The Sheepfold in Central Park is a U-shaped structure of red brick walls
and a low roof that is mostly gables. One of the wings is winter
quarters for the Dorset flock. The connecting curve, the lower half of
which is an archway, houses in the upper Shepherd Tom and his family.
The remaining wing, although built for a different purpose, is now used
as a garage for the motor cycle police. Within is parking space for all
the machines in regular use in the park and some extras.
Into this garage strode Why-Not Pape, a man in a hurry. His only
introduction to the policeman in charge was rather extravagant, if
wordless--one made in brute Belgian. He returned Kicko's greeting--the
fact that he and the police dog were friends did the rest. It was
amazing how easily his coup was carried out as planned, backed by the
dog's infallible memory.
"Which are the spare fire-crackers?" he asked the uniformed garage
keeper with bluff authority. "I'm in a gasoline hurry to get up the
line."
His wait had more intensity than length. He counted upon a long-standing
claim among safe-workers, of which he had been assured by that piece of
human flotsam out at Hellroaring, that the "big box" in the New York
Police Headquarters would be the easiest "cracked" in the city were
there anything in it worth stealing. He knew it to be a fact that many
never-solved robberies and murders have been "pulled" within the shadow
of precinct stations; had seen substantiated in the day-by-day news the
theory that the best "hide-out" is under the arresting arm of city
government. And his act upon deduction meant nothing against the police.
He simply wished to profit for once by his knowledge of human nature
reduced to the _N_th degree. Even unaided by the dog, he had expected to
carry through by daring of a first-draft sort.
"What's the case, sergeant?"
With the question the attendant member of the force waved a hand toward
the sheaf of ten machines which are kept unassigned to particular "speed
cops"--an emergency motive-power reserve.
Without necessity of an equivocation as to who he was, without flashing
the badge of authority which he did not have--merely by using that slang
term for the noisiest of motor vehicles which was in common usage in the
Yellowstone as well as in New York, Pape had declared himself in his
part.
"Big," he answered. "Bigger than all the park."
Frowning and abstracted from a hurry to be off that was by no means
assumed, he wheeled one of the emergency machines into the open doorway.
"Want any help?"
The rookie was ready; had grasped the handles of a second cycle.
"No. Do I look like I needed help?" In earnest now he frowned, but not
abstractedly. "Don't want any uniforms following me. Ain't that kind of
a case."
Without meeting other obstacles, Pape was off upon the marked official
machine. About one minute lasted his ride upon this steed, fleeter than
Polkadot at his best. As though for the first time noticing the diggers
among the park poplars, he stopped with a toot of the cycle siren.
Dismounting, he dropped the standard, parked the machine at the side of
the road and advanced upon the despoilers. On the way he charged himself
that in this "kind of case"--three burlies and a boss to one uniformed
objector whose only authority was a woman's service--mind more than
muscle would be needed.
He was met by the thin-faced man. "S'all right, officer. We ain't
looking for Cap'n Kidd's treasure."
Pape smiled more inwardly than outwardly, although he felt that he well
could afford to do both on being mistaken, a second time within the last
few minutes, for a plain-clothes man.
"Who are you and what you up to?" he demanded.
"Name's Welch--Swinton Welch, contractor. I'm digging a ditch to put in
a sub-surface drain. Want to see the permit?"
Producing a worn paper from his breast pocket, the small boss flourished
it.
"Sure. Show me."
"It's O. K., else I wouldn't have the navvies at work."
"Likely it is," countered Pape, "but show me just the same."
With somewhat less of a flourish the paper was presented. Pape saw at a
glance that it was written on an official form of the Department of
Parks, then scanned it closer.
"What--" his demand was louder, gruffer, more combative than
before--"_what_ you say you're doing?"
"Just like the paper says--digging for a drain." The sharp-faced boss
also grew more combative.
It is to be remarked that the Italian laborers had stopped work on the
instant of interference. They always do. A shovel wasted--Fortunately
the stream of cars on the roadway below flowed on without a ripple of
curiosity as to the party on the hillock. The pedestrian paths were
further away and, at this hour, preempted by the inevitable babies,
mothers and nurse-maids. In the great, green mixing-bowl of all races
within the world's most democratic city, no man concerned himself with
the by-play near the boundary except those directly involved.
Pape scowled over the operation, with never a glance toward the stone
wall, from over the top of which a pair of black-irised blue eyes
probably were watching him--a pair of rose-lobed ears were listening. To
make "learning" easier he pulled another loud stop in his voice.
"What you going to drain to where?"
"Don't exactly know myself yet. Going according to orders," offered Mr.
Swinton Welch. "One shovelful at a time is my motto. Don't make no
mistakes that way. What's eating you, bo? I tell you it's all O. K. or I
wouldn't be----"
The alleged contractor was stopped in the middle of his defense by the
glare lifted to his face from the sheet of paper. An unofficial, yet
official acting thumb was jerked over-shoulder.
