Chapter 9

"Then count me in," says I. "I ain't never had any love for them sneak detectives, and here's where I gives 'em a whirl."

But say, they're a slippery bunch. They must have known just where we was headin', for by the time we lands on the sidewalk in front of the physical culture parlours, the man in the leadin' cab has jumped out and faded.

"He will be watching on the floor above," says Rossiter, "and the other one will stay below."

"That's the way they work it, eh?" says I. "Good! Come on in without lookin' around or lettin' 'em know you're on."

We goes up to the second floor and turns on the glim in the front office. Then I puts on a pair of gym. shoes, opens the door easy, and tiptoes down the stairs. He was just where I thought he'd be, coverin' up in the shade of the vestibule.

"Caught with the goods on!" says I, reachin' out and gettin' a good grip on his neck. "No you don't! No gun play in this!" and I gives his wrist a crack with my knuckles that puts his shootin' arm out of business.

"You're makin' a mistake," says he. "I'm a private detective."

"You're a third rate yegg," says I, "and you've been nipped tryin' to pinch a rubber door mat."

"Here's my badge," says he.

"Anybody can buy things like that at a hock shop," says I. "You come along up stairs till I see whether or no it's worth while ringin' up a cop."

He didn't want to visit, not a little bit, but I was behind, persuadin' him with my knee, and up he goes.

"Look at what the sneak thief business is comin' to," says I, standin' him under the bunch light where Rossiter could get a good look at him. He was a shifty eyed low brow that you wouldn't trust alone in a room with a hot quarter.

"My name is McGilty," says he.

"Even if it wa'n't, you could never prove an alibi with that face," says I.

"If this young gent'll 'phone to his father," he goes on, "he'll find that I'm all right."

"Don't you want us to call up Teddy at Oyster Bay? Or send for your old friend Bishop Potter? Ah, say, don't I look like I could buy fly paper without gettin' stuck? Sit down there and rest your face and hands."

With that I chucks him into a chair, grabs up a hunk of window cord that I has for the chest weights, and proceeds to do the bundle wrapping act on him. Course, he does a lot of talkin', tellin' of the things that'll happen to me if I don't let him go right off.

"I'll cheerfully pay all the expenses of a damage suit, or fines, Shorty," says Rossiter.

"Forget it!" says I. "There won't be anything of the sort. He's lettin' off a little hot air, that's all. Keep your eye on him while I goes after the other one."

I collared Number Two squattin' on the skylight stairs. For a minute or so he put up a nice little muss, but after I'd handed him a swift one on the jaw he forgot all about fightin' back.

"Attempted larceny of a tarred roof for yours," says I. "Come down till I give you the third degree."

He didn't have a word to say; just held onto his face and looked ugly. I tied him up same's I had the other and set 'em face to face, where they could see how pretty they looked. Then I led Rossiter down stairs.

"Now run along and enjoy yourself," says I. "That pair'll do no more sleut'in' for awhile. I'll keep 'em half an hour, anyway, before I throws 'em out in the street."

"I'm awfully obliged, Shorty," says he.

"Don't mention it," says I. "It's been a pleasure."'

That was no dream, either. Say, it did me most as much good as a trip to Coney, stringin' them trussed up keyhole gazers.

"Your names'll look nice in the paper," says I, "and when your cases come up at Special Sessions maybe your friends'll all have reserved seats. Sweet pair of pigeon toed junk collectors, you are!"

If they wa'n't sick of the trailin' business before I turned 'em loose, it wa'n't my fault. From the remarks they made as they went down the stairs I suspicioned they was some sore on me. But now and then I runs across folks that I'm kind of proud to have feel that way. Private detectives is in that class.

I was still on the grin, and thinkin' how real cute I'd been, when I hears heavy steps on the stairs, and in blows Rossiter's old man, short of breath and wall eyed.

"Where's he gone?" says he.

"Which one?" says I.

"Why, that fool boy of mine!" says the old man. "I've just had word that he was here less than an hour ago."

"You got a straight tip," says I.

"Well, where did he go from here?" says he.

"I'm a poor guesser," says I, "and he didn't leave any word; but if you was to ask my opinion, I'd say that most likely he was behavin' himself, wherever he was."

"Huh!" growls the old man. "That shows how little you know about him. He's off being married, probably to some yellow haired chorus girl; that's where he is!"

