The Whistling Man

by Gilbert Patten

 

The Whistling Man

by Gilbert Patten

SLOWLY Cogson closed his strong but slender hands until they crumpled and crushed the delicately perfumed letter he had just finished reading. Slowly his lids narrowed over eyes wherein a flood of disappointment congealed into something as coldly glittering and hard as beryl. His firm jaw tightened, and his mouth grew grim. Through the genial mask which he had worn so long that his features had become transformed and molded by it, something wicked and wolfish appeared, like a hideous object gradually illumined behind a thin curtain. Beholding him now, there was not a citizen of Dixport but would have been shocked and amazed.

“I wouldn't say it was good news, 'Kid.'”

Cogson's chin jerked round to his right shoulder. His glittering eyes stabbed the speaker, who stood in the open door of Cogson's private office, where he had appeared with the silence of a shadow and the boldness of a person assured of welcome. He was a man of advanced middle age, lean as a ranging jackal, stooped a bit beneath the weight of years; his color was that of one but recently on familiar terms with sun and wind. The smile he gave Cogson transformed a bitter, resentful face; altered it astoundingly; softened and sweetened it until it seemed to be the face of a person amiable, charming, overbrimming with deep and sincere affection.

With a cry Cogson leaped to his feet, dropping the crumpled letter on his desk. He sprinted toward the man in the doorway. Carefully putting down the traveling bag he was carrying, the latter sprang to meet Cogson, nimbly for his years. They embraced.

“Pop—oh, Pop!” said Cogson, his voice thick with emotion.

The older man thrust him off at arm's length and stood, hands on his shoulders, devouring him with avid gaze. “Kid,” he said huskily, “you're sure a sight for sore eyes. Four years is some time.”

“But why did you——”

A quick, soft-whistled “whit” checked the speaker. “Walls hear things,” warned the other, emitting the words softly from the side of his mouth.

“Not these walls, Pop. And we're alone just now because my stenographer and general assistant is home taking care of a sick mother. From where I was sitting I'd seen you come into the outside office if—if I hadn't——”

The visitor chuckled. “You was glarin' at that dainty-lookin' billy doo like it had took you off guard and handed you a nasty wallop in the wind.”

“Well, it had. But never mind that now. You're here, Pop! Come sit down. Come tell me where you've been—why I never heard a word from you in the last four years. You're like one come back from the dead. Oh, but it's good to see you here, all right! You can imagine what I thought had happened. But I couldn't find a trace of you. I tried after the first year was up, the year in which I was to turn the trick here. I had everything all set for a big scoop, a killing. It was easy, just as you said it would be. There was a time when we could have walked off with sixty thousand or better. But you weren't here to crack the box.”

With an arm around the older man Cogson had taken him to a chair beside the handsome desk. Declining to let Cogson handle the bag, the visitor took it along himself and placed it carefully at his feet when he sat down. The faces of both men were flushed with pleasure, and their eyes were bright as they gazed at each other. The one called Pop surveyed Cogson with pride, taking him in from head to feet.

“A fine, clean-lookin' lad,” he said as though speaking to himself. “A swell dresser, too; swell enough for Broadway. And planted right in the heart of this ripe rube town; right over the Citizens' National Bank.”

“You told me to get as near the bank as I could,” Cogson reminded him. “Well, I've got on the inside, even. I was elected to the board of directors a month ago.”

The older man whistled his surprise. He slapped his hand down on his knee and broke into appreciative laugher. It was queer laughter, like that of a person out of practice, and it seemed to surprise and almost alarm the one who indulged in it, for he checked his mirth abruptly, rolling his eyes nervously from right to left as though fearful of something.

“Now that's comin', on, Kid—comin' on,” he said, pride expanding his chest. “Oh, I knew you could get away with things like that. What did I have ye educated and polished up for if twasn't to mix with fine folks and put it over on 'em. A director in their bank, what? Well, now!”

Cogson's eyes twinkled. He leaned Over in his swivel chair and put a caressing hand on the visitor's arm. “Listen, Pop. I'm secretary of the Dixie Board of Trade, president of the Business Men's Association, organizer and president of the Boomers' Club, member of the Old Ladies' Home Society, stockholder in the Advance Felt Mills and the Simpson Shoe Company, candidate for mayor and almost certain to be elected, and also a deacon in the church. Give me a little more time, and I'll have the whole dang town in my inside pocket.”

