The Incendiary Part 18

CHAPTER XXIII.

THREE OF A KIND.

"I've got him! I've got him! Take his other arm, Toot!"

"Let go; she's tipping!"

"Will I let go and see the bloke drownded? You're a s.p.u.n.ky feller, Toot Watts. Anybody'd think you never rocked a dory before yourself. Get up in the stern, Turkey. Now pull her in to the bridge and hold on to the logs. That'll balance her."

With one hand the Whistler held the drowning man's arm, while with the other he lifted his chin out of the water. It was a dangerous position, leaning over the bow in this manner, but the man in tow was unconscious and could not struggle. In a half-dozen strokes Turkey had brought the dory's stern up against one of the piles of the pier. This support he clasped with might and main, while Toot and the Whistler drew the body over the bow. Both were breathing hard when it was finally boarded.

"Turn him over," cried the Whistler. "You take the oars, Turkey, and row like fury for the beach. Get the bloke's head around, Toot, up against the bow. That's it. Now work his left arm up and down; I'll take the right--not so fast--about like this. That'll make him breathe."

"Do you think he's dead?" asked Toot in an awestruck whisper.

"He ain't dead. I felt of his heart."

"I seen a bloke at the bath-house that was in the water half an hour and they brought him round," said Turkey, panting at the oars.

"Keep the arm going, Toot. Never mind if you're tired."

"Are we near the beach?" asked Toot. He was the youngest of the trio, not much more than a child, in fact, and even the slum child, precocious in many kinds of knowledge, does not peep without tremors behind the veil of the mystery of mysteries. No one answered his query. An answer was not necessary, for over his shoulder the white line of the surf could be seen. When they got near the Whistler jumped to Turkey's side, seized the right oar and gave the added impetus of his lithe young arms to the headway of the boat. The water hardly rippled the glorious ribbon of moonlight behind them and wind and tide were set toward sh.o.r.e. Under these favoring circ.u.mstances the dory was carried high and dry upon the sands.

"Lift him out," cried the Whistler. s.h.a.garach's body was laid upon the beach, dripping and disheveled. "You run up to the refectory, Toot, and tell the cop there to bring some whisky. Turn him over, Turkey, and let the water run out. Now slap his cheeks. Slap them hard."

"He's breathing."

"How did he tumble in, I wonder? Gee, didn't he come down flopping?"

"P'raps he was loaded."

"Lucky he didn't hit on them rocks there."

"He would if the tide was dead low."

Neither the Whistler nor Turkey had checked their vigorous efforts to resuscitate the limp body. Even the catching of their boat on a high-crested wave did not seduce them from their work.

"I'll swim after her," said the Whistler, watching the dory drift slowly off the sands.

Soon s.h.a.garach's eyes opened and his lips muttered indistinctly. Presently he moved his arms. How cool the air was! He had often longed to lie like this on a soft, white sand, and let the shallow water play over him, while he pierced with his gaze the deep blue sky. But the stars were above him now--not pendulous tongues of flame such as throbbed in the oriental heavens of his childhood, but the smoldering embers of the northern night, paling in the moonlight. And whose were those two strange faces thrust darkly over the golden disk?

"Are you better, mister?" It was unmistakably an earthly tone, the voice and accent of the city gamin, but warm with that humaneness of heart which a ragged jacket shelters as often as a velvet one.

"Take my coat, mister. You're s.h.i.+vering," said the Whistler, suiting action to word, so that s.h.a.garach found himself embraced by a garment, not dry by any means, but more grateful than the soaked apparel which was chilling his skin.

"If you can get up, mister, and run around, it'll warm you. Toot'll be here soon with some whisky."

s.h.a.garach gathered his strength to rise, but the effort was fruitless.

"How did I come here?" he gasped.

"You fell over the bridge, right near us. We were fis.h.i.+ng for smelts and rowed over and saved you."

"That was fortunate. I thank you," murmured s.h.a.garach.

"Can't yer swim?" asked Turkey in a pitying tone, but s.h.a.garach was preoccupied with his recollections. He had made a mistake of judgment. He should have declined the rendezvous. But who and what was the a.s.sailant, the leering oaf he had pa.s.sed on the pier? Was it some agent of the Arnolds? The anonymous letters pointed to that source. They were all seamed with allusions to the trial of Robert Floyd. And they formed his only clew. Stay, the hat he still clutched in his hand. He raised it feebly--for the mental energies of the lawyer were more elastic than the physical--and his teeth were still chattering though his brain was clear. It was a round, rimless cap of a common pattern.

"Here comes Toot." The Whistler, who was all eyes, had been the first to espy him, running at the top of his speed. Out of the darkness behind him loomed the powerful form of a policeman.

"The cop's comin', fellers. Here he is," cried Toot.

"Gimme the whisky," said the Whistler. "Take a swig, mister. It'll warm you up."

s.h.a.garach applied his lips to the bottle and took a sparing draught.

"Well, how is the gentleman?" sang out the policeman, cheerily.

"He's all right now," answered the Whistler, a strange uneasiness coming over him.

The officer stooped down to the man's face.

"Why, Mr. s.h.a.garach----" Surprise prevented him from saying more and s.h.a.garach looked up at hearing his name.

"You're not on the old beat now?" he said.

"No, I'm on the park force till I get strong again. This is a bad accident. Coming round all right, though, by the look o' things."

"Yes, give me a hand and I'll try to rise."

Officer Chandler's great hand swung s.h.a.garach on his feet. For a moment his knees sunk. Then he shook himself like a draggled dog. The liquor was working its way to his marrow and banis.h.i.+ng the deep-seated chill.

"I owe my life to these boys," he said.

"h.e.l.lo, what are you stripping for?" asked the officer, turning around.

"My dory," answered the Whistler. He had already reduced himself to the minimum of wearing apparel and stood ankle-deep in the surf.

The dory was twenty yards out, showing a dark broadside against the moonlit waves.

"Oh, all right," laughed Chandler. "Give me your arm, Mr. s.h.a.garach. We'll furnish you a new outfit at the refectory. How did it all happen?"

"One moment, till the boy comes back." s.h.a.garach knew that his a.s.sailant had had time to escape and that search for the present would be useless, but he saw no advantage in keeping the incident to himself. So he sketched the story of the letters, the rendezvous and the struggle, in his curt, forcible style.

"Find the head that cap fits and you'll do me a service," he concluded, showing Chandler the headgear.

"There was n.o.body on the bridge?"

"n.o.body but the oaf I described."

"Wade out, Turkey," the Whistler was calling to his barefoot companions. He seemed shy of putting his boat ash.o.r.e. Since the arrival of the officer all three urchins had become singularly distant and distressed. Was this only the natural awe which slum children feel in the presence of the police? Or was it conscience that made cowards of them all?

"Come ash.o.r.e, young feller. The gentleman wants to thank you," said Chandler.

"We must look for the fis.h.i.+ng-pole under the pier," answered the Whistler. It was true that he had thrown his rod away when they heard the loud splash of s.h.a.garach's body in the water. But his manner indicated that while what he said might be true, it was not the fact. Turkey and Toot also had shown unseemly haste in wading out to the dory with the Whistler's outer raiment. The Whistler was digging the blade in for his first stroke when s.h.a.garach addressed him in a tone that made him pause.

"My young friends, I am too weak to thank you to-night. To-morrow is Sat.u.r.day. Could you call at my office in the morning, 31 Putnam street? Mr. s.h.a.garach. Can you come?"

"Yes, sir," answered the boys, with more submission than gladness in their voices. All the gamin's impudence melts at a touch of true kindness. The boys waited a moment, then disappeared into the night, while s.h.a.garach, with the policeman's a.s.sistance, made his way through the gathering crowd to the refectory.

It was the misfortune of Jacob, s.h.a.garach's office boy, to be the owner of a most preposterous nose, the consciousness of which led him to fear society and shun the mannerless mult.i.tude. Boys of his own age in particular he dreaded, as a tame crow is said to fear nothing so much as a wild one. So when our three mischiefmakers entered the office the next morning and seated themselves till Mr. s.h.a.garach should return, the poor lad began squirming by antic.i.p.ation in his chair as if its seat were a pin cus.h.i.+on with the points of the pins protruding. As a matter of defensive tactics, this was the worst possible att.i.tude to take, as it courted a.s.sault. But Jacob was not a strategist.

