SOMEONE said once--the rest of us subsequently repeating it on
occasion--that this world is but an ant hill, populated by many millions
of ants, which run about aimlessly or aimfully as the case may be. All
of which is true enough. Seek you out some lofty eminence, such as the
top floor of a skyscraper or the top of a hill, and from it, looking
down, consider a crowded city street at noon time or a county fairground
on the day of the grand balloon ascension. Inevitably the simile will
recur to the contemplative mind.
The trouble, though, with the original coiner of the comparison was that
he did not go far enough. He should have said the world was populated by
ants--and by anteaters. For so surely as we find ants, there, too, do
we find the anteaters. You behold the ants bustling about, making
themselves leaner trying to make them-selves fatter; terrifically busied
with their small affairs; hiving up sustenance against the hard
winter; gnawing, digging and delving; climbing, crawling, building and
breeding--in short, deporting themselves with that energy, that restless
industry which so stirred the admiration of the Prophet of old that,
on his heavenward pilgrimage, he tarried long enough to tell the
sluggard--name of the sluggard not given in the chronicles--to go to the
ant and consider of her.
The anteater for the moment may not actually be in sight, but be
assured he is waiting. He is waiting around the corner until the ant has
propagated in numbers amounting to an excess; or, in other words, until
the class that is born every second, singly--and sometimes as twins--has
grown plentiful enough to furnish a feasting. Forth he comes then,
gobbling up Brer Ant, along with his fullness and his richness, his
heirs and his assigns, his substance and his stock in trade.
To make the illustration concrete, we might say that were there no
ants there would be no Wall Street; and by the same token were there no
anteaters there would be no Wall Street either. Without anteaters the
ants would multiply and replenish the earth beyond computation. Without
ants the anteaters would have to live upon each other--which would be
bad for them but better for the rest of creation. War is the greatest
of the anteaters--it feeds upon the bodies of the ants. Kings upon their
thrones, devisers of false doctrines, crooked politicians, grafters, con
men, card sharks, thimbleriggers--all these are anteaters battening on
the substance of simple-hearted, earnest-minded ants. The ant believes
what you tell him; the greedsome anteater thrives upon this credulity.
Roughly, then, for purposes of classification, one may divide the world
at large into two groups--in this larger group here the ants, in that
smaller group there the anteaters.
So much, for purposes of argument, being conceded, we may safely
figure Emanuel Moon as belonging in the category of the ants, pure and
simple--reasonably pure and undeniably simple. However, at the time
whereof I write I doubt whether it had ever occurred to anyone to liken
him to an ant. His mother had called him Mannie, his employers called
him plain Moon, and to practically everybody else he was just little Mr.
Moon, who worked in the Commonwealth Bank. He had started there, in
the bank, as office boy; by dint of years of untiring fidelity to the
interests of that institution he had worked up to the place of assistant
cashier, salary seventy-five dollars a month. Privately he nursed an
ambition to become, in time, cashier, with a cashier's full powers. It
might be added that in this desire he stood practically alone.
Emanuel Moon was a little man, rising of thirty-five, who believed that
the Whale swallowed Jonah, that if you swore a certain form of oath you
were certain of hell-fire, and that Mr. Hiram Blair, president of the
Commonwealth Bank, hung the Big Dipper. If the Bible had put it the
other way round he would have believed as sincerely that it was Jonah
who swallowed the Whale. He had a wistful, bashful little smile, an air
of being perpetually busy, and a round, mild eye the colour of a boiled
oyster. He also had a most gentle manner and the long, prehensile upper
lip that is found only in the South American tapir and the confirmed
clarinet player. Emanuel Moon had one besetting sin, and only one--he
just would play the clarinet.
On an average of three nights a week he withdrew himself from the
company assembled about the base-burner stove in the parlour if it were
winter, or upon the front porch of Mrs. Teenie Morrill's boarding house
if it were seasonable weather, and went up to his room on the third
floor and played the clarinet. Some said he played it and some that he
merely played at it. He knew Annie Laurie off by heart and for a term of
years had been satisfied in that knowledge. Now he was learning another
air--The Last Rose of Summer.
He prosecuted his musical education on what he called his off evenings.
Wednesday night he went to prayer meeting and Sunday night to the
regular church service. Tuesday night he always spent at his lodge; and
perhaps once in a fortnight he called upon Miss Katie Rouser, who taught
in the High School and for whom he was believed to entertain sentiments
that did him credit, even though he had never found words in which to
voice them.
At the lodge he served on the committees which did the hard work; that,
as a general proposition, meant also the thankless work. If things went
well someone else took the credit; if they went ill Emanuel and his
colabourers shared the blame. The conditions had always been so--when he
was a small boy and when he was a youth, growing up. In his adolescence,
if there was a picnic in contemplation or a straw ride or a barm dance,
Mannie had been graciously permitted by common consent of all concerned
to arrange with the livery-stable man for the teams, to hire the
coloured string band, to bargain with the owner of the picnic grounds
or the barn, to see to ice for the ice-water barrel and lemons for the
lemonade bucket.
While he thus busied himself the other youths made dates for the
occasion with all the desirable girls. Hence it was that on the festal
date Emanuel went partnerless to the party; and this was just as
well, too, seeing that right up until the time of starting he would be
completely occupied with last-moment details, and, after that, what with
apologising for any slipups that might have occurred, and being scolded
and ordered about on errands and called upon to explain this or that,
would have small time to play the squire to any young person of the
opposite sex, even had there been one convenient.
It was so at the bank, where he did more work than anybody and got less
pay than anybody. It was so, as I have just stated, at the lodge. In a
word, Emanuel had no faculty as an executive, but an enormous capacity
for executing. The earth is full of him. Whereever five or more are
gathered together there is present at least one of the Emanuel Moons of
this world.
It had been a hot, long summer, even for a climate where the summers
are always long and nearly always hot; and at the fag end of it Emanuel
inclined strongly toward a desire for a short rest. Diffidently he
managed to voice his mood and his need to Mr. Blair. That worthy
gentleman had but just returned home, a giant refreshed, after a month
spent in the North Carolina mountains. He felt so fit, so fine, so
robust, he took it as a personal grievance that any about him should not
likewise be feeling fit. He cut Emanuel off pretty short. Vacations, he
intimated, were for those whose years and whose services in behalf of
humanity entitled them to vacations; young men who expected to get along
in business had best rid their thoughts of all such pampered hankerings.
Emanuel took the rebuke in good grace, as was his way; but that evening
at the supper table he created some excitement among his fellow boarders
by quietly and unostentatiously fainting, face forward, into a saucer of
pear preserves that was mostly juice. He was removed to his room and put
to bed, and attended by Doctor Lake. The next morning he was not able
to go to the bank. On being apprised of the situation Mr. Blair very
thoughtfully abated of his previous resolution and sent Emanuel
word that he might have a week or even ten days off--at his own
expense--wherein to recuperate.
Some thirty-six hours later, therefore, Emanuel might have been found on
board the fast train bound for Louisville, looking a trifle pulled down
and shaky, but filled with a great yearning. In Louisville, at a certain
establishment doing a large mail-order business, was to be had for
thirty-eight dollars, list price, fifteen and five off for cash, a
clarinet that was to his present infirm and leaky clarinet as minted
gold is to pot metal.
To be sure, this delectable instrument might be purchased, sight unseen,
but with privilege of examination, through the handy medium of the
parcel post; the house handling it was in all respects reliable and
lived up to the printed promise of the catalogue, but to Emanuel half
the pride and pleasure of becoming its proprietor lay in going into the
place and asking to see such and such a clarinet, and fingering it and
testing its tone, and finally putting down the money and carrying it off
with him under his arm. He meant, first of all, to buy his new clarinet;
for the rest his plans were hazy. He might stay on in Louisville a few
days or he might go elsewhere. He might even return home and spend
the remainder of his vacation perfecting himself in his still faulty
rendition of The Last Rose of Summer.
For an hour or so after boarding the train he viewed the passing scenery
as it revealed itself through the day-coach window and speculated
regarding the personalities of his fellow passengers. After that hour
or so he began to nod. Presently he slumbered, with his head bobbing
against the seat-back and one arm dangling in the aisle. A sense of
being touched half roused him; a moment later he opened his eyes with
the feeling that he had lost his hat or was about to lose it. Alongside
him stood a well-dressed man of, say, thirty-eight or forty, who
regarded him cordially and who held between the long, slender fingers of
his right hand a little rectangle of blue cardboard, having punch marks
in it.
