The Sleuth of St. James's Square Read online

  II. The Reward

  I was before one of those difficult positions unavoidable to a visitorin a foreign country.

  I had to meet the obligations of professional courtesy. Captain Walkerhad asked me to go over the manuscript of his memoirs; and now he hadcalled at the house in which I was a guest, for my opinion. We had longbeen friends; associated in innumerable cases, and I wished to suggestthe difficulty rather than to express it. It was the twilight of anearly Washington winter. The lights in the great library, softened withdelicate shades, had been turned on. Outside, Sheridan Circle was almosta thing of beauty in its vague outlines; even the squat, ridiculousbronze horse had a certain dignity in the blue shadow.

  If one had been speculating on the man, from his physical aspect onewould have taken Walker for an engineer of some sort, rather than thehead of the United States Secret Service. His lean face and his angularmanner gaffe that impression. Even now, motionless in the big chairbeyond the table, he seemed--how shall I say it?--mechanical.

  And that was the very defect in his memoir. He had cut the great casesinto a dry recital. There was no longer in them any pressure of a humanimpulse. The glow of inspired detail had been dissected out. Everythingstartling and wonderful had been devitalized.

  The memoir was a report.

  The bulky typewritten manuscript lay on the table beside the electriclamp, and I stood about uncertain how to tell him.

  "Walker," I said, "did nothing wonderful ever happen to you in theadventure of these cases?"

  "What precisely do you mean, Sir Henry?" he replied.

  The practical nature of the man tempted me to extravagance.

  "Well," I said, "for example, were you never kissed in a lonely streetby a mysterious woman and the flash of your dark lantern reveal a faceof startling beauty?"

  "No," he said, as though he were answering a sensible question, "thatnever happened to me."

  "Then," I continued, "perhaps you have found a prince of the church,pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together theindicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncannyacumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?"

  "No," he said; and then his face lighted. "But I'll tell you what I didfind. I found a drunken hobo at Atlantic City who was the best detectiveI ever saw."

  I sat down and tapped the manuscript with my fingers.

  "It's not here," I said. "Why did you leave it out?"

  He took a big gold watch out of his pocket and turned it about in hishand. The case was covered with an inscription.

  "Well, Sir Henry," he said, "the boys in the department think a gooddeal of me. I shouldn't like them to know how a dirty tramp faked me atAtlantic City. I don't mind telling you, but I couldn't print it in amemoir."

  He went directly ahead with the story and I was careful not to interrupthim:

  "I was sitting in a rolling chair out there on the Boardwalk before theTraymore. I was nearly all in, and I had taken a run to Atlantic for aday or two of the sea air. The fact is the whole department was down andout. You may remember what we were up against; it finally got into thenewspapers.

  "The government plates of the Third Liberty Bond issue had disappeared.We knew how they had gotten out, and we thought we knew the man at thehead of the thing. It was a Mulehaus job, as we figured it.

  "It was too big a thing for a little crook. With the government platesthey could print Liberty Bonds just as the Treasury would. And theycould sow the world with them."

  He paused and moved his gold-rimmed spectacles a little closer in on hisnose.

  "You see these war bonds are scattered all over the country. They areheld by everybody. It's not what it used to be, a banker's business thatwe could round up. Nobody could round up the holders of these bonds.

  "A big crook like Mulehaus could slip a hundred million of them into thecountry and never raise a ripple."

  He paused and drew his fingers across his bony protruding chin.

  "I'll say this for Mulehaus: He's the hardest man to identify in thewhole kingdom of crooks. Scotland Yard, the Service de la Surete,everybody, says that. I don't mean dime-novel disguises--false whiskersand a limp. I mean the ability to be the character he pretends--thething that used to make Joe Jefferson, Rip Van Winkle--and not an actormade up to look like him. That's the reason nobody could keep track ofMulehaus, especially in South American cities. He was a French banker inthe Egypt business and a Swiss banker in the Argentine."

  He turned back from the digression:

  "And it was a clean job. They had got away with the plates. We didn'thave a clew. We thought, naturally, that they'd make for Mexico or someSouth American country to start their printing press. And we had theports and border netted up. Nothing could have gone out across theborder or, through any port. All the customs officers were, working withus, and every agent of the Department of Justice."