“My gosh, Kid!” The older man gulped as he ran a finger round inside his linen collar. “That's doin' well for—for——”

“Oh, say it!” The other laughed shortly as the visitor hesitated. “I told you nobody can hear. Doing well for the son of a thief, eh? The son of a porch-climbing yegg! Oh, no, Pop, I haven't forgotten what I sprang from. No danger of that any more than that I'd forget what you've done for me.”

“It wasn't much I done, Kid.”

“Oh, no, not much! When the pollies croaked my old man you didn't do a thing but pick me out of the gutter and give me a home and bring me up the same as though I'd been your own son. I was a tough little brat, too. I know. Oh, no, it wasn't much you did for me, Pop!”

"Well, you see, Kid, your mother—I—if she hadn't fell for 'Spike' Roper—um—er—— She was a smashin' looker and as smart a jane as ever shot a biscuit in a beanery. Why, she'd dirtied her feet if she'd wiped 'em on Spike—and she had to go and match up with him for the big-time turn. She didn't last awful long, poor gal! You wasn't four years old when she cashed in. That yaller dog uster beat her up! I know it, though she denied it. One time I seen her with a black eye and the marks of his hooks on her windpipe. I'd gone gunnin' fer him then if she hadn't begged so hard. I've alwus wished I hadn't listened.”

Cogson's eyes were peering through narrowed slits; his distended nostrils moved like those of a famished jungle cat sniffing the trail. “If the bulls hadn't bumped him off I'd finished him some time myself,” he declared in an unnatural voice. “I told him I would once when he was mauling me. He left some marks I'll carry until I'm planted. But there, there, Kid,” the older man quickly put in, “they saved one of us the job when they snuffed him out. Ferget him. Fine joint you have here, and I see by the pretty gilt letters on your winders that you're dealin' in real estate and insurance. How's the business go?”

“Bully. Got all I can swing by my lonesome. But it's a dull life, Pop, and I'm getting tired of it.”

“Dull? Well, I dunno. By the spiel you've gave me I'd say you was havin' ev'rythin' all your own way in this burg.”

“No, not everything.” Cogson's mouth twisted into a bitter smile as he glanced toward the crumpled letter on his desk.

“I don't know what more——”

“There's one thing, the big thing—the big prize I've failed to pull down. It's a girl. Some girl, too! She's Paula Thurston, daughter of old Judge Thurston, who is president of the Citizens' National. She's class in this neck of the woods, believe me. She'd be class anywhere, too. An aristocrat to the tips of her fingers. Old man's got nothing but kale, and he admitted to me confidentially that for a son-in-law he'd prefer me to Lafe Manners, my rival. I thought I had the inside track on that colt, but he's beat me out in the stretch and come under the wire ahead. The race is over.”

He picked up the crumpled letter from his desk, smoothed it out a little, and sat staring at it, his lips curving sardonically. “Here's her answer,” he explained. “Tried to take her by storm last night, but couldn't quite do it. She said she'd write me her decision to-day. She has. I'm all through in that direction; she's made that plain enough.”

His lips pursed for whistling, but making no sound, the older man had been watching Cogson closely, studying his expression, observing his manner, missing not a word he uttered, listening carefully to the intonation of his voice, “It's your pride that's stung, Kid,” he declared when Cogson had finished. “You wasn't much smashed on that frail.”

“It's the first trick I've lost in this town,” said Cogson, viciously tearing the letter into strips. “Naturally it hurt, But I tell you she's a queen, a woman any man could show off with pride.”

“Ferget her. You got other things to think of, now I'm here.”

“Right, Pop—right. And all I've done is talk about myself. I haven't given you a chance to tell me why it took you four years instead of one to get back here. And not a word from you in all this time. Is it any wonder I'd begun to reckon you dead. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“You mean,” said the other with a hard, dry smile, “you mean, where've they been keepin' me. You see, Kid, the dicks collared me in Toledo less'n six months after I planted you here. They didn't really have nuthin' on me, but there'd been a lot o' strong-arm jobs pulled off around that settlement, and two plain-clothes bulls swore they'd pinched me right after I'd conked a souse with a piece o' gas pipe and lifted his leather. That souse's bean was busted, and his light almost went out. So, as I couldn't come through with an alibi the judge gave me a stretch in stir, and I've been boardin' in the pen at Columbus since then, up to less'n a month ago. But I'll slip it to ye, son, they didn't none o' them get wise that James Maroney, which was the moniker I laid claim to, was rightly 'Whistling' Nick Barnes, peterman, with a record as long as your arm.”

