CHAPTER I_The Black Company

The Black Company

_A Mystery Story_

BY W. B. M. FERGUSON

CHELSEA HOUSE

79 Seventh Avenue

New York City

By CHELSEA HOUSE

The Black Company

(Printed in the United States of America)

languages, including the Scandinavian.

CONTENTS

I. I TAKE A RIDE

II. I FIND A JOB

III. I HEAR SOME NEWS

IV. A MORNING OF SURPRISES

V. KING'S PAWN TO KNIGHT'S

VI. I ACQUIRE VARIOUS INFORMATION

VII. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

VIII. CONSPIRING CIRCUMSTANCES

IX. I FIND MYSELF A MURDERER

X. I DO SOME INVESTIGATING

XI. I RETURN HOME

XII. THE RETURNED PRODIGAL

XIII. AT THE ADMIRAL

XIV. I CONSULT LISPING JIMMIE

XV. A WEEK'S EVENTS

XVI. SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES

XVII. AN INTERRUPTED DIALOGUE

XVIII. FURTHER DISCOVERIES

XIX. I LEARN A LOT MORE

XX. THE BLACK KING

XXI. I INTERVIEW HIS MAJESTY

XXII. FOOL'S LUCK

XXIII. BLUNT EXPLAINS

XXIV. I WIN THE QUEEN

THE BLACK COMPANY

CHAPTER I

I TAKE A RIDE

To be quite honest about it, I have no very clear idea what happened

in that private room at the Princeton Inn the night of the last

nip-and-tuck baseball game with Yale, except that every one of the

crowd with the exception of myself was anything but sober. There were

Roupell and Frean, Hewitt and Ashton--to mention only a few--who were

quarrelsome and ready to take exception to everything I said. I didn't

mind particularly about Roupell and Frean, but Bob Hewitt, being a

particularly old friend, his condition pained me exceedingly.

I don't recollect precisely what our particular difference was about,

my memory being notoriously faulty over trifles, but I know that

somehow Hewitt and I had become the focal point of interest for the

crowd. They were gathered round our table, and something seemed to have

happened. Perhaps I had said a brilliant thing worth remembering--I

often do--for Tommy Ashton, who is a lawyer, had his fountain pen out

and was busy writing. No doubt he intended to be my Boswell. He was

smiling; so was everybody but Hewitt, who looked as serious as the war.

"See here, Pete," said Hewitt, leaning over the table and eying me

hard, "you take witness before all present that you're perfectly

sober----"

"Of course I'm sober! Did you ever see me when I wasn't? I was born

sober! Why do you persist in insinuating that I'm drunk instead of

yourself?"

"Oh, that's a particular failing of Hewitt's," laughed a fat voice;

and, to my astonishment, I recognized Howard Roupell.

"Oh, hello!" I greeted. "When did you blow in?"

"With you," he chuckled. "You know I've been sitting next you all

evening."

"The Harry you have! You aren't a Princeton man and you're old enough

and, I dare say, unmoral enough to be the father of us all."

"I dare say," agreed Roupell, patting his fat paunch. "But I was at the

game, you know, and since you invited me here----"

"_I_ invite you? Nonsense! How could I, when this is the first time

I've seen you since--well, I forget how long. It doesn't matter,

anyway. I'm sorry to see that you're drunk, Roupell. It isn't right,

it isn't decent, especially in an old man like you. You should set a

good example, have more honor for your graying hairs and our youthful

purity."

"It's _you_ who's drunk--drunk as a fool," said another voice; and,

again to my astonishment, I recognized Arnold Frean. Of course he had

a perfect right to be there, but it was just like him to come sneaking

in by a back door and slink among the crowd. A furtive fellow, Frean,

with large, outstanding ears--otherwise he was quite handsome--that

seemed designed expressly for listening at keyholes. There was no love

lost between us, and, to his ridiculous and monstrous charge concerning

my sobriety, he now had the audacity to add that, like Roupell, he

had been present from the first, even sitting behind me at the ball

game. Moreover, he stated that I had brought Roupell to the feast by

intimidation and violence, threatening him with mayhem, and I forget

what else, if he didn't join the party.

"For that matter you invited the whole town," finished Frean. "All the

ragtag and bobtail--friends, I suppose, of your former days--and we had

a hard time keeping 'em out."

"You're drunk, Frean," I said. "Drunk like Roupell. I'm sorry to see

it, and I object to your face. Between ourselves, and speaking in

strict privacy, I don't like it and never did. Take it away."

"You're like all the Lawtons," he said. "You can't take a drink----"

"I can! I'll have one now. Thanks for reminding me. I'll have more

than one, and then I'll remove your face. That face of yours and

Roupell's alleged funny stories are too much; as a combination----"

"Oh, cut it out!" exclaimed Hewitt, seizing my arm. "And you quit

chipping him, Frean. Can't you stop your rowing? Don't get quarrelsome,

Pete----"

"I'm not," I protested. "I'm the most peaceable man in the world. I'll

fight anybody who says I'm not--_anybody_. I'm the only sober man in

the room, too. You know that, Bob. You're all half shot and trying to

pick a row, but you can't do it with me. No, sir. I'm perfectly willing

to fight anybody who says he can--_anybody_. Only sober man in the

room; never more sober in my life."

"Very well," said Hewitt. "That's what I've been trying to get at. You

say you're perfectly sober? All right; now read over the agreement."

It was the first I had heard of any agreement, but Hewitt being so

far gone, poor fellow--much further gone than I had even suspected--I

decided to humor him. You have to humor the drunk; it is the only way

to deal with them. He was in that perverse state where, if I had even

hinted a denial of any agreement, he would have claimed triumphantly

that I was drunk and he sober.

I confess, however, to astonishment when Ashton handed me a paper. But

evidently, being a quick-witted fellow, he was helping me on the spur

of the moment to humor poor Hewitt. And when I glanced at the paper I

saw he had been at some pains to fake up an agreement, though I could

not quite grasp what it was all about, it being couched in the cloudy

phraseology of the law which, coupled with Ashton's weird handwriting,

rendered it quite unintelligible. Indeed, it made me dizzy to look at

it, though, to humor poor Hewitt, I made a solemn pretense of reading

it through.

"Is that right?" asked Hewitt. "You understand it?"

"Of course," I said angrily. Did he think I couldn't understand plain

English put in plain writing?

"Very good. Then let it be signed and witnessed."

Ashton handed me his pen, one of those foolish affairs that start off

with dumping half their contents down your sleeve, and then splutter

all over the map. For that reason I found some little difficulty in

signing my name.

"That's yours," said Hewitt. "Now sign my copy. Compare it with your

own."

I did so dutifully. And now Ashton's writing had so improved by

practice that I was able to understand, amid a wilderness of

"Whereases" and "Aforesaids," the following words:

And furthermore I, Peter Lawton, being in full possession of all my

faculties, do promise faithfully to earn my living by manual labor

for a period of at least one month, dating from this seventeenth

day of June, 1916.

"Very well," I said, tossing the signed document back to Hewitt.

"Because I came into a pot of money and you didn't, you've always been

throwing it up to me! Because I don't have to work and you do, you're

sore----"

"It's not that at all, Pete. You started this argument about being able

to earn your own living, even by manual labor----"

"I did nothing of the kind!"

"You did. And every fellow here knows you did. You can only repudiate

your signature and that agreement by admitting what you would never

admit before--that you weren't capable of----"

"I'm capable of anything--I mean everything!" I exclaimed. "I'll show

you and the whole crowd! I can't earn my own living, eh? I'll show you.

I stand over my signature and repudiate nothing!"

I forget what else I said, but it must have been very witty--I seemed

to be in a rather happy vein that evening--for they all laughed and

clapped me on the back--all except Frean, who stood aloof with amused

sarcastic eyes. Then we all sang the old glees, and after an extremely

pleasant time, of which I remember nothing, I found myself outside,

talking with my chauffeur.

"Jensen," I said, "you're discharged. Who's got your job? _I_ have.

I've got to go to work right away, and the only thing I can do with my

hands is to feed myself and run a car. I can't feed if I don't work.

Ergo, you're discharged. I know your employer, too; he's a good fellow,

one of the best. I approve of him, and if I have to work, I'd rather

work for him."

