"And then, I always live under an assumed name."
"Like 'Jones'?" I suggested.
"Well, sometimes 'Jones,'" he admitted.
"To me," I said, "'Jones' lacks imagination. It's the sort of name you
give when you're arrested for exceeding the speed limit. Why don't you
call yourself Machiavelli?"
"Go on, I'm no dago," said Schnitzel, "and don't you go off thinking
'Jones' is the only disguise I use. But I'm not tellin' what it is, am
I? Oh, no."
"Schnitzel," I asked, "have you ever been told that you would make a
great detective?"
"Cut it out," said Schnitzel. "You've been reading those fairy stories.
There's no fly cops nor Pinks could do the work I do. They're pikers
compared to me. They chase petty-larceny cases and kick in doors. I
wouldn't stoop to what they do. It's being mixed up the way I am with
the problems of two governments that catches me." He added
magnanimously, "You see something of that yourself."
We left the ship at Brooklyn, and with regret I prepared to bid
Schnitzel farewell. Seldom had I met a little beast so offensive, but
his vanity, his lies, his moral blindness, made one pity him. And in ten
days in the smoking-room together we had had many friendly drinks and
many friendly laughs. He was going to a hotel on lower Broadway, and as
my cab, on my way uptown, passed the door, I offered him a lift. He
appeared to consider the advisability of this, and then, with much
by-play of glancing over his shoulder, dived into the front seat and
drew down the blinds. "This hotel I am going to is an old-fashioned
trap," he explained, "but the clerk is wise to me, understand, and I
don't have to sign the register."
As we drew nearer to the hotel, he said: "It's a pity we can't dine out
somewheres and go to the theatre, but--you know?"
With almost too much heartiness I hastily agreed it would be imprudent.
"I understand perfectly," I assented. "You are a marked man. Until you
get those papers safe in the hands of your 'people,' you must be very
cautious."
"That's right," he said. Then he smiled craftily.
"I wonder if you're on yet to which my people are."
I assured him that I had no idea, but that from the avidity with which
he had abused them I guessed he was working for the Walker-Keefe crowd.
He both smiled and scowled.
"Don't you wish you knew?" he said. "I've told you a lot of inside
stories, Mr. Crosby, but I'll never tell on my pals again. Not me!
That's _my_ secret."
At the door of the hotel he bade me a hasty goodbye, and for a few
minutes I believed that Schnitzel had passed out of my life forever.
Then, in taking account of my belongings, I missed my field-glasses. I
remembered that, in order to open a trunk for the customs inspectors, I
had handed them to Schnitzel, and that he had hung them over his
shoulder. In our haste at parting we both had forgotten them.