"What! Rossy?" says I.

Honest, I thought the old man must have gone batty; but when he tells me the whole yarn I begins to feel like I'd swallowed a foolish powder. Seems that Rossiter's mother had been noticin' symptoms in him for some time; but they hadn't nailed anything until that evenin', when the chump butler turns in a note that he shouldn't have let go of until next mornin'. It was from Rossiter, and says as how, by the time she reads that, he'll have gone and done it.

"But how do you figure out that he's picked a squab for his'n?" says I.

"Because they're the kind that would be most likely to trap a young chuckle head like Rossiter," says the old man. "It's what I've been afraid of for a long time. Who else would be likely to marry him? Come! you don't imagine I think he's an Apollo, just because he's my son, do you? And don't you suppose I've found out, in all these years, that he hasn't sense enough to pound sand? But I can't stay here. I've got to try and stop it, before it's too late. If you think you can be of any help, you can come along."

Well say, I didn't see how I'd fit into a hunt of that kind; and as for knowin' what to do, I hadn't a thought in my head just then; but seein' as how I'd butted in, it didn't seem no more'n right that I should stay with the game. So I tags along, and we climbs into the old man's electric cab.

"We'll go to Dr. Piecrust's first, and see if he's there," says he, "that being our church."

Well, he wa'n't. And they hadn't seen him at another minister's that the old man said Rossy knew.

"If she was an actorine," says I, "she'd be apt to steer him to the place where they has most of their splicin' done. Why not try there?"

"Good idea!" says he, and we lights out hot foot for the Little Church Around the Corner.

And say! Talk about your long shots! As we piles out what should I see but the carrotty topped night hawk that'd had Rossy and me for fares earlier in the evenin'.

"You're a winner," says I to the old man. "It's a case of waitin' at the church. Ten to one you'll find Rossiter inside."

It was a cinch. Rossy was the first one we saw as we got into the anteroom.

It wa'n't what you'd call a real affectionate meetin'. The old man steps up and eyes him for a minute, like a dyspeptic lookin' at a piece of overdone steak in a restaurant, and then he remarks: "What blasted nonsense is this, sir?"

"Why," says Rossy, shiftin' from one foot to the other, and grinnin' foolisher'n I ever saw him grin before--"why, I just thought I'd get married, that's all."

"That's all, eh?" says the old man, and you could have filed a saw with his voice. "Sort of a happy inspiration of the moment, was it?"

"Well," says Rossy, "not--not exactly that. I'd been thinking of it for some time, sir."

"The deuce you say!" says the old man.

"I--I didn't think you'd object," says Rossy.

"Wow!" says the old man. He'd been holdin' in a long spell, for him, but then he just boiled over. "See here, you young rascal!" says he. "What do you mean by talking that way to me? Didn't think I'd object! D'ye suppose I'm anxious to have all New York know that my son's been made a fool of? Think your mother and I are aching to have one of these bleached hair chorus girls in the family? Got her inside there, have you?"

"Yes, sir," says Rossy.

"Well, bring her out here!" says the old man. "I've got something to say to her."

"All right, sir," says Rossy. If there ever was a time for throwin' the hooks into a parent, it was then. But he's as good humoured and quiet about it as though he'd just been handed a piece of peach pie. "I'll bring her right out," says he.

When he comes in with the lady, the old man takes one look at her and almost loses his breath for good.

"Eunice May Ogden!" says he. "Why--why on earth didn't you say so before, Rossy?"

"Oh, hush!" says the lady. "Do be still! Can't you see that we're right in the middle of an elopement?"

Never saw Eunice May, did you? Well, that's what you miss by not travellin' around with the swells, same as me. I had seen her. And say, she's somethin' of a sight, too! She's a prize pumpkin, Eunice is. Maybe she's some less'n seven feet in her lisle threads, but she looks every inch of it; and when it comes to curves, she has Lillian Russell pared to a lamp post. She'd be a good enough looker if she wa'n't such a whale. As twins, she'd be a pair of beauts, but the way she stands, she's most too much of a good thing.

