Gently but with decision Sergeant Hickey set his face against the
allurement of the wine-cup and the importunities of his fellow-officers.
He was tired, he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour
rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight
of O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under
either arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed
to move the temperate soul.
"Nah," he waved temptation aside with a gesture of finality. "I don't
guess I'll take nothin' to-night, thanks. G'night all."
And, wheeling, shaped a course for Broadway.
The early morning air breathed chill but grateful to his fevered brow.
Oddly enough, in view of the fact that he had indulged in no very
violent exercise, he found himself perspiring profusely. Now and again
he saw fit to pause, removing his hat and utilizing a large soiled
bandana with grim abandon.
At such times his face would be upturned, eyes trained upon the dim
infinities beyond the pale moon-smitten sky. And he would sigh
profoundly--not the furnace sigh of a lover thinking of his mistress,
but the heartfelt and moving sigh of the man of years and cares who has
drunk deep of that cup of bitterness called Unappreciated Genius.
Then, tucking the clammy bandana into a hip pocket and withdrawing his
yearning gaze from the heavens, would struggle on, with a funereal
countenance as the outward and visible manifestation of a mind burdened
with mundane concerns: such as (one might shrewdly surmise) that
autographed portrait of a Deputy Commissioner of Police which the
detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire,
unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the
mighty processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of
charges preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet
high-principled martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank,
"breaking," transfers; or--yet a third possibility--with the prevailing
rate of wage as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder,"
and the cost of living as contrasted between Manhattan, on the one
hand, and Jamaica, Bronxville, or St. George, Staten Island, on the
other.
A dimly lighted side-entrance presently loomed invitingly in the
sergeant's path. He glanced up, something surprised to find himself on
Sixth Avenue; then, bowed with the fatigue of a busy day, turned aside,
entering a dingy back room separated from the bar proper (at that
illicit hour) by a curtain of green baize. A number of tables whose
sloppy imitation rosewood tops shone dimly in the murky gas-light, were
set about, here and there, for the accommodation of a herd of
sleepy-eyed, case-hardened habitués.
Into a vacant chair beside one of these the detective dropped, and
familiarly requested the lantern-jawed waiter, who presently bustled to
his side, to "Back meh up a tub of suds, George.... Nah," in response
to a concerned query, "I ain't feelin' up to much to-night."
Hat tilted over his eyes, one elbow on the chairback, another on the
table, flabby jowls quivering as he mumbled the indispensable cigar,
puffy hands clasped across his ample chest, he sat for many minutes by
the side of his unheeded drink, pondering, turning over and over in his
mind the one idea it was capable of harboring at a time.
"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself.... He's wise enough.... Yeh
can't fool Hickey all the time.... I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good
'r it's the sidewalks f'r mine.... Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest
livin'.... 'Nd him with all kinds of money!"
The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling
therein, touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its
possessor did not require to examine it to reassure himself as to its
legitimacy as a work of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in
its embellishment of engraved arabesques.
"A century," he reflected sullenly; "one lonely little century for
mine. 'Nd _he_ had a wad like a ham ... _on_ him.... 'Nd I might've had
it all for my very own if...." His brow clouded blackly.
"_Sleuth!_" Hickey ground the epithet vindictively between his teeth.
And spat. "Sleuth! Ah hell!"
Recalled to himself by the very vehemence of his emotion, he turned
hastily, drained to its dregs the tall glass of lukewarm and vapid beer
which had stood at his elbow, placed a nickel on the table, and,
rising, waddled hastily out into the night.
It was being borne in upon him with much force that if he wished to
save his name and fame somethin' had got to be done about it.
"I hadn't oughtuh left him so long, I guess," he told himself; "but ...
I'll _get_ him all right."
And turning, lumbered gloomily eastward, rapt with vain imaginings,
squat, swollen figure blending into the deeper, meaner shadows of the
Tenderloin; and so on toward Maitland's rooms--morose, misunderstood,
malignant, coddling his fictitious wrongs; somehow pathetically typical
of the force he represented.
On the corner of Fifth Avenue he paused, startled fairly out of his
dour mood by the loud echo of a name already become too hatefully
familiar to his ears, and by the sight of what, at first glance, he
took to be the beginning of a street brawl.