The Admirable Tinker Part 24

Of a sudden there descended on him an exceedingly animated French gentleman of forty, who cried, "Tell me then a little, good-for-nothing!

Why did you steal my motor-car yesterday?"

Tinker was suavity itself; he protested that he was desolated, grieved beyond measure that the necessity of borrowing the motor-car had been forced on him; but he had borrowed it in the service of a lady; and he told briefly the story of the kidnapping. The aggrieved Frenchman listened to it with a face in which amazement battled with incredulity; but fortunately, towards the end of it, Dorothy and her father came into the hotel from walking in the garden of the Casino; and Tinker introduced the Frenchman to them. At the sight of Dorothy's beauty, he forgot his righteous wrath; forgot that it was an international matter, another instance of the cunning insolence of Perfidious Albion; protested his delight that his car should have been of use to her; would not listen to Septimus Rainer's proposal to fit it out with fresh tires, declaring that the tires on it, worn in her service, had become one of his most cherished possessions; and in the end turned upon Tinker with outstretched arms, and cried, "Embrace me! I have called you a good-for-nothing! But you are a hero!"

With infinite quickness Tinker seized the nearest hand, wrung it warmly, and ducked out of the way of the embrace. Then he explained that unless the police caught the kidnappers, they desired to let the matter drop, for the gossip would be unpleasant to Dorothy. The Frenchman understood; and a.s.sured them that as far as he was concerned, it should be buried in the most secret depths of his bosom.

With that he took his leave of them; and on his heels came two Italian detectives to inquire into the kidnapping. Sir Tancred was summoned to the conference; and for all that their questioners a.s.sumed a good deal of the air of inquisitors with all the horrors of the torture-chamber behind them, he and Tinker saw to it that they went away very little wiser than they came.

At dejeuner Septimus Rainer told them that now he was in Europe he proposed to stay in Europe, and enjoy a little of his daughter's society.

He could carry on all of his business he wanted to by cablegram and letter. One thing, however, he must have, and that was clothes, for in his haste he had come away with a gripsack and nothing more. Sir Tancred suggested that Tinker, who knew his Nice, should take him over there, and put him in the hands of the right tailor, hatter, hosier, and bootmaker; and Septimus Rainer accepted the offer gratefully.

Accordingly the two of them caught a train early in the afternoon, and went to Nice. Septimus Rainer had supposed the getting of clothes to be a simple and tiresome affair of a few minutes; you went to a tailor and said, "Make me suits of clothes," or to a bootmaker and said, "Make me pairs of boots." He was vastly mistaken. He found himself embarked upon a serious business.

He awoke to the seriousness of it in the train, when he found Tinker, who had taken his commission to heart, regarding him with a cold, calculating air, very disquieting. He endured it as long as he could, then he said cautiously, "You aren't measuring me for my coffin; are you, sonny?"

"Oh, no!" said Tinker with a rea.s.suring smile of a seraphic sweetness.

"I was only thinking how you ought to be dressed."

"Oh, anything will do for me," said Septimus Rainer carelessly.

"I'm afraid not; you see I'm responsible," said Tinker seriously. "And I was thinking that, getting your clothes here in Nice, I shall have to keep a very sharp eye on them, or they'll go dressing you like a French American--you know, an American who is dressed by a Paris tailor. And that wouldn't do at all."

"No: of course not," said Septimus Rainer quickly.

But it was not till they came to the tailor's that he realised the full seriousness of the business before them. At first he supposed that he was to have his say in the matter; but at the end of ten minutes, with a half-humorous abandonment, he put himself entirely in the hands of the conscientious Tinker, and indeed had he not done so, there is no saying that he might not have gone about the world parading a velvet collar on a grey frock coat. It was Tinker who decided, after weighty consideration, upon the colour and texture of the stuff of each suit, chose the very b.u.t.tons for it, and forced upon the reluctant Nicois his ideas of the way each separate garment should be cut. Septimus Rainer was frankly bewildered at the end of half an hour; he was used, in the way of business, to carrying a multiplicity of details in his head, but these details it could not carry. When he found that Tinker had them at his finger ends, he was filled with admiration and respect.

From the tailor's they went to the hatter's; and there Septimus Rainer found himself trying on hats by the score. But, strangely enough, he did not grow weary: Tinker's absorbed interest in his task was catching to the point that at the hosier's the millionaire found himself discussing the shade of his socks with real enthusiasm.

