"I thought Braden wasn't his name. Jared Mallory! Holy Suffering
Catfish! Say, you ain't sure about that, are you, Susie?"
"No. Of course I ain't. I only know it, that's all. If you think my
lamps have went bad you can assort them card which he flang on the
floor."
It took the young man but a few seconds to recover the torn bits
of pasteboard and arrange them in proper order. "Well I'll be
darned--Jared Mallory is right. Say, lemme tell the Chief."
Susie restrained him briefly. "Who is this bird Mallory--that you
should get all het up over him? Who did he ever kill?"
"Jared Mallory," explained the excited young man, "is one of the
richest nuts in the United States: that's all. He's got a bankroll so
big you'd have to have four eyes to see it all."
"Then why the alias?" she queried practically.
"This joint ain't Mallory's size. He's the kind of guy who thinks he's
slumming when he visits a hotel like this. Is that clear now?"
"Sure--sure it is, Gus. Clear as mud."
It required just five minutes of the young man's time to transmit his
enthusiasm to the manager. "Of course," counselled that dignitary, "you
shall do nothing to embarrass Mr. Mallory. If he desires to visit us
incognito--"
And within ten minutes the manager had informed two of his particular
friends that Jared Mallory, the millionaire, was registered at the
hotel under the name of Thomas Matlock Braden. By dinnertime that night
a dozen persons knew it and before morning Tommy was a marked man--at
which Tommy merely smiled a thoroughly satisfied smile. "When Mr.
Barnum spoke his famous words," he soliloquized, "he must have been
timing things with a slow watch."
It was fully forty-eight hours before the rumor of Braden's identity
reached the ears of Mrs. Edgar H. Morse. At receipt of the tidings
she almost collapsed. "That's right--I knew all the time he was
somebody tremendous." And she proceeded to recount the incident of the
monogrammed cigarettes.
But it was in the privacy of the Morse suite that the knowledge
received a most thorough threshing out. "Golly!" breathed Edgar. "Think
of me bumming around with Jared Mallory. Honeybunch! we're sure sliding
up the social ladder now, we are. I thought there was something funny
about those cigarettes. And he's a gentleman right--he is; so much of a
one he don't have to be watching his step all the time. Funny he should
like me--er--a--that is, if he really does."
Thus far Mallory was merely a name to Edgar Morse and Edgar Morse was
only a name to Tommy Braden. Each set in motion inquiries as to the
other. Tommy's task proved the easier.
Within five days he was in possession of full information regarding
the financial and social standing of his prospective victim. He knew
that Mr. Morse had been a ten-thousand-a-year man with an aptitude for
saving until a certain wild venture in war babies had catapulted him
into the multi-millionaire class; so suddenly, in fact, that neither
the excitable little man nor his wife had yet adjusted themselves to
their new position in life. Tommy rather liked them; they weren't
the offensive type of _nouveau riche_--there was nothing aggressive
or vulgar about either. And Tommy was convinced that he would not be
doing them an injury by selling to them the Vanduyn pearls. According
to Tommy's way of figuring the detectives would never suspect that
handsome jewels in the possession of Edgar H. Morse had been come by
illicitly, so that, under the deal he contemplated no one would be
the loser. "No one except Vanduyn," he mused, "and that baby is stung
anyway."
Information regarding Jared Mallory came less readily to Mr. Morse.
Mr. Mallory was not among those present in the Dunn and Bradstreet
reports; but now that the great hotel was agog with knowledge of
Tommy's supposedly true identity, scraps of information were working
into a comprehensive--and rather flattering--whole. As a matter of
fact the actual presence of Jared Mallory would not have excited the
curiosity caused by Tommy's incognito. There was something irresistibly
intriguing about a man who sought to conceal his eminence--something
of greater allure than the eminence itself. Mr. Mallory--so general
comment had it--possessed the wealth of Crœsus, the family tree of a
Plantagenet and he was inclined to be more or less of what the public
expressively if inelegantly terms a nut.
Within a week all doubt which may have existed as to his being Jared
Mallory had been removed. The manager had personally made occasion
to visit Tommy's room when Tommy was absent. He found a half hundred
cigarettes monogrammed J. M., one or two handkerchiefs with the same
embroidered initials and an ancient letter addressed to Jared Mallory's
New York address.