  He looked at me steadily across the table.

  "You see the Government had to get those plates back before the crookstarted to print, or else take up every bond of that issue over thewhole country. It was a hell of a thing!

  "Of course we had gone right after the record of all the big crooksto see whose line this sort of job was. And the thing narrowed down toMulehaus or old Vronsky. We soon found out it wasn't Vronsky. He was inJoliet. It was Mulehaus. But we couldn't find him.

  "We didn't even know that Mulehaus was in America. He's a big crook witha genius for selecting men. He might be directing the job from Rio ora Mexican port. But we were sure it was a Mulehaus' job. He sold theFrench securities in Egypt in '90; and he's the man who put the bogusArgentine bonds on our market--you'll find the case in the 115th FederalReporter.

  "Well," he went on, "I was sitting out there in the rolling chair,looking at the sun on the sea and thinking about the thing, whenI noticed this hobo that I've been talking about. He was my chairattendant, but I hadn't looked at him before. He had moved round frombehind me and was now leaning against the galvanized pipe railing.

  "He was a big human creature, a little stooped, unshaved and dirty; hismouth was slack and loose, and he had a big mobile nose that seemed tomove about like a piece of soft rubber. He had hardly any clothing; acap that must have been fished out of an ash barrel, no shirt whatever,merely an old ragged coat buttoned round him, a pair of canvas breechesand carpet slippers tied on to his feet with burlap, and wrapped roundhis ankles to conceal the fact that he wore no socks.

  "As I looked at him he darted out, picked up the stump of a cigarettethat some one had thrown down, and came back to the railing to smoke it,his loose mouth and his big soft nose moving like kneaded putty.

  "Altogether this tramp was the worst human derelict I ever saw. And itoccurred to me that this was the one place in the whole of America whereany sort of a creature could get a kind of employment and no questionsasked.

  "Anything that could move and push a chair could get fifteen cents anhour from McDuyal. Wise man, poor man, beggar man, thief, it was all oneto McDuyal. And the creatures could sleep in the shed behind the rollingchairs.

  "I suppose an impulse to offer the man a garment of some sort moved meto address him.

  "'You're nearly naked,' I said.

  "He crossed one leg over the other with the toe of the carpet slippertouching the walk, in the manner of a burlesque actor, took thecigarette out of his mouth with a little flourish, and replied to me:

  "'Sure, Governor, I ain't dolled up like John Drew.'

  "There was a sort of cocky unconcern about the creature that gave hismiserable state a kind of beggarly distinction. He was in among the verydregs of life, and he was not depressed about it.

  "'But if I had a sawbuck," he continued, "I could bulge your eye ....Couldn't point the way to one?'

  "He arrested my answer with the little flourish of his fingers holdingthe stump of the cigarette.

  "'Not work, Governor,' and he made a little duck of his head, 'and notmurder.... Go as far as you please between 'em.'

>   "The fantastic manner of the derelict was infectious.

  "'O. K.' I said. 'Go out and find me a man who is a deserter from theGerman Army, was a tanner in Bale and began life as a sailor, and I'lldouble your money--I'll give you a twenty-dollar bill.'

  "The creature whistled softly in two short staccato notes.

  "'Some little order,' he said. And taking a toothpick out of his pockethe stuck it into the stump of the cigarette which had become too shortto hold between his fingers.

  "At this moment a boy from the post office came to me with the dailyreport from Washington, and I got out of the chair, tipped the creature,and went into the hotel, stopping to pay McDuyal as I passed.

  "There was nothing new from the department except that our organizationover the country was in close touch. We had offered five thousanddollars reward for the recovery of the plates, and the Post OfficeDepartment was now posting the notice all over America in every office.The Secretary thought we had better let the public in on it and not keepit an underground offer to the service.

  "I had forgotten the hobo, when about five o'clock he passed me alittle below the Steel Pier. He was in a big stride and he had somethingclutched in his hand.

  "He called to me as he hurried along: 'I got him, Governor.... See youlater!'

  "'See me now,' I said. 'What's the hurry?'

  "He flashed his hand open, holding a silver dollar with his thumbagainst the palm.

  "'Can't stop now, I'm going to get drunk. See you later.'

