1
My first case!--with what an agreeable thrill a professional man
repeats the words to himself. With most men I believe it is as it was
with me, not the case that he intrigues for and expects to get but
something quite different, that drops out of Heaven unexpected and
undeserved like most of the good things of life.
Every now and then in an expansive moment I tell the story of my case,
or part of it, whereupon something like the following invariably
succeeds:
"Why don't you write it down?"
"I never learned the trade of writing."
"But detective stories are so popular!"
"Yes, because the detective is a romantic figure, a hero, gifted with
almost superhuman keenness and infallibility. Nobody ever accused me
of being romantic. I am only an ordinary fellow who plugs away like
any other business man. Every day I am up against it; I fall down;
some crook turns a trick on me. What kind of a story would that make?"
"But that's what people want nowadays, the real thing, stories of the
streets day by day."
Well, I have succumbed. Here goes for better or for worse.
Before beginning I should explain that though it was my first case I
was no longer in the first bloom of youth. I was along in the thirties
before I got my start and had lost a deal of hair from my cranium.
This enabled me to pass for ten years older if I wished to, and still
with the assistance of my friend Oscar Nilson the wig-maker I could
make a presentable figure of youth and innocence.
During my earlier days I had been a clerk in a railway freight office,
a poor slave with only my dreams to keep me going. My father had no
sympathy with my aspirations to be a detective. He was a close-mouthed
and a close-fisted man. But when he died, after having been kept on
scanty rations for years, the old lady and I found ourselves quite
comfortably off.
I promptly shook the dust of the freight office from my feet and set
about carrying some of the dreams into effect. I rented a little
office on Fortieth street (twenty dollars a month), furnished it
discreetly, and had my name painted in neat characters on the frosted
glass of the door: "B. Enderby"--no more. Lord! how proud I was of the
outfit.
I bought a fire-proof document file for cases, and had some note-paper
and cards printed in the same neat style:
B. ENDERBY
_Confidential Investigator_
You see I wished to avoid the sensational. I was not looking for any
common divorce evidence business. Since I had enough to exist on, I
was determined to wait for important, high-priced, kid-glove cases.
And I waited--more than a year in fact. But it was a delightful time!
Fellows were always dropping in to smoke and chin. My little office
became like our club. You see I had missed all this when I was a boy.
Any youngster who has ever been speeded up in a big clerical office
will understand how good it was. Meanwhile I studied crime in all its
aspects.
I worked, too, at another ambition which I shared with a few million of
my fellow-creatures, viz.: to write a successful play. I started a
dozen and finished one. I thought it was a wonder of brilliancy then.
I have learned better. In pursuance of this aim I had to attend the
theatre a good deal, and from the top gallery I learned something about
actors and actresses if not how to write a great play.
I mention the play-writing for it was that which brought me my first
case. I used to haunt the office of a certain prominent play-broker
who was always promising to read my play and never did. One afternoon
in the up-stairs corridor of the building where she had her offices I
came face to face with the famous Irma Hamerton.
Nowadays Irma is merely a tradition of loveliness and grace.
Theatregoers of this date have nothing like her to rejoice their eyes.
Then, to us humble fellows she stood for the rarest essence of life,
the ideal, the unattainable--call it what you like. Tall, slender and
dark, with a voice that played on your heartstrings, she was one of the
fortunate ones of earth. She had always been a star, always an idol of
the public. Not only did I and my gang never miss a show in which she
appeared, but we would sit up half the night afterwards talking about
her. None of us naturally had ever dreamed of seeing her face to face.
We met at a corner of the corridor, and almost collided. I forgot my
manners entirely. My eyes almost popped out of my head. I wished to
fix that moment in my life forever. Imagine my confusion when I saw
that she was crying, that glorious creature!--actually the tears were
running down her soft cheeks like any common woman's. Do you wonder
that a kind of convulsion took place inside me?
Seeing me, she quickly turned her head, but it was too late, I had
already seen them stealing like diamonds down her cheeks. I stared at
her like a clown, and like a clown I blurted out without thinking:
"Oh, what's the matter?"
She didn't answer me, of course. She merely hurried faster down the
hall, and turned the next corner.
When I realised what I had done I felt like butting my silly head
through one of the glass partitions that lined the corridor. I called
myself all the names in my vocabulary. I clean forgot my own errand in
the building, and went back to my office muttering to myself in the
streets like a lunatic.
I was glad no one dropped in. In my mind I went over the scene of the
meeting a hundred times I suppose, and made up what I ought to have
said and done, more ridiculous I expect than what had happened. What
bothered me was that she would think I was just a common fresh guy. I
couldn't rest under that. So I started to write her a note. I wrote
half a dozen and tore them up. The one I sent ran like this:--I blush
to think of it now--