But even at that Tommy was not entirely satisfied. He closeted himself
one day with the manager and explained to him that a telegram might
possibly come to the hotel addressed to Mr. Mallory; in which event
it was to be delivered to him. No such telegram ever arrived, but
whatever doubt may have remained to the manager was promptly and
effectively set at rest. Nor did that personage maintain the secrecy
which had been demanded of him. True, he passed the information only
to certain intimate friends who, in turn, conveyed it to their own
intimates--until the positive knowledge was the property of the entire
guest personnel.
There was, of course, an avalanche of attention showered upon
the supposed Jared Mallory to all of which he was magnificently
indifferent. He was courteous and frostily impersonal. He accepted
one or two invitations with an air of bespeaking condescension, and
through it all he vouchsafed his intimacy only to the Morses.
But even with them he maintained a reserve. Edgar Morse, prideful of
his recent success, told Tommy of it, thereby bringing no agony of
soul to Mr. Braden; but of himself Tommy never spoke. He did mention
casually an acquaintanceship extending from Cape Town to Bombay and
from New York to Sydney; he spoke feelingly and with passionate
intensity whenever the subject of jewels was mentioned and he openly
admired an unusually handsome emerald which Mrs. Morse possessed.
But not once was he other than Thomas Matlock Braden--even on the
memorable evening when Mrs. Morse, carried away by her interest in the
conversation, addressed him as Mr. Mallory.
Tommy's forehead corrugated in a frown of annoyance. "What's that?" he
inquired with frigid politeness.
She flushed scarlet. "Why--er--you see, folks around the hotel say you
are Jared Mallory of New York."
There was no doubting his anger. His voice came in crisp and incisive
negation: "I am afraid I am not responsible for gossip. I am not Jared
Mallory."
Ella Morse was flustered and her husband came eagerly to her rescue.
"Now don't you go blaming Ella, Mr. Braden. She's been hearing so much
about you being Mr. Mallory and all the folks in the hotel wanting to
know if you really were, that she--I--that is, we--we've sort of called
you Mr. Mallory to ourselves and the name kind of slipped out. It
ain't any business of ours who you are--and we didn't go to cause you
any embarrassment...." He paused and spluttered. Tommy stared coldly.
"I understand, Mr. Morse. And I am sure that Mr. Mallory would not be
at all flattered."
"No--of course he wouldn't. He'd prob'ly be awful sore. That
is--er--a--not because folks thought you were him--of course you're as
good as he is any day in the week, including Sundays--but on account of
his feeling--well you know what I mean."
"Yes. I'm sure I do. But let's don't discuss it further. I prefer to
remain Thomas M. Braden."
"'Sall right with me, Mr. Braden. You can be Willie Jones if you want
to and it don't make any difference to us, does it, Ella?"
But after Tommy had parted from them that evening after a session at
the casino, Edgar swung on his wife. "Goshamighty, Ella--wasn't he sore
when he found out folks knew who he was?"
She nodded. "Can you blame him, Eddie? Here he's taken all this trouble
to make folks believe he ain't Jared Mallory ... I reckon he's terribly
put out. But there isn't a doubt in the world that he's him. If he
wasn't Mr. Mallory he wouldn't get peeved about folks thinking he was."
The friendship between Tommy Braden and the Morses flourished after
that little verbal clash. If unpleasant memory of it rankled in Tommy's
mind, he gave no indication and his suavity and friendliness put them
completely in his power. They drove together--in Morse's car--and
Edgar and Tommy played golf daily. He shunned the society of the other
guests, rigidly maintaining his attitude of impregnable exclusiveness.
And it was after a fortnight of this that the subject of jewelry
again came up: neither Edgar nor his wife suspecting that Tommy had
introduced the subject.
He appeared to become inspired. He thrilled them with romances of
famous gems. The history of renowned jewels he had at his finger-tips.
They were seated in the parlor of his suite, the air filled with the
fragrance of excellent cigars.... "But after all," declaimed Mr.
Braden, "there is only one jewel which is worthy the name."
"And that is?"
"The pearl."
