It cannot be said, my friends, that I liked my position in that sink of
evil, the New York Customs. I was on good terms with my comrades, but I
founded no friendships among them. It has been and still is a belief of
mine, and one formed at an early age, that everybody wears suggestive
resemblance to some bird or fish or beast. I’ve seen a human serpent’s
face, triangular, poisonous, menacing with ophidian eyes; I’ve seen a
dove’s face, soft, gentle, harmless, and with lips that cooed as they
framed and uttered words. And there are faces to remind one of dogs, of
sheep, of apes, of swine, of eagles, of pike--ravenous, wide-mouthed,
swift. I’ve even encountered a bear’s face on Broadway--one full of a
window-peering curiosity, yet showing a contented, sluggish sagacity
withal. And every face about me in the Customs would carry out my
theory. As I glanced from Lorns to Quin, and from Quin to another, and
so to the last upon the list, I beheld reflected as in a glass, a hawk,
or an owl, or a wolf, or a fox, or a ferret, or even a cat. But each
rapacious; each stamped with the instinct of predation as though the
word “Wolf” were written across his forehead. Even Betelnut Jack gave
one the impression that belongs with some old, rusty black-eagle with
worn and tumbled plumage. I took no joy of my comrades; saw no more of
them than I might; despised my trade of land-pirate--for what better
could it be called?--and following that warning from “Josephus” was
ever haunted of a weird fear of what might come. Still, I remained and
claimed my loot with the rest. And you ask why? When all is said, I
was as voracious as the others; I clinked the coins in my pocket, and
consoled myself against the foul character of such profits with that
thought of Vespasian: “The smell of all money is sweet.”
Following my downfall of tobacco, I had given up my rich apartments in
Twenty-second Street; and while I retained my membership, I went no more
to the two or three clubs into which I’d been received. In truth, these
Custom House days I seldom strolled as far northward as Twenty-third
Street; but taking a couple of moderate rooms to the south of Washington
Square, I stuck to them or to the park in front as much as ever I might;
passing a lonely life and meeting none I’d known before.
One sun-filled September afternoon, being free at that hour, I was
occupying a bench in Washington Square, amusing my idleness with the
shadows chequered across the walk by an overspreading tree. A sound
caught my ear; I looked up to be mildly amazed by the appearance of
Betelnut Jack. It was seldom my chief was found so far from his eyrie
in the Bowery; evidently he was seeking me. His first words averred as
much.
“I was over to your rooms,” remarked Betelnut Jack; “they told me you
were here.”
Then he gave me a pure Havana--for we of the Customs might smoke what
cigars we would--lighted another and betook himself to a few moments of
fragrant, wordless tranquility. I was aware, of course, that Betelnut
Jack had a purpose in coming; but curiosity was never among my vices,
and I did not ask his mission. With a feeling of indifference, I awaited
its development in his own good way and time.
Betelnut Jack was more apt to listen than talk; but upon this Washington
Square afternoon, he so far departed those habits of taciturnity
commonly his own as to furnish the weight of conversation. He did not
hurry to his business, but rambled among a score of topics. He even
described to me by what accident he arrived at his by-name of Betelnut
Jack. He said he was a sailor in his youth. Then he related how he went
on deep water ships to India and to the China seas; how he learned to
chew betel from the Orientals; how after he came ashore he was still
addicted to betel; how a physician, ignorant of betel and its crimson
consequences, fell into vast excitement over what he concevied to be a
perilous hemorrhage; and how before Jack could explain, seized on
him and hurried him into a near-by drug shop. When he understood his
mistake, the physician took it in dudgeon, and was inclined to blame
Jack for those sanguinary yet fraudulent symptoms. One result of
the adventure was to re-christen him “Betelnut Jack,” the name still
sticking, albeit he had for long abandoned betel as a taste outgrown.
Betelnut Jack continued touching his career in New York; always with
caution, however, slurring some parts and jumping others; from which I
argued that portions of my chief’s story were made better by not being
divulged. It occurred, too, as a deduction drawn from his confidences
that Betelnut Jack had been valorous as a Know-Nothing; and he spoke
with rapture of the great prize-fighter, Tom Hyer, who beat Yankee
Sullivan; and then of the fistic virtues of the brave Bill Poole, coming
near to tears as he set forth the latter’s murder in Stanwix Hall.
