Toward morning the Governor again had recourse to the Elizabethan bards,
then he lapsed suddenly into a meditative mood.
"It's always a bad sign when the season opens with the potting of some
of the comrades. When there's one such catastrophe there are bound to be
others. Now that Hoky's dead you'll hear of the killing of other
burglars. Every householder on the coast will buy himself a gun and wait
for a chance to shoot some misguided stranger he finds collecting
bric-a-brac in the dark watches of the night. But Hoky's death is a loss
to the underworld. At his best he could achieve the impossible. Once he
spent a week on the roof of police headquarters in Cincinnati; really he
did. Good weather and perfectly comfortable; used to stroll down through
the building and go out for food; then back again. Chatted with the
chief of detectives about his own crime, which was holding up the
paymaster of a big factory. Bless me if Hoky didn't bury the money in a
graveyard and hurry uptown and live right there with the whole police
system right under him. He was a dear fellow, Hoky! By the way, you're
mighty lucky that you didn't get a neat little chunk of lead right
through the midriff, fooling with that drug store!"
In the rush of his thoughts Archie had forgotten his imaginary exploit
at the Harbor drug store and realized that he must have his wits about
him if he expected to retain the Governor's regard and confidence. The
ease with which the supercrook rode around policemen vastly increased
his feeling of reliance in his strange companion, and his only misgiving
was that the daring resourceful rogue might abandon him.
As dawn broke the whistle and rumble of a train caused the Governor to
stop the car and dive into his pockets for time tables of which he
carried a large supply. He scanned one and hummed his satisfaction.
"We'll get rid of this machine right now as there's a station over there
a little way where we can pick up a local right into Portsmouth. Don't
be nervous. We'll pass for a couple of city men owning farms up here and
just riding into town on a little business.
'Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful,'
as well said by old William of Avon. We shall be bold, Archie, but not
too bold."
He stopped, opened a gate and ran the car--thoroughly disreputable from
its nocturnal bath in mud--through a barnyard and into an empty shed.
"Now for a brisk walk! The owner of this place sleeps late--not a sign
of smoke from the kitchen chimney. And yet so many students of farm life
wonder at the meager earnings of the honest husbandman! However, we've
given that chap an excellent roadster and if he keeps his mouth shut he
can run it till it falls to pieces for all anybody will ever know it's a
stolen vehicle."
They crossed the railroad and were soon buying tickets from a sleepy
stationmaster. The Governor talked briskly through the window as the
agent stamped their tickets while Archie cowered at the door marveling
that any one could face the problems of a precarious existence so gaily.
They alighted at Portsmouth without mishap, and Archie, recalling the
primary object of his travels, stepped to the telegraph office and wired
his sister as follows:
"Have been motoring with friend; hence delay in reporting. The
house will not do. Plumbing in wretched condition, and house
generally out of repair. Sorry but you will have to look further."
Then he wrote a telegram to his office in New York explaining that he
had been motoring, which accounted for his failure to call for his
passage to Banff, thoughtfully adding that the cost of his unused
sleeping car tickets should be charged to his personal account. After
composing these messages he redeemed his suitcase in the check room and
dropped it beside the Governor's battered kit bag on the platform.
"Ah! Burning the wires a little? I hope you are committing no
indiscretion, son. I was admiring your baggage; that suitcase of yours
would hold a king's wardrobe. We'll drive to the hotel, get a bath and a
solid, old-fashioned breakfast, a hearty meal such as old Ike Walton
recommended to fishermen eager for the early worm, and plan our further
travels."
The Governor commanded the best service of the inn, obtaining two
adjoining rooms with bath. He registered elaborately as Reginald Heber
Saulsbury and wrote Archie down as Ashton Comly, dashingly indicating
the residence of both as New York. In response to an inquiry for mail
for Mr. Saulsbury the clerk made search and threw out a letter which the
Governor opened indifferently and after a glance crumpled into his
pocket.
"A note from Red Leary," he explained when they had reached their rooms.
"He's slipping along slowly toward Brattleboro, where we're to deliver
that loot we've got to pick up. You will pardon my cheek in registering
for you; unwarrantable assumption. I choose Ashton Comly as a dignified
and distinctive _alias_; sounds a little southern; you may consider
yourself for the present a scion of an ancient house of the Carolinas.
As for me, Saulsbury's a name I saw chalked on a box-car in the Buffalo
yards and Reginald Heber is a fit handle to it. When I was in prep
school we had a lecture by an eminent divine on the life of Reginald
Heber, hymn writer, and that sort of thing. I'm rather ashamed of myself
for borrowing the name of a man of singularly pure life, but it's the
devil in me, lad! It's an awful thing to be born with a devil inside of
you, but it could hardly be said that my case is unique. Here you are,
also the possessor of a nasty little devil, and obviously, like me, a
man of good bringing up. That's why I've warmed to you. You tried
pulling rough talk on me at our first meeting, but you've got Harvard
written all over you. No, not a word! We are two brunette sheep far
astray from the home pastures and not apologizing for our color or
previous condition of servitude."
Archie had always enjoyed the ease of good inns, and being in a
comfortable house with his own effects at hand, he might have forgotten
that he was a fugitive if it hadn't been for the propinquity of his
companion, who was addressing himself with elaborate ceremonial to the
preparation of his bath. The Governor's bag contained an assortment of
silk shirts and underwear, a dress suit, a handsome set of toilet
articles, and as Archie scrutinized them approvingly the Governor
smiled, stepped to the door, and locked it.
"The property of a fastidious gentleman of breeding, you would say! You
would never dream that thing has a false bottom!"
Archie would not have dreamed it, but the Governor dumped the remaining
contents on the bed, fumbled in the bottom of the bag, lifted a
concealed flap, and drew out a long fold of leather.
"You might think it a surgeon's pocket-kit, son, but you would be
greatly in error. Drills, jimmies, even a light hammer--and here's a
little contrivance that has been known to pluck the secret from most
intricate combinations--my own invention. The common yegg habit of
pouring an explosive fluid into the cracks of a strong box is obsolete.
I hold that such a procedure is vulgar, besides being calculated to make
an ugly noise when not perfectly muffled. By George, Archie, it occurs
to me that you must have left your kit behind you in that absurd drug
store at the Harbor! It is just as well that you are no longer
encumbered with those playthings. Trust the Governor in future. I'm
yearning for a cool grapefruit, so bestir yourself."
"I want to learn all the modern improvements," said Archie, fingering
the burglar tools. "I've been playing the game wrong--decidedly wrong!"
"My favorite pupil!" cried the Governor, from the tub in which he was
already rolling and splashing. "You shall be my successor when I pass on
to other fields. Destiny has thrown you in my path for this very
purpose. You will rank high among the crooks of all history, the king of
the underworld, feared and loved by the great comradeship who prey upon
the world by night!"
Archie felt very humble under these promises and prophecies, and
wondered whether there was really deep down in his soul some moral
obliquity that the acute master crook had detected and responded to.
There had been clergymen and philanthropists among Archie's forebears,
but never murderer or thief, and he was half-persuaded that he was the
predestined black sheep that he had always heard gave a spot of color to
the whitest flock.
At the breakfast table the Governor scanned a local paper and with a
chirrup passed it to Archie, pointing to a double-column headline: