CHAPTER XXIITHE AMATEUR DETECTIVE
“Well,” said Joe finally, “thought better of it, Young?”
Young found his voice then and for at least two minutes gave vent to his feelings, which, judging from the expressions he made use of, were far from pleasant. When, at last, breath or fresh invectives failed him, Joe said: “Young, you might as well be sensible about this. We’ll be in Toledo in a few minutes and there’ll be an officer waiting for us. What’s the good of going to jail for seventy-five dollars? Why don’t you give me back what you stole and have an end of it?”
Young, having regained his breath, indulged in a few more well-chosen remarks derogatory to Joe’s character. After which he declared that he knew nothing about the money, never saw it, didn’t have it, and wouldn’t give it up if he had!
“Well,” said Joe impatiently, “you’ve had plenty of chances to give it back without fuss,Young. So don’t blame me for anything that happens after this.” He got up and went off down the aisle, leaving Mr. Chester Young scowling somewhat anxiously after him. In the library compartment Joe reported the result of his mission.
“I guess,” he said regretfully, “there’s nothing to do now but try to get him arrested.”
“Are you certain he means to get off at Toledo?” asked the man.
“N-no, I’m not. He bought a ticket for Toledo, though.”
“Hm. Well, we’d better be ready in case he does. I’ll go and get my things ready.”
“Are you getting off there?” asked Joe as the other pulled his six feet and four or five inches from the chair.
“Do you know,” replied the man, “I’m never certain when I start out where I’ll fetch up? It’s queer that way.” He stretched his long arms and smiled whimsically down at the boy. “Once I started off for Chicago and brought up in Buenos Aires. After all, it’s the uncertainty that makes life interesting, eh?”
The stranger proceeded to the second car ahead, changed the cap he was wearing for a derby, strapped up a battered kit-bag, took hisovercoat from the hook, and went forward again. Near the rear door of the smoking car was an unoccupied seat, and in this the two seated themselves. Joe pointed out the refractory Mr. Young to his companion, who examined what was to be seen of his back with a disappointed expression.
“Very weak,” he muttered. “Hardly worthy of our talents, my friend. Observe the narrowness of the head between the ears. A sure sign of weakness of character. I have it myself. I think we can safely assume that he is not going to leave us here. If he were he’d be stirring around.”
The train was running into the yard at Toledo now and many of the occupants of the car were donning coats and rounding up their luggage. The prediction proved correct. The train rolled into the station, but Mr. Chester Young kept his place. That he was nervous was evident from the manner in which he peered through the window and more than once looked anxiously back along the car. He did not, however, see Joe, since the latter was hidden by his companion. The train remained in the station for some five minutes before it started off again towards Detroit, and during that time, it is natural to suppose, Mr. Chester Young was by no means enjoyinghimself. It seemed to Joe that he could almost hear Young’s sigh of relief when the station lights slipped away from them again!
Presently Joe’s companion, who had been silent most of the time during the stop, arose and signalled the former to follow him. Down the aisle they went. The seat directly in front of Young had just been vacated, and the tall man turned the back over, set his bag down, and seated himself facing Young, draping his overcoat across his knees and patting the seat beside him invitingly as Joe hesitated.
“Sit down,” he said pleasantly. “That’s it. Now, then, here we are all together.” He turned to the astonished Mr. Chester Young and regarded him smilingly. “I guess,” he went on, “we can settle this all up nicely before we reach Detroit, eh? We’ve got a lot of time ahead of us and needn’t hurry.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” sputtered Young, darting a venomous look at Joe. “You haven’t anything on me.”
“Now, now!” The intruder lifted a lean hand deprecatingly. “Don’t let us start off that way, my friend. Let’s be good-natured and just talk things over a bit. Why, bless you, I’m not complaining a mite, am I? When the chief called meup and said, ‘Beat it to the station and find a fellow named Young,’ I was just getting ready for a nice, long snooze. I was up most of last night and was counting a lot on my sleep. Well, it’s all in the day’s work with us Central Office tecs, and I’m a natural-born philosopher. So here I am, and no hard feelings.”
The expression on Young’s face changed from angry defiance to alarm. He swallowed once with difficulty, almost losing his cigarette in the operation, and then his gaze darted quickly about as though seeking an avenue of escape. The man opposite leaned over and patted his knee.
“Don’t think of that,” he said soothingly. “You couldn’t get away if you tried. Besides, you’d break your neck if you slipped off with the train going forty miles. Don’t try any foolish business, my friend. Just keep calm and good-tempered and let’s talk it all over nicely.”
“I haven’t got anything to talk over,” muttered Young.
“Sure you have!” The man chuckled. “You’ve got seventy-five dollars! We can do a lot of talking about seventy-five dollars, eh? Come on now, cards on the table, Young. What’s your idea of it?”
“Idea of what?” Young was rather pale, buthe managed to put some assurance into his question. The man lighted a cigar with much deliberation.
“Why, I mean what are you thinking of doing? Now, here’s my advice to you. You don’t need to take it, you know. I shan’t mind if you don’t. If I were you I’d get together what you’ve got left of that seventy-five and hand it over. See? Then we’d just wish each other luck and I’d drop off at the first stop and report ‘nothing doing’ at the office. That would be the simplest thing. But you can come on back to Toledo if you want to and face the music. Only that makes a lot of trouble for you and me and this fellow here. You spend the night in a cell, I don’t get to sleep before one o’clock, and this fellow has to lie around until your case comes up in the morning. Still, I don’t want to persuade you against your own judgment. It’s all in the day’s work for me.” He leaned back and smiled pleasantly at Young.
“You’ve only got his say-so for it,” exclaimed Young desperately. “Why, I never saw him until he came up to me in the station at Fremont! I don’t know anything about him. It—it’s a frame-up, that’s what it is! If you arrest me you’ll get into trouble. I—I’ve got friends inToledo, and they’ll make it hot for you, all right!”
“Sure, I know. We get that line of talk all the time,” was the untroubled response. “You know your own business better than I do. If you didn’t take this fellow’s money, why, all right.”
“Of course I didn’t! Why, look here, I’ll show you!” Young pulled a purse from his pocket and eagerly spread its contents out. “That’s every cent I’ve got to my name! Seventy-five dollars! Gee, if I had seventy-five dollars I’d be back there in a Pullman, believe me!”
“That’s so. Still, you might have spent the difference. How much you got there?”
“Nineteen, about! I had twenty-five when I—when I was in Fremont, and this fellow”—he darted a triumphant look at Joe—“braced me for a dollar to get something to eat. Then, when he saw I had more, he began some wild yarn about my stealing money from him. Why, I guess he’s crazy!”
The tall man turned and looked attentively at Joe. “Is that right?” he asked. “Did you get a dollar from him at Fremont?”
Joe shook his head, not trusting himself to speak for fear he would laugh. The supposed detective sighed.
“Well, I don’t know! Of course, if they find only nineteen dollars on you when they frisk you at the station——”
“Frisk me?” faltered Young.
“Sure; search you; go through your clothes. And your bag.”
Young shot a troubled look at the suit-case beside him. “No one’s got any right to search me,” he muttered. “And—and you can’t arrest me, either, without a warrant!”
“Bless your heart, friend, if we waited for warrants we’d miss half the fun! Here comes the conductor. Better not buy beyond Monroe. We’ll get off there and beat it back.”
“Why don’t you believe what I’m telling you?” demanded Young anxiously. “I never saw this fellow or his money. Say, you aren’t really going to take me just on what he says, are you?”
“Orders are orders, friend, and I got mine,” was the reply. “But don’t you bother. If you didn’t get his money you’ll get off all right tomorrow morning. And we’ve got a good, comfortable jail in Toledo, too.”
“That’s all right,” faltered Young, his gaze on the approaching conductor, “but—but if he tells them a pack of lies, how do I know they won’t believe him instead of me? You do yourself!”
“Me? Pshaw, now, I don’t believe anyone. This fellow says you did and you say you didn’t. It doesn’t make a scrap of difference to me, anyway. It’s up to the judge in the morning.”
“Well, but—say——” Young leaned across confidentially, lowering his voice. “Now, look here, sir. I don’t want to have to go back to Toledo. I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a sick father in Detroit, I have. Now, say I give this fellow what I’ve got with me? Eh? I’d pay that not to have to go back. What do you say?”
“Well, that’s up to him,” was the reply, “What do you say?” The man turned inquiringly to Joe.
“If he will give me all the money he has with him, all right,” Joe answered. “I’ll be satisfied. I dare say he’s spent a good bit of it.”
“But I’ve got to keep enough to pay my fare to Detroit,” said Young eagerly.
Joe nodded. “All right. Pay your fare to Detroit and give me the rest.”
“Well, that’s what I call sensible,” said the impromptu detective. “What’s the use of going to a heap of trouble when you can avoid it, eh? Hello, Conductor. One to Detroit and”—he looked a question at Joe.
“I guess I’ll go to Detroit, too,” was the response.
“Two Detroits, eh? All right, gentlemen. Thank you. Let me see, you’re——” He observed the tall man doubtfully.
“Yes, you know me,” was the response, accompanied by a nod toward the rear of the train.
“I thought so.” The conductor returned the change to Young and to Joe and passed on. Young, his purse still in his hand, counted out the remaining contents of it.
“There’s nearly eighteen dollars,” he said easily. “You might leave me enough for car-fare to get to my house with, but I won’t ask it.”
“Keep out the silver,” said Joe, “and give me the bills.”
Young obeyed and passed over a ten, a five, and two ones. “You’re witness that I paid this to him,” he challenged the third member of the group. The tall man nodded.
“I’m witness you’ve paid him seventeen dollars,” he agreed. “Go ahead.”
“Go ahead? What do you mean, go ahead?” asked Young with a scowl.
“Why, I mean go ahead and pay him the rest of it.”
“The rest of it! He agreed to take what I had here——”
“What you had with you, my friend,” interrupted the other. “Be good now and don’t let’s have any more trouble.” He reached across and pushed Young’s suit-case toward him. “Open her up, friend, and dig down!”
“I tell you I ain’t got——”
“I heard you, too,” was the wearied response. “But we’ll take the money that’s in the suit-case, I think. Come across with it, Young!”
“You’re a couple of thieves! There ain’t any money in there! I——”
“Seeing’s believing, my friend. Just open that up and show us.”
“I won’t! You’ve got all you’re going to get!” He took the suit-case on his knees and hugged his arms over it. “What’s in here is mine!”
“Oh, so there is some in there, eh?” The tall man chuckled. “Well, pass it over. Stand by your bargain and don’t play baby. And get a move on, too. We’ll be in Monroe in about ten minutes and then it’ll be too late.”
Young glared at the other in impotent rage, but the make-believe Central Office man returned his gaze calmly, untroubledly, compellingly. Fora long moment Young hesitated. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he tugged at the straps, opened the suit-case and drew a cigarette box from under the layers of clothing.
“There,” he growled, and tossed the box into the man’s lap. Inside it were five folded ten-dollar bills. The man smoothed them out, counted them and passed them silently to Joe.
“Fifty and seventeen is sixty-seven,” he said. “That good enough?” he asked.
Joe nodded as he stowed the money safely in a pocket. “That’s near enough,” he said. “I ought to make him pay back what it’s cost me to get it, but I won’t.” He turned to Young. “I’m going to hand nine and a half of this to Mrs. Bennett,” he said. “She needs it more than I do, I guess.”
Young sneered. “What do I care what you do with it? You’re easy, anyway. If I hadn’t been a fool I’d have got clean away.” Then, fearing perhaps that he had admitted too much, he glanced furtively at the man. “We’re quits now, ain’t we?”
“Oh, yes, we’re quits. Or, rather, we’re more than quits, Young. I’m really in your debt for an interesting experience. It’s the first time I ever impersonated a detective and, although Imay be taking too much credit, I think I did it rather well, eh?”
“What!” squealed Young. “You ain’t a—a——”
“What!” squealed Young. “You ain’t a—a——”
“What!” squealed Young. “You ain’t a—a——”
“What!” squealed Young. “You ain’t a—a——”
“My friend,” was the smiling reply, “I’m only a poor writer of tales who has been doing his best to relieve the tedium of a dull journey. The next time you have dealings with a detective, and something tells me there’s going to be a next time, you ask to be shown his badge. Never take anything for granted, my friend. It’s a wicked world and there are, unfortunately, folks in it ever ready to impose on the credulity of the young and—ah—innocent. Good-night, Mr. Young. And thanks for the amusement you’ve so kindly afforded.”
They left him crumpled up in the corner, still holding his open suit-case, an expression of mingled wrath and incredulity on his face.
Joe’s new friend led the way back to his chair in the Pullman, where he deposited bag and coat and again changed from derby to cap. Then they returned to the library car and viewed each other smilingly from opposite chairs.
“I was right about the narrowness of the skull between the ears,” observed the man reflectively. “Mr. Young is weak, lamentably weak, and willnot, I feel sure, ever make a success in his chosen profession.”
“His chosen profession?” repeated Joe questioningly.
“Yes, thieving. Perhaps it’s all for the best, however. Finding himself unable to prosper in that line, he may turn honest. Let us hope so. And now there’s one small formality we’ve neglected. Suppose we learn each other’s names?”
“Mine is Joseph Faulkner, sir.”
“And mine is Graham—J. W. Graham. The J stands for John and the W for Westley.”
“Westley Graham!” exclaimed Joe. “Why, I know who you are! I mean I’ve read stories——”
“Yes, I don’t doubt it. You could scarcely fail to, my boy, for I write a horrible lot of them. I try not to, but they will out, like murder—or measles! Ever read any you liked?”
“Why, I like them all!” cried Joe. “They’re dandy! There was one last month about a man who discovered an island that nobody knew about, and——”
“Yes, I recall that. Well, I’m glad you like them, my boy. I do myself, when I’m writing them, but afterwards I try hard to forget them.”
“But why, sir?” Joe’s eyes opened very wide. “I wish I could write stories like those!”
“Do you? I try to forget them because I come of Puritan ancestry. Know anything about the Puritans, Faulkner?”
“Why, I know what it tells in the history, sir.”
“Perhaps history doesn’t particularly emphasise the quality I have in mind, however. The Puritans were endowed with the ineradicable belief that whatever gave one pleasure in the doing was wrong. All my life I have been at odds with my inherited Puritan principles. Every time I write one of those stories Conscience sits at my elbow and weeps. I try to console myself with the promise that some day before I pass on I shall write something very dull and very learned and very, very difficult, something that I shall utterly detest doing. But never mind my soul worries now. Tell me something about you, Faulkner. What do you do when you don’t chase over the country apprehending defaulting clerks? You told me you were going to school, I think?”
So Joe talked then and, prompted by questions, told more about himself than he ever remembered confessing to anyone. But Mr. Graham had away of making one talk that Joe couldn’t resist. In the midst of his narrative the conductor bore down on them again and Mr. Graham, despite Joe’s protest, paid for the latter’s seat in the Pullman to Detroit. And, later, although it scarcely seemed a half-hour since they had parted from the overwhelmed Mr. Chester Young in the smoking car, they rolled into Detroit and it was after midnight!
“When I come to this town,” said Mr. Graham as they waited in the vestibule for the train to stop, “I always put up at a small hotel on Grand River Avenue. It isn’t sumptuous, but it’s neat and quiet and they allow me to sleep late. Now, I propose that we walk leisurely up there, in order to stretch our legs, and that you become my guest for the night. In the morning we’ll have some breakfast together and then I’ll see you on your way back.”
“But I don’t think,” stammered Joe. “I mean I oughtn’t to let you do so much for me, Mr. Graham! I’ve got enough money to pay——”
“The money you have, Faulkner, belongs, as I understand it, to the firm of Faulkner and—well, whatever the other chap’s name is. And if you dissipate it in riotous living you’ll be a defaulteryourself. No, I think—Look, isn’t that our friend Mr. Young there? It is. I wonder, now, what he’s going to do in this town without money. Excuse me a minute.”
Mr. Graham left Joe at the car steps and dived hurriedly through the crowd about the train. Joe followed his course easily enough, since he was a head taller than most persons there, and so was witness to the little scene enacted on the platform beyond the crowd. Mr. Graham overtook Young there and for a moment they talked. Then the former put his hand in his pocket, drew forth his purse and passed some money to the other. After that, a hand on Young’s shoulder, Mr. Graham talked a moment longer. When he returned to Joe he picked up his bag and led the way out to Fort Street.
“I’m wondering,” he said as they stepped out briskly in search of the hotel where one could sleep late in the morning, “how much a promise is worth, Faulkner.”
“How much did you pay for it, sir?” asked Joe.
Mr. Graham laughed softly. “So you spied on me, eh? Well, it didn’t cost me much, Faulkner, but at that I’m afraid I overpaid. Here we are. Four blocks up Second Street and we’re almostthere. I’m beginning to be a little bit sleepy. How about you?”
“I’m dead tired, sir.”
“Are you? Well, you can sleep as late as you like in the morning!”