"I wonder, little ball, whither will you fly?
I wonder, little ball, have I bid you good-by?
Will it be 'mid the prairies in the regions to the west?
Will it be in the marshes where the pollywogs nest?
Oh, tell me, little ball, is it ta-ta or good-by?"
"Oh, tell me, little ball, is it ta-ta or good-by?"
"Oh, tell me, little ball, is it ta-ta or good-by?"
He pronounced the last word with a settled conviction, and drove another long, straight drive. Pickings, thrilled at the possibility of another miracle, sliced badly.
"This is one of the most truly delightful holes of a picturesque course," said Booverman, taking out an approaching cleek for his second shot. "Nothing is more artistic than the tiny little patch of putting-green under the shaggy branches of the willows. The receptive graveyard to the right gives a certain pathos to it, a splendid, quiet note in contrast to the feeling of the swift, hungry river to the left, which will now receive and carry from my outstretched hand this little white floater that will float away from me. No matter; I say again the fourth green is a thing of ravishing beauty."
This second shot, low and long, rolled up in the same unvarying line.
"On the green," said Pickings.
"Short," said Booverman, who found, to his satisfaction, that he was right by a yard.
"Take your time," said Pickings, biting his nails.
"Rats! I'll play it for a five," said Booverman.
His approach ran up on the line, caught the rim of the cup, hesitated, and passed on a couple of feet.
"A four, anyway," said Pickings, with relief.
"I should have had a three," said Booverman, doggedly. "Any one else would have had a three, straight on the cup. You'd have had a three, Picky; you know you would."
Pickings did not answer. He was slowly going to pieces, forgetting the invincible stoicism that is the pride of the true golfer.
"I say, take your time, old chap," he said, his voice no longer under control. "Go slow! go slow!"
"Picky, for the first four years I played this course," said Booverman, angrily, "I never got better than a six on this simple three-hundred-and-fifty-yard hole. I lost my ball five times out of seven. There is something irresistibly alluring to me in the mosquito patches to my right. I think it is the fond hope that when I lose this nice new ball I may step inadvertently on one of its hundred brothers, which I may then bring home and give decent burial."
Pickings, who felt a mad and ungolfish desire to entreat him to caution, walked away to fight down his emotion.
"Well?" he said, after the click of the club had sounded.
"Well," said Booverman, without joy, "that ball is lying about two hundred and forty yards straight up the course, and by this time it has come quietly to a little cozy home in a nice, deep hoof track, just as I found it yesterday afternoon. Then I will have the exquisite pleasure of taking my niblick, and whanging it out for the loss of a stroke. That'll infuriate me, and I'll slice or pull. The best thing to do, I suppose, would be to play for a conservative six."
When, after four butchered shots, Pickings had advanced to where Booverman had driven, the ball lay in clear position just beyond the bumps and rills that ordinarily welcome a long shot. Booverman played a perfect mashy, which dropped clear on the green, and ran down a moderate put for a three.
They then crossed the road and arrived by a planked walk at a dirt mound in the midst of a swamp. Before them the cozy marsh lay stagnant ahead and then sloped to the right in the figure of a boomerang, making for those who fancied a slice a delightful little carry of one hundred and fifty yards. To the left was a procession of trees, while beyond, on the course, for those who drove a long ball, a giant willow had fallen the year before in order to add a new perplexity and foster the enthusiasm for luxury that was beginning among the caddies.
"I have a feeling," said Booverman, as though puzzled but not duped by what had happened—"I have a strange feeling that I'm not going to get into trouble here. That would be too obvious. It's at the seventh or eighth holes that something is lurking around for me. Well, I won't waste time."
He slapped down his ball, took a full swing, and carried the far-off bank with a low, shooting drive that continued bounding on.
"That ought to roll forever," said Pickings, red with excitement.
"The course is fast—dry as a rock," said Booverman, deprecatingly.
Pickings put three balls precisely into the bubbling water, and drew alongside on his eighth shot. Booverman's drive had skimmed over the dried plain for a fair two hundred and seventy-five yards. His second shot, a full brassy, rolled directly on the green.
"If he makes a four here," said Pickings to himself, "he'll be playing five under four—no, by thunder! seven under four!" Suddenly he stopped, overwhelmed. "Why, he's actually around threes—two under three now. Heavens! if he ever suspects it, he'll go into a thousand pieces."
As a result, he missed his own ball completely, and then topped it for a bare fifty yards.
"I've never seen you play so badly," said Booverman in a grumbling tone. "You'll end up by throwing me off."
When they arrived at the green, Booverman's ball lay about thirty feet from the flag.
"It's a four, a sure four," said Pickings under his breath.
Suddenly Booverman burst into an exclamation.
"Picky, come here. Look—look at that!"
The tone was furious. Pickings approached.
"Do you see that?" said Booverman, pointing to a freshly laid circle of sod ten inches from his ball. "That, my boy, was where the cup was yesterday. If they hadn't moved the flag two hours ago, I'd have had a three. Now, what do you think of that for rotten luck?"
"Lay it dead," said Pickings, anxiously, shaking his head sympathetically. "The green's a bit fast."
The put ran slowly up to the hole, and stopped four inches short.
"By heavens! why didn't I put over it!" said Booverman, brandishing his putter. "A thirty-foot put that stops an inch short—did you ever see anything like it? By everything that's just and fair I should have had a three. You'd have had it, Picky. Lord! if I only could put!"
"One under three," said Pickings to his fluttering inner self. "He can't realize it. If I can only keep his mind off the score!"
The seventh tee is reached by a carefully planned, fatiguing flight of steps to the top of a bluff, where three churches at the back beckon so many recording angels to swell the purgatory lists. As you advance to the abrupt edge, everything is spread before you; nothing is concealed. In the first plane, the entangling branches of a score of apple-trees are ready to trap a topped ball and bury it under impossible piles of dry leaves. Beyond, the wired tennis-courts give forth a musical, tinny note when attacked. In the middle distance a glorious sycamore draws you to the left, and a file of elms beckon the sliced way to a marsh, wilderness of grass and an overgrown gully whence no balls return. In front, one hundred and twenty yards away, is a formidable bunker, running up to which is a tract of long grass, which two or three times a year is barbered by a charitable enterprise. The seventh hole itself lies two hundred and sixty yards away in a hollow guarded by a sunken ditch, a sure three or—a sure six.
Booverman was still too indignant at the trick fate had played him on the last green to yield to any other emotion. He forgot that a dozen good scores had ended abruptly in the swale to the right. He was only irritated. He plumped down his ball, dug his toes in the ground, and sent off another long, satisfactory drive, which added more fuel to his anger.
"Any one else would have had a three on the six," he muttered as he left the tee. "It's too ridiculous."
He had a short approach and an easy put, plucked his ball from the cup, and said in an injured tone:
"Picky, I feel bad about that sixth hole, and the fourth, too. I've lost a stroke on each of them. I'm playing two strokes more than I ought to be. Hang it all! that sixth wasn't right! You told me the green was fast."
"I'm sorry," said Pickings, feeling his fingers grow cold and clammy on the grip.
The eighth hole has many easy opportunities. It is five hundred and twenty yards long, and things may happen at every stroke. You may begin in front of the tee by burying your ball in the waving grass, which is always permitted a sort of poetical license. There are the traps to the seventh hole to be crossed, and to the right the paralleling river can be reached by a short stab or a long, curling slice, which the prevailing wind obligingly assists to a splashing descent.
"And now we have come to the eighth hole," said Booverman, raising his hat in profound salutation. "Whenever I arrive here with a good score I take from eight to eighteen, I lose one to three balls. On the contrary, when I have an average of six, I always get a five and often a four. How this hole has changed my entire life!" He raised his ball and addressed it tenderly: "And now, little ball, we must part, you and I. It seems a shame; you're the nicest little ball I ever have known. You've stuck to me an awful long while. It's a shame."
He teed up, and drove his best drive, and followed it with a brassy that laid him twenty yards off the green, where a good approach brought the desired four.
"Even threes," said Pickings to himself, as though he had seen a ghost. Now he was only a golfer of one generation; there was nothing in his inheritance to steady him in such a crisis. He began slowly to disintegrate morally, to revert to type. He contained himself until Booverman had driven free of the river, which flanks the entire green passage to the ninth hole, and then barely controlling the impulse to catch Booverman by the knees and implore him to discretion, he burst out:
"I say, dear boy, do you know what your score is?"
"Something well under four," said Booverman, scratching his head.
"Under four, nothing; even threes!"
"What?"
"Even threes."
They stopped, and tabulated the holes.
"So it is," said Booverman, amazed. "What an infernal pity!"
"Pity?"
"Yes, pity. If only some one else could play it out!"
He studied the hundred and fifty yards that were needed to reach the green that was set in the crescent of surrounding trees, changed his brassy for his cleek, and his cleek for his midiron.
"I wish you hadn't told me," he said nervously.
Pickings on the instant comprehended his blunder. For the first time Booverman's shot went wide of the mark, straight into the trees that bordered the river to the left.
"I'm sorry," said Pickings with a feeble groan.
"My dear Picky, it had to come," said Booverman, with a shrug of his shoulders. "The ball is now lost, and all the score goes into the air, the most miraculous score any one ever heard of is nothing but a crushed egg!"
"It may have bounded back on the course," said Pickings, desperately.
"No, no, Picky; not that. In all the sixty thousand times I have hit trees, barns, car-tracks, caddies, fences,—"
"There it is!" cried Pickings, with a shout of joy.
Fair on the course, at the edge of the green itself, lay the ball, which soon was sunk for a four. Pickings felt a strange, unaccountable desire to leap upon Booverman like a fluffy, enthusiastic dog; but he fought it back with the new sense of responsibility that came to him. So he said artfully: "By George! old man, if you hadn't missed on the fourth or the sixth, you'd have done even threes!"
"You know what I ought to do now—I ought to stop," said Booverman, in profound despair—"quit golf and never lift another club. It's a crime to go on; it's a crime to spoil such a record. Twenty-eight for nine holes, only forty-two needed for the next nine to break the record, and I have done it in thirty-three—and in fifty-three! I ought not to try; it's wrong."
He teed his ball for the two-hundred-yard flight to the easy tenth, and took his cleek.
"I know just what'll happen now; I know it well."
But this time there was no varying in the flight; the drive went true to the green, straight on the flag, where a good but not difficult put brought a two.
"Even threes again," said Pickings, but to himself. "It can't go on. It must turn."
"Now, Pickings, this is going to stop," said Booverman angrily. "I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I'm going right up to the tee, and I'm going to drive my ball right smack into the woods and end it. And I don't care."
"What!"
"No, I don't care. Here goes."
Again his drive continued true, the mashy pitch for the second was accurate, and his put, after circling the rim of the cup, went down for a three.
The twelfth hole is another dip into the long grass that might serve as an elephant's bed, and then across the Housatonic River, a carry of one hundred and twenty yards to the green at the foot of an intruding tree.
"Oh, I suppose I'll make another three here, too," said Booverman, moodily. "That'll only make it worse."
He drove with his midiron high in the air and full on the flag.
"I'll play my put carefully for three," he said, nodding his head. Instead, it ran straight and down for two.
He walked silently to the dreaded thirteenth tee, which, with the returning fourteenth, forms the malignant Scylla and Charybdis of the course. There is nothing to describe the thirteenth hole. It is not really a golf-hole; it is a long, narrow breathing spot, squeezed by the railroad tracks on one side and by the river on the other. Resolute and fearless golfers often cut them out entirely, nor are ashamed to acknowledge their terror. As you stand at the thirteenth tee, everything is blurred to the eye. Near by are rushes and water, woods to the left and right; the river and the railroad; and the dry land a hundred yards away looks tiny and distant, like a rock amid floods.
A long drive that varies a degree is doomed to go out of bounds or to take the penalty of the river.
"Don't risk it. Take an iron—play it carefully," said Pickings in a voice that sounded to his own ears unrecognizable.
Booverman followed his advice and landed by the fence to the left, almost off the fair. A midiron for his second put him in position for another four, and again brought his score to even threes.
When the daring golfer has passed quaking up the narrow way and still survives, he immediately falls a victim to the fourteenth, which is a bend hole, with all the agonies of the preceding thirteenth, augmented by a second shot over a long, mushy pond. If you play a careful iron to keep from the railroad, now on the right, or to dodge the river on your left, you are forced to approach the edge of the swamp with a cautious fifty-yard-running-up stroke before facing the terrors of the carry. A drive with a wooden club is almost sure to carry into the swamp, and only a careful cleek shot is safe.
"I wish I were playing this for the first time," said Booverman, blackly. "I wish I could forget—rid myself of memories. I have seen class A amateurs take twelve, and professionals eight. This is the end of all things, Picky, the saddest spot on earth. I won't waste time. Here goes."
To Pickings's horror, the drive began slowly to slice out of bounds, toward the railroad tracks.
"I knew it," said Booverman, calmly, "and the next will go there, too; then I'll put one in the river, two the swamp, slice into—"
All at once he stopped, thunderstruck. The ball, hitting tire or rail, bounded high in the air, forward, back upon the course, lying in perfect position; Pickings said something in a purely reverent spirit.
"Twice in sixty thousand times," said Booverman, unrelenting. "That only evens up the sixth hole. Twice in sixty thousand times!"
From where the ball lay an easy brassy brought it near enough to the green to negotiate another four. Pickings, trembling like a toy dog in zero weather, reached the green in ten strokes, and took three more puts.
The fifteenth, a short pitch over the river, eighty yards to a slanting green entirely surrounded by more long grass, which gave it the appearance of a chin spot on a full face of whiskers, was Booverman's favorite hole. While Pickings held his eyes to the ground and tried to breathe in regular breaths, Booverman placed his ball, drove with the requisite back spin, and landed dead to the hole. Another two resulted.
