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THE
ASTOUNDING
CRIME
ON
TORRINGTON
ROAD
THE
ASTOUNDING
CRIME
ON
TORRINGTON
ROAD
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT MIGHT BE
TERMED “THE PENTECOST EPISODE” IN
A MOST AUDACIOUS CRIMINAL CAREER
BY
WILLIAM GILLETTE
[Illustration: Decoration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
New York and London, Mcmxxvii
THE ASTOUNDING CRIME ON TORRINGTON ROAD
COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY WILLIAM GILLETTE
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
E-B
THIS RECITAL
—AS TAKEN DOWN AND THEN SET
FORTH HEREIN—IS DIVIDED INTO
SEVEN PARTS OR SECTIONS WHICH
MAY BE ROUGHLY DESCRIBED AS
FOLLOWS:
PART I: Leading up to the arrangement that
Andrew Howard Barnes finally succeeded in
making with Horace McClintock for the
Reporting of the Facts in This Most Unusual
Series of Events. _Page 1_
PART II: Introducing Hugo Pentecost and his
Partner Stephen W. Harker, with a side
light thrown on the Business Methods employed
by this firm. Also defining the Steps
which led Mr. Pentecost to call at the House
on Torrington Road. _Page 20_
PART III: Dealing with old Michael Cripps and
his Synthetic Family—thus making it clear
how Charles Haworth came to be the Sole
Occupant of the old Cripps Mansion. _Page 44_
PART IV: Attempting to convey Some Idea of
the Overwhelming Passion that swept upon
Charles Haworth and Edith Findlay when
the Findlays came to live at the House on
Torrington Road. _Page 67_
PART V: Wherein is set forth the Painful Predicament
which soon involved the Young
Couple, and the Vast Relief which ensued
upon the Sale of the Haworth Machine to
Harker and Pentecost. _Page 112_
PART VI: Touching on the Amazing Preparations
for and the Hideous Details of the
Crime that took place in the Cripps Mansion
and Describing the Activities of the
Police in connection therewith as well as the
Behavior of Others Concerned in this Appalling
Affair. _Page 169_
PART VII: Giving an account of the Attempts
of Certain Persons no longer enjoying an
Earthly Existence to take part in the Investigation
of the Crime and the Final Result of
this Most Amazing Interference. _Page 259_
THE
ASTOUNDING
CRIME
ON
TORRINGTON
ROAD
PART I
_At the request of Mr. Andrew H. Barnes I make the following statement
in order to explain how it came about that I entered into the
arrangement for taking down from his dictation an Account of a Certain
Extraordinary Affair._
HORACE MCCLINTOCK
My name is signed above. I am a staff reporter on one of the town
papers. New York, I mean. Several times in the past three or four
years when some special work in my line—which has come to be mostly
interviewing—was required there, they have sent me over to Boston.
This last time I went over—which is now, for I am there yet—I was
particularly glad to get the assignment, as my friend Dudley Knapp had
recently made a shift from a big Life Insurance Company in the West to
a very much bigger one in Boston, and it was a great pleasure to see
him.
Duds (his schoolboy name still sticks with me and I forgot to state
that we were boys together in a small town in northern Ohio) has got to
be quite a “high up” in the Insurance line. I don’t know exactly what
they call him, but he’s an expert of some kind, and is a sharp one on
any fraud or tangle that has to be attended to. I don’t mean to say
he’s a detective or anything like that, but in nine cases out of ten
he saves them from having to get one. He has the gift of knowing a man
pretty well when he gets a good look at him—with a little conversation
thrown in—and they put him on cases that have the look of being a bit
off color. There’s plenty of that kind in the Life business. That’s how
he happened to be in Boston, and we got ahold of each other almost the
minute I arrived there.
We’d been having dinner together in the men’s café at a specially good
hotel—one of the few cafés left where they hadn’t let women and dancing
in and changed the name to the Wild Rose Room or something like that,
and where—as Dudley put it—you could still get a feed without having
girls’ legs flashed in your face with every mouthful.
It was down to coffee and cigars—that is, cigars for Duds and
cigarettes for me—and we were lolling back talking over our
experiences, when I happened to think of an odd thing that occurred
on my last trip over—which was before Duds had made the shift to the
Boston Company; and I started in to give him an idea of it by asking if
he knew anything about a suburb called Roxbury.
“No,” he said, “but for God’s sake” (lowering his voice) “don’t let
anyone hear you call it a suburb—you’d be mobbed.”
“Well it looked like that to me,” I returned. “I struck a place where I
thought I was out on a farm.”
“When was this?” he asked.
“About a year ago.”
“What were you doing?”
“Following a man.”
“Who was it?”
“Never found out.”
Dudley looked at me a couple of seconds; then settling back in his
chair struck a match and began to light a cigar.
“Anything—er—out of the way?” he mumbled between puffs.
“No,” I told him, “just odd, that’s all. Peculiar way a couple of
people acted on the train coming over got me guessing to that degree
that when we arrived here about eleven o’clock at night I trailed the
man through the south station till he got into a taxi, and then jumped
into one myself and followed him out into that Roxbury region looking
for the answer—which I never got.”
“Slipped you, did he?”
“Amounted to that. Went into an old house out there—gloomy-looking
place—long way back from the road—no other houses near. I had him down
for some sort of a yegg, and when I saw him go into that murky old
mansion I called it a day and quit.”
“What made you think he was crooked?”
“One or two things I overheard on the train—and then he played a few
queer games when I was trailing him in the taxi.”
“Get the address?”
“There wasn’t any number at the gate, but I got the name of the
street on a lamp post. Not sure what it was, though. Something like
Torreytown—or Torringtown—or one of those——” I broke off suddenly.
Duds gave me a quick look.
“Table behind you!” I muttered.
“What’s the matter with it?” he grunted, his voice down with mine.
“Man got a shock when I mentioned that street.”
“Maybe he lives on it.”
I shook my head slightly.
“Well, go on—what do you care?”
I was just going to speak when Duds stopped me.
“Wait a minute!” he said, his voice down several pegs more. “That
street you mentioned—I’ve read about it somewhere—in some paper.”
“About the street?”
“Yes—or—or something that happened on it. Remember there was a lot of
excitement—everybody guessing. What did we get from Boston along then?”
“One of their murders most likely—if it was something you read about
outside.”
“Hold on—I’m getting it! It was that case the police tried to hush
up—lot of queer stuff to it—everybody wondering what in God’s name it
was all about. Inventor in it somewhere—don’t you remember that? It was
first-page stuff all over the country.”
“No—they had me down in Panama after that Boston trip, covering a
Senate Investigating Committee. Saw some headings but didn’t know what
it was all about.”
“Peculiar case all right. What was it you overheard on the train?”
“Began at the Grand Central. I was running for the five-eleven Boston
express—P.M. I needn’t say. Just as I got to the gate an excited old
woman—poorly dressed—queer hat on sideways—dangling gray hair and all
that—came hurrying across from somewhere and plunged in ahead of me
trying to pass the gateman. He held her up for a ticket of course,
and there was quite a time, she calling out that her son was on the
train—she’d got to speak to him—he had no business to be there, and
a flood of talk like that. It made a kind of a riot—for the gateman
put her down as crazy and didn’t like to pass her in among the rolling
stock; and in a minute there was a crowd of people about, and a
station policeman coming over on the run, and the assistant station
master arriving a second or two later: with the result that the two of
them—the station master and the policeman—took her through and down the
incline to the train, to see if she really had a son on board.
“She was a queer old thing, this dame, and kept mumbling to herself
that she wasn’t going to let him (her son, I took it) go to _that
place_—not if she could help it. The officer tried two or three times
to fix her hat on straight as they walked along, one on each side of
her—but it wouldn’t stay.