He paused. His mouth became an inverted U. Hot resentment and sneering contempt boiled into his stone-gray eyes. “Three times I've done time,” he added harshly, “and twice it was for little jobs I had no hand in.”

Rising, he looked down on Cogson, sitting in the swivel chair before that handsome desk. His hand fell gently upon the young man's shoulder, and a smile like autumn sunshine sent the cloud scudding from his face.

“Oh, but it's good!” he exclaimed. “Good to see you settin' here in your own office like this, a-puttin' it over these yaps that would be ready to kick ye back inter the gutter ag'in if they only suspected that was where ye come from. By what you've said, I can see you're sure in right with high society in Dixport.”

“The beau monde, Pop.”

“Uh-huh—whatever that is. Well, I guess I'm a little late round here. If I'd come back three years ago, the way I meant to, why—all right; but now, well—no good. Don't fret yourself, Kid; I ain't goin' to bump ye off the ladder after you've climbed so high. I'll leave ye to play your hand out here, and mebbe they'll make ye governor some day, or send ye to Congress, or somethin'. You're clever, and you can go just as fur as you make up your mind you want to. It's up to you. I'll wish ye good luck and be on my way.”

“What d'yer mean?” demanded Cogson, likewise on his feet, and gripping the old peterman's arms above the elbows. “Where do you get that too-late stuff? Be on your way nothing! You'll stay right here with me, as long as I stay. Why, you're the only real father I ever had! Think I'm going to let you——”

“Wait, son. You don't realize. I'll sure get ye in Dutch if I stick around. You're edicated and polished up, and you can put it over; but me—why, any one-eyed bat could see there never was no blue blood in me. And by too late I meant it was too late now to go through with our first scheme to make a clean-up here and a get-away.”

Cogson's mouth tightened until it became a mere scratch across the lower part of his face. His heavy brows crept together and joined in a furrowed ridge above the bridge of his nose. His fingers were contracting hooks of iron which bit into the other man's arms.and made him wince a little.

“Who says it's too late?” he asked almost gruffly. “Didn't you hear me remark a while ago that it's a dull life I'm leading, and I'm getting tired of it? Why should I hang round here and watch Lafe Manners walk off with the big prize that I wasn't able to win?”

He gave the old man a little shake. “Listen, Pop. Within six months after you planted me here I had these rooms over the bank, and in less than two months more I'd taken impressions of every key in this building and made duplicates. There wasn't a thing I couldn't unlock in a minute excepting the vault downstairs, and I knew you could open that as easy as a sardine can, give you time at it. The night watch who patrols this part of the town likes me. We're thick as molasses in cold weather. I've worked a lot here in this office nights, and he's formed a habit of dropping in whenever he sees my light going between eleven and midnight. I always have a drink for him. The town's dead after midnight. Put a sleeping potion in Bill Carney's night drink, and he'll be no more bother than a dead one for hours. Next Friday's general pay day for the shops, the mills, and the shipyards. Thursday night the vault will be stuffed with kale. Well, that's what you came for, wasn't it? All right, you can have it. It'll be easy picking.”

A strong light of enthusiasm, of eagerness and desire, flared into the old safe-breaker's eyes, like the reflection of a smothered fire that had suddenly burst forth. Cogson's hands felt the thrill that ran through every part of Whistling Nick's body, and Cogson saw him moisten his lips with his tongue, slowly nodding his head.

“Easy,” agreed the visitor, “and I'm starvin' to pull one more clean job. I want to find out if I'm out o' practice, if I lost any of my cunnin' while I was takin' that little vacation. I been thinkin' about some things, Kid. One time Whistling Nick was as clever as any man that ever drilled a crib or souped the door off a burglar-proof strong box, but I'm gettin' old. I ain't got many more years to make the big haul in before I retire to a little chicken farm somewheres in the country and settle down to a comfortable, humdrum old age. With me it's always been quick and easy come and go the same way, so now I ain't got any kale salted away for my declinin' years. I got to hurry up, son. I need the mazuma.”

“Listen, Pop,” Cogson urged again, a thrill tingling through his own veins and setting his pulses throbbing fast. “This one job will fix you so you can buy any kind of a farm and spend the rest of your life wasting money in the chicken-raising game. It'll be a killing.”

“I don't need so thunderin' much, Kid. But you——”

“Oh, leave me out on the split.”

“What's that? Fifty-fifty, son.”

