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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Blue Book Magazine, January 1923, with "The Daffodil Dame"
"The Daffodil Dame" describes one of the most unusual and exciting of these delightful romances of roguery by the noted author of "Winnie O'Wynn and the Wolves" and much other entertaining fiction.
"FAR be it from me to make personal remarks about a lady," observed the Honorable John Brass as he leaned restfully back in his chair between courses one evening at the Astoritz, "but that goldfinch sitting in the corner on your right, has certainly had a considerable spell!"
Colonel Clumber studied the lady—a willowy, daffodil blonde, whose beauty would have been striking even at the Astoritz, where beauty is a commonplace, had not her charming face been veiled by the disconcerted expression to which Mr. Brass had directed his partner's attention.
"She looks to me," continued the old adventurer, "as if she is in a state of mind where her dinner is doing her no good at all—harm, in fact. And that's a pity,—a very great pity,—for I wouldn't deliberately deny that she is a dame who looks about my style. However, dinner first, dalliance second; and here, unless I make a serious error, are the cailles à la Maréchale. I'm sorry for that little dame, but I'm bound to own that she is beaten a length and a half by these quails."
He nodded solemnly at the savory example of high-class cookery before him, and rather like a serious man saying grace before an eagerly anticipated meal, he muttered, musingly:
"Let's look, now—cailles—quails, in fact—boned, stuffed with veal and liver, and braised, then sliced, put in molds lined with chicken farce and poached, dressed round a pile of savory rice, garnished with asparagus points and broad beans and served with sauce madère!—amen! I allow no blonde to come between quails à la Maréchale and me," he added, and proceeded to prove it up to the hilt.
Later he and his partner returned to consideration of the lady. There may be men who, during the last few laps of a leisured and perfect dinner, can witness unmoved a beautiful woman in distress, but neither the Honorable John nor his partner was one of them.
"Not having my gift for noticing details like a hawk, probably it has escaped your attention that she is worried about money—in fact, is desperate about it," stated John presently.
Colonel Clumber glanced redly from under his formidable brows at his partner.
"If you've noticed anything but the contents of your glass and plate for the last half-hour, you've done it so secretly that it's been invisible," he growled. "How do you know she's worried about money?"
"She's counted the contents of a little note-case three times in the last half-hour—and made it less every time," replied the Honorable John with perfect good humor. "No woman with a sufficient wad ever does that, and very few men of the kind who dine here. No, squire, you can take it from me, that there is a short-circuit in Daffodil's budget or I have lost my remarkable powers of observation."
HE paused to invite attention to the perfectly useless condition of his liqueur glass, a defect duly and swiftly remedied.
"Twice," continued the Honorable John, his jocund visage reddening one shade with emotion and old brandy, "twice the tears have welled up into her eyes—and twice she has fought 'em back; three times—as I said—she has counted her money, and three times it has given her bad news; twice she has shivered as though she felt cold—though I'll admit I'm not surprised at that, taking the present fashion for evening dress into consideration; and lastly"—he drained his glass—"she has just wirelessed as clear an S-O-S signal to me as ever a broad-minded, chivalrous, man o' the world responded to."
He rose massively.
"Just wait here, squire, while I see what her trouble is. She's got a sweet face when she smiles, and I like her eyes. I'm going to throw her a life-buoy—if she cares to produce a reasonable reason for it. Softhearted as a child! I confess it. Pay the bill, and if I signal to you, come across."
He rose and ambled across to the table at which sat the Daffodil Dame.
"Soft-hearted!" sneered his partner, watching him, "yes—soft-hearted like a buffalo. I guess anybody would be softhearted after the champagne he's inhaled tonight!" He felt reluctantly for his notecase, while the Honorable John bowed as gracefully as could be expected before the lady.
BY the time the Coloned had paid the bill, the Honorable John was sitting opposite the willowy one, talking gravely.
But the Colonel had not long to wait in sulky loneliness. Almost immediately his partner beckoned him, and nothing loth, he completed the trio around the table.
"Let me present my good friend Colonel Clumber, to you, dear Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe," requested the Honorable John, adding with heavy urbanity: "Squire, be grateful for the privilege of making the acquaintance of a lady to whom I have long paid homage."
The Colonel looked grateful, and accepted the lady's invitation to sit. Nobody knew better than he that the old rascal beside him had never seen beautiful Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe before in his life—but because much experience and no little profit had long since taught him the wisdom of promptly returning his partner's lead, he appeared to believe implicitly what he was told.
"The Colonel is my partner, child, and you may speak as freely of your little difficulty to him as to me. Now, this trouble of yours—tell me quite freely and frankly what's wrong, and I think we can promise to put it right for you. Anyway, we'll take a slant at it—I mean we'll look at it and consider the way out.—Hey, Squire?"
The Squire agreed cordially.
"Ah, thank you so much, dear Mr. Brass," replied Madam Daffodil. "Let me think for a moment—it is all so mixed up and distressing. I—I have been so foolish."
She reflected, the partners watching her more or less sympathetically. Now that they were nearer, they saw that her beauty was not quite so distractingly young and fresh as it had seemed from their table, but nevertheless she was an unusually lovely woman.
"I know now that what has happened to me is the result of my own folly," she began. It was not a markedly original opening—indeed, it is probable that Eve, hoeing vegetables on the small-holding outside Eden, frequently made much the same observation to Adam, but it sounded candid and fell as sweetly, trippingly and naturally from her full, curved lips as it does from those of any other lady.
The Honorable John made sounds of encouragement.
"But I am really desperate," she continued. "You see, my husband is in Amsterdam on business. He has been away a week now, and it was very lonely for me. I endured the loneliness for a week, and then I did the first foolish thing. He had given me a little present before he left—fifty pounds to spend. And I was weak enough to allow myself to be persuaded by a friend to go with her to a house in the West End where—she said—they had a most exciting and amusing game. It was a kind of race-game. I have not seen anything like it before, but it is easy to describe. There is a big box with twelve holes in the side. Twelve strings come out of these holes—they are fastened to a—a—rod—isn't it called an axle?—inside the box. The strings are about ten feet long and reach down a long table and at the end of each string is a sweet little model ivory horse, each of a different color.
"You can bet on these horses. When the axle inside the box is revolved the strings are wound up on—on—I think they are called cams—things like swellings on the axle. They are of different sizes, and so the horses are never drawn up to the box at equal speeds. The "two-to-one-against" horse—Red—has its string attached to a bigger cam than the four to one against, and so on—and the horse on the biggest cam should always win. But somehow—isn't it odd?—he doesn't, you know, owing to the way the coils of string sometimes slip instead of winding steadily, one coil over the other.
"It is so fascinating. And quite fair—you may examine the box as often as you like. I won seventy pounds last night there. But today—this afternoon—I lost it again, and my fifty pounds as well—and"—her fine eyes widened and were startled at the very thought—"the emerald necklace my husband left in the secret drawer of his desk. Geoffrey is a diamond merchant—that is why he has gone to Amsterdam. I wore the necklace. I—I oughtn't to have done that. And when I kept losing and losing, I lost my head—and when the proprietor of the game offered to lend me five hundred pounds on the security of the necklace, I let him have it. And then I lost the five hundred pounds! And what will Geoffrey say?"
She buried her face in her hands—quietly, without flourishes, attracting no attention—and left the partners to guess for themselves what Geoffrey would observe—which they did without any difficulty at all. For a moment they watched her in silence. A little sob escaped through her slim pretty fingers.
"She is overwrought," said the Colonel softly.
"Distraught, in fact," agreed the Honorable John, and at once ordered three liqueur brandies.
"Can't bear to see 'em cry," he muttered, and continued aloud: "Don't cry, my dear—don't sob. I've no doubt my partner and I can help you—not the slightest. You poor, unluckv little soul, leave it to us."
