Part 7

Suddenly McAllister saw the daintily gloved hands slip a penknife from among the leaves of the magazine and quickly sever the check from the handle of the trunk. The Anglican altered his position and waited until the baggage-man was once more engaged at the other end of the counter. Again this amiable representative of the cloth shuffled backward until the handle was within easy reach, and with a dexterity which must have been born of long practice deftly tied the two ends of string around it. With a quick motion he stepped away in the direction of the counter, and out from the leaves of _The Churchman_ fell and dangled a new check stamped "Waistcoat's Express, No. 1467."

"My good fellow," impatiently drawled the clergyman, approaching the baggage-man, "I really can't wait, don'cher know. I've looked everywhere, and my box isn't here. I don't know whether to blame that beastly luggage-man, or whether it's the fault of this disgustin' American railroad. It's evident someone's at fault, and as I assume that you are in charge I shall report you immediately."

The elderly baggage-man regarded the robust champion of religion before him with scorn.

"Well, son, you can report all you like. I've worked in this baggage-room eighteen years, and you're not the first English crank who thought he owned the hull Central Railroad," and he turned on his heel, while the clergyman, with an expression of horror, ambled quickly out of the side door.

McAllister had watched this remarkable proceeding with enthusiastic interest, his round face shining with the excitement of a child.

"Jiminy, but this is great!" he exclaimed, slapping Barney upon the back. "And to think of your doin' it for a livin'! Why I'd sit here all day for nothin'! What happens next? And what becomes of the feller that's just gone out?"

"Oh, you ain't seen half the show yet!" responded Conville, pleased. "It is pretty good fun at times. But, o' course, this is a star performance, and we're sure of our man. Oh, it beats the theayter, all right, all right! Truth's stranger than fiction every time, you bet. Now take this Oyster--why he's a regular cracker-jack! Got sense enough to be an alderman, or president, or anythin', but he keeps right at his own little job of liftin' trunks, an' he ain't never been caught yet. His pal'll be along now any minute."

"How's that?" inquired Chubby with eagerness.

"Why, don'cher see? Jerry's cut off the reg'lar tag, and now the other feller'll present a duplicate of the one Jerry's just hitched on. Great game, 'Foxy Quiller,' eh?"

McAllister admitted delightedly that it was a great game. By George, it beat playin' the horses! At the same time he shivered as he realized how nearly the famous jewels had actually been lost. Wilkins must be an awful bad egg to go and tie up to a gang of that sort!

The baggage-man, serenely unconscious of all that had been taking place behind his back, and apparently not soured by his little set-to with the Englishman, was genially assisting the great American public to find its effects, and beaming on all about him. People streamed in and out, engines coughed and wheezed; from outside came the roar and rattle of the city.

Presently there bounced in a stout person in a yellow and black suit, with white waistcoat and green tie, who mopped his red face with a large silk handkerchief. Rushing up to a porter who seemed to be unoccupied, he threw down a pasteboard check, together with a shining half-dollar, and shouted, "Here, my good feller, that trunk, will you? Quick! The big one with the red letters on it--'B. C. L.' They sent it here from the Astoria instead of to the steamboat dock, and my ship sails at twelve. Now, get a move on!"

The porter grabbed the check and the half-dollar, and falling upon the big Vuitton, rolled it end over end out into the street, followed by its perspiring claimant.

"That's right, that's right," shouted the bounder. "Chuck it on behind. Mus'n't miss the boat!" and throwing the porter another half-dollar, the sportive traveller jumped into the hack, yelling, "Now drive like the devil!" The door closed with a bang, and the vehicle quickly disappeared among the tracks and wagons of Forty-second Street.

McAllister for the first time felt distinctly uneasy.

"Look here," he whispered feverishly, "is it right to let him walk off like that? Hurry! Open the trunk, or he'll get away!"