“Most of the passengers who came along while the old woman was blocking
the left-hand passage of the gate—where I was—were passed in on the
other side; there’s two ticket punchers, you know. But I hung back till
they took her through, and then followed them down to the train and
through the cars. Wanted to see if there was anything to it. Might be a
story if I followed it up.
“After they’d gone through nearly the whole train, including the
Pullmans, she spotted the chap she was after in the first coach
forward, next behind the smoker, and commenced to call out to him to
get off and come home with her. He was a decent-appearing young chap,
but what struck me as peculiar was that his face didn’t show the least
surprise or anger or even annoyance when he saw his mother—in fact, it
didn’t show anything at all. He shook his head a little when the old
woman told him to get off, but he wouldn’t budge, and finally when the
station master told her she’d have to leave the coach or go along with
it, she plumped down in the seat with him and a few seconds later the
train was under way.
“The nearest seat I could get was in with another man next behind. I’d
have preferred to be in front—you know how well you can hear people
sitting behind you in a car—but the whole seat was occupied. So I sat
down there behind them in the aisle seat (the other man was next the
window) and getting out a newspaper, leaned forward as far as I could
as though trying to get a good light on it, and keeping an ear turned
in the right direction to catch anything they might say.
“We must have passed Stamford before a word was spoken by either of
them, but along near that place the old woman opened up suddenly and
began remonstrating—I judged by the tone (her voice was too low to
catch any words) with tremendous earnestness. She hadn’t been talking
long though, when something he muttered got her excited and she raised
her voice enough for me to hear, ‘Well you’re goin’ to get off this
train the next place they stop at an’ come home—yes ye be Jamie—I won’t
have you goin’ on with this—I won’t have it!’
“‘Listen here!’ Jamie said under his breath but with an earnestness
that carried it over the back of the seat to me: ‘I got an A-1
situation as butler an’ general house man!’
“‘An’ don’t I know how you came by it? It’s them same people in that
agency! Look at the trouble they’ve got you into, Jamie! Wasn’t you
arrested twice an’ wasn’t it them who——’
“‘Aw, can that! Didn’t they push me into some o’ the finest houses
there was—an’ didn’t I get recommendations that takes me anywheres?’
“‘First off they did but sense then there’s nothin’ but trouble—an’ you
comin’ nigh to bein’ put in Sing Sing!’
“‘Well I wasn’t, was I?’
“‘—An’ one dreadful mess after another—an’ put with people you’d ought
ter know better’n to _be_ with! Don’t ye s’pose I know ’em, with your
father what he was! I tell you I ain’t goin’ to have it!’ (Her voice
rising into a loud wail.) ‘_You got to stop, Jamie. You got to git off
this train an’ come back home with me! You_ ——’
“‘Quiet down, can’t ye—people might get it!’
“There was silence between the two for a while, and I noticed, as the
train was running into the Bridgeport station—the first stop after One
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street—that Jamie was watching for something
out of the window, his quick glance shifting up and down the west-bound
tracks.
“The old woman got to her feet as the train came to a stop, and told
him he must come with her and get the next train back. But he pulled
her down into the seat again—not roughly but rather protectingly in a
way—saying as he did, ‘Not here, Jenny! We can get a better train out
of New Haven.’
“‘You’ll come then?’ the old woman asked.
“‘Sure,’ said Jamie.
“She seemed greatly relieved.
“He had a time-table, and studied it for quite a while, and as we
neared New Haven (the next stop) he kept the same keen watch on the
west-bound tracks as he’d done at Bridgeport. But this time he saw what
he wanted, for there was a New York Express three or four tracks over,
roaring and sizzling to get away. It was No. 21 from Boston, and as
luck would have it, running nine minutes late. He had his mother up and
at the door before our train had come to a standstill, and they were
off the car in a jiffy and disappearing down the stairway—for he had to
cross to the New York tracks in a subway. It was an even bet whether he
made it or not, and I got off the train—keeping close to it, though,
in case it started—and ran along the platform trying to find a place
where I could see across into the windows of the other train—there were
roofs or something that cut off the view here and there. Just as I came
about opposite to the last coach of the New York Express I got a view
through, and saw them in that car, walking down the aisle looking for a
seat,—so I knew they’d made it. Jamie was carrying his heavy valise—the
old woman close herding on him as the cattle men say.
