HAPPY JACK!
Thus he bows himself out, this strange Sheriff Bob. For once at least
he has made a serious blunder, and almost precipitated a most unseemly
disturbance. No wonder he is wrathy over the blunder of the Denver
clerk who could so carelessly send a photograph without examining it,
and almost cause the arrest of his own employer.
After he has gone the little party in the library draw together again.
John is good-natured, as he can well afford to be. Conscious of his
innocence, he has at no time felt anything beyond mere annoyance.
As for Aleck, he has a feeling of positive relief that amounts to
delight. The heaviness of spirits is gone. Not only is John what he has
professed to be, but the load that has weighed the old speculator down
is gone. Dorothy smiles through her tears, Dorothy is happy, and this
raises the mercury of Aleck’s thermometer several degrees.
Samson Cereal is quickly becoming his old self, though perhaps an
inquiring eye might discover that something has occurred to upset the
usually stern and self-possessed king of the wheat pit.
The dramatic scene has shifted the setting of the stage, and the actors
too appear to have a different look. Instead of tears and woe there are
smiles and rejoicing. No one misses Colonel Bob, since his mission was
to uphold the majesty of the law, and they can put him away from their
minds without trouble.
Again they speak of mingling with the guests, as the absence of all
belonging to the household may be noticed and commented upon, but it
seems as though some peculiar fortune persists in interfering with
these plans.
They hear voices outside the door, and Aleck finds his attention
riveted when someone mentions his name.
“I must see Aleck Craig! It is very important.”
“Wait,” says another voice.
Then there is a knock at the door--not a timid rap, but one that means
business. Aleck is closer than any of the others, so he takes upon
himself to open it.
It is Wycherley. Another figure stands behind him which has a familiar
look.
“Ah! my dear boy, here’s a party who wants to see you. Nothing I could
do would put him off. He says it’s very, very particular. The easiest
way to get rid of him was to bring him in, and here he is.”
With that he stands aside, and the man who has kept in the background
steps briskly up. Aleck can hardly believe his eyes.
“Happy Jack!” he exclaims.
Of all the singular happenings of this night it surely takes the lead.
Where did he come from, and what does he want with Craig?
The Canadian recovers himself quickly, as he sees an outstretched hand
before him and hears the young roysterer say:
“Bound to find you, Craig. Heard at the Sherman you were here.
Obstacles no object in my way, and here I am.”
“Come into the library. Such a weighty secret as you carry should not
be bruited around into the curious ears of the public. Closed doors
would be more in keeping for it,” says Aleck.
He has not the remotest idea what the other may be at, but discretion
is a part of his character, and it strikes him that under the
circumstances he had better get the defaulter into the library.
If he has business of importance with him, then the precaution will be
well taken. On the other hand, it may prove that he has followed out
some hair-brained scheme, and considers it a joke to return a pocket
knife or some such article, which Aleck may have lost, and which he is
determined to deliver to the owner. Such jokes appear smart to men who
have looked upon the wine when it is red. They make much capital out of
them.
Under such circumstances as these the Canadian athlete believes he has
a trump card to play. Once the door is shut Happy Jack may not find it
so easy to get out again.
He manages to give Wycherley a wink and a nod which that individual
rightly interprets, and he also enters the room, remaining with his
back against the door, thus serving as a barrier to ingress or escape.
One thing Aleck notes. John has turned his back upon them the very
instant he heard the name of Happy Jack mentioned; so when that
individual enters the room he does not know, after his sweeping glance
around, who is present.
Happy Jack has one trait that in times past has served him well. This
is assurance that would well become a New York alderman. Nothing
appears to daunt him. Put him down at Her Majesty’s reception, and he
would do his little part after his own way, if not quite to the Queen’s
taste.
He is not clad in a dress suit, but this fact has no weight with him.
Happy Jack Phœnix in his business Scotch cheviot is perfectly at home
even amid the satins and diamonds of the finest reception Chicago has
seen during the season.
“Mr. Craig, you will, I know, pardon my boldness in hunting you down,
when you learn the reason for such a move. Singular man at all times.
When I get my mind set on anything all earth and the lower regions--beg
pardon, young lady--can’t persuade me otherwise,” he says, as placing
both hands on the back of a chair he faces the Canadian, beyond whom
are Cereal and his daughter, both looking in open-eyed wonder at this
uninvited guest.
“That’s so!” mutters John, and he has had good reason in the past to
lament this trait which Jack mentions.