He leaned across the table and gently pulled the Daffodil Dame's hand from her charming face.
"Why, you don't need to worry yourself seedy," he said. "I don't doubt for one moment that we can get your necklace back for you. And we have all the evening before us. Listen to me, my dear. We are going to help you. Can't think of a better way to spend an evening, in fact. Shall enjoy doing it, hey, Squire?"
"Sure, sure," acquiesced the Colonel eagerly.
"We may not look very talented in that direction, my dear, but, as luck would have it, we happen to be no slouches at race games ourselves—I mean, we understand 'em. That horses-on-strings game is but one of the many we understand. We can pick winners every time, practically speaking. And so, all you have to do is to be a good little girl and drink up that spot of brandy, which will do you good, and come and watch us win your necklace back for you. Am I right, Squire?"
"Certainly," rumbled the Colonel with emphasis.
A gleam of hope dawned in the eyes of the Daffodil Dame.
"Oh-h! But—really? Do you really mean that?"
"Try us," said John with a grim smile.
"I can hardly believe my good fortune. You know—I ought to tell you—to warn you—that I am afraid that the house is really a gambling den!"
John chuckled.
"Yes, yes, my dear. I've no doubt it is. But can you find it again?"
"Oh, yes, quite easily."
"Well, that's your part of the campaign. You show us the place—and leave the rest to us. Hey, partner?"
The Colonel was ready, aye, and willing.
"Men who have won money on real live race-horses ought not to have much trouble in picking up a packet over race-horses on strings that come out of a box," he declared humorously.
She thanked them passionately, drank her liqueur "like a good girl," and in ten minutes they were on their way.
AS the Honorable John had very truly said, neither he nor his partner was in any sense a "slouch" at race-games. What they did not know about these, and all kindred devices for separating the toiling (financial) bakers of this world from their (financial) dough, would not have filled a saloon-bar liqueur-glass; but oddly enough, their knowledge and experience blunted itself in vain against the gentle little pastime at which, on behalf of the Daffodil Dame, they occupied themselves for the next four hours or so.
The gambling den, of which she had spoken in such tones of awe and terror, proved to be a very large, very comfortably furnished drawing-room in a quiet street off one of the fashionable squares. The "guests" present throughout the whole evening were never more than forty or fifty—quiet, well-dressed, reasonably sober people, on the whole, who bet in large sums, some of them winning quite heavily; and the hosts were a couple of good-looking gentlemen, calling themselves brothers, youngish, with easy manners and a public-school style, known to the assembly as Tommy and Chris.
Tommy officiated at the electric box in which revolved the cam-shaft hauling the steeds; Chris hovered around, receiving the guests as they arrived with their money, or gracefully speeding them out as they left—without their money. A lean man, with a very closely-shaven but still dark-blue chin, who looked like an ex-actor—as indeed he was, without the hyphen—acted as croupier. There was a buffet at one end of the room, where an attentive, butlerlike person administered restoratives or stimulants with a slightly paternal air that was not unpleasing.
The smiling Chris, receiving the Daffodil Dame and her cavaliers, had made no secret at all of the transaction of the necklace.
"Ah, dear Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe, I feel that you have come to win away from us that charming necklace, haven't you?" he said as he shook hands. Dropping his voice a little, he added: "I would like to wish you good luck—the very best of good luck. Take my advice, and back Blue—he is in good form tonight, and is winning more than I have ever known him."
"Something gone wrong with his cam, hey?" laughed the Honorable John pleasantly.
Chris smiled with good-humor.
"That is what I said to Tommy," he answered—"though what there is to go wrong I honestly don't know. But Tommy and Milvale—the croupier—only laughed. They say it is just a series of runs—you get these odd runs in every game. And of course the box is open to inspection.... No, I think Tommy is right. It's just Blue's lucky night. I should be inclined to bank Blue heavily—but don't let me influence you. Come and see the game working."
Deeply interested, the partners did so.
THEY found it extremely simple, even as the Daffodil Dame had stated. The camshaft bore six cams and was driven by a little dynamo, the tiny gear-wheel of which meshed with a large gear wheel on the shaft. To each cam was attached one end of a ten-foot cord, the other end of the cord being attached to a race-horse modeled in colored ivory. The race-horses were drawn to the end of a long polished table—to the "Starting Post"—lined up there exactly level; and, the bets having been made, Tommy pressed a button and the cam-shaft inside the box revolved. Because the diameter of Silver's cam was very much larger than, for instance, Red's, theoretically it would coil up more of Silver's cord in one revolution of the shaft than Red's cam—thus causing Silver to travel faster and consequently giving it a better chance to win, as was reflected in the odds laid by the croupier against Silver—two to one, whereas Red's price was ten to one. But actually, owing to the erratic way in which the cords wound themselves, there was no real certainty as to which horse would reach the side of the box first—that is to say, win. A cord would wind up sometimes in a series of perfect coils side by side or in a large overlapping coil, this governing the speed of the horse.
It was delightfully uncertain and therefore very fascinating.
The Honorable John had had a thoroughly bad day's racing—on the second favorite, Green—before he had been in the room twenty minutes.
He became a little bloodshot in the right eye as he suddenly switched off Green and took a twenty-pound flyer on Red—a ten-to-one chance. Red ran well for half the course; then his cord-coil slipped, and he had only finished about half the course when Silver rapped his ivory nose against the ebony box, an easy winner by two lengths.
The Honorable John's other eye went bloodshot, and he sheered off to the buffet, where he commanded champagne in no uncertain fashion.
"This is a game and a half you've got here, my lad," he stated to the butler.
"Yes, indeed, you may say so, sir," replied that one. "You find the ponies fascinating, sir?"
"I find 'em damned expensive," corrected John.
He finished his glass of champagne and sweetened the butler with a pound note.
"Any tips for the next race?" he asked facetiously—but not wholly without significance.
"Some of our gentlemen have done well by backing Green consistently, sir. Consistently and persistently. Though, speaking for myself, I have a weakness for Blue."
The Honorable John returned to try out fifty pounds' worth of the butler's weakness, Blue.
Blue won once during the next hour—on the occasion when the Honorable John's good money was intrusted to Gold, which lost by a very short nose.
JOHN returned for moral support from the butler and the buffet—meeting Colonel Clumber, scowling ferociously, on his way.
"Are you going or coming, Squire?" he said curtly. "The champagne is the safest bet in this establishment. Join me."
The Colonel, nothing loth, joined him, and together they utterly ruined a bottle of really fine champagne.
"And how much have these bone Arabs set you back in your accounts, Squire?" demanded John.
"More than I intend to leave here when closing time takes place," growled the Colonel. "If I can't beat a nursery game of pretty gee-gees like this, you can call me a four-flusher from Quitterville."
He cocked a lurid eye at his partner.
"D'you think there's a joker in the ebony box?" he asked softly.
The Honorable John, restored by the noble wine which he had consumed, smiled comparatively blandly.
"I don't know—yet; I can't say—at present. But I got a whiff, as you may say—just a whiff—of the lurking rodent a minute or so ago. I can't honestly say I've smelt a straightforward rat yet—but there's a slight tinge of mouse in the atmosphere. I'm giving another couple of hundred a chance—and perhaps the mouse will grow into a full-sized old English rat."
He dropped his voice.
"Some of the people here have won heavily, but they may be—" He broke off abruptly, turning to greet the Daffodil Dame, who was swaying up to them with deep distress still writ large upon her lovely face.
"How have you been succeeding, please?" she asked in plaintive tones. "I have been dreadfully unlucky. You know I have not made a single bet of more than ten shillings, and my luck has fluctuated so! I have not one single penny left, and if I were not afraid, I would go home and have a cup of tea and go to bed at once. Oh, I wish I had never seen this place."
The Honorable John patted her beautiful arm gently.