“It was only a few seconds after they got aboard when No. 21, after
hissing contemptuously a few times as the brakes went on and off, got
under way for New York.
“The train I was on—the Boston train—left the station about five
minutes later, and I was sitting down, nursing my balked curiosity
and the story that didn’t pan, when it dawned on me that I had a seat
reserved in one of the Pullmans, which, in the case of this train, were
trailing at the rear with the dining car. So I got my bag and started
back to find it.
“I had to go through several coaches before reaching the parlor cars,
and as I was walking down the aisle of the last one I suddenly caught
sight of Jamie sitting quietly in a seat on my left.—Sat there as if
he’d never been off the train.”
“Take it that’s the man you followed?”
“The very one. Kept an eye on him through the station when we got
in—South Station, not Back Bay—and when he took a taxi and drove off I
skipped into another and slipped the driver a ten to keep his machine
in sight but not get up too close. When Jamie’s taxi had led us six or
eight blocks out Columbus or Huntington or one of those avenues, it
made a sudden turn and shot around a corner to the right. Then there
were more corners right and left until you couldn’t even tell where
the State House was, but my man was on the job and kept behind like a
shadow with a string to it.
“All of a sudden he ran up to the curb and jumped off, coming to the
door. ‘If it’s the fare ye want out o’ that car, he’s payin’ off and
goin’ into the station.’ ‘What station?’ I asked. ‘North,’ says he,
‘down there where all them lights is. He’s on to us, an’ he’ll wait
long enough to make ye think he’s took a train, an’ then git a taxi
in there where they go in—out o’ sight. I got ye where ye can keep a
squint on ’em as they come out. He’s liable to stoop down or cover up
his face. Ye might know him by that.’
“And sure enough that’s just what happened. In, say, half an hour (he
waited inside that long) we were after him again, but this time keeping
so far away that he must have thought he’d thrown us off, for we got
out into a sort of country region—houses far back into grounds and that
sort of thing—most of ’em dark, too—people gone to bed.
“At a corner out there, where Jamie’s taxi had made a turn to the
right, my driver stopped before rounding it and listened, as he’d been
doing since we’d got to where it was quiet. Rather suddenly he jumped
off and hurried on to the corner, and after one look came running back
and told me the other machine had pulled up near a street lamp some
distance down the road and the fare was paying off. I got out and told
him to wait for me—that I’d walk down a bit and look around.
“I edged along at the side of the road and could see that Jamie had
gone in at a gate or entrance; and very soon the taxi that brought him
went plunging by on its way back to town. After some careful work to
keep in the shadow, I came to the old gate, or rather old posts—there
wasn’t any gate—and looking up the weedy and overgrown drive (I could
see it for a little way by the light of the street lamp) I made out
the black bulk of what must have been a large house back in among
trees, and gloomy as a prison. There was a pale yellowish light in one
window—that was all.
“While I was trying to make out something in the dense gloom, a door of
the house opened, the dim light showing through it from inside, and the
form of a man—which must have been Jamie—could be seen passing in, the
door closing quickly after him. That’s all there was to it. I told you
the rest. Got the name of the street when I went back to the corner.”
“Taxi there all right?”
“Yes—but I didn’t see it at first. Chauffeur had backed up into some
private grounds so the other driver, rattling by toward the city,
wouldn’t see him.
“‘I don’t know what your man that you’re trailin’ amounts to,’ he said
as I got in, ‘but that ain’t no amateur what run him out here!’”
“Strikes me you picked a pretty good one yourself,” observed Dudley.
