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All Around Magazine, February 1916,
with "The Adventure Of The Pig-Iron King"
"The Amazing Mr. Bunn," Macdonald & Co., London, 1949,
with "The Adventure Of The Pig-Iron King"
A FEW days later Mr. Bunn was standing on the kerb just outside the shop of one Israelstein, bric-à-brac dealer and receiver, thinking out a luncheon scheme of sufficient magnificence to fit in with his financial circumstances.
He had been doing unusually well for some time past, and he now proposed to run through a menu which would take about an hour to deal with comfortably. The wine should be champagne, he informed himself, with a good-humoured smile. He had just disposed of a bracelet, for which a celebrated countess still owed eight hundred pounds—and which even now would have been encircling her wrist had she possessed the foresight to have increased her debts by a shilling or two for a proper guard-chain; but she had neglected to do so, and, quite by chance, she had come in contact with Mr. Bunn one night at the crowded exit of a theatre. Smiler had been grieved at her carelessness, but—business is business, and she had not even noticed her loss until she sat down to supper.
The era of prosperity had taught Smiler that the best food is usually to be obtained at the best restaurants—a fact he once had some difficulty in believing—and accordingly he had decided to float along to a well-known restaurant in the Strand.
"I'll have a drop of tomato-soup and a red mullet, and steak with mushroom ketchup and a pancake, and a slab of Stilton and some celery, and a pint o' Mumm and two glasses of old port, a couple of green Chartreuses, and coffee, a whisky-and-soda to top up with, and then I'll have a bit of a nap. Yes."
He smiled, and, looking more than ever like a stout and unusually well-found butler, buttoned his fur-lined coat, and was about to fade away towards the Strand when he felt a slight tap on the shoulder. He turned so swiftly that it looked like a conjuring trick. His face was suddenly white and his appetite was gone. But he need not have been alarmed. The gentleman who had tapped him on the shoulder was by no means a detective. Smiler saw at a glance that he was anti-detective and "à bas the police" to the core—a "crook" if ever there was one.
"Say," remarked the man, "ain't youse de skate what sold a lady a foy coat for ninety plunks for a Jew syndicate a few days back in a Dago joint on Oxford Street?"
Mr. Bunn stared. He understood a little American, but this was beyond him.
"What y' mean?" he asked. "You've got a hole in your tongue, ain't you?"
The man snarled at him, but another slightly less severe-looking person with him broke in.
"Aw, cut it out, Michael," he snapped. "Let me speak to him." He turned to Smiler and, with a hard grin on his face, said in very fair English, "Ain't you the man who sold a lady from Chicago a fur coat a few days ago in a café in Oxford Street—a coat you'd bought from a dealer who got reason to believe there was bank-notes in the lining, and who put this lady up to buying it back from you?"
Smiler considered things. He remembered Kate the Gun's "guard of honour." She had described them as "two plug-uglies from Chicago and the toughest propositions that ever came out of the States." Evidently these two persons were the "plug-uglies." Smiler was not quite sure as to what a plug-ugly was—but, anyhow, they looked as though they might be.
The second speaker paused for a reply, but not receiving it, went on—
"We know you are, anyway, so don't waste air denying it. Well, the lady wants you. You're to go to her. We'll take you. That's what we are here for. Oh, it's all right. She's not going to bite you. You're one of the lucky ones—she likes the look of you, and she'll make your fortune, very likely, or get you ten years. Well, that's about all there is to it, so if it's all the same to you, we'll be hiking along to her. She just hates being kept waiting!"
But Smiler was unwilling—indeed, he was almost angry.
"You two had better go and put your heads in a hole in the wall somewhere," he said. "Why should I come?"
The men looked genuinely astonished.
"Oh, just because—" answered one.
"That's only an unreasonable remark," said Smiler loftily. "You've got to remember you ain't talking to a child. Nor you ain't discussing with no fool, neither. Why should I go visiting a lady who don't hesitate to describe herself as a pickpocket? If you mean the lady I mean, she calls herself Kate the Gun—which is a very low and disgraceful profession. When I want to associate with 'guns' I'll drop you a line: but just now, being an honest man myself, I'm content to associate with things that don't go off quite so easy as guns. See?"
But the two men were too greatly in earnest to allow Smiler's sarcastic protest much consideration.
