the gate of Hyde Park, to the right of the road, stands a cabman’s shelter. Conversation and emotion had made Lord Dreever thirsty. He suggested coffee as a suitable conclusion to the night’s revels.
“I often go in here when I’m up in town,” he said. “The cabbies don’t mind. They’re sportsmen.”
The shelter was nearly full when they opened the door. It was very warm inside. A cabman gets so much fresh air in the exercise of his professional duties that he is apt to avoid it in private life. The air was heavy with conflicting scents. Fried onions seemed to be having the best of the struggle for the moment, though plug tobacco competed gallantly. A keenly analytical nose might also have detected the presence of steak and coffee.
A dispute seemed to be in progress as they entered.
“You don’t wish you was in Russher,” said a voice.
“Yus, I do wish I was in Russher,” retorted a shrivelled mummy of a cabman who was blowing patiently at a saucerful of coffee.
“Why do you wish you was in Russher?” asked the interlocutor, introducing a Massa Bones and Massa Johnsing touch into the dialogue.
“Because you can wade over yer knees in bla-a-ad there,” said the mummy.
“In wot?”
“In bla-a-ad—ruddy bla-a-ad. That’s why I wish I wos in Russher.”
“Cheery cove that,” said Lord Dreever. “I say, can you give us some coffee?”
“I might try Russia after Japan,” said Jimmy meditatively.
The lethal liquid was brought. Conversation began again. Other experts gave their views on the internal affairs of Russia. Jimmy would have enjoyed it more if he had been less sleepy. His back was wedged comfortably against the wall of the shelter, and the heat of the room stole into his brain. The voices of the disputants grew fainter and fainter.
He had almost dozed off when a new voice cut through the murmur and woke him. It was a voice he knew, and the accent was a familiar accent.
“Gents, excuse me.”
He looked up. The mists of sleep shredded away. A ragged youth with a crop of fiery red hair was standing in the doorway, regarding the occupants of the shelter with a grin, half whimsical, half defiant.
Jimmy recognized him. It was Spike Mullins.
“Excuse me,” said Spike Mullins, “is dere any gent in dis bunch of professional beauts wants to give a poor orphan dat suffers from a painful toist something to drink? Gents is courteously requested not to speak all in a crowd.”
“Shet that blanky door,” said the mummy cabman sourly.
“And ’op it,” added his late opponent. “We don’t want none of your sort ’ere.”
“Den you ain’t my long-lost brudders, after all,” said the newcomer regretfully. “I t’ought youse didn’t look handsome enough for dat. Good night to youse, gents.”
“Shet that door, can’t yer, when I’m tellin’ yer!” said the mummy, with increased asperity.
Spike was reluctantly withdrawing when Jimmy rose.
“One moment,” he said.
Never in his life had Jimmy failed to stand by a friend in need. Spike was not, perhaps, exactly a friend, but even an acquaintance could rely on Jimmy when down in the world. And Spike was manifestly in that condition.
A look of surprise came into the Bowery boy’s face, followed by one of stolid woodenness. He took the sovereign which Jimmy held out to him with a muttered word of thanks, and shuffled out of the room.
“Can’t see what you wanted to give him anything for,” said Lord Dreever. “Chap’ll only spend it getting tight.”
“Oh, he reminded me of a man I used to know.”
“Did he? Barnum’s what-is-it, I should think,” said his lordship. “Shall we be moving?”
A black figure detached itself from the blacker shadows and shuffled stealthily to where Jimmy stood on the doorstep.
“That you, Spike?” asked Jimmy, in a low voice.
“Dat’s right, boss.”
“Come on in.”
He led the way up to his rooms, switched on the electric light, and shut the door. Spike stood blinking at the sudden glare. He twirled his battered hat in his hands. His red hair shone fiercely.