“I sure did,” I agreed; “and his parting words put the flag on it.
When I’d paid him off at the hotel he stood looking at me with a queer
twist to his face and then gave a quick glance about. ‘Say, cap,’ he
said, moving quite close, ‘I don’t know as it’s any use to ye, but we
was shadowed too.’ And he was gone before I could——”
I stopped in the midst of what I was saying. The man who’d been sitting
behind Duds—the one who’d started slightly when I mentioned the name
Torringtown—was standing beside our table. I hadn’t noticed him come up.
“Pardon this intrusion, gentlemen,” the stranger said in a low voice
and with a most courteous inflection, “but it was impossible to avoid
overhearing what you were saying. I should hardly have thought it wise
to trouble you with an apology for this, but it occurred to me that the
very remarkable coincidence involved might possibly be of some slight
interest.”
We’d both risen as he began to speak, and now assured him that the
apology was unnecessary and that the coincidence would interest us in
the extreme, and begged him to be seated. But he shook his head in a
manner to convey that what he had to say would only take a moment.
On the first glance the man wasn’t remarkable in any way that I could
see: medium height—medium weight—medium age—no particular expression to
his face. But in an instant it was different, for he’d hardly begun to
speak before I felt—and so did Dudley as he told me afterward—that a
person of powerful or compelling character stood before us. Powerful in
some peculiar way. I never took much stock in hypnotism and don’t now;
at the same time I can see how things like that, carried a bit further,
might put a man where he couldn’t see straight. These things occurred
to me afterward—I couldn’t have got away, at the time, from what the
fellow was talking about.
He went on at once, after declining our invitation to sit down: “A
few moments ago I heard, from the direction of your table, the name
of a street which is intimately associated with an affair I’ve been
investigating for nearly two years.”
Something made me murmur, without the slightest intention of doing so,
“Torringtown Road.”
“That was it—not quite the correct name, but so near that I shuddered
with the fear that other parties were looking up the same case—which
would, of course, head my work for the discard. With that fear in mind
I was unable to prevent myself from listening. I am sorry.”
We both begged him not to speak of such a thing as no offense could
possibly be taken, and I asked him to tell me the right name of the
street.
“Torrington Road,” he answered. “Of course I saw in a moment—or rather
heard—that although the case was the same that I’d been working on, you
gentlemen were making no special drive at it. But in addition to thus
dispelling my anxiety, the few words I overheard supplied me with the
answer to the only question that has completely baffled me up to the
present time. For two years I’ve been making fruitless efforts to find
out who shadowed Jamie Dreek from the South Station in Boston to the
old mansion in Roxbury on that August night, and what object he could
have had in view, seeing that nothing ever came of it; and this evening
I happen to drop in for dinner at a place I’ve never patronized before,
and the answer comes across to me from the next table!”
We agreed that it was a strange coincidence, all right, and as he
seemed to be on the point of withdrawing I asked him—more to detain him
than anything else, for it seemed that he must be charged up to the
muzzle with interesting stuff—if he happened to know how it was the
Dreek chap was sitting in a coach on the Boston train after I’d seen
him go out of New Haven on the New York express.
“Very simple,” Barnes answered. “He sat with his mother as the New York
train went down through the yards, and after it got headway enough for
the old woman to feel easy about him, he shoved a wad of bills into her
lap, saying, ‘Hold that for me, will ye—I want to go to the smoker,’
walked back to the rear platform, and a second later let himself down
by the knuckle of the coupler, which projected a few inches, and
dropped off. His mother saw his valise in the rack and didn’t worry. It
was somewhere along under the Cedar Street bridge and they don’t get
into any speed by then, so he was up in a second or two and sprinting
back for the Boston train—the one you were on” (looking at me).
“Nothing much at stake you see, as he could have got No. 30 four hours
later if he’d missed it. But he didn’t. You must have noted the fact
that you can always make a train if there’s no special need of it.”