“Not on this job. This'll be the one to fix you up for those declining years you mentioned. That's settled.”

Cogson wouldn't listen to remonstrances. And under any circumstances he declared he wouldn't have lingered long in Dixport after having received Paula Thurston's refusal. Following the looting of the bank he wouldn't be in haste about leaving, of course; he would remain two or three months before disposing of his business and moving to other parts. By that time, if he was clever about it, practically everybody in Dixport would know Paula had declined to marry him, and it wouldn't be hard to create the impression that his failure in that direction accounted for his decision to leave the town.

“But you've made such a fine start here, Kid,” remonstrated old Nick after he had listened to the young man. “Why, you could be an honest guy and a leadin' citizen all your life now, if you wanted to. You got the foundations all laid solid. Now if I hadn't showed up, if somethin' 'd happened so I'd never come back here, you would 'a' gone on like that. It's me that's pullin' ye off the straight track. It's me that's draggin' ye inter ways that's crooked and dangerous to foller, and may some day land you in——”

Cogson denied it. He declared that what was in the blood must come out, and mentioned again that he was the son of a thief. He silenced Barnes.

They left the office, the old man still carrying his heavy traveling bag, which he had declined to let Cogson take. His extreme care with the bag made Cogson suspect what part of its contents must be. Whistling Nick, sometimes called “Nick the Brick,” had arrived in Dixport prepared to ply the tools of his trade without delay.

They descended to the street and came face to face with a tall, slender, modish, high-headed girl who was just emerging from the Citizens' National Bank. At sight of her Cogson flushed and then grew pale. She bowed to him with a faint, easy smile and a manner of superior assurance. She spoke in a perfectly modulated voice. At the same time her cool eyes measured the lean, stoop-shouldered, humble-looking old man who paused just back of Cogson's left shoulder. Observing the direction of her glance, Cogson unhesitatingly introduced Nick Barnes.

“This is my father, Miss Thurston,” he said. “You've heard me speak of him, I think. He gave me a surprise by dropping in on me without notice, but I was mighty glad to see him.”

Paula Thurston inclined her haughty head, murmuring politely that it was a pleasure to meet Mr. Cogson's father. But she did not offer him her gloved hand.

“I'm glad to know ye, miss,” said old Nick, nudging the brim of his hat and bowing repeatedly. “The boy' been tellin' me about his friends round here, and I'm glad to meet any of 'em, you know.”

She looked him over again from head to feet with one last swift, cool, appraising sweep. Then she murmured something about being in a hurry and glided across the sidewalk to a waiting limousine, which she entered before Cogson, once more hotly flushed, could make a move. She didn't look around as the limousine carried her luxuriously away.

Whistling a soft and mocking air, Nick Barnes pulled at his companion's elbow. “You see, Kid, how it would be, introducin' me round here to your fine friends. You hadn't better call me your father, anyhow. One look at me and they'll say to themselves you can't be genuine top crust if you came from such stock.”

By Cogson's looks one would have thought he had a bad taste in his mouth. “We'll see,” he said savagely. “They can't all be snobs. Come on, Pop.” He linked his arm with old Nick's and conveyed him along the busy street.

Almost everybody they met spoke to Cogson. Many hailed him with the effusion one person shows toward another who is especially liked, and all greeted him with genuine cordiality. Several stopped to pass a word or two with him, and to these he introduced Nick the Brick as his father. They shook hands warmly with old Nick, every one declaring pleasure in knowing Sam Cogson's paternal relative. Their manner was sincere. The shrewd-eyed old man could detect no shadowy touch of egregrious contempt in their bearing toward him.

Cogson had a way with him; a genial, friendly, winning way. His smile was captivating. It fascinated women and magnetically drew children, dancing, to him. At first a part of his assumed mask, it had become second nature through long and daily use. And, though he had yet to sense it fully, strict rectitude practiced in every relation of life for the purpose of building up an undeserved reputation had taken hold upon him and transformed him amazingly. He was no longer wholly the man he believed himself to be.

The clergyman of the church Cogson had joined stopped them and inquired why Cogson hadn't appeared at services yesterday, this being Monday. Cogson pleaded illness and introduced his “father.” The clergyman gave Whistling Nick a warm and sincere hand and told him how much Cogson had done for the church and for many and varied worthy causes in Dixport. “A son to be proud of, Mr, Cogson,” the dominie concluded.

