The Millionth Chance/Chapter 4

EOPLE often say:

“Mr. Wrenham, how do you think of such things? How do you think of such apt retorts for your characters to utter? Especially Weatherbee Jones!”

To such remarks I make answer that I try to put into the mouths of my characters lines that fit the situation. Which, as you’ll notice, leaves the question unanswered. For I don’t know how I think of my characters’ conversation. No author knows how. Story-writing, and the conversations in stories, are merely matters of discarding. There is the whole world to choose from; all the things that have ever happened to write about, all the things that have ever been said to have your characters say. You discard the things you don’t need; that’s all. But how....

I wish that I did know how. For then, in real life, some of the easily pertinent retorts that have helped make Weatherbee Jones fairly well known, would come to me, and in an embarrassing situation such as outlined above I would not be compelled to give an imitation of a fish out of water.

For that’s all I could do. I merely gasped at the angry old gentleman standing over me. Possibly I looked amazed; I felt amazed, I know. But I suppose that my flush and my inability to make any sort of answer but confirmed whatever absurd suspicions he held regarding me. Doubtless I looked as guilty as a chicken-carrying negro twenty feet away from a hen-house. The anger in the old gentleman’s eyes became imbued with contempt.

“You are a most clumsy spy, sir,” he said. “I should think your employers would have had common sense enough to engage a man who would know enough to employ ordinary secrecy, but you—” Again he snorted, this time without rage, but with measureless contempt. “You will do well to understand, sir, that I will not endure too much of your impertinent prying!”

With that he turned and sat down beside the girl. For a full minute longer I sat in silence. They suspected me! Whereas I had been suspecting them! At least, I had been suspecting one of them. With not altogether trifling cause, either.

It was my turn to become angry. I was still amazed. Why on earth any one should think my inoffensive self a spy; why they should fear a spy; these were enough to amaze me. But above surprise was anger. And then a sense of the absurdity of the scene drowned both amazement and anger.

I reached up and from the outer pocket of my coat drew forth the ticket which I had bought in New York, and which plainly showed that it had been bought there. The telegram which I had not sent to Billy Odlin tumbled to the floor of the car, drawn forth by my pulling out the ticket, but I paid no attention to it, but let it lie.

In my turn I rose and stood over the old gentleman.

“Will you have the goodness, sir,” I requested him, “to look at this?”

I rather imagined, by his pursed mouth and squared shoulders, that he had expected something less mild than this request. Its unexpectedness, when he had been prepared, I suppose, for indignant denial, expostulation and what-not, made him grant it. He took the ticket and looked at it.

“You’ll notice,” I said, “that that ticket is part of a continuous ticket. The part entitling me to ride from New York to Portland has been torn off.”

“Well?” He was puzzled.

“May I ask if you bought a through ticket to wherever you are going?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I bought tickets to Portland only.”

“Do you believe in telepathy?” I asked, with a smile.

He bristled.

“I don’t understand you.”

“How could I know, without reading your thoughts, that you intended taking this train? How could I have known it, I mean, back in New York? Yet, as you see, I bought a ticket through to Folly Cove, in New York.”

“But we’re going to Folly Cove,” he said.

“But how did I know that?” I asked. “I have my ticket, bought in New York, to prove that I intended going to Folly Cove long before I met you on this train. Does that prove that I am not following you?”

He flushed.

“Why—er—if I’ve made a mistake”

But the girl interrupted what might have been apology.

“I can’t see that your possessing a through ticket proves anything at all,” she said coldly. “You might have known we were going to Folly Cove even though, when you spied on me at the station in New York, you saw that I bought tickets only to Portland.”

“Then you do believe in telepathy?” I asked, the coldness of my tones rivaling hers. I addressed myself to the man. “I assure you, sir, that not only am I not following you, but I can’t conceive of any reason why I should be. Furthermore, please accept my assurances that I did not spy upon either of you in New York. I have not the slightest imaginable interest in either of you.”

Now, no woman likes to be told emphatically, even under such circumstances as these, that a man whose age is not too remote from her own, has no interest whatsoever in her. Especially if the man who tells her so puts an indescribable emphasis upon his words, making it seem clear that she doesn’t even possess the slightest sex appeal for him. Her brown eyes darkened with anger.

“May I inquire, then,” she said, “why it was that on two occasions, in the theater and in the subway, you got away from us as soon as we discovered how near you were? Why you made every effort to avoid being seen by us?”