“Excuse me, friend,” said this man, “but didn't this fall out of your
hat? I picked it up here on the floor alongside you.”
“I reckon maybe it did,” said Emanuel, removing his hat and noticing
that the customary decoration conferred by the conductor was absent from
its band. “I'm certainly much obliged to you, sir.”
“Don't mention it,” said the stranger. “Bet-ter stick it in good and
tight this time. They might try to collect a second fare from you if you
couldn't show your credentials. Remember, don't you, the story about the
calf that ate up his express tag and what the old nigger man said about
it?”
The stranger's accent stamped him as a Northerner; his manner revealed
him indubitably as a man of the world--withal it was a genial manner.
He bestowed a suit case alongside in the aisle and slipped into the seat
facing Emanuel. Emanuel vaguely felt flattered. It had promised to be
rather a lonely journey.
“You don't mind my sitting here a bit, do you?” added the man after he
was seated.
“Not at all--glad to have you,” said Emanuel, meaning it. “Nice
weather--if it wasn't so warm,” he continued, making conversation.
It started with the weather; but you know how talk runs along. At
the end of perhaps ten minutes it had somehow worked around to
amusements--checkers and chess and cards.
“Speaking of cards now,” said the stranger, “I like a little game once
in a while myself. Helps the time to pass away when nothing else will.
Fact is, I usually carry a deck along with me just for that purpose.
Fact is, I've got a new deck with me now, I think.” He fumbled in the
breast pocket of his light flannel coat and glanced about him. “Tell you
what--suppose we play a few hands of poker--show-down, you know--for ten
cents a corner, say, or a quarter? We could use my suit case for a card
table by resting it on our knees between us.” He reached out into the
aisle.
“I'm much obliged,” said Emanuel with an indefinable sense of pain
at having to decline so friendly an invitation; “but, to tell you the
truth, I make it a point never to touch cards at all. It wouldn't do--in
my position. You see, I'm in a bank at home.”
With newly quickened alertness the stranger's eyes narrowed. He put the
cards back into his pocket and straightened up attentively. “Oh, yes,”
he said, “I see. Well, that being the case, I don't blame you.” Plainly
he had not been hurt by Emanuel's refusal to join in so innocent a
pastime as dealing show-down hands at ten cents a side. On the
contrary he warmed visibly. “A young man in a bank can't be too
careful--especially if it's a small town, where everybody knows
everybody else's business. You let a young fellow that works in a bank
in a small town, or even a medium-sized town, play a few hands of poker
and, first thing you know, it's all over the place that he's gambling
and they've got an expert on his books. Let's see now--where was it you
said you lived?” Emanuel told him.
“Well, now, that's a funny thing! I used to know a man in your town.
Let's see--what was his name? Parker? Parsons?” He paused. Emanuel shook
his head.
“Perkins? Perkins? Could it have been Perkins?” essayed the other
tentatively, his eyes fixed keenly on the ingenuous countenance of his
opposite; and then, as Emanuel's head nodded forward affirmatively:
“Why, that's the name--Perkins,” proclaimed the stranger with a little
smile of triumph.
“Probably J. W. Perkins,” said Emanuel. “Mr. J. W. Perkins is our
leading hardware merchant. He banks with us; I see him every day--pretty
near it.”
“No; not J. W. Perkins,” instantly confessed his companion. “That's the
name all right enough, but not the initials. Didn't this Mr. Perkins
have a brother, or a cousin or something, who died?”
“Oh, I know who you mean, now,” said Emanuel, glad to be able to help
with the identification. “Alfred Perkins--he died two years ago this
coming October.”
“How old was he?” The Northerner had the air about him of being
determined to make sure.
“About fifty, I judge--maybe fifty-two or three.”
“And didn't they use to call him Al for short?”
“Yes; nearly everybody did--Mr. Al Perkins.”
“That's the party,” agreed the other. “Al Perkins! I knew him well.
Strange, now, that I can't think where it was I met him--I move round
so much in my business, being on the road as a travelling man, it's
hard keeping track of people; but I know we spent a week or two together
somewhere or other. Speaking of names, mine is Caruthers--John P.
Caruthers. Sorry I haven't got a card with me--I ran out of cards
yesterday.”
“Mine,” said our townsman, “is Emanuel Moon.”
“Glad to know you, Mr. Moon,” said Mr. Caruthers as he sought Emanuel's
right hand and shook it heartily.
“Very glad indeed. You don't meet many people of your name--Oh, by Jove,
that's another funny thing!”
“What?” said Emanuel.
“Why,” said Mr. Caruthers, “I used to have a pal--a good friend--with
your name; Robert Moon it was. He lived in Detroit, Michigan. Fine
fellow, Bob was. I wonder could old Bob Moon have been your cousin?”
“No,” said Emanuel almost regretfully; “I'm afraid not. All my people
live South, so far as I know.”
“Well, anyhow, you'd enjoy knowing old Bob,” went on the companionable
Mr. Caruthers. “Have a smoke?”
He produced both cigars and cigarettes. Emanuel said he never smoked, so
Mr. Caruthers lighted a cigar.
Up to this point the conversation had been more or less general. Now,
somehow, it took a rather personal and direct trend. Mr. Caruthers
proved to be an excellent listener, although he asked quite a number
of leading questions as they went along. He evinced a kindly curiosity
regarding Emanuel's connection with the bank. He was interested in banks,
it seemed; his uncle, now deceased, had been, he said, a very prominent
banker in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Emanuel had a rôle that was new to him; a pleasing rôle though. Nearly
always in company he had to play audience; now he held the centre of the
stage, with another listening to what he might say, and, what was
more, listening with every sign of, deep attention. He spoke at length,
Emanuel did, of the bank, its size, its resources, its liabilities, its
physical appearance and its personnel, leading off with its president
and scaling down to its black janitor. He referred to Mr. Blair's
crustiness of manner toward persons of lesser authority, which manner,
he hastened to explain, was quite all right if you only understood Mr.
Blair's little ways.
He mentioned in passing that Herb Kivil, the cashier, was addicted to
tennis, and that on Tuesdays and Fridays, when Herb left early to play
tennis, he, Moon, closed up the vault and took over certain other duties
which ordinarily fell to Herb. From the bank he progressed by natural
stages to Mrs. Morrill's boarding house and from there to his own
individual tastes and likings. In this connection it was inevitable that
the subject of clarinet playing should obtrude. Continuing along this
strain Emanuel felt moved to disclose his principal object in journeying
to Louisville at this particular time.
“There's a store there that carries a clarinet that I'm sort of
interested in,” he stated--but got no farther, for here Mr. Caruthers
broke in on him.
“Well, sir, it's a mighty little world after all,” he exclaimed. “First
you drop your punch check out of your hat and I come along and pick it
up, and I sit down here and we get acquainted. Then I find out that I
used to know a man in your town--Abner Perkins.”
“Alfred,” corrected Mr. Moon gently.
“Sure--Alfred Perkins. That's what I meant to say but my tongue slipped.
Then you tell me your name, and it turns out I've got a good friend
that, if he's not your own cousin, ought to be on account of the name
being the same. One coincidence right after another! And then, on top
of all that, you tell me you want to buy a new clarinet. And that's the
most curious part of it all, because---- Say, Moon, you must have heard
of Galling & Moore, of Boston, New York, and Paris, France.”
“I can't say as I ever did. I don't seem to place them,” admitted
Emanuel.
“If you're interested in a clarinet you ought to know about them,
because Gatling & Moore are just the biggest wholesale dealers in
musical instruments in the United States; that's all--just the whole
United States. And I--the same fellow that's sitting right here facing
you--I travel this territory for Gatling & Moore. Didn't I say this was
a small world?”
A small world indeed--and a cozily comfortable one as well, seeing that
by its very compactness one was thrown into contact with so pleasing a
personality as this Mr. John Caruthers betrayed. This was the thought
that exhilarated Mr. Emanuel Moon as he answered:
“You sell clarinets? Then you can tell me exactly what I ought to pay--”
“No; don't get me wrong,” Mr. Caruthers hastened to explain. “I said
I travelled for Gatling & Moore. You see, they sell everything,
nearly--musical instruments is just one of their lines. I
handle--er--sporting goods--playing cards, poker chips, guns, pistols,
athletic supplies; all like that, you understand. That's my branch of
the business; musical goods is another branch.
