BILLINGS' SYMPTOMS ALARM ME
"Most infernal outrage of the century, I tell you!" Billings stormed.
For an hour I had sat there in my rooms, limp and bewildered under the
tempest of his wrath. The wild and incoherent sputter over the 'phone
that Jenkins reported upon my return had sent me on a hunt for my
friend. I had found him sullenly dining alone over at the club, and as
soon as I entered he started to bolt from the room. Only through the
greatest pleading had I managed to coax him back to my chambers, hoping
I might screw out of him some explanation.
I had received it, by Jove!
Of course, I recognized it all as impossible and crazy, you know, but
when I said so to Billings his remarks were so violent, and he turned
such a dangerous apoplectic purple, dashed if I didn't renege.
"But then the old man, you know!" I protested weakly.
Billings leveled his big arm at me, mouthing wordlessly for a minute.
"That--that'll do, about that old man!" he choked at last. "Not--not
another word about _him_!" And finally he collapsed into his seat from
sheer exhaustion. Just sat there panting and glaring at me like a jolly
bulldog.
Gradually he became calmer.
"Tell you what: the only thing that lets you out, Dicky, is the way Van
Dyne and Blakesley did, in turn, when I got them there."
He spoke savagely, but I brightened a little.
"Oh!" I said. "Didn't they recognize you, either?"
Billings' snort made me jump.
"Recognize!" he bellowed. "They went back, mad as hell!"
"By Jove!" I said soothingly.
"That's not all," continued Billings grimly. "I was so sure it was a
put-up job, some asinine, fool joke, I wrote a cautious note to the
governor. After a lot of pleading, I got the fools to send it. He came."
Billings paused dramatically.
"Oh, yes, _he_ came!" he went on, fixing me with an excited eye. "And
when I staggered forward and did the prodigal son act on his neck, he
handed me a punch that jolted off his silk tile. Went straight up in the
air with the whole bunch down there and contracted to do things for them
that will keep him active for a year. Threatened to have _me_ sent up
for forgery--this is my own father now, mind you--forgery of my own
name! Huh!"
Billings strode to the end of the room and back. Then he sat down
again, beating with his foot upon the floor.
"Say, has everybody gone crazy?" he demanded.
I didn't dare say a word, for I had my own opinions, you know, and I
knew it wouldn't do to express them. Only excite him. Best way seemed
just to pretend to swallow it all, you know. Best way always, Pugsley
says, especially with best friends.
"They were pretty nasty after that," Billings went on gloomily; "and
they wouldn't send for any one else. Just had to sit there in that
infernal bastile with nothing on but pajamas and a pair of bedroom
slippers. Every once in a while somebody would come and address me as
'Foxy,' and want me to send for my clothes or else send out and buy
some. Finally, a big brute came and threw me some dirty rags and said
I'd _have_ to put on those or else buy some others. Buy some, Dicky--did
you get that?--_buy_ some!"
"Devilish rude, _I_ say," I commented indignantly. "Who wants to wear
_bought_ clothes? Why, dash it, my tailor says--"
"Pshaw!" Billings whirled his fat head impatiently. "You miss the whole
point, Dicky! I didn't have a cent of _money_; and what's more, I
couldn't get any." He paused. "See? Try to get that, Dicky--make an
effort, old chap."
I did, but, dash it, it was such a rum idea--very oddest thing he had
said--and silly, you know. Fancy any one not being able to send out and
get money! I just got to thinking what a jolly queer idea it was and
lost part of what Billings was saying--something about how he managed to
get them to send a note for his clothes. Here is what I _did_ hear:
"And I had just got into the togs and stuffed the rubies and pajamas out
of sight in my pocket, when the particular brigand who had charge of my
coop came back. He almost threw a fit when he saw me. 'Where's
Twenty-seven?' he wanted to know. And then, before I could say a word,
he blustered up to me with: 'And say, what business _you_ got in here?
Clear out!' And you bet I didn't lose a single golden minute--I cleared.
You should have seen me beat it down that corridor! The fellow followed
me a little, grumbling to himself. Then he called to a cop who was just
coming in: 'Say, O'Keefe, run that young fat freak out of here, will
you? It's one of that bunch of visitors that went through just now.
Fresh thing--snooping into the cells!'
"And so the same cop that brought me there--the very same--was the one
that shoved me out of the door, warning me that I'd best not go poking
into the prisoners' cells again if I knew what was good for me!"
"By Jove!" I ventured sympathetically.
Billings nodded. "Of course, I knew it was a semi-lucid interval with
them all, but for all I knew it might pass any instant and some bat
discover I was a Dutch scrubwoman escaped from Hoboken. So I broke for
the first taxi and hit it up for the club."
