Deuces Wild/Chapter 14
XIV
OLD SHOES
“{{di|I'M telling you all these facts,” continued Haggerty, “so you won't waste any time getting down t' cases. Every move you've made for th' last six months is jotted down in a little book in my pocket. All I want,” he added, taking out a small India-ink pad and a square of white paper, “all I want is an impression of your thumbs. After that, why, we can talk. Do you object?”
“Not in the least,” said Crawford readily. “I'm very anxious to know what all this damned nonsense means.”
He angrily dabbed both thumbs upon the pad and printed them upon the square of paper. Through a glass Haggerty very carefully compared the impression with the treasured photograph. His brows bent All this work for nothing. Haggerty was bitterly disappointed. The thumb-prints were identical in none of the essential details. And yet the trail ended in this house....
“Mason!” exclaimed Crawford.
Haggerty dashed to the window, out of it and down the fire-escape. He had the Irishman's inborn courage and pride of strength. He never used powder when he could use his hands. Only the murderer, fleeing, knew the deadly accuracy of his aim. Then he was better dead than alive; out of reach of the bullyragging attorneys, doddering insanity experts, tender judges and purblind juries. Haggerty wanted Mr. Mason alive. It was a matter of pride, aside from the seven thousand dollars in rewards.
Crawford, Forbes and the girl pressed about the window; but all they saw was Haggerty, vanishing out of the alley-way. They waited, tense with excitement. Only Forbes knew what it was about, but it never occurred to him to explain.
Pistol-shots. It was only an official warning for policemen in the vicinity to be on the lookout for a running man, any one who looked suspicious.
The trio remained by the window for a full quarter of an hour, without exchanging a word, scarcely moving. Presently they saw Haggerty enter the alley-way. He climbed the fire-escape and stepped into the room. He wore a saturnine expression.
“Well, he slipped me; but that's nothing. He'll never get out of th' city. But I'm an ornament t' th' office. For six months I've been so interested in watching you that I never gave anybody else a thought.”
“What has he done?” cried Crawford. “Why, the man has been with me for ten years, constantly, faithful as a dog. Twice in Mesopotamia he saved my life. What the deuce will I do without him?”
“He's th' man who stole th' Armitage emeralds, th' Hollister pearls, an' th' Morris rubies.”
Crawford made a despairing gesture. It was so incomprehensible. “What proof have you?”
Haggerty dryly indicated the window. “He saw what was coming. He knew that if I wasn't satisfied with your thumb-prints, I might think of his.”
“Good God!” Crawford struck his forehead. “And I am the cause of it!”
“Huh?” said Haggerty startled.
Crawford pointed toward the safes.
Haggerty nodded appreciatively, ran his glance over the safes, and nodded again. “If a man could only see two ways at once!” he mourned, half humorously, half seriously.
“He was mad!”
“Mebbe. But listen here. At th' Armitage case there was a thumb-print on an idol; at th' Hollister's, on a piece o' jade; at th' Morris's, on a minachure. You gave a mummy t' th' museum. On th' head-piece I accidentally discovered th' same print. Th' guy that did all this fine work was fond o' queer things. Th' thumb-print on th' mummy-case wiped out everybody but you. An' when I learned th' way you yegged safes for th' fun o' th' thing, why, I thought all I had t' do was t' put th' darbies on you an' motor to klink. But th' rest of you didn't fit in, somehow. You had me guessing. Why, I found out that your banker has a pay-roll of three thousand a month that you give away t' th' poor. All this mystery about detectives is bosh. There ain't any mystery; it's only addition an' subtraction. Well, I couldn't add th' theft an' th' safe-blowing an' that pay-roll, an' get th' sum I needed. I held off th' thumb-print till now, an' there's where I fall down.”
“My fault! Why, I am almost as guilty as he is. He used to watch me most carefully whenever I opened a safe in sport.”
“Sure, he did. An' say, take it from me, Mr. Crawford, he had a good teacher. There ain't a yegg in th' country who can do it neater than you; only it's amateurish. I mean, you didn't use any of th' stuff used by th' professionals. Say! I've a mind t' run you in an' lock you up as it is. Some o' these smooth ones'll be kidnaping you an' making you do th' work.” Haggerty smiled, but his heart was heavy. Seven thousand gone to glory.
The girl reached secretly for Crawford's hand and pressed it. To her all this was only a prologue.
“Y' see, I figured it out this way. You'd done it on a wager as a joke, an' I was kinda waiting t' hear th' return of th' jewels. Say! can I light this cheroot?”
“Go ahead and smoke,” said Forbes, taking upon himself the privileges of host.
He had never heard of a detective like this one. The Lecocqs and Vidocqs and Corentins of his library were invariably men of marvelous education, chemists, biologists, linguists, diplomats and all that, pedantically quoting from Montaigne and Rochefoucauld and Voltaire and Rousseau. He would have wagered his next ten drawings against that fat black cigar that Haggerty had never heard of The Purloined Letter. On the other hand he was real, deeply and terribly versed in the ways of humanity, not a symbolical Javert. He was a great detective, for here he was, at the end of the chase, beaten by a peculiar phase and not by stupidity. The patience, the infinite painstaking, that had brought him like a true hunting-hound into this room!
Haggerty blew out thick clouds of smoke, then sucked it in gratefully.
“All my fault,” repeated Crawford. “I've made a criminal out of an honest man.”
“Don't you worry about that,” reassured Haggerty. “Let me tell you something. We're all criminals, only some of us go through without provocation 'r opportunity. Get me?”
The others nodded.
“Well, nobody puts his hand int' another man's jewel-box for th' sport of it—unless he's a rich man like you, Mr. Crawford, an' wants an exciting joke. Whata you know about Mason before you hired him?”
Crawford thought for a moment. “Nothing. If I recall it, he came to me without recommendations.”
“Uh-huh.” Haggerty turned round his cigar luxuriously. “How'd you know he wasn't off-color when you hired him?”
“Why, man, he's had a thousand chances to rob me, of big sums, too, over there. Joint letters-of-credit for thousands, and loose money besides.”
“An' in a minute the whole world'd know he did it,” observed Haggerty. “No; our man ain't that kind. Saw his chance when you fooled with th' safes. He had some patience, believe me.”
“But why, why? He had twelve hundred the year and all his expenses, and no family. Where's your motive?”
“Listen here. Men an' women commit murder an' robbery for two things, nothing else; for love an' stakes t' gamble with. Think it over. It all comes down t' that. There ain't anything else. Love an' a stack o' chips. I ain't one o' those philosophical guys, Mr, Crawford; I'm talking from experience. I know more about actual life in one minute than these book guys with ten Carnegie libraries stacked behind 'em. You might add jealousy; but that's only love turned wrong side out. Love an' chips it is.”
Gravely Crawford took out his poker winnings.
“What's that for?” asked Haggerty.
“Twenty-four hours,” begged Crawford; “for I feel like a criminal myself. Twenty-four hours.”
“The poor man!” said the girl, timidly touching Haggerty's arm.
“If I took that money it wouldn't be fair t' you, sir. Twenty-four hours'll do him no good. They're hunting for him all over town now,—every railroad, every boat, ferry, street-car, cab. From coast t' coast, north an' south too; to-morrow there won't be a town as small as your fist where they won't be looking for him. An' he's easy. No ordinary fiz. An' I have his thumb-print, th' best photo going. Th' newspapers guy us a lot, but we go right along just th' same. When a man really gets by us it's suicide or graft t' some guy higher up than yours truly. How do you know there ain't a woman back of it, or that he wasn't a secret gambler? An' now you'll have to put over your sailing an' give evidence.”
“I can do that very well,” replied Crawford, drawing the girl to him again.
“Never mind me,” said Haggerty. “I've been through all that. Th' only thing that gets my goat is th' splitting up of th' rewards six ways for Sunday, unless”—with sudden alertness—“unless th' loot is hidden in th' trunks somewhere, ready t' sell t' some nigger over there who ain't particular. Hey? Keen idea. No beaten track for his.”
“Let us go to work at once,” said Crawford. “Are you cold?”—to the girl.
“No. I'm never going to be cold any more. Kiss me. I don't care.”
Crawford looked at Haggerty, who suddenly found interest in his cigar; at Forbes, who calmly turned his back.
And as Haggerty's gaze trailed off the end of his cigar, he saw the merry winking shoe-buttons. The cigar went through the window.
He ripped off the heel neatly
“Say! do you wear ol' shoes when you go scouting round for mummies?”
“Yes.”
“Did you order Mason t' have them shoes done over?”
“No, but he always has them soled and heeled when I start on a journey.... Good lord! do you think...”
“I can soon find out!” cried Haggerty.
He seized upon a pair of shoes, haphazardly, and carried them to the desk. He was an old hand at this business, and he ripped off the heel neatly. From the hollow within a dozen beautiful pink pearls rolled and danced upon the desk. With cries Crawford and Forbes and the girl put out their hands to prevent the orients from scattering to the floor.
Haggerty, who was still wearing his hat, took it off and solemnly bowed toward the open window.
But they never found Mason. He was destined for more brilliant things than stone-breaking. I learned all these facts from Forbes the next day. You see, I'm Piffle.
THE END
“What's been going on here?”