  "I smiled at this disingenuous creature. He was saving me for the dryhour. He could point out Mulehaus in any passing chair, and I would givesome coin to be rid of his pretension."

  Walker paused. Then he went on:

  "I was right. The hobo was waiting for me when I came out of the hotelthe following morning.

  "'Howdy, Governor,' he said; 'I located your man.'

  "I was interested to see how he would frame up his case.

  "'How did you find him?' I said.

  "He grinned, moving his lip and his loose nose.

  "'Some luck, Governor, and some sleuthin'. It was like this: I thoughtyou was stringin' me. But I said to myself I'll keep out an eye; maybeit's on the level--any damn thing can happen.'

  "He put up his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of hisvest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him and droppedit.

  "'And believe me or not, Governor, it's the God's truth. About fouro'clock up toward the Inlet I passed a big, well-dressed, banker-lookinggent walking stiff from the hip and throwing out his leg. "Come eleven!"I said to myself. "It's the goosestep!" I had an empty roller, and Itook a turn over to him.'

  "'"Chair, Admiral?" I said.

  "'He looked at me sort of queer.

  "'"What makes you think I'm an admiral, my man?" he answers.

  "Well," I says, lounging over on one foot reflective like, "nobody couldbe a-viewin' the sea with that lovin', ownership look unless he'd bossedher a bit.... If I'm right, Admiral, you takes the chair."

  "'He laughed, but he got in. "I'm not an admiral," he said, "but it istrue that I've followed the sea."

  "The hobo paused, and put up his first and second fingers spread like aV.

  "'Two points, Governor--the gent had been a sailor and a soldier; nowhow about the tanner business?

  "He scratched his head, moving his ridiculous cap.

  "'That sort of puzzled me, and I pussyfooted along toward the Inletthinkin' about it. If a man was a tanner, and especially a foreign,hand-workin' tanner, what would his markin's be?

  "'I tried to remember everybody that I'd ever seen handlin' a hide, andall at once I recollected that the first thing a dago shoemaker donewhen he picked up a piece of leather was to smooth it out with histhumbs. An' I said to myself, now that'll be what a tanner does, only hedoes it more.... he's always doin' it. Then I asks myself what would bethe markin's?'

  "The hobo paused, his mouth open, his head twisted to one side. Then hejerked up as under a released spring.

  "'And right away, Governor, I got the answer to it flat thumbs!'

  "The hobo stepped back with an air of victory and flashed his hand up.

  "'And he had 'em! I asked him what time it was so I could keep the hourstraight for McDuyal, I told him, but the real reason was so I could seehis hands.'"

  Walker crossed one leg over the other.

  "It was clever," he said, "and I hesitated to shatter it. But thequestion had to come.

  "'Where is your man?' I said.

  "The hobo executed a little deprecatory step, with his fingers pickingat his coat pockets.

  "'That's the trouble, Governor,' he answered; 'I intended to sleuth himfor you, but he gave me a dollar and I got drunk... you saw me. That manhad got out at McDuyal's place not five minutes before. I was flashin'to the booze can when you tried to stop me.... Nothin' doin' when I getthe price.'"

  Walker paused.

  "It was a good fairy story and worth something. I offered him half adollar. Then I got a surprise.

  "The creature looked eagerly at the coin in my fingers, and he movedtoward it. He was crazy for the liquor it would buy. But he set histeeth and pulled up.

  "'No, Governor,' he said, 'I'm in it for the sawbuck. Where'll I findyou about noon?'

  "I promised to be on the Boardwalk before Heinz's Pier at two o'clock,and he turned to shuffle away. I called an inquiry after him... You seethere were two things in his story: How did he get a dollar tip, andhow did he happen to make his imaginary man banker-looking? Mulehaus hadbeen banker-looking in both the Egypt and the Argentine affairs. I leftthe latter point suspended, as we say. But I asked about the dollar. Hecame back at once.

  "'I forgot about that, Governor,' he said. 'It was like this: Theadmiral kept looking out at the sea where an old freighter was goingSouth. You know, the fruit line from New York. One of them goes byevery day or two. And I kept pushing him along. Finally we got up to theInlet, and I was about to turn when he stopped me. You know the neck ofground out beyond where the street cars loop; there's an old board fenceby the road, then sand to the sea, and about halfway between the fenceand the water there's a shed with some junk in it. You've seen it. Theymade the old America out there and the shed was a tool house.