Also, I gathered that Betelnut Jack had been no laggard at hurling
stones and smashing windows in the Astor Place riot of 1849.
“And the soldiers killed one hundred and thirty-four,” sighed Betelnut
Jack, when describing the battle; “and wounded four times as many more.
And all, mind you! for a no-good English actor with an Irish name!” This
last in accents of profound disgust.
In the end Betelnut Jack began to wax uneasy; it was apparent how he
yearned for his nest in the familiar Bowery. With that he came bluntly
to the purpose.
“To-morrow, early,” he said, “take one of the women inspectors and go
down to quarantine. Some time in the course of the day, the steamship
‘Wolfgang,’ from Bremen, will arrive. Go aboard at once. In the second
cabin you will find a tall, gray, old German; thin, with longish hair.
He may have on dark goggles; if he hasn’t, you will observe that he is
blind of the right eye. His daughter, a girl of twenty-three, will
be with him. Her hair will be done up in that heavy roll which
hair-dressers call the ‘waterfall,’ and hang in a silk close-meshed
net low on her neck. Hidden in the girl’s hair are diamonds of a Berlin
value of over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. You will search
the old man, and have the woman inspector search the girl. Don’t conduct
yourselves as though you knew what you were looking for. Tell your
assistant to find the girl’s diamonds naturally; let her work to them by
degrees, not swoop on them.”
Then Betelnut Jack disposed himself for homeward flight. I asked how he
became aware of the jewels and the place of their concealment.
“Never mind that now,” was his reply; “you’ll know later. But get the
diamonds; they’re there and you must not fail. I’ve come for you, as
you’re more capable of doing the gentleman than some of the others, and
this is a case where a dash of refinement won’t hurt the trick.”
With that Betelnut Jack lounged over to Fourth Street and disappeared
towards Broadway and the Bowery further east.
Following my chief’s departure, I continued in idle contemplation of the
shadows. This occupation did not forbid a mental looking up and down of
what would be my next day’s work. The prospect was far from refreshing.
When one is under thirty, a proposal to plunder a girl--a beautiful
girl, doubtless--of her diamonds, does not appeal to one. There would be
woe, tears, lamentations, misery with much wringing of hands. I began to
call myself a villain.
Then, as against her, and defensive of myself, I argued the outlaw
character of the girl’s work. Be she beautiful or be she favored ill,
still she is breaking the law. It was our oath to seize the gems;
whatever of later wrong was acted, at best or worst, it was no wrong
done her. In truth! when she was at last left free and at liberty, she
would be favored beyond her deserts; for those Customs laws which she
was cheating spoke of grates and keys and bars and bolts.
In this wise, and as much as might be, I comforted myself against the
disgrace of an enterprise from which I naturally recoiled, hardening
myself as to the poor girl marked to be our prey. I confess I gained no
great success; say what I might, I contemned myself.
While thus ruminating that dishonor into which I conceived myself to
have fallen, I recalled a story written by Edgar Allen Poe. It is a
sketch wherein a wicked man is ever followed and thwarted by one
who lives his exact semblance in each line of face and form. This
doppel-ganger, as the Germans name him, while the same with himself
in appearance and dress, is his precise opposite in moral nature. This
struggle between the haunted one and his weird, begins in boyhood
and continues till middle age. At the last, frantic under a final
opposition, the haunted one draws sword and slays his enemy. Too late,
as he wipes the blood from his blade, he finds that he has killed
his better self; too late he sees that from that time to the end, the
present will have no hope, the future hold no heaven; that he must sink
and sink and sink, until he is grasped by those hands outstretched of
hell to forever have him for their horrid own. I wondered if I were not
like that man unhappy; I asked if I did not, by these various defenses
and apologies which I made ever for my wickedness, work towards the
death of my better nature whose destruction when it did come would mean
the departure forever of my soul’s chance.
I stood up and shook myself in a canine way. Decidedly, loneliness was
making me morbid! However that may have been, I passed a far from happy
afternoon.
Fairly speaking, these contentions shook me somewhat in my resolves.
There were moments when I determined to refuse my diamond-hunting
commission and resign my place. I even settled the style of my
resignation; it should be full of sarcasm.