"Even threes—fifteen holes in even threes," said Pickings to himself, his head beginning to throb. He wanted to sit down and take his temples in his hands, but for the sake of history he struggled on.
"Damn it!" said Booverman all at once.
"What's the matter?" said Pickings, observing his face black with fury.
"Do you realize, Pickings, what it means to me to have lost those two strokes on the fourth and sixth greens, and through no fault of mine, neither? Even threes for the whole course—that's what I could do if I had those two strokes—the greatest thing that's ever been seen on a golf-course. It may be a hundred years before any human being on the face of this earth will get such a chance. And to think I might have done it with a little luck!"
Pickings felt his heart begin to pump, but he was able to say with some degree of calm:
"You may get a three here."
"Never. Four, three and four is what I'll end."
"Well, good heavens! what do you want?"
"There's no joy in it, though," said Booverman, gloomily. "If I had those two strokes back, I'd go down in history, I'd be immortal. And you, too, Picky, you'd be immortal, because you went around with me. The fourth hole was bad enough, but the sixth was heartbreaking."
His drive cleared another swamp and rolled well down the farther plateau. A long cleek laid his ball off the green, a good approach stopped a little short of the hole, and the put went down.
"Well, that ends it," said Booverman, gloomily.
"I've got to make a two and a three to do it. The two is quite possible; the three absurd."
The seventeenth hole returns to the swamp that enlivens the sixth. It is a full cleek, with about six mental hazards distributed in Indian ambush, and in five of them a ball may lie until the day of judgment before rising again.
Pickings turned his back, unable to endure the agony of watching. The click of the club was sharp and true. He turned to see the ball in full flight arrive unerringly hole high on the green.
"A chance for a two," he said under his breath. He sent two balls into the lost land to the left and one into the rough to the right.
"Never mind me," he said, slashing away in reckless fashion.
Booverman with a little care studied the ten-foot route to the hole and putted down.
"Even threes!" said Pickings, leaning against a tree.
"Blast that sixth hole!" said Booverman, exploding. "Think of what it might be, Picky—what it ought to be!"
Pickings retired hurriedly before the shaking approach of Booverman's frantic club. Incapable of speech, he waved him feebly to drive. He began incredulously to count up again, as though doubting his senses.
"One under three, even threes, one over, even, one under—"
"Here! What the deuce are you doing?" said Booverman, angrily. "Trying to throw me off?"
"I didn't say anything," said Pickings.
"You didn't—muttering to yourself."
"I must make him angry to keep his mind off the score," said Pickings, feebly to himself. He added aloud, "Stop kicking about your old sixth hole! You've had the darndest luck I ever saw, and yet you grumble."
Booverman swore under his breath, hastily approached his ball, drove perfectly, and turned in a rage.
"Luck?" he cried furiously. "Pickings, I've a mind to wring your neck. Every shot I've played has been dead on the pin, now, hasn't it?"
"How about the ninth hole—hitting a tree?"
"Whose fault was that? You had no right to tell me my score, and, besides, I only got an ordinary four there, anyway."
"How about the railroad track?"
"One shot out of bounds. Yes, I'll admit that. That evens up for the fourth."
"How about your first hole in two?"
"Perfectly played; no fluke about it at all—once in sixty thousand times. Well, any more sneers? Anything else to criticize?"
"Let it go at that."
Booverman, in this heckled mood, turned irritably to his ball, played a long midiron, just cleared the crescent bank of the last swale, and ran up on the green.
Wild-eyed and hilarious, they descended on the clubhouse with the miraculous news
Wild-eyed and hilarious, they descended on the clubhouse with the miraculous news
"Damn that sixth hole!" said Booverman, flinging down his club and glaring at Pickings. "One stroke back, and I could have done it."
Pickings tried to address, but the moment he swung his club, his legs began to tremble. He shook his head, took a long breath, and picked up his ball.
They approached the green on a drunken run in the wild hope that a short put was possible. Unfortunately the ball lay thirty feet away, and the path to the hole was bumpy and riddled with worm-casts. Still, there was a chance, desperate as it was.
Pickings let his bag slip to the ground and sat down, covering his eyes while Booverman with his putter tried to brush away the ridges.
"Stand up!"
Pickings rose convulsively.
"For heaven's sake, Picky, stand up! Try to be a man!" said Booverman, hoarsely. "Do you think I've any nerve when I see you with chills and fever? Brace up!"
"All right."
Booverman sighted the hole, and then took his stance; but the cleek in his hand shook like an aspen. He straightened up and walked away.
"Picky," he said, mopping his face, "I can't do it. I can't put it."
"You must."
"I've got buck fever. I'll never be able to put it—never."
At the last, no longer calmed by an invincible pessimism, Booverman had gone to pieces. He stood shaking from head to foot.