  "'When I stopped the admiral says: "Cut across to the hole in that oldboard fence and see if an automobile has been there, and I'll give you adollar." An' I done it, an' I got it.'

  "Then he shuffled off.

  "'Be on the spot, Governor, an' I'll lead him to you.'"

  Walker leaned over, rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, andlinked his fingers together.

  "That gave me a new flash on the creature. He was a slicker article thanI imagined. I was not to get off with a tip. He was taking some pains totouch me for a greenback. I thought I saw his line. It would not accountfor his hitting the description of Mulehaus in the make-up of hisstraw-man, but it would furnish the data for the dollar story. I haddrawn the latter a little before he was ready. It belonged in what heplanned to give me at two o'clock. But I thought I saw what the creaturewas about. And I was right."

  Walker put out his hand and moved the pages of his memoir on the table.Then he went on:

  "I was smoking a cigar on a bench at the entrance to Heinz's Pier whenthe hobo shuffled up. He came down one of the streets from PacificAvenue, and the direction confirmed me in my theory. It also confirmedme in the opinion that I was all kinds of a fool to let this dirty hoboget a further chance at me.

  "I was not in a very good humor. Everything I had set going afterMulehaus was marking time. The only report was progress in linkingthings up; not only along the Canadian and Mexican borders and thecustomhouses, but we had also done a further unusual thing, we hadan agent on every ship going out of America to follow through to theforeign port and look out for anything picked up on the way.

  "It was a plan I had set at immediately the robbery was discovered. Itwould cut out the trick of reshipping at sea from some f
ishing craft orsmall boat. The reports were encouraging enough in that respect. We hadthe whole country as tight as a drum. But it was slender comfort whenthe Treasury was raising the devil for the plates and we hadn't a clewto them."

  Walker stopped a moment. Then he went on:

  "I felt like kicking the hobo when he got to me, he was so obviously theextreme of all worthless creatures, with that apologetic, confidentialmanner which seems to be an abominable attendant on human degeneracy.One may put up with it for a little while, but it presently becomesintolerable.

  "'Governor,' he began, when he'd shuffled up, 'you won't git mad if Isay a little somethin'?

  "'Go on and say it,' I said.

  "The expression on his dirty unshaved face became, if possible, morefoolish.

  "'Well, then, Governor, askin' your pardon, you ain't Mr. Henry P.Johnson, from Erie; you're the Chief of the United States SecretService, from Washington.'"

  Walker moved in his chair.

  "That made me ugly," he went on, "the assurance of the creature and myunspeakable carelessness in permitting the official letters broughtto me on the day before by the post-office messenger to be seen. In myrelaxation I had forgotten the eye of the chair attendant. I took thecigar out of my teeth and looked at him.

  "'And I'll say a little something myself!' I could hardly keep my footclear of him. 'When you got sober this morning and remembered who I was,you took a turn up round the post office to make sure of it, and whileyou were in there you saw the notice of the reward for the stolen bondplates. That gave you the notion with which you pieced out your fairystory about how you got the dollar tip. Having discovered my identitythrough a piece of damned carelessness on my part, and having seen thepostal notice of the reward, you undertook to enlarge your little game.That's the reason you wouldn't take fifty cents. It was your notion inthe beginning to make a touch for a tip. And it would have worked. Butnow you can't get a damned cent out of me.' Then I threw a little brushinto him: 'I'd have stood a touch for your finding the fake tanner,because there isn't any such person.'

  "I intended to put the hobo out of business," Walker went on, "but theeffect of my words on him were even more startling than I anticipated.His jaw dropped and he looked at me in astonishment.

  "'No such person!' he repeated. 'Why, Governor, before God, I found aman like that, an' he was a banker--one of the big ones, sure as there'sa hell!'"

  Walker put out his hands in a puzzled gesture.

