Jim Hanvey posed pridefully before the triple mirrors. He hitched his
trousers one notch higher, affectionately patted the lapels of his
new coat and carefully adjusted the cerise necktie. Then he faced the
covertly grinning clerk and his voice held that beatific nuance with
which a small boy calls attention to the magnificence of his first
baseball uniform.
"Swell, ain't it?" queried Jim.
The clerk, a dapper little fellow who was garbed according to the
dictates of the latest fashion folder, was professionally enthusiastic.
"Perfect, Sir. You never looked better in your life." Under his breath
he added a fervent: "And that aint no lie."
Jim delighted himself with a further survey of his mirrored self. And,
in truth, whatever the ensemble might have lacked from an esthetic
standpoint it more than atoned in brilliancy.
The enormous and pudgy figure of the detective was enfolded in a
new and ill-fitting suit of near tweeds. A pink silk shirt was
stretched tightly over the upper portion of his anatomy. A collar of
inconsequential height but amazing girth encased the vivid tie. Below
the trouser cuffs was a brief expanse of white sox which topped a pair
of peak-toed russet shoes. Above Jim's collar flopped twin chins which
bounded on the south a countenance of bovine heaviness. The whole
was topped by a new gray felt hat which seemed in constant danger of
tobogganing from the crest of the bulbous head.
Jim Hanvey's tiny, fishlike eyes held a gleam of self-approval. Then,
as he inspected himself, they closed slowly, held shut for a moment,
and uncurtained with even greater deliberateness. His big hands were
elevated idly until the fingers found the elaborate golden toothpick
which hung suspended from the heavy chain connecting the upper vest
pockets. His chest inflated and a sigh escaped his pursy lips--"I've
been wantin' an outfit like this for a mighty long time," he commented.
"An' I just never sort of come around to gettin' it."
The clerk discreetly lowered his head to scribble hieroglyphics on a
sales pad. "Anything else, Sir?" he interrogated meekly.
"No-o. Don't believe there is.... Oh! yes--a silk handkerchief."
That article was purchased and Jim fitted it with meticulous care into
the breast pocket of his coat so that the pink edging was displayed to
weirdest advantage. "How much does it amount to, Son?"
"Seventy-two, fifty."
Jim whistled. "Gosh! Swell clothes sure do come high." Reluctantly
he extracted a battered wallet. "Here y'are. I want my other clothes
sent to the hotel." Then, with pitiful eagerness, "I couldn't look no
better, could I?"
"No," answered the clerk with perfect candor. "You surely couldn't."
Jim Hanvey departed. He walked with the peculiarly stiff and
self-conscious gait inevitably attendant upon the wearing of new
clothes. His big shoes creaked with every step. His expression was
one of radiant self-satisfaction. For years he had craved an orgy of
new-clothes purchasing and now that the exigencies of his profession
had furnished an adequate excuse he had done himself exceeding proud.
He entered a suburban street car and sat stiffly in his seat
misinterpreting the amusement of the other passengers for envy. It
never occurred to Jim that his clothes were in shockingly bad taste
or that his appearance was grotesque. He was a simple and lonely soul
with the male's innate love of bright colors and flaring finery rampant
within him, his desires untempered by the inhibitions of culture. He
loved the flagrant and flamboyant in dress and secretly harbored an
ambition to carry a cane. He owned two but thus far in his career they
had remained cloistered. He had never quite mustered sufficient courage
to drag one of them into the street. But some day....
Forty minutes later the street car reached the end of its run and Jim
alighted. The suburb silently proclaimed the opulence of its residents.
Wide, tree-shaded streets bounded by broad, velvety lawns behind which
hugely handsome residences reared their architecturally perfect forms;
gardens which paid flowering tribute to landscape experts; sinuously
winding driveways, spurting fountains, cleanly clipped hedges. An
atmosphere of forbidding and exclusive wealth. Parked by the curbs were
limousines of the more expensive makes. Early that morning Jim Hanvey
would have felt ill-at-ease in the neighborhood. Now, resplendent in
his new regalia, he believed serenely that he fitted comfortably into
the picture. His manner was that of the man who belongs. He regretted
that he had not bought a cane: a heavy, gold-headed cane. Or, perhaps,
a man of his mammoth physical proportions would better carry a malacca
stick--one of the slender, whippy ones....
