The Complete Simon Iff (43 page)

There was a small antechamber almost filled by a big raw country girl with hair dyed yellow and lips and cheeks stained red. She was pounding away upon her machine, and did not stop as she looked up to inquire the visitor's business, which she did with the words "What's doin'?"

"I understand that Mr. Greil is rarely here before eleven."

"Thasso."

"Therefore, as I do not in the least wish to see him, I made a point of calling a little before ten."

The girl was up on her feet, her eyes ablaze.

"What's the game?" she shouted defiantly.

Simple Simon raised himself to his full height. Till then he had kept a hand upon her table, as he bent over toward her.

"Suppose I were to tell you that the bulls have got Ned again?"

"Oh don't! Oh don't!" she sobbed wildly. "It's a shame; it's a damned shame, indeed it is. He's the dearest boy in the world."

She paused, and stared.

"Why, who are you? What d'ye know? Come across."

"I will, my dear young lady. I'm Simon Iff; middle name, A Friend in Need. Now sit down: The bulls have not got Ned - at least, they hadn't at nine o'clock this morning. But why am I a friend? To be frank, I came as an enemy. The Truth is this; when I saw you, I was sure you were straight. Also, that you were not the sort of girl to make a fool of herself over a man. I began to think that Ned might have been hardly used."

The girl had become calm. "Sit down, Mr. Simonev," she said, familiar with few but Ghetto names in business circles, "pleased to meet you. My name's Sadie White. Please tell me how you come to know Ned."

"I don't know Ned, or anything about him except that his other name is Grattan, and that he escaped from the custody of a detective, about three blocks from here, two days ago at a little after five o'clock in the afternoon."

"Why, that's right, too."

"Well, tell me the whole story."

"I guess I will. I'm all hot over it. See here, mister, Ned's the straightest boy in this dirty grafting burg. He hasn't got a cent, but he loves me, and I'm gonna wait like till he gets clear through college and puts up his shingle. 'Ts like this. All winter he studies up at Youghal, and lives by doing tailor work for some o' the rich guys in college. He's the fastest boy in the football team, too, so all summer when they ain't no work, he comes t' New York t' be near me, and grinds out the mazuma doin' the African Ball Dodger stunt in a show down at Coney, which just suits him, too, for he keeps up his swimming and sculling in his spare time. Now they just passed a law against that, y' know ..."

"Excuse me," said Iff, with a little cough, and a wry smile, "I don't quite know what an African Ball Dodger is."

"Why, he blacks his face and shoves his head through a hole in a canvas, and the boys throw wooden balls at it for coconuts. He was so quick they never hit him, not half a dozen times a day; he wuz just coinin' money for that show."

"So they passed a law?"

"Up in Albany. But the show went on; nobody ever knows here what the law will be from one day to the next, not even the judges. So one day the bulls drops in, and pinches the whole crowd, and Ned gets six months.

"Well, 'bout a week after one o' th' warders comes an' whispers to Ned. 'Beat it, kid!' he ses. So Ned lit out, and got clean off, into New Jersey where the law don't run. But o' course he could never come back in this state."

"There seem compensations even in so harsh a fate," murmured Simon Iff. "But is Ned really any good at his work? Strange - to an English ear - to hear of a student earning his living in such ways."

"Oh, it's the reg'lar thing here," said Sadie. "But clever, my! he's got three scholarships. But o' course he can't live on that."

"I see."

"However, he got safe to Youghal, and played football and took his examination fine. Now and then he got a day off, and would come down the Hudson to see me.

"Well, one night I went over to Hoboken to meet him, and we went to the movies. Comin' back, Ned goes in a saloon for a drink or su'thin', an' the nex' thing is three men throwing him into a motor wagon.

"Four days after that he 'phones me to come out to Hoboken; they'd run him over to New York and dumped him in Central Park at two that morning. Sure 'nuff, the bulls was on him. When he gets to the station, the captain he says: Thow him in the cooler; he's a desprit character. An' two hours after that the captain comes an' unlocks him, an' ses: Go up ter my house, leg it, now, an' gives him the address. So off goes Ned, an' they treat him fine for two days, an' then the captain comes in one night late, an' ses: All right, kid, come along in th' old gas buggy. Then he runs him over to Hoboken. Good-night, ses he, and take care of yourself. Which he does till last week, when he thinks it's all forgotten, and he wasn't two hours in the city before they pinch him again. This time it's another frame-up - charge o' forgery - and he gets real scared. So he breaks away from the bull, an' ..."