"Sit still, and don't get excited!" commanded Barney. "It's all right," he added condescendingly, remembering that McAllister was unfamiliar with such mysteries. "We've got him covered. He couldn't get away to save his neck. An' as for follerin' him, why he'll carry that trunk half over New York before he lands it where it's goin'!"

"All right!" sighed the clubman; "you're the doctor. But it seems to me you're takin' a lot of risk. Your brother officer might lose track of him, or he might drop the trunk somehow, and _then_ where would the jewels be?"

"Right exactly where they are _now_," replied Barney with a grin. "In the office safe at the Waldorf. They ain't never left the hotel. There wasn't any need of it, and if I hadn't taken 'em out I'd 've had to watch 'em here all night. Now everythin's all right.

"And say," he added, chuckling at the joke of it, "I forgot to tell you. Who do you suppose is workin' with Jerry? Fatty Welch! 'Wilkins,' you'd call him. He's turned up again an' hooked on, somehow, to the Gov'nor. Me and my side-partner's been trailin' 'em both ever since your uncle hit New York. I had the room opposite him at the Waldorf. Yesterday mornin' I saw Welch pack the jewelry. I was togged out as a bell-boy, and was cleanin' the winders. The Gov'nor's kind of figgity you know, and I thought we'd better not mention anythin' to _him_. Of course I didn't have any idea _you'd_ come waltzin' along this way."

McAllister solemnly held out his hand to the detective. He was as demonstrative as his narrow quarters rendered possible.

"Baron," said he, "you're a corker! I've learned a heap this morning."

"There's lots of things you never dream of, Horace," replied Barney politely.

"Do you remember, Baron, the last time we met asking me to help you nab Wilkins?" continued McAllister. "Well, I'm goin' to make good. I've got him safely locked in a closet at the hotel. He promised not to come back, and now I'm done with him. What do you say to that?"

"Good work!" ejaculated Barney. "Keep it up! In time you might make a pretty good detective."

From Barney such a concession was high praise, and showed intense appreciation. On their way back to the Waldorf he explained that the "Oyster" was one of a very few "guns" able effectively to make use of a disguise, this being in part due to the fact that he was the son of a clergyman, and educated for the stage.

They were met at the door of the apartment by Lady Lyndhurst.

"Basil has disappeared!" she gasped. "And that awful man in the closet has become so blasphemous that I can't remain with decency in the room."

McAllister partially pacified her by stating that the jewelry was entirely safe. He wondered what on earth had become of the Governor. Once inside the suite conversation became practically impossible, owing to the sounds of inarticulate rage which proceeded from the closet.

Barney decided to place the valet immediately under arrest and take him to Police Headquarters. The sooner they did so the more likely he would be to "squeal." He requested McAllister to arm himself with a walking-stick, and to stand ready to come to his assistance if, on opening the door, he should find himself unable to cope with the prisoner alone. Aunt Sophia was relegated to her bedroom, the door leading to the corridor was closed and locked, and the two prepared for the conflict. The detective, of course, had his pistol, which he cocked and held ready.

"Don't fire 'till you see the whites of his eyes!" murmured McAllister.

"Fire--nothin'!" muttered Barney, throwing open the closet door.

"Hands up, or I'll shoot!" yelled the detective, as a fat, wild-eyed individual sprung from within and burst upon their astonished gaze. The Governor-General stood before them.

Speechless with rage, he glowered from one to the other--then in response to their surprised inquiries broke into incoherent explanation. He had waited on guard some ten minutes after McAllister's departure, and Sophia had gone to her bedroom to finish dressing, when suddenly the expostulations of Morton had seemed to grow fainter. Finally they had died entirely away, and in their place had come terrible gasps and gurgles. He had remembered that there was no means of renewing the air supply in the closet, and had become alarmed. Presently all sounds had ceased. He was convinced that Morton was being suffocated. Opening the door, he had found the valet apparently lying there unconscious, and had dragged him forth, whereupon Morton had suddenly returned to life, and before he knew it had jammed him into the closet and locked the door.

