The Professor's Mystery Part 15

He glowered hollowly at me above a cavernous grin. "We are. But not in those flannels or that nice new college rah-rah s.h.i.+rt. We'd have the whole place wonderin' what you wanted, and the mothers showin' their little ones how a real gentleman ought to look."

"But you're respectable enough," I protested, laughing. "Are we both going to be disguised?"

"Disguise nothin'. You just want to cut out the comedy-chorus-man, you see? Put on a jersey, or anyhow a collar that don't meet in the middle, an' old shoes. Me, I look low-life anyway."

I rebelled when he rolled my gray suit into a ball and jumped on it, in the interest of realism. But at last we got started. On the car, Mac unfolded his plan of campaign.

"This guinea didn't put the cops on, because he wanted to get you himself, you see? He's out for the money--the mazume. So he beats it up here and drops Tabor a love-letter. _But_, he's just out of the jug, you see? An' he knows the force'll watch out for him. So he'll mix up with a lot of other dagoes, an' maybe get a job daytimes, so's to have an excuse for bein' here. Well, he don't love work, but he does love booze; an' he gets through at five P. M. with an awful thirst. So we'll hunt for him first where they sell the demon rum."

He dived into the police station, leaving me standing outside, and presently emerged with the l.u.s.t of the hunter in his eye.

"I've located every cheap red-eye emporium in our beautiful little city.

Now you spot all the fruit stores an' s...o...b..acks an' guinea grocers we pa.s.s, an' we'll take them later."

"You'll have to be careful how you inquire after him," I said.

"I ain't. I'm lookin' for his cousin, Giuseppe, that looks like him.

Blue, an' hairy, an' tattoo-marks on his hands, you said. Come on."

We went through two or three saloons, where Maclean loitered what seemed to me an unconscionable time, weaving into an elaborate discussion of things in general, some curiosity as to the whereabouts of an Italian debtor whose name and personal affairs varied surprisingly without in the least altering his description. I knew that Mac had an inventive genius, but I was astonished at its fertility of detail.

"I didn't expect anythin' in those joints," he confided, as we pushed through a swinging door. "They're a peg too good for him. I just wanted to hear myself talk, an' get up my speed. Now, this place looks better.

You take seltzer after this, or a cigar. Their snake-medicine'd poison you. Me, I'm immune."

It was low-ceiled and smoky, and full of large cuspidors and small tables. The bottles were fewer, and glittered with gilt ornamentation, like the bottles in a barber shop. A veil of dingy mosquito netting protected the mirrors. The bartender was blue-shaven and deliberate, with a neat trick of sliding bottles and gla.s.ses, without upsetting them, several feet along the dark, dull surface of the bar.

"Giovanni Scalpiccio been in to-night?" Mac asked casually, after ten minutes of excise problems and the pure food law.

"If he has, he ain't left his visiting-card," returned the bartender.

"What do you think I am--delegate from the organ-grinders' union? I don't keep tab on every I-talian dago that comes into the place. What kind of a lookin' feller is he?"

"I don't know. They all look alike to me. Oh, a monkey-faced guy, all tattooed--works up the line here a little. His wife owes me on a sewin'-machine. Told me he was down here."

"Seems to me I seen that feller," the bartender reflected. "Talks all chokey, don't he? Yes, he was in to-night, about half an hour ago. Made an argument becuz I wouldn't hang him up--if that's him."

I waited, shuffling with impatience, while Maclean bought cigars and slowly changed the subject. Then I burst out of doors so hurriedly that I collided with two harmless-looking individuals who were coming in.

"What shall we do now?" I demanded.

"Take a cigarette instead o' that Simsbury cabbage, an' cool off. If it's our guinea, he's huntin' free drinks all up the street. We'll run into him the next two or three places, somewhere."

In the next we drew a blank, but in the one after that we learned that our man had just left; and to my disgust, were forced to listen to a circ.u.mstantial account of his pleas and expedients in quest of liquor on credit. I was more certain than ever that it was Carucci himself, and hurried Mac on to the next saloon. To my surprise, he led the way to a table in the farthest corner and sat down with his back to the door.

"You look here, Laurie," he muttered, leaning across the table as the bartender went back for our order. "There's more doing in this than we're wise to. Did you see those two ginks that we ran into in the door back there?"

"No," said I, "what about them?"

"Well, that's what little Mac wants to know, the first thing he does.

They're after the same dago, or else they're after us, you see? Every joint we've been in, those two float along after a couple of minutes, all cagey, not seein' anybody. An' they look like guineas themselves.

There they come now."