He sought information from a disdainful chauffeur as to which of these
estates was the property of Mr. Theodore Weston. But even with the
confidence begotten of his magnificent raiment he hesitated briefly
before turning up the walkway which led from the street to the massive
brownstone mansion nestling far back behind a screen of elms, poplars
and shrubbery. There was something about the Weston estate which seemed
to elevate it above even its formidable neighbors; a mute announcement
of conscious superiority; a formal indifference; an air of casualness
such as that affected by the young girl who spends an hour before her
mirror carefully arranging her hair in the most attractive way. Jim
experienced difficulty in conceiving this palatial place as a home.
It wasn't at all Jim's idea of what a home should be. His own tastes
inclined to a six-room bungalow set level with the street and perhaps
twenty feet back from the sidewalk where a chap could loll of an
evening in his shirt sleeves and suspenders with his feet cocked up on
the porch railing and the potted geraniums only slightly obstructing
his vision.
He moved stiffly up the elm-sentinelled walkway to the broad and
imposing veranda which spanned the palace of the industrial king,
meticulously scraped a bit of mud from his new shoes, tiptoed to the
front door and somewhat timorously pressed the button. Like magic the
door swung back and a butler appeared.
"Mr. Weston home?"
The butler's forehead corrugated slightly. His face lost some of the
fixed rigidity of expression natural to it. He surveyed the visitor
with an admixture of bewilderment and insolence.
"Yes."
Jim fidgeted nervously. The butler maintained an uncompromising
silence--which Jim eventually terminated.
"Tell him Jim Hanvey wants to see him."
"Hmm! Your card, please."
Jim fumbled wildly. "Gosh! I left my card in my other suit." He jerked
his thumb in apologetic explanation. "Just tell him it's Jim Hanvey and
everything'll be jake."
The butler disappeared in the cavernous recesses of the mansion leaving
the monster detective thoroughly ill-at-ease. In a few moments he
returned, expression slightly altered. "Right this way, Sir."
Hanvey followed. Their feet were soundless on the rich rugs. Jim was
left alone in the dim, lavishly comfortable confines of the library. He
seated himself on the lounge, hitched up his trousers at the knees to
preserve the crease, and waited.
Less than five minutes later Weston appeared. He was a thin, undersized
man with a peculiarly high forehead and deep cavernous eyes. His step
was mincing but his manner betokened a wealth of nervous energy. He
paused on the threshold and stared with ill-concealed amazement at the
unwieldy figure which rose from the lounge to greet him.
It was a case of mutual surprise. Jim Hanvey had been prepared to meet
a towering, aggressive, physically powerful individual--a man whose
physique was in consonance with his reputation in the industrial world.
For Jim knew that Weston was all-powerful: fair but ruthless, a hard
fighter and a game one. The little man in the doorway was rather of the
lounge-lizard type....
As for Weston he could not believe that this mammoth individual who
bulked before him was the person who had been recommended as the best
detective in the country. Jim was not at all of the detective type. His
new raiment accentuated the flabbiness of the form, intensified the
general impression of lethargic indifference and general unfitness.
And so the two men stared, each struggling to readjust in a moment his
preconceived idea of the other. It was the financier who spoke first,
his voice snapping with a peculiar steely timbre not at all in accord
with his diminutive size.
"Mr. Hanvey?"
"Yeh.... Mr. Weston?"
"I am Mr. Weston."
"Mr. Theodore Weston?"
"Yes."
"Gosh...." Jim paused suddenly. Weston stared intently.
"Say it," he prompted.
"You're a runt," proferred Jim. "I thought I was gonna meet a big
feller."
"And you," countered Weston, "look more like a side-show freak than a
detective."
"You said it. I never was awful strong on looks an' my figger never
caused me to be mistook for no sylph."
They stood facing one another in the subdued light of the library. Jim
covertly straightened his tie and patted his new coat. Jim was very
well pleased with himself. He wondered whether this man had noticed his
new suit--
"Nice suit of clothes you've got on, Mr. Weston."
"Eh?" The smaller man was startled. "Oh! Thank you."
"You're welcome." Jim hesitated. "I'm awful strong for swell clothes,
aint you?"
"I don't notice them much."