"I know the rest," said Simon Iff. "Ned seems a much more important person - to somebody - than appears at first sight. Has he got any enemies that he knows of?"

"Nary one. Everybody likes Ned."

"It's very strange to me. The law appears equally anxious to arrest him and to let him go."

"Thasso. I never thought of that."

"By the way, here is a hundred dollars. You will know what to do with it."

"Oh, I couldn't take it. I can save it out of my salary."

"Nonsense. Besides, I want the matter settled this morning, for reasons of my own."

"All right. Thank you ever so much."

"I think I will run off now. Be at ease, my dear; I can promise you that Ned will come to no harm."

"Oh do do your best! You don't know how I love him!"

"Oh yes, I do. I've taken medals for it."

"Ned has medals, too," said the girl quite seriously. "He won the Elijah Blossom sculls two years running."

"Ah," said Iff, "I thought I knew the name."

III

Simon Iff walked down one flight of stairs, and looked in on Mr. Gatt. "I want to bring a friend to that little lunch if I may."

Gatt was quite charmed.

"Shall we say the Holland House at one?"

"It will suit admirably."

The magician went off in search of the friend at his club. He was rather in a hurry, for the friend kept very regular hours. At the stroke of eleven he invariably laid down his cue, whether the game was finished or not, and retired to sleep until dinner-time. Iff was well aware that, once in bed, he was less accessible than the Dalai Lama.

He found him, one Captain Lascelles, whose pet name was "Cheero", yawning his way through what proved to be a break of 121 18-inch baulk lime. Despite this, he was in bitter humour, for the blizzards had prevented him from enjoying his one passion, yachting, for over ten days.

"Hello, Cheero!" cried Simon, "and how's yourself!"

"Top hole, dear boy, but it's a dog's life. The bottom's dropped out of the damned barometer."

"Well, buck up. Can't last for ever. What d'ye say to a devilled kidney at the Holland House by way of a late supper?"

"Imposs! You know my rules. You've told me yourself a hundred times that a regular life is the key to good health - though I never saw you do it yourself!"

"I've a story for you - something you value more than health is at stake."

"Oho! a breeze from the nor'rard! Good. Simon Iff, you interest me strangely. Proceed with your esteemed narration. Nay, I must first castigate this presumptuous amateur."

His opponent had just failed at an easy one-cushion shot through trying too much for position.

"Let me introduce Major Bimis, of the United States Army. Mr. Iff."

"Glad to know you, sir!" said Bimis. "A cueist, sir?"

"Used to make 'em talk Chinese," said Lascelles, gathering the balls with a surperb three-cushion shot. "I once saw him run off thirty-one, on an English table, at Empstone Manor, blindfold. Allowed to feel where the balls were, before playing, wonderful, by Jove! That's my string, Bimis. So long: Mr. Iff wants to ask my advice; he's got to see a man about a dog. Oh Simon Iff, beware, if she's a blonde!"

Bimis, with a slight list to starboard, headed for the open sea.

Lascelles sank upon a chesterfield, while Simon Iff, one thigh upon a corner of the table, made caroms with a ball spun between finger and thumb. Lascelles made circles with his eyes and mouth as the old mystic snapped out his story; but he said nothing beyond the occasional ejaculation: "These are indeed deep waters, Watson!"

At the end he cried, "A walk across the Park, Iff, to chase away the clouds of sleep, to furnish me an appetite, and - above all - to get my monocle. We must not go among these criminals unarmed!"

Captain Lascelles R.N. was the youngest Captain in the British Navy. He was generally admitted to be the Grand Panjandrum in matters of gunnery, and he was Iff's right hand man in the Secret Mission which had brought him to the United States. But the British and American publics only knew of him as the yachtsman, and patron of all forms of sport. He was particularly famous for madcap pranks, but nobody doubted his seriousness and integrity when need arose for its display. He was a steward of the Jockey Club, and had once won a match - impromptu - against Lord Abinghame over the Derby course by moonlight; thereby disposing of the theory that a sailor cannot sit a horse.

