It had taken George some considerable time to establish connection with
the Waddington home at Hempstead; but he had done it at last, only to
be informed that Molly did not appear to be on the premises. She had
driven up in her two-seater, a Swedish voice gave him to understand,
but after remaining in the house a short while had driven off again.
"Fine!" said George, as his informant was beginning to relapse into her
native tongue.
A yeasty feeling of pleasure and good-will towards his species filled
him as he hung up the receiver. If Molly had started back to New York,
he might expect to see her at any moment now. His heart swelled: and
the fact that he was in the unfortunate position of being a fugitive
from justice and the additional fact that the bloodhound of the Law
most interested in his movements was probably somewhere very close at
hand entirely escaped him. Abandoning the caution which should have
been the first thought of one situated as he was, he burst into jovial
song.
"Hey, Pinch!"
George, who had been climbing towards a high note, came back to earth
again, chilled and apprehensive. His first impulse was to dash for his
bedroom and hide under the bed--a thing which he knew himself to be
good at. Then his intelligence asserted itself and panic waned. Only
one man of his acquaintance could have addressed him as "Hey, Pinch!"
"Is that Mr. Waddington?" he murmured, opening the door of the
sitting-room and peering in.
"Sure it's Mr. Waddington." The reek of a lively young cigar assailed
George's nostrils. "Don't you have any lights in this joint?"
"Are there any policemen about?" asked George in a conspiratorial
undertone.
"There's one policeman down in young Beamish's apartment," replied Mr.
Waddington with a fruity chuckle. "He's just sold me all his holdings
in the Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal., for
three hundred smackers: and I've come here to celebrate. Set up the
drinks," said Mr. Waddington, who was plainly in as festive a mood as a
man can be without actually breaking up the furniture.
George switched on the light. If the enemy was in as distant a spot as
Hamilton Beamish's apartment, prudence might be relaxed.
"'At's right," said Mr. Waddington, welcoming the illumination. He
was leaning against a book-shelf with his hat on the back of his head
and a cigar between his lips. His eyes were sparkling with an almost
human intelligence. "I've got a smart business head, Pinch," he said,
shooting the cigar from due east to due west with a single movement of
his upper lip. "I'm the guy with the big brain."
Although all the data which he had been able to accumulate in the
course of their acquaintanceship went directly to prove the opposite,
George was not inclined to combat the statement. He had weightier
matters to occupy him than an academic discussion of the mentality of
this poor fish.
"I found that girl," he said.
"What girl?"
"The girl who stole the necklace. And I've got the necklace."
He had selected a subject that gripped. Mr. Waddington ceased to
contemplate the smartness of his business head and became interested.
His eyes widened, and he blew out a puff of poison-gas.
"You don't say!"
"Here it is."
"Gimme!" said Mr. Waddington.
George dangled the necklace undecidedly.
"I think I ought to hand it over to Molly."
"You'll hand it over to me," said Mr. Waddington with decision. "I'm
the head of the family, and from now on I act as such. Too long,
Pinch, have I allowed myself to be trampled beneath the iron heel and
generally kicked in the face with spiked shoes, if you get my meaning.
I now assert myself. Starting from to-day and onward through the
years till my friends and relatives gather about my bier and whisper,
'Doesn't he look peaceful,' what I say goes. Give me that necklace. I
intend to have it reset or something. Either that, or I shall sell it
and give Molly the proceeds. In any case, and be that as it may, gimme
that necklace!"
George gave it to him. There was a strange new atmosphere of authority
about Sigsbee H. to-night that made one give him things when he asked
for them. He had the air of a man whom somebody has been feeding meat.
"Pinch," said Mr. Waddington.
"Finch," said George.
"George," said a voice at the window, speaking with a startling
abruptness which caused Mr. Waddington to jerk his cigar into his eye.
A wave of emotion poured over George.
"Molly! Is that you?"
"Yes, darling. Here I am."
"How quick you've been."
"I hurried."
"Though it seems hours since you went away."
"Does it really, precious?"
Mr. Waddington was still shaken.
"If I had been told that any daughter of mine would come and bark at me
from behind like that," he said querulously, "I would not have believed
it."
"Oh, father! There you are. I didn't see you."
"There," said Mr. Waddington, "is right. You nearly scared the top of
my head off."
"I'm sorry."
"Too late to be sorry now," said Mr. Waddington moodily. "You've gone
and spoiled the best ten-cent cigar in Hempstead."
He eyed the remains sadly: and, throwing them away, selected another
from his upper waistcoat-pocket and bit the end off.
"Molly, my angel," said George vibrantly, "fancy you really being with
me once more!"
"Yes, Georgie, darling. And what I wanted to say was, I believe
there's somebody in your sleeping-porch."
"What!"
"I'm sure I heard voices."
Come right down to it, and there is no instinct so deeply rooted in the
nature of Man as the respect for property--his own property, that is to
say. And just as the mildest dog will tackle bloodhounds in defence of
its own backyard, so will the veriest of human worms turn if attacked
in his capacity of householder. The news that there was somebody in his
sleeping-porch caused George to seethe with pique and indignation. It
seemed to him that the entire population of New York had come to look
on his sleeping-porch as a public resort. No sooner had he ejected one
batch of visitors than another took their place.
With a wordless exclamation he rushed out upon the roof, closely
followed by Molly and her father. Molly was afraid he would get hurt.
Sigsbee H. was afraid he would not. It had been a big night for Sigsbee
H. Waddington, and he did not want it to end tamely.
"Have your gun ready," advised Sigsbee H., keeping well in the rear,
"and don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes."
George reached the door of the sleeping-porch, and smote it a lusty
blow.
"Hi!" he cried. He twisted the handle. "Good heavens, it's locked."
From the upper window, softened by distance, came a pleading voice.
"I say! I say! I say!" To Lord Hunstanton the beating on the door had
sounded like the first guns of a relieving army. He felt like the girl
who heard the pipers skirling as they marched on beleaguered Lucknow.
"I say, whoever you are, dear old soul, let us out, would you mind."
George ground his teeth.
"What do you mean--whoever you are? I'm George Finch, and that
sleeping-porch belongs to me."
"Good old George! Hunstanton speaking. Let us out, George, old top,
like the sportsman you are!"
"What are you doing in there?"
"A policeman locked us in. And a blighter of a butler, after promising
to undo the door, told some thin story about not being able to find the
key and legged it with all our available assets. So play the man, dear
old George, and blessings will reward you. Also and moreover, by acting
promptly you will save the life of my dear good friend and hostess
here, who has been hiccoughing for some little time and is, I rather
fancy, on the point of hysterics."
"What are you talking about?"
"Mrs. Waddington."
"Is Mrs. Waddington in there with you?"
"Is she not, laddie!"
George drew his breath sharply.
"Mother," he said reproachfully in through the keyhole, "I had not
expected this."
Sigsbee H. Waddington uttered a fearful cry.
"My wife! In there! With a man with a tooth-brush moustache! Let
_me_ talk to them!"
"Who was that?" asked Lord Hunstanton.
"Mr. Waddington," replied George. "Who was that?" he said, as a scream
rent the air.
"Mrs. Waddington. I say, George, old man," queried his lordship
anxiously, "what do you do when a woman starts turning blue and making
little bubbling noises?"
Sigsbee H., finding that a man of his stature could not hope to speak
to any advantage through the window unless he stood on something, had
darted across the roof and was now returning with one of the potted
shrubs in his arms. The wildness of his eyes and the fact that even
in this supreme moment he had gone on puffing at his cigar gave him a
striking resemblance to a fire-eating dragon. He bumped the tub down
and, like a man who rises on stepping-stones of his dead self to higher
things, elevated himself upon it.
This brought him nicely within range of the window and enabled him
to push Lord Hunstanton in the face--which was all to the good. His
lordship staggered back, leaving the way clear for the injured man to
gaze upon his erring wife.
"Ha!" said Sigsbee H. Waddington.
"I can explain everything, Sigsbee!"
Mr. Waddington snorted.
"Nerve," he said, "in its proper place and when there's not too much of
it, I admire. But when a woman has the crust to disparage the morals of
one of the finest young fellows who ever came out of the golden West
and then I happen to pop into New York on important business and find
her closeted with a man with a tooth-brush moustache and she has the
audacity to say she can explain everything...."
