It was necessary that she go immediately back to the lunch room to
relieve Mrs. Halsey, who was white of face, and almost ready to drop
when Janice arrived.
Rather glad, Janice was, of the opportunity to work and think alone.
Bob, apparently, was almost relieved at their temporary parting.
He bid a cheerful good-by to her from the taxi, when she got out before
the lunch room; then he went on to the room Rickey had engaged for him,
without once looking back, though Janice watched for him to do so.
All afternoon, while she worked, she waited for Bob to come to the lunch
room; and, at dinner time, she thought surely he would appear. But the
hours passed, and there was no sign of him.
At last, after closing up, she decided to go to his rooming house.
Probably there would be some sort of lobby, where they could talk;
perhaps Bob would take her out for a walk.
How lovely it would be to walk with him, to show him the things that had
interested her, when she had first come to the city; watch his eyes open
wide at the sights she could show him: the huge Municipal Beach, the
Lake Shore Drive, and its constant pageant of beautiful motor cars!
How delightful it would have been to rest her arm upon his big, strong
one and walk closely to him, side by side, as they often had through the
countryside at home, talking so understandingly, without ever a thought
of any one coming between them!
And she had ruined all that; her heart was near to breaking as she drew
close to the address that had been contained in the note from Rickey.
The building proved to be close to the edge of a run-down section on the
north side, where two twisted short streets joined.
A slatternly old woman shuffled up some steps that led down into a
basement doorway. The woman eyed Janice strangely when she asked that
the young man who had come in that afternoon for the room Rickey had
recommended be notified that she was downstairs.
“He’s in the hospital,” the woman said, with an abruptness that was
nothing short of brutal.
“In the _hospital_?” Janice gasped. “_In the hospital!_ Oh! I see! You
just don’t understand who it is that I’m looking for. I suppose more
than one man came in for a room this afternoon, of course.”
“No, no—I know who you mean,” interrupted the woman, “the country jake.
Sure. I know. There was a big fight in his room. He was hurt. They took
him to the Grant Brothers’ hospital.”
As fast as she could get there by taxi, Janice rushed out to the
hospital on the northwest side. Explaining that she was affianced to the
injured man, she was at last dubiously admitted, after some
complications due to the fact that it was a time at which visitors were
not permitted entry.
“H’lo,” Bob greeted her cheerfully, from his bed in a small ward wherein
he was, at the time, the only patient.
“_Bob!_” she cried, kneeling down by the side of the bed, taking one of
his big, rough hands into her own tiny ones: “Bob. How badly are you
hurt?” She tried to force back the tears, but her lips trembled so that
she scarce could speak, and the film of smarting tears almost blinded
her eyes.
“Hurt! Shucks! I’m not hurt. Got a wallop over the head with a billy
that split open my scalp. Knocked me out for a time. They insist that
I’ve got to lie here until morning.
“I’ve been hurt worse on the farm, lots of times, and went right on
working.” His head was bandaged, and there was blood upon the bandage.
“But how did it happen?”
“Stickups; they came into my room. They got my wallet, and everything
that was in it,” he added.
Janice tried to speak, but it was impossible. Looking into his cheerful
face, the tears fell fast. She was thinking of the years it had taken
him to save that money.
“Don’t mind, dear,” she managed at last. “I’ll keep on working. If I
have to give up the place in the lunch room, when Mrs. Halsey sells it,
I’ll find another job, and I’ll help you find one. We’ll be married at
once, and work together.”
“Maybe,” he pointed out, “the police will recover my wallet. They got
one of the fellows. I knocked him out before they got me. But he didn’t
have the wallet on him, they said.
“And, anyway, how about this Rickey chap? Maybe you _do_ truly love him.
Maybe he could help you to buy the restaurant right away. Maybe you only
thought you loved me because there was nobody else around, back home.”
“Don’t even talk that way,” put in Janice, blushing. “I don’t ever want
to see Rickey again so long as I live—I’ll never forgive him for having
let you go to a questionable place.”
“You’re sure you don’t love him?”
“Oh, Bob! _Please_ believe me when I say that I don’t.”
He smiled up at her confidently. “I believe you, and I fully understand.
There are men who could fool anybody.” His eyes told her that she was
fully forgiven. She threw herself upon her knees, by the side of the
bed, putting her arms about him.
“You _sure_ you’re not badly hurt?” she asked, holding him so tightly
that, strong as he was, he winced and looked up into her face in
surprise.
“Honestly, it’s nothing,” he assured her, a new pleasure in his voice.