"Out!" bellowed a voice of command--Pape's. "You don't go wrecking this
park with an order that's a year old, signed by a commissioner that's
already in the discard--leastways you don't while I'm above sod. Call
off your men and beat it!"
"I'll call off nobody nor nothing." Evidently the "boss" wasn't amenable
to being bossed. "I know my rights and I'll stand on 'em in spite of all
the plain-clothes crooks out of Sing Sing. That permit's good until it's
been used. If you had half an eye in your head you'd see that it's never
been canceled."
Pape folded the slip and tucked it into his coat pocket. "You'll get off
lighter if you call it canceled," he advised. Turning to the laborers,
he added: "Go home, you--no matter what lingo you speak. Beat it--make
tracks--vamoose!"
The huskies did not look to their foreman for advice. To them the voice
of him who had appeared upon the thunder-bike was fuller of authority
than a noon whistle. Shouldering their implements, they straggled toward
the nearest exit. Their wage? The boss of their boss would produce that.
Sufficient unto the day was the pay thereof. Weren't they muscle
workers--weren't they therefore always paid?
"You give me your number--I dare you--your number!"
The small foreman had lost the sangfroid of his type. Like a cockroach
inadvisedly investigating a hot griddle, he danced toward the taller
man.
"You don't need to dare me twice. My number's a darned good one for you
to know. I'm 23--that means _skidoo_!"
Pape's sidewise spring he had learned from one of his Hellroaring
cayuses. It brought within his reach this second disturber of Jane
Lauderdale's peace and quiet. Only one wrench did he need to apply to
the wrist of the hand which he had interrupted on its way into a side
pocket of a sack coat.
"Not _this_ morning," he objected.
The foreman, gone startlingly white from pain after the recent red of
his chagrin, of necessity permitted his hand to be withdrawn empty. And
he had no power to prevent Pape's reaching into the pocket and
confiscating a snub-nosed automatic. He did, however, risk some
contentious comment.
"Nothing a real citizen loathes like you plain-clothes pests. I'll show
you up proper in court, you big bully. I got a permit from a judge to
carry that gun, I'll have you know."
"But not to use it on me. I put quite a value, I'll have _you_ know, on
my birthday suit-of-clothes."
The "pest's" chortle was pitched to carry reassurance to and over the
park wall.
Removing and pocketing the cartridges, he returned the "permitted"
weapon's frame to its owner. In consideration of his utterly unofficial
status, he probably would have found an attempt to enforce New York
State's anti-pistol law embarrassing. At that, the fellow probably did
have a permit--he had been told that such were easy enough to get. He
would, he felt, be satisfied if the "drain" excavation was postponed
until Jane had that coveted hour for the finish of her own mysterious
investigation.
Perhaps the small boss regained some of what would seem constitutional
bravado from the fact that his license to carry concealed weapons had
not been demanded. At any rate, he started fresh protest.
"Say, if you'd any idea who I was working for----"
"I know who I'm working for. That's idea enough for me _and_ for you."
Pape sat down with his back against the trunk of the most aged and
sturdy poplar. He looked as likely to stay there as the tree. The
foreman, with a final sputter of indignation, stamped off down the hill,
having made no secret of his objective--the nearest telephone. The
Westerner saw him pause beside the motorcycle and make note of the
number on its P. D. plate--a last amusing touch to a uniquely
pleasurable experience. Small satisfaction would Welch get if he tried
to trace and punish the particular "cop" who had ridden that particular
police "firecracker" that particular afternoon. Kicko alone could give
him away and Kicko was too much of a Belgian to tell on a friend.
Some minutes after the foreman had disappeared in the general direction
of Columbus Circle, Pape arose and sauntered toward the park wall. He
did not trouble himself further about his steed of raucous breath, steel
ribs and rubber hoofs. A "sparrow cop" would happen upon that sooner or
later and trundle it back to the Sheepfold garage. The Force could take
for granted that its plain-clothe's borrower had found necessity to
abandon it in course of duty. Plainly labeled as a piece of city
property by its official number plate, it was safe enough.
He scaled the wall at a calculated point and gave himself completely to
the joys of victory when he saw her who had sent him into the arena
seated on a shaded bench a short distance above. He joined her.
Gallantly as some champion of old he handed her the trophy brought back
from the fight--the venerable drain-building permit.
"This is all the authority they had for daylight digging," he remarked.
"Then--then they haven't deciphered it?" she breathed with manifest
relief, after a moment's study of the official sheet.
"It? Just what--" he began to ask, then stopped.
Let her tell him if and when she liked. Until and unless, he would
continue his rudderless, questionless course.
"Don't you see," she was generous enough to add, "if they had solved the
cryptogram, they never would have been using this? With their influence
they'd have secured a special permit. It may be that one of the gang saw
me digging there last night and assumed that I knew more than I really
do. There have been signs recently that I was followed by more
than--than yourself. That man on the knob last night--Don't you suppose
he had watched me--trailed me--lain in wait for me to take from me
whatever I might have dug up?"