"Look at that," he said, extending a fluttering hand. "I can't do it; I can never do it."
"Old fellow, you must," said Pickings; "you've got to. Bring yourself together. Here!" He slapped him on the back, pinched his arms, and chafed his fingers. Then he led him back to the ball, braced him into position, and put the putter in his hands.
"Buck fever," said Booverman in a whisper. "Can't see a thing."
Pickings, holding the flag in the cup, said savagely:
"Shoot!"
The ball advanced in a zigzag path, running from worm-cast to a worm-cast, wobbling and rocking, and at the last, as though preordained, fell plump into the cup!
At the same moment, Pickings and Booverman, as though carried off by the same cannon-ball, flattened on the green.
Five minutes later, wild-eyed and hilarious, they descended on the clubhouse with the miraculous news. For an hour the assembled golfers roared with laughter as the two stormed, expostulated, and swore to the truth of the tale.
A committee carefully examined the books of the club
A committee carefully examined the books of the club
They journeyed from house to house in a vain attempt to find some convert to their claim. For a day they passed as consummate comedians, and the more they yielded to their rage, the more consummate was their art declared. Then a change took place. From laughing the educated town of Stockbridge turned to resentment, then to irritation, and finally to suspicion. Booverman and Pickings began to lose caste, to be regarded as unbalanced, if not positively dangerous. Unknown to them, a committee carefully examined the books of the club. At the next election another treasurer and another secretary were elected.
Since then, month in and month out, day after day, in patient hope, the two discredited members of the educated community of Stockbridge may be seen,accompanied by caddies, toiling around the links in a desperate belief that the miracle that would restore them to standing may be repeated. Each time as they arrive nervously at the first tee and prepare to swing, something between a chuckle and a grin runs through the assemblage, while the left eyes contract waggishly, and a murmuring may be heard,
"Even threes."
The Stockbridge golf-links is a course of ravishing beauty and the Housatonic River, as has been said, goes wriggling around it as though convulsed with merriment.
Inspector Frawley, of the Canadian Secret Service, stood at attention, waiting until the scratch of a pen should cease throughout the dim, spacious office and the Honorable Secretary of Justice should acquaint him with his desires.
He held himself deferentially, body compact, eyes clear and steady, face blank and controlled, without distinction, without significance, a man mediocre as a crowd. His hands were joined loosely behind his back; his glance, without deviating, remained persistently on the profile of the Honorable Secretary, as though in that historic room the human note alone could compel his curiosity.
The thin squeak of the pen faded into the silences of the great room. The Secretary of Justice ran his fingers over his forehead, looked up, and met the Inspector's gaze—fixed, profound, and mathematical. With a sudden unease he pushed back his chair, troubled by the analysis of his banal man, who, in another turn of Fate, might pursue him as dispassionately as he now stood before him for his commands. With a few rapid strides he crossed the room, lit a cigar, blew into the swirl of smoke this caprice of his imagination, and returned stolidly, as became a man of facts and figures.
Flinging himself loosely in an easy chair, he threw a rapid glance at his watch, locked his fingers, and began with the nervous directness of one who wishes to be rid of formalities:
"Well, Inspector, you returned this morning?"
"An hour ago, sir."
"A creditable bit of work, Inspector Frawley—the department is pleased."
"Thank you indeed, sir."
"Does the case need you any more?"
"I should say not, sir—no, sir."
"You are ready to report for duty?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"How soon?"
"I think I'm ready now, sir—yes, sir."
"Glad to hear it, Inspector, very glad. You're the one man I wanted." As though the civilities had been sufficiently observed, the Secretary stiffened in his chair and continued rapidly: "It's that Toronto affair; you've read the details. The government lost $350,000. We caught four of the gang, but the ringleader got away with the money. Have you studied it? What did you make of it? Sit down."
Frawley took a chair stiffly, hanging his hat between his knees and considering.
"It did look like work from the States," he said thoughtfully. "I beg pardon, did you say they'd caught some of the gang?"
"Four—this morning. The telegram's just in."
The Honorable Secretary, a little strange yet to the routine of the office, looked at Frawley with a sudden desire to test his memory.
"Do you know the work?" he asked; "could you recognize the ringleader?"
"That might not be so hard, sir," said Frawley, with a nod; "we know pretty well, of course, who's able to handle such jobs as that. Would you have a description anywhere?"
The Honorable Secretary rose, took from his desk a paper, and began to read. In his seat Inspector Frawley crossed his legs carefully, drew his fists up under his chin, and stared at the reader, but without focusing his glance on him. Once during the recital he started at some item of description, but immediately relaxed. The report finished, the Secretary let it drop into his lap and waited, impressed, despite himself, at the thought of the immense galleries of crime through which the Inspector was seeking his victim. All at once into the unseeing stare there flickered a light of understanding. Frawley returned to the room, saw the Secretary, and nodded.