Pinckney says they call her the Ogden sinking fund among his crowd. I've heard 'em say that old man Ogden, who's a little, dried up runt of about five feet nothin', has never got over bein' surprised at the size Eunice has growed to. When she was about fourteen and weighed only a hundred and ninety odd, he and Mother Ogden figured a lot on marryin' Eunice into the House of Lords, like they did her sister, but they gave all that up when she topped the two hundred mark.

Standin' there with Rossiter, they loomed up like a dime museum couple; but they was lookin' happy, and gazin' at each other in that mushy way--you know how.

"Say," says Rossiter's old man, sizin' 'em up careful, "is it all true? Do you think as much of one another as all that?"

There wa'n't any need of their sayin' so; but Rossy speaks up prompt for the only time in his life. He told how they'd been spoons on each other for more'n a year, but hadn't dared let on because they was afraid of bein' kidded. It was the same way about gettin' married. Course, their bein' neighbours on the avenue, and all that, he must have known that the folks on either side wouldn't kick, but neither one of 'em had the nerve to stand for a big weddin', so they just made up their minds to slide off easy and have it all through before anyone had a chance to give 'em the jolly.

"But now that you've found it out," says Rossiter, "I suppose you'll want us to wait and----"

"Wait nothing!" says the old man, jammin' on his hat. "Don't you wait a minute on my account. Go ahead with your elopement. I'll clear out. I'll go up to the club and find Ogden, and when you have had the knot tied good and fast, you come home and receive a double barrelled blessing."

About that time the minister that they'd been waitin' for shows up, and before I knows it I've been rung in. Well, say, it was my first whack playin' back stop at a weddin', and perhaps I put up a punk performance; but inside of half an hour the job was done.

And of all the happy reunions I was ever lugged into, it was when Rossiter's folks and the Ogdens got together afterwards. They were so tickled to get them two freak left overs off their hands that they almost adopted me into both families, just for the little stunt I did in bilkin' them P. D.'s.

XII

TWO ROUNDS WITH SYLVIE

If it hadn't been for givin' Chester a show to make a gallery play, you wouldn't have caught me takin' a bite out of the quince, the way I did the other night. But say, when a young sport has spent the best part of a year learnin' swings and ducks and footwork, and when fancy boxin's about all the stunt he's got on his program, it's no more'n right he should give an exhibition, specially if that's what he aches to do. And Chester did have that kind of a longin'.

"Who are you plannin' to have in the audience, Chetty?" says I.

"Why," says he, "there'll be three or four of the fellows up, and maybe some of the crowd that mother's invited will drop in too."

"Miss Angelica likely to be in the bunch?" says I.

Chester pinks up at that and tries to make out he hadn't thought anything about Angelica's bein' there at all. But I'd heard a lot about this particular young lady, and when I sees the colour on Chester his plan was as clear as if the entries was posted on a board.

"All right, Chetty," says I; "have it any way you say. I'll be up early Saturday night."

So that's what I was doin' in the smoker on the five-nine, with my gym. suit and gaslight clothes in a kit bag up on the rack. Just as they shuts the gates and gives the word to pull out, in strolls the last man aboard and piles in alongside of me. I wouldn't have noticed him special if he hadn't squinted at the ticket I'd stuck in the seat back, and asked if I was goin' to get off at that station.

"I was thinkin' some of it when I paid my fare," says I.

"Ah!" says he, kind of gentle and blinkin' his eyes. "That is my station, too. Might I trouble you to remind me of the fact when we arrive?"

"Sure," says I; "I'll wake you up."

He gives me another blink, pulls a little readin' book out of his pocket, slumps down into the seat, and proceeds to act like he'd gone into a trance.

Say, I didn't need more'n one glimpse to size him up for a freak. The Angora haircut was tag enough--reg'lar Elbert Hubbard thatch he was wearin', all fluffy and wavy, and just clearin' his coat collar. That and the artist's necktie, not to mention the eye glasses with the tortoise shell rims, put him in the self advertisin' class without his sayin' a word.

Outside of the frills, he wa'n't a bad lookin' chap, and sizable enough for a 'longshoreman, only you could tell by the lily white hands and the long fingernails that him and toil never got within speakin' distance.

"Wonder what particular brand of mollycoddle he is?" thinks I.

Now there wa'n't any call for me to put him through the catechism, just because he was headed for the same town I was; but somehow I had an itch to take a rise out of him. So I leans over and gets a peek at the book.