“Why, you've got this old town in your inside pocket now, Kid,” said old Nick as they were walking on again. “It's great stuff to have ev'rybody spielin' such fine things about ye.”

“Maybe it would be if what they were saying were true.”

“Well, I guess you're fixed so you could make it true if you wanted to.”

They entered the garage where Cogson stored his flivver, which presently whiffed them along pleasant tree-sentineled streets to a pleasant, old-fashioned house that was trimmed with blossoming vines and bordered by flower gardens. It was a homelike house, and it seemed to welcome Nick the Brick with open arms, filling his old bones with a strangely soothing sensation and brimming his unsatisfied heart with a desire to linger and rest.

And Mrs. Malone, with whom Sam Cogson boarded, added more than a few drops to that brimming desire. An ample, motherly woman, she received Cogson's “father” as though he were a near and dear relative of her own, returned after long absence.

“Kid,” said old Nick, sitting in a big easy-chair in Cogson's large and comfortable room, “you've sure got yourself settled in soft. This is like a real home.”

“Why, it is a real home,” was the earnest answer. “I'm the only boarder here, and Mrs. Malone wasn't compelled to take me in, her husband having left her comfortably fixed when he shuffled off. But she wanted a little extra money for her daughter Drusie, who was going away to school, and so I was in luck. Drusie's home now, but I'm sure Mother Malone would be broken-hearted if she thought I was going to leave her. She's sort of adopted me.”

Again the old man's eyes roved fondly about the room. He faintly whistled a tune; then, “Never in my time,” he said, “did I have the luck to fall into anything like this.”

Later, when he sat at table with Cogson and Mrs. Malone and Drusie and satisfied a ravenous appetite with home-cooked food of the finest State of Maine sort, Nick Barnes was even more fully impressed by the younger man's good luck. Not alone did this added impression of favoring fortune come from the excellent food, wonderful coffee, and general atmosphere of bounteous good will; for old Nick had met Drusie, felt the warmth of her hand, her voice, and her smile, and was so seated that her sweet girlish comeliness provided a feast for his admiring eyes.

“There's fools,” said Whistling Nick to Cogson, in the latter's office that afternoon, “who say all skirts are cut off the same web. 'Tain't so. There's just as much dif'rence in females as there is in apples. Some's pretty to look at, but not good to taste, and plenty that have such fine skins they'd fool anybody but an expert into classin' 'em with the choicest hand-picked, are plumb rotten at the core. But lemme tell you, son, that Drusie Malone's the best selected fruit. The lad that gets her will be playin' in luck.”

“Oh, Drusie's a fine girl, and I'm very fond of her,” said Cogson quickly.

“And you went wastin' your time tryin' to warm an icicle into life” Old Nick sneered as he spoke. “That Thurston gal——”

“She's class, Pop.

“Class!” The old man emitted a derisive whistle. “She's one o' them fish-blooded snobs. A dog's nose in December's warmer than her heart. But Drusie Malone is alive and human and eighteen carat all the way through. Mebbe she don't travel with the boo mund you spoke of, Kid, but I'll say that that's to her credit if Miss Paula Thurston is a fair speciment of the boos in this town. Drusie'll be another woman like her maw some day, and take it from me, son, they don't ripen off no better'n Sarah Malone. Has Drusie got a steady beau?”

“She could just about have her pick in Dixport, hut she doesn't seem to care for any of them.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, Kid. You're it.”

“What—what do you mean?”

“I caught her lookin' at ye once or twice, and there was somethin' in her blinkers that only comes in the lamps of a gal like her when she's lookin' at the only real guy in the world.”

“Nonsense, Pop!” retorted Cogson, annoyed. “Why, she's just like a little sister to me. I've treated her same as I would a sister, and she sort of regards me like an older brother. I'd bet my life she has never thought of me any other way.”

“Well, you'd be as good as dead soon as you made the bet,” declared old Nick wisely. “And, more'n that, her mother knows how Drusie feels toward ye, and Mother Malone's more'n willin' to have you for a son-in-law; she's hopeful.”

For more than a minute the only sounds heard in that office were those of the busy street below, coming through the open windows. Not whistling during one of his periods of abstraction, Nick Barnes sat with the fingers of his hands interlocked, smiling like a shrewd old Solomon, while the other man, motionless, stared at him.

The reflections of swiftly changing emotions passed over Sam Cogson's face. Slowly both his strong but slender hands closed into crushing fists, just as they had closed upon Paula Thurston's letter. At last his features became fixed in a savage expression. He leaned forward. One hand gripped old Nick's knee, making him wince a little.