"Bear up, my dear; this race-meeting isn't over yet," he reminded her. "Take a little refreshment and wait till the numbers go up for the last race. I have got my eye on these ivory mustangs, and they know it—and if they don't all jump into the box in sheer terror before I've finished with them, you can call me no judge of a thoroughbred," he concluded, beckoning the gentleman with the corkscrew in his tail pocket.
A LITTLE later the Honorable John rose.
"I am going to see Red," he declared. "It's just come into my mind, like a flash of Chinese fire—Red!"
He swung massively across to the table and put fifty pounds on Red three times in succession.
Red lost handsomely every time.
But the Honorable John did not keep his promise to startle the little animal and his companions clean into the box by the power of the human eye alone.
On the contrary, he beamed upon the little "bone Arab" as though he loved it, and proceeded to intrust another fifty to its care.
It was at least halfway home, when the dilated nostrils of White, winning easily, tapped the side of the box.
The Honorable John beamed some more, and reduced his bets to pound notes. His note-case, which at the beginning of the seance had looked so portly, was assuming the appearance of a limp book-cover without any literature inside it.
It was nearing three o'clock in the morning when he and the frankly maddened Colonel, the only visitors left (except the Daffodil Dame, who was still watching with strained attention) made their last bets—a modest ten pounds apiece on Gold.
Silver won—and Messrs. Tommy and Chris announced that, for tonight, the séance was ended.
"After all, you good sportsmen are not in the vein—but you can have your revenge tomorrow!" said Chris smilingly.
Instantly, and more like a mechanical device than a man, the blue-chinned croupier rose, bade them a polite good night and left. Evidently he had no more financial interest in the place than was provided for by his weekly salary and tips from heavy winners—if any.
The butler-like laddy also faded away.
"Well, perhaps you're right, you boys—all good things come to an end," chuckled the Honorable John, fingering his empty note-case. "Even a bale of notes big enough to choke a python—like mine was."
His glance roved across to the Daffodil Dame, as the debonair Tommy came up, clutching a bottle of champagne and five glasses.
"A glass of wine to christen the advent into our circle of two good sportsmen, I think, what?" suggested Thomas, and became busy with the wire round the cork.
The Honorable John nodded indulgently.
"Well, well, if I had won five hundred instead of losing it, I should have expected you boys to moisten it with me, no doubt," he purred, like an old bear with his nose buried in the honey-cupboard of a wild bees' nest. "And I guess my friend"—he glanced at the Colonel—"will be glad to drown the memory of his loss in a little refreshment—hey, Squire?"
The Colonel growled a reluctant acquiescence. The wine foamed and sparkled.
"BUT before we drink to the pastime of "kings," said the Honorable John, "I should like to make an appeal to you two boys on behalf of the charming little lady on my right. May I?"
"Certainly," smiled Tommy and Chris.
"You have here as pretty a game as I ever remember butting into—pretty, fascinating and profitable. It has run me fairly off my hind-legs tonight, and my friend off his also. And neither of us are men easily knocked off our stances. We have lost a lot of very good money—but we can afford it. But with Daff—with Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe here, it is otherwise and different. She, poor little soul, has lost what she can't afford—and what is not hers to lose. I mean her hubby's emerald necklace. It's part of his business stock, and if he is dreaming about it, far off in Amsterdam, so to put it, he dreams that it is fast asleep in its secret drawer in his desk at home. Well, we know—just we five here together—that Daff—that Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe has lost that necklace here this afternoon. And what I want to point out to you two boys is that it means blue ruin to Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe. Her husband loves her and trusts her—and love is a very beautiful thing. So is trust. I don't like to feel that you two nice, gentlemanly young sportsmen are willing to ruin Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe—and if I am any judge of men, you are not willing. My friend and I came here to win back that necklace for this lady. We've failed—the ponies were too slick for us. It's cost me pretty nearly five hundred pounds in cold cash. You have that money, boys. So I am going to ask you, Tommy and Chris, to return that necklace to this lady, free, gratis and for absolutely nothing—as an act of sportsmanship!"
