One thing I liked about Tescheron--he talked business from the start. He
jumped into it at once, so that I had no time to take notice of anything
except that he talked without an accent, was probably French only in
name and that he wore clothes which were superfine. I never saw such a
dresser for a man with iron-gray hair and fifty-five years to contend
against in the youth-preserving business, which I calculated was one of
his pleasures in life, if not his vocation. Nothing I figured on coming
up-town happened except that I found my man. A sixty-year old boy
brought me to the room on the third floor.
I could see that Mr. Tescheron was a whole encyclopedia on manners, but
he gave me the paper-covered digest which retails for ten cents, and
began:
"Hope I reached you just at the close of the funeral."
"What funeral?" I asked.
"Say, see here, Hopkins, I want you to talk fair and square with me--no
nonsense, you understand. You know of the funeral--Mrs. Browning's--and
if you weren't there you know when it was over and when Hosley returned.
I am pretty hot in the collar over this business; all happened right
under my nose; never thought of such a thing happening; but I'm not too
late to stop this infernal impostor, not too late! Of course you don't
know anything about my end of it, Hopkins, and I know that you, too,
have been fooled at your end, for I've looked you up. I have reports
from a dozen business men who say you are perfectly square and that is
why I send for you now that we may work together and make the greatest
headway. Do you know that the scoundrel Hosley has become infatuated
with my daughter?--a pretense for criminal purposes, of course. To-day
he seeks me out to tell me they are engaged! A few hours later I hear he
is crying at the funeral of his wife!"
There was some French in Tescheron after all, for he waved his arms and
danced about like a man whose tongue won't wag fast enough to please
him.
If Jim had dealt with large business concerns as an inspector, instead
of corner grocerymen and small storekeepers, they might have saved him.
The business men whom Tescheron had consulted regarding me, I afterward
learned, were the manufacturers whose plants I had investigated for the
city. Some of the best families in New York are connected with Newtown
Creek glue and they, it seems, had stuck to me in this emergency. A fish
man will believe anything a glue man tells him; I don't know why, but
it's so, and the fact was certainly to my advantage.
When Tescheron had calmed I broke out with a hiss and a stutter; it
wasn't a laugh, for I haven't laughed in years. All my laughing since
1889 has been a strictly intellectual process; but I did have an awful
pain because I could not digest his statement with a bouncing laugh. All
I could do was to stammer and splutter like a bass viol tuning up, while
I sozzled around in my chair trying to break in with something that
would count. Why should a man of my temperament take a hand in love, war
or diplomacy? As a theoretical manipulator of fathers-in-law, as a
text-book writer on the subject, I was in the extra fancy class, but the
part of Daniel in the lion's den could not be played by me unless I
agreed to step in the marble-lined vestibule of open jaws and get
kicked down the back stairs after a thorough overhauling. On the firing
line my plans did not fit and I became a failure.
A smell of fish in the room restored me. I knew not whence it came, but
its soft presence yielding to my keen detector restored my professional
pride and self-respect. I then felt I was something of a detective after
all. I eyed a revolving ventilator in the window-pane as a possible
avenue of its entrance from the culinary department. I did not suspect
Tescheron.
"I see you are not inclined to side with me in this matter," he rattled
on. "To-night I notify the coroner. I--"
"Are you a fool?" I blurted with that rare presence of mind which will
some day save me by putting me in jail. "Are you an idiot? You seem to
be gone in the head. Call a dozen coroners, by all means, and be the
laughing-stock of the town. Drag your whole family into the illustrated
newspapers. Go ahead and have a good time at your own expense. Get out
the fire department and have them squirt on you!" I was surprised at the
string of sarcasm which rolled forth when I did start.
Tescheron danced a first-class vaudeville turn and shouted: "Say what
you please, I notify the coroner! Hosley killed his wife so that he
might marry my daughter; I have had detectives out, so I know and you
don't. I--"
"How long have you had them out?"
"Since two o'clock to-day--soon as he left me."
"Since two o'clock to-day, eh? And what did you have against Mr. Hosley
before that hour, pray?"
"Oh, nothing except a strong personal dislike to him--but I have enough
against him now; I have enough now! I had told him he was too old; that
he had done nothing to merit her--just to gain time, you see. I wanted
time to find out; to look him over with care; with the same precaution I
would use in a cold matter of business. It was well I did; it's a mighty
good thing I used my business sense in this matter. You see, you are no
man of business. You--"
"Well," said I with a calmness affected to aggravate the man who was
sure, "you couldn't have hired a better lot of men. They pass you out
Jim Hosley, married, and a widower by murdering his wife, and have him
engaged to your daughter in six hours. It is as pretty a story as I ever
read. A man who wouldn't ring up the coroner on that needs one for his
own autopsy. Why, any man would be proud to have a coroner in the
family on the strength of all that. Tescheron, let's talk about the
pleasant memories of the past. What asylums that you have been in do you
prefer--eh?"
Tescheron proceeded to give me the repertoire of the dancing school.
When he began to polka and upset the furniture he dropped his cologned
handkerchief. I tossed it up on the ventilator, for somebody had ordered
a lot more fish.
"So he has fooled you, too? Yes? You have been living with him there and
did not know he was married to a woman in a flat right below yours--her
name is Browning. I saw that you remembered it. Strange, ain't it? Do
you know how she died? No? I see you do not. You are very smart, very
clever. You have talked just as I hoped you would. Let me introduce Mr.
Smith."
And from behind a screen stepped a slight, middle-aged man with keen
blue eyes and fair complexion. I shook hands with Mr. Smith. He was a
wide-awake little man, not in the least embarrassed by the
eavesdropping, as it was part of his business. I have lived long enough
to know that there are all kinds of Smiths. He was one of them.
Of course I began to feel that they were crowding me to turn State's
evidence against my faithful Jim. The thought of the funeral in the
early evening in the flat below ours, and Jim's innocent inquiry
concerning it, had flashed upon me. I still felt that Mr. Smith was only
making out a good case to match a big bill. If Jim Hosley had been
leading a double life at such short range without my knowing it I must
be a chuckle-head. I knew Jim Hosley was honest; that easy as his
conscience was in trifling matters, he knew no guile. If a Mrs. Browning
had been living below us she was as much a stranger to him as her
relative's poetry--in fact it might have been hers for all Jim knew or
cared.
Smith answered a knock on the door and stepped into the hall for half a
minute.
"You don't begin to know this scoundrel," continued Mr. Tescheron,
eyeing me like a man with the facts. "Perhaps you will deny that this
fellow Hosley served two years in prison at Joliet, Illinois; that he
was indicted for forgery in Michigan and got into a mix-up in Arizona,
whence he skipped at the point of a pistol and made his way down into
Mexico. This fellow Hosley has passed under a dozen different names. He
is notorious in criminal annals. He is so clever that he can completely
fool you and deceive my daughter, who, I would have you understand, is
a smart woman--one not easily fooled. It is lucky I took this thing in
hand when I did, or, as you say, we would have all been shown up in the
papers."
Well, I let the old codger run along at this clip. It beat anything I
had ever heard, but it didn't disturb me, as I have stated, except to
create a pain that a good laugh would have cured. What could I say up
against a know-it-all combination? Hadn't the detectives been at work a
whole six hours? What kind of records did they keep in their office if
they couldn't bunch a choice bouquet of crime for a fellow willing to
pay for it? You can buy anything in New York. The detective bureau had
found good enough clues in Mr. Tescheron's desire for a discovery and in
his commercial rating which showed that he could pay top prices for the
disgrace of a would-be son-in-law in the estimation of his devoted
daughter. The detective bureaus, lawyers' offices and "society" papers
that deal in this blasting powder and take contracts to shatter good
names were common enough; everybody knew them. People like Tescheron,
though, only knew their names, not their reputations, and like many
honest folks went to one of these concerns because he had seen its name
frequently in print. Publicity draws trade sometimes without
reputation, especially first customers. Tescheron was a new hand at this
business of ruining character with the aid of a criminal detective
bureau and its lawyer allies and associates on the slanderous "society"
papers that fatten on the frailties of human beings with money to buy
exemption, but too weak to fight the slimy devils whose pens drip this
filth from the social sewage pots; he knew not the parasites who cling
to the maggoty exudations of every form of social disorder. That is the
way I figured it. I want it straight on the record here that my devotion
to Jim Hosley at that interview began to tighten like the
Damon-and-Pythias grip of a two-ton grab bucket. I was figuring to die
beside Jim with a Nathan Hale poise of the head and some pat remark.
Smith, the sharp-eyed, handed a paper to Mr. Tescheron. They whispered
about it for a minute or so in one corner, and then Mr. Tescheron read
it aloud:
"Hosley and the undertaker drove away in coach together following
hearse. Two men following."
As he finished they both looked at me, probably expecting me to be
convinced that all virtue was on their side and to unite with them or at
least listen while they revealed all they knew about Jim Hosley's career
of crime and deception. But I had enough. I knew where the crime was
there, I believed. I opened up on a new line.
"I guess I'll notify the coroner," said I quietly, starting to go.
"No, no!" shouted Tescheron. "I did not mean to do that. I only said
that to draw you out. All I ask of you, Mr. Hopkins, is that you give
your evidence against this man when I next summon you. I am glad to find
you convinced at last--but never mind the coroner. I can accomplish my
purpose under cover."
I edged away.
"No, I think you have convinced me that it is my duty to notify the
coroner," said I, "so that this murderer, Hosley, may be put to death.
It's a nasty business for all of us," I said, "except Smith, here, who
won't mind it."
"Hopkins, if you do that you will spoil all my plans," pleaded the now
completely flustrated Tescheron. "Stand in with me. Help me to present
the truth about this rascal in the presence of my daughter and all will
go well. As for the authorities, let them take care of their end
themselves. The Tescheron family is not to be sacrificed! Think of
yourself, man! Surely you don't want to be mixed up in such a horrible
crime--you who have been fooled for years. Come, now! Agreed, eh?"
"I'll think it over," said I, giving one down-stroke of the handle for a
parting shake to each of these brainy men and then I passed out. As I
traveled toward home, I regretted I had been so confident, and had not
asked to be shown all the evidence they had against Hosley. That proved
to be more of a mistake than I supposed, as I hurried along.
Just before entering our house, I called a boy and sent this message to
Mr. Tescheron, at his home in Ninety-sixth Street. I found the address
in the telephone book:
"Have notified Coroner Flanagan. He has telephoned all the cemeteries
to hold body. Autopsy to-morrow. Rest easy. I am with you.
"HOPKINS."