Here Mr. Waddington paused to take in breath.
"Sigsbee!"
"It's living in this soul-destroying East that does it," proceeded Mr.
Waddington, having re-filled his thoracic cavities. "If I've said it
once, I've said it a hundred times, that...."
"But, Sigsbee, I couldn't help it. It's quite true what Lord Hunstanton
was saying. A policeman locked us in."
"What were you doing up here, anyway?"
There was a brief silence within.
"I came to see what that Finch was doing. And I heard him in here,
talking to an abandoned creature."
Mr. Waddington directed a questioning gaze at George.
"Have you been talking to any abandoned creatures to-night?"
"Of course he hasn't," cried Molly indignantly.
"I have spoken with no one of the opposite sex," said George with
dignity, "except the girl who stole the necklace. And that was a purely
business discussion which would not have brought a blush to the cheek
of the sternest critic. I said 'Hand over that necklace!' and she
handed it over, and then her husband came and took her away."
"You hear?" said Mr. Waddington.
"No, I don't," said Mrs. Waddington.
"Well, take it from me that this splendid young man from the West is as
pure as driven snow. So now let's hear from you once more. Why did the
policeman lock you in?"
"We had a misunderstanding."
"How?"
"Well, I--er--happened to throw a little pepper in his face."
"Sweet artichokes of Jerusalem! Why?"
"He found me in Mr. Finch's apartment and wanted to arrest me."
Mr. Waddington's voice grew cold and grim.
"Indeed?" he said. "Well, this finishes it! If you can't live in the
East without spending your time throwing pepper at policemen, you'll
come straight out with me to the West before you start attacking them
with hatchets. That is my final and unalterable decision. Come West,
woman, where hearts are pure, and there try to start a new life."
"I will, Sigsbee, I will."
"You bet your permanent henna hair-wash you will!"
"I'll buy the transportation to-morrow."
"No, sir!" Mr. Waddington with a grand gesture nearly overbalanced the
tub on which he stood. "I will buy the transportation to-morrow. You
will be interested to learn that, owing to commercial transactions
resulting from the possession of a smart business head, I am now once
more an exceedingly wealthy man and able to buy all the transportation
this family requires and to run this family as it should be run.
I'm the big noise now. Yes, me--Sigsbee Horatio...." The tub tilted
sideways, and the speaker staggered into the arms of Officer Garroway,
who had come up to the roof to see how his prisoners were getting on
and was surprised to find himself plunged into the middle of what
appeared to be a debating society.
"... Waddington," concluded Sigsbee H.
The policeman eyed him coldly. The fever of dislike which he had
felt towards this man had passed, but he could never look on him as a
friend. Moreover, Mr. Waddington, descending from the tub, had stamped
heavily on his right foot, almost the only portion of his anatomy which
had up till then come unscathed through the adventures of the night.
"What's all this?" inquired Officer Garroway.
His eye fell upon George: and he uttered that low, sinister growl which
is heard only from the throats of leopards seeking their prey, tigers
about to give battle, and New York policemen who come unexpectedly upon
men who have thrown table-cloths over them and hit them in the eye.
"So there you are!" said Officer Garroway.
He poised his night-stick in his hand, and moved softly forward. Molly
flung herself in his path with a cry.
"Stop!"
"Miss," said the policeman, courteously as was his wont in the presence
of the sex. "Oblige me by getting to hell out of here."
"Garroway!"
The policeman wheeled sharply. Only one man in the world would
have been able to check his dreadful designs at that moment, and
that man had now joined the group. Clad in a sweater and a pair of
running-shorts, Hamilton Beamish made a strangely dignified and
picturesque figure as he stood there with the moonlight glinting on his
horn-rimmed spectacles. He wore soft shoes with rubber soles, and he
was carrying a pair of dumb-bells. Hamilton Beamish was a man who lived
by schedule: and not all that he had passed through that day could
blur his mind to the fact that this was the hour at which he did his
before-retiring dumb-bell exercises.
"What is the trouble, Garroway?"