Jimmy inspected him out of the corner of his eye, and came to the conclusion that the Mullins finances must be at a low ebb. Spike’s costume differed in several important details from that of the ordinary well-groomed man about town. There was nothing of the flâneur about the Bowery boy. His hat was of the soft black felt fashionable on the East Side of New York. It was in poor condition, and looked as if it had been up too late the night before. A black tail-coat, burst at the elbows and stained with mud, was tightly buttoned across his chest, this evidently with the idea of concealing the fact that he wore no shirt—an attempt which was not wholly successful. A pair of grey flannel trousers and boots, out of which two toes peeped coyly, completed the picture.
Even Spike himself seemed to be aware that there were points in his appearance which would have distressed the editor of the Tailor and Cutter.
“’Scuse these duds,” he said. “Me man’s bin an’ mislaid de trunk wit me best suit in. Dis is me number two.”
“Don’t mention it, Spike,” said Jimmy. “You look a perfect matinee idol. Have a drink?”
Spike’s eyes gleamed as he reached for the decanter. He took a seat.
“Cigar, Spike?”
“Sure. T’anks, boss.”
Jimmy lit his pipe. Spike, after a few genteel sips, threw off his restraint and finished the rest of his glass at a gulp.
“Try another?” suggested Jimmy.
Spike’s grin showed that the idea had been well received.
Jimmy sat and smoked in silence for a while. He was thinking the thing over. He felt like a detective who has found a clue. At last he would be able to discover the name of the Mauretania girl. The discovery would not take him very far, certainly, but it would be something. Possibly Spike might even be able to fix the position of the house they had broken into that night.
Spike was looking at him over his glass with silent admiration. This flat, which Jimmy had rented for a year, in the hope that the possession of a fixed abode might help to tie him down to one spot, was handsomely, even luxuriously, furnished. To Spike every chair and table in the room had a romance of its own as having been purchased out of the proceeds of that New Asiatic Bank robbery, or from the revenue accruing from the Duchess of Havent’s jewels. He was dumb with reverence for one who could make burglary pay to this extent. In his own case the profession had rarely provided anything more than bread and butter and an occasional trip to Coney Island.
Jimmy caught his eye, and spoke.
“Well, Spike,” he said. “Curious that we should meet like this?”
“De limit,” agreed Spike.
“I can’t imagine you three thousand miles from New York. How do you know the cars still run both ways on Broadway?”
A wistful look came into Spike’s eyes.
“I t’ought it was time I give old Lunnon a call. T’ings was getting too fierce in Noo York. De cops was layin’ for me. Dey didn’t seem like as if they had any use for me. So I beat it.”
“Bad luck,” said Jimmy.
“Fierce,” agreed Spike.
“Do you know, Spike,” said Jimmy, “I spent a great deal of time before I left New York looking for you.”
“Gee, I wish you’d found me. And did youse want me to help on some lay, boss?”
“Well, no, not that. Do you remember that night we broke into that house up-town—the police-captain’s house?”
“Sure.”
“What was his name?”
“What, de cop’s? Why, McEachern, boss.”
“Mac what? How do you spell it?”
“Search me,” said Spike, simply.
“Say it again. Fill your lungs and enunciate slowly and clearly. Be bell-like. Now.”
“McEachern.”
“Ah! And where was the house? Can you remember that?”
Spike’s forehead wrinkled.
“It’s gone,” he said at last. “It was somewheres up some street up de town.”
“That’s a lot of help,” said Jimmy. “Try again.”
“It’ll come back some time, boss, sure.”
“Then I’m going to keep an eye on you till it does. Just for the moment you’re the most important man in the world to me. Where are you living?”
“Me? Why, in de Park. Dat’s right. One of dem swell detached benches wit a southern exposure.”
“Well, unless you prefer it, you needn’t sleep in the Park any more. You can pitch your moving tent with me.”
“What, here, boss?”
“Unless we move.”
“Me fer dis,” said Spike, rolling luxuriously in his chair.
“You’ll want some clothes,” said Jimmy. “We’ll get those to-morrow. You’re the sort of figure they can fit off the peg. You’re not too tall, which is a good thing.”