“What do you think I'd do,” Cogson asked hoarsely, “if I should see another gutter pup like myself, the son of a sneak thief and himself a crook to the core, come snooping after Drusie Malone? A fine show he'd have to get away with it! I'd give him just one chance to touch the high spots, and if he didn't take the hint he'd wake up in a hospital. Drusie's clean and sweet and lovely, and I—— Why, there never could be a chance for it to happen, Pop.”

“But how about that high and haughty Thurston gal?”

“Oh, that was different; somehow I don't feel that way about her. But Drusie—oh, no!”

They went ahead with their plans to pillage the Citizens' National Bank. Cogson appeared almost feverishly eager for it, and he expressed regret that, as a blind, it would be necessary for him to stay behind in Dixport some two or three months after the job had been pulled off. He was beset by a powerful and increasing desire to get out of the town.

Nick Barnes keenly enjoyed the hospitality he found in Sarah Malone's home, where he was surrounded by that atmosphere of peace and comfort for which his old heart had begun to yearn. Such food as he ate at Mrs. Malone's table, and such sleep as he slept in the big white bed in her “spare room!”

But Cogson suddenly had lost his appetite, and what sleep he got was fitful and unrefreshing. For the first time since coming to Dixport he caught himself failing to meet the eyes of its friendly citizens. This annoyed him. Further annoyance came with the realization that his voice lacked more than a little of its usual frank and cheerful ring. He wondered if he had begun to act in a peculiar and suspicious manner, and he was thoroughly exasperated with himself.

He avoided Drusie Malone until——

About nine o'clock Wednesday evening old Nick sat in his room, softly whistling “Home, Sweet Home,” when the door was thrust open and Cogson stood on the threshold. The young man was breathing fast, and he seemed to be laboring under great excitement which he was struggling to control. His voice was unsteady and hoarse as he asked Nick to walk down to the office with him.

They didn't exchange a dozen words during that walk. After they entered the office Cogson locked the door behind them. He made the older man take a chair, but he appeared too nervous to sit down himself. Gnawing at a corner of his lip, he failed to meet Nick's puzzled and questioning gaze.

“Well,” he seemed to force himself to say presently, “Drusie knows all about me—that I'm a thief and the son of a thief. I told her. I spilled it all.”

“Whew! That's fine!” exclaimed the old peterman, starting up. “Then why didn't ye tell me to bring my bag along? It's my move.”

“Not yet.” Cogson pushed him back on the chair. “I told her how you had brought me up and been the only decent father I ever knew, but I didn't tell her who or what you really are.”

“Why not? After coverin' yourself all over with slime, what was the use to be stingy with me? Of course you leaked all about what we've planned to do to the bank to-morrer night?”

“I didn't have to do that, but I did have to let her know how I'd fooled her and her mother. I showed myself up for just the sneaking two-faced impostor I am. Don't gawk at me that way. You made me tell her!”

“I did! Whe-ew!”

“Yes, you did! Didn't you tell me she was in love with me? Well, if that was a fact hadn't I gulled her into thinking me fit for a decent girl to fall in love with?”

The old man blinked as though dazzled by a strong light. He pursed his lips but did not whistle. “You loony fish!” he cried. “You're smashed silly on that gal, and you don't know it.”

Cogson took a turn up and down the room. “I told you she was like a sister to me,” he said, stopping in front of old Nick again.

Now the old man whistled softly, mockingly. “Sister nothin'! he retorted. “You're tryin' to gull yourself now. She'd married ye and made ye a fine wife. And you'd remained settled down here in this out-o'-the-way town where nobody'd ever known ye as the son of Spike Roper. Already you're gettin' to be one of the leading citizens of the place, and you'd been elected mayor, and been respected and admired by anybody that was any~good at all. And likely some day you'd got to be a big man in the State, known all over and showered with honors, as they say. And you and Drusie'd had kids playin' round ye and fillin' your home with music, and you'd——”

“Stop it, Pop!” exclaimed Cogson hoarsely, his face twisted with pain.

Nick the Brick stood up. “Well, what made you go and kick the kettle over? What'd ye want to shock and disgust that little gal for so she can't never look at ye ag'in without shiverin' and turnin' sick?”