“I happen,” I told her, “to be afflicted with nervousness; which is why I am going to Folly Cove—for rest. If you thought I was trying to avoid you I am sorry that such a thought gave you alarm. I’d hate my avoidance to cause suffering.”

It was impertinent, grossly so, but to my surprise the old gentleman laughed.

“He has scored, Ruth,” he said with a chuckle. He looked up at me. “Forgive my display of nervousness. I have—reasons.”

He broke off short. He turned to the girl.

“Ruth, I do not believe in telepathy. This gentleman could not possibly have known our destination, as we told no one, not even”

Again he broke off.

The girl looked unconvinced. Yet her common sense must have told her that unless I possessed the powers of wizardry, and had read their thoughts, it was sheer accident that caused me to be bound for the same place as they.

“But you don’t look nervous,” she said.

“Yet for the last minute I’ve been suffering agonies,” I told her, “fearing that my rudeness would be unforgiven.”

“You were justified,” she said. But she said it with a hint of reluctance that made me certain that all her suspicions had not yet died.

The old gentleman had been fumbling in a pocketbook. He drew forth a card which he handed to me.

“Major Samuel Penrose, U. S. A.” was the inscription.

I bowed.

“Major Penrose”

“Retired,” he said. “May I present you to”

He paused suggestively. I hesitated until I saw the ever-ready suspicion forming in the girl’s eyes again.

“Randall Brant,” I told him.

Now here I must insert an explanation. Everywhere I go I find that fame has its penalties. Mention that I am Sidney Wrenham and every one begins to talk about Weatherbee Jones. All sorts of questions are hurled at me. Did I draw Weatherbee Jones from life? Has he really a prototype on some police force, or in some private detective agency? Do I get my plots from the criminal notes in the papers? Could I solve mysteries myself? Why couldn’t I? My character, Weatherbee Jones, solves the most impossible problems; why couldn’t I have him tackle real-life mysteries? Will I read one of my stories to a gathering of ladies? Will I, in short, consent to show off?

So, then, when I accepted Billy Odlin’s advice, I made up my mind that no one at Folly Cove would know that I was Sidney Wrenham, the author. I would avoid all discussion of Weatherbee Jones. In my efforts to forget my work I would not be hindered by the curiosity of the people I might meet. But, while I had decided to discard temporarily the name of Sidney Wrenham, I had not determined what other name to adopt. “Randall Brant” popped into my head. From where I do not know, unless the fact that I know two newspapermen, one named Randall and the other Brant, suggested it. Anyway, thus was I rechristened, as the train lumbered along through pine woods. And if the girl thought anything of my hesitation, I am sure that Major Penrose did not.

“I haven’t a card,” I said. “Not with me.”

He waved my apologies aside.

“Let me present you, Mr. Brant, to my niece, Miss Ruth Gilman.”

She bowed. But she said nothing. Nor did her uncle volunteer any explanation of the strangeness of their conduct.

For a moment or two we spoke of the violence of the storm and then, not being urged to remain—indeed, the girl seemed to have forgotten my presence, and the old gentleman plainly did not wish any conversation; he had given me his card and presented me to his niece only as a sort of amende honorable for what he felt had been insulting suspicions—I soon bowed again and left them.

From my seat I picked up my magazine, and, finding that I had a cigar in my waistcoat pocket and so did not need my pipe, I removed myself to the smoking-car. But it was not so much because I wished to smoke that I went there; it was rather because I wished to mull over the whole affair. I wanted to know why a girl with the frankest, honestest brown eyes in the world should search my pocketbook and suitcase in the dead of night. I also wanted to assure myself that she’d done nothing of the sort. Further, I wanted to try and figure out some reason why they should dread the curiosity of a spy. And I did not feel that I could do these things sitting just across the aisle from them.

That is why I went back to the smoking-car. And there, grinning at me in apparently admiring welcome, was my friend of the Portland railroad station. He was alone in the car. Indeed, the four of us, Major Penrose, Miss Gilman, myself and this man were the only passengers on the train. People don’t travel to Summer resorts in Maine very much in the Winter.

“I hand it to you, friend,” cried the burly gentleman. “Smooth as they come, flossy as they make ’em. As slick a case of getting next as I ever saw. I take back what I said about New Yorkers a while ago. You are there, friend, you are there!”

“And you,” I said chillingly, “are unfortunately here. May I ask why?”