When they came out of the last shop Tinker said, with the deep breath of one relieved of a heavy responsibility, "There--I think you'll look all right--as far as a French tailor can do it."

"I ought to, after all the trouble you've taken, sonny," said Septimus Rainer, smiling.

"You have to take trouble about dressing a man. A woman is easy enough.

I got Elsie her clothes in about an hour. But a man is much more difficult. And clothes are so important," said Tinker gravely.

"I suppose they are--over here," said Septimus Rainer.

"I'm glad you don't take them really seriously," said Tinker, approving his tone, "because you'll soon get into the way of wearing them when you've got them. It's very funny, but well-dressed Americans--men, I mean--don't often wear their clothes properly; they look as if they felt so awfully well-dressed. I don't think you will."

"Now you've told me about it, I'll try not to."

"I think you'll want a good man, though, to keep you up to the mark. You might get slack, don't you know?"

"No, no; I can't have a valet, and I won't," said Septimus Rainer firmly.

"Ah, we shall have to see what Dorothy says about that," said Tinker with a smile of doubtful meaning.

"That's playing it rather low down on me, isn't it?" said Septimus Rainer reproachfully. "It's--it's coercion."

"Oh, if you have to wear clothes, you may as well do it thoroughly. You see, it's been put into my hands, and I must go through with it," said Tinker apologetically.

The millionaire gazed at him ruefully.

"And now," Tinker went on, regarding him with another cold, calculating air, that of a proprietor, "I think I'll take you to a hair-dresser, and have your hair and beard dealt with."

"Crop away! crop away!" said the millionaire.

Tinker took him to a hair-dresser, and told the man exactly how he wanted the hair and beard cut. "He'd make you a French American, too, if I let him," he said to Septimus Rainer.

When the hair-dresser had done, the millionaire looked at himself in the gla.s.s with approval, and said, "Well, I do look spick and span, though gritty; yes--sir."

"You'll look better when you have your clothes," said Tinker. "And, now, I think you must want a drink."

"That is so, sonny. This is dry work, this getting clothes."

Tinker took him to a cafe, adorned with an American bar. Septimus Rainer lighted a cigar and refreshed himself with the whiskey sour of his native land; Tinker ate ices. Over these agreeable occupations they talked; and the millionaire derived considerable entertainment and no little instruction from his young companion's views of life on the Mediterranean littoral, ill.u.s.trated from the pa.s.sing pleasure-seekers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Over these agreeable occupations they talked.]

When they got into the railway carriage on their return, he lighted another cigar, and lay back in the seat with the content of a man who had done a hard day's work. But presently he roused himself and said, "I've been thinking about those kidnapping sc.u.m. They were going to ransom Dorothy for three hundred thousand dollars, you said."

"Yes, a million and a half francs," said Tinker.

"Well, sonny, I've been thinking I must pay you fifty thousand dollars over that business. You took a big risk holding up a gang like that."

"It wasn't me: Selina held them up," said Tinker quickly.

"Selina did her share, and I shan't forget it. But it was your show. I think fifty thousand dollars would be fair."

Tinker's face went very grave. "Thank you very much," he said slowly, "but I couldn't take any money for helping Dorothy out of a mess. When I've taken money for helping people, they've been strangers--like the Kernabies and Blumenruth. But Dorothy is different--quite different."

Septimus Rainer pulled at his beard, and said in a grumbling voice, "That's all very well, sonny; but where do I come in? You get my little girl out of a tight place--a very tight place--and you save me three hundred thousand dollars. Business is business, and I ought to pay."

"It is rather awkward for you," said Tinker, looking at him with a puzzled face and knitted brow. "But I think the thing is that it wasn't business. I like Dorothy--I like her very much. She's a friend. And there can't be any business between friends, don't you know?"

"Shake, sonny," said the millionaire, holding out his hand. "I'm glad you and she are friends."

Tinker shook his hand gravely.

When they came back to the hotel, at the sight of her father, Dorothy cried, "Oh, papa, what have you been doing? You look ten years younger.

And what a nice shape your head is!"

"Yes," said Septimus Rainer, "I pride myself on the shape of my head.

But it's all your young friend's doing."

"Wait till his clothes come," said Tinker with modest pride.

"I shall look fine in those clothes, I tell you--fine," said Septimus Rainer, and his air was almost fatuous.