Jensen was a Swede, and at times rather stupid. Unfortunately this was

one of the times and, moreover, he had been drinking like everybody

else but myself. A drunken Swede--a terrible combination; no wonder I

found it impossible to get him to understand my simple and dramatic

statement. "_You_ ban my boss," he kept repeating like a litany, his

bleak face never changing. "How you work for yourself? You make a yoke,

yes?"

"I make a yoke, no. I've got your job and that's all there's to it."

"But, boss----"

"There are no buts, my friend. Didn't you say the other day you were

thinking of making a change? Well, you've made it. And don't let me

hear you say again, 'Ay tank you ban drunk again, boss,' or I'll put

you past thinking anything. How could I be drunk again when I've never

been drunk in my life? I'm sorry to see that you've been at the bottle.

However, I've now engaged a sober chauffeur."

He blinked at me. "You ban going to fire me----"

"I ban! Here, now, immediately, if not sooner! I've got your job and

I'll hang on to it. I'm going to take the old bus all the way home

myself and run it in future. I've got your job. I'm working for Pete

Lawton."

It took some time for the truth to sink into Jensen's square dome, but

when he saw I was quite sober, and in deadly earnest, he accepted the

situation like a philosopher, the more so, perhaps, as I handed him a

hundred-dollar bill in mistake for a twenty. Anyway, he disappeared,

though I don't remember seeing him go.

I experienced some unexpected trouble in getting the car started and

out of the parking space, but this was finally accomplished with the

aid of a very obliging person with two faces, an oddity I had not

remarked in him previously.

Five of the crowd, including Hewitt, were to return home with me to New

York, but when I appeared with something of a flourish--if there is

anything I can do it's drive a car--and they saw I was minus Jensen,

their behavior was very peculiar. It became downright insulting when

they learned what had happened to Jensen, and that I meant to take the

wheel myself. One and all positively declined to accompany me, and, to

further aggravate matters, they insinuated I was in no condition to

drive even a baby carriage.

"For the love of Heaven, you mad devil, come out of there!" cried

Hewitt at length, springing on the running board and trying to shut off

the spark. "You'll kill somebody or break your fool neck----"

"I'll break yours if you don't get off!" I shouted above the roar of

the engine. "I've stood your insults long enough. You jeer at me for

not working, and then, when I get a job with a good employer, a fellow

I like and approve of----"

"One of you fellows run for a cop!" cried Hewitt. "And, say, can't the

rest of you help me? Come on and do something! Don't you see he'll do

what he says and that he isn't able to bite his finger?"

"I don't want to bite it!" I cried. "But you evidently do." For he had

followed his words by coming over the door like a cyclone.

It only needed that personal contact, the employment of brute force,

to snap my long-suffering patience and send my peaceful nature up in

flame. I slung Hewitt into the road with one hand, while with the other

I threw in the clutch. At the same moment Jensen appeared, and he and

the other four fellows rushed me, followed by, it seemed, half the town.

What happened next could only be described by half a dozen

moving-picture machines working together at top speed. The high-powered

six gave a bound like a tiger, and I took the sharp turn into the

highroad at a forty-mile clip amid a parting scene that resembled a

lunatic's dream of the battle of the Marne.

It was not until I had passed several towns that it began to dawn on

me that some one had changed the map placing New York in a remote

corner, where I was unable to find it. Meanwhile it was a lovely, warm,

moonlight night--indeed, there were several moons--and, ceasing to

brood over my wrongs, I began to find a certain pleasure in the ride.

It would appear that neither Paul Revere nor John Gilpin had anything

on me when it came to rousing public interest and enthusiasm. Everybody

I met made way for me instantly as if I were a king, showering

benedictions and good wishes after me in the most approved manner.

In several towns fire bells were rung, and the police force hastily

mobilized. Even trolley cars stopped so that their passengers might

have a glimpse of me as I passed; women fainted with joy, and several

horses ran away through sheer excitement. No one ever had such a

tremendous popular ovation, such a triumphal procession. My heart

was filled with gratitude toward all these good people, and if I

had not been in such a hurry to find out what had happened to New

York, I should certainly have stayed and accepted of their proffered

hospitality.

