Seven Keys to Baldpate/Chapter 8
MR. MAX TELLS A TALE OF SUSPICION
AN hour passed. Mr. Max admitted when pressed that a good cigar soothed the soul, and accepted another from Magee's stock. The professor continued to talk. Obviously it was his favorite diversion. He seemed to be quoting from addresses; Mr. Magee pictured him on a Chautauqua platform, the white water pitcher by his side.
As he talked, Mr. Magee studied that portion of his delicate scholarly face that the beard left exposed to the world. What part had Thaddeus Bolton, holder of the Crandall Chair of Comparative Literature, in this network of odd alarms? Why was he at Baldpate? And why was he so little moved by the rapid changes in the make-up of the inn colony—changes that left Mr. Magee gasping? He took them as calmly as he would take his grapefruit at the breakfast-table. Only that morning Mr. Magee, by way of experiment, had fastened upon him the suspicion of murder, and the old man had not flickered an eyelash. Not the least strange of all the strange figures that floated about Baldpate, Mr. Magee reflected, was this man who fiddled now with Chaucer while, metaphorically, Rome burned. He could not make it out.
Mr. Max inserted a loud yawn into the professor's discourse.
"Once I played chess with a German," he said, "and another time I went to a lecture on purifying politics, but I never struck anything so monotonous as this job I got now."
"So sorry," replied Magee, "that our company bores you."
"No offense," remarked the yellow-faced one. "I was just thinking as I set here how it all comes of people being suspicious of one another. Now I've always held that the world would be a better place if there wasn't no suspicion in it. Nine times out of ten the suspicion ain't got a leg to stand on—if suspicion can be said to have a leg."
Evidently Mr. Max desired the floor; graciously Professor Bolton conceded it to him.
"Speaking of suspicion," continued the drab little man on the threshold, turning his cigar thoughtfully between his thin lips, "reminds me of a case told me by Pueblo Sam, a few years ago. In some ways it's real funny, and in others it's sad as hell. Pueblo Sam was called in them terms because he'd never been west of Sixth Avenue. He was a swell refined gentleman who lived by his wits, and he had considerable."
"A confidence man," suggested Magee.
"Something along that order," admitted Mr. Max, "but a good sport among his friends, you understand. Well, this case of suspicion Sam tells me about happened something like this. One scorching hot day in summer Sam gets aboard the Coney boat, his idea being to put all business cares away for an hour or two, and just float calm and peaceful down the bay, and cool off. So he grabs out a camp chair and hustles through the crowd up to the top deck, beside the pilot's hangout, and sits down to get acquainted with the breeze, if such there was.
"Well, he'd been sitting there about ten minutes, Sam tells me, when along came about the easiest picking that ever got loose from the old homestead—"
"I beg your pardon," protested Professor Bolton.
"The ready money, the loosened kale, the posies in the garden waiting to be plucked," elucidated Mr. Max. "This guy, Sam says, was such a perfect rube he just naturally looked past him to see if there was a trail of wisps of hay on the floor. For a while Sam sits there with a grouch as he thought how hard it was to put business aside and get a little rest now and then, and debating whether, being on a vacation, as it was, he'd exert himself enough to stretch forth his hand and take whatever money the guy had. While he was arguing the matter with himself, the jay settled the question by coming over and sitting down near him.
"He's in the city, he tells Sam, to enjoy the moving pictures of the streets, and otherwise forget the trees back home that grow the cherries in the bottom of the cocktail glasses. 'And believe me,' he says to Sam, 'there ain't none of those confidence men going to get me. I'm too wise,' he says.
"'I'll bet money you are,' Sam tells him laughing all over at the fish that was fighting to get into the net.
"'Yes, siree,' says the last of the Mohicans, 'they can't fool me. I can tell them as fur away as I can see 'em, and my eyesight's perfect. One of 'em comes up to me in City Hall park and tries to sell me some mining stock. I guess he ain't recovered yet from what I said to him. I tell you, they can't fool Mark Dennen,' says the guy.
"Sam told me that at them words he just leaned back in his seat and stared at the jay and whistled under his breath. Years ago, it seemed, Sam had lived in the town of Readsboro, Vermont, and run up and down the streets with one suspender and a stone bruise, and the kid that had run with him was Mark Dennen. And Sam says he looked at this guy from the woods that was running round crying to high heaven he needed a guardian, and he sees that sure enough it was the tow-head Mark Dennen and—Sam told me—something seemed to bust inside him, and he wanted to stretch out his arms and hug this guy.