Their faces hardened, and the voice of the spokesman dropped to a fine, silky tone, that sounded curiously ominous.
"Say, my fat friend, you play lighter on your talk-thing. The less music you produce from the back of your pearly teeth the less chance you'll have of getting plugged. Listen here. Maybe you've heard about that centurion who was accustomed to remark to any sport 'Go hence,' and he went henceforth, and 'Come hither,' and he came hitherto. Well, that's like Kate the Gun's manner. Only she's twentieth centurion and the historical gent was way, way back in the single-figger centuries. What Kate the Gun says goes. You freeze on to that, if you're feeling defiant... If you're only frightened, you can take it she won't do you no harm. She's got a proposition to make to you, and you can't know much about her, after all, or you'd holler for a taxi to get there. She's a hummer, Kate the Gun is, and when she shakes the golden-apple tree, she gets a basketful of fruit every time. And wouldn't you like one or two fruit out of the basket? Don't you cherish money at all? Oh, say, let's get a move on—why waste time?"
IT was a curious blend of raillery and threat, but it
decided Mr. Bunn. After all, he was in the same line of
business, and if the lady had an idea which required his
co-operation in return for a share of the profits, why, he
would be foolish to miss the chance.
"All right," he said. "I'll come. But you've spoiled as good a lunch as any man ever thought out."
"Thought out! Well, if that's all the damage we've done, all you got to do is to dream out a extra-special dinner to-night!" said the more garrulous of the two men. He hailed a taxicab, and the three drove away towards the West End.
As the cab started, the "plug-ugly" who had first addressed Mr. Bunn, and who had been brooding somewhat ever since Smiler's remark about his tongue, leaned across and addressed the English pickpocket.
"Say," he said, "don't youse get fresh wid me. See to here. They ain't no hole to my tongue. My tongue ain't no cheap goods; and, say, if it was, I don't allow no slob like youse, to learn me what de fashion in tongues is, see? Youse get gay wid me some more, and I'll out you, see?"
"Aw, cheese it, Michael," said his friend, and Michael, with a smothered oath, reluctantly proceeded to "cheese" it. But conversation languished—until presently the cab pulled up outside a block of big flats near Kensington Court.
Two minutes later Mr. Bunn and his companions were received at the door of a very large first-floor flat by an unusually smart parlourmaid, and were shown into an elaborate morning-room, wherein sat Kate the Gun, very expensively gowned, and apparently awaiting them with some impatience.
"Good business," said the lady as she saw Smiler.
"How do?" remarked Mr. Bunn.
There was a little pause. Smiler was astonished to see that the parlourmaid had not left the room. Indeed, she was coolly lighting a cigarette and seemed quite at home. Evidently she was one of the gang—and, not excluding even Kate the Gun, she was unquestionably the most attractive member of it. She looked curiously chic in her jaunty cap, her scrap of apron, and cleverly plain black dress. If Kate the Gun was handsome—and she was so—this parlourmaid of hers was lovely.
Smiler took a second look at her, and felt rather more in the humour for whatever enterprise Kate had in train than before.
"I guess I'll talk to our visitor alone," said Kate, in a quiet drawl, which for all its quietness proved perfectly effective. The others left the room without comment.
"There ain't much chance of mistaking who's 'boss' in this flat," thought Smiler, and sat down in a comfortable-looking chair near his hostess. She leaned towards him, a hard, calculating look in her eyes.
"Listen here," she said, in a purely business tone. "I'm a 'crook'—and the police of four continents know it, and can't prove it. That's me." She paused. It seemed to Smiler that she expected an answer.
"Certainly," he said.
"Well, now, I've given you the truth to save time and prove that I mean business. You know whom I am, see? Now, who're you—and what's your graft?"
But Mr. Bunn hesitated. For some reason or other he did not trust the lady. She noticed his hesitation and cut in incisively—
"Oh, all right—if you're shy," she said sardonically. "I'll tell you who you are. You're a 'crook,' too—a sort of casual pickpocket—and the police of one parish even don't know it, because you've never made a 'touch' worth making. Is that right?"
"Well, it'll do to go on with," said Smiler, rather haughtily, for his pride was touched.
"All right," snapped Kate the Gun. "Now we know each other's hands, we'll get to business. D'you want five thousand dollars—a thousand pounds?"
"Yes," said Mr. Bunn, with the beautiful, innocent, frank simplicity of a child.