"He was most impertinent, too, when he got on the outside, I can assure you," concluded Lord Lyndhurst indignantly. "Gave me a lot of gratuitous advice!"

McAllister and the detective endeavored to calm his troubled spirit, and soothe his ruffled dignity, informing him that the jewels had been in the hotel safe all the time. The Governor, however, refused to take any stock whatever in their explanation. Nothing of the sort could possibly have happened in England. It took them an hour to persuade him that they were not lying. The only things that appeared to convince him at all were the disappearance of Morton, a large bump on his own forehead, and the actual presence of the jewelry in the safe downstairs. Even then he sent to Tiffany's for a man to examine it.

Barney he regarded with unconcealed suspicion, subjecting him to an exhaustive cross-examination upon his antecedents and occupation. The Governor declared he was astounded at his impudence. The idea of opening his private luggage! He would address a communication to the authorities! It was little better than grand larceny. It _was_ grand larceny, by Jupiter! Hadn't Conville abstracted the jewels _vi et armis_? Of _course_ he had! Damme, he would see if the sacred rights of an English official should be trampled on! It was _trespass_ anyway--_Trespass ab initio_! Did Conville know that? It was grand larceny _and_ trespass. He would lock him up.

Barney grinned, and the Governor again became almost apoplectic.

He snorted scornfully at the detective's explanation about this Jerry "What-do-you-call-him--the Clam." Pooh! Did they expect him to believe _that_? Conville was a confounded, hair-brained busybody--He dwindled off, exhausted.

At that moment there came a sharp rap upon the door, and an officer in roundsman's uniform entered.

"Gentleman called at the precinct house and reported a jewelry theft in this suite. Said the thief had been caught and locked up in a closet, so I thought I'd drop over and see how things stood."

He looked inquiringly at McAllister, significantly at the Governor-General, and then caught sight of Barney.

"Hello, Conville!" he exclaimed. "You on the case? Well, then I'll drop out. Got your man, I see!" He glanced again at the dishevelled scion of nobility before him.

"Everythin's all right," answered the detective with a chuckle. "I guess they was fakin' you round at the house. By the way, I want you to meet a friend of mine--Roundsman McCarthy, let me present you to his Nibs--the Governor-General."

The Governor glared immobile, his stony eyes shifting from the now red and stammering roundsman to Conville's beaming countenance, and back again.

"Gentlemen," he remarked sternly, "do you prefer Scotch or rye? You will find cigars on the sideboard. The drinks, as you Yankees say, are upon _me_!"

"By the way," he added to McCarthy, as McAllister filled the glasses, "would you be so obliging as to describe the individual who so thoughtfully notified you in regard to the loss of the jewelry?"

"Rather stout, well-dressed man, fat face, gray eyes," answered McCarthy, lighting a cigar. "Looked somethin' like this gentleman here," indicating the clubman. "Spoke with a kind of English accent. Nice appearin' feller, all right."

"By George! Wilkins!" ejaculated McAllister.

"Damn!" exploded Uncle Basil.

"The nerve of him!" muttered Barney.

The Golden Touch

I

McAllister, with his friend Wainwright, was lounging before the fire in the big room, having a little private Story Teller's Night of their own. It was in the early autumn, and neither of the clubmen were really settled in town as yet, the former having run down from the Berkshires only for a few days, and the latter having just landed from the Cedric. The sight of Tomlinson, who appeared tentatively in the distance and then, receiving no encouragement, stalked slowly away, reminded Wainwright of something he had heard in Paris.

