JACK MCCALL, AT YOUR SERVICE
Armitage landed in Newport by the eight o'clock boat and calling a hack
drove out to the house of the chief of police. The chief was at
breakfast and came to the door with his napkin in his hand. He greeted
his visitor with a broad smile of welcome.
"Hello, Lieutenant," he said. "What's doing? Another of your boys you
want turned loose?"
"Good-morning, Chief. No, not exactly. May I talk to you a minute?"
"Sure." The chief glanced about the dining room and closed the door
with his foot. "Talk as much as you like."
Armitage glanced at the chief with an admiring smile. He had never
ceased to wonder at the multifarious qualities which enabled the man to
remain indispensable to native and cottager alike. Courteous,
handsome, urbane, diplomatic, debonair, when a matron of the very
highest caste sent for him to enlist his efforts in the regaining of
some jewel, tiara, or piece of _vertu_, missing after a weekend, he
never for a moment forgot that it was all a bit of carelessness, which
the gentlest sort of reminder would correct. This is to say that he
usually brought about the return of the missing article and neither of
the parties between which he served as intermediary ever felt the
slightest embarrassment or annoyance. No wedding was ever given
without consulting him as to the proper means to be employed in
guarding the presents. He was at once a social register, containing
the most minute and extensive data, and an _index criminis_, unabridged.
As Armitage talked, the chief's eyes lighted and he nodded his head
approvingly from time to time.
"I see," he said. "It's rather clever of you. I 'll hold myself for
any word. I can do more: I know Mrs. Wellington quite well. You can
ask her to call me for reference if you wish. I 'll make you out a
fine thug."
"That 'll be fine, although I may not need you. In the meantime have
your men keep an eye out for Yeasky. And," Armitage paused, "if
Koltsoff--never mind; we 've first to prove our case."
"Yes, that would be about the wisest thing you could do," observed the
chief. "Good luck."
An hour later Armitage stood in the servants' sitting-room confronting
Miss Hatch, Mrs. Wellington's secretary, who was viewing him, not
without interest.
"Mrs. Wellington will see you, I think," she said. "She usually
breakfasts early and should be in her office now."
Armitage had an engaging grin which invariably brought answering smiles
even from the veriest strangers. So now the crisp, bespectacled young
woman was smiling broadly when Armitage shrugged his shoulders.
"Mrs. Wellington?" he said. "I had an idea I should have to see Mr.
Wellington."
"By no means," asserted the secretary. "Wait a moment, please."
In a few minutes the young woman returned and nodded.
"Will you come with me, please?"
She led the way up a winding pair of stairs and down a long hall with
heavy crimson carpet, turning into a room near the rear of the house.
Mrs. Wellington was at her desk looking over a menu which the
housekeeper had just submitted. She glanced up as the two entered, her
face unchanging in expression.
"This is Mr. McCall," said the secretary, who without further words
went to her desk and unlimbered the typewriter.
As Mrs. Wellington brought Armitage under her scrutiny, which was long,
silent, and searching, he felt as he did upon his first interview with
the Secretary of the Navy. However, no one had ever accused him of
lack of nerve.
"You apply for the position of physical instructor to my sons," she
said at length. "How did you know we wanted one?"
Armitage, caught for the instant off his guard, stammered.
"I--at least Miss--I mean I read it in one of the papers."
"Hum," replied Mrs. Wellington, "a rather misleading medium. Correct
in this instance, though."
"I believe it was an advertisement," said Armitage.
"What qualifications have you?"
Armitage smiled easily.
"I have taught boxing, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu in Southern athletic
clubs," he said, "and I trained the 19-- navy team at Annapolis."
He submitted Thornton's eloquent testimonial. Mrs. Wellington laid it
aside after a glance.
"Where is your home?"
"Louisville, Kentucky, ma'm."
"What have you been doing in Newport? I remember having seen you at
church yesterday morning."
"I came up to see Winthrop of the Harvard Graduate Advisory Committee
on Athletics about getting the job as trainer for the football team
next month. He is away."
"Were you ever in college?" asked Mrs. Wellington.
Armitage assumed a look of embarrassment.
"Yes," he said, "but unless you insist I had rather not say where or
why I left."
Mrs. Wellington sniffed.
"I thought so," she observed drily. "What would you do for my sons?"
Armitage was on his favorite topic now.