"Then listen here, and I'll show you how to make it. If I use any American term you don't understand, stop me and I'll explain, for we've got to get this thing right and clear. You look as though you've got a brain spread out somewhere behind that slab of forehead, and you'll want it all.... Now, I want to get married."
Smiler shifted uneasily.
"Oh, don't get coquettish; you're not the Willy-boy—not by a couple of barrels!" interpolated the lady with a semi-sneer.
Smiler loosed an inaudible sigh of relief. Kate the Gun was undeniably handsome, but she was too virile for him.
"And I've just got to marry a title. You don't want to get cramp of the intellect wondering why. Among other things you can see that a 'Baroness' can do more business as a high-class crook than a 'Mrs.' if she's ambitious that way. You get that?"
Smiler nodded and looked more interested.
"Well, I've rounded up the goods all right—He's a Russian nobleman, Baron Lubomirzewski—and I suppose he's worth a dollar and a half. But I'm not shedding tears over that. It's the title I'm hunting for—I'll make all the money we want in the States when I'm Baroness Lubo. And he'll learn to help, too, or I'm no prophet. Now, the Baron's been coming on very well the last month or two until a few days ago. He thinks I'm a Pittsburg heiress—and I guess that's the particular thought that's going to rope him. He's after my rocks—the money he thinks I've got. But just the last few days he's got kind of restless. I can read him like a poster or a newspaper scare-head, and he's turned uneasy because no parent from Pittsburg turns up. See? He's thinking, 'Well, the girl looks wealthy and acts wealthy, but I don't ever see anything of the old man who's got the money. Where's her pop? Where's old Mr. Pittsburger with the self-made look and the big squabby pocket-book?' And the Baron's right. Follow me? I'm talking in special English on purpose for you."
Mr. Bunn nodded. He began to see whither the adventuress was leading.
"Go on," he said.
"Well, it's plain enough—see? I want a father—a rich, self-made papa, who's got more money than grammar, and more bones than blood. A bone's a dollar—across the Atlantic. I want him—I've got to get him—I'm tired of being an orphan, and so I guess I'll hire him. Of course, I could have got a hundred cheap actors out of the Strand, but most of 'em would have been scared of the business. I need a crook—not an actor. And I'm offering a thousand pounds for a month's use of him. And—well, when I butted into you over that fur-coat business, you looked the boy I was wanting. Israelstein, the receiver, had recommended you, too—gave you a first-class reference, and I was looking for you anyway. That little fur-coat deal just clinched it. It showed me you were smart—and not too smart. And that's all there is of it. Be my rich father for a month—I'll find the money for your expenses and no stinginess either—and you'll make a thousand. All you'll have to do is to lose money to Lubo at cards—I'll find that—and brag about your wealth. You've got one of those young-old faces that'll pass for forty-five with a little reconstructing. I'll see to that, too. You'll have a fine room in this flat and no risk—the Baron's all kinds of a fool—and a barrel of money at the end of it. Is it a trade?"
Mr. Bunn hesitated. These were deeper waters than hitherto he had ventured to enter. Then he thought of the attractive parlourmaid, and half his hesitation vanished.
"Over here," he said, "we got a saying, 'money talks!' And it's a kind of a habit of mine to ask for a deposit. What's your idea about deposits?"
Kate the Gun smiled a hard smile and opened a bag that hung from her belt. She took out something white that crackled and handed it to him.
"That's my idea about deposits," she said keenly.
Smiler took the white thing that crackled. It was a fifty-pound note. He stretched out an impulsive hand.
"Put it there, Kate, my girl," he said brilliantly. "You're a credit to your poor old dad!"
Kate the Gun laughed, genuinely amused, as she shook hands.
"And you're no slouch, although you're British, poppa," she replied.
Then the hard, watchful look came back into her eyes. "There's just one thing I've got to say to you," she said, "no tricks. I'm paying you well, Mr. Man, for that's my policy—see? I pay well—and if you don't feel satisfied about your pay any time, don't run over the road to the cops or anybody else and sell me for the extra bit. You come right to me and let me know what you want—and, maybe, if you're worth it, you'll get it. If you're not worth it, I'll tell you why—see? That's fair, I guess. Only mind, no funny business. You've got to run straight when you're running with me, or I'll have you fixed so you're a cemetery proposition one tick after the word 'Go.'"