“Bad t’ing for me, boss. If I’d bin taller I’d have stood for being a cop, and bin buying a brown-stone house on Fifth Avenue by this. It’s de cops makes de big money in little old Manhattan, dat’s who it is.”
“The man who knows!” said Jimmy. “Tell me more, Spike. I suppose a good many of the New York force do get rich by graft?”
“Sure. Look at old man McEachern.”
“I wish I could. Tell me about him, Spike. You seemed to know him pretty well.”
“Me? Sure. Dere wasn’t a worse grafter dan him in de bunch. He was out for the dough all the time. But, say, did youse ever see his girl?”
“What’s that?” said Jimmy sharply.
“I seen her once.” Spike became almost lyrical in his enthusiasm. “Gee, she was a bird. A peach for fair. I’d have left me happy home for her. Molly was her monaker. She——”
Jimmy was glaring at him.
“Drop it!” he cried.
“What’s dat, boss?” said Spike.
“Cut it out!” said Jimmy savagely.
Spike looked at him amazed.
“Sure,” he said, puzzled, but realising that his words had not pleased the great man.
Jimmy chewed the stem of his pipe irritably, while Spike, full of excellent intentions, sat on the edge of his chair drawing sorrowfully at his cigar and wondering what he had done to give offence.
“Boss?” said Spike.
“Halloa!”
“Boss, what’s doin’ here? Put me next to de game. Is it de old lay? Banks and jools from duchesses! You’ll be able to let me sit in on de game, won’t you?”
“I’d quite forgotten I hadn’t told you about myself, Spike. I’ve retired.”
The horrid truth sank slowly into the other’s mind.
“Say! What’s dat, boss? You’re cuttin’ it out?”
“That’s it. Absolutely.”
“Ain’t youse swiping no more jools?”
“Not me.”
“Nor usin’ de what’s-its-name blow-pipe?”
“I have sold my oxyacetylene blow-pipe, given away my anaesthetics, and am going to turn over a new leaf and settle down as a respectable citizen.”
Spike gasped. His world had fallen about his ears. His excursion with Jimmy, the master cracksman, in New York had been the highest and proudest memory of his life, and now that he had met him again in London, he had looked forward to a long and prosperous partnership in crime. He was content that his own share in the partnership should be humble. It was enough for him to be connected, however humbly, with such a master. He had looked upon the richness of London, and he had said with Blucher, “What a city to loot!”
And here was his idol shattering his visions with a word.
“Have another drink, Spike,” said the Lost Leader sympathetically. “It’s a shock to you, I expect.”
“I t’ought, boss——”
“I know, I know. These are life’s tragedies. I’m very sorry for you; but it can’t be helped.”
Spike sat silent, with a long face. Jimmy slapped him on the shoulder.
“Cheer up,” he said. “How do you know that living honestly may not be splendid fun? Numbers of people do it, you know, and enjoy themselves tremendously. You must give it a trial, Spike.”
“Me, boss? What, me too?”
“Rather. You’re my link with——I don’t want to have you remembering that address in the second month of a ten-year spell at Dartmoor. I’m going to look after you, Spike, my son, like a lynx. We’ll go out together and see life. Buck up, Spike! Be cheerful! Grin!”
After a moment’s reflection the other grinned, howbeit faintly.
“That’s right,” said Jimmy. “We’ll go into society, Spike, hand in hand. You’ll be a terrific success in society. All you have to do is to look cheerful, brush your hair, and keep your hands off the spoons, for in the best circles they invariably count them after the departure of the last guest.”
“Sure,” said Spike, as one who thoroughly understood this sensible precaution.
“And now,” said Jimmy, “we’ll be turning in. Can you manage sleeping on the sofa one night? Some fellows would give their bed up to you. However, I’ll have a bed made up for you to-morrow.”
“Me!” said Spike. “Gee! I’ve been sleepin’ in de Park all de last week. Dis is to de good, boss.”