“Oh, shush!” he said. “When I’m willing to let by-gones be by-gone There’s no professional jealousy in mine, friend. I couldn’t hear what they said, but I saw enough! I saw that you let the old bird make the first advances. You didn’t stumble against ’em and apologize, or any raw stunt like that. You let the old bird brace you; then, after he leaves, you gets up dignified, goes over and speaks to him with a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth look, and the second after that you’re all little pals together! It was candy, friend, it was candy!”

He beamed upon me. Then, with a certain humility, he said:

“It was a lesson to watch you, friend, and I’m always willing to learn. Won’t you tell me how you pulled him over to you? He looked sore, then. And how did you come all over him when you spoke to him?”

He looked at me eagerly, as I have seen pupils look at a teacher whom they admired.

Now, I have my fair share of conceit. I hate to destroy illusions about the author of “Weatherbee Jones,” the “American Sherlock Holmes,” as reviewers have been kind enough to term my creation. As I have intimated before, people are inclined to credit me with as much cleverness as my fiction detective. At any rate, I know, from the compliments I receive, that people believe me very quick of wit.

As a matter of fact, my mental processes are really rather slow. The Weatherbee Jones stories do not flow trippingly from my pen. I sweat them out. Therefore, I am forced to confess that as yet I had no idea of the business of this man. My readers, of course, have guessed it already. But it is easier to make deductions from cold type than from words or events. Which may explain and condone my stupidity in not connecting this gentleman with the fear of being followed of the couple in the day coach.

“What do you think you’re driving at?” I asked.

He grinned, unrebuffed.

“Great stuff,” he commented. “The stage lost some actor when you took up this game. Innocent as a babe unborn, eh? Don’t suppose you know anything at all about the New York office wiring Portland that you’d be on the night train from New York, wearing a blue greatcoat and checked cap, and that you might not be able to come up to the office, so for us to have some one at the station to help out? Don’t suppose you knew that the chief had wired that you’d give the old handkerchief signal in case there was any one else dressed like you? This is all news to you, eh?”

“Yes,” I told him flatly, “it is.”

He shook his head wonderingly.

“I don’t get you at all,” he said. “Why the New York office should wire to help you when you don’t want it—You’re kid ding me, eh? Trying to see just how wise the Portland office turns ’em out, eh? All right, friend Twenty-seven, hop to it! I can stand being kidded by a regular guy. I ain’t stuck on myself. When a classy worker wants to josh me he’s welcome to do it. Just come down to Maine for the January bathing and tennis, eh? Sure you did! And you got next to those people in the next car just for sociability’s sake, didn’t you? Sure you did! I’m some kidder myself, ain’t I?

“Of course you haven’t trailed those people in the next car all the way from Washington, have you? Certainly not! It’s all accident, your meeting up with them. Oh, of course!”

He favored me with a merry wink and drew a fresh cigar from his case. He cocked it between his lips at an acute angle, shoved his derby hat far back on his head, leaned back in his seat and crossed his knees, and favored me with a glance that assayed one hundred per cent. wise.

And now glimmerings of understanding came to me. That he had mistaken me for some one else had been evident for some time. That that some one else was a detective seemed pretty obvious now. And it was equally clear that that some one was supposed to be shadowing the couple in the next car.

I thought I understood why I had been mistaken for the shadower. I remembered, now, the man who had arrived at the train-gates in New York after they had been closed. I remembered seeing him run along outside the car. I remembered that he had worn a checked golf-cap not unlike my own and that our greatcoats were of the same color.

I thought I could see the whole business now. That man who missed the Portland train had evidently been following my new acquaintances in the car ahead. He had watched them buy their tickets to Portland and had then, probably, slipped off to send a telegram to the Portland branch of the agency for which he worked. And as there were only two great detective agencies who maintained Portland branches, as I happened to know from my newspaper work, this wise individual and the man who had missed the train must be employed by either the Greenhams or the Healy agency. My curiosity was deeply aroused. I visualized the actions of the man left behind in New York.

For some reason—possibly because he had had experience with railway porters and knew that sometimes they pocket the money and fail to send telegrams entrusted to them—the man had preferred sending the telegram himself, from the Grand Central station.

No, I was wrong there. “Eight,” who sat cheerfully smoking his cigar, had spoken of the office wiring from New York. Then my friend of the outer apparel similar to my own had probably telephoned his New York office whither he was bound. That had delayed him longer than he had expected and he had missed the train. And his failure to notify the Portland office of his not being aboard the train was simple: the first telegram, probably forwarded by the New York office as soon as his telephonic message was received, had got through to Portland safely. Any telegrams filed after that had not gone through, because of the storm with its wreck of telegraph wires. Accordingly I, dressed as the New York, or perhaps Washington operative had been dressed, and unwittingly giving the handkerchief signal, had been mistaken for him.

There may have been minor flaws in this deduction, but I have never discovered them. I was proud of it then, and I am fairly proud of it now. I think that it would have done credit to Weatherbee Jones.

And the beauty of it was that I deduced it all in about ten seconds, while I stood teetering in the aisle of the smoking-car, as if undecided whether or not to sit down be side “Eight.” But I wasn’t undecided; as soon as I had connected his strange actions with the equally strange manner of the couple in the car ahead, I made up my mind to try and pump him.

Strangely enough, the fact that I now knew, from what “Eight” had told me, as well as from the admissions conveyed by the suspicions of me held by the major and his niece, that the elderly gentleman and the girl were being followed by detectives, aroused a great sympathy in me. While, in common with most people, I have the feeling that any one followed by detectives is not a desirable acquaintance, and while somehow the fact that they were followed seemed to lend substance to my dream, or recollection, or whatever it was, of the girl searching my effects, I felt, nevertheless, allied with them. I would help them if I could.

If they had broken the law, were criminals—well, Major Penrose was a gentleman! His niece was a lady. Any crimes they might have committed could not be half so offensive to me as the mere existence of the coarse, leering, wise brute who denominated himself as “Eight.” And anyway, every one is assumed to be innocent until proved guilty. To ally myself with the major and his niece meant to obey the wise injunction of the law.

But I may as well admit right here that a pair of brown eyes, a mass of brown hair, and the loveliest face in the world, had all to do with my sitting down beside “Eight.” The legal maxim was not thought of until later.

“Eight” had turned over the back of a seat so that I was able to sit down opposite him. He removed his cigar from his mouth and expectorated with great fluency. I smiled admiringly upon him.

“Well, there’s no use trying to fool you,” I said. “I had an idea that I’d run up against some hick down here and I wanted to try you out. I was afraid you might butt in and queer the game, you know.”

“I guess I ain’t that dumb,” he said. “Second I saw you getting close to them in the next car I pussy-footed back here. Thinks I, he’ll loosen up when he gets ready, and if he thinks I’m left-handed with my face I’ll prove I’m not by not horning in. I’m ready when you want me, friend.”

“You’re all right,” said I with heavy flattery. I lighted my own cigar, and without, I hope, a trace of eagerness in my voice, said, “Now tell me all you know about the case.”

“Just what you tipped the New York office when you came on from Washington. They mailed us a copy of your report, and it reached us yesterday. A-course, what happened while you were trailing them in New York”

“They mailed you my report?” I asked.

“Why, sure! You said you had a pretty good idea that they were headed for Maine from things you’d got out of the old boy’s servants. So of course your report was mailed to us.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “And what else did I say in that report?”

He took his cigar from his mouth and stared at me.

“Say, ain’t you through yet?” he asked.

“Through what?”

“Kidding me.”

“Why, I’m simply asking you to tell me what was in my report. Is that kidding?”

“Oh, shush!” he exclaimed. “I can stand a little of it, but a whole lot makes me tired. When you get ready to act sane, instead of keeping up the josh, let me know and I’ll talk business. I ain’t going to be a goat for any one, I don’t care if he does come from the Washington office!”

“Don’t be fresh,” I said severely. “You’re under orders, you know,” I hazarded. “It won’t do you any good to buck up against me. If I should wire the Portland office to take you off the case and put some one else on”

He sat bolt upright and threw away his cigar. He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee with a pudgy forefinger.

“Go as far as you like,” he said harshly. “I ain’t stuck on shadowing at three per day and expenses when I got talent in me for bigger things. I know who’s retained us in this case. I know how much there is in it. Now, then, when you’re ready to work with me, and give me a show to prove what’s in me, I’ll be ready. But don’t try to scare me by threatening to report me. I guess the people that retained the agency would be just as willing to pay their piece of change to Jim Ravenell as to the chief! I guess that if I hand ’em what they want and tell ’em that they’ve got to come across to me, and not to the chief, they’d do it. I’m willing to stick by the firm if I’m treated right. But I don’t have to. The people who retained the chief ain’t fussy who delivers the goods, so long as the goods are delivered. Put a pin in that!