"It's Bucky," he said tentatively. A moment his glance went reflectively to a far corner, then he nodded slowly, looked at the Secretary, and said with conviction: "It looks very much, sir, like Bucky Greenfield."
"It is Greenfield," replied the Secretary, without attempting to conceal his astonishment.
"I would like to observe," said Frawley thoughtfully, without noticing his surprise, "that there is a bit of an error in that description, sir. It's the left ear that's broken. Furthermore, he don't toe out—excepting when he does it on a purpose. So it's Bucky Greenfield I'm to bring back, sir?"
The Secretary nodded, penciling Frawley's correction on the paper.
"Bucky—well, now, that is odd!" said Frawley musingly. He rose and took a step to the desk. "Very odd." Mechanically he saw the straggling papers on the top and arranged them into orderly piles. "Well, he can't say I didn't warn him!"
"What!" broke in the Secretary in quick astonishment, "you know the fellow?"
"Indeed, yes, sir," said Frawley, with a nod. "We know most of the crooks in the States. We're good friends, too—so long as they stay over the line. It's useful, you know. So I'm to go after Bucky?"
The Secretary, judging the moment had arrived to be impressive, said solemnly:
"Inspector Frawley, if you have to stick to it until he dies of old age, you're never to let up until you get Bucky Greenfield! While the British Empire holds together, no man shall rob Her Majesty of a farthing and sleep in security. You understand the situation?"
"I do, sir."
The Honorable Secretary, only half satisfied, continued:
"Your credit is unlimited—there'll be no question of that. If you need to buy up a whole South American government—buy it! By the way, he will make for South America, will he not?"
"Probably—yes, sir. Chile or the Argentine—there's no extradition treaty there."
"But even then," broke in the Secretary with a nervous frown—"there are ways—other ways?"
"Oh, yes." Frawley, picking up a paper-cutter, stood by the mantel tapping his palm. "Oh, yes—there are other ways! So it's Bucky—well, I warned him!"
"Now, Inspector, to settle the matter," interrupted the Secretary, anxious to return to his routine, "when can you go on the case?"
"If the papers are ready, sir—"
"They are—everything. The Home Office has been cabled. To-morrow every British official throughout the world will be notified to render you assistance and honor your drafts."
Inspector Frawley heard with approval and consulted his watch.
"There's an express for New York leaves at noon," he said reflectively—then, with a glance at the clock, "thirty-five minutes; I can make that, sir."
"Good, very good."
"If I might suggest, sir—if the Inspector who has had the case in hand could go a short distance with me?"
"Inspector Keech shall join you at the station."
"Thank you, sir. Is there anything further?"
The Secretary shook his head, and springing up, held out his hand enthusiastically.
"Good luck to you, Inspector—you have a big thing ahead of you, a very big thing."
"Thank you, sir."
"By the way—you're not married?"
"No, sir."
"This is pretty short notice. How long have you been on this other case?"
"A trifle over six months, sir."
"Don't you want a couple of days to rest up? I can let you have that very easily."
"It really makes no difference—I think I'll leave to-day, sir."
"Oh, a moment more, Inspector—"
Frawley halted.
"How long do you think this ought to take you?"
Frawley considered, and answered carefully:
"It'll be long, I think. You see, there are several circumstances that are unusual about this case."
"How so?"
"Well, Buck is clever—there's no gainsaying that—quite at the top of the profession. Then, he's expecting me."
"You?"
"They're a queer lot," Frawley explained with a touch of pride. "Crooks are full of little vanities. You see, Bucky knows I've never dropped a trail, and I think it's rather gotten on his nerves. I think he wasn't satisfied until he dared me. He's very odd—very odd indeed. It's a little personal. I doubt, sir, if I bring him back alive."
"Inspector Frawley," said the new Secretary, "I hope I have sufficiently impressed upon you the importance of your mission."
Frawley stared at his chief in surprise.
"I'm to stick to him until I get him," he said in wonder; "that's all, isn't it, sir?"
The Secretary, annoyed by his lack of imagination, essayed a final phrase.
"Inspector, this is my last word," he said with a frown; "remember that you represent Her Majesty's government—you are Her Majesty's government! I have confidence in you."
"Thank you, sir."
Frawley moved slowly to the door and with his hand on the knob hesitated. The Secretary saw in the movement a reluctance to take the decisive step that must open before him the wide stretches of the world.
"After all, he must have a speck of imagination," he thought, reassured.
"I beg pardon, sir."
Frawley had turned in embarrassment.
"Well, Inspector, what can I do for you?"
"If you please, sir," said Frawley, "I was just thinking—after all, it has been a bit of a while since I've been home—indeed, I should like it very much if I could take a good English mutton-chop and a musty ale at old Nell's, sir. I can still get the two o'clock express."
"Granted!"
"If you'd prefer not, sir," said Frawley, surprised at the vexation in his answer.
"Not at all—take the two o'clock—good day, good day!"
Inspector Frawley, sorely puzzled, shifted his balance, opened his mouth, then with a bob of his head answered hastily:
"A—good day, sir!"
Sam Greenfield, known as "Bucky," age about 42, height about 5 feet 10 inches, weight between 145 and 150. Hair mouse-colored, thinning out over forehead, parted in middle, showing scalp beneath; mustache would be lighter than hair—if not dyed; usually clipped to about an inch. Waxy complexion, light blue eyes a little close together, thin nose, a prominent dimple on left cheek—may wear whiskers. Laughs in low key. Left ear lobe broken. Slightly bowlegged. While in conversation strokes chin. When standing at a counter or bar goes through motions, as if jerking himself together, crowding his elbows slowly to his side for a moment, then, throwing back his head, jumps up from his heels. When dreaming, attempts to bite mustache with lower lip. When he sits in a chair places himself sidewise and hangs both arms over back. In walking strikes back part of heel first, and is apt to waver from time to time. Dresses neatly, carries hands in side-pockets only—plays piano constantly, composing as he goes along. During day smokes twenty to thirty cigarettes, cutting them in half for cigarette-holder and throwing them away after three or four whiffs. After dinner invariably smokes one cigar. Cut is good likeness. Cut of signature is facsimile of his original writing.
With this overwhelming indictment against the liberty of the fugitive, to escape which Greenfield would have to change his temperament as well as his physical aspect, Inspector Frawley took the first steamer from New York to the Isthmus of Panama.
He had slight doubt of Greenfield's final destination, for the flight of the criminal is a blind instinct for the south as though a frantic return to barbarism. At this time Chile and the Argentine had not yet accepted the principle of extradition, and remained the Mecca of the lawbreakers of the world.
Yet though Frawley felt certain of Greenfield's objective, he did not at once strike for the Argentine. The Honorable Secretary of Justice had eliminated the necessity for considering time. Frawley had no need to guess, nor to risk. He had simply to become a wheel in the machinery of the law, to grind slowly, tirelessly, and inexorably. This idea suited admirably his temperament and his desires.
He arrived at Colon, took train for Panama across the laborious path where a thousand little men were scratching endlessly, and on the brink of the Pacific began his search. No one had heard of Greenfield.
At the end of a week's waiting he boarded a steamer and crawled down the western coast of South America, investigating every port, braving the yellow fever at Guayaquil, Ecuador, and facing a riot at Callao, Peru, before he found at Lima the trail of the fugitive. Greenfield had passed the day there and left for Chile. Dragging each intermediate port with the same caution, Frawley followed the trail to Valparaiso. Greenfield had stayed a week and again departed.
Frawley at once took steamer for the Argentine, passed down the tongue of South America, through the Straits of Magellan, and arrived at length in the harbor of Buenos Ayres.
An hour later, as he took his place at the table in the Criterion Gardens, a hand fell on his shoulder and some one at his back said:
"Well, Bub!"
He turned. A thin man of medium height, with blue eyes and yellow complexion, was laughing in expectation of his discomfiture. Frawley laid down the menu carefully, raised his head, and answered quietly:
"Why, how d'ye do, Bucky?"
"We shake, of course," said Greenfield, holding out his hand.
"Why not? Sit down."
The fugitive slid into a chair and hung his arms over the back, asking immediately:
"What took you so long? You're after me, of course?"
"Am I?" Frawley answered, looking at him steadily. Greenfield, with a twitch of his shoulders, returned to his question:
"What took you so long? Didn't you guess I'd come direct?"
"I'm not guessing," said Frawley.
"What do you say to dining on me?" said Greenfield with a malicious smile. "I owe you that. I clipped your vacation pretty short. Besides—guess you know it yourself—you can't touch me here. Why not talk things over frankly? Say, Bub, shall it be on me?"
"I'm willing."
A waiter sidled up and took the order that Greenfield gave without hesitation.
"You see, even the dinner was ready for you," he said with a wink; "see how you like it." With a gesture of impatience he pushed aside the menu, squared his arms on the table, and looked suddenly at his pursuer with the deviltry of a schoolboy glistening in his eyes. "Well, Bub, I went into your all-fired Canady!"
"So you did—why?"
"Well," said Greenfield, drawing lines with his knife-point on the nap, "one reason was I wanted to see if Her Majesty's shop has such an all-fired long arm—"
"And the other reason was I warned you to keep over the line."