"'Mark Dennen,' shouts Sam, 'as I live. Of Readsboro, Vermont. The kid I used to play with under the arc lights—don't you remember me?'
"But Sam says the guy just looked him straight in the eye and shut his jaw, and says: 'I suppose you'll be asking after my brother George next?'
"'You ain't got any brother George, you idiot,' laughs Sam. He told me he was thinking how he'd treat his old friend Mark to a dinner that would go down in history in Readsboro. 'Mark, you old rascal,' he says, 'don't you remember me—don't you remember little Sam Burns that used to play andy-over with you, and that stole your girl in 1892? Don't you remember the old days in Readsboro?' He was all het up by this time, Sam tells me, and all the old memories came creeping back, and he kept thinking he never was so glad to run across anybody in his life. 'You remember little Sam Burns, don't you?' he asks once more.
"But this guy just looks back into Sam's eye with his own cold as steel, and he says, says he: 'You're pretty clever, mister, but you don't fool me. No, you don't come any games on Mark Dennen.'
"'But, Mark,' says Sam, 'I swear to you by all that's holy that I'm that kid—I'm Sam Burns. What proof do you want? Do you remember old Ed Haywood that used to keep the drug store right across from the post-office? The guy that never washed his windows? I do. And Miss Hunter that taught the sixth grade school when we went there—a little woman with washed-out gray eyes and a broken front tooth? And that pretty little girl, Sarah somebody—wait a minute, I'll get it or bust—Sarah—Sarah—Sarah Scott, you used to be so sweet on? Did you marry her, Mark? And old Lafe Perkins, who used to be on hand whenever there was any repairs being made anywhere—rheumatism and a cane and a high squeaky voice that he used to exercise giving orders about things that wasn't any of his business. Why, Mark, I remember 'em all. Good lord, man,' says Sam, 'do you want any more proof?'
"But this country blockhead just looked Sam up and down, and remarks judicious: 'It's certainly wonderful how you know all these things. Wonderful. But you can't fool me,' he says, 'you can't fool Mark Dennen.'"
Mr. Max paused in his narrative for a moment. The sound of voices came up from the office of Baldpate Inn. One, that of the mayor, boomed loudly and angrily. In an evident desire to drown it, Mr. Max went on with spirit:
"Well, gentlemen, it got to be a point of honor, as you might say, for Sam to convince that guy. He told me he never wanted anything so much in his life as for Mark Dennen to give in. It was a hot afternoon, and he'd come aboard that boat for a rest, but he peeled off his collar and started in. He gave Mark Dennen the number of bricks in the Methodist Church, as reported in the Readsboro Citizen at the time it was built. He told him the name of the piece Mark's sister recited at the school entertainment in the spring of 1890. He bounded on all four sides the lot where the circuses played when they came to Readsboro. He named every citizen of the town, living or dead, that ever got to be known outside his own family, and he brought children into the world and married them and read the funeral service over them, and still that bonehead from the woods sat there, his mouth open, and says: 'It's beyond me how you know all that. You New Yorkers are slicker then I give ye credit for. But you can't fool me. You ain't Sam Burns. Why, I went to school with him.'
"They was drawing near Coney now," went on Mr. Max, "and Sam's face was purple and he was dripping with perspiration, and rattling off Readsboro happenings at the rate of ten a second, but that Mark Dennen he sat there and wouldn't budge from his high horse. So they came up to the pier, Sam almost weeping real tears and pleading like his heart would break: 'Mark, don't you remember that time we threw little Bill Barnaby into the swimming hole, and he couldn't swim a stroke and nearly drowned on us?' and still getting the stony face from his old pal.
"And on the pier this Dennen held out his hand to Sam, who was a physical wreck and a broken man by this time, and says: 'You sure are cute, mister. I'll have great times telling this in Readsboro. Once you met one too smart for ye, eh? Much obliged for your company, anyhow!' And he went away and left Sam leaning against the railing, with no faith in human nature no more. 'I hope somebody got to him,' says Sam to me, 'and got to him good. He's the kind that if you work right you can sell stock in a company for starting roof gardens on the tops of the pyramids in Egypt. I'd trimmed him myself,' says Sam to me, 'but I hadn't the heart.'"
Mr. Max finished, and again from below came the sound of voices raised in anger.
