Next morning the papers were as full of detective theories as before;
they had all our tragic facts in detail also, and a great many more
which they had received from their telegraphic correspondents. Column
after column was occupied, a third of its way down, with glaring
head-lines, which it made my heart sick to read. Their general tone was
like this:
THE WHITE ELEPHANT AT LARGE! HE MOVES UPON HIS FATAL MARCH! WHOLE
VILLAGES DESERTED BY THEIR FRIGHT-STRICKEN OCCUPANTS! PALE TERROR
GOES BEFORE HIM, DEATH AND DEVASTATION FOLLOW AFTER! AFTER THESE,
THE DETECTIVES! BARNS DESTROYED, FACTORIES GUTTED, HARVESTS
DEVOURED, PUBLIC ASSEMBLAGES DISPERSED, ACCOMPANIED BY SCENES OF
CARNAGE IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE! THEORIES OF THIRTY-FOUR OF THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED DETECTIVES ON THE FORCE! THEORY OF CHIEF BLUNT!
“There!” said Inspector Blunt, almost betrayed into excitement, “this
is magnificent! This is the greatest windfall that any detective
organization ever had. The fame of it will travel to the ends of the
earth, and endure to the end of time, and my name with it.”
But there was no joy for me. I felt as if I had committed all those red
crimes, and that the elephant was only my irresponsible agent. And how
the list had grown! In one place he had “interfered with an election and
killed five repeaters.” He had followed this act with the destruction
of two pool fellows, named O'Donohue and McFlannigan, who had “found a
refuge in the home of the oppressed of all lands only the day before,
and were in the act of exercising for the first time the noble right
of American citizens at the polls, when stricken down by the relentless
hand of the Scourge of Siam.” In another, he had “found a crazy
sensation-preacher preparing his next season's heroic attacks on the
dance, the theater, and other things which can't strike back, and
had stepped on him.” And in still another place he had “killed a
lightning-rod agent.” And so the list went on, growing redder and
redder, and more and more heartbreaking. Sixty persons had been killed,
and two hundred and forty wounded. All the accounts bore just testimony
to the activity and devotion of the detectives, and all closed with the
remark that “three hundred thousand citizens and four detectives saw the
dread creature, and two of the latter he destroyed.”
I dreaded to hear the telegraphic instrument begin to click again. By
and by the messages began to pour in, but I was happily disappointed in
their nature. It was soon apparent that all trace of the elephant
was lost. The fog had enabled him to search out a good hiding-place
unobserved. Telegrams from the most absurdly distant points reported
that a dim vast mass had been glimpsed there through the fog at such and
such an hour, and was “undoubtedly the elephant.” This dim vast mass had
been glimpsed in New Haven, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, in interior
New York, in Brooklyn, and even in the city of New York itself! But
in all cases the dim vast mass had vanished quickly and left no trace.
Every detective of the large force scattered over this huge extent of
country sent his hourly report, and each and every one of them had a
clue, and was shadowing something, and was hot upon the heels of it.
But the day passed without other result.
The next day the same.
The next just the same.
The newspaper reports began to grow monotonous with facts that amounted
to nothing, clues which led to nothing, and theories which had nearly
exhausted the elements which surprise and delight and dazzle.
By advice of the inspector I doubled the reward.
Four more dull days followed. Then came a bitter blow to the poor,
hard-working detectives--the journalists declined to print their
theories, and coldly said, “Give us a rest.”
Two weeks after the elephant's disappearance I raised the reward to
seventy-five thousand dollars by the inspector's advice. It was a great
sum, but I felt that I would rather sacrifice my whole private fortune
than lose my credit with my government. Now that the detectives were in
adversity, the newspapers turned upon them, and began to fling the most
stinging sarcasms at them. This gave the minstrels an idea, and they
dressed themselves as detectives and hunted the elephant on the stage in
the most extravagant way. The caricaturists made pictures of detectives
scanning the country with spy-glasses, while the elephant, at their
backs, stole apples out of their pockets. And they made all sorts of
ridiculous pictures of the detective badge--you have seen that badge
printed in gold on the back of detective novels no doubt, it is a
wide-staring eye, with the legend, “WE NEVER SLEEP.” When detectives
called for a drink, the would-be facetious barkeeper resurrected an
obsolete form of expression and said, “Will you have an eye-opener?” All
the air was thick with sarcasms.
But there was one man who moved calm, untouched, unaffected, through it
all. It was that heart of oak, the chief inspector. His brave eye never
drooped, his serene confidence never wavered. He always said:
“Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last.”
My admiration for the man grew into a species of worship. I was at his
side always. His office had become an unpleasant place to me, and now
became daily more and more so. Yet if he could endure it I meant to
do so also--at least, as long as I could. So I came regularly, and
stayed--the only outsider who seemed to be capable of it. Everybody
wondered how I could; and often it seemed to me that I must desert, but
at such times I looked into that calm and apparently unconscious face,
and held my ground.
About three weeks after the elephant's disappearance I was about to say,
one morning, that I should have to strike my colors and retire, when the
great detective arrested the thought by proposing one more superb and
masterly move.
This was to compromise with the robbers. The fertility of this man's
invention exceeded anything I have ever seen, and I have had a wide
intercourse with the world's finest minds. He said he was confident
he could compromise for one hundred thousand dollars and recover the
elephant. I said I believed I could scrape the amount together, but what
would become of the poor detectives who had worked so faithfully? He
said:
“In compromises they always get half.”
This removed my only objection. So the inspector wrote two notes, in
this form:
DEAR MADAM,--Your husband can make a large sum of money (and be
entirely protected from the law) by making an immediate, appointment
with me. Chief BLUNT.
He sent one of these by his confidential messenger to the “reputed wife”
of Brick Duffy, and the other to the reputed wife of Red McFadden.
Within the hour these offensive answers came:
YE OWLD FOOL: brick McDuffys bin ded 2 yere.
BRIDGET MAHONEY.
CHIEF BAT,--Red McFadden is hung and in heving 18 month. Any Ass
but a detective know that.
MARY O'HOOLIGAN.
“I had long suspected these facts,” said the inspector; “this testimony
proves the unerring accuracy of my instinct.”
The moment one resource failed him he was ready with another. He
immediately wrote an advertisement for the morning papers, and I kept a
copy of it: