Lonesome Town Part 23

You're getting so popular. But I must say I don't wonder at all."

"Three calls-and for me?" He was halted by honest amaze. "How come? I mean, from whom and what about? Say, was one a lady's voice, sort of cool, yet kind, soft yet strong, gentle yet--"

"No such riddle voice h.e.l.loed you," snapped the girl. "Three adult males they were that wanted you and one of them none too kind or soft or gentle, at that. I told 'em what I thought was the truth. Personally, you know, I make a specialty of the truth when it doesn't do any harm. I said that you hadn't been in since morning. They didn't appear to have any names, no more than messages to leave."

"Saves time answering." Pape got underway for the elevator. "Greetings and thank-yous, ma'am, and many of them. If any more males call me, I may not be in _until_ morning."

"You _do_ lead the life!"

Her exclamation faded into her stock-in-trade smile. But curiosity was in the baby stare with which she followed him to the grated door. A queer customer among the Astor's queer. At that, though, as she admitted to her deeper self, she was "intrigued" rather than "peeved" by his utter lack of interest in what she did with her blond self when off duty.

Swinging across the rotunda six floors below, Pape was startled to see a face he recognized-that "fightingest" face of the bully with whom he had gone the single round on the park b.u.t.te-top. A clockward glance reminded him that he was in considerable of a hurry. He had adequate time to keep the most important appointment of his recent life, although none to spare. The pug probably had been one of those to call him on the 'phone.

But wonder over how and why he had been located by his late antagonist must be deferred until some moment less engaged.

Next second Pape heard what he instantly surmised to be the voice of a second of the three inquirers-that of Swinton Welch, boss digger at the four poplars. Now, he really felt indebted to the dapper sub-contractor who, together with the "grave diggers," on the sacred spot, had put him in stride for the vast progress of his day. Moreover, he was interested in the possible connection between Welch and the unnamed battler he had overcome, as indicated by their joint wait at his hotel. Although he located Welch at once leaning against the news-stand, he felt he should not stop, even for a word of thanks or a pointed question. Tilting the brim of his sombrero over his eyes, he made for the Broadway entrance.

"There he goes, Duffy!"

From close behind, the thin voice of the thin boss answered several of the queries which Pape might have put without need of his putting them.

So, the name of his adversary of the night before was Duffy! There was some connection between him and Welch. Both were waiting for him.

A heavy hand clamped his shoulder. "Hey you, what's your hurry?"

Shaking the clutch, Pape turned forcefully just as Welch joined Duffy.

With but a fragment of a prefatory plan, his arms flung out flail-like and brought his two untimely callers into violent collision. A short-arm jab just below the curve of Duffy's ribs doubled him over his undersized partner with a yap of pain. Before the lobby crowd realized that anything untoward was being punched, Pape's ident.i.ty as aggressor had been lost by his dash for the revolving exit.

Almost was he within one of the door's compartments when again halted-this time by a slender youth with an eye-brow mustache.

"I beg pardon, but isn't this Mr. Why-Not--"

That is as far as the probable third of the "adult males" got with his mannerly question. Perhaps the weariness of his voice and the weakness of his hirsute adornment gave Pape the idea. At any rate an unoccupied arm chair stood ready. Seizing the man's slender shoulders, he seated his third caller therein with more force than courtesy.

"So glad to meet you, Mr. Pape," this in a sort of gasp. "I've been here to see you several times. A small matter of business. I'm from the--"

Pape did not wait. He was not nearly so much concerned over the source of the youth as that Welch and Duffy soon would be up and after him. He had no time for further bouts with one, two or three, regardless of a const.i.tutional disinclination to s.h.i.+rk battle. He pushed through the revolving door and into the traffic out front. On the opposite side of Broadway, he dived into the up-tide of pedestrians.

One observation disturbed him as he eased himself into an empty taxi, with an order to stop at the Maine Monument. Although all others of the varied sky-signs were alive, flaunting the wan daylight with their artificial blaze, the rose-wrought welcome to Why-Not Pape was dead.

He'd find time in the morning to set off a less artificial blaze of indignation before the electric company for their neglect. Surely they could spare him as many kilowatts as that sausage maker or this movie maid! His need of the hired cheer of the sign no longer was urgent, now that he had been hand-clasped into the Lauderdale triumvirate. Still, the sign that had lit his way to Jane was worthy of perpetuation.

