is complete. In fact, I consider it unique because it has none of
the banalities of a solution and leaves the problem even more
confused than at the start.”
“I don’t see—” began Rankin.
“Of course you don’t, my dear man,” said Quinny crushingly. “You do
not see that any solution would be commonplace, whereas no solution
leaves an extraordinary intellectual problem.”
“How so?”
“In the first place,” said Quinny, preparing to annex the topic,
“whether the situation actually happened or not, which is in itself
a mere triviality, Peters has constructed it in a masterly way, the
proof of which is that he has made _me_ listen. Observe, each person
present might have taken the ring—Flanders, a broker, just come a
cropper; Maude Lille, a woman on the ragged side of life in
desperate means; either Mr. and Mrs. Cheever, suspected of being
card sharps—very good touch that, Peters, when the husband and wife
glanced involuntarily at each other at the end—Mr. Enos Jackson, a
sharp lawyer, or his wife about to be divorced; even Harris,
concerning whom, very cleverly, Peters has said nothing at all to
make him quite the most suspicious of all. There are, therefore,
seven solutions, all possible and all logical. But beyond this is
left a great intellectual problem.”
“How so?”
“Was it a feminine or a masculine action to restore the ring when
threatened with a search, knowing that Mrs. Kildair’s clever
expedient of throwing the room into darkness made detection
impossible? Was it a woman who lacked the necessary courage to
continue, or was it a man who repented his first impulse? Is a man
or is a woman the greater natural criminal?”
“A woman took it, of course,” said Rankin.
“On the contrary, it was a man,” said Steingall, “for the second
action was more difficult than the first.”
“A man, certainly,” said De Gollyer. “The restoration of the ring
was a logical decision.”
“You see,” said Quinny triumphantly, “personally I incline to a
woman for the reason that a weaker feminine nature is peculiarly
susceptible to the domination of her own sex. There you are. We
could meet and debate the subject year in and year out and never
agree.”
“I recognize most of the characters,” said De Gollyer with a little
confidential smile toward Peters. “Mrs. Kildair, of course, is all
you say of her—an extraordinary woman. The story is quite
characteristic of her. Flanders, I am not sure of, but I think I
know him.”
“Did it really happen?” asked Rankin, who always took the
commonplace point of view.
“Exactly as I have told it,” said Peters.
“The only one I don’t recognize is Harris,” said De Gollyer
pensively.
“Your humble servant,” said Peters, smiling.
The four looked up suddenly with a little start.
“What!” said Quinny, abruptly confused. “You—you were there?”
“I was there.”
The four continued to look at him without speaking, each absorbed in
his own thoughts, with a sudden ill ease.
A club attendant, with a telephone slip on a tray, stopped by
Peters’ side. He excused himself and went along the porch, nodding
from table to table.
“Curious chap,” said De Gollyer musingly.
“Extraordinary.”
The word was like a murmur in the group of four, who continued
watching Peters’ trim, disappearing figure in silence, without
looking at one another—with a certain ill ease.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A RETRIEVED REFORMATION[9]
By O. HENRY
Footnote 9:
From _Roads of Destiny_. Published by permission of the
publishers. Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page & Co.
A GUARD came to the prison shoe-shop, where Jimmy Valentine was
assiduously stitching uppers, and escorted him to the front office.
There the warden handed Jimmy his pardon, which had been signed that
morning by the governor. Jimmy took it in a tired kind of way. He
had served nearly ten months of a four-year sentence. He had
expected to stay only about three months, at the longest. When a man
with as many friends on the outside as Jimmy Valentine had is
received in the “stir” it is hardly worth while to cut his hair.
“Now, Valentine,” said the warden, “you’ll go out in the morning.
Brace up, and make a man of yourself. You’re not a bad fellow at
heart. Stop cracking safes, and live straight.”
“Me?” said Jimmy, in surprise. “Why, I never cracked a safe in my
life.”