They were in enthusiastic agreement. Tommy launched into an expansive
account of the pearl fisheries which he claimed to have seen, he
explained to them the mysteries of great pearls and enthralled them
with his enthusiasm. And then----
"I'm passionately fond of them," he confessed boyishly. "And I have
something here--if you'd like to see it."
A significant glance flashed between the others. The jewel-collector
had been humanized by his hobby.... He opened one of his trunks and a
few seconds later returned with a battered leather case of sizeable
dimensions. They gathered near him at the table, and then, very slowly
and worshipfully, he flung back the lid.
The Vanduyn pearls smiled up at them in pink perfection. Mrs. Morse
gasped with delight.
"Oh-oh! How glorious!"
Tommy caught up the rope of gems and ran them caressingly through his
fingers. "They are among the most perfect pearls in the world--each one
a match for every other one. Each has its history, its romance. It has
taken me years to collect them."
They were mesmerized by the magnificence of the jewels. And, while
they stared under the spell, Tommy talked softly and well about them.
He described the long stretches of sandy beach, the atolls and palm
stretches of the somnolent South Seas--the slumbering coral reefs, the
mahogany-skinned Kanakas. His voice trembled as he described the pearl
fishing operations; the shark menace; the dangers faced by the pearl
producers. He was a natural actor and he held the little manufacturer
and his wife in the hollow of his hand. And then, just when it seemed
as though they could no longer endure the glory of the thing he showed
them--he snapped the case shut and turned away.
In a second he had dropped back into his customary manner: scrupulously
polite, a trifle distant, unutterably exclusive. But the Morses were
no longer with him in spirit. They were dazed. It was Edgar Morse who
sounded the words which brought a lilt of triumph to the heart of Tommy
Braden.
"I'm rather sorry you showed us those, Mr. Braden."
"Sorry?"
"Yes. I want them."
Tommy smiled good-humouredly. "Then I, too, am sorry. I'm afraid there
are no other pearls precisely like these."
Tommy Braden knew he had builded well. He deliberately shunted the
conversation from the subject of jewelry, knowing that the little man
and his sweet-faced wife would discuss the pearls once they were alone
again. Nor was he wrong. They were captivated by the sheer beauty of
the things; and their suddenly aroused passion had nothing whatever to
do with the intrinsic worth of that which they had come to covet.
"If he would only sell them," she said wistfully. "They would cost a
fortune, but----"
"It isn't the money," he answered. "Mr. Mallory doesn't care for money
and he does care for his pearls: that's all. I'm sure he'd never sell
them--er--that is, I don't think he would."
"We could ask him."
"I'm afraid we couldn't. We might hint around ... that is, kind of test
him out."
But, somehow, they found that assignment unreasonably difficult. Their
mention of the pearls the night following excited no response from
him, but on the night after that he consented to again display the
magnificent rope. He told them off, jewel by jewel ... but his manner
forbade the mention of a sale. Talk of dollars and cents in connection
with their flawless beauty would have been a sacrilege.
Morse did essay one valiant attempt--"We'd be awfully appreciative,
Mr. Braden, if you could help us get some pearls exactly like
those--er--a--that is, if there are any."
The other man shrugged. "I'm afraid there are not," he retorted briefly.
Tommy was playing an ultra-careful game. He was making progress slowly
but surely; casting himself in the rôle of quarry. And he might have
continued in just that way had not something occurred on the ensuing
day which caused him considerable apprehension.
At first he did not see the Gargantuan figure which hulked at the desk
and wrestled with the register. It was not until the stranger turned
and surveyed the lobby through glassy, fishlike eyes that a premonition
of danger smote him. His face hardened and he whistled sharply through
his teeth.
The person at the desk was not one to inspire any emotion other
than the most intense amusement. He was a man of overflowing girth
and lumbering manner. His clothes were grotesquely misfit; the coat
flapped loosely about the protuberant torso and the material of the
suit glistened with a sheen begotten of arduous wear. Beneath the
pants-cuffs shone a brief expanse of cheap, lavender sox topping
aggressive russet shoes, the toes of which rose to points. From the top
of the vest there was exhibited a small area of lavender silk shirt, a
purple polka-dotted necktie and a collar of insignificant height but
amazing circumference.