“But what I was going to suggest was this: Izzy Gottlieb, who's the head
of the musical department in the New York office, is one of the
best friends I've got on this earth. If I was to walk in and say to
Izzy--yes, even if I was to write in to him and tell him I had a friend
who was figuring on buying a clarinet--I know exactly what old Izzy
would do. Izzy would just naturally turn the whole shop upside down
until he found the niftiest little old clarinet there was in stock, and
as a favour to me he'd let us have it at just exactly cost. That's what
good old Izzy would do in a blooming minute. Altogether it ought to come
to about half what you'd pay for the identical same article out of a
retail place down in this country.”
“But could you, sir--would you be willing to do that much for a
stranger?” Stress of emotion made Emanuel's voice husky.
“If you don't believe I would do just that very thing, why, a dime'll
win you a trip to the Holy Land!” answered back the engaging Caruthers
beamingly and enthusiastically.
Then his tone grew earnest: “Listen here, Moon: no man that I take a
liking to is a stranger to me--not any more. And I've got to own up to
it--I like you. You're my kind of a man--frank, open, on the level; and
yet not anybody's easy mark either. I'll bet you're a pretty good hand
at sizing up people offhand yourself. Oh, I knew you'd do, the minute I
laid eyes on you.”
“Thank you; much obliged,” murmured Emanuel. To all intents he was
overcome.
“Now, then,” continued his new-found friend warmly, “let me suggest
this: You go ahead and look at the clarinet that this piking Louisville
concern's got for sale if you want to, but don't buy. Just look--there's
no harm in that. But don't invest.
“I'm on my way back to New York now to--to lay in my new lines for the
trade. I'll see old Izzy the first thing after I blow in and I'll get
the niftiest clarinet that ever played a tune--get it at actual cost,
mind you! I'll stick it down into one of my trunks and bring it back
with me down this way.
“Let's see”--he consulted a small memorandum book--“I ought to strike
this territory again in about ten days or two weeks. We'll make it two
weeks, to be sure. Um--this is Wednesday. I'll hit your town on Tuesday,
the twenty-ninth--that's two weeks from yesterday. I ought to get in
from Memphis sometime during the afternoon. I'll come to your bank to
find you. You're always there on Tuesdays, ain't you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Emanuel. “Don't you remember my telling you that on
Tuesdays Herb Kivil always left early to play tennis and I closed up?”
“So you did,” confirmed Mr. Caruthers. “I'd forgotten your telling me
that.”
“For that matter,” supplemented Emanuel, “I'm there every day till three
anyhow, and sometimes later; so if--”
“We'll make it Tuesday, the twenty-ninth, to be sure,” said Mr.
Caruthers with an air of finality.
“If you should want the money now--” began Emanuel; and he started to
haul out the little flat leather purse with the patent clasp wherein he
carried his carefully saved cash assets.
With a large, generous gesture the other checked him.
“Hold on!” counselled Caruthers. “You needn't be in such a hurry, old
boy. I don't even know what the thing is going to cost yet. Izzy'll
charge it to me on the books and then you can settle with me when I
bring it to you, if that's satisfactory.”
He stood up, carefully flicking some cigar ashes off the trailing ends
of his four-in-hand tie, and glanced at a watch.
“Well, it's nearly six o'clock. Time flies when a fellow is in good
company, don't it? We'll be in Louisville in less than an hour, won't
we?--if we're on time. I've got to quit you there; I'm going on to Cincy
to-night. Tell you what--let's slip into the diner and have a bite and a
little nip of something together first--I want to see as much of you as
I can. You take a little drink once in a while, don't you?”
“I drink a glass of light beer occasionally,” admitted Emanuel.
Probably in his whole life he had consumed as much as five commercial
quarts of that liquid, half a pint at a time.
“Fine business!” said Caruthers. “Beer happens to be my regular stand-by
too. Come on, then.” And he led the way forward for the transported
Emanuel.
They said at the bank and at the boarding house that Moon looked better
for his week's lay-off, none of them knowing, of course, what had come
into the little man's dun-coloured life.
On the twenty-eighth of the month he was so abstracted that Mr. Blair,
desiring his presence for the moment in the president's office, had to
call him twice, a thing which so annoyed Mr. Blair that the second time
he fairly shouted Emanuel's name; and when Emanuel came hurrying into
his presence inquired somewhat acidly whether Emanuel was suffering from
any auricular affection. On the morning of the twenty-ninth Emanuel was
in quite a little fever of anticipation. The morning passed; the noon or
dinner hour arrived and passed.
It was one-thirty. The street drowsed in the early autumnal sunshine,
and in front of his bookstore, in a tilted-back chair, old Mr. Wilcox
for a spell slumbered audibly. There is a kind of dog--not so numerous
since automobiles have come into such general and fatal use--that sought
always the middle of the road as a suitable spot to take a nap in,
arousing with a yelp when wheels or hoofs seemed directly over him and,
having escaped annihilation by an eighth of an inch, moving over perhaps
ten feet and lying down again in the perilous pathway of traffic. One
of this breed slept now, undisturbed except by flies, at the corner of
Front and Franklin. For the time being he was absolutely safe. Emanuel
had been to his dinner and had returned. He was beginning to worry.
About two-thirty, just after the cashier had taken his tennis racket and
gone for the day, Emanuel answered a ring at the telephone.
Over the wire there came to him the well-remembered sound of the blithe
Carutherian voice:
“That you, old man?” spake Mr. Caruthers jovially. “Well, I'm here,
according to promise. Just got in from down the road.”
“Did--you--bring--it?” inquired Emanuel, almost tremulously.
“The clarinet? You bet your life I brought it--and she's a bird too.”
“I'm ever so much obliged,” said Emanuel. “I don't know how I can ever
thank you--going to all that trouble on my account. Are you at the
hotel? I'll be over there just as soon as I can close up--I can't leave
here till three.”
“Stay right where you are,” bade his friend. “I'll be over to see you
inside of fifteen or twenty minutes.”
He was as good as his word. At ten minutes before three he walked in,
the mould of city fashion in all his outward aspects; and when Emanuel
had disposed of Mr. Herman Felsburg, who dropped in to ask what Felsburg
Brothers' balance was, and when Mr. Felsburg had gone, Caruthers' right
hand and Emanuel's met in an affectionate clasp across the little shelf
of the cashier's window. Followed then an exchange of inquiries and
assurances touching on the state of health and well-being of each
gentleman.
“I'd like mightily to ask you inside,” said Emanuel next, anxious to
extend all possible hospitalities; “but it's strictly against the rules.
Take a chair there, won't you, and wait for me--I'll be only a few
minutes or so.”
Instead of taking one of the row of chairs that stood in the front of
the old-fashioned bank, Mr. Caruthers paused before the wicket, firing
metropolitan pleasantries across at the little man, who bustled about
inside the railed-off inclosure, putting books and papers in their
proper places.
“Everybody's gone but me, as it happens,” he explained, proud to exhibit
to Mr. Caruthers the extent and scope of his present responsibilities.
“Nobody on deck but you, eh?” said Caruthers, looking about him.
“Nobody but me,” answered back Emanuel; “and in about a minute and a
half I'll be through too.”
The cash was counted. He carried it into the depths of the ancient and
cumbersome vault, which blocked off a section of the wall behind the
cashier's desk, and in their appointed niches bestowed, also, certain
large ledgerlike tomes. He closed and locked the inner steel door and
was in the act of swinging to the heavy outer door.
“Look here a minute!” came sharply from Mr. Caruthers.
It was like a command. Obeying involuntarily, Emanuel faced about. From
under his coat, where it had been hidden against his left side, Mr.
Caruthers, still standing at the wicket, was drawing forth something
long and black and slim, and of a most exceeding shininess--something
with silver trimmings on it and a bell mouth--a clarinet that was all a
clarinet should be, and yet a half brother to a saxophone.
“I sort of thought you'd be wanting to get a flash at it right away,”
said Mr. Caruthers, holding the magnificent instrument up in plain
sight. “So I brought it along--for a surprise.”
With joy Emanuel Moon's round eyes widened and moistened. After the
fashion of a rabbit suddenly confronted with lettuce his lower face
twitched. His overhanging upper lip quivered to wrap itself about that
virgin mouthpiece, as his fingers itched to fondle that slender polished
fountain of potential sweet melodies. And he forgot other things.