Before long his torture began, first by side comments and giggles, suppressed in deference to the decorum of the surroundings. Then he was subjected to a running fire of personal questions, the tone of which speedily began to mimic the m.u.f.fled nasals of his own richly accented responses. This would have been acute torment to a sensitive lad and a spirited one would have ended the comedy by an appeal to arms. But poor Jacob was stolid and peaceable. So his tormenters had things their own way. The Whistler especially seemed to have neither conscience nor reason in his make-up, but an enormous funny-bone which usurped the functions of both. It was not until Aronson came in that Jacob was able to make his escape.

Saul Aronson was not a musical young man. If he yawned down the major chord twice or thrice at bedtime this was the nearest he ever got to singing. But when the Whistler raised his flexible pipe, at first softly, then loudly, with wonderful trills, breaking into still more wonderful tremolos, with staccato volleys, and ascending arpeggios that would have put a mocking-bird to shame, it is no wonder that he gave up the attempt to insert the metes and bounds correctly in a quit-claim deed and contented himself with furtively watching the o-shaped orifice from which this flood of melody issued. This was his occupation when s.h.a.garach's form, crossing the threshold, sent him back to his copying and checked the Whistler in the full ecstasy of an improvised cadenza.

"You have saved my life," said s.h.a.garach to the boys when they had followed him into the inner room. He used the plural number, but his gaze seemed to be attracted to the Whistler, whose neatly brushed hair told of a mother's hand, and whose restless blue eyes, fringed with heavy dark lashes, centered a face oval, high-born and sweet, which gave out in every contour the glad emanation of a youth which was natural and pure. There was less in the others to make them distinctive. Turkey seemed to be a hulking clod and Toot was wizened and shrill-voiced and sharp.

"You have saved my life. How can I repay you?"

"I don't want any pay," spoke up Whistler. "I on'y came here to tell you about the fire."

"What fire?"

"Turkey said you was defending the bloke that set fire to the house on Cazenove street."

"Do you know something about that?"

"We seen a blo--a man coming out of the house," answered the Whistler.

"Then you come to make me still more obliged to you. But you must let me discharge a part of my other debt first I have just come from the bank. Here are fifteen double eagles. You will each give me your mother's name and address and I will send her five."

Turkey and Toot showed no reluctance in doing this, but the Whistler still held back.

"My mother doesn't want any reward," he said. All three of the boys had just graduated from the Phillips grammar school, and could place their negatives correctly when they chose.

"This is not a reward. I only ask you to allow me to be your friend. At your age I had never seen this amount of money."

But still the Whistler blushed and shook his head till s.h.a.garach perceived the boy's principle could not be shaken.

"You will give me your mother's address? Perhaps I may be able to get you work. Wouldn't you like to go to work?"

"Oh, yes, sir." The Whistler's face, which obstinate refusal, even for so honorable a scruple, had clouded with a trace of sullenness, brightened at once and his blue eyes smiled. s.h.a.garach copied the address carefully and determined not to lose sight of the boy who knew how to say no so decidedly.

"And now----" he pushed the memorandum book aside. "I am defending Floyd. What did you wish to tell me?"

"We was the first at the fire," said Toot, eagerly.

"And we found the body of the servant," added Turkey.

But s.h.a.garach's eyes never left the Whistler.

"Just when the fire broke out," said the Whistler, "we were coming through the alleyway side of the house."

"Yes."

"A big bloke--I mean a tall man--was running down the alleyway into Broad street. I noticed him, because the alley was narrow and he knocked me down."

"Where?"

"In the alleyway."

"Near Broad street?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ran against you and knocked you down?"

"Yes, sir, and said: 'Darn it, get out of the way.'"

"Was he running?"

"Well, half-running."

"We was running," added Toot; "'cause we heard them yelling 'Fire!'"

"What kind of a looking man was it?"

"A big, brown man, with a black mustache."

"He looked like a dood," added Toot.

"You didn't know him?"

"No, sir."

"Would you know him again?"

"Oh, yes," answered the Whistler. "I seen--I saw him last week pulling a single scull up the river."

s.h.a.garach remembered having seen a portrait of Harry Arnold displayed in a fas.h.i.+onable photographer's showcase--s.h.a.ggy cape-coat and fur cap setting off his splendid beauty. Immediately he wrote the address on a card, and, summoning Aronson, bade him obtain a half-dozen copies of the photograph.

"He was a handsome young man, then? About how old?"