"An interesting story, Mr. Max," commented Professor Bolton. "I shall treasure it."
"Told with a remarkable feeling for detail," added Mr. Magee. "In fact, it seems to me that only one of the two participants in it could remember all the fine points so well. Mr. Max, you don't exactly look like Mark Dennen to me, therefore—if you will pardon the liberty—"
"I get you," replied Max sadly. "The same old story. Suspicion—suspicion everywhere. It does a lot of harm, believe me. I wouldn't—"
He jumped from his chair and disappeared, for the voice of Cargan had hailed him from below. Mr. Magee and the professor with one accord followed. Hiding in the friendly shadows of the landing once again, they heard the loud tones of the mayor's booming voice, and the softer tones of Bland's.
"How about this?" bellowed the mayor. "Hayden's squealed. Phones to Bland—not to me. Whines about the courts—I don't know what rot. He's squealed. He didn't phone the combination."
"The rat!" screamed Mr. Max.
"By the Lord Harry," said the mayor, "I'll have it open, anyhow. I've earned what's in there, fair and—I've earned it. I'm going to have it, Max."
"See here, Cargan—" put in Mr. Bland.
"Keep out of the way, you," cried Cargan. "And put away that pop-gun before you get hurt. I'm going to have what's mine by justice. That safe comes open to-night. Max, get your satchel."
Mr. Magee and the professor turned and ascended to the second floor. In front of number seven they paused and looked into each other's eyes. Professor Bolton shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm going to bed," he said, "and I advise you to do the same."
"Yes," replied Mr. Magee, but had no idea what he had said. As for the old man's advice, he had no intention of taking it. Melodrama—the thing he had come to Baldpate Inn to forget forever—raged through that home of solitude. Men spoke of guns, and swore, and threatened. What was it all about? And what part could he play in it all?
He entered number seven, and paused in amazement. Outside one of his windows Miss Norton stood, rapping on the glass for him to open. When he stood facing her at last, the window no longer between, he saw that her face was very pale and that her chin trembled as it had in the station.
"What is it?" cried Magee.
"I mustn't come in," she answered. "Listen. You said you wanted to help me. You can do so now. I'll explain everything later—this is all I need tell you just at present. Down-stairs in the safe there's a package containing two hundred thousand dollars. Do you hear—two hundred thousand. I must have that package. Don't ask me why. I came here to get it—I must have it. The combination was to have been phoned to Cargan at eight o'clock. I was hiding outside the window. Something went wrong—they didn't phone it. He's going to open the safe by force. I heard him say so. I couldn't wait to hear more—I saw him."
"Who?" asked Mr. Magee.
"I don't know—a tall black figure—hiding outside a window like myself. The man with one of the other keys, I suppose. The man Mr. Bland heard walking about to-night. I saw him and I was terribly frightened. It's all right when you know who the other fellow is, but when—it's all so creepy—I was afraid. So I ran—here."
"The thing to do," approved Mr. Magee. "Don't worry. I'll get the money for you. I'll get it if I have to slay the city administration of Reuton in its tracks."
"You trust me?" asked the girl, with a little catch in her voice. The snow lay white on her hair; even in the shadows her eyes suggested June skies. "Without knowing who I am, or why I must have this money—you'll get it for me?"
"Some people," said Mr. Magee, "meet all their lives long at pink little teas, and never know one another, while others just smile at each other across a station waiting-room—that's enough."
"I'm so glad," whispered the girl. "I never dreamed I'd meet any one like you—up here. Please, oh, please, be very careful. Neither Cargan nor Max is armed. Bland is. I should never forgive myself if you were hurt. But you won't be—will you?"
"I may catch cold," laughed Mr. Magee; "otherwise I'll be perfectly safe." He went into the room and put on a gay plaid cap. "Makes me look like Sherlock Holmes," he smiled at the girl framed in the window. When he turned to his door to lock it, he discovered that the key was gone and that it had been locked on the outside. "Oh, very well," he said flippantly. He buttoned his coat to the chin, blew out the candles in number seven, and joined the girl on the balcony.
"Go to your room," he said gently. "Your worries are over. I'll bring you the golden fleece inside an hour."
"Be careful," she whispered, "Be very careful, Mr.—Billy."
"Just for that," cried Magee gaily, "I'll get you four hundred thousand dollars."
He ran to the end of the balcony, and dropping softly to the ground, was ready for his first experiment in the gentle art of highway robbery.