"Well, Mr. Beamish...."
Confused voices interrupted him.
"He was trying to murder George."
"He's got my wife locked up in this room."
"The brute!"
"Darned fresh guy."
"George didn't do a thing to him."
"My wife only threw a little pepper in his face."
Hamilton Beamish raised a compelling dumb-bell.
"Please, please! Garroway, state your case."
He listened attentively.
"Unlock that door," he said, when all was told.
The policeman unlocked the door. Mrs. Waddington, followed by Lord
Hunstanton, emerged. Lord Hunstanton eyed Mr. Waddington warily, and
sidled with an air of carelessness towards the stairway. Accelerating
his progress as he neared the door, he vanished abruptly. Lord
Hunstanton was a well-bred man who hated a fuss: and every instinct
told him that this was one. He was better elsewhere, he decided.
"Stop that man!" ejaculated Officer Garroway. He turned back, baffled,
with a darkening brow. "Now he's gone!" he said soberly. "And he was
wanted up in Syracuse."
Sigsbee H. Waddington shook his head. He was not fond of that town, but
he had a fair mind.
"Even in Syracuse," he said, "they wouldn't want a man like that."
"It was Willie the Dude, and I was going to take him to the
station-house."
"You are mistaken, Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish. "That was Lord
Hunstanton, a personal acquaintance of mine."
"You know him, Mr. Beamish?"
"Quite."
"Do you know her?" asked the policeman, pointing to Mrs. Waddington.
"Intimately."
"And him?" said Officer Garroway, indicating George.
"He is one of my best friends."
The policeman heaved a dreary sigh. He relapsed into silence, baffled.
"The whole affair," said Hamilton Beamish, "appears to have been
due to a foolish misunderstanding. This lady, Garroway, is the
stepmother of this young lady here, to whom Mr. Finch should have
been married to-day. There was some little trouble, I understand from
Mr. Waddington, and she was left with the impression that Mr. Finch's
morals were not all they should have been. Later, facts which came to
light convinced her of her error, and she hastened to New York to seek
Mr. Finch out and tell him that all was well and that the marriage
would proceed with her full approval. That is correct, Mrs. Waddington?"
Mrs. Waddington gulped. For a moment her eye seemed about to resume its
well-known expression of a belligerent fish. But her spirit was broken.
She was not the woman she had been. She had lost the old form.
"Yes.... Yes.... That is to say ... I mean, yes," she replied huskily.
"You called at Mr. Finch's apartment with no other motive than to tell
him this?"
"None.... Or, rather.... No, none."
"In fact, to put the thing in a nutshell, you wished to find your
future son-in-law and fold him in a mother-in-law's embrace. Am I
right?"
This time the pause before Mrs. Waddington found herself able to reply
was so marked and the look she directed at George so full of meaning
that the latter, always sensitive, could not but wonder whether in
refraining from punching her on the nose he was not neglecting his duty
as a man and a citizen. She gazed at him long and lingeringly. Then she
spoke.
"Quite right," she said huskily.
"Excellent," said Hamilton Beamish. "So you see, Garroway, that Mrs.
Waddington's reason for being in the apartment where you found her was
wholly admirable. That clears up that point."
"It doesn't clear up why she threw pepper in my face."
Hamilton Beamish nodded.
"There, Garroway," he said, "you have put your finger on the one
aspect of Mrs. Waddington's behaviour which was not completely
unexceptionable. As regards the pepper, you have, it seems to me,
legitimate cause for pique and, indeed, solid grounds for an action
for assault and battery. But Mrs. Waddington is a reasonable woman,
and will, no doubt, be willing to settle this little matter in a way
acceptable to all parties."
"I will pay him whatever he wants," cried the reasonable woman.
"Anything, anything!"
"Hey!"
It was the voice of Sigsbee H. He stood there, forceful and dominant.
His cigar had gone out, and he was chewing the dry remains aggressively.
"Say, listen!" said Sigsbee H. Waddington. "If there's any bribing
of the police to be done, it's my place to do it, as the head of
the family. Look me up at my little place at Hempstead to-morrow,
Gallagher, and we'll have a talk. You will find me a generous man.