“And,” he added softly, “you _do_ really care, don’t you, Janie? It
doesn’t seem possible you could care for a big, awkward stiff like me!”
She lowered her head to his shoulder and hid her face against the side
of his neck. He felt the damp of her tears.
“Why! What are you crying about, Janie, little angel? There’s nothing
for you to cry over.”
“I’m crying,” she got out, “to think that I ever for a moment supposed
that any man but you could hold even a very tiny corner of my heart.”
He raised her up and, kissing her, patted her head lovingly. Several
moments later a surgeon came in and lifted her up, escorting her to the
door with a polite:
“Please—he ought to get a nap now.”
Outside the ward she asked the surgeon tensely:
“How badly hurt _is_ he? I must know.”
“It’s almost nothing,” the doctor told her with a shrug. “He really
could go right now, only I thought it best that he stay until morning,
so that I can have one more look at the abrasion on his head.
“There’s not the slightest danger, but I don’t want to take any chances
on an infection setting up. I can check it easily, if I have him where I
can watch.”
He picked up a paper from the waiting room table and handed it to her.
“Seen this last edition?” he asked politely, “there’s an account of the
affair in it.” Janice took the early morning edition of one of the
city’s leading dailies and was confronted with a picture of Rickey.
The news article ran:
“Gentleman Sanders” is in trouble again. This nimble-witted
ex-convict, who has kept the smartest minds at the detective
bureau busy for several years, met his Waterloo yesterday
in the person of a farmer from Iowa who, in company with
several of his notorious companions, he succeeded in relieving
of his wallet—but only after the gentleman from Iowa had
handed him a haymaker which kept him in dreamland until the
police arrived.
Unfortunately Gentleman Sanders’s companions made off with
their victim’s wallet, and no trace has been found of them
or the wallet.
However, the various rewards on Gentleman, which will naturally
go to Iowa’s husky son, should more than make up for the
contents of the wallet.
Several of Gentleman Sanders’s bigamous wives have been searching
for the slick young college man who turned to crime.
Early the following morning, Janice went again to the hospital. Another
surgeon, then on duty, cheerfully permitted “the hard-hitting gentleman
from Iowa,” as he called him, to leave with her in a taxi.
As they drove toward the lunch room, Bob took her into his arms, kissed
her, and hugged her until Janice squealed for mercy.
“You’re not so slow,” she told him delightedly, “catching one of the
keenest crooks in the city, and carrying on like this in a taxicab—how
did you know that city people often kiss and hug in taxicabs?”
“Been getting the Chicago papers ever since you left,” he laughed. “All
I’ve thought about since you pulled out was you and Chicago; can’t we be
married _right away_?”
“I’ll get Mrs. Halsey to come to the lunch room for an hour or so this
afternoon, and we’ll go down town and be married.”
“O. K.,” he grinned.
When they got to the lunch room and opened up, Bob sat down at a table
and grandly ordered breakfast.
“I’ll cook it for you myself, before the cook comes,” Janice told him.
“No, you won’t!” He looked very stern. “I won’t have you cooking a meal
in a restaurant for me—and I won’t have you waiting on table in a
restaurant. We’re going to have plenty of capital now; we’ll rent that
store next door, and join it to this one.
“I understand that that reward money will run to nearly five thousand
dollars. That’ll be enough to run the new restaurant on, on a good,
substantial scale, to start, and yet leave a small, safety-first
reserve, in case things don’t go well, so that we can get into something
else later, if needs be.”
Just then the mailman came in. There was the usual deluge of advertising
matter, which Janice threw on the table unopened; but, this time, there
was also a letter for her. It was a large envelope, registered and
insured. After signing for it, Janice excitedly tore it open.
A sheaf of currency fell out upon the table, and with the bills was a
letter, which read:
My own dear little Janice:
From what you’ve told me about this Rickey chap, I’m afraid.
I think he was in on that holdup you described, as a lookout,
and that he decided to go after bigger game when he got
inside the store and saw beautiful little you.
I am afraid he has engaged the room for me with intentions
not wholly kindly; you may have let him trick you into telling
him about the money I would have with me when I came to Chicago.
It would be so easy for him to get both my money and my girl,
if he’s the wrong kind.
But he may not give me credit for a little smartness, myself;
and he may be overestimating his hold on you. We’ll see.
If I’m all wrong, I’ll humbly apologize to him. But, in the
meantime, I’m going to play safe and mail this money to you for
safekeeping.
Bob.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in _Argosy_ magazine,
July 28, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]