But alas! these white dreams faded; in the end I was ready to execute
the orders of Betelnut Jack; and that which decided me was surely the
weakest thought of all. Somehow, I had in my thoughts put down the
coming German maiden as beautiful; Betelnut Jack had said her age was
twenty-three, which helped me to this thought of girlish loveliness.
Thus, my imaginings worked in favor of the girl.
But next the thought fell blackly that she would some day--probably a
near day--love some man unknown and marry him. Possibly this lover she
already knew; perhaps he was here and she on her way to meet him! This
will sound like jest; it will earn derision from healthful, balanced
spirits; and yet I tell but the truth.
I experienced a vague, resentful jealousy, hated this imagined lover
of a girl I’d never met, and waxed contemptuous of aught of leniency
towards one or both. I would do as Betelnut Jack ordered; I would go
down to quarantine on the morrow; and I would find the diamonds.
It was late in the afternoon when with a woman assistant, I boarded the
“Wolfgang” in the Narrows. My aged German was readily picked up; his
daughter was with him. And her beauty was as I’d painted on the canvas
of my thoughts. Yet when I beheld the loveliness which should have
melted me, I recalled that lover to whose arms she might be coming and
was hardened beyond recall. I told the inspectress to take her into
her private room and find the diamonds. With that, I turned my back and
strolled to the forward deck. Even at that distance I heard the shriek
of the girl when her treasure was discovered.
“There will be less for the lover!” I thought.
When my woman assistant--accomplice might be the truer term--joined
me, she had the jewels. They were in a long eel-skin receptacle, sewed
tightly, and had been secreted in the girl’s hair as described by
Betelnut Jack. I took the gems, and buttoning them in my coat, told my
aide--who with a feminine fashion of bitterness seemed exultant over
having deprived another of her gew-gaws--to arrest the girl, hold her
until the boat docked, frighten her with tales of fetters and dungeons
and clanging bars, and at the last to lose her on the wharf. It would
be nine o’clock of the night by then, and murk dark; this loss of her
prisoner would seem to come honestly about.
If I were making a romance, rather than bending to a relation of cold,
gray, hard, untender facts, I would at this crisis defy Betelnut Jack,
rescue the beautiful girl, restore her jewels, love her, win her, wed
her, and with her true, dear arms about me, live happy ever after. As it
was, however, I did nothing of that good sort. My aide obeyed directions
in a mood at once thorough, blithe, and spiteful, and never more did I
set eyes on the half-blind father or the tearful, pretty, poor victim
of our diamond hunting. Lost in the crush and bustle of the wharf, they
were never found, never looked for, and never rendered themselves.
I had considered what profit from these jewels might accrue to the ring
and the means by which it would be arrived at. I took it for granted
that some substitutional arts--when paste would take the places of old
mine gems--would be resorted to as in the excellent instance of The
Emperor’s Cigars. But Betelnut Jack shook his careful head; there would
be no hokus-pokus of substitution; there were good reasons. Also, there
was another way secure. If our profits were somewhat shaved, our safety
would be augmented; and Betelnut Jack’s watchword was “Safety first!” I
was bound to acquiesce; I the more readily did so since, like Lorns and
Quin, I had grown to perfect confidence in the plans of Betelnut Jack.
However, when now I had brushed aside etiquette and broken the ice
of the matter with my chief, I asked how he meant to manoeuver in the
affair.
“Wait!” retorted Betelnut Jack, and that was the utmost he would say.
In due time came the usual auction and the gems were sold. They were
snapped up by a syndicate of wise folk of Maiden Lane who paid therefor
into the hands of the government the even sum of one hundred thousand
dollars.
Still I saw not how our ring would have advantage; no way could open for
us to handle those one hundred thousand dollars in whole or in part.
I was in error; a condition whereof I was soon to be made pleasantly
aware.
On the day following the sale, and while the price paid still slept
unbanked in the Customs boxes of proof-steel, there came one to see our
canny chief. It is useless to waste description on this man. Suffice it
that he was in fact and in appearance as skulkingly the coward scoundrel
as might anywhere be met. This creeping creature was shown into the
private rooms of Betelnut Jack. A moment later, I was sent for.