“Oh, no,” laughed the warden. “Of course not. Let’s see, now. How
was it you happened to get sent up on that Springfield job? Was it
because you wouldn’t prove an alibi for fear of compromising
somebody in extremely high-toned society? Or was it simply a case of
a mean old jury that had it in for you? It’s always one or the other
with you innocent victims.”
“Me?” said Jimmy, still blankly virtuous. “Why, warden, I never was
in Springfield in my life!”
“Take him back, Cronin,” smiled the warden, “and fix him up with
outgoing clothes. Unlock him at seven in the morning, and let him
come to the bull-pen. Better think over my advice, Valentine.”
At a quarter past seven on the next morning Jimmy stood in the
warden’s outer office. He had on a suit of the villainously fitting,
ready-made clothes and a pair of the stiff, squeaky shoes that the
state furnishes to its discharged compulsory guests.
The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with
which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good
citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook
hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books “Pardoned by
Governor,” and Mr. James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.
Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the
smell of the flowers, Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There
he tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the shape of a broiled
chicken and a bottle of white wine—followed by a cigar a grade
better than the one the warden had given him. From there he
proceeded leisurely to the depot. He tossed a quarter into the hat
of a blind man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three
hours set him down in a little town near the state line. He went to
the café of one Mike Dolan and shook hands with Mike, who was alone
behind the bar.
“Sorry we couldn’t make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy,” said Mike. “But
we had that protest from Springfield to buck against, and the
governor nearly balked. Feeling all right?”
“Fine,” said Jimmy. “Got my key?”
He got his key and went up-stairs, unlocking the door of a room at
the rear. Everything was just as he had left it. There on the floor
was still Ben Price’s collar-button that had been torn from that
eminent detective’s shirt-band when they had overpowered Jimmy to
arrest him.
Pulling out from the wall a folding-bed, Jimmy slid back a panel in
the wall and dragged out a dust-covered suit-case. He opened this
and gazed fondly at the finest set of burglar’s tools in the East.
It was a complete set, made of specially tempered steel, the latest
design in drills, punches, braces and bits, jimmies, clamps, and
augers, with two or three novelties, invented by Jimmy himself, in
which he took pride. Over nine hundred dollars they had cost him to
have made at ——, a place where they make such things for the
profession.
In half an hour Jimmy went down stairs and through the café. He was
now dressed in tasteful and well-fitting clothes, and carried his
dusted and cleaned suit-case in his hand.
“Got anything on?” asked Mike Dolan, genially.
“Me?” said Jimmy, in a puzzled tone. “I don’t understand. I’m
representing the New York Amalgamated Short Snap Biscuit Cracker and
Frazzled Wheat Company.”
This statement delighted Mike to such an extent that Jimmy had to
take a seltzer-and-milk on the spot. He never touched “hard” drinks.
A week after the release of Valentine, 9762, there was a neat job of
safe-burglary done in Richmond, Indiana, with no clue to the author.
A scant eight hundred dollars was all that was secured. Two weeks
after that a patented, improved, burglar-proof safe in Logansport
was opened like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars,
currency; securities and silver untouched. That began to interest
the rogue-catchers. Then an old-fashioned bank-safe in Jefferson
City became active and threw out of its crater an eruption of
bank-notes amounting to five thousand dollars. The losses were now
high enough to bring the matter up into Ben Price’s class of work.
By comparing notes, a remarkable similarity in the methods of the
burglaries was noticed. Ben Price investigated the scenes of the
robberies, and was heard to remark:
“That’s Dandy Jim Valentine’s autograph. He’s resumed business. Look
at that combination knob—jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish
in wet weather. He’s got the only clamps that can do it. And look
how clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill
but one hole. Yes, I guess I want Mr. Valentine. He’ll do his bit
next time without any short-time or clemency foolishness.”
Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working up
the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick get-aways, no confederates,
and a taste for good society—these ways had helped Mr. Valentine to
become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out
that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and
other people with burglar-proof safes felt more at ease.
One afternoon Jimmy Valentine and his suit-case climbed out of the
mail-hack in Elmore, a little town five miles off the railroad down
in the black-jack country of Arkansas. Jimmy, looking like an
athletic young senior just home from college, went down the board
side-walk toward the hotel.
A young lady crossed the street, passed him at the corner and
entered a door over which was the sign “The Elmore Bank.” Jimmy
Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became
another man. She lowered her eyes and colored slightly. Young men of
Jimmy’s style and looks were scarce in Elmore.
Jimmy collared a boy that was loafing on the steps of the bank as if
he were one of the stockholders, and began to question him about the
town, feeding him dimes at intervals. By and by the young lady came
out, looking royally unconscious of the young man with the
suit-case, and went her way.
“Isn’t that young lady Miss Polly Simpson?” asked Jimmy, with
specious guile.
“Naw,” said the boy. “She’s Annabel Adams. Her pa owns this bank.
What’d you come to Elmore for? Is that a gold watch-chain? I’m going
to get a bulldog. Got any more dimes?”
Jimmy went to the Planters’ Hotel, registered as Ralph D. Spencer,
and engaged a room. He leaned on the desk and declared his platform
to the clerk. He said he had come to Elmore to look for a location
to go into business. How was the shoe business, now, in the town? He
had thought of the shoe business. Was there an opening?
The clerk was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He,
himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded
youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying
to figure out Jimmy’s manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially
gave information.
Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn’t
an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general
stores handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped
Mr. Spencer would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a
pleasant town to live in, and the people very sociable.
Mr. Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and
look over the situation. No, the clerk needn’t call the boy. He
would carry up his suit-case, himself; it was rather heavy.
Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phœnix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s
ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of
love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and
secured a good run of trade.
Socially he was also a success, and made many friends. And he
accomplished the wish of his heart. He met Miss Annabel Adams, and
became more and more captivated by her charms.
At the end of a year the situation of Mr. Ralph Spencer was this: he
had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was
flourishing, and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two
weeks. Mr. Adams, the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of
Spencer. Annabel’s pride in him almost equalled her affection. He
was as much at home in the family of Mr. Adams and that of Annabel’s
married sister as if he were already a member.
One day Jimmy sat down in his room and wrote this letter, which he
mailed to the safe address of one of his old friends in St. Louis:
DEAR OLD PAL:
I want you to be at Sullivan’s place, in Little Rock, next
Wednesday night, at nine o’clock. I want you to wind up some
little matters for me. And, also, I want to make you a
present of my kit of tools. I know you’ll be glad to get
them—you couldn’t duplicate the lot for a thousand dollars.
Say, Billy, I’ve quit the old business—a year ago. I’ve got
a nice store. I’m making an honest living, and I’m going to
marry the finest girl on earth two weeks from now. It’s the
only life, Billy—the straight one. I wouldn’t touch a dollar
of another man’s money now for a million. After I get
married I’m going to sell out and go West, where there won’t
be so much danger of having old scores brought up against
me. I tell you, Billy, she’s an angel. She believes in me;
and I wouldn’t do another crooked thing for the whole world.
Be sure to be at Sully’s, for I must see you. I’ll bring the
tools with me.
Your old friend,
JIMMY.
On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged
unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy. He lounged about town
in his quiet way until he found out what he wanted to know. From the
drug-store across the street from Spencer’s shoe-store he got a good
look at Ralph D. Spencer.
“Going to marry the banker’s daughter are you, Jimmy?” said Ben to
himself, softly. “Well, I don’t know!”
The next morning Jimmy took breakfast at the Adamses. He was going
to Little Rock that day to order his wedding-suit and buy something
nice for Annabel. That would be the first time he had left town
since he came to Elmore. It had been more than a year now since
those last professional “jobs,” and he thought he could safely
venture out.
After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together—Mr.
Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel’s married sister with her two
little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy
still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his
suit-case. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy’s horse
and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the
railroad station.
All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the
banking-room—Jimmy included, for Mr. Adams’s future son-in-law was
welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the
good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss
Annabel. Jimmy set his suit-case down. Annabel, whose heart was
bubbling with lively youth, put on Jimmy’s hat, and picked up the
suit-case. “Wouldn’t I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My!
Ralph, how heavy it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”
“Lot of nickel-plated shoe-horns in there,” said Jimmy, coolly,
“that I’m going to return. Thought I’d save express charges by
taking them up. I’m getting awfully economical.”
The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. Mr. Adams was
very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by every one. The
vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened
with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single
handle, and had a time-lock. Mr. Adams beamingly explained its
workings to Mr. Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too
intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were
delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.
While they were thus engaged Ben Price sauntered in and leaned on
his elbow, looking casually inside between the railings. He told the
teller that he didn’t want anything; he was just waiting for a man
he knew.
Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion.
Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit
of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts
and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen Mr. Adams do.
The old banker sprang to the handle and tugged at it for a moment.
“The door can’t be opened,” he groaned. “The clock hasn’t been wound
nor the combination set.”
Agatha’s mother screamed again, hysterically.
“Hush!” said Mr. Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quiet
for a moment. Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could. “Listen to
me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint
sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of
terror.
“My precious darling!” wailed the mother. “She will die of fright!
Open the door! Oh, break it open! Can’t you men do something?”
“There isn’t a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,”
said Mr. Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we
do? That child—she can’t stand it long in there. There isn’t enough
air, and, besides, she’ll go into convulsions from fright.”
Agatha’s mother, frantic now, beat the door of the vault with her
hands. Somebody wildly suggested dynamite. Annabel turned to Jimmy,
her large eyes full of anguish, but not yet despairing. To a woman
nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she
worships.
“Can’t you do something, Ralph—_try_, won’t you?”
He looked at her with a queer, soft smile on his lips and in his
keen eyes.
“Annabel,” he said, “give me that rose you are wearing, will you?”
Hardly believing that she heard him aright, she unpinned the bud
from the bosom of her dress, and placed it in his hand. Jimmy
stuffed it into his vest-pocket, threw off his coat and pulled up
his shirt-sleeves. With that act Ralph D. Spencer passed away and
Jimmy Valentine took his place.
“Get away from the door, all of you,” he commanded, shortly.
He set his suit-case on the table, and opened it out flat. From that
time on he seemed to be unconscious of the presence of any one else.
He laid out the shining, queer implements swiftly and orderly,
whistling softly to himself as he always did when at work. In a deep
silence and immovable, the others watched him as if under a spell.
In a minute Jimmy’s pet drill was biting smoothly into the steel
door. In ten minutes—breaking his own burglarious record—he threw
back the bolts and opened the door.
Agatha, almost collapsed, but safe, was gathered into her mother’s
arms.
Jimmy Valentine put on his coat, and walked outside the railings
toward the front door. As he went he thought he heard a far-away
voice that he once knew call “Ralph!” But he never hesitated.
At the door a big man stood somewhat in his way.
“Hello, Ben!” said Jimmy, still with his strange smile “Got around
at last, have you? Well, let’s go. I don’t know that it makes much
difference, now.”
And then Ben Price acted rather strangely.
“Guess you’re mistaken, Mr. Spencer,” he said. “Don’t believe I
recognize you. You’re buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?”
And Ben Price turned and strolled down the street.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BROTHER LEO
By PHYLLIS BOTTOME
IT was a sunny morning, and I was on my way to Torcello. Venice lay
behind us a dazzling line, with towers of gold against the blue
lagoon. All at once a breeze sprang up from the sea; the small,
feathery islands seemed to shake and quiver, and, like leaves driven
before a gale, those flocks of colored butterflies, the
fishing-boats, ran in before the storm. Far away to our left stood
the ancient tower of Altinum, with the island of Burano a bright
pink beneath the towering clouds. To our right, and much nearer, was
a small cypress-covered islet. One large umbrella-pine hung close to
the sea, and behind it rose the tower of the convent church. The two
gondoliers consulted together in hoarse cries and decided to make
for it.