"That's all right," said Smiler. "You can trust me."
"I guess I can," replied the lady grimly. "Now, let's fix the details."
THE details of the ingenious little swindle were soon
fixed, and on the following day Mr. Bunn—in a
light check suit and one of those soft, shapeless hats
with which American millionaires are supposed to adorn
themselves—presented himself with two suit-cases at Kate
the Gun's flat. The door was opened by the parlourmaid whose
piquante face had so impressed Mr. Bunn on the occasion of
his previous visit.
"Come in, dad," she said impudently. "The Baron's here. They're having tea. Don't forget your name's Cataract Huggins of Pittsburg—your nickname's 'Calamity' Huggins—and you're the Pig-iron King of Pittsburg." She helped him off with his coat.
"I'll show you to your room," she said, and slipping her arm through his in the most friendly way, made for a door facing them.
"I like your face," she informed him. "It's so big—so solemn. I'm Fanchon—Kate's junior partner. Here's your room."
She came in with him quite naturally.
Smiler turned round suddenly and put his hand on her shoulders, looking into her eyes.
"You didn't ought to be one of a gang like this, my girl," he began: but Fanchon put a dainty hand over his mouth—or as much of it as she could cover.
"Neither did you. Don't behave like a bishop," she said. She took a photograph from the mantelpiece. "That's the Baron," she said.
Smiler took the photograph and looked at it with some interest. Suddenly his eyes bulged out a little and he drew in his breath. Fanchon was watching him rather closely.
"What's the matter?" she asked, her voice a shade more tense than usual.
"Nothing," said Smiler, hesitating, his eyes still fixed on the photograph. "He's a good-looking chap—for a Russian —ain't he?"
Fanchon was still looking very intently at Smiler.
"Yes—and he is so good, too. Do what you can for him," she said suddenly, and went out.
Mr. Bunn stared, as the door closed behind her.
"Strike me!" he said, "that's funny. What did she mean by that? 'Do what you can for him?'" he pondered. "There's something queer going on in this flat, if you ask me. Perhaps the girl's gone on him, too!"
He looked at the photograph again.
"Why, you dam' old swindler!" he said affectionately to the man in the photograph. "How did you get here? You're supposed to be in Siberia for life. Why, this is like old times, strike me glorious if it ain't. And Kate the Gun reckons I'm going to help do you! Last man in the world. What, do me brother Ant'ny. Ah, come off it!"
HE sat down on the bed, thinking profoundly. Had
Fanchon been there then she would have noticed a brief but
unmistakable moisture in the eyes of Smiler Bunn. For the
photograph was one of his younger and only brother—one
Anthony Bunn, who, after a short experience of the English
stage, had embarked upon the life of an adventurer some five
years before. But where his more steady-going brother Smiler
had confined himself to a safe, conservative business in
London, Anthony had begun on a Belgian race-course, and after
a highly successful and brilliant spin through France, Monaco,
and Austria, had come to grief in Petrograd in the matter of
a safe full of faked securities, and had finally spun himself
into Siberia.
For the past two years it had been an ambition of Smiler Bunn's to amass enough to take a tour through Siberia—with the idea of finding and helping Tony to escape.
But it seemed now that his brother had saved him the trouble.
Presently Smiler blew his nose, swore happily at a sparrow that was loafing about on the sill of the open window, slapped his knee gently as though a valuable idea had occurred to him, brushed his hair, and left the room.
Fanchon was waiting for him at the end of the corridor.
"I say," she pulled his head down to whisper to him—this girl behaved more like a man's daughter than one of his fellow-conspirators, thought Smiler. "If I said anything silly in there just now, you'll forget it, Pig-iron, dear, won't you?"
Smiler grinned.
"Sure," said he, and she showed him into the drawing-room.
Only Kate the Gun and Baron Lubomirzewski were there, and it was well that the Baron's back was to the light and that Kate also was slightly behind him, or assuredly she would have seen the sudden spasm that wrung his face as he looked towards and recognized his brother. Smiler's stare was as blank as a stone wall; he was desperately afraid Anthony would hail him as brother. But the "Baron" was too clever for that, and Kate's introductory—"My father, Baron: father, this is Baron Lubomirzewski"—warned the man out of Siberia to be careful. He caught a grip on himself instantly and bowed like a mandarin.