But it was the face which inevitably engaged the attention--engaged
it and held it even more than the absurdly powerful gold chain which
spanned the vest and held dangling from it a golden toothpick with
which the big man toyed absently as he gazed about the lobby. The face
was a fitting final touch to the ensemble. It was an enormous face; a
pudgy, expressionless face; a face flanked by loose, pendulous jowls
ruddily complexioned; a face like a great pudding set with two glass
marbles.
A casual observer might have believed that those eyes were sightless
as they stared stonily across the lobby. Once or twice the man
blinked--the process consuming an interminably long time. He yawned
with his eyes, but it did not seem to matter whether they were open or
closed. And at length he heeded the irritable summons of an excessively
peeved bellhop and turned to follow that person into an elevator.
Tommy Braden stood flatfooted staring as though at an apparition. But
once the cage door closed, Braden crossed the lobby swiftly and glanced
at the register.
JIM HANVEY--New York.
He turned away. He strolled out upon the spacious veranda where he
lighted a cigar and puffed reflectively. Eddie Morse and his wife,
Ella, would not have known their friend at that moment. Tommy's face
was hard and bitter and there was fear delineated in it. He put his
thoughts into unspoken words--
"What the hell is Jim Hanvey doing here? Why should a detective like
him come to a joint like this?"
Tommy Braden, by dint of hard and untiring work, had risen gradually
to the very top of his profession. The road had been neither easy nor
undangerous. He had faced disappointment and reversal with a bravely
smiling face--and now he had come to the point where he felt entitled
to reap the fruits of his endeavor. Tommy had been the despair of
detectives. He operated with an easy suavity and a level-headed
cunning which sent them running up blind alleys in the futile search
for evidence to convict, so that thus far Tommy had avoided the
inconveniences of jail--save in the case of a single slip in the early
days of his career.
That single jail sentence rankled in Tommy's breast, and it had
inspired in him a wholesome fear of state boarding houses. In jail
one was deprived of one's individuality and individuality was Tommy's
greatest stock in trade. He intensely disliked swapping his name
for a number and his exquisitely tailored clothes for a uniform. It
seemed a great pity that the state had no more judgment than to fail
to differentiate between crude, lumbering crooks and gentlemen of the
profession who operated with delicacy and finesse. But, after all,
Tommy Braden feared only one man in the detective world, which was why
he was so visibly disturbed at finding himself a fellow-guest of that
one man.
The following morning he played golf with Edgar Morse. He unbent more
than ever before and dazzled the little business man so thoroughly that
Morse's mind was not on the game and he lowered his course record seven
strokes. "By Golly!" reflected Mr. Morse, "there ain't a doubt that
this Braden or Mallory, or whoever he is, really likes me."
Tommy was annoyed. He had been enjoying the cat-and-mouse contest and
Jim's advent forced him to greater speed than he had planned. They
walked in from the eighteenth green together, consumed large drinks of
iced sarsaparilla which Mr. Morse insisted was excellent for the blood,
and then Tommy made his way to the hotel while Mr. Morse selected his
favorite putter and a half dozen balls for a session of utterly useless
practice on the clock course.
Tommy saw the hulking figure of the mammoth detective too late to avoid
a meeting. He was perturbed but at the same time thankful that his
introduction to Jim at this particular time should come while he was
unaccompanied. And realizing the inevitability of a talk with Jim, it
was he who spoke first.
"Well, well, well--if it isn't my fat friend."
Jim looked up. Heavy eyelids closed over glassy orbs with maddening
slowness, held shut for a moment, then uncurtained with even more
annoying deliberateness. There was no doubting the sincerity of the
surprise which was reflected upon the pudgy countenance.
"Well I'm a sonovagun! Tommy Braden!" Their hands met in a clasp of
sincere cordiality. "It is Braden now, ain't it, Tommy?"
Tommy smiled with rare good-humor. "Surest thing you know, Jim. Thomas
Matlock Braden."
"The whole works, huh? What's it feel like to be masqueradin' under
your right name?"
"Pretty good, Jim; pretty good. I've retired on my income."
"Quit the game?"
"Entirely."
