Part 11

Most of this was as pure Greek to Judge Priest, who, I may say, knew no Greek, pure or otherwise. Suddenly aware of the bewilderment revealed in the countenance of his interviewer, Montreal Red checked up and took a new track.

“Say, bo, you ain't makin' me, are you? Well, then, maybe I'd better spiel it out slow. Know wot a peterman is?”

The judge shook his head.

“Well, you know wot a box is, don't you?”

“I'm skeered that I don't, though I believe I'm beginnin' to git a faint idea,” said Judge Priest.

As though deploring such ignorance Montreal Red shook his flame-coloured head.

“I'll frame it for you different--in sucker language,” he said.

And accordingly he did, most painstakingly.

“Now then,” he said at the end of five minutes of laborious translation, “do you get me?”

“I git you,” said Judge Priest. “And I'm mighty much obliged. Now, then, ef it ain't too much trouble, I'd like to git in touch with this here Mister Conklin, et cetery. Do you, by any chance, know his present whereabouts?”

Before replying to this the Montreal Red communed with himself for a brief space.

“Old-timer,” he said finally, “if I thought you was playin' in with the dicks I'd see you in Belgium before I tipped you off to anything. But this here mouthpiece of mine”--he indicated the note from young Mr. Fairleigh--“says you're on the level. I judge he wouldn't take my good fall-money and then cross me this way. I take it you ain't tryin' to slip one over on Shang? All right, then; I'll tell you where he is--he's in Atlanta, Georgia.”

“And whut is his address there?” pursued Judge Priest.

“The Federal prison--that's all,” said Montreal tied. He smiled softly. “If I don't beat this little case of mine I'm liable to meet him down there along toward spring, or maybe even sooner. The bulls nailed him at Chattanooga, Tennessee, about a month ago for a little national-bank job, and right quick he taken a plea and got off with a short bit in Uncle Sammy's big house. I was readin' about it in the papers. You wouldn't have no trouble findin' him at Atlanta--he'll be in to callers for the next five years.”

“Bein' an amateur Old Cap Collier certainly calls fur a lot of travellin' round,” murmured Judge Priest, half to himself, and he sighed a small sigh of resignation as he arose.

“Wot's that? I don't make you?” asked Montreal Red.

“Nothin',” said Judge Priest; “nothin' a-tall. I was jest thinkin' out loud; it's a sort of failin' of mine ez I git older. You said, didn't you, that these here sleepin' potions which you was mentionin' a minute ago are mostly administered in beer?”

“Mostly in beer,” said Montreal Red. “The little old knock-out seems to work best in the lather stuff. I don't know why, but it does.

“It's like this: You take the beer----”

“Oh, I wasn't figgerin' on usin' it myself,” explained Judge Priest hastily. “Much obliged to you all the same, young man.”

A night in a sleeping car brought Judge Priest to Atlanta. A ride in a trolley car brought him to the warden's office of a large reformatory institution beyond the suburbs of that progressive city. A ten-minute chat with the warden and the display of divers credentials brought him the privilege of an interview, in private, with a person who, having so many names to pick from, was yet at this time designated by a simple number. Even in convict garb, which is cut on chastely plain lines and which rarely fits perfectly the form of its wearer, this gentleman continued somehow to bespeak the accomplished metropolitan in his physical outlines and in his demeanour as well, maintaining himself, as you might say, jauntily.

In the first few moments of his meeting with Judge Priest there was about him a bearing of reserve--almost of outright suspicion. But half a dozen explanatory sentences from the judge served speedily to establish an atmosphere of mutual understanding. I believe I stated earlier in my tale that Judge Priest had a little knack for winning people's confidences. Perhaps I should also explain that at a suitable time in the introductory stages of the conversation he produced a line in the characteristic handwriting of Mr. Montreal Red. Being thereby still further enlightened as to the disinterestedness of the venerable stranger's motives, the Solitary Kid proved frankness itself. Preliminarily, though, he listened intently while Judge Priest recited in full a story that had mainly to do with the existing plight of Emanuel Moon.

“Now then, suh,” said Judge Priest at the conclusion of his narrative, “I've laid all the cyards that I hold on the table right in front of you. Ef I'm correct in my guess that you're the party of the second part in this here transaction. I don't need to go on, because you know a sight more about the rest of it than whut I do. The way I figger it, a decent, honest little man is in serious trouble, mainly on your account. Ef you're so minded I calculate that you kin help him without hurtin' yourself any. Now then, presumin' sech to be the case, is there anythin' you'd like to say to me--ez his friend?”

Conklin, alias Caruthers, alias Crowley, and so on, put a question of his own now:

“You say the president of that bank is the one that tried to fasten this job on Moon, eh? Well, then, before we go any further, suppose you tell me what that president looks like?”

Judge Priest sketched a quick word picture of Mr. Hiram Blair--accurate and fair, therefore not particularly complimentary.

“That's enough,” said the convict grimly; “that'll do. Why, the long-whiskered old dog! Now then, Judge--you said you were a judge, didn't you?--I'm going to spill a funny yam for you. Never mind what my reasons for coming through are. Maybe I want to get even with somebody that handed me a large disappointment. Maybe I don't want to see that little Moon suffer for something he didn't do. Figure it out for yourself afterward, but first listen to me.”

“I'm listenin', son,” said Judge Priest.

“Good!” said Conklin, lowering his voice cautiously, though he knew already they were alone in the warden's room.

“Up to a certain point you've got the thing figured out just as it came off. That day on the train going into Louisville I started to take the little man at cards. I was going to deal him the big mitt and then clean him for what he had; but when he told me he worked in a bank--a nice, fat little country bank--I switched the play, of course. I saw thousands of dollars where I'd seen lunch money before. Inside of an hour I knew everything there was to know about that bank--what he knew and what I could figure from what he told me. All I had to do was to turn the spigot once in a while and let him run on. And then, when he began to spill his cravings for a new clarinet, I almost laughed in his face. The whole thing looked like a pipe.

“The dope was working lovely when I hit that town of yours two weeks later. At the right minute I flashed the clarinet on him and made him forget to throw the combination of the vault. So far, so good. Then, when I got him where I wanted him--over in my room--I slipped the drops into his beer; not enough to hurt him but enough to start him pounding his ear right away. That was easy too--so easy I almost hated to do it.

“Then I waited until about two o'clock in the morning, him lying there all the time on my bed, dead to the world.. So I took his keys off him and dropped across the street without being seen by anybody--the main street of your town is nice and quiet after midnight--I'll say that much for it anyway--and walked into the bank the same as if I owned it--in fact, I did own it--and made myself at home. I opened up the vault and went through it, with a pocket flash to furnish light; and then after a little I locked her up again, good and tight, leaving everything just like I'd found it, and went back to the hotel and put the keys in the little man's pocket, and laid down alongside of him and took a nap myself. D'ye see my drift?”

“I reckin I don't altogether understand--yit,” said Judge Priest.

“You naturally wouldn't,” said Conklin with the air of a teacher instructing an attentive but very ignorant pupil. “Here's what happened: When I took a good look at the inside door of that vault and tried the tumblers of the outside door I knew I could open her any time I wanted to--in five minutes or less. Besides, I wouldn't need the keys any more, seeing as I could make impressions of 'em in wax, which I did as soon as I got back inside of my room at the hotel. So I was sure of having duplicates whenever I needed 'em.”

“I'm feared that I'm still in the dark,” said Judge Priest. “You see it's only here right recently that I took up your callin' in life--ez a study.”

“Well, figure it out for yourself,” said Conklin. “If I made my clean-up and my getaway that night it was a cinch that they'd connect up Moon with his strange friend from New York; even a hick bull would be wise enough to do that. And inside of twenty-four hours they'd be combing the country for a gun answering to my general plans and specifications. At the beginning I was willing to take that chance; but after I had a look at that combination I switched my play. Besides, there wasn't enough coin in the box that night to suit me. I always play for the big dough when I can, and I remembered what the little man told me about that lumber company--you know the one I mean: that big crosstie concern--depositing its pay roll every other Friday night. So why wouldn't I hold off?”

“I begin to see,” said Judge Priest. “You're makin' me see a number of things that've been pesterin' me fur three-four days now.”

“Wait till you get the final kick,” promised the convict. “That'll open your eyes some, I guess. Well, I skinned out next morning and I went elsewhere--never mind where, but it wasn't far away. Then on the night of the fifteenth--the third Friday in the month--I came back again, travelling incog., as they say on the other side of the duck pond; and about two o'clock in the morning I paid another call to your little old Commonwealth Bank and opened up the vault--outside door and inside door--in four minutes by my watch, without putting a mark on her. That's my specialty--nice, clean jobs, without damaging the box or making any litter for the janitor to sweep up in the morning. But I didn't clean her out that time either.”

“Ahem!” said Judge Priest doubtfully. “You didn't?”

“Oh, I didn't expect you to believe that right off,” stated Mr. Conklin, prolonging his climax. “The reason I didn't clean her out then was because she was already cleaned out; somebody had beat me to it and got away with everything worth having in that little old box. It was considerable of a disappointment to me--and a shock too.”

“It shorely must've been,” agreed the judge, almost sympathetically. “Mout I ask ef you've got any gineral notion who it was that--that deprived you of the fruits of your industry and your patience?”

“I don't have to have any general notion,” quoth Conklin et al., with bitterness creeping into his voice. “I know who it was--that is, I'm practically certain I know who it was. Because, while I was across the street in a doorway about half past one, waiting to make sure the neighbourhood was clear, I saw the gink I suspect come out of the bank and lock the door behind him, and go off up the street.

“I thought at the time it was funny--anybody being in that bank at that hour of the night; but mostly I was glad that I hadn't walked in on him while he was there. So I just laid low and let him get away with the entire proceeds--which was my mistake. I guess under the circumstances he'd have been glad enough to divide up with me. I might even have induced him to hand over the whole bunch to me--though, as a rule, when it can be avoided I don't believe in any strong-arm stuff. But, you see, I didn't know then what I found out about half an hour later. So I just stood still where I was, like a boob, and let him fade away out of my life. Yep, Judge, I'm reasonably sure I saw the party that copped the big roll that night. And I presume I'm the only person alive that did see him copping it.”

“Would you mind describin' him--ez nearly ez you kin?” asked Judge Priest; he seemed to have accepted the story as a truthful recital.

“I don't need to,” answered the Solitary Kid. “You did that yourself just a little bit ago. If you're going back home any time soon I suggest that you ask the old pappy-guy with the long white whiskers what he was doing coming out of his own bank at half past one o'clock on the morning of October the sixteenth, with a long overcoat on, and his hat pulled down over his eyes, and a heavy sackful of dough hid under his coat. I didn't exactly see the sack, but he had it, all right--I'll gamble on that. You needn't tell him where you got your information, but just ask him.”

“Son,” averred Judge Priest, “I shorely will do that very thing; in fact, I came mighty nigh practically doin' so several weeks ago when I didn't know nigh ez much ez I do now--thanks to you and much obliged.”

But Judge Priest was spared the trouble--for the time being, at least. What transpired later in a legal way in his courtroom has nothing whatever to do with this narration. It is true that he left Atlanta without loss of time, heading homeward as straight and as speedily as the steam cars could bear him.

Even so, he arrived too late to carry out his promise to the Solitary Kid. For that very day, while he was on his way back, in a city several hundred miles distant--in the city of Chicago, to be precise--the police saw fit to raid an establishment called vulgarly a bucket shop; and finding among the papers and books, which they coincidentally seized, entries tending to show that our Mr. Hiram Blair had, during the preceding months, gone short on wheat to a disastrous extent, the police inconsiderately betrayed those records of a prolonged and unfortunate speculation to one of the Chicago afternoon papers, which in turn wired its local correspondent down our way to call upon the gentleman and ask him pointblank how about it.

But the correspondent, who happened also to be the city staff of the _Daily Evening News_, a young man by the name of Rawlings, was unsuccessful in his attempts to see Mr. Blair, either at his place of business in the bank or at his residence. From what he was able to glean, the reporter divined that Mr. Blair had gone out of town suddenly. Putting two and two together the young man promptly reached the conclusion that Mr. Blair might possibly have had also some word from Chicago. Developments, rapidly ensuing, proved the youth correct in his hypothesis.

Two days later Mr. Blair was halted by a person in civilian garb, but wearing a badge of authority under his coat, as Mr. Blair was about to cross the boundary line near Buffalo into the adjacent Dominion of Canada. Mr. Blair insisted at first that it was not him. In truth it did not look like him. Somewhere en route he had lost his distinguished chin whiskers and his commanding manner, acquiring in lieu of these a name which did not in the least resemble Hiram Blair.

Nevertheless, being peremptorily, forcibly and over his protests detained--in fact, locked up--he was presently constrained to make a complete statement, amounting to a confession. Indeed, Mr. Blair went so far in his disclosures that the _Daily Evening News_, in an extra issued at high noon, carried across its front page, in box-car letters, a headline reading: Fugitive, in Durance Vile, Tells All!

Old Judge Priest was passing Mrs. Teenie Morrill's boarding house one night on his way home from Soule's drug store, where he had spent the evening in the congenial company of Mr. Soule, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby and Squire Roundtree. This was perhaps a week after his return from a flying trip to Atlanta, Georgia, the results of which, as the saying goes, still were locked within his breast.

As he came opposite Mrs. Morrill's front gate a blast of harmonious sound, floating out into the night, saluted his ears. He looked upward. Behind a front window on the top floor, with his upper lip overlapping the mouthpiece of a handsome clarinet and his fingers flitting upon the polished shaft of the instrument, sat little Emanuel Moon, now, by virtue of appointment, Deputy Circuit Clerk Emanuel Moon, playing The Last Rose of Summer with the fervour inspired of a happy heart, a rehabilitated reputation, a lucrative and honourable employment in the public service, and a newly acquired mastery of the melodic intricacies of the air in question--four things calculated, you will allow, to make anyone blithe of the spirit.

The old judge halted and smiled up at the window. Then, as he moved onward, he uttered the very word--a small coincidence, this--which I chose for the opening text of this chapter out of the life and the times of our town.

“Poor little ant!” said Judge Priest to himself; and then, as an afterthought: “But a dag-gone clever little feller!”

V. SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBY'S FEET

SERGEANT JIMMY BAGBY sat on the front porch of the First Presbyterian parsonage with an arched framing of green vines above his head. His broad form reposed in a yet broader porch chair--his bare feet, in a foot-tub of cold water.

The sergeant wore his reunion regalia, consisting, in the main, of an ancient fatigue jacket with an absurdly high collar and an even more absurdly short and peaked tail. About his generous middle was girthed a venerable leather belt that snaffled at the front with a broad buckle of age-darkened brass and supported an old cartridge box, which perched jauntily upon a fold of the wearer's plump hip like a birdbox on a crotch. Badges of resplendent new satin, striped in alternate bars of red and white, flowed down over his foreshortened bosom, partly obscuring the scraps of rotted and faded braid and the big round ball buttons of dulled brass, which adhered intermittently to the decayed front of his uniform coat. Against a veranda post leaned the sergeant's rusted rifle, the same he had carried to the war and through the war and home again after the war, and now reserved for occasions of high state, such as the present one.

The sergeant's trousers were turned high up on his shanks; his shoes reposed side by side alongside him on the floor, each with a white yarn sock crammed into and overflowing it. They were new shoes, but excessively dusty and seamed with young wrinkles; and they bore that look of total disrepute which anything new in leather always bears after its first wearing. With his elbows on his thighs and his hands clasped loosely between his knees, Sergeant Bagby bent forward, looking first up the wide street and then down it. Looking this way he saw four old men, three of them dressed in grey and one in black, straggle limpingly across the road; and one of them carried at a droopy angle a flag upon which were white-scrolled letters to tell the world that here was Lyon's Battery, or what might be left of it. Looking that way he saw a group of ten or fifteen grey heads riding through a cross street upon bay horses; and at a glance he knew them for a detachment of Forrest's men, who always came mounted to reunions. Once they rode like centaurs; now, with one or two exceptions, they rode like sacks or racks. It depended on whether, with age, the rider had grown stout or stayed thin.

Having looked both ways, the sergeant addressed himself to a sight nearer home. He considered his feet. Viewed through sundry magnifying and misleading inches of water they seemed pinky white; but when, groaning gently, he lifted one foot clear, it showed an angry chafed red upon toe and heel, with large blis-tery patches running across the instep. With a plop he lowered it back into the laving depths. Then, bending over sideways, he picked up one of his shoes, shaking the crumpled sock out of it and peering down its white-lined gullet to read the maker's tag:

“Fall River, Mass.,” the sergeant spelled out the stamped letters--“Reliance Shoe Company, Fall River, Mass.”

He dropped the shoe and in tones of reluctant admiration addressed empty space:

“Well, now, ain't them Yankees the persistent devils! Waitin' forty-odd years fur a chance to cripple me up! But they done it!” Judge Priest turned in at the front gate and came up the yard walk. He was in white linens, severely and comfortably civilian in cut, but with a commandant's badge upon his lapel and a short, bobby, black ostrich feather in the brim of his hat. He advanced slowly, with a slight outward skew to his short, round legs.

“Aha!” he said understandingly. “Whut did I tell you, Jimmy Bagby, about tryin' to parade in new shoes? But no, you wouldn't listen--you would be one of these here young dudes!”

“Judge,” pleaded the sergeant, “don't rub it in! I'm about ruint--I'm ruint for life with these here feet of mine.”

Still at a somewhat stiff and straddle-legged gait, the judge mounted the porch, and after a quick appraisal of all the chairs in sight eased his frame into one that had a cushioned seat. A small involuntary moan escaped him. It was the sergeant's time to gloat.

“I'm wearin' my blisters on my feet,” he exulted, “and you're wearin' yourn--elsewhere. That's whut you git at your age fur tryin' to ride a strange horse in a strange town.”

“Jimmy,” protested the judge, “age ain't got nothin' a'tall to do with it; but that certainly was a mighty hard-rackin' animal they conferred on me. I feel like I've been straddlin' a hip roof durin' an earthquake. How did you make out to git back here?”

“That last half mile or so I shore did think I was trampin' along on red-hot ploughshears. If there'd been one more mile to walk I reckin I'd 'a' been listed amongst the wounded and missin'. I jest did about manage to hobble in. And Mizz Grundy fetched me this here piggin of cold water out on the porch, so's I could favour my feet and watch the boys passin' at the same time.”

Judge Priest undertook to cross one leg over the other, but uncrossed it again with a wince of sudden concern on his pink face.

“How do you aim, then, to git to the big doin's this evenin'?” he asked, and shifted his position slightly where he sat.

“I ain't aimin' to git there,” said Sergeant Bagby. “I aim to stay right here and take my ease. Besides, ef I don't git these feet of mine shrunk down some by milkin' time, I'm shore goin' to have to pull my pants off over my head this night.”

“Well, now, ain't that too bad!” commiserated his friend and commander. “I wouldn't miss hearin' Gen'l Gracey's speech fur a purty.”

“Don't you worry about me,” the sergeant was prompt to tell him.. “You and Lew Lake and Hector Woodward and the other boys kin represent Gideon K. Irons Camp without me fur oncet anyway. And say, listen, Judge,” he added with malice aforethought, “you'd better borrow a goosehair cushion, or a feather tick, or somethin' soft, to set on out yonder. Them plain pine benches are liable to make a purty hard roostin' place, even fur an old seasoned cavalryman.”

Judge Priest's retort, if he had one in stock, remained unbroached, because just then their hostess bustled out to announce dinner was on the table. It was to be an early dinner and a hurried one, because, of course, everybody wanted to start early, to be sure of getting good seats for the speaking. The sergeant ate his right where he was, his feet in his tub, like a Foot-washing Baptist.