“Oh, but you don't know Drusie Malone!” retorted the young man, his face suddenly aglow. “That's the way it would be with most girls, but not with Drusie. She was shocked, I admit that, and at first she wouldn't believe it; but I convinced her that I was speaking the shameful truth about myself. Well, did she shrink and shiver and turn sick? Not so you could notice it. Pop, she put her two hands into mine, looked me straight in the eyes, forbade me ever again to say such things about myself to anybody, no matter how true they were. She declared it made not a bit of difference to her what my real father had been. Told me she knew I was naturally upright and honorable and noble—yes, noble! She said it, Pop! Swore nothing could ever shake her faith in me or change her opinion in the slightest. Put her fingers against my lips and stopped me when I tried to speak about myself again. Pop, she is the——”

“Son, she's saved the Citizens' National! We're all done with that.”

“But, Pop——”

“No buts about it, Kid. We're through. Drusie'll make ye straight and keep ye so, and she'll be the sort o' woman that sticks through thick and thin. She'll help ye climb 'way up the ladder to the top.”

“But you—your plans—the chicken farm——”

A gay little chuckling whistle came from old Nick's lips. “The joke's on me,” he said lightly. “Let's forget all about——”'

Came a soft, strange tapping on the office door, a significant knocking like a cautious signal. It seemed to jerk both men round to face the door, Cogson crouching pantherishly, old Nick's hand slipping back toward his hip. Amazement and alarm were registered on their faces. Motionless as statues they remained until the peculiar knocking was repeated, and then they turned their heads slowly and looked at each other in deepest dismay. Again the knock was heard, a trifle louder and with more than a touch of insistence.

“Who?” whispered Whistling Nick.

“We'll see,” said Sam Cogson grimly, stepping toward the door, which he immediately swung wide open.

A little old man came into the room. He slipped in rather than walked. His feet made no sound upon the floor. His face, covered by a scraggy three-days' growth of gray hair, was putty pale. His eyes were round, glittering, and jet black. His dark clothes were shabby and grease-spotted. He smiled upon them, a crooked, sneering smile of low cunning.

“'Lo, pals,” he said in a husky whisper

“McGinty!” exclaimed Cogson in disgust.

“The Rat!” growled Nick Barnes savagely.

“Shut the door 'nd lock it ag'in,” said the unwelcome one. “Go ahead wit' yer plans to tap the keister downstairs, but count me in on der job fer an even t'ree-ways split. See!”

Cogson closed the door and turned the key again. “What are you talking about, McGinty?” he rapped out harshly, a dangerous look in his eyes. “You're all wrong. We're not planning any job.”

“Tell it ter Sweeny,” advised McGinty, winking one beadlike eye and shaking his head mockingly. “Don't I know der pair of yez?”

“But he's givin' it to ye straight, Rat,” declared old Nick with far too much earnestness. “The lad's settled down here in this town to go on the level, and I just dropped round to see how he was comin' along.”

“Tell it ter Sweeny,” repeated McGinty in utter disbelief. “Him go straight—him, whose old man was Spike Roper, a pal o' mine till he snitched on me to save his own hide, and got me a stretch o' eighteen mont's. I'd croaked der squealer meself if der bulls hadn't done it while I was in stir. Are you tryin' ter tell me dere's an honest bone in a brat o' Spike Roper's? G'wan! Whaddy ye take me fer?”

Nick the Brick grabbed Cogson's wrist and restrained him. In vain they tried to convince McGinty, Nick doing the most of the talking.

“Aw, can der bunk!” The Rat finally told them. “Ye can't t'row dirt in my blinkers, Nick Barnes. Why, you wouldn't let der boy go straight if he wanted to. You planted him here ter git der lay of t'ings, and now you've come round—wit' him roostin' right over der bank—to do der fancy work. I knew dere was some kind of a job in der wind when I spots you two birds together here to-day. And ye can let me in or I'll put der whole game on der fritz. Try ter give me der freeze-out an' I'll spill it round dis rube town what der pair of ye are.”

They looked at each other. A stony expression settled on to Cogson's face, but deep in his eyes something deadly glittered. Whistling Nick's shoulders drooped, and the faint whistle that came from his lips was expressive of intense regret.

“All right, Bat,” said the old man suddenly, to the surprise of Cogson. “You're in on the lay.” He turned to the young man, shaking his head. “'Tain't no use, Kid. We can't fool McGinty, and he'll spill the beans for us if we try it, so we gotter let him in.”

Cogson's heart sank. He seemed to slip suddenly into the depths of a foul, dark pit from which there was no escape, and as he fell Drusie's face faded from his gaze and her sweet voice, calling his name, died out from his ears.