He came out from behind the counter and almost with reverence took the
splendid thing from the smiling Mr. Caruthers. He did remember to lock
the street door as they issued to the sidewalk; but from that juncture
on, until he discovered himself with Caruthers in Caruthers' room on
the third floor of the hotel, diagonally across the street and down the
block from the bank, and was testing the instrument with soft, tentative
toots and finding to his extreme gratification that this clarinet
bleated, not in sheeplike bleats, as his old one did, but rather mooed
in a deep bass voice suggestive of cows, all that passed was to Mr. Moon
but a confused blur of unalloyed joyousness.
Indeed, from that point thenceforward he was not quite sure of anything
except that, over his protests, Mr. Caruthers declined to accept any
reimbursement whatsoever for the cost of the new clarinet, he explaining
that, thanks to the generosity of that kindly soul, Izzy Gottlieb, the
requisite outlay had amounted to so trifling a sum as not to be worthy
of the time required for further discussion; and that, following this,
he played Annie Laurie all the way through, and essayed the first bars
of The Last Rose of Summer, while Mr. Caruthers sat by listening and
smoking, and seemingly gratified to the utmost at having been the means
of bringing this pleasure to Mr. Moon.
If Mr. Caruthers was moved, in chance intervals, to ask certain
questions touching upon the banking business, with particular reference
to the methods employed in conducting and safeguarding the Commonwealth
Bank, over the way, Emanuel doubtlessly answered him full and
truthfully, even though his thoughts for the moment were otherwise
engaged.
In less than no time at all--so it appeared to Emanuel--six o'clock
arrived, which in our town used to mean the hour for hot supper,
except on Sunday, when it meant the hour for cold supper; and Emanuel
reluctantly got up to go. But Caruthers would not listen to any
suggestions of their parting for yet a while. Exigencies of business
would carry him on his lonesome way the next morning; he had just
stopped over to see Emanuel, anyway, and naturally he wished to enjoy as
much of his society as was possible during a sojourn so brief.
“Moon,” he ordered, “you stay right where you are. We'll have something
to eat together here. I'll call a waiter and we'll have it served up
here in this room, so's we can be sort of private and sociable, and
afterward you can play your clarinet some more. How does that little
programme strike you?”
It struck Emanuel agreeably hard. It was rarely that he dined out,
and to dine under such circumstances as these, in the company of so
fascinating and so kindly a gentleman as Mr. John P. Caruthers, of the
North--well, his cup was simply overflowing, that's all.
“I'd be glad to stay,” he said, “if you don't think I'm imposing on your
kindness. I was thinking of asking you to go to Mrs. Morrill's with me
for supper--if you would.”
“We can have a better time here,” said Caruthers. He stepped over to the
wall telephone. “Have a cocktail first? No? Then neither will I. But a
couple of bottles of beer won't hurt us--will it?”
Emanuel was going to say a small glass of beer was as much as he ever
imbibed at a sitting, but before he could frame the statement Caruthers
was giving the order.
It was at the close of a most agreeable meal when Emanuel, following Mr.
Caruthers' invitation and example, had emptied his second glass of beer
and was in the act of putting down the tumbler, that a sudden sensation
of drowsiness assailed his senses. He bent back in his chair, shaking
his head to clear it of the mounting dizziness, and started to say he
believed he would step to the window for a breath of fresh air. But,
because he felt so very comfortable, he changed his mind. His head
lolled over on one side and his lids closed down on his heavy eyes.
Thereafter a blank ensued.
When Emanuel awoke there was a flood of sunshine about him. For a moment
he regarded an unfamiliar pattern of wall paper, the figures of which
added to their unfamiliarity by running together curiously; he was in
a strange bed, fully dressed, and as he moved his head on the rumpled
pillow he realised that he had a splitting headache and that a nasty
dryish taste was in his mouth. He remembered then where he was and what
had happened, and sat up with a jerk, uttering a little remorseful moan.
The disordered room was empty. Caruthers was gone and Caruthers' suit
case was gone too. Something rustled, and a folded sheet of hotel note
paper slid off the bed cover and fell upon the floor. With trembling
fingers he reclaimed the paper, and, opening it, he read what was
scrawled on it in pencil:
“Dear Old Scout: I'm sorry! I didn't suppose one bottle of beer would
put you down and out. When you took the count all of a sudden,
I figured the best thing to do was to let you sleep it off; so I got
you into the bed. You've been right there all night and nobody's any the
wiser for it except me. Sorry I couldn't wait until you woke up, but I
have to catch the up train; so I've paid my bill and I'm beating it as
soon as I write this. Your clarinet is with you. Think of me sometimes
when you tootle on it. I'll let you hear from me one of these days.
“Yours in haste,
“J. P. C.
“P. S. If I were you I'd stay off the beer in future.”
The up train? Why, that left at eight-forty-five! Surely it could not
be that late! Emanuel got out his old silver watch, a legacy from a
long-dead sire, and took one look at its two hands; and then in a
quiver of haste, with no thought of breakfast or of his present state
of unwashed untidiness, with no thought of anything except his precious
clarinet, which he tucked under his coat, he let himself out of the
door, leaving the key in the lock, and slipping through the deserted
hallway he hastened down two flights of stairs; and taking a short cut
that saved crossing the lobby, where inquisitive eyes might behold him
in all his unkemptness and distress, he emerged from the side door of
the Hotel Moderne.
Emanuel had proper cause to hurry. Never in all his years of service for
the Commonwealth Bank had he failed to be on hand at eight o'clock to
sort out the mail; and if his watch was to be believed here it was a
quarter of nine! As he padded across the street on shaky legs a new
apprehension that he had come away the day before without locking the
combination of the vault smote him. Suppose--suppose something was
wrong!
The street door of the Commonwealth stood open, and though the interior
seemed deserted he realised, with a sinking of the heart, that someone
had arrived before him. He darted inside, dropped the clarinet out of
sight in a cuddy under his desk, and fairly threw himself at the vault.
The outer door was closed and locked, as it should be. Nevertheless,
his hands shook so that he could hardly work the mechanism. Finally, the
tumblers obeyed him, and he swung open the thick twin slabs, unlocked
the inner door with the key which he carried along with other keys on
his key ring--and then fetched a sigh of relief that was half a sob.
Everything was as it should be--cash, paper money, books, files and
securities. As he backed out of the vault the door of the president's
office opened and Mr. Blair stood there in the opening, confronting him
with an accusing glare.
“Young man,” said Mr. Blair, “you're late!”
“Yes, sir,” said Emanuel. “I'm very sorry, sir. I must have overslept.”
“So I judge!” Mr. Blair's accents were ominous. “So I judge, young
man--but where?”
“W-where?” Emanuel, burning with shame, stammered the word.
“Yes, sir; that's what I said--where? Twenty minutes ago I telephoned
to Mrs. Morrill's to find out what was keeping you from your duties,
and they told me you hadn't been in all night--that your bed hadn't been
slept in.”
“Yes, sir; I slept out.”
“I gathered as much.” Mr. Blair's long white chin whiskers quivered as
Mr. Blair's condemning eyes comprehended the shrinking figure before him
from head to foot--the rumpled hair; the bloodshot eyes; the wrinkled
clothes; the soiled collar; the skewed necktie; the fluttering hands.
“Look here, young man; have you been drinking?”
“No, sir--yes, sir; that is, I--I had a little beer last night,” owned
Emanuel miserably.
“A little beer, huh?”
Mr. Blair, being popularly reputed to keep a private quart flask in his
coat closet and at intervals to refresh himself therefrom behind the
cover of the closet door, had a righteous contempt for wantons who
publicly plied themselves with potables, whether of a malt, a spirituous
or a vinous nature.
“A little beer, huh?” He put tons of menace into the repetition of the
words. “Forever and a day traipsing off on vacations seems to breed bad
habits in you, Moon. Now, look here! This is the first time this ever
happened--so far as I know. I am inclined to excuse it this once. But
see to it that it doesn't happen again--ever!”
“No, sir,” said Emanuel gratefully. “It won't.”
And it did not.
So shaken was Emanuel as to his nerves that three whole nights elapsed
before he felt equal to practicing on his new clarinet. After that,
though, in all his spare moments at the boarding house he played
assiduously.