The Pig-iron King behaved perfectly. He had profited greatly from the hour's drilling which Kate had given him on the previous day.
"Hello, Baron!" he said affably. "My little girl's written me half a hundredweight of correspondence about you, one way and another, and I'm vurry pleased to make your acquaintance," he said, with what he flattered himself was an excellent pig-iron manner.
The Baron bowed again.
"It is a privilege to be numbered among your friends, sir," he said, speaking with a marked Russian (as spoken in Siberia) accent, "and one which I hope never to lose."
"Well, Baron, if you look at it like that, we'll do what we can to keep the stock up to par!" replied Smiler, not quite sure as to what he meant, but using a phrase Kate the Gun had told him was worth remembering.
Then they sat down.
The Baron was very good-looking, in the clear-cut, English fashion which his brother remembered so well—and it soon became abundantly clear to Smiler that Kate appreciated the fact. She was not the sort of woman to fall passionately in love with any man—she was of too cold and sinister a temperament for that—but Smiler soon realized that the personal appearance of the Baron was by no means the least important of the reasons why the adventuress wanted to marry a man of title.
He produced a case of excellent cigars (provided by Kate the Gun) and offered one to the Baron. But that polite sportsman hesitated, with a deprecatory glance at the curtains.
"Oh, my little girl don't value her curtains more than her father's comfort, Baron," said Smiler pig-ironly. "Do you, honey?"
"Honey" hastened to reassure the Baron, and the cigars were promptly dealt with in the customary manner.
Very skilfully Kate brought the conversation round to liners, from liners to Liverpool, from Liverpool to New York, from New York to Pittsburg, and once in Pittsburg led it on to the subject of steel, from steel to pig-iron, and the fortunes made from it by "Calamity" Huggins in particular. She juggled for a space with millions, and then Smiler put the crown on the whole skilful farce by correcting her once.
"Are you speaking in dollars, honey?" he asked, with an indulgent smile, when finally she said with extraordinarily clever naiveté, "Poppa's made forty millions out of his ridiculous pig-iron, you know, Baron."
"Dollars, poppa? Of course," she smiled.
"Better make it pounds sterling," said Smiler calmly, and lit another cigar. For a man who eight months previously was living chiefly on red herrings, he did it remarkably well.
They heard the Baron gasp distinctly. (Kate was not the only brilliant actor in the room, and this talk of money made everything clear to the man who had been clever enough to escape from Siberia. The scheme was translucency itself, now—even to the knowledge that his brother Smiler's appearance in it was pure chance.)
So he gasped, and Kate the Gun's eyes shot a gleam of approval to Smiler. After that the Pig-iron King took a rest, and left the young couple to themselves, while he refreshed himself with about eight hundred and forty winks on the couch.
Presently Fanchon appeared with tea and whisky and soda. (Pig-iron Kings do not value tea as a beverage, according to the idea of Smiler Bunn.)
For all his apparent laziness, Smiler caught a look which passed between his brother and Fanchon—she was very demure now—that helped him to understand the girl's anxiety for Anthony. If two people ever were really in love, these two were. But what spoiled Smiler's whisky and soda was the suspicion that Kate had seen the look, too. For a few seconds a bitter light gleamed in her eyes, and Smiler saw it. But when Fanchon went out and the Baron turned again to his hostess, the light was no longer there. It had lasted long enough, however, to remind Smiler that, no matter how easy things seemed, the element of humour was less conspicuous in this affair than in many of those in which he had figured, whereas the element of very real danger was present. Kate the Gun was not a woman to be toyed with. No!
She began gradually to steer the conversation round to cards and card-playing—a pastime in which, it was quickly apparent, the Baron took a profound and doubtless profitable interest. He had the hands of a card-sharp—long, slender, delicate, in spite of his Siberian interlude.
The lady brought the subject up to the point where Fanchon was required to bring some packs—the Baron had offered to show Smiler a new game which he had invented. Smiler wanted to play for money from the initial hand, but the Baron—who was returning to dinner—quietly evaded the proposal.
"After dinner, if you like, sir. But this is not an easy game, and if you will forgive a young man's persistence, I beg you to play a few hands now for practice merely. I call my game En Garde, and you will perceive, after a deal or so, that it is an excellent name. The niceties of the game are not apparent to even the most brilliant of beginners until one has played at least thirty hands."
He might have made it three hundred. Smiler was neither a babe nor a suckling with what it was his habit to term the "books," but he—and Kate the Gun also—speedily perceived that En Garde was precisely the sort of game a Russian nobleman of limited means might be expected to invent. It was what is vulgarly known as a "skinner."
Smiler, of course, was delighted with the game. It suited the role he was expected by Kate to play—that of a good and heavy loser—and it suited an idea he had just conceived—to lose appallingly, but to go halves with his brother later on. It suited his brother—who stood to win anyhow, for the man did not live who could beat him at any card game, and certainly not at this vulturine invention of his own. In any case he could always give his winnings back to his brother, if Smiler really lost his own money. And it suited Kate the Gun, for it was an easy way of supplying her Baron with money, and it proved that he had brains as well—brains of the kind that Kate would find useful when, once married and by reason of the social éclat her marriage would help to give her in the smart set on the other side of the Atlantic, she commenced her long-cherished campaign against the fifty-thousand dollar lots of jewellery, furs, and similar bric-à-brac she had envied so long. Hence she was willing—anxious even—to be liberal with supplies to Smiler. A thousand pounds or so now was nothing in comparison with the enormous coups she saw her way to making when, as Baroness Lubomirzewski, she began operations in America.
Presently the Baron rose, announcing, with a meaning stare at Smiler, that he proposed to go to his club and dress. Would Mr. Huggins care to stroll thither with him? Kate the Gun, who was standing at the window, nodded her head almost imperceptibly. She was charmed with the way in which the two men got on with each other—and she had no suspicion that all was not well with her scheme.
Smiler saw the nod and jumped at the Baron's invitation. He informed Kate that they would be back at eight o'clock, and after a brief but brilliant tour in politeness on the part of the Baron they went out. Fanchon helped them on with their coats—her "Pig-iron dear" first.
It occurred to Smiler that, as he was taking a look round the hall, he heard the sound of a soft kiss behind him. Probably it was only Fanchon helping Anthony with his coat—at any rate Smiler did not pay much attention to it. He was occupied in examining a fine hat-brush he had discovered in a recess. The back was "curiously wrought" in silver. Nobody seemed to be watching him, he loved knick-knacks, and so he quietly but firmly "pinched" it.
For Mr. Smiler Bunn was a man who hated waste.
The two—the Pig-iron King and the Baron—left the house together.
"Why, John—" began the Baron softly before they were off the steps.
"Not a word—not a blasted word!" muttered Smiler dizzily. "Wait till we're at the club," and hailed a taxi.
BUT it was not to any club they drove. It was to a dingy
house in a street on the north-east side of Gray's Inn Road
that the Baron directed the four-wheeler into which they
changed after having changed into a hansom (all for safety's
sake), to proceed.
And not till they were in the shabby garret that was the "Baron's" home did they shake hands, and tell each other the news.
It was good news.
Chiefly, it dealt with the best method by which one may escape from Siberia, and, having effected this laudable purpose, how one may get to England and proceed to make a living.
"You see, Jack," said Mr. Anthony Bunn, "I got acquainted with Miss Huggins—or Kate the Gun, as you call her—and was just working out a plan to relieve her of some of that beautiful money of her father's, when it struck me that she was inclined to get matrimonial. Well, I had no reason to suppose she was anything but an American heiress, and, naturally, I met her more than half-way. It seems to me it's a pretty lucky thing she's engaged you as her 'father.' For it's a certainty that if I'd met a stranger there to-day who played the fond parent as well as you I should have proposed to her without wasting any time. For you do the Pig-iron King act as well as I do the Baron. Seems to me that there's a suspicion of false pretences about the whole batch of us. Well, now about these card-games...."
THAT night Baron Lubomirzewski won a cool two hundred
pounds from "Calamity" Huggins at the gentle game of En
Garde. But the Pig-iron King—quietly paying away, as
it were, with the right hand what he received from Kate the
Gun with the left—stuck to him manfully and made an
appointment for the following evening, when they would renew
the struggle. He was a good loser, but nevertheless he seemed
just a little piqued at his inability to make much impression
on the Baron's skill at the new game.
"Say, Baron," he said suddenly, as they finished the last hand, "you must be about a thousand dollars ahead of the game? I'll just cut you once double or quits."
Kate the Gun stiffened a little. She had not set any limit on the amount Smiler was to lose, but this was a trifle too magnificent for her.
But the Baron agreed, and with a smile of indulgence befitting the heiress to forty millions or so, she came over to the table to see the cut. She arrived too late to observe the slight flicker of the Baron's finger as he bent the edge of a card rather near the bottom of the pack.
"Will you cut, sir?" he said, placing the pack on the table. Smiler, offering up a prayer for a deuce, cut—and got it. Two of clubs. The Baron got a king of hearts—slightly but not noticeably bent at the edge.
Smiler paid up, and the Baron presently departed.
"You don't want to get any idea that I'm the Bank of England," said Kate, rather sourly, when she and Smiler were alone. "I'm satisfied with your performance to-day, although the matinée was cheaper than the evening show. You're the slickest loser of other folks' money at cards I ever heard of—and I guess you can close up to-morrow when you've lost fifty pounds!"
She assisted herself to a whisky-and-soda, obviously dissatisfied with something.
She took a cigarette and smoked in silence a moment. Suddenly she turned her hardest, most disconcerting stare on to Smiler.
"What d'you think of Fanchon?" she asked.
"Fine girl," said Smiler very casually. "Very near in love with her."
"Huh!" went Kate the Gun, offensively. "You don't reckon a cheap skate like you'll cut much ice with Fanchon, do yeh? Say, Fanchon'll hook on with a bag of money when she does the nuptial-knot act."
She leaned across to him earnestly. "No. I had the Baron in mind when I first mentioned her," she said. "It seemed to me that he kept his lamps on her pretty industrious every time she blew in with tea and truck, and when she was waiting at dinner, why he lamped her till she blushed, and, say, I didn't know she had a blush concealed about her."
Smiler thought swiftly. Kate was restless, and this vague jealousy looked like complicating things. He decided to smother it—if he could.
"Oh, she blushed then because I squeezed her hand on the sly," he said fatuously.
Kate laughed sardonically.
"You! Why, you lobster, you don't reckon Fanchon got any use for you, do yeh? You've got one or two points, perhaps, but I guess Fanchon would flinch before she handed you a job as butler, much less marry you. No, sonny. If you don't believe it, try the devout lover with her, and see what she gives you!"
"Oh, all right!" said Smiler. "Here's off to bed. Good night," and he left the lady to herself.
Curiously enough, he met Fanchon herself outside the door.
"Good night, Pig-iron, dear," said Fanchon pertly. "Pleasant dreams."
Smiler looked down at her. He noted afresh and with a remote pang the sweetness of her face, the perfect curve of her red lips, and the faint, fascinating misty shadows round her eyes—it was late and Fanchon was tired—and, for once, he wished he was of the type of man for which women care. He would have had her out of that flat and free of the dangerous company of Kate the Gun without delay, he told himself. It was difficult to believe that this child—she looked little more—was so calculating and mercenary as Kate had said.
"Good night, Fanchon, my girl," he said, rather heavily. Then, quite unexpectedly, "Be a good girl," astonishing himself as much as he astonished her.
She patted his hand friendlily.
"Yes, dad," she said, and went on into the drawing-room.
FOR a week the thing went like a comfortable dream. Smiler
had made himself quite at home in the flat, and was losing
heaps of money to the Baron. Everybody seemed satisfied but
Kate the Gun. What she did not like was the fact that the
Baron seemed no nearer to inviting her to share his name than
he was before the appearance of her blatantly wealthy father.
She was not contented with the progress made. She was spending
a great deal of money, but was getting nothing back for it.
She decided to watch the Baron and Fanchon more closely than before—and on the tenth day of the scheme she got proof in abundance.
ON the evening of that day the Baron, as usual, took tea
at the flat and left at about six o'clock. As he went out of
the room and down the corridor to the hall, Kate followed
him stealthily out. Fanchon, as usual, helped him on with
his overcoat and received—and gave—the customary
kiss. The two were, and had been for weeks, desperately in
love with each other, and, despite Smiler's warning, they were
rapidly reaching that stage of fever when they would become
indifferent as to who knew it.
Kate the Gun saw the kiss and, with a gasp of rage, stepped into the hall; Smiler had followed on her heels, taut with excitement. He had foreseen this.