Luncheon at the Holland House was for five instead of four, as Gatt, inviting the editor of "Jags", a humble person with goloshes, umbrella, no chest, a perpetual snuffle, a taste for ice-cream soda, and a wife who beat him, found himself obliged to include the editor of "Smutty Stories", in the party. This was a long lean Yankee with a Nonconformist (or New England) Conscience, sallow, wrinkled, spectacled with huge disks of horn, sharp-nosed, long-toothed, with a thin mouth that had never been seen to smile.

This lugubrious pair were inseparable companions; they had dined at each other's houses, on 177th Street, alternate nights without a break, for nearly twenty years.

After dinner each would produce a bundle of manuscripts, and peruse them conscientiously with many a groan.

They kept humbly behind the great Gatt, and could hardly be persuaded to sit at the table with so obviously distinguished an individual as a Captain in the British Navy, complete, with a monocle more dreadful than a Nordenfeldt.

Gatt, however, was in his glory. Here was a first-class detective story in real life, and he was to be present at the Ceremony of Unveiling.

He introduced the subject by recounting the dinner at the Bas Bastion, and telling the Story of the Man with the Three Wives. "And Mr. Iff," he concluded, "just scribbled on a piece of paper, and passed it to Caudle. I never saw any one so crushed. The great Caudle! It was a treat, believe me! Mr. Iff, I'd give a hundred dollars to know what you wrote on that paper. Who gets the diamonds?"

"The lawyers," said Iff, laconically.

Gatt was delighted.

"And now, do tell us, have you solved our little mystery of the Broken Typewriter?"

"I have."

"Splendid, splendid!"

"Just one question, Mr. Gatt. You are a member of the Pi Omicron Xi Frat, are you not?"

"I am. I am on several of the Committees."

"The Frat is restricted to old Kingsbridge graduates, I think?"

"It is, Mr. Iff."

"Good."

"But what has that to do with our mystery?"

"Much, Mr. Gatt. I shall have a request to prefer, a little later. Allow me to explain.

"The outrages in your office fall naturally into two parts, as you yourself saw. There was some pilfering, which almost anybody might have done. The means would be simple, the motive obvious. But the thief would be a sly sneaky person, I imagine, one liable to take instant alarm."

"Quite so."

"The man - the person - who broke your - the - machine, would on the contrary, be perfectly fearless, ready for violence, careless of consequence."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Two people, not one, then?"

"I quite follow you."

"But - how did this person do it? And when? And why? Answer those questions, and Who did it? soon answers itself."

"Quite so, Mr. Iff."

"The how and when are very awkward, though. At the only possible times there were people actually at work in the office. Why did nobody hear the clang of those repeated blows upon that exceptionaly solid steel?

"As to the why, it is a regular stumper!"

"I see the difficulties very clearly, Mr. Iff."

"Who is benefited by the smashing up of the machine? Nobody. Who is injured? Your two-million dollar corporation. A hayseed on an elephant's back! I therefore concluded that the breaking was an accident, an incident in some purposeful act. Now, how could that be? Any idea?"

Mr. Gatt considered.

"If some one had thrown the machine at somebody?"

"Not bad," smiled Iff. "Really a very creditable conjecture. Apart from the fact of the repeated blows, quite satisfactory. But when? - and how? - and -"

He broke off, and leaned over impressively to Gatt. His voice took on a grave and majestic intonation. But all he said was: "And - where?"

Mr. Gatt looked genuinely puzzled.

"It could not have been done in your office. Therefore it must have been done somewhere else. But who would take away a typewriter, break it, and put it back? It is absurd. I decided, Mr. Gatt, that the broken machine is not your machine at all."

Gatt gasped his amazement. The editors nudged each other with a kind of surly pleasure. Lascelles continued to contemplate his chop with distant contempt, as if it had been a hostile cruiser on the horizon.

"Then, whose machine was it? It belonged, I thought, to some one in the building, since nobody could have entered or left after the regular closing hours, carrying such a bulky object, without arousing comment. So I rang up the Wemyss Typewriter Company. Yes, they had supplied a new machine, six weeks before, to a Mr. Greil. But was Mr. Greil a lunatic? I hoped not. Now think, Mr. Gatt! To what use could one put that very solid frame? Why hammer it? There is no conceivable reason. But - might not somebody use its power of resistence? To hammer it is silly - but to use it as an anvil? - to crack some hard substance upon it? - sounds more like sense.