For the purposes of this narrative the passage of the ensuing fortnight
is of no consequence. It passed, and that brings us to a Friday
afternoon in mid-October. On the Friday afternoon in question the
paymaster of the Great Western Crosstie Company deposited in the
Commonwealth Bank, for overnight safeguarding, the funds to meet his
semimonthly pay roll due to contractors, subcontractors, tow-boat owners
and extra labourers, the total amounting to a goodly sum.
Next morning, when Herb Kivil opened the vault, he took one look and
uttered one strangled cry. As Emanuel straightened up from the mail
he was sorting, and as Mr. Blair stepped in off the street, out from
between the iron doors staggered Herb Kivil, white as a sheet and making
funny sounds with his mouth. The vault was empty--stripped of cash on
hand; stripped of the Great Western Company's big deposit; stripped of
every scrap of paper money; stripped of everything except the bank books
and certain securities--in a word, stripped of between eighteen and
nineteen thousand dollars, specie and currency. For the thief, whoever
he might be, there was one thing to be said--he had an instinct for
thoroughness in his make-up.
To say that the news, spreading with a most miraculous rapidity, made
the town hum like a startled hive, is to state the case in the mildest
of descriptive phrases. On the first alarm, the chief of police,
accompanied by a good half of the day force, came at a dogtrot. Having
severely questioned the frightened negro janitor, and examined all the
doors and windows for those mysterious things known as clews, the chief
gave it as his deliberate opinion that the robbery had been committed by
some one who had means of access to the bank and its vault.
Inasmuch as there was about the place no evidence of forcible entry,
and inasmuch as the face of the vault was not so much as scratched,
and inasmuch, finally, as the combination was in perfect order, the
population at large felt constrained to agree that Chief Henley had
deduced aright. He took charge of the premises for the time being, Mr.
Blair having already wired to a St. Louis detective agency beseeching
the immediate presence and aid of an expert investigator.
It came out afterward that privily Mr. Blair suggested an immediate
arrest, and gave to Henley the name of the person he desired to
see taken into custody. But the chief, who was good-hearted--too
good-hearted for his own good, some people thought--demurred. He stood
in a deep and abiding awe of Mr. Blair. But he did not want to make
any mistakes, he said. Anyhow, a big-city sleuth was due before night..
Would not Mr. Blair consent to wait until the detective had arrived
and made his investigation? For his part, he would guarantee that the
individual under suspicion did not get away. To his postponement of the
decisive step Mr. Blair finally agreed.
On the afternoon train over the Short line the expert appeared, an
inscrutable gentleman named Fogarty with a drooping red moustache and a
brow heavily wrinkled. This Mr. Fogarty first conferred briefly with Mr.
Blair and with Chief Henley. Then, accompanied by these two and trailed
by a distracted group of directors of the bank, he made a careful survey
of the premises from the cellar coal hole to the roof scuttle, uttering
not a single word the while. His manner was portentous. Following this
he asked for a word in private with the head of the rifled institution.
Leaving the others clustered in a group outside, he and Mr. Blair
entered Mr. Blair's office. Mr. Fogarty closed the door and faced Mr.
Blair.
“This here,” said Mr. Fogarty, “was what we call an inside job. Somebody
here in this town--somebody who knew all there was to know about your
bank--done it. Now, who do you suspicion?”
Lowering his voice, Mr. Blair told him, adding that only a deep sense
of his obligations to himself and to his bank inspired him now to
detail certain significant circumstances that had come to his personal
attention within the past three weeks--or, to be exact, on a certain
Wednesday morning in the latter part of September.
In his earlier movements Mr. Fogarty might have been deliberate; but
once he made up his mind to a definite course of conduct he acted
promptly. He came out of Mr. Blair's presence, walked straight up to
Emanuel Moon, where Emanuel sat at his desk, and, putting his hand on
Emanuel's shrinking shoulder, uttered the words:
“Young man, you're wanted! Put on your--”
Then Mr. Fogarty silently turned and beckoned to Chief Henley, invoking
the latter's official co-operation and assistance.
Between the imported detective and the chief of police, Emanuel Moon, a
silent, pitifully shrunken figure, walked round the corner to the City
Hall, a crowd following along behind, and was locked up in a cell in
the basement calaboose downstairs. Lingering about the hall after the
suspect had been taken inside.
Divers citizens ventured the opinion that if the fellow wasn't guilty
he certainly looked it. Well, so far as that goes, if a face as pale as
putty and downcast eyes brimming with a numbed misery betokened guilt
Emanuel had not a leg left to stand on.
However, looks alone are not commonly accepted as competent testimony
under our laws, and Emanuel did not abide for very long as a prisoner.
The Grand Jury declined to indict him on such dubious proof as the bank
people and Mr. Fogarty could offer for its consideration. Undoubtedly
the Grand Jury was inspired in its refusal by the attitude the
Commonwealth's attorney maintained, an attitude in which the circuit
judge concurred.
It was known that Mr. Blair went to Commonwealth's Attorney Flournoy,
practically demanding that Emanuel be held for trial, and, failing in
that quarter, visited Judge Priest with the same object in view. But
perversely the judge would not agree with Mr. Blair that the evidence
in hand justified such a course; would not on any account concede
that Emanuel Moon was the only person, really, who might properly be
suspected.
On that head he was as one with Prosecutor Flournoy. They held--these
two--that possession of a costly musical instrument, regarding which
the present owner would admit nothing except that it was a gift from an
unknown friend, coupled with that individual's stubborn refusal to
tell where he had spent a certain night and in whose company, did not
constitute a fair presumption that he had made away with nearly nineteen
thousand dollars.
“But look here, Judge Priest,” hotly argued Mr. Blair upon the occasion
of his call upon His Honour, “it stands to reason Moon is the thief.
Why, it couldn't have been anybody else! And I want the facts brought
out.”
“Whut facts have you got, Hiram?” asked the judge.
“Moon knew the combination of the safe, didn't he? He carried the keys
for the inside door of the safe, didn't he? And a key to the door of the
building, too, didn't he?”
“Hiram,” countered Judge Priest, looking Mr. Blair straight in the eye,
“ef you expect the authorities to go ahead on that kind of evidence I
reckin we'd have to lock you up too.”
Mr. Blair started as though a physical blow had been aimed at his head.
“Why--why---- What do you mean by that, Judge?” he demanded, gripping
the arms of his chair until his knuckles showed white through the skin.
“You carry the keys of the bank yourself, don't you? And you know the
combination of the safe, don't you? And so does Herbie Kivil.”
“Do you mean to insinuate----”
“Hiram, I don't mean to insinuate nothin'. Insinuations don't make the
best of evidence in court, though I will admit they sometimes count for
a good deal outside of court. No, Hiram; I reckin you and your detective
friend from St. Louis will have to dig up somethin' besides your
personal beliefs before you kin expect the Grand Jury of this county to
lay a charge aginst a man who's always enjoyed a fair standin' in this
here community. That's all I've got to say to you on the subject.”
Taking the hint, Mr. Blair, red-faced and agitated, took his departure.
After he was gone Judge Priest remained immersed in reflection for
several hours.
So Emanuel went free. But he might almost as well have stayed in jail,
for the smell of it seemed to cling to his garments--garments that grew
shabbier as the weeks passed, for naturally he did not go back to the
bank and just as naturally no one cared to offer employment to one who
had been accused by his late employer of a crime. He fell behind
with his board at Mrs. Morrill's. He walked the streets with drooping
shoulders and face averted, shunning people and shunned by them. And,
though he kept to his room in the evening, he no longer played on his
clarinet. And the looting of the Commonwealth Bank's vault continued,
as the _Daily Evening News_ more than once remarked, to be “shrouded in
impenetrable mystery.”
One evening at dusk, as Judge Priest was going home alone from the
courthouse, on a back street he came face to face with Emanuel.
The younger man would have passed by him without speaking, but the old
man thrust his broad shape directly in the little man's course.
“Son,” he said, putting a hand on the other's arm, “I want to have a
little talk with you--ez a friend. Jest you furgit all about me bein' a
judge. I wisht, ef you ain't got anythin' else to do, you'd come up to
my house to-night after you've had your supper. Will you, son?”
Emanuel, his eyes filling up, said he would come, and he did; and in the
judge's old sitting-room they spent half an hour together. Father Minor
always said that when it came to hearing confessions the only opposition
he had in town came from a nonprofessional, meaning by that Judge Priest.