Fanchon and the Baron turned suddenly, and at sight of the bitter menace on the face of the adventuress they paled a little. Fanchon gave a long, low whistle—apparently of surprise—low, but very clear. It might have been a signal.
"Ah, you scum!" snarled Kate the Gun tigerishly, her lips working with rage. "Did I lift you out of the gutter to throw me down like this?"
She spoke to Fanchon—and added an epithet that made even the men quail. The Baron's walking-stick was near her, and she snatched it and raised it so quickly that Smiler had not time to attempt to check her. It was a heavy cane with a massive silver handle—a murderous thing in the hands of a powerful woman like Kate the Gun.
But it never fell.
Fanchon made a swift movement, and something suddenly flashed and glittered in her hand—something that pointed without a tremor at the heart of the woman with the stick.
"Put up your hands, Kate Baraud—quick! I'll take no chances!" Fanchon said rapidly, in a voice that was difficult to recognize as hers.
Over the barrel of the revolver her eyes, hard and steady and bright as jewels, clung to those of Kate the Gun.
The stick fell to the floor with a thud as Kate glared back.
"Why, I've been after you for two years, Kate," said Fanchon quietly. "Have you ever seen one of these?"
She extended and opened her left hand—the revolver in her right never wavered for an instant—and in the palm of it lay a little badge—the badge of Westerton's, the great American detective house.
A man suddenly pushed past Smiler. It was the cook—a German youth. At least, that is what Kate the Gun had imagined him to be when she had engaged him a year before.
"One moment," he said softly, and as the woman turned there was a flutter of hands and a sudden sharp click. The man stood back.
"There we are, Kate, my girl—quite comfortable," he said, in a quiet, friendly voice. "You've broken all records, but—we had to get you in the long run!"
Followed a curious silence. Kate was breathing very quickly, and her eyes were black with rage. She looked first at Fanchon, next at the man who had cooked for her so long. Smiler and his brother she ignored. They mattered nothing to her now.
Then she looked balefully at the handcuffs on her wrists. There was still silence. But at last she drew in a long, long breath, and—smiled.
"Aw!" said she magnificently. "It's your money! You win. Put up the gun, Fanchon. I guess this lets me out for fair. Fanchon, you're a clever little devil, and you," she turned to the other detective, "you're a pretty good cook. Let's go into the drawing-room and have a drink, and talk it over."
She looked at the Baron.
"Would you have married me, sport?" she asked curiously. The man from Siberia shook his head. Kate's eyes glittered.
"No," he said simply. "I knew the scheme from the start."
"What! Did that swob give me away?" She indicated Smiler, who bowed—quite gracefully for him.
"Good guess," he said. "Did you think you could bully me all the time for nothin'?"
Kate the Gun threw up her head.
"This comes of running with cheap crooks. Fancy a thing like you throwing me down! Ah, come away," she said haughtily, and went steadily down the corridor, the detective following her. They watched her go—she went to a life-sentence, and she knew it. But she had earned it, that was some sort of consolation. Fanchon and her fellow-detective had collected enough evidence of her many crimes during the previous year to render her harmless for the rest of her days.
Fanchon turned to Tony.
"Well, Baron," she said wistfully, "now you know what I am—just a woman detective. So I suppose we had better consider it a case of 'Let bygones be bygones.' I sail for New York as soon as we get the extradition papers."
She did not seem to observe Smiler, and evidently she still believed his brother to be a Baron.
Tony went up to her and took her in his arms.
"Listen to me, Fanchon," he began, and Smiler saw that he was about to make a clean breast of it.
But making a clean breast of things to a detective—whether one was in love with her or not—was not the sort of proceeding which appealed to Smiler.
"Half a minute, Tony," he said. "Is it—er—wise?"
"I'll chance it, Jack," said Tony. Smiler reached for his hat.
"Ah, then," he said, "I think I'll be getting along. She ain't in love with me. So long, Fanchon." He paused at the door. "If when Tony's told you the truth, and you've decided to be reasonable and not let your duty interfere with your love, you both like to meet me outside the Trocadero, I'll stand the pair of you a dinner worth walkin' a mile for."
"All right," said Tony; and Mr. Bunn, not hastily, but without unnecessary delay, proceeded to put a few streets between him and the detectives.
"It's a funny thing, this love is," he soliloquised as he went. "But I don't reckon she'll give me and Tony away."
And he was about right.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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