In due time it occurred to me that rather than search at random I had

better make inquiries as to the new location of Manhattan, for I had

an important engagement the following day, and it would prove rather

awkward if at the last moment I discovered the city to have been

shifted, say, to Alaska. For you never know what those fellows at the

topographical bureau in Washington are up to.

With me, to make up my mind is to act, and accordingly I now stopped

the car and alighted. Perhaps it would have been just as well if the

idea had come to me at another time and place, for now I discovered

there was no one whom I could ask for information. In other words, I

found myself absolutely alone on a deserted country road.

"I've always heard it said," I thought injuredly, "that to make up

one's mind and to act promptly is a great virtue. But see what it has

done for me! Now I must tramp about here until I find somebody who

knows where New York is."

So I set off down the road. You will ask, perhaps, why I did not go in

the car. But I have confessed to a memory that is faulty over trifles,

and, for the moment, the trifling matter of the car had escaped me.

The next scene--for, somehow, this night everything happened in

scenes--found me at a crossroads, hat in hand, talking to a man

and a girl. They sat in a town car de luxe, upholstered in maroon,

electrically lighted within, and with a flower vase containing a bunch

of violets that went wonderfully with the girl's hair.

Her companion was a little, dried-up old gentleman, rather foppishly

dressed, and the color of bronze. I assure you he was. It was not

sunburn, nor was he a foreigner; his face and hands were a distinct

and emphatic greenish-bronze color, the like of which I had never seen

before.

I have no wish to criticize his looks, for I am not a handsome man

myself. In fact my cherished nickname at Old Nassau was "Mug." Taken

singly, and if transposed, I have been assured by friends that my

features are quite classical; I mean if my nose was turned upside down,

and my nether lip projected inward instead of outward, and a good

bit of my chin was shoved south--you get the idea. They are all good

features, judged separately, but undoubtedly a serious mistake was made

by somebody when they were being assembled.

The result is a tumultuous something, with knobs and projections in

unexpected places, properly termed a "mug." Even though I wore a

mustache in order to veil the subject as decently as possible, the

result was still a mug. Indeed Arnold Frean would have had infinitely

more reason to object to my face than I to his; he really had one worth

looking at--velvety brown eyes and all that Valentino stuff. I suppose

I objected to it because it kept reminding me so poignantly of my own.

No, I am not a handsome man, and yet, do you know, I made the greatest

possible impression on the little bronze gentleman and his beautiful

companion. I assure you I did. How? Why, by my manner and bearing.

There is something princely about me--there is no other word for it

and, as I had noticed it before this evening, I needn't try to be mock

modest about it--that is infinitely superior to mere good looks.

Real princes aren't handsome, nor princesses either; if you doubt it,

take a look at the family album of the crowned heads of Europe. I

own a sort of royal and magnificent bearing that commands the utmost

attention, homage, and respect. One is born that way; there is no

acquiring it. The little bronze gentleman and the girl, from the moment

I appeared, couldn't remove their eyes from me--and they had many eyes,

indeed more than their fair share; they had at least half a dozen

between them. I welcomed the phenomenon in the girl's case, for one

cannot have too much of a pretty thing, but the man's resembled holes

burned in a blanket.

"You are mistaken, sir," I said, endeavoring to explain the situation

and correct the bronze man's ridiculous error that I had tried to get

myself run over. "I am not a would-be suicide. The fact is I have lost

something, something of infinite value, and I wished merely to solicit

the help of the first passer-by."

"Oh, we must help him!" said the girl.

"Be quiet!" snapped the little mummy. "What have you lost?" he demanded

of me, tapping a Malacca cane against his thin shanks.

"I have lost New York," I confided solemnly.

"Eh? What's that?" He had begun to sniff, as though preparatory to

bursting into tears at the enormity of my misfortune, and against this

contingency, he now produced a flowered silk handkerchief and held it

to his nose. I was touched, deeply so; such sympathetic souls are all

too rare in this world.

"Don't weep, sir," I said. "I can't bear to see you cry. True, I have

lost New York, or rather it has been stolen from me; some vandal has

removed it. But no doubt you can help me find it. I must be in New York

without fail to-morrow, for I've an appointment which I can't neglect.