“It is San Francesco del Deserto,” the elder explained to me. “It
belongs to the little brown brothers, who take no money and are very
kind. One would hardly believe these ones had any religion, they are
such a simple people, and they live on fish and the vegetables they
grow in their garden.”
We fought the crooked little waves in silence after that; only the
high prow rebelled openly against its sudden twistings and turnings.
The arrowy-shaped gondola is not a structure made for the rough
jostling of waves, and the gondoliers put forth all their strength
and skill to reach the tiny haven under the convent wall. As we did
so, the black bars of cloud rushed down upon us in a perfect deluge
of rain, and we ran speechless and half drowned across the tossed
field of grass and forget-me-nots to the convent door. A shivering
beggar sprang up from nowhere and insisted on ringing the bell for
us.
The door opened, and I saw before me a young brown brother with the
merriest eyes I have ever seen. They were unshadowed, like a
child’s, dancing and eager, and yet there was a strange gentleness
and patience about him, too, as if there was no hurry even about his
eagerness.
He was very poorly dressed and looked thin. I think he was charmed
to see us, though a little shy, like a hospitable country hostess
anxious to give pleasure, but afraid that she has not much to offer
citizens of a larger world.
“What a tempest!” he exclaimed. “You have come at a good hour.
Enter, enter, Signore! And your men, will they not come in?”
We found ourselves in a very small rose-red cloister; in the middle
of it was an old well under the open sky, but above us was a
sheltering roof spanned by slender arches. The young monk hesitated
for a moment, smiling from me to the two gondoliers. I think it
occurred to him that we should like different entertainment, for he
said at last:
“You men would perhaps like to sit in the porter’s lodge for a
while? Our Brother Lorenzo is there; he is our chief fisherman, with
a great knowledge of the lagoons; and he could light a fire for you
to dry yourselves by—Signori. And you, if I mistake not, are
English, are you not, Signore? It is probable that you would like to
see our chapel. It is not much. We are very proud of it, but that,
you know, is because it was founded by our blessed father, Saint
Francis. He believed in poverty, and we also believe in it, but it
does not give much for people to see. That is a misfortune, to come
all this way and to see nothing.” Brother Leo looked at me a little
wistfully. I think he feared that I should be disappointed. Then he
passed before me with swift, eager feet toward the little chapel.
It was a very little chapel and quite bare; behind the altar some
monks were chanting an office. It was clean, and there were no
pictures or images, only, as I knelt there, I felt as if the little
island in its desert of waters had indeed secreted some vast
treasure, and as if the chapel, empty as it had seemed at first, was
full of invisible possessions. As for Brother Leo, he had stood
beside me nervously for a moment; but on seeing that I was prepared
to kneel, he started, like a bird set free, toward the altar steps,
where his lithe young impetuosity sank into sudden peace. He knelt
there so still, so rapt, so incased in his listening silence, that
he might have been part of the stone pavement. Yet his earthly
senses were alive, for the moment I rose he was at my side again, as
patient and courteous as ever, though I felt as if his inner ear
were listening still to some unheard melody.
We stood again in the pink cloister. “There is little to see,” he
repeated. “We are _poverelli_; it has been like this for seven
hundred years.” He smiled as if that age-long, simple service of
poverty were a light matter, an excuse, perhaps, in the eyes of the
citizen of a larger world for their having nothing to show. Only the
citizen, as he looked at Brother Leo, had a sudden doubt as to the
size of the world outside. Was it as large, half as large, even, as
the eager young heart beside him which had chosen poverty as a
bride?
The rain fell monotonously against the stones of the tiny cloister.