Open-handed. Western."
"Capital," said Hamilton Beamish. "So everything is happily settled."
There was not much of Officer Garroway's face that was not concealed by
the bandage and the steak, but on the small residuum there appeared a
look of doubt and dissatisfaction.
"And what about this bird here?" he asked, indicating George.
"This individual before me," corrected Hamilton Beamish. "What about
him, Garroway?"
"He soaked me in the eye."
"No doubt in a spirit of wholesome fun. Where did this happen?"
"Down there in the Purple Chicken."
"Ah! Well, if you knew that restaurant better, you would understand
that that sort of thing is the merest commonplace of everyday life at
the Purple Chicken. You must overlook it, Garroway."
"Can't I push his head down his throat?"
"Certainly not. I cannot have you annoying Mr. Finch. He is to be
married to-morrow, and he is a friend of mine."
"But...."
"Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish, in a quiet, compelling voice, "Mr.
Finch is a friend of mine."
"Very well, Mr. Beamish," said the policeman resignedly.
Mrs. Waddington was plucking at her husband's sleeve.
"Sigsbee."
"Hello?"
"Sigsbee, dear, I'm starving. I have had nothing to eat since lunch.
There is some wonderful soup in there."
"Let's go," said Sigsbee H. "You coming?" he said to George.
"I thought of taking Molly off somewhere."
"Oh no, do come with us, George," said Mrs. Waddington winningly.
She drew closer to him. "George, is it really true that you hit that
policeman in the eye?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, he was trying to arrest me, so I threw a table-cloth over his
head and then plugged him a couple of rather juicy ones which made him
leave go."
Mrs. Waddington's eyes glistened. She put her arm through his.
"George," she said, "I have misjudged you. I could wish Molly no better
husband."
* * * * *
Hamilton Beamish stood in the moonlight, swinging his dumb-bells.
Having done this for awhile, he embarked on a few simple setting-up
exercises. He stood with his feet some six inches apart, his toes
turned slightly out: then, placing his hands on his hips, thumbs
back, bent slightly forward from the shoulders--not from the hips.
He retracted the lower abdomen, and, holding it retracted, leaned
well over to the left side, contracting the muscles of the left side
forcibly. He kept his legs straight all the time, his knees stiff. He
reversed to right side, and repeated twenty times--ten right, ten left.
This exercise was done slowly and steadily, without jerking.
"Ah!" said Hamilton Beamish, relaxing. "Splendid for the transversalis
muscle, that, converting it into a living belt which girds the loins.
Have you ever given considered thought to the loins, Garroway?"
The policeman shook his head.
"Not that I know of," he said indifferently. "I've seen 'em in the
Bronx Zoo."
Hamilton Beamish eyed him with concern.
"Garroway," he said, "you seem distrait."
"If that's how a feller is when he's been hit and punched, and stepped
on and had pepper thrown at him and table-cloths put over his head I've
got a swell license to seem distrait," replied the policeman bitterly.
"And on top of all that, when I thought I had made a cop...."
"Brought about an arrest."
"... brought about an arrest which would have got me promotion, I find
they're all friends of yours and have to be allowed to make a clean
getaway. That's what jars me, Mr. Beamish."
Hamilton Beamish patted him on the shoulder.
"Every poet, Garroway, has to learn in suffering before he can teach
in song. Look at Keats! Look at Chatterton! One of these days you will
be thankful that all this has happened. It will be the making of you.
Besides, think of the money you are going to get from Mr. Waddington
to-morrow."
"I'd give it all for one long, cool drink now."
"Mr. Garroway."
The policeman looked up. Molly was standing in the window.
"Mr. Garroway," said Molly, "a most mysterious thing has happened. Mr.
Finch has found two large bottles of champagne in his cupboard. He
can't think how they got there, but he says would you care to come in
and examine them and see whether they are good or not."
The cloud which had hung about the policeman's face passed from it as
if beneath some magic spell. His tongue came slowly out of his mouth
and moved lovingly over his arid lips. His one visible eye gleamed with
the light which never was on land or sea.
"Are you with me, Mr. Beamish?" he asked.
"I precede you, Mr. Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish.
* * * * *