It was one of Father Minor's little jokes.
“And now, Judge Priest,” said Emanuel, at the latter end of the talk,
“you know everything--why I wouldn't tell 'em how I got my new clarinet
and where I spent that night. If I had to die for it I wouldn't bring
suspicion on an innocent party. I haven't told anybody but you--you are
the only one that knows.”
“You're shore this here friend of yourn--Caruthers--is an innocent
party?” suggested the judge.
“Why, Judge, he's bound to be--he's just naturally bound to be. If he'd
been a thief he'd have robbed the bank that night when I was asleep in
his room at the hotel. I had the keys to the bank on me and he knew it.”
“Thai why didn't you come out and say so.”
“Because, as I just told you, it would be bringing suspicion on an
innocent party. He holds a responsible position with that big New York
firm I was telling you about and it might have got him into trouble.
Besides”--and Emanuel hung his head--“besides, I hated so to have people
know that I was ever under the influence of liquor. I'm a church member,
Judge, as you know. I never drank--to excess--before that night, and I
don't ever aim to touch another drop as long as I live. I'd almost as
lief be called a drunkard as a thief. They're calling me a thief--I
don't aim to have them calling me the other thing too.”
Judge Priest cloaked an involuntary smile behind a pudgy hand.
“Well, Emanuel,” he said, “jest to be on the safe side, did it ever
occur to you to make inquiry amongst the merchants here as to whether a
travelling gent named Caruthers sold goods to any of 'em?”
“No, Judge; I never thought of that.”
“Did you look up Gatling & Moore--I believe that's the name--in
Bradstreet's or Dun's to see ef there was sech a firm?”
“Judge, I never thought of that either.”
“Son,” said the old man, “it sorter looks to me like you ain't been
doin' much thinkin' lately.” Then his tone changed and became warmly
consoling. “But I reckin ef I was the trouble you're in I wouldn't do
much thinkin' neither. Son, you kin rest easy in your mind--I ain't
a-goin' to betray your confidences. But ef you don't mind I aim to do a
little inquirin' round on my own account. This here robbery interests me
powerfully, someway. I've been frettin' a heap about it lately.
“And--oh, yes--there's another thing that I was purty nigh furgittin',”
continued Judge Priest. “I ain't purposin' to pry into your personal
affairs--but tell me, son, how are you off fur ready money these days?”
“Judge, to tell you the truth, I'm just about out of money,” confessed
Emanuel desperately. “I owe Mrs. Morrill for three weeks' board now. I
hate to keep putting her off--her being a widow lady and dependent for
her living on what she takes in. I'd pack up and go somewhere else--to
some other town--and try to get work, only I can't bear to go away with
this cloud hanging over my good name. It would look like I was running
away; and anyway I guess the tale would follow me.”
The judge dug into his right-hand trousers pocket. He exhumed a small
wad of bills and began counting them off.
“Son,” he said, “I know you won't mind my makin' you a temporary loan to
help you along till things git brighter with you. By the way, how would
you like to go to work in the circuit clerk's office?”
“Me, Judge! Me?” Fresh-kindled hope blazed an instant in Emanuel Moon's
voice; then the spark died.
“I reckon nobody would hire me,” he finished despondently.
“Don't you be so shore. Lishy Milam come to me only yistiddy sayin' he
needed a reliable and experienced man to help him with his books, and
askin' me ef I could suggest anybody. He ain't had a capable deputy
sense little Clint Coombs died on him. I sort of figger that ef he gave
you a job on my say-so it'd go a mighty long way toward convincin'
this town that we both regarded you ez an honest citizen. I'll speak to
'Lishy Milam the very first thing in the mornin'--ef you're agreeable to
the notion.”
“Judge,” exclaimed Emanuel, up on his feet, “I can't thank you--I can't
tell you what this means--”
“Son, don't try,” bade the old judge. “Anyhow, that ain't whut I want to
hear frum you now. Set down there agin and tell me all you kin remember
about this here friend of yourn--Caruthers; where you met up with him
and whut he said and how he said it, and the way he looked and walked
and talked. And how much beer you drunk up that night and how much he
drunk up, and how you felt when you woke up, and whut Hiram Blair said
to you when you showed up at the bank--the whole thing all over agin
from start to finish. I'm interested in this here Mr. Caruthers. It
strikes me he must 'a' been a mighty likely feller.”
When Emanuel Moon walked out of Judge Priest's front door that night he
was pumped dry. Also, for the first time in weeks, he walked with head
erect and gaze straightforward.
In the morning, true to his promise, Judge Priest made recommendations
to Circuit Clerk Milam. This done, he left the courthouse and, going
down Legal Row, dropped in at the law office of Fairleigh & Fairleigh,
to find young Jere Fairleigh, junior member of the firm, sitting by the
grate fire in the front room.
“Jere,” asked Judge Priest, directly the young man had made him welcome,
“whutever become of them three post-office robbers that hired you to
defend 'em--still over in the Marshallville jail, ain't they?”
“Two of them are,” said young Fairleigh. “The one they call the Waco
Baby got out on bail and skipped. But the other two--Frisco Slim and
Montreal Red--are in jail over there awaiting trial at the next term of
United States Court.”
Judge Priest smiled softly.
“Young man,” he said, “it certainly looks to me like you're climbin'
mighty fast in your chosen profession. All your clients 'pear to have
prominent cities named alter 'em. Tell me,” he went on, “whut kind of
persons are the two that are still lingerin' in Marshallville?”
“Well,” said the young lawyer, “there's a world of difference between
'em. Frisco is the glum, morose kind; but Montreal Red--his real name is
Mooney, he tells me, though he's got half a dozen other names--he's
certainly a wise individual. Just associating with him in my capacity as
his counsel has been a liberal education to me in the ways of the
underworld. I firmly believe he knows every professional crook in the
country.”
“Aha! I see,” said Judge Priest. “I figger Mister Montreal is the
party I want to meet. I'm thinkin' of runnin' down to Marshallville
on business right after dinner to-day. I reckin you wouldn't mind--in
strict confidence--givin' me a little note of introduction to your
client, tellin' him I seek his advice on a private matter, and sayin'
that I kin be trusted?”
“I'll be mighty glad to,” said Fairleigh, Junior, reaching across his
desk for pen and paper. “I'll write it right now. Turning detective,
Judge?”
“Well, son,” conceded Judge Priest, “you mout call it that and not make
sech an awful big mistake.”
“Sort of a Sherlock Holmes, eh?”
The judge made a gesture of modest disclaimer.
“No; I reckin Sherlock would be out of my class. By all accounts
Sherlock knowed purty nigh ever'thing wuth knowin'. If he'd struck two
different trails, both seemin'ly p'intin' in the same direction, he'd
know right off which one of 'em to take. That's where he'd be one pawpaw
above my tallest persimmon. Sometimes I git to thinkin' I'm a poor
purblind old idiot that can't see a thing when it's shoved right up
under my nose. No; I ain't aspirin' none to qualify ez a Sherlock.
I'm only endeavourin' to walk ez an humble disciple in the hallowed
footsteps of Old Cap Collier.”
“What do you know about Old Cap Collier?” demanded Fairleigh,
astonished. “I thought I was the only grown man in town that still read
nickel libraries--on the sly.”
“Boy,” said Judge Priest, “you and me have got a secret bond between us.
Wasn't that there last one that come out a jim-dandy?--the one called
Old Cap Collier and the Great Diamond Robbery.
“It was so,” stated Fairleigh. “I read it last night in bed.”
Three o'clock of that same day disclosed Judge Priest perched on the
side of a bunk in a cell in the Marshallville jail, close up alongside
a blocky person of unkempt appearance whom we, for convenience, may call
Montreal Red, more especially as this happens to be the title to
which he commonly answered within the fraternity of which he was a
distinguished member.
They made a picture sitting there together--the old man, nursing his
soft black hat between his hands, with the half light bringing out in
relief his bald round skull, his chubby pink face and his tuft of white
beard; the captive yeggman in his shirt sleeves, with no collar on and
no shoes on, holding Mr. Fairleigh's note in his hand and, with the
look upon his face of one who feels a just pride in his professional
knowledge, hearkening while the Judge minutely described for him a
certain individual. Before the Judge was done, Montreal Red interrupted
him.
“Sufficiency, bo,” he said lightly; “you've said enough. I know the gun
you're talkin' about without you goin' any farther--it's Shang Conklin,
the Solitary Kid.”