“Eh! did anyone speak? Well, as I was saying, Mr. Craig, I’m set in
my way. I can’t be turned aside. If I was walking along a railroad
track and an engine came at me, there’d be trouble, and two to one it
wouldn’t be me that suffered. That’s my nature. Now, fortune threw in
my way certain information. It concerned a gentleman whose acquaintance
I formed last night. I said to myself, 'Happy Jack, not a wink of sleep
for you until you see him and put a flea in his ear.’ That is why I am
here. I have brought the flea with me.
“You wonder why I go to all this trouble for one almost a stranger. It
pleases me. I’m always doing something for others--expect to become a
philanthropist after sowing the last of my wild oats. Then, there’s
another reason. My friend, the way you sent that rascally Turk spinning
last night won my heart. Something of a gymnast myself in a small way,
a believer in the manly art of self-defense, and I said to myself: 'The
chap who can give a fellow such a whirl takes my heart.’
“Pardon this long but necessary digression, as the fellow in the novel
says. Now, having made myself solid, I’ll come down to common horse
sense, and talk business.”
“Thank Heaven!” mutters John, still keeping his back toward the
newcomer.
Phœnix glances sharply toward him, as if his ears have caught this last
remark, and then he throws an inquiring look at Craig, who smiles and
touches his forehead in a meaning way which brings a knowing expression
on the other’s face.
“A little off, eh? That’s all right--no offense taken, I assure you.
Now see here, Mr. Craig, when you tossed that copper-colored Turk over
to me last night on the Midway, like a bundle of rags, you thought that
was the end of him--that he was out of the game. I know you did, but
you never made a greater mistake in all your life, sir.
“I have made a study of these vagrants of the Midway. Was a tramp
myself once and can understand their ways, you know. Queer people, the
Turks, and their leading characteristic, sir, is _revenge_. Even a
lapse of twenty years will not make them forget.”
This may be an accidental thrust, and probably is, but it strikes
home. Samson Cereal starts and looks anxious, feeling that he has some
concern in this game.
“As I wandered about that entrancing region early this evening, my ear
charmed with the sweet music of the never ceasing tom-tom, or the cry
of the bum-bum candy vendor, my eyes feasting on the beauties of Samoan
and Lapland architecture, I chanced to catch a glimpse of the Turkish
nabob. Ever since I had that whirl at him last night I have been in low
spirits. I wanted to repeat it. If no one got in the way I believed I
could even see your throw and go one better.
“So it entered my mind to follow the Turk and watch for a chance.
Gentlemen, behold the working of fate! I dogged his steps. Presently
from the gorgeous Turkish village he sought the classic shades of Cairo
Street, where I was quite at home.”
“I could swear to that!” says John, but having been warned, the
narrator of the Modern Arabian Nights pays no attention to this
interruption beyond a shrug of the shoulders.
“It was a question with me, I assure you, whether I should hire a
donkey and run Mr. Turk down, or mount a camel and chase him the length
of the street, for you see my animosity was aroused. Then I began to
notice that he was holding mysterious confabs. First he met two fellows
just outside the Turkish barber shop and handed over some money. Then,
further down the street, two more turned up.
“By this time I believed a conspiracy was on foot to loot the Midway. A
man could retire for life if he did that. I resolved to save the Fair,
no matter what the loss of time and money was to me; and, gentlemen,
under certain existing circumstances of which you are not aware, I
assure you the former weighed more with me than the latter.”
“Don’t doubt it!” from John.
“Having made up my mind to sacrifice my own interests to those of
suffering humanity, I set to work eavesdropping. Now, my education
as a detective has been woefully scant, but in my peregrinations
before condescending to settle down in Denver I have had some rough
experiences, and they taught me how this thing must be accomplished.
“Gentlemen, with me it was _veni, vidi, vici!_ for I came and saw
and conquered. Near the group lay an old blanket used on one of the
camels during the wedding procession. Under this dirty cloth of gold
I hid myself, and then edged along until I was close behind the
conspirators. I happen to have remarkable ears--you notice they stick
out like a rabbit’s--they give me the power of catching a whisper, and
these chaps were so earnest in discussing their sweet plot that they
talked right out in meeting.
“Fortune blessed the brave--their delightful conversation was carried
on in English, pigeon English as we men of the border would call it. It
happened that two of those present were not Turks, but Americans, and
that is what saved me from listening to a jargon of heathen talk that
would have been a blank to me.
“Piece by piece I put their sentences together; at first, sir, it was a
puzzle, but as each section filled a gap I finally found I was handling
as masterly and bold a scheme as was ever hatched on American soil.”