They? Their? The gang?
These succinct demands Pape did not put in words although,
telepathically, he did not restrain his curiosity. Probably she got
something of his vehemence and decided that something was due him. She
abstracted her attention completely from the passers-by and gave it to
him.
"You were fine, Peter Pape, _fine_. After dark to-night I'll come back
and finish my search. If I'd stopped to think--except for my
desperation, you know--I never should have asked you to put those people
out, it was _so_ impossible. But you were inspired with the one-best
idea. You handled the expulsion act as artistically as--as an actor in
his big scene."
Now, had there been time for Pape to foreplan his curtain speech he
might have continued to be artistic. But Jane's applause seemed to go to
his head. He honestly had meant to continue histrionically suppressed,
unasking, admirable. Yet he didn't; just couldn't. He stretched his arm
along the back of the bench until his finger-tips touched the tweed of
her sleeve. Perhaps the contact was unnerving. Perhaps her eyes were too
earnest. Perhaps her faint, wistful smile was falsely promising. At any
rate, he proceeded to do what he had determined not to do.
"It _was_ quite a stunt. I admit it," he said. "Don't you think you sort
of ought to--That is, don't you want to reward me?"
"Reward you?"
She drew away from him and his suggestion.
"Of course I don't mean just that." Pape's eyes were on her lips. "You
paid me beforehand. What I wish you'd do is to get me in your debt
again. The credit system is the one for me. I can do anything to make
good when I'm deep in debt. Will you--won't you----"
"_Odious_!"
A second or so he blinked into the blast of her interruption. By its
flare he saw her interpretation of his bad beginning. He tried an
extinguisher.
"Wait a minute. Don't flay me before you understand. I'm not such a
jasper as to mean to exact--What I wish you'd do--What I want to
ask--Jane, have a little mercy on me. Tell me who and what to you is
that man living in your flat."
From the look of her, judging dispassionately as possible, all was over
between them. She got to her feet, as he to his. She looked strengthened
by righteous rage, he weakened by unrighteous humility. She made the
only utterances--and they did not help much, being rather fragmentary.
"You think that I--You have assumed that he--You believe that we--So
_that_ is why----"
In the pause that preceded the lash of further language, Peter Pape
realized what it was to be a dumb brute. He felt as must certain dogs he
had tried to understand--faithful, well-intentioned, unequal to
explaining themselves. He knew that he did not deserve chastisement at
the beloved hand, yet could not resent or avert it. Like a dog he
leveled his eyes on hers and looked--silent, honest, worshipful.
And Jane Lauderdale proved to have a heart for dumb brutes.
A taxi with flag out had slowed at her gesture. She was about to enter
it. In quiet, crisp tones she gave her address to the driver; then these
instructions to Pape:
"Get the next cab that comes along and follow me to East Sixty-third
Street. Under the circumstances you will excuse me for preferring to
ride over alone. I'll wait for you on the stoop."
She did. And without a word she preceded him up the three screeching,
scrooping, shrieking flights, which were not nearly so uncommunicative
as his guide.
"Life's a shaky thing. But love is worse--worse--worse"--the first. And
the scroopy second: "Things get queerer every step--queerer--queerer."
Shrieked the third: "Look out. Like as not he'll leap and lam you. Look
out lest he leap and lam!"
The fourth floor front was empty when they entered. Pape noted its
quaint consistency during the moment she left him alone--an oblong room
fitted sparingly with Colonial antiques, with a round rag rug over the
boards of its floor, with several old, interesting engravings on its
walls. He merely glanced at the horsehair Davenport to which she had
waved him; turned and stood with face toward the sliding door through
which she had disappeared.
Soon this door was drawn open. Forward she led by the hand the man. A
tall, fit specimen he was, his face clean-shaved and strong-featured,
his hair a tawny mass which probably once had been auburn, but now was
blond from a two-thirds admixture of gray.
The light of devotion irradiated the girl's uplifted face as she stopped
before him. She looked like a slender white taper beside some shrine,
her lips the live red, her eyes the blaze blue, her hair the waving
suggestion of its lighted tip.
"Dear," she said to her companion, "I want to introduce Mr. Why-Not
Pape, the Westerner I told you about."
The man's smile was cordial, beautiful. He stepped forward with
outstretched hand.
"Welcome to our city, Why-Not Pape," he quoted from the Times Canon sign
which, patently, had been part of Jane's tale.
But Pape didn't--just couldn't meet the advance. He stood stubbornly
still before the Davenport, his arms stiff at his sides, his suffering
eyes upon the lit taper--upon Jane.
And into her devotional mood seemed to return that gentling
comprehension of dumb brutes.
"I _beg_ your pardon," she said to him. "Mr. Pape, my father."