"I 'd try to convince them that it pays to be strong and clean in mind
and body--" he began earnestly, when a rustle of skirts and the click
of footsteps at the threshold caused him to turn. Anne Wellington, in
an embroidered white linen frock, stood framed in the doorway, smiling
at them.
"Pardon me, mother," she said, "but I am in a dreadful fix." She
glanced toward Armitage. "This is our new physical instructor, is it
not?"
"He has applied for the position," said Mrs. Wellington, not altogether
blithely.
"How fortunate--" began the girl and then stopped abruptly. "That is,"
she added, "if he can drive a car."
"I helped make automobiles in Chicago," Armitage ventured.
"Good!" exclaimed Anne. "You know, mother, Rimini has gone to New York
to receive that Tancredi, and Benoir, the second chauffeur, is in the
hospital. I must have a driver for a day or so. He may for a while,
may he not, mother?" She nodded to Armitage. "If you will go out to
the garage, please, I shall have Mr. Dawson give you some clothing. I
think he can fit you. I--"
"One moment, Anne," interrupted her mother. "You do run on so. Just
wait one moment. You seem to forget I am, or at least was, about to
engage McCall as a physical instructor, not a _mécanicien_." Mrs.
Wellington was fundamentally opposed to being manoeuvred, and her
daughter's apparent attempt at _finesse_ in this matter irritated her.
She was fully bent now upon declining to employ Armitage in any
capacity and was on the point of saying so, when Anne, who had
diagnosed her trend of mind, broke in.
"Really, mother, I am perfectly sincere. But this situation, you must
admit, was totally unexpected--and I must have a driver, don't you
know. Why, I 've planned to take Prince Koltsoff, oh, everywhere."
This won for her. Mrs. Wellington even when irritated was altogether
capable of viewing all sides of a matter.
"Very well," she said. "I shall consider the other matter. When you
are through with McCall, let me know."
Anne's eyes sparkled with relief.
"Mother, you are a dear." She walked over and touched her
affectionately on her arm. "McCall, if you will go out to the garage,
Mr. Dawson will show you your room and give you some clothes. I may
want you any time, so please don't go far from the garage."
As Armitage passed out, guided by Miss Hatch, Mrs. Wellington turned to
her daughter.
"Well, Anne," she said, "he lied and lied and lied. But I do believe
some of the things he said and some he did n't. I believe him to be
honest and I believe he will be good for the boys. He himself is a
magnificent specimen, certainly. But I don't reconcile one thing."
"What is that, mother?"
"He is a gentleman and has been bred as one; that is perfectly evident."
"Oh, no doubt," replied her daughter with apparent indifference. "One
of the younger son variety you meet in and out of England, I fancy."
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Wellington. "Is that why you invited him to
sit with us in church? Why you spoke to him on the _General_? Why you
wanted me to employ him?"
"I don't know," replied Anne frankly. "He interested me. He does yet.
He is a mystery and I want to solve him."
"May an old woman give you a bit of advice, Anne? Thank you," as her
daughter bowed. "Remember he is an employee of this house. He sought
the position; he must be down to it. Keep that in your mind--and don't
let him drive fast. In the meantime, how about his license?"
Anne stamped her foot.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "I forgot all about that beastly license.
What can we do?" She faced her mother. "Mother, can't you think of
something? I know you can arrange it if you will."
"Well," said her mother thoughtfully. Suddenly she looked at her
secretary who entered at the moment. "Miss Hatch, you might get Chief
Roberts on the 'phone--right away, please. Now, Anne, I am getting
nervous; you had better go."
"Yes, mother." Anne dropped a playful curtsey and left the room,
smiling.
Half an hour later, Armitage, squeezed into a beautifully made suit of
tan whipcord, his calves swathed in putees, and a little cap with vizor
pressing flat against his brows, was loitering about the garage with
Ryan, a footman, and absorbing the gossip of the family. Prince
Koltsoff was still there and intended, evidently, to remain for some
time. This information, gained from what Anne Wellington had said to
her mother, had relieved his mind of fears that his quarry had already
gone, and he would have been quite at his ease had not the thought that
the fact of Koltsoff's presence here rather argued against his having
the control in his possession, occurred to him. Still, if the Russian
had any of the instincts of a gentleman he could hardly break away from
the Wellingtons at such short notice, and certainly not if he was, as
Thornton surmised, interested in the daughter. Talk about the garage
left him in no doubt of this.