He leaned toward the proprietors of the "ponies," his heavy face a little flushed, his gray-green eyes a trifle hard.
"You've won from my partner and myself, all told, something like a thousand pounds tonight. I want to ask you to show that you are generous winners. Let this little lady off," he asked them.
Messrs. Tommy and Chris stared, clearly a little disconcerted at tne modest request.
Even the Daffodil Dame's fine eyes shone with sheer surprise.
Chris spoke.
"This is—er—novel, what? D'you mind if we chat it over?"
They retired, talking together for a few moments, speedily came to a decision and returned, smiling.
"We are perfectly willing to return the necklace," said Chris, bowing to the Daffodil Dame, "tomorrow."
"Tomorrow!" echoed the Honorable John.
"You see, the necklace is not here. Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe lost it this afternoon. We do not live here—for obvious reasons. The necklace was put in a safe at my flat after our afternoon session here. That is all. If Mrs. Glenster-Neyshe will call here tomorrow afternoon, it shall be waiting for her. She may take it freely—without feeling in any way indebted to us or under any obligation."
"Oh, thank you—thank you so," said the Daffodil Dame, and burst into tears—at least, she covered her face with her hands.
"Well said, Tommy and Chris!" boomed the Honorable John, and patted the lady's shapely shoulder. "There, there, my dear, don't cry. All's well! Your troubles are over. Nothing to do now but be happy. Be good, and don't gamble any more with hubby's stock-in-trade, and you will be happy!"
He rose ponderously.
"Slip your cloak on, my dear, and come with us—we'll put you in a taxi and send you home.—Good night, Tommy—good night, Chris. Must take another whirl at your ebony box some of these nights. Let me catch Red in form, and I'll put a kink in your bank balance yet, hey, boys?"
They cordially invited him to try whenever the mood was on him; and so, a minute or so later, they left, with their grateful protegee.
"WELL, my dear, that's that," said the Honorable John as he shook hands with the Daffodil Dame. "Be a good girl in future and leave the ponies to those who understand 'em—"
"Like you, for instance," snapped the Colonel acidly, apparently jealous of the way in which his partner seemed to assume possession of the entire copyright of the dame.
The Honorable John laughed.
"Like me, yes—in a manner of speaking," he agreed.
He escorted the now volubly grateful lady to their big limousine for which he had telephoned at about midnight.
"We're going to send you home in our car," he said, still fatherly. "Go straight to bed when you get home, and have a good, long, luxurious sleep. Don't hurry to get up early; eat a sensible, substantial breakfast,—never neglect breakfast, my dear,—then fetch the necklace, put it back where you took it from, and spend the rest of the day making yourself sweet and pretty for hubby when he gets back from Amsterdam. There, that's sound advice—if I were your papa, I couldn't give you sounder advice!"
The Colonel, listening with ill-concealed impatience to this little lecture, glanced at Sing, the Chinese slave and worshiper of the Honorable John, who usually drove the limousine about town,—when not engaged upon the production of meals,—and his lips opened. But they closed again without sound. The driver was not Sing the Chink.
The Colonel shot a look at his partner, who was opening the door for the Daffodil Dame. What was this? Had the old buffalo a card up his sleeve still? It was quite likely—nobody knew better than the Colonel that quite the last man to leave without protest a big bale of notes behind in an obvious gambling-den was the Honorable John.
Then they said au revoir to the lady, and the great car slid smoothly away. A white hand fluttered for an instant at the window, and the Honorable John waved back.
"I suppose you're aware that the driver of the car wasn't Sing?" asked the Colonel.
John was lighting a cigar.
"Hey, Squire? Oh, yes, I knew that. In fact, I arranged that over the phone just now. You see, I needed Sing to drive us home."
"I don't get your idea," said the Colonel. "I don't get it at all. If you wanted Sing to drive us home, why didn't you let him bring the limousine, and we could have given Daffodil a lift home. Is Sing bringing the touring-car for us?"