He was getting out a pocketbook as he talked, and laying a card on the
table, murmured something about his name being Barnes and that he was
taking the liberty of introducing himself; whereupon we very informally
introduced each other. And the man, who appeared to be in a hurry, was
just turning away as Dudley mentioned the fact (having given my name)
that I was a staff reporter on a New York Daily.
Upon this Mr. Barnes rather abruptly turned back and stood looking at
me.
“May I accept your recent invitation to sit down?” he asked, after a
moment.
We begged him to do so, and all three seated ourselves.
“I was concerned in this West Roxbury affair,” he said in a lowered
voice, “in a way that gave me an insight into some of its unusual
features.”
“Detective?” asked Dudley, also sinking his voice.
“Not at all,” Mr. Barnes replied. “To be perfectly frank with you—as
it’s only right I should be in view of the favor I’m going to ask—I was
associated in a confidential way with the defense. Hard put to it for
evidence they were, and I was able to turn up some for them. But the
case was so extraordinary that after it was all over I began looking
into various points that came up, and one thing led to another until I
found I was in deep and moreover so interested that I couldn’t quit.
Besides that, it began to look to me like a gold mine if it was handled
right. Although the papers were full of it at the time, not only here
in Boston but throughout the States and Canada, the real facts at the
bottom of it never came to light—a case of ‘diplomatic suppression’ by
the police, if I may be allowed to use the expression.”
“How gold mine?” asked Dudley.
“Publication,” answered Barnes. “I now have virtually the whole thing;
and some of it is bound to stir up the animals a bit. I wouldn’t have
thought of troubling you with all this but for hearing you say that Mr.
McClintock is a reporter. I’m hoping you can give me a little advice,
Mr. McClintock, on getting the thing into book form. I have it all in
my mind, and notes and memoranda to keep it there. But I’ve got to get
some one to write it down for me, as that’s something entirely out of
my line.”
“What you want, Mr. Barnes,” I said, “is a literary chap—some one in
the fiction line—a story writer.”
“Pardon me, Mr. McClintock, but that’s the very thing I don’t want.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time—not to speak of some money—in
digging up the truth about this affair; and after all this to have it
get into the hands of a story writer and be labeled on every page as
a cheap concoction of his brain would be a calamity. I don’t want any
‘our hero’ and ‘dear reader’ and that sort of throw-down in the account
of this Haworth case, nor any ‘Foreword’ or dedication to somebody
whose loving care has helped me through or sustained me in hours of
anguish. Everything that’s going into this book I saw, or heard, or got
first-hand from the parties concerned. And as you’re in that line Mr.
McClintock, I thought perhaps you could put me in the way of finding a
reporter of the kind I need, who’d take it down the way I give it to
him, the same as he would for a newspaper. I’m asking a great favor,
but if you haven’t anyone in mind don’t hesitate to say so.”
I considered for a little, but finally had to tell him that at the
moment I couldn’t think of anyone available for such a piece of work.
He rose apologetically, but hesitated an instant as he stood there.
“I don’t suppose there’s a chance of its appealing to you?” he asked,
looking me full in the face; and went on before I could open my mouth
to answer: “It would net you three thousand, and as you don’t know me
I’m perfectly willing to pay for each quarter of the work in advance.”
By this time I’d recovered speech, and after expressing appreciation of
his liberal offer, told him it would be impossible for me to accept as
I had a regular staff job and didn’t want to lose it.
“Why lose it?” he asked, seating himself again as he spoke. “Your
work with me would scarcely take ten days, for you’d have the idea in
your notebooks as fast as I could talk it off. You can take your time
writing it out—not the least hurry about that. And if your managing
editor doesn’t want to give you the time off, I can follow you round
and manage it evenings or whenever you had an hour or so to spare.”
