VII

Getting Acquainted

A cyclone entering the room is apt to alter the position of things. This one shifted a footstool, a small chair, a rug, and Spike. The chair struck by a massive boot, whirled against the wall. The footstool rolled away. The rug crumpled up and slid. Spike, with a yell, leaped to his feet, slipped again, fell, and finally compromised on an all-fours position, in which attitude he remained, blinking.

While these stirring acts were in progress there was the sound of a door opening upstairs, followed by a scuttering of feet and an appalling increase in the canine contribution to the current noises. The duet had now taken on quite a Wagnerian effect.

There raced into the room first a white bull terrier, he of the soprano voice, and⁠—a bad second⁠—his fellow artiste, the baritone, a massive bulldog, bearing a striking resemblance to the big man with the revolver.

And then, in theatrical parlance, the entire company “held the picture.” Upstage, with his hand still on the door, stood the large householder; downstage Jimmy. Centre, Spike and the bulldog, their noses, a couple of inches apart, inspected each other with mutual disfavour. On the extreme O.P. side the bull terrier, who had fallen foul of a wickerwork table, was crouching with extended tongue and rolling eyes, waiting for the next move.

The householder looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the householder. Spike and the bulldog looked at each other. The bull terrier distributed his gaze impartially around the company.

“A typical scene of quiet American home life,” murmured Jimmy.

The man with the pistol glowered.

“Hands up, you devils!” he roared, pointing a mammoth revolver.

The two marauders humoured his whim.

“Let me explain,” said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily round in order to face the bull terrier, who was now strolling in his direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.

“Keep still, you blackguard!”

Jimmy kept still. The bull terrier, with the same abstracted air, was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser leg.

Relations between Spike and the bulldog, meanwhile, had become more strained. The sudden flinging up of the former’s arms had had the worst effect on the animal’s nerves. Spike, the croucher on all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the semaphore, inspired him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective manner. His eye was full of purpose.

It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder. Till then he had been too busy to gaze elsewhere, but now the bulldog’s eye had become so unpleasant that he cast a pathetic glance up at the man by the door.

“Gee!” he cried, as he did so. “It’s de boss! Say, boss, call off de dawg. It’s sure goin’ to nip de old head of me.”

The other lowered his revolver in surprise.

“So it’s you, is it, you limb of Satan?” he remarked. “I thought I had seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my house?”

Spike uttered a moan of self-pity.

“Boss,” he cried, “I’ve had a raw deal. Dere’s bin coarse work goin’ on. Listen! It’s dis way. Honest, I didn’t know dis was where you lived. A fat Swede⁠—Ole Larsen his monaker is⁠—tells me dis house belongs to a widder-loidy what lives here all alone, and has all kinds of silver and all dat, and she’s down Sout’ visiting, so dat de house is empty. Gee, I’m onto his curves now. I’m wise. Listen, boss. Him and me starts a scrappin’ last week over somet’in, and I t’inks he’s got it in bad for me, because I puts it all over him. But t’ree days ago up he comes and says, ‘Let’s be fren’s,’ and puts me wise on dis joint. I’ll soak it to dat Swede! Dis was what he was woikin’ for. He knows you lives here, and he t’inks to put me in bad wit youse. It’s a raw deal, boss!”

The big man listened to this sad tale of Grecian gifts in silence. Not so the bulldog, which growled ominously from start to finish. Spike glanced nervously in its direction.

“De dawg,” he persisted uneasily. “Won’t you call on de dawg, boss?”

The big man stooped and grasped the animal’s collar, jerking him away.

“The same treatment,” suggested Jimmy, with approval, “would also do a world of good to this playful and affectionate animal⁠—unless he is a vegetarian, in which case don’t bother.”

The householder glowered at him.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name,” began Jimmy, “is⁠—”

“Say,” said Spike, “he’s a champion burglar, boss⁠—”

“Eh!” he said.

“He’s a champion burglar from de odder side. He sure is. From Lunnon. Gee, he’s de guy! Tell him about the bank you opened, and de jools you swiped from de duchess, and de what-d’ye-call-it blowpipe.”

It seemed to Jimmy that Spike was showing a certain want of tact. When you are discovered by a householder⁠—with revolver⁠—in his parlour at half past three in the morning, it is surely an injudicious move to lay stress on your proficiency as a burglar. The householder may be supposed to take it for granted. The side of your character which should be advertised in such a crisis is the non-burglarious. Allusion should be made to the fact that as a child you attended Sunday-school regularly, and to what the curate said when you took the Divinity prize. The idea should be conveyed to the householder’s mind that, if let off with a caution, your innate goodness of heart will lead you to reform and avoid such scenes in future.

With some astonishment, therefore, Jimmy found that these revelations, so far from prejudicing the man with the revolver against him, had apparently told in his favour. The man behind the gun was regarding him rather with interest than disapproval.

“So you’re a crook from London, are you?”

Jimmy did not hesitate. If being a crook from London was a passport into citizens’ parlours in the small hours, and, more particularly, if it carried with it also a safe-conduct out of them, Jimmy was not the man to refuse the role. He bowed.

“Well, you’ll have to come across now you’re in New York. Understand that. And come across good.”

“Sure, he will,” said Spike, charmed that the tension had been relieved and matters placed upon a pleasant and businesslike footing. “He’ll be good. He’s next to de game, sure.”

