Local Color

“Well, didn’t I make the whole thing as easy for you