  "There it was again, the description of Mulehaus! And it puzzled me.Every motion of this hobo's mind in every direction about this affairwas perfectly clear to me. I saw his intention in every turn of it andjust where he got the material for the details of his story. Butthis absolutely distinguishing description of Mulehaus was beyond me.Everybody, of course, knew that we were looking for the lost plates, forthere was the reward offered by the Treasury; but no human soul outsideof the trusted agents of the department knew that we were looking forMulehaus."

  Walker did not move, but he stopped in his recital for a moment.

  "The tramp shuffled up a step closer to the bench where I sat. Theanxiety in his big slack face was sincere beyond question.

  "'I can't find the banker man, Governor; he's skipped the coop. But Ibelieve I can find what he's hid.'

  "'Well,' I said, 'go and find it.'

  "The hobo jerked out his limp hands in a sort of hopeless gesture.

  "'Now, Governor,' he whimpered, 'what good would it do me to find themplates?'

  "'You'd get five thousand dollars,' I said.

  "'I'd git kicked into the discard by the first cop that got to me,' heanswered, 'that's what I'd git.'

  "The creature's dirty, unshaved jowls began to shake, and his voicebecame wholly a whimper.

  "'I've got a line on this thing, Governor, sure as there's a hell. Thatbanker man was viewin' the layout. I've thought it all over, an' this isthe way it would be. They're afraid of the border an' they're afraidof the customhouses, so they runs the loot down here in an automobile,hides it up about the Inlet, and plans to go out with it to one of themfruit steamers passing on the way to Tampico. They'd have them platesbundled up in a sailor's chest most like.

  "'Now, Governor, you'd say why ain't they already done it? An' I'danswer, the main guy--this banker man--didn't know the automobile hadgot here until he sent me to look, and there ain't been no ship alongsince then.... I've been special careful to find that out.' And then thecreature began to whine. 'Have a heart, Governor, come along with me.Gimme a show!'

  "It was not the creature's plea that moved me, nor his pretendeddeductions; I'm a bit old to be soft. It was the 'banker man' stickinglike a bur in the hobo's talk. I wanted to keep him in sight until Iunderstood where he got it. No doubt that seems a slight reason forgoing out to the Inlet with the creature; but you must remember thatslight things are often big signboards in our business."

  He continued, his voice precise and even

  "We went directly from the end of the Boardwalk to the old shed; it wasopen, an unfastened door on a pair of leather hinges. The shed is small,about twenty feet by eleven, with a hard dirt floor packed down by theworkmen who had used it; a combination of clay and sand like the Jerseyroads put in to make a floor. All round it, from the sea to the boardfence, was soft sand. There were some pieces of old junk lying about inthe shed; but nothing of value or it would have been nailed up.

  "The hobo led right off with his deductions. There, was the track of aman, clearly outlined in the soft sand, leading from the board fence tothe shed and returning, and no other track anywhere about.

  "'Now, Governor,' he began, when he had taken a look at the tracks, 'theman that made them tracks carried something into this shed, and he leftit here, and it was something heavy.'

  "I was fairly certain that the hobo had salted the place for me, madethe tracks himself; but I played out a line to him.

  "'How do you know that?' I said.

  "'Well, Governor,' he answered, 'take a look at them two lines oftracks. In the one comin' to the shed the man was walkin' with his feetapart and in the one goin' back he was walkin' with his feet in front ofone another; that's because he was carryin' somethin' heavy when he comean' nothin' when he left.'

  "It was an observation on footprints," he went on, "that had neveroccurred to me. The hobo saw my awakened interest, and he added:

  "'Did you never notice a man carryin' a heavy load? He kind of totters,walkin' with his feet apart to keep his balance. That makes his foottracks side by side like, instead of one before the other as he makesthem when he's goin' light."'

  Walker interrupted his narrative with a comment:

  "It's the truth. I've verified it a thousand times since that hobo putme onto it. A line running through the center of the heel prints of aman carrying a heavy burden will be a zigzag, while one through the heelprints of the same man without the burden will be almost straight.

  "The tramp went right on with his deductions:

  "'If it come in and didn't go out, it's here.'

  "And he began to go over the inside of the shed. He searched it like aman searching a box for a jewel. He moved the pieces of old castings andhe literally fingered the shed from end to end. He would have found abird's egg.

  "Finally he stopped and stood with his hand spread out over his mouth.And I selected this critical moment to touch the powder off under hisgame.