"I base my claim to your sympathetic credence, McAllister, upon the impregnable rock of universally accepted fact that Tomlinson is a highfalutin ass. I see that you agree. Very good, then; I proceed. In the first place, you must know that our anemic friend decided last spring that the state of his health required a trip to Paris. He therefore went--alone. The reason is obvious. Who should he fall in with at the Hotel Continental but a gentleman named Buncomb--Colonel C. T. P. Buncomb, a person with a bullet-hole in the middle of his forehead, who claimed to belong to a most exclusive Southern family in Savannah. Incidentally he'd been in command of a Georgia regiment in the Civil War and had been knocked in the head at Gettysburg--one of those big, flabby fellows with white hair. If all Tomlinson says about his capacity to chew Black Strap and absorb rum is accurate, I reckon the Colonel was right up to weight and could qualify as an F. F. V. He knew everybody and everything in Paris; passed up our friend right along the Faubourg Saint Germain; and introduced him to a lot of duchesses and countesses--that is, Tomlinson _says_ they were. Can't you see 'em, swaggerin' down the Champs-Élysées arm in arm? In addition, he took our mournful acquaintance to all the _cafés chantants_ and students' balls, and gave him sure things on the races. Oh, that Colonel must have been a regular doodle-bug!

"In due course Tomlinson gathered that his new friend was a mining expert taking a short vacation and just blowing in an extra half million or so. He believed it. You see, he had never met any of them at the Waldorf at home. He was also introduced to a young man in the same line of business, named Larry Summerdale, who seemed to have plenty of money, and was likewise _au fait_ with the aristocracy.

"Well, one night, after they had been to the Bal Boullier and had had a little supper at the Jockey Club, the Colonel became a trifle more confidential than usual, and let drop that their friend Summerdale had a brother employed as private secretary by a copper king who owned a wonderful mine out in Arizona called The Silver Bow. The stock in this concern had originally been sold at five dollars a share, but recently a rich vein had been struck and the stock had quadrupled in value. No one knew of this except the officers of the company, who, of course, were anxious to buy up all they could find. They had located most of it easily enough, but there were two or three lots that had thus far eluded them. Among these was the largest single block of stock in existence, owned by the son of the original discoverer of the prospect. He had two thousand shares, and was blissfully ignorant of the fact that they were worth forty thousand dollars. Just where this chap was no one seemed to know, but his name was Edwin H. Blake, and he was supposed to be in Paris. It appeared that the Colonel and Larry were watching out for Blake with the charitable idea of relieving him of his stock at five, and selling it for twenty in the States.

"Next day, if you'll believe it, the Colonel didn't remember a thing; became quite angry at Tomlinson's supposing he'd take advantage of any person in the way suggested; explained that he must have been drinking, and begged him to forget everything that might have been said. Of course, Tomlinson dropped the subject, but after that the Colonel and he rather drifted apart. Then quite by accident, two or three weeks later, our friend stumbled on Blake himself--met him right on the race-track, through a Frenchman named Depau.

"Now our innocent friend had been sort of lonely ever since he'd lost sight of Buncomb, and this Blake turned out to be an awfully good sort. Tomlinson naturally inquired if he'd ever met the Colonel or Larry Summerdale, but he never had, and finally they took an apartment together."

"He must have been pleased when Tomlinson told him about the value of his stock," remarked McAllister, lighting another cigar.

"I'm comin' to that," replied Wainwright. "It seems that Tomlinson so far forgot his early New England traditions as to covet that stock himself. Shockin', wasn't it?

"One day, when they were lunching at the Trois Freres, our friend hinted that he was interested in mining stock. Blake laughed, and replied that if Tomlinson owned as much as he did of the stuff he wouldn't want to see another share as long as he lived, and added that he was loaded up with a lot of worthless stock--two thousand shares--in an old prospect in Arizona that he had inherited from his father, and wasn't worth the paper the certificate was printed on. The leery Tomlinson admitted having heard of the mine, but gave it as his impression that it had possibilities.

"Then he had a sudden headache, and went out and cabled to The Silver Bow offices at the _World_ building here in New York to find out what the company would pay for the stock. In an hour or two he got an answer stating that they were prepared to give twenty dollars a share for not less than two thousand shares. Good, eh?