So he sat, saying scarcely a word, while old Nick explained to McGinty the plans for robbing the bank. In a dazed way he heard the old peterman giving The Rat every detail just as they had schemed to carry the job through. And McGinty was given a hand in the work; he was to be the outside man.

“I'm goin' to take the Boston steamer for a blind to-morrer night,” went on Nick the Brick, “and you'd better do the same, McGinty. I'll have a state-room, and I'll carry my traveling bag aboard; but my kit and the soup won't be in the bag. The boy'll have them things. He'll come down to the boat to see me off, and ev'rybody'll see him biddin' me an affectionate adieu. I got an outside stateroom all engaged, and I'll drop my bag overboard between here and Rockland, the next and last stop before she puts out to sea for Boston. There'll be enough rocks in the bag to sink it. While they are takin' on freight in Rockland I'll walk ashore, and I won't go back. You can do the same, and it'll be dark by then, so we needn't draw no notice, as there'll be others goin' on and off. It's only nine miles between Rockland and here, and we'll have till midnight to cover 'em in. When the steamer reaches Boston in the mornin' they'll find a berth in my room all messed up and lookin' like it had been slept in, and the key'll be on the inside o' the door. So nobody'll ever know we didn't go through from Rockland to Boston.”

“Dat sounds all right,” allowed The Rat, licking his lip with a thin, sharp tongue, “but how about makin' our get-away from here after goin' t'rough der keister?”

“Oh, that's all fixed. The Kid's showed me a garage that sets off by its lonesome that we can open up without disturbin' nobody. There's a big, fast car kept there, and by time mornin' cracks the pair of us can be a hundred miles off and makin' for the Canady line, with our number plates changed, so there won't be a chance of us bein' stopped. The boy'll stay here, like he didn't have anything to do with it.”

The Rat was satisfied. And, being a cheap lip, he was properly elated over his luck in getting in on something big with a gun like Whistling Nick.

So Barnes said good-by to Mrs. Malone and Drusie late the following afternoon, expressing regret because business compelled him to leave so soon, and telling them, with the utmost sincerity, how much he had enjoyed the visit with his “son.” Mrs. Malone was equally sincere in saying it had been a great pleasure to have him with them. And Drusie kissed him. Right after she did that there was something shiny in his eyes, and he winked his lids rapidly, laughing with a slight choking sound. Of course they made him promise to come again, but he knew he never would when he gave the promise.

The Boston steamer came bellowing down through a bank of fog that was creeping in from the bay. Cogson went aboard the boat, carrying old Nick's bag, and The Rat followed them at a discreet distance. Just before the plank was hauled aboard Cogson returned to the wharf, from which he called to Nick Barnes, who hung over the rail—The Rat thirty feet away—calling back to him until the gray mist shut in between them so densely that they could see each other no longer.

“Good-by, Pop; good-by,” cried Cogson, as the figure at the rail grew hazy. “Come again next year.”

“Sure, son—sure I will,” was the answer that came back. “Take care o' yerself, boy.”

Nearly an hour later, sitting tense and expectant in his office, Cogson caught up his telephone at the first tinkle of the bell. Old Nick had promised to call from Rockland, and had urged him to wait alone in the office for the message.

“That you, Kid?” came the voice of the old man over the wire. “Well, I just wanted to say good-by for fair to ye. Don't talk. Not a word. Listen. I'm goin' to whistle a tune for ye. Now listen hard—and get it.”

What Cogson heard was the gayly whistled air of a popular song of long ago, and as he listened the words of that song flowed through his mind:

Down went McGinty to the bottom of the sea,
The water it was wet,
And he hasn't come up yet——

“That's all, boy,” said Nick the Brick. “I guess you got it all right. Good-by.”

The wire was silent.

Slowly Cogson hung up the receiver, and as he sat staring at the instrument comprehension dawned. As plainly as though he had witnessed the deed he saw the old peterman blackjack The Rat and drop him overboard somewhere between Dixport and Rockland. The heavy fog had aided the desperate old man in putting the job through without being detected. And now Cogson understood why old Nick had repeatedly told him, since the unwelcome appearance of McGinty, that there was no need to worry, as everything would come out all right.

A long, long time the young man sat there, a great sense of loss in his heart. For he was as sure as he was sure he lived that he would never again set eyes on old Whistling Nick. Finally he locked up the office and went home through the misty dark—home to Drusie.