"No, not the touring-car—the taxi!" replied John absently, looking down the street.
"A taxi—what taxi?"
"Oh, the one that I bought cheap the other day," said John casually. "You remember how it amused you at the time—but—"
A belated-looking taxi turned into the street.
"This should be Sing," announced John. "Keep your eyes open, and follow my lead!"
The Colonel made a noise expressive of angry bewilderment.
"This gambling has gone to your head, old man. You're getting a bit mixed up, aren't you? Why use a cheap, ramshackle, secondhand taxi when we've got two first-class cars of our own?"
The Honorable John did not immediately answer his partner. Instead he raised his voice in a hoarse bawl that must have startled more than one denizen of the street from his or her slumbers. "Hoi—taxi!" he bellowed.
THE taxi ground itself to a standstill by the curb. It was driven by a yellow-faced person with slanting eyes and a hard, a very hard, visage—Sing.
Before the Honorable John could speak, the door of the house behind them swung open, and Messrs. Tommy and Chris, the race-game experts, stepped out, well-mufflered and overcoated against the chill night air. Each carried a leather attache-case.
"Why, gentlemen, not gone yet?"
"Why, hullo boys! No. We sent that little woman home in our car, and have only just succeeded in getting this taxi," said John genially. "Which way are you going, you two boys, hey? West? Good. That's our way. We'll give you a lift—might wait here a month for another taxi at this hour of the night."
He stepped in and they heard him sit down with a thud that shook the taxi.
"Tell the driver what corner he is to drop you at."
"Why, thanks very much—it's only a quarter of a mile—still, it's late for walking. Squat in, Tommy!"
Chris told the idol-faced driver where to drop them, and followed his partner in, the Colonel bringing up the rear.
A grim smile was hovering at last on the hard lips of the Honorable John's hefty partner.
He had noted that which indicated to him that his old hunting companion was not yet passing into senility. Like the Honorable John on his right, he flung his overcoat open, and jamming both hands into the pockets of his dinner jacket, leaned back facing "the boys," a big cigar gripped between his teeth.
"Well, you two boys certainly trimmed us two poor old boobs tonight," said the Honorable John genially. "That is certainly a sweet game. Do pretty well at it?"
Tommy was modest.
"We have our ups and downs, naturally, what? But we get a modest living."
The Honorable John passed his cigar-case, and they helped themselves. The Colonel, expecting it, felt a slight warning pressure of his partner's elbow as Chris struck a match, and politely held it to his pal's cigar.
"I've been wondering whether you two would really have returned that necklace to Daffodil if there had really been a necklace at all—if she had lost it—and if she had really been your victim instead of your decoy, you man-eaters!" said the Honorable John then very swiftly, very distinctly, and with a rasp in his voice like the sound of a file on hard metal:
"Sit still! Keep your hands still—up—up, damn you!" he ground out; and the change from friendliness to ferocity in his voice was startling.
"Use your eyes, you cam-experts! Look! Move your hands, and we'll spray you!"
Pale-faced behind a wispy cloud of cigar-smoke Messrs. Tommy and Chris stared, their hands at the level of their mouths. They were wise, for the two partners were facing them, each with his hands buried in the pockets of his dinner-jacket—and something hard inside those pockets was pointed directly at the gambling-den proprietors.
The Honorable John withdrew one hand. It contained a small but businesslike automatic pistol, the muzzle of which he jammed into Tommy's overcoat where it covered his solar plexus.
Faithfully the Colonel followed his example. Then the Honorable John romoved Tommy's neat brown leather attaché-case from his side.
Minutely the Colonel copied him in the case of Chris.
"That's better—a great deal better," said the Honorable John, an echo of good humor in his voice.
"Highway robbery, you'd call this, hey?" he continued.
"It is! And you will pay for it," snarled Chris.
"Yes?"
The Honorable John nodded.
"At the corner of the next street there will be a constable on duty," he said, chuckling. "Shall I tell the driver to stop at him so that you can give us in charge?"