"Why, Bub, youarea bright boy!"
"It ain't me, Bucky," Frawley answered, with a shake of his head; "it's the all-fired government that's after you."
"Good—first rate—then we'll have a little excitement!"
"You'll have plenty of that, Bucky!"
"Maybe, Bub, maybe. Well, I made a neat job of it, didn't I?"
"You did," admitted Frawley with an appreciative nod. "But you were wrong—you were wrong—you should have kept off. The Canadian Government ain't like your bloomin' democracy. It don't forgive—it don't forget. Tack that up, Bucky. It's a principle we've got at stake with you!"
"Don't I know it?" cried Greenfield, striking the table. "What else do you think I did it for?"
Frawley gazed at him, then said slowly: "I told them it was a personal matter."
"Sure it was! Do you think I could keep out after you served notice on me? D—— your English pride and your English justice! I'm a good enough Yank to see if your dinky police is such an all-fired cute little bunch of wonder-workers as you say! Bub—you think you're going to get Mr. Greenfield—don't you?"
"I'm not thinking, Bucky—"
"Eh?"
"I'm simply sticking to you."
"Sticking to me!" cried Greenfield with a roar of disgust. "Why, you unimaginative, lumbering, beef-eating Canuck, you can't get me that way! Why in tarnation didn't you strike plump for here—instead of rubbin' yourself down the whole coast of South Ameriky?"
"Bucky, you don't understand the situation properly," objected Frawley, without varying the level tone of his voice. "Supposing it had been a bloomin' corporation had sent me—? that's what I'd have done. But it's the government this time—Her Majesty's government! Time ain't no consideration. I'd have raked down the whole continent if I'd had to—though I knew where you were."
"Well, and now what? You can't touch me, Bub," he added earnestly. "I like straight talk, man to man. Now, what's your game?"
"Business."
"All right then," said Greenfield, with a frown, "but you can't touch me—now. There's an extradition treaty coming, but then there'd have to be a retroactive clause to do you any good." He paused, studying the expression on the Inspector's face. "There's enough of the likes of me here to see that don't occur. Say, Bub?"
"Well?"
"You deal a square pack, don't you?"
"That's my reputation, Bucky."
"Give me your word you'll play me square."
Inspector Frawley, leaning forward, helped himself busily. Greenfield, with pursed lips, studied every movement.
"No kidnapping tricks?"
Without lifting his eyes Frawley sharpened his knife vigorously against his fork and fell to eating.
"Well, Bub?"
"What?"
"No fancy kidnapping?"
"I'm promising nothing, Bucky."
There was a blank moment while Greenfield considered. Suddenly he shot out his hand, saying with a nod: "You're a white man, Bub, and I never heard a word against that." He filled a glass and shoved it toward Frawley. "We might as well clink on it. For I rather opinionate before we get through this little business—there'll be something worth talking about."
"Here's to you then, Bucky," said Frawley, nodding.
"Remember what I tell you," said Greenfield, looking over his glass, "there's going to be something to live for."
"I say, Bucky," said Frawley with a lazy interest, "would they serve you five-o'clock tea here, I wonder?"
Greenfield, drawing back, laughed a superior laugh.
"Bub, I'm sorry for you—'pon my word I am."
"How so, Bucky?"
"Why, you plodding little English lamb, you don't have the slightest suspicion what you're gettin' into!"
"What am I getting into, Bucky?"
Greenfield threw back his head with a chuckle.
"If you get me, it'll be the last job you ever pull off."
"Maybe, maybe."
"Since things are aboveboard—listen here," said Greenfield with sudden seriousness. "Bub, you'll not get me alive. Nothing personal, you understand, but it'll have to be your life or mine. If it comes to the pinch, look out for yourself—"
"Oh, yes," said Frawley, with a matter-of-fact nod, "I understand."
"I ain't tried to bribe you," said Greenfield, rising. "Thank me for that—though another man might have been sent up for life."
"Thanks," Frawley said with a drawl. "And you'll notice I haven't advised you to come back and face the music. Seems to me we understand each other."
"Here's my address," said Greenfield, handing him a card; "may save you some trouble. I'm here every night." He held out his hand. "Turn up and meet the profesh. They're a clever lot here. They'd appreciate meeting you, too."
"Perhaps I will."
"Ta-ta, then."
Greenfield took a few steps, halted, and lounged back with a smile full of mischief.
"By the way, Bub—how long has Her Majesty's dinkies given you?"
"It's a life appointment, Bucky."
"Really—bless me—then your bloomin' government has some sense after all."
The two men saluted gravely, with a parting exchange.
"Now, Bub—keep fit."
"Same to you, Bucky."