If the Prince had the missing part he would do one of three things:
hold onto it until he left; mail it; or express it to St. Petersburg.
Benoir, he had learned, carried the Wellington mail as well as express
matter to the city, mornings and afternoons. In his absence, Armitage
was, he felt, the logical man for this duty. So he did not worry about
these contingencies. He had knowledge that up to eight o'clock that
morning no package for foreign countries had been either mailed or
expressed; this eliminated the fear, which might otherwise have been
warrantable, that the package had already been sent on its way to
Europe. Besides, no man of Koltsoff's experience would be likely to
trust the delivery of so important an object to any but his own hands.
Thus the probabilities were that the thing was at this minute in the
Prince's room. If all these suppositions were wrong, then Yeasky had
it. Armitage knew enough of the workings of the Secret Service Bureau
to know that if the man got out of the country he would be an elusive
person indeed, especially as he had a long, livid scar across his left
cheek which could not be concealed with any natural effect.
But, somehow, the conviction persisted in Armitage's mind that the
Prince had the control. In the short time he had spent at The Crags
this impression had not diminished; it had increased, without definite
reason, to be sure; and yet, the fact remained. He would find out one
way or another shortly. His room, not in the servants' wing, was on
the third floor, right over the apartments of the Wellington boys,
which in turn were not far from Koltsoff's suite. It would not be long
before a burglary would be committed in the Wellington house. At this
thought, Armitage thrilled with delightful emotions.
In the meantime he addressed himself to the task of gleaning further
information concerning the family into whose employ he had entered. He
learned that while Mr. Wellington and his daughter were devoted to
motoring, Mrs. Wellington would have none of it, and that the boys were
inclined to horses also. Ronald Wellington left things pretty much to
his wife and she was a "Hellian," as Ryan put it, to those about her
who were not efficient and faithful. But otherwise, she was a pretty
decent sort and willing to pay well.
"What sort are the boys?" asked Armitage, recalling that his duties
with them might begin at any time.
"Master Ronald, the oldest, is stuck on himself," replied Ryan. "He
ain't easy to get along with. Master Royal, the youngster, is as fine
a little chap as ever lived. Ronald is learning himself the cigarette
habit; which is all right--the quicker he smokes himself to death the
better, if he was n't after learnin' young Muck, as every one calls
him, to smoke, too. They do it on the quiet here in the garage,
although it's against the rules."
"Why don't you stop them then?" asked Armitage.
Ryan shrugged and laughed.
"If we stopped them we 'd be fired for committin' insult and if they
're caught here we 'll be fired for lettin' 'em smoke. That's the way
with those who work for people like the Wellingtons--always between the
devil and the deep sea."
"Oh, I don't know," said Armitage, whose combative instincts were now
somewhat aroused, "I don't think people get into great trouble for
doing their duty, whoever they work for."
The footman grinned.
"Well," he said, "you 'll know more about that the longer you 're here."
As he spoke, the boys under discussion entered the doorway and seating
themselves upon the running board of a touring car, helped themselves
to cigarettes from a silver case which the elder took from his pocket.
They lighted them without a glance at the two men and had soon filled
the atmosphere with pungent smoke.
"Do they do this often?" asked Armitage at length, turning to Ryan and
speaking in a voice not intended to be hidden.
The footman grinned and nodded.
"Against the rules, isn't it?" persisted Armitage, much to Ryan's
evident embarrassment, who, however, nodded again.
The older boy took his cigarette from his mouth and rising, walked a
few steps toward the new chauffeur. He was a slender stripling with
high forehead, long, straight nose, and a face chiefly marked by an
imperious expression. In his flannels and flapping Panama hat he was a
reduced copy of such Englishmen as Armitage had seen lounging in the
boxes at Ascot or about the paddock at Auteuil.
"Were you speaking of us, my man?" he said.
A gleam of amusement crossed Armitage's face.
"I--I believe I was, my boy. Why?"
A corner of the youth's upper lip curled and snapping the half-burnt
cigarette into a corner he took another from the case and lighted it.
"Oh," he said nodding, "you are the new man. Impertinence is not a
good beginning. I 'm afraid you won't last."