“Sure,” echoed Jimmy courteously. He did not understand; but things seemed to be taking a turn for the better, so why disturb the harmony?

“Dis gent,” said Spike respectfully, “is boss of de cops. A police captain,” he corrected himself.

A light broke upon Jimmy’s darkness. He wondered he had not understood before. He had not been a newspaperman in New York for a year without finding out something of the inner workings of the police force. He saw now why the other’s manner had changed.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “We must have a talk together one of these days.”

“We must,” said the police captain significantly.

“Of course, I don’t know your methods on this side, but anything that’s usual⁠—”

“I’ll see you at my office. Spike Mullins will show you where it is.”

“Very well. You must forgive this preliminary informal call. We came in more to shelter from the rain than anything.”

“You did, did you?”

Jimmy felt that it behoved him to stand on his dignity. The situation demanded it.

“Why,” he said, with some hauteur, “in the ordinary course of business I should hardly waste time over a small crib like⁠—”

“It’s banks for his,” murmured Spike rapturously. “He eats dem alive. And jools from duchesses.”

“I admit a partiality for jewels and duchesses,” said Jimmy. “And now, as it’s a little late, perhaps we had better⁠—Ready, Spike? Good night, then. Pleased to have met you.”

“I’ll see you at my office.”

“I may possibly look in. I shall be doing very little work in New York, I fancy. I am here merely on a vacation.”

“If you do any work at all,” said the policeman coldly, “you’ll look in at my office, or you’ll wish you had when it’s too late.”

“Of course, of course. I shouldn’t dream of omitting any formality that may be usual. But I don’t fancy I shall break my vacation. By the way, one little thing. Have you any objection to my carving a ‘J’ on your front door?”

The policeman stared.

“On the inside. It won’t show. It’s just a whim of mine. If you have no objection.”

“I don’t want any of your⁠—” began the policeman.

“You misunderstand me. It’s only that it means paying for a dinner. I wouldn’t for the world⁠—”

The policeman pointed to the window.

“Out you get,” he said abruptly. “I’ve had enough of you. And don’t you forget to come to my office.”

Spike, still deeply mistrustful of the bulldog Rastus, jumped at the invitation. He was through the window and out of sight in the friendly darkness almost before the policeman had finished speaking. Jimmy remained.

“I shall be delighted⁠—” he had begun, when he stopped. In the doorway was standing a girl⁠—a girl whom he recognized. Her startled look told him that she too had recognized him.

Now for the first time since he had set out from his flat that night in Spike’s company Jimmy was conscious of a sense of the unreality of things. It was all so exactly as it would have happened in a dream. He had gone to sleep thinking of this girl, and here she was. But a glance at McEachern brought him back to earth. There was nothing of the dreamworld about the police captain.

The policeman, whose back was towards the door, had not observed the addition to the company. Molly had turned the handle quietly and her slippered feet made no sound. It was the amazed expression on Jimmy’s face that caused him to look towards the door.

“Molly!”

She smiled, though her face was still white. Jimmy’s evening clothes had reassured her. She did not understand how he came to be there, but evidently there was nothing wrong. She had interrupted a conversation, not a conflict.

“I heard the noise and you going downstairs, and I sent the dogs down to help you, father,” she said. “And then, after a little while, I came down to see if you were all right.”

Mr. McEachern was perplexed. Molly’s arrival had put him in an awkward position. To denounce him as a cracksman was impossible. Jimmy knew too much about him. The only real fear of the policeman’s life was that some word of his moneymaking methods might come to his daughter’s ears.

Quite a brilliant idea came to him.

“A man broke in, my dear,” he said. “This gentleman was passing and saw him.”

“Distinctly,” said Jimmy. “An ugly-looking customer!”

“But he slipped out of the window and got away,” concluded the policeman.

“He was very quick,” said Jimmy. “I think he may have been a professional acrobat.”

“He didn’t hurt you, father?”

“No, no, my dear.”

“Perhaps I frightened him,” said Jimmy airily.

Mr. McEachern scowled furtively at him.

“We mustn’t detain you, Mr.⁠—”

“Pitt,” said Jimmy. “My name is Pitt.” He turned to Molly. “I hope you enjoyed the voyage.”

The policeman started.

“You know my daughter?”

“By sight only, I’m afraid. We were fellow passengers on the Mauretania. Unfortunately I was in the second cabin. I used to see your daughter walking the deck sometimes.”

Molly smiled.

“I remember seeing you⁠—sometimes.”

McEachern burst out:

“Then you⁠—”

He stopped and looked at Molly. Molly was bending over Rastus, tickling him under the ear.

“Let me show you the way out, Mr. Pitt,” said the policeman shortly. His manner was abrupt, but when one is speaking to a man whom one would dearly love to throw out of the window abruptness is almost unavoidable.

“Perhaps I should be going,” said Jimmy.

“Good night, Mr. Pitt,” said Molly.

“I hope we shall meet again,” said Jimmy.

“This way, Mr. Pitt,” growled McEachern, holding the door.

“Please don’t trouble,” said Jimmy. He went to the window, and, flinging his leg over the sill, dropped noiselessly to the ground.

He turned and put his head in at the window again.

“I did that rather well,” he said pleasantly. “I think I must take up this sort of thing as a profession. Good night.”