Before night-fall no likely place was left in the near vicinity of the poplars four for any old lady's "laborer" to dig. From the shadow of the park wall, where crouched a poke-bonneted figure, sounded an order to cease work.

"Hope has died hard, harder even than you have dug, you human steam-shovel. I guess it's no use." Jane's voice was as forlorn as she looked when Pape swung up at her call.

He leaned upon the man-sized spade which he had purchased at a small hardware store near Columbus Circle just before keeping their rendezvous. He mopped from brow, neck and hands the sweat of toil as honest as ever he had done.

"So far as I've been able to discover," the girl continued, "this is the only group of trees the length and breadth of the park that answers description. But evidently they are not the ones of grandfather's rhyme."

Pape drew some few breaths calculated to steady his pulse to normal.

"Being only one of the laboring cla.s.s and uneducated as most over the ultimate object of my labors-in other words, never having glimpsed the word-map of that crypt, I can't be of much mental a.s.sistance."

"Oh, I shouldn't mind telling you the lines if I only could remember them," Jane conceded. "One distinctly says to dig near the 'whisper of poplars four.' Confound grandfathers and their mysterious ways! Despite your willingness and energy, Mr. Pape--"

"Peter, if you please, Jane."

"Peter, we shall have to give it up. If you'll smooth back the earth you've disturbed, I'll take off my two score years and ten."

"You mean to retire my little old lady of the park?"

"Must, I'm due to return to Aunt Helene's to-night from my-my visit. I have on my gray suit under this loose old black thing and a hat in my bag. If you'll escort me to the house, I'll be that much more obliged."

Tugging at the strings of the poke bonnet, she stepped toward the cover of a nearby black haw whose flat-topped, branch-end cl.u.s.ters of bloom gleamed like phosphorus over a dark sea. He turned back to his task with his consistent superiority to intelligent inquiry. Muscularly, at least, he had earned her confidence. So far free from interruption more staying than a chance glance or careless comment, they seemed about to end an evening successful in its unsuccess, when there sounded a verbal a.s.sault.

"You're under arrest-the both of yous-and caught with the goods, at that!"

To Pape's ears the Irish accent had a familiar sound. Straightening to confront the two uniformed figures now materializing from the dusk and the hillock's crest, he executed a signal which he hoped would be understood by his companion as a suggestion that she "slide out"-leave him to wriggle from the clutch of the law as best he might.

"Arrest? And for what, if you have time to swap me word for word?" he put demand.

"For the messing up and maltreating of Central Park in violation of enough statutes to hang and then jail you for a year. Don't bother denying or it'll be used again you. We been watching a whole half hour.

You haven't a chance at a get-away, so come along nice and companionable."

The last admonition was shared with the bent old lady, who was too dim-sighted, evidently, to have seen her laborer's telepogram and now appeared from around the misnamed white-blooming black haw.

"We wouldn't like to be rough with a lady."

The suggestive warning came from the second officer. At his voice, Pape sprang forward and peered into two familiar faces-into the chiseled smile of 'Donis Moore and the fat surprise of the "sparrow cop," Pudge O'Shay. He couldn't decide at the moment whether to be sorry or hopeful that these two friendly enemies should be the ones again to catch him at misdemeanor within the sacred oblong of the park.

Jane didn't like, any more than they, that they should be "rough" with her, to judge by the readiness with which she gave up the possibility of escape and ranged alongside the Westerner, quite a bit less humped and helpless looking, however, than in her approach.

"I'll say this is a pleasure-to be pinched by the only two friends I've got on the Force," offered Pape with his hand. "How are you to-night, 'Donis Moore? O'Shay, greetings!"

"No shaking with prisoners!" The gruffness of the foot policeman was remindful of that previous meeting in which his whistle had been mistaken for a quail's.

Adonis ignored proprieties and gripped the proffered hand.

"What you up to now, Montana-unhorsed and scratching up our front yard?"

"I'm a-digging," Pape returned.

"A-digging for what?"

Jane supplied: "For an herb called Root-of-Evil."

"I see. Herb-roots for mother, eh?" Moore squinted a confidential wink toward the Westerner. "If you'd taken my advice, you'd be throwing something better than dirt around for some one younger and--"

"But I did take your advice. This is what it led me to."