"Readin' po'try, eh?" says I, swallowin' a grin.

"Beg pardon?" says he, kind of shakin' himself together. "Yes, this is poetry--Swinburne, you know," and he slumps down again as if he'd said all there was to say.

But when I starts out to be sociable you can't head me off that way. "Like it?" says I.

"Why, yes," says he, "very much, indeed. Don't you?"

He thought he had me corked there; but I comes right back at him. "Nix!" says I. "Swinny's stuff always hit me as bein' kind of punk."

"Really!" says he, liftin' his eyebrows. "Perhaps you have been unfortunate in your selections. Now take this, from the Anactoria----"

And say, I got what was comin' to me then. He tears off two or three yards of it, all about moonlight and stars and kissin' and lovin', and a lot of gush like that. Honest, it would give you an ache under your vest!

"There!" says he. "Isn't that beautiful imagery?"

"Maybe," says I. "Guess I never happened to light on that part before."

"But surely you are familiar with his Madonna Mia?" says he.

"That got past me too," says I.

"It's here," says he, speakin' up quick. "Wait. Ah, this is it!" and hanged if he don't give me another dose, with more love in it than you could get in a bushel of valentines, and about as much sense as if he'd been readin' the dictionary backwards. He does it well, though, just as if it all meant something; and me settin' there listenin' until I felt like I'd been doped.

"Say, I take it all back," says I when he lets up. "That Swinny chap maybe ain't quite up to Wallace Irwin; but he's got Ella Wheeler pushed through the ropes. I've got to see a friend in the baggage car, though, and if you'll let me climb out past I'll speak to the brakeman about puttin' you off where you belong."

"You're very kind," says he. "Regret you can't stay longer."

Was that a josh, or what? Anyway, I figures I'm gettin' off easy, for there was a lot more of that blamed book he might have pumped into me if I hadn't ducked.

"Never again!" says I to myself. "Next time I gets curious I'll keep my mouth shut."

I wa'n't takin' any chances of his holdin' me up on the station platform when we got off, either. I was the first man to swing from the steps, and I makes a bee line for the road leadin' out towards Chester's place, not stoppin' for a hack. Pretty soon who should come drivin' after me but Curlylocks. He still has his book open, though; so he gets by without spottin' me, and I draws a long breath.

By the time I'd hoofed over the two miles between the stations and where Chester lives I'd done a lot of breathin'. It was quite some of a place to get to, one of these new-model houses, that wears the plasterin' on the outside and has a roof made of fancy drain pipe. It's balanced right on the edge of the rocks, with the whole of Long Island sound for a back yard and more'n a dozen acres of private park between it and the road.

"Gee!" says I to Chester, "I should think this would be as lonesome as livin' in a lighthouse."

"Not with the mob that mother usually has around," says he.

If the attendance that night was a sample, I guess he was right; for the bunch that answers the dinner gong would have done credit to a summer hotel. Seems that Chester's old man had been a sour, unsociable old party in his day, keepin' the fam'ly shut up in a thirty-foot-front city house that was about as cheerful as a tomb, and havin' comp'ny to dinner reg'lar once a year.

But when he finally quit breathin', and the lawyers had pried the checkbook out of his grip, mother had sailed in to make up for lost time. It wasn't bridge and pink teas. She'd always had a hankerin' for minglin' with the high brows, and it was them she went gunnin' for,--anything from a college president down to lady novelists. Anybody that could paint a prize picture, or break into print in the thirty-five-cent magazines, or get his name up as havin' put the scoop net over a new germ, could win a week of first class board from her by just sendin' in his card.

But it was tough on Chester, havin' that kind of a gang around all the time, clutterin' up the front hall with their extension grips and droppin' polysyllables in the soup. Chetty's brow was a low cut. Maybe he had a full set of brains; but he hadn't ever had to work 'em overtime, and he didn't seem anxious to try. About all the heavy thinkin' he did was when he was orderin' lunch at the club. But he was a big, full blooded, good natured young feller, and with the exercise he got around to the Studio he kept in pretty good trim.

How he ever come to get stuck on a girl like Angelica, though, was more'n I could account for. She's one of these slim, big eyed, breathless, gushy sort of females; the kind that tends out on picture shows, and piano recitals, and Hindu lectures. Chester seems to have a bad case of it, though.