  "'Suppose,' I said, 'that this man with the heavy load wished to misleadus; suppose that instead of bringing something here he took one of theseold castings away?'

  "The hobo looked at me without changing his position.

  "'How could he, Governor; he was pointin' this way with the load?'

  "'By walking backward,' I said. For it occurred to me that perhaps thecreature had manufactured this evidence for the occasion, and I wishedto test the theory."

  Walker went on in his slow, even voice:

  "The test produced more action than I expected.

  "The hobo dive
d out through the door. I followed to see him disappear.But it was not in flight; he was squatting down over the footprints.And a moment later he rocked back on his haunches with a little exultantyelp.

  "'Dope's wrong, Governor,' he said; 'he was sure comin' this way.' Thenhe explained: 'If a man's walkin' forward in sand or mud or snow the toeof his shoe flirts out a little of it, an' if he's walkin' backward hisheel flirts it out.'

  "At this point I began to have some respect for the creature's ability.He got up and came back into the shed. And there he stood, in his oldposition, with his fingers over his mouth, looking round at the emptyshed, in which, as I have said, one could not have concealed a bird'segg.

  "I watched him without offering any suggestion, for my interest in thething had awakened and I was curious to see what he would do. He stoodperfectly motionless for about a minute; and then suddenly he snappedhis fingers and the light came into his face.

  "'I got it, Governor!' Then he came over to where I stood. 'Gimme aquarter to git a bucket.'

  "I gave him the coin, for I was now profoundly puzzled, and he went out.He was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when he came in he had a bucketof water. But he had evidently been thinking on the way, for he set thebucket down carefully, wiped his hands on his canvas breeches, and beganto speak, with a little apologetic whimper in his voice.

  "'Now look here, Governor,' he said, 'I'm a-goin' to talk turkey; do Igit the five thousand if I find this stuff?'

  "'Surely,' I answered him.

  "'An' there'll be no monkeyin', Governor; you'll take me down to a bankyourself an' put the money in my hand?'

  "'I promise you that,' I assured him.

  "But he was not entirely quiet in his mind about it. He shifted uneasilyfrom one foot to the other, and his soft rubber nose worked.

  "'Now, Governor,' he said, 'I'm leery about jokers--I gotta be. I don'twant any string to this money. If I git it I want to go and blow itin. I don't want you to hand me a roll an' then start any reformin'stunt--a-holdin' of it in trust an' a probation officer a-pussyfootin'me, or any funny business. I want the wad an' a clear road to the brightlights, with no word passed along to pinch me. Do I git it?'

  "'It's a trade!' I said.

  "'O. K.,' he answered, and he took up the bucket. He began at the doorand poured the water carefully on the hard tramped earth. When thebucket was empty he brought another and another. Finally about midway ofthe floor space he stopped.

  "'Here it is!' he said.

  "I was following beside him, but I saw nothing to justify his words.

  "'Why do you think the plates are buried here?' I said.

  "'Look at the air bubbles comin' up, Governor,' he answered."

  Walker stopped, then he added:

  "It's a thing which I did not know until that moment, but it's thetruth. If hard-packed earth is dug up and repacked air gets into it, andif one pours water on the place air bubbles will come up."

  He did not go on, and I flung at him the big query in his story.

  "And you found the plates there?"

  "Yes, Sir Henry," he replied, "in the false bottom of an old steamertrunk."

  "And the hobo got the money?"

  "Certainly," he answered. "I put it into his hand, and let him go withit, as I promised."

  Again he was silent, and I turned toward him in astonishment.

  "Then," I said, "why did you begin this story by saying the hobo fakedyou? I don't see the fake; he found the plates and he was entitled tothe reward."

  Walker put his hand into his pocket, took out a leather case, selecteda paper from among its contents and handed it to me. "I didn't see thefake either," he said, "until I got this letter."

  I unfolded the letter carefully. It was neatly written in a hand likecopper plate and dated Buenos Aires.

  DEAR COLONEL WALKER: When I discovered that you were planting an agenton every ship I had to abandon the plates and try for the reward. Thankyou for the five thousand; it covered expenses.

  Very sincerely yours,

  D. Mulehaus.