Armitage crossed quickly to the discarded cigarette which was
smouldering near a little pool of gasoline under a large can of that
dangerous fluid, and rubbed the fire out with his foot. Returning, he
confronted the boy, standing very close to him.
"Look here, son," he said quietly, "that won't do a bit, you know.
It's against the rules, and besides," jerking his head in the direction
of the gasoline can, "you have n't any sense."
Ronald's emotions were beyond the power of words to relieve. As he
stood glaring at Armitage, his face devoid of color, his eyes green
with anger, the chauffeur placed his hand gently upon his arm.
"You can't smoke here, I tell you. There 's a notice over there to
that effect signed by your father. Now throw that cigarette away; or
go out of here with it, as you like."
By way of reply, Ronald jerked his arm from Armitage's grasp and swung
at his face with open hand. It was a venomous slap, but it did not
come within a foot of the mark for the reason that Jack deftly caught
the flailing arm by the wrist and with a powerful twist brought young
Wellington almost to his knees through sheer pain of the straining
tendons. As this happened, the younger brother with a shrill cry of
rage launched himself at Armitage, who caught him by the waist and
swung him easily up into the tonneau of the touring car.
Ronald had risen to his feet and in cold passion was casting his eye
about the garage. A heavy wrench lay on the floor; he stepped towards
it, but not too quickly for Armitage to interpose. Slowly the latter
raised his finger until it was on a level with the boy's face.
"Now, stop just a minute and think," he said. "I like your spirit, and
yours, too, kid," he added, gazing up at the tonneau from which the
younger Wellington was glaring down like a bellicose young tiger, "but
this won't go at all. Now wait," as Ronald tried to brush past. "In
the first place, if your mother hears you have been smoking in the
garage--or anywhere else--you 'll get into trouble with her, so Ryan
has told me. And I don't believe that's any fun. . . . Now--listen,
will you? I am employed here as physical instructor for you chaps, not
as a chauffeur--although your sister has been good enough to press me
into service for a day or two--and I imagine I 'm going to draw pay for
making you into something else than thin-chested cigarette fiends. I
can do it, if you 'll help. How about it?" he said, smiling at Ronald.
"Will you be friends?"
Ronald, who had worked out of his passion, sniffed.
"Thank you, I had rather not, if you don't mind. I think you will find
that you don't like your place."
"Well," said Armitage affably, "then I can leave, you know."
"Yes, you can, all right; it 'll be sooner than you think. Come on,
Muck," and the older brother turned and left the garage.
Muck, who for the past few seconds had been gazing at Armitage with
wide eyes, slipped down from the car and stood in front of him.
"Say," he exclaimed, "you 're the fellow I gave that note to in
church--the one from my sister--are n't you?"
He grinned as Armitage looked at him dumbly.
"Don't be afraid," he said. "I shan't tell. Sister gave me a
five-dollar gold piece. I thought you did n't act like a chauffeur.
Say, show me that grip you got on Ronie, will you? He has been too
fresh lately,--I want to spring it on him. Can I learn it?"
"Not that one." Armitage took the boy's hand, his thumb pressing back
of the second knuckle, his fingers on the palm. He twisted backward
and upward gently. "There 's one that's better, though, and easier.
See? Not that way," as the boy seized his hand. "Press here. That's
right. Now you 've got it. You can make your brother eat out of your
hand."
"Thanks!" Muck left beaming, searching for his disgruntled
brother--and Armitage had made a friend.
A minute later Royal, or Muck, as his nickname seemed to be, thrust his
head into the garage. "You 're not going to say anything to mother
about the cigarettes, are you?"
"That's the best guess you ever made," smiled Armitage. "You and I 'll
settle that, won't we?"
"Rather," replied the boy, who departed with a nod.
"Well, you 've done it," said Ryan, gazing at Armitage admiringly.
"Master Ronald will raise hell!"
Armitage shook his head.
"I don't care, I just had to devil that rooster. He was insufferable.
I--"
The telephone bell rang, and Ryan, with a significant I-told-you-so
grimace took up the receiver. A second later a smile of relief lighted
his face.
"Very well. Thank you, sir," he said, and turned to Armitage.
"The butler, Mr. Buchan, says that Miss Wellington would have you bring
out her car at once. She don't want any footman."
Armitage arose with a thrill which set his ears tingling, cranked the
motor, and within a minute was rolling out of the garage.