“But this here gentleman went by the name of Caruthers!” demurred the
Judge.
“Wot else did you figure he'd be doin'?” countered Montreal Red. “He
might 'a' called himself Crowley, or Lord Copeleigh, or half a dozen
other things. He might 'a' called himself the King of Bavaria--yes, and
got away with it, too, because he's there with the swell front and the
education. The Solitary Kid's got a different monniker for every day in
the week and two for Sundays. It couldn't be nobody else but him; you've
called the turn on him same as if you'd mugged him for the Gallery.”
“You know him personally, then?” asked Judge Priest.
“Who don't know him?” said Montreal Red. “Everybody that knows anybody
knows Solitary. And I'll tell you why! You take 'most any ordinary gun
and he's got just one regular line--he's a stick-up, or he's a moll
buzzer, or a peterman, or a con man; or he belongs to the hard-boiled
people, the same as me. But Shang he doubles in brass; it's B. and O.
for him. Bein' there with the front, he's worked the wire; and
before that he worked the bat. Knowin' all there is to know about the
pasteboard papes, he'd done deep-sea fishin' in his time--playin' for
rich guys on the big liners, you know.
“And when it comes to openin' boxes--bo, since old Jimmy Hope quit the
game and sneezed in, I guess Shang Conklin's the wisest boxman that ever
unbuttoned a combination crib with his bare hands. He's sure the real
McCoy there--not no common yegg, you understand, with a steel drill and
a gat in his kicks and a rubber bottle full of soup tied under his coat;
but doin' the real fancy stuff, with nothin' to help him but the old ten
fingers and the educated ear. And he never works with a mob neither. Any
time you make Shang he'll be playin' the lone hand--providin' his own
nut and goin' south with all the clean-up. No splittin' with anybody for
Shang--it's against his business principles. That's why he's labelled
the Solitary Kid.”
Most of this was as pure Greek to Judge Priest, who, I may say, knew no
Greek, pure or otherwise. Suddenly aware of the bewilderment revealed in
the countenance of his interviewer, Montreal Red checked up and took a
new track.
“Say, bo, you ain't makin' me, are you? Well, then, maybe I'd better
spiel it out slow. Know wot a peterman is?”
The judge shook his head.
“Well, you know wot a box is, don't you?”
“I'm skeered that I don't, though I believe I'm beginnin' to git a faint
idea,” said Judge Priest.
As though deploring such ignorance Montreal Red shook his flame-coloured
head.
“I'll frame it for you different--in sucker language,” he said.
And accordingly he did, most painstakingly.
“Now then,” he said at the end of five minutes of laborious translation,
“do you get me?”
“I git you,” said Judge Priest. “And I'm mighty much obliged. Now, then,
ef it ain't too much trouble, I'd like to git in touch with this here
Mister Conklin, et cetery. Do you, by any chance, know his present
whereabouts?”
Before replying to this the Montreal Red communed with himself for a
brief space.
“Old-timer,” he said finally, “if I thought you was playin' in with the
dicks I'd see you in Belgium before I tipped you off to anything. But
this here mouthpiece of mine”--he indicated the note from young Mr.
Fairleigh--“says you're on the level. I judge he wouldn't take my good
fall-money and then cross me this way. I take it you ain't tryin' to
slip one over on Shang? All right, then; I'll tell you where he is--he's
in Atlanta, Georgia.”
“And whut is his address there?” pursued Judge Priest.
“The Federal prison--that's all,” said Montreal tied. He smiled softly.
“If I don't beat this little case of mine I'm liable to meet him down
there along toward spring, or maybe even sooner. The bulls nailed him
at Chattanooga, Tennessee, about a month ago for a little national-bank
job, and right quick he taken a plea and got off with a short bit in
Uncle Sammy's big house. I was readin' about it in the papers. You
wouldn't have no trouble findin' him at Atlanta--he'll be in to callers
for the next five years.”
“Bein' an amateur Old Cap Collier certainly calls fur a lot of
travellin' round,” murmured Judge Priest, half to himself, and he sighed
a small sigh of resignation as he arose.
“Wot's that? I don't make you?” asked Montreal Red.
“Nothin',” said Judge Priest; “nothin' a-tall. I was jest thinkin' out
loud; it's a sort of failin' of mine ez I git older. You said, didn't
you, that these here sleepin' potions which you was mentionin' a minute
ago are mostly administered in beer?”
“Mostly in beer,” said Montreal Red. “The little old knock-out seems to
work best in the lather stuff. I don't know why, but it does.
“It's like this: You take the beer----”
“Oh, I wasn't figgerin' on usin' it myself,” explained Judge Priest
hastily. “Much obliged to you all the same, young man.”
A night in a sleeping car brought Judge Priest to Atlanta. A ride in a
trolley car brought him to the warden's office of a large reformatory
institution beyond the suburbs of that progressive city. A ten-minute
chat with the warden and the display of divers credentials brought him
the privilege of an interview, in private, with a person who, having
so many names to pick from, was yet at this time designated by a simple
number. Even in convict garb, which is cut on chastely plain lines
and which rarely fits perfectly the form of its wearer, this gentleman
continued somehow to bespeak the accomplished metropolitan in his
physical outlines and in his demeanour as well, maintaining himself, as
you might say, jauntily.
In the first few moments of his meeting with Judge Priest there was
about him a bearing of reserve--almost of outright suspicion. But half a
dozen explanatory sentences from the judge served speedily to establish
an atmosphere of mutual understanding. I believe I stated earlier in
my tale that Judge Priest had a little knack for winning people's
confidences. Perhaps I should also explain that at a suitable time in
the introductory stages of the conversation he produced a line in the
characteristic handwriting of Mr. Montreal Red. Being thereby still
further enlightened as to the disinterestedness of the venerable
stranger's motives, the Solitary Kid proved frankness itself.
Preliminarily, though, he listened intently while Judge Priest recited
in full a story that had mainly to do with the existing plight of
Emanuel Moon.
“Now then, suh,” said Judge Priest at the conclusion of his narrative,
“I've laid all the cyards that I hold on the table right in front of
you. Ef I'm correct in my guess that you're the party of the second part
in this here transaction. I don't need to go on, because you know a sight
more about the rest of it than whut I do. The way I figger it, a decent,
honest little man is in serious trouble, mainly on your account. Ef
you're so minded I calculate that you kin help him without hurtin'
yourself any. Now then, presumin' sech to be the case, is there anythin'
you'd like to say to me--ez his friend?”
Conklin, alias Caruthers, alias Crowley, and so on, put a question of
his own now:
“You say the president of that bank is the one that tried to fasten this
job on Moon, eh? Well, then, before we go any further, suppose you tell
me what that president looks like?”
Judge Priest sketched a quick word picture of Mr. Hiram Blair--accurate
and fair, therefore not particularly complimentary.
“That's enough,” said the convict grimly; “that'll do. Why, the
long-whiskered old dog! Now then, Judge--you said you were a judge,
didn't you?--I'm going to spill a funny yam for you. Never mind what my
reasons for coming through are. Maybe I want to get even with somebody
that handed me a large disappointment. Maybe I don't want to see that
little Moon suffer for something he didn't do. Figure it out for
yourself afterward, but first listen to me.”
“I'm listenin', son,” said Judge Priest.
“Good!” said Conklin, lowering his voice cautiously, though he knew
already they were alone in the warden's room.
“Up to a certain point you've got the thing figured out just as it came
off. That day on the train going into Louisville I started to take the
little man at cards. I was going to deal him the big mitt and then clean
him for what he had; but when he told me he worked in a bank--a nice,
fat little country bank--I switched the play, of course. I saw thousands
of dollars where I'd seen lunch money before. Inside of an hour I knew
everything there was to know about that bank--what he knew and what
I could figure from what he told me. All I had to do was to turn the
spigot once in a while and let him run on. And then, when he began to
spill his cravings for a new clarinet, I almost laughed in his face. The
whole thing looked like a pipe.
“The dope was working lovely when I hit that town of yours two weeks
later. At the right minute I flashed the clarinet on him and made him
forget to throw the combination of the vault. So far, so good. Then,
when I got him where I wanted him--over in my room--I slipped the drops
into his beer; not enough to hurt him but enough to start him pounding
his ear right away. That was easy too--so easy I almost hated to do it.
“Then I waited until about two o'clock in the morning, him lying there
all the time on my bed, dead to the world.. So I took his keys off him
and dropped across the street without being seen by anybody--the main
street of your town is nice and quiet after midnight--I'll say that much
for it anyway--and walked into the bank the same as if I owned it--in
fact, I did own it--and made myself at home. I opened up the vault and
went through it, with a pocket flash to furnish light; and then after
a little I locked her up again, good and tight, leaving everything just
like I'd found it, and went back to the hotel and put the keys in the
little man's pocket, and laid down alongside of him and took a nap
myself. D'ye see my drift?”
“I reckin I don't altogether understand--yit,” said Judge Priest.
“You naturally wouldn't,” said Conklin with the air of a teacher
instructing an attentive but very ignorant pupil. “Here's what happened:
When I took a good look at the inside door of that vault and tried the
tumblers of the outside door I knew I could open her any time I wanted
to--in five minutes or less. Besides, I wouldn't need the keys any more,
seeing as I could make impressions of 'em in wax, which I did as soon
as I got back inside of my room at the hotel. So I was sure of having
duplicates whenever I needed 'em.”
“I'm feared that I'm still in the dark,” said Judge Priest. “You see
it's only here right recently that I took up your callin' in life--ez a
study.”
“Well, figure it out for yourself,” said Conklin. “If I made my clean-up
and my getaway that night it was a cinch that they'd connect up Moon
with his strange friend from New York; even a hick bull would be wise
enough to do that. And inside of twenty-four hours they'd be combing the
country for a gun answering to my general plans and specifications. At
the beginning I was willing to take that chance; but after I had a look
at that combination I switched my play. Besides, there wasn't enough
coin in the box that night to suit me. I always play for the big dough
when I can, and I remembered what the little man told me about
that lumber company--you know the one I mean: that big crosstie
concern--depositing its pay roll every other Friday night. So why
wouldn't I hold off?”
“I begin to see,” said Judge Priest. “You're makin' me see a number of
things that've been pesterin' me fur three-four days now.”
“Wait till you get the final kick,” promised the convict. “That'll open
your eyes some, I guess. Well, I skinned out next morning and I went
elsewhere--never mind where, but it wasn't far away. Then on the night
of the fifteenth--the third Friday in the month--I came back again,
travelling incog., as they say on the other side of the duck pond; and
about two o'clock in the morning I paid another call to your little
old Commonwealth Bank and opened up the vault--outside door and inside
door--in four minutes by my watch, without putting a mark on her. That's
my specialty--nice, clean jobs, without damaging the box or making any
litter for the janitor to sweep up in the morning. But I didn't clean
her out that time either.”
“Ahem!” said Judge Priest doubtfully. “You didn't?”
“Oh, I didn't expect you to believe that right off,” stated Mr. Conklin,
prolonging his climax. “The reason I didn't clean her out then was
because she was already cleaned out; somebody had beat me to it and
got away with everything worth having in that little old box. It was
considerable of a disappointment to me--and a shock too.”
“It shorely must've been,” agreed the judge, almost sympathetically.
“Mout I ask ef you've got any gineral notion who it was that--that
deprived you of the fruits of your industry and your patience?”
“I don't have to have any general notion,” quoth Conklin et al., with
bitterness creeping into his voice. “I know who it was--that is, I'm
practically certain I know who it was. Because, while I was across
the street in a doorway about half past one, waiting to make sure the
neighbourhood was clear, I saw the gink I suspect come out of the bank
and lock the door behind him, and go off up the street.
“I thought at the time it was funny--anybody being in that bank at that
hour of the night; but mostly I was glad that I hadn't walked in on him
while he was there. So I just laid low and let him get away with the
entire proceeds--which was my mistake. I guess under the circumstances
he'd have been glad enough to divide up with me. I might even have
induced him to hand over the whole bunch to me--though, as a rule, when
it can be avoided I don't believe in any strong-arm stuff. But, you see,
I didn't know then what I found out about half an hour later. So I just
stood still where I was, like a boob, and let him fade away out of my
life. Yep, Judge, I'm reasonably sure I saw the party that copped the
big roll that night. And I presume I'm the only person alive that did
see him copping it.”
“Would you mind describin' him--ez nearly ez you kin?” asked Judge
Priest; he seemed to have accepted the story as a truthful recital.
“I don't need to,” answered the Solitary Kid. “You did that yourself
just a little bit ago. If you're going back home any time soon I suggest
that you ask the old pappy-guy with the long white whiskers what he was
doing coming out of his own bank at half past one o'clock on the morning
of October the sixteenth, with a long overcoat on, and his hat pulled
down over his eyes, and a heavy sackful of dough hid under his coat. I
didn't exactly see the sack, but he had it, all right--I'll gamble on
that. You needn't tell him where you got your information, but just ask
him.”
“Son,” averred Judge Priest, “I shorely will do that very thing; in
fact, I came mighty nigh practically doin' so several weeks ago when I
didn't know nigh ez much ez I do now--thanks to you and much obliged.”
But Judge Priest was spared the trouble--for the time being, at least.
What transpired later in a legal way in his courtroom has nothing
whatever to do with this narration. It is true that he left Atlanta
without loss of time, heading homeward as straight and as speedily as
the steam cars could bear him.
Even so, he arrived too late to carry out his promise to the Solitary
Kid. For that very day, while he was on his way back, in a city several
hundred miles distant--in the city of Chicago, to be precise--the police
saw fit to raid an establishment called vulgarly a bucket shop; and
finding among the papers and books, which they coincidentally seized,
entries tending to show that our Mr. Hiram Blair had, during the
preceding months, gone short on wheat to a disastrous extent, the police
inconsiderately betrayed those records of a prolonged and unfortunate
speculation to one of the Chicago afternoon papers, which in turn wired
its local correspondent down our way to call upon the gentleman and ask
him pointblank how about it.
But the correspondent, who happened also to be the city staff of
the _Daily Evening News_, a young man by the name of Rawlings, was
unsuccessful in his attempts to see Mr. Blair, either at his place
of business in the bank or at his residence. From what he was able
to glean, the reporter divined that Mr. Blair had gone out of town
suddenly. Putting two and two together the young man promptly reached
the conclusion that Mr. Blair might possibly have had also some word
from Chicago. Developments, rapidly ensuing, proved the youth correct in
his hypothesis.
Two days later Mr. Blair was halted by a person in civilian garb, but
wearing a badge of authority under his coat, as Mr. Blair was about
to cross the boundary line near Buffalo into the adjacent Dominion of
Canada. Mr. Blair insisted at first that it was not him. In truth it did
not look like him. Somewhere en route he had lost his distinguished chin
whiskers and his commanding manner, acquiring in lieu of these a name
which did not in the least resemble Hiram Blair.
Nevertheless, being peremptorily, forcibly and over his protests
detained--in fact, locked up--he was presently constrained to make a
complete statement, amounting to a confession. Indeed, Mr. Blair went so
far in his disclosures that the _Daily Evening News_, in an extra issued
at high noon, carried across its front page, in box-car letters, a
headline reading: Fugitive, in Durance Vile, Tells All!
Old Judge Priest was passing Mrs. Teenie Morrill's boarding house one
night on his way home from Soule's drug store, where he had spent the
evening in the congenial company of Mr. Soule, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby and
Squire Roundtree. This was perhaps a week after his return from a flying
trip to Atlanta, Georgia, the results of which, as the saying goes,
still were locked within his breast.
As he came opposite Mrs. Morrill's front gate a blast of harmonious
sound, floating out into the night, saluted his ears. He looked upward.
Behind a front window on the top floor, with his upper lip overlapping
the mouthpiece of a handsome clarinet and his fingers flitting upon
the polished shaft of the instrument, sat little Emanuel Moon, now, by
virtue of appointment, Deputy Circuit Clerk Emanuel Moon, playing
The Last Rose of Summer with the fervour inspired of a happy heart, a
rehabilitated reputation, a lucrative and honourable employment in the
public service, and a newly acquired mastery of the melodic intricacies
of the air in question--four things calculated, you will allow, to make
anyone blithe of the spirit.
The old judge halted and smiled up at the window. Then, as he moved
onward, he uttered the very word--a small coincidence, this--which I
chose for the opening text of this chapter out of the life and the times
of our town.
“Poor little ant!” said Judge Priest to himself; and then, as an
afterthought: “But a dag-gone clever little feller!”