"Well, next day he led the conversation round again to mining stocks, and finally offered to buy Blake's holdings for five dollars a share. When the latter hesitated, Tomlinson was so afraid he'd lose the stock that he almost raised his bid to fifteen; but Blake only laughed, and said that he had no intention of robbing one of his friends, and that the old stuff really wasn't worth a cent. Tomlinson became quite indignant, suggested that perhaps he knew more about that particular mine than even Blake did, and finally overcame the latter's scruples and persuaded him to sell. Then Tomlinson disposed of some bonds by cable, and that evening gave Blake a draft for fifty thousand francs in exchange for his two thousand share certificate in The Silver Bow of Arizona. He told me it had a picture of a miner with a pick-ax and a mule standing against the rising sun on it. Sort of allegorical, don't you think?

"Blake continued to protest that our friend was being cheated, and offered to buy it back at any time; but Tomlinson's one idea was to get to New York as fast as possible. He had cabled that the stock was on the way, and that very night he slid out of Paris and caught the Norddeutscher Lloyd at Cherbourg. I inferred that he occupied the bridal chamber on the way back all by himself.

"The instant they landed he jumped in a cab and started for the _World_ building; but when he got there he couldn't find any Silver Bow Mining Company. It had evaporated. It had been there right enough--for ten days--the ten days Tomlinson calculated that it had taken Blake to sell him the stock. But no one knew where it had gone or what had become of it.

"Well, of course," kept on Wainwright, "he nearly went crazy; cabled the police in Paris and had 'em all arrested, including Colonel Buncomb; and took the next steamer back. He says they had the trial in a little police court in the Palais de Justice. Buncomb had hired Maître Labori to defend him. Everybody kept their hats on, and apparently they all shouted at once. The Judge was the only one that kept his mouth shut at all. Tomlinson told his story through an interpreter, and charged Buncomb, Summerdale, and Blake with conspiracy to defraud.

"When the Colonel realized what it was all about he jumped into the middle of the room, pushed his silk hat back of his ears, flapped his coat-tails, and sailed into 'em in good old Southern style. I tell you he must have made the eagle scream. He was a Colonel in the Confederate Army, he was--the Thirtieth Georgia. The whole thing was a miserable French scheme to blackmail him. He'd appeal to the American Ambassador. He'd see if a parcel of French soup-makers and a police judge could interfere with the Constitution of the United States. Every once in a while he'd yell '_Conspuez_' or '_À bas_' and sort of froth at the mouth. He made a great big impression. Then Maître Labori got in _his_ licks. He said Tomlinson was a wolf in sheep's clothing--a rascal--a 'vilain m'sieur,' whatever that is.

"Finally he inquired, with a very unpleasant smile, if Buncomb had ever asked him to buy any stock?

"Tomlinson had to say 'No.'

"Did Larry Summerdale?

"'No'

"Didn't Blake tell him the stock was worthless?

"'Yes.'

"How did he know the stock wasn't worth what he paid for it?

"'Well, he didn't absolutely.'

"The Labori said something with a long rattling 'r' in it like a snake, and turned with a gesture of extreme contempt to the Judge. He remarked that one glance of comparison between Colonel Buncomb and Tomlinson would show which was the gentleman and which was the rogue. Then the first thing our friend knew the court had adjourned--they had all been turned out--discharged--acquitted. But the thing that most disgusted Tomlinson was that as he was coming away he saw the whole push, the Colonel and Larry and Blake, all piling into a big Panhard autocar. They passed him going about eighty miles an hour. You see, Tomlinson had paid for that car, and he'd always wanted one to run himself. The last he heard of 'em they were tearing up the Riviera."

"And what did Tomlinson do then?" asked McAllister.

"There was nothing he could do in Paris, so he came home on a ten-day boat and went to visit his uncle up at Methuen, Mass. Gay place, Methuen! Saturday night you can ride down to Lawrence on the electric car for a nickel and hear the band play in front of the gas works. But the simple life has done him good."

II