He spoke without turning his head, and I looked past him at the two men entering the room. They were small, sallow, and respectable, one of them decidedly fat; and they looked to me like small Italian tradesmen in their Sunday or traveling clothes. They stood at the bar, talking between themselves with rapid speech and gesture, and paying not the smallest attention to us. They did not even glance around the room, so absorbed were they in their own conversation.

"You're crazy," said I, "they don't even know we're here."

"All right. Maybe you think I've covered police stuff five years without knowin' when I'm being gum-shoed. I've seen that fat bologna before, somewhere, too. I ain't after a martyr's crown. Now, I tell you what you do. You pike out an' go back to that first place where we got the scent, an' wait around till I come. If they follow you there, you duck for the busy street, an' go home. If they don't I'll be along myself pretty quick. I want to know who they're after, you see?"

"What do you think they are?"

"I don't think yet: I'm goin' to know. Now you beat it--an' for Heaven's sake, jolly the barkeep for all you know how, an' try not to look as if you were wanted for arson."

I obeyed, wondering if Maclean's instinct for sensation had got the better of him. The two men took no notice whatever as I pa.s.sed them, but went on with their talk. I heard enough to gather that they were discussing the price of b.u.t.ter. Yet, despite my skepticism, I walked up the street with something the sensation of having just pa.s.sed a small boy with an ominous s...o...b..ll. The other saloon was fairly crowded, and it was some minutes before I found myself drinking a very evil beer.

"Say," said the bartender, sliding my change down to me, "you're the guy that asked about the guinea, ain't yer?"

"Why, my friend was," I said carelessly. "Has he been back? He owes him for a--"

"That'll do all right to tell." He leaned across the bar, dropping his voice, "The reason I asked yer's because there's two other fellers after him, too. Guess _they_ sold him a grand piano, likely."

He moved along to attend to other customers, leaving me staring excitedly about the room. A moment later, he came back again, swabbing the bespattered bar with a towel. As he pa.s.sed me without a look, he turned his thumb over and motioned, as if the gesture were part of his work, toward the corner by the door. There sat the two little men at a table, still absorbed in discussion.

My throat became suddenly dry. I had started out hunting with the hounds to find myself running with the hare; and the notion of being shadowed by unknown Italians was more melodramatic than agreeable. With a confused memory of all the detective stories I had ever read seething in my mind I lounged toward the door, gained the street, and started off on a run. I turned the first corner, ran half way down the block, then walked quietly back. The two men were nowhere to be seen. As I stood on the corner, one of them, the thinner one, came slowly out of the saloon, pausing to light a cigarette, and strolled casually away from me up the street. It seemed impossible that he had any interest in me, but I would be sure. I followed carefully after him for half a dozen blocks. He neither looked around nor altered his pace in the least; and where we crossed the car tracks, I stood and watched him go steadily on out of sight. Then I jumped on a pa.s.sing car, congratulating myself on having carried out my instructions, even though they had been rather unnecessary. And on the outskirts of the town, I stepped off to wait for my own car. Just as it turned the corner, some one touched me on the arm.

"Pardon; have you a match?"

I swallowed my heart down again with a gulp. The fat Italian scratched the match on his shoe, and breathed a soft cloud of smoke.

"Thank you, sare. Now tell me," he took me confidentially by the elbow, "w'at is it you want with Antonio Carucci?"

My car was pa.s.sing. "I never heard of him," said I as blankly as I could. "You've got the wrong man."

"Excuse me, sare. No mistake at all." He smiled deprecatingly.

The car was almost beyond reach. "All right," I said. "Come in here, and if you can show any right to ask, I'll tell you." Then, as we turned together toward the hotel behind us, I flung him on his face with a sudden wrench, and sprinted after the car. As I clung gasping on the back platform, I heard a shout, and saw him following at a waddling run, waving his arm angrily. The car stopped; and for a sickening instant, I thought that my last device had been in vain. But at that moment a couple of men ran from the sidewalk behind my pursuer and caught him by the coat. The three stood in the middle of the street, wrangling and gesticulating; and the conductor, with a disgusted jerk of the bell, started the car again.

Later in the evening, Maclean called me up on the telephone.

"Say, you made a pretty good getaway for an amateur. Did you see us stop your fat friend?"

"What? Was that you?"

"Sure was it; me and the other one. Now listen. h.e.l.lo! Can you hear?

Those two parties are plain-clothes men after the other party. That's what they let him out for, to watch him, you see? I'm with 'em now. You people better just lie as low as you can, and do nothin' at all, if you want to keep out of it. And if I get wise to anythin' I'll call you up.

Good-by."

And his receiver went up with a cluck.