I was in a most peculiar mental condition, with this glittering chance
to reach up and pull down three thousand dollars, and with Mr. Barnes’s
impelling personality seeming almost to force me into the arrangement
without any consideration whatever. I tried to pull myself together and
shake off something that seemed like a “spell,” and in doing so caught
sight of Dudley, whose chair was near but slightly back of mine. All
through this talk about my doing the work I’d felt a consciousness of
his sitting there quietly smoking, and wasn’t surprised, as I glanced
about, to hear him say:
“Why rush this?”
Mr. Barnes instantly disclaimed any idea of wishing to do so,
explaining that as I’d appeared to show some slight interest in the
matter, he’d been tremendously anxious to get before me whatever
advantages it might possess.
“Let’s have a look at the disadvantages,” countered Dudley. “Suppose
Mr. McClintock, on taking up the work (if he does that) finds, for one
reason or another, that he’d rather not go on with it.”
“He’ll be at perfect liberty to discontinue,” was Barnes’s quick
rejoinder. “I’ll say,” he added, “that at any time before the first
quarter of the work is finished he may abandon it without even
troubling to give a reason.”
Shortly after this we adjourned the conference to Dudley’s
apartment—not far distant; and it was finally left that I’d have
a night to think it over and that Barnes was to meet us at the
Subtreasury the next day at four in the afternoon.
* * * * *
“Think he’s straight?” I asked Duds, after we’d heard the elevator door
clang to with Barnes going down in the car.
“Put a question mark to that,” grunted Dudley as he lit his pipe. “But
I’ll say this,” he added a minute later, “if he isn’t, there’s nothing
he’d stop at.” He reflected awhile and then went on: “Uncommon specimen
I must say.... Strange sort of influence, too.... If he’d had you there
alone you’d be writing his book for him now.”
We sat smoking for some little time before Duds made further
observations. I waited patiently, realizing the value of his advice
in such a matter. After a while he spoke up in the manner of having
arrived at conclusions.
“On the first shot I don’t see where he could get you,” he said.
“Blackmail’s out of it. Robbery’s out of it. Playing this game to get
a hook in you for another is out of it. Of course he didn’t come into
that restaurant by any chance or accident.”
“No?”
“Not on the cat’s pajamas—or whatever it is they say. Wouldn’t be
surprised if he followed you over from New York.”
“Why not talk to me there?”
“Can’t say, but he had his reasons. Nothing accidental goes with
him.... All the same, what of it? If there’s anything criminal about
his stuff, you can quit.... If he’s cribbed it somewhere, that doesn’t
touch you. Another thing: if you do it I’m going to sit in with you.
If Barnes objects, he’s crooked and that ends it. Lot of things I
don’t like about the man, from his one-sided smile to something damned
peculiar back in his eyes. And I don’t take much stock in his book, or
whatever it is. Most likely a blind to cover a job he’s got on hand.
Rather interesting to know what it’s all about, eh?——If he talks all
right to-morrow, suppose we go ahead and see what he’s got!”
Mr. Barnes certainly did talk all right the next day, and not only
raised no objections to the presence of Dudley while the dictating
was going on, but seemed quite enormously pleased at the proposal,
explaining that with two of us he’d be able to get his mind off the
dictation business—which, to tell the truth, had rather alarmed him—and
run it off on the idea of simply giving us an account of the affair.
I phoned the office, and my managing editor gave me a week or ten days,
which Mr. Barnes said would do. The working time was arranged to suit
Dudley, as his affairs couldn’t be shifted. Always we had the evenings,
and frequently the afternoons as well. The place was the living room of
Dudley’s apartment.
Mr. Barnes made it a part of the agreement that I should write out a
brief statement of the episode of my trailing of Jamie Dreek, and our
chance meeting with him (Barnes) in the restaurant,—this to serve as
an explanation of his dictating the account of the affair to me. He
suggested also that in this statement I make mention of the fact that
because of the incidents he proposed to relate being actual happenings
with actual people involved in them, he felt it necessary in some cases
to use fictitious names and addresses.
This and the preceding pages constitute my effort to comply with Mr.
Barnes’s wishes.