“You go ahead and report me the second you want. It’ll simply mean that I’ll go after this job on my own!”

“You’d be disloyal to the chief, then,” I said.

“Disloyal, my eye! I’d be loyal to the only thing worth being loyal to—myself. I been held back by people that’s jealous of me. If I turn this trick myself I’ll get coin enough and rep enough to start an agency of my own. The chief ain’t never worried about me; I ain’t worrying about him. Now go ’way and leave me alone.

“When you get ready to climb down from your high horse and treat me right and quit making a goat of me maybe I’ll talk business. But you might as well understand right here and now that I’m looking out for Jim Ravenell. The people that retained us ain’t the only people that want what that old bird in the car ahead has got. Other people will bid for it. This is my big chance. I intend to grab it. You’d have to find it out sooner or later; you may as well know it now!”

“A crook, eh?” I sneered.

He grinned.

“Oh, shush, you can’t make me mad with that sort of talk! Anything there’s half a million in ain’t crooked. It’s business! Now mull that over!”

With which injunction he lifted his feet to the vacant part of the seat on which I sat, settled comfortably back into his seat, and closed his eyes. I had played my hand badly. I smiled ruefully as I thought of how much more cleverly I could have made Weatherbee Jones act in such a situation. But then, I’d have had days, weeks, if necessary, to plot the genius of Weatherbee Jones.

I got up and went forward to the day coach. Coldly as the brown-eyed girl had treated me, she had some justice on her side. She had thought me a spy. And if she had rifled my effects it was probably to get proof that I was one. I could not blame her. With half a million at stake— What on earth could it be that Major Penrose, officer and gentleman, and Ruth Gilman, beauty and lady, could possess that was worth half a million to the unknown employers of either the Greenhams or the Healy agency? Was it something that they had stolen? If so, why weren’t they arrested?

Of course, crooks were sometimes allowed to go free because it was hoped that they would lead their pursuers to their booty. Weatherbee Jones often did that! But even if the major and his niece were crooks—well, Jim Ravenell cheerfully admitted being one himself. As between the crook in the smoking-car and the couple ahead, there was only one choice.

I walked swiftly into the day-coach to inform the major and his niece that their suspicions were justified, though not by myself; that there was a spy upon their trail.

“Major—and Miss Gilman,” I said breathlessly, “I want to tell you that I’ve discovered”

He raised his hand and cut me short.

“We have made some discoveries ourselves, Mr. Randall Brant!”

He emphasized the name in a way that made me color guiltily, as I seemed to be doing so frequently of late. He lifted his other hand. In it he held a telegram-blank which I recognized as the one I had not sent to Billy Odlin.

“There are times,” said the major, “when the ordinary canons that guide a gentleman’s conduct may be ignored. I have never before read a missive not addressed to me. But under the circumstances, my niece and myself feeling that there still remained reasonable ground for doubts about you, I picked up and read the telegram which I hold here and which, evidently because of the storm, you had not been able to send.

“You are a spy and liar, sir! I will not even give you that satisfaction which one gentleman should give another upon such an accusation, and which, thank God, no fears of the law against dueling has ever made me forego offering to a gentleman! But you—if you presume to address either my niece or myself again, I shall cane you, Mr. Sidney Spy!”

He placed the telegram in my limp fingers. I should have known what to do had he been nearer my own age and physique. But he was a slender, elderly man, not at all my equal in strength.

There was, of course, the other alternative. I could endeavor to explain. But one becomes tired of explanations. I saw no reason why I should offer another to people so ready to suspect me, and who themselves were under some cloud of suspicion that caused detectives to take undue interest in them.

I drew myself up. But it is hard to look haughtily indifferent and proudly innocent when a handsome old gentleman and a lovely girl look at you with eyes of contempt. Especially is it hard when in your hand you hold the evidence that has damned you. I could not be the hero that Weatherbee Jones, when misunderstood, sometimes is. I’m afraid that I slunk to my seat, where I read the telegram that was so innocent, but that yet must seem so patently guilty. t read:

It was signed by my first name, “Sidney!”

How could I, in the face of this ambiguous writing, which meant one thing to me, but something entirely different to the major and his niece, do otherwise than slink to my seat? I’m afraid that Weatherbee Jones would have had difficulty in looking proudly conscious of his rectitude under such conditions.

Maybe the train was not very late in reaching Folly Cove. But the journey seemed of years’ duration to me.