Billings took a deep breath and went on:
"By George," he said, laughing nervously. "I felt like a dog with a can
to its tail hunting for a place to hide. Every time a fellow looked at
me I had heart failure until he called me by my own name. Bribed Eugene
to lie about my whereabouts until his face hurt and then I went to bed.
Sneaked out of my hole this evening to get a bite of something, and then
you ran me down.
"And Dicky"--Billings finished excitedly--"I was sure you had come to
drag me back to my dungeon, and I looked behind you, fully expecting to
see those two Irish pirates. If I had, I should have swooned in my soup,
that's all!"
I murmured my sympathy. And, by Jove, I certainly did have a heartache
about him, but of course I couldn't tell him why. I was getting him
quieted--I could see that--and he was so far mollified as to help
himself to a cigar. When he had clipped a V from the end with his knife,
he leaned over and tapped me impressively on the knee with the blade.
"And just think, Dicky," he said, absently emphasizing with the sharp
point of the knife, "there I sat, moneyless--not even a dime, you
know--in a suit of pajamas whose three buttons were worth one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars!"
He fell back, his fat arms eloquently outspreading.
"Can you beat it?" he demanded.
I rubbed my palm on my knee and considered.
Privately, I thought I _could_ beat it--by Jove, I was sure I could! I
knew of a pair of pajamas worth a dashed sight more than money. And I
wondered gloomily where they were. I had telephoned as soon as I stepped
out at the Grand Central Station, and after a bit made them understand
who I was and reminded them that the black pajamas had not been returned
according to promise. And then they told me Foxy Grandpa had escaped,
but as he had nothing else on, they felt sure of rounding him up as soon
as he came out of his hiding-place--probably after dark.
"By the way, old chap," puffed Billings, his poise and good humor
improving under the spell of the cigar, "I was sorry to return the
pajamas torn and dusty and wrinkled as they were. But you see, on
account of the rubies, I was leary about having them pressed or fussed
over. So I wrapped and sealed them myself, just as one does a jewel
package. Got them, did you?"
I stared at Billings through my glass.
"Didn't you get them?" he questioned in alarm.
"Yes, yes--it's all right, old chap," I said hastily and as pleasantly
as I could. "Eugene delivered the box to Jenkins and I opened it myself.
Thought it was--h'm--thought it was something else." Then I proceeded
soothingly: "But you're just a little mistaken about the dust and
wrinkles, old chap--and about them being torn. Ha, ha! Good joke!"
But Billings' face was unresponsive.
"Why, you goop," he said with cheerful contempt, "there's a triangular
tear in the back of the coat you could stick your head through; and one
of the sleeves is in ribbons."
I just opened the drawer of the table and took out the box--glove box, I
think it was--containing the pajamas. I had read something somewhere
about the clearing effect--the reaction, and that sort of thing,
produced sometimes by a shock.
"See for yourself, old chap," I said gently. And I lifted out the
gossamer fabrics and again spread their crimson glory under the lamp.
Billings examined them eagerly, but just looked confounded.
"Don't understand it," he said, biting his nails. "Why, hang it, they
look smooth, too, as though never worn. And the rubies are all right,
too."
He rested his chin upon his hands and gloomed at the red sweep.
I caught a few sentences of his mumbling.
"By George, I'm half a mind to think there's something in the pajamas,"
he muttered--"something uncanny and disagreeable--something they're
alive with!"
I sprang up and back, overturning my chair.
"Good heavens--oh, I say!" I exclaimed in consternation, as I fixed my
glass on the garments. "It's your jail, then, you know--"
His hand checked my reach to the bell push.
"Don't be any more kinds of an ass than you can help, Dicky," he said
with rude irritability. "I'm talking about something else; and I haven't
got any jail, dammit! A station house isn't exactly a jail!"
He reached for another cigar and went off into a brown study, wrapping
himself in clouds of smoke. I thought that maybe if I kept quite still
he might come to himself all right. Meantime, for want of something to
do, and to keep from getting so devilish sleepy, I fell to turning over
the pajamas, admiring their beauty and daintiness and kind of
half-daringly wondering how _she_ would--
And suddenly I made a discovery; and I forgot about keeping still.
"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed excitedly. "Here's something inside the
collar--some sort of jolly writing!"
"What's that?" said Billings sharply. He jerked the garment from my hand
and held it in the light. All round the circle within the collar band
ran four or five darker red lines of queer little crisscross characters.
"Chinese laundry marks, you idiot," he commented carelessly. And then he
ducked his head closer with a quick intake of breath.
"By George, Dicky!" he cried, his voice tremulous with some excitement.
"Can't be that either; it's woven in--awfully fine, neat job, too. Now,
what do you suppose--"
He broke off wonderingly.