Betelnut Jack was occupying a chair; he wore an air of easy confidence;
and over that, a sentiment of contempt for his visitor. This latter was
posed in the middle of the room; and while an apprehension of impending
evil showed on his face, he made cringing and deprecatory gestures with
shoulders hunched and palms turned outward.
“Sit down,” observed Betelnut Jack, pushing a chair towards me. When
I was seated, he spoke on. “Since it was you who found the diamonds, I
thought it right to have you present now. You asked me once how I knew
in advance of those gems and their scheme of concealment. To-day you may
learn. This is the gentleman who gave me the information. He did it
to obtain the reward--to receive that great per cent, of the seizure’s
proceeds which is promised the informer by the law. His information was
right; he is entitled to the reward. That is what he is here for; he has
come to be paid.” Then to the hangdog, cringing one: “Pretty good day’s
work for you, eh? Over fifty thousand dollars for a little piece of
information is stiff pay!” The hangdog one bowed lower and a smirk of
partial confidence began to broaden his face. “And now you’ve come for
your money--fifty odd thousand!”
“If you please, sir! yes, sir!” More and wider smirks.
“All right!” retorted Betelnut Jack. “You shall have it, friend; but not
now--not to-day.”
“Then when?” and the smirk fled.
“To-morrow,” said Betelnut Jack. “To-morrow, next day, any day in fact
when you bring before me to be witnesses of the transaction the father,
the sister, and your wife.”
Across the face of the hangdog one spread a pallor that was as the
whiteness of death. There burned the fires of a hot agony in his eyes as
though a dirk had slowly pierced him. His voice fell in a husky whisper.
“You would cheat me!”
“No; I would do you perfect justice,” replied Betelnut Jack. “Not a
splinter do you finger until you bring your people. Your wife and her
sister and their father shall know this story, and stand here while the
money is paid. Not a stiver else! Now, go!”
Betelnut Jack’s tones were as remorseless as a storm; they offered
nothing to hope; the hangdog one heard and crept away with a look on
his face that was but ill to see. Once the door was closed behind him,
Betelnut Jack turned with a cheerful gleam to me.
“That ends him! It’s as you guess. This informer is the son-in-law of
the old German. He married the elder daughter. They came over four years
ago and live in Hoboken. Then the father and the younger sister were to
come. They put their whole fortune into the diamonds, aiming to cheat
the Customs and manage a profit; and the girl wrote their plans and
how they would hide the jewels to her sister. It was she who told her
husband--this fellow who’s just sneaked out. He came to me and betrayed
them; he was willing to ruin the old man and the girl to win riches for
himself. But he’s gone; he’ll not return; we’ve seen and heard the last
of them; one fears the jail, the other the wrath of his wife; and that’s
the end.” Then Betelnut Jack, as he lighted a cigar, spoke the word
which told to folk initiate of a division of spoil on the morrow. As I
arose, he said: “Ask Lorns to come here.”
*****
“Well,” remarked the Old Cattleman when the Sour Gentleman was done, “I
don’t want to say nothin’ to discourage you-all, but if I’d picked up
your hand that time I wouldn’t have played it. I shorely would have let
that Dutch girl keep her beads. Didn’t the thing ha’nt you afterwards?”
“It gave me a deal of uneasiness,” responded the Sour Gentleman. “I am
not proud of my performance. And yet, I don’t see what else I might have
done. Those diamonds were as good as in the hands of Betelnut Jack from
the moment the skulking brother-in-law brought him the information.”
“It’s one relief,” observed the Red Nosed Gentleman, “to know how that
scoundrel came off no richer by his treachery.”
“What I observes partic’lar in the narration,” said the Old Cattleman,
“is how luck is the predominatin’ feacher throughout. The girl an’ her
old pap has bad luck in losin’ the gewgaw’s. You-all customs sharps
has good luck in havin’ the news brought to your hand as to where them
diamonds is hid, by a coyote whom you can bluff plumb outen the play at
the finish. As for the coyote informer, why he has luck in bein’ allowed
to live.
“An’ speakin’ of luck, seein’ that in this yere story-tellin’
arrangement that seems to have grown up in our midst, I’m the next
chicken on the roost, I’ll onfold to you gents concernin’ ‘The Luck of
Cold-sober Simms.’”