They glanced at each other and were silent.
"Answer that—do we stop or not?"
"No!"—sullenly.
"Why not?" No answer.
"You won't tell me, hey? Very well, I'll tell you. You won't appeal to any policeman to save you from us because the cams on the shaft in your ebony box are variable and adjustable—and you know it, you young thieves! You can increase the circumference of any one of those cams to almost any extent you like, whether the shaft is revolving or not—and that means that you can allow any horse to win you like. Am I right?"
A SPASM of acute anguish contorted the good-looking faces of "the boys."
"Ah, then that's settled. See if they are armed, old man," said John. The Colonel speedily satisfied himself that they were not, and the Honorable John rapped on the glass behind Sing's ear.
"We part here," he announced.
Chris spoke shrilly, horrified.
"But there's three times as much in those bags as you lost, you hog!" he objected.
The Honorable John shook his head.
"When you have lived as long as I have, my boy, you will have broken yourself of the foolish habit of making unnecessary remarks," he observed as the taxi drew up.
Not four yards away shone the light over the murky portals of the police-station.
"Get out, you boys," invited John. "But before you go, let me tell you that you are running a low-down and unclean business. Take my advice and close down before you are closed. I've half a mind to give you in charge now. If you weren't so young—and foolish—I would. But if your den is running three nights from now, look out for trouble. I've no doubt you'll only open up somewhere else, anyway—so the best thing, in fact the only thing, I can do is to sequestrate—impound—take away—your capital. May keep you out of mischief that way—but I doubt it."
The door swung open, and reluctantly the swindlers stepped out. A policeman on the steps of the station surveyed them idly.
"Good night, my boys," said the Honorable John.
"Good night," they replied shortly, and the Colonel swung the door shut again. Sing swung the taxi off on the home trail.
"A perfect pair of scoundrels," said John, sadly. "How much is there in the bags?"
IT panned out at something between three and four thousand pounds.
"Not bad, though it might have been better. On the whole I'm dissatisfied—very," said John, over a nightcap.
"Were you ever satisfied in your life?" inquired his partner caustically. "How did you get wise to the scheme, anyway?" John laughed.
"Quite simple, Squire. When I entered that den, I was very nearly as dense in the head as you. I really believed this Daffodil had been plucked. She was a magnificent decoy—but she made one or two little mistakes. Only details—little things that anybody like you would never notice—but which couldn't get past a man with a wonderful natural gift for noticing details—like me. In the first place, she never told the butler what she wished to drink when we invited her to take refreshment. He knew. He poured her out a Maraschino—as no doubt he had poured her many a one before. That opened my eyes to the fact that she was an old hand there.
"And when I decided in my mind that she was a decoy, I speeded up the revolutions of my brains till I made myself giddy. I watched the winners and watched Tommy's hands. He was the lad who pressed the electric button to start winding the horses. He used the right hand for the button. Every time Silver won, Tommy's lily-white left hand rested carelessly in the same spot on the box; every time Green won, his paw also rested in the same spot—a different one from Silver's spot. And so on. I decided that Tommy could enlarge the cams quite a good deal, as required. I wasn't far wrong, hey?"
The old rascal chuckled as he held his glass to the light. "I knew I was right when they couldn't produce the lost necklace. They hadn't won one to produce. Daffodil invented it—a fairy necklace, and no doubt, a fairy husband. Yes, you've got to hand it to me again," he continued complacently. "You've got a very observant man for a partner—hawk-eyed and fox-witted, in fact—and you may as well admit it. I remember you were very much amused at my idea of buying a taxi—refused to pay for a half-share at the time, hey? I'll have to trouble you for that half-share now, Squire? Y'see, I had studied the thing,—worked it out,—and you can take it from the old man that there are times—and may be more—when a private taxi is more valuable than a private limousine. Those crooks would have been suspicious of getting into a private car with all that money on them, but they fell for an obvious thing like a lift in a taxi! Pass the brandy."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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