"Is she on hand to-night, Chetty?" says I.

He owns up that she was. "And say, Shorty," says he, "I want you to meet her. Come on, now. I've told her a lot about you."

"That bein' the case," says I, "here's where Angelica gets a treat," and we starts out to hunt for her, Chester's plan bein' to make me the excuse for the boxin' exhibit.

But Angelica didn't seem to be so easy to locate. First we strikes the music room, where a heavy weight gent lately come over from Warsaw is tearin' a thunder storm out of the southwest corner of the piano.

The room was full of folks; but nary sign of the girl with the eyes. Nor she wa'n't in the libr'y, where a four-eyed duck with a crop of rusty chin spinach was gassin' away about the sun spots, or something. Say, there was 'most any kind of brain stimulation you could name bein' handed out in diff'rent parts of that house; but Angelica wa'n't to any of 'em.

It was just by accident, as we was takin' a turn around one of the verandas facin' the water, that, we runs across a couple camped down in a corner seat under a big palm. The girl in pink radium silk was Angelica. And say, by moonlight she's a bunch' of honeysuckle! The other party was our old friend Curlylocks, and I has to grin at the easy way he has of pickin' out the best looker in sight and leadin' her off where she wouldn't have to listen to anybody but him. He has the po'try tap turned on full blast, and the girl is listenin' as pleased as if she had never heard anything better in her life.

"Confound him!" says Chester under his breath. "He's here again, is he?"

"Looks like this part of the house was gettin' crowded, Chetty," says I. "Let's back out."

"Hanged if I do!" says he, and proceeds to do the butt in act about as gentle as a truck horse boltin' through a show window. "Oh, you're here, Angelica!" he growls out. "I've been hunting all over the shop for you."

"S-s-sh!" says Angelica, holding up one finger and him off with the other hand.

"Yes, I see," says Chester; "but----"

"Oh, please run away and don't bother!" says she. "That's a good boy, now Chester."

"Oh, darn!" says Chester.

That was the best he could do too, for they don't even wait to see us start. Angelica gives us a fine view of her back hair, and Mr. Curlylocks begins where he left off, and spiels away. It was a good deal the same kind of rot he had shoved at me on the train,--all about hearts and lovin' and so on,--only here he throws in business with the eyelashes, and seems to have pulled out the soft vocal stops.

Chester stands by for a minute, tryin' to look holes through 'em, and then he lets me lead him off.

"Now what do you think of that?" says he, makin' a face like he'd tasted something that had been too long in the can.

"Why," says I, "it's touchin', if true. Who's the home destroyer with the vaseline voice and the fuzzy nut?"

"He calls himself Sylvan Vickers," says Chester. "He's a poet--a sappy, slushy, milk and water poet. Writes stuff about birds and flowers and love, and goes around spouting it to women."

"Why," says I, "he peeled off a few strips for me, comin' up on the cars, and I though it was hot stuff."

"Honest, Shorty," says Chester, swallowin' the string as fast as I could unwind the ball, "you--you don't like that kind of guff, do you?"

"Oh, well," says I, "I don't wake up in the night and cry for it, and maybe I can worry along for the next century or so without hearin' any more; but he's sure found some one that does like it, eh?"

There's no sayin' but what Chester held himself in well; for if ever a man was entitled to a grouch, it was him. But he says mighty little, just walks off scowlin' and settin' his teeth hard. I knew what was good for that; so I hints that he round up his chappies and go down into the gym. to work it off.

Chetty's enthusiasm for mitt jugglin' has all petered out, though, and it's some time before I can make him see it my way. Then we has to find his crowd, that was scattered around in the different rooms, lonesome and tired; so it's late in the evenin' before we got under way.

Chester and me have had a round or so, and he'd just wore out one of his friends and was tryin' to tease somebody else to put 'em on, when I spots a rubber neck in the back of the hall.

"O-o-h, see who's here, Chetty!" says I, whisperin' over his shoulder.

It was our poet friend, that has had to give up Angelica to her maw. He's been strayin' around loose, and has wandered in through the gym. doors by luck. Now, Chester may not have any mighty intellect, but there's times when he can think as quick as the next one. He takes one glance at Curlylocks, and stiffens like a bird dog pointin' a partridge.