In strict confidence, I may explain that I'm to be buried; so if I'm

not there, how can there be a funeral? You see the point? Now, what

would you advise?"

"That you enter the alcoholic ward of the nearest hospital!" he

answered, with sudden and unwarranted ferocity. "Faugh! You smell like

a distillery. Go away, you sot!"

"Anything to oblige, sir. Where _is_ the nearest hospital? If you will

kindly take me----"

"Get out of here!" he roared. "Take your foot away, sir! Jules!"

Jules was the chauffeur, and he appeared, armed with a spanner.

The proceedings became a trifle involved. Not that in the presence of

the girl I had any idea of making a scene; but I considered it only due

to my self-respect to correct the bronze man's erroneous conception of

my character and condition. And this I endeavored to do with the utmost

politeness and amiability.

The girl appeared to understand my position, for her eyes--I now

ascertained she had no more than the customary number--were quite

sympathetic. I gathered that she wished to assist me, and, no doubt

referring to some one else, she stated that it was cruel and inhuman to

leave them when it was plain to be seen that they were helpless as a

baby.

I was about to applaud her for this excellent sentiment when the little

old gentleman banged the door in my face, Jules sent me sprawling, and

the car whirled off, leaving me no wiser as to the fate of New York.

Still, I was the better for the adventure, for it left me with the

happy memory of a beautiful, gracious, and charming young girl.

I now remembered my own car, and hastened to leave the crossroads down

which the other had sped. I found my car where I had left it, and I

found also a man cranking the engine.

"Thank you, so much," I said. "It's very kind of you to take the

trouble. I've met quite a number of nice, obliging people to-night."

Evidently he had been so engrossed in his kindly, self-appointed task,

that he had not heard me approach; for at my words he jumped back,

crank in hand, as if I had demanded his money or his life. I could see

him quite plainly by the light of the several summer moons. He was

a big fellow, about my own height and weight, and quite respectably

dressed.

It being a night of the most astounding phenomena--to mention only

one fact, witness the several moons, to which I meant subsequently to

direct the attention of Lick Observatory--I was not greatly astonished

to discover that this new acquaintance had six fingers. I assure you

he had; I saw them plainly as he held the crank. Nor was this all;

far from it. He was the proud possessor also of a miraculous mustache

capable of intelligent self-movement. I assure you of the truth of this

too. When first he turned toward me, the mustache was in a most curious

and humiliating position, one end pointing to his Adam's apple, the

other to his right ear. You will agree that no ordinary mustache can

act like that even in its most abandoned moments. When next I looked

at him, behold, it was in the conventional position, straight across

his upper lip! An astounding, intelligent mustache that must be capable

of moving automatically! It pleased and interested me exceedingly; it

suggested the solution of many problems. Such an article would remove

the terrors of eating soup--something of which I'm very fond, but which

I've given up attempting in public. Such a mustache could be adjusted,

nay, commanded, to any position and no longer behave like a strainer.

I must try and get mine to behave that way, ask him how he had trained

his.

"Say, is this your car, boss?" he asked in unaffected surprise. "I was

goin' to take her to the nearest lockup--wherever that is. I thought

she'd been swiped, see? You don't generally find such things layin'

round a country road this time of night. How'd you come to leave her?"

Seeing he was such an altogether obliging fellow, distinguished,

moreover, by owning six fingers and a movable mustache, I considered

it only proper to explain how the car came to be there. He listened

politely, scratching an ear with the tip of the crank, but I wasn't

sure whether he had any better understanding than Jensen, for he had

an absent-minded way of looking up and down the deserted road.

"You now understand my predicament," I finished, taking out my wallet

and giving him a bill for his thoughtfulness in cranking the car.

"Perhaps you can tell me where New York is?"

"Sure, boss. You're almost in it. It's right over there."

"Where?"

"There," he said. "See the lights?"

I turned to follow his pointing finger, and, sure enough, I saw the

lights. Indeed, I never saw so many in my life as something fell upon

my head with a resounding crash. Then the lights went out as suddenly

as they had come, and I lost all interest in finding New York.