"That's fine, Tommy--fine. I'm tickled pink to know it. I always like
to see a crook with sense enough to know when he's got plenty. There
ain't nothin' like honesty, my boy, when you've made all the money you
need."
"That's what I figured, Jim. There wasn't any use for me to continue
running risks.... Of course I'm not what you'd call a rich man, but
then I'm pretty well fixed. And not being tied up with a frail, it
don't cost me much.... You know how it is."
"Sure, Tommy--I know." Jim blinked with friendly approval upon the
other. "Dog-gone if you don't look like a million dollars ready money,
Son. Silk shirt, trick pants an' everything. Say, what is there to this
golf thing that makes sensible men dress funny thataway?"
"Ever played?"
"Naw! Imagine an elephant like me chasin' a dinky little ball over the
meadows."
"Better men than you have fallen for it."
"Sure; I know that. But it's my figger, Son. The links wouldn't stand
for it."
Jim turned and walked with Braden toward the hotel. Tommy was
ill-at-ease despite the apparent ease of his manner. Jim's face bore
an expression of bovine contentment; he looked like a child--or a
simpleton. Tommy knew that he was not a good man to have around, and
yet he was afraid to protest too fervently that he was now treading the
path of rectitude. Yet his curiosity shrieked for appeasement.
"Funny to see you here, Jim."
"Me? I reckon it is. I've been some awful funny places, Tommy."
"Vacation?"
"Uh-huh. An' I just naturally got sick of lowbrow joints. Besides,
a lot of the big boys in your line of work drift by here during the
season, and so I thought I'd try this seven-forks-dinner stuff for a
while. Guy never gets too old to learn, you know. Of course I ain't
like you--you're a gent an' you fit. I'll bet you wear a movie screen
shirt for dinner, eh?"
"Yes. Everybody does here."
"But one. Say: 'jever see me in evenin' duds? No? Honest, I look like
next week's wash hangin' out."
"Doesn't exactly fit your style of beauty?"
"No. I reckon when the good Lord gimme a knack of rememberin' faces an'
understandin' human nature, He figgered His part was done. If faces was
fortunes I'd be bankrupt."
They attained the ornate lobby where, at the desk, Tommy secured the
key to his suite. "Come up, Jim?"
"Uh-uh. Got to stroll around: exercise, the Doc says. Gosh! how I hate
it. See you later, Tommy. Awful glad you've turned straight."
"Nothing like it, Jim. I never thought I could run across you like this
and feel safe."
"Shuh! I wouldn't bother you none."
But despite outward appearances, Tommy Braden was uneasy. It wasn't
that he was in any way connected with Jim's visit to this particular
resort but rather that Jim's proximity was unhealthy for any gentleman
who was upon transgression bent.
Certainly there was no safety in continued procrastination. He had the
Morses just about where he wanted them and he figured that the best
thing he could do was to sell them the pearls and make his get-away. He
knew there'd be no particular trouble----
There wasn't. They dined with him that night, only Tommy being aware
of the hulking lonely figure which munched by itself in a secluded
corner of the dining room. Edgar Morse was radiant: he was exuberant
over his record-breaking golf score and as the dinner progressed he
went over for the dozenth time every shot from the first tee to the
eighteenth cup. Tommy warmed up considerably. He even unbent so far as
to say that Edgar was the first genuinely congenial person he had met
in years. He hoped that their acquaintanceship might not perish when
they parted, and--Oh! yes, he was leaving in a few days. He wished that
there was something he might do to indicate to Mr. and Mrs. Morse the
depth of his appreciation for the pleasure their society had afforded.
He correctly interpreted the eager glance which passed between
husband and wife. "There is," burst out Edgar, then bit his lip in
embarrassment: "Er--a--that is, I was just thinking--I'm kind of crazy,
I guess, and----"
"What is it, Morse? Anything in my power.... You see, I have few real
friends. I am more or less well fixed in a financial way, and in such a
position one becomes distrustful of persons who protest friendship....
Tell me what you were thinking."
"I can't--really. 'Tisn't possible."
"Indeed it is."
"No. Can't."
Tommy beamed upon Ella Morse. "What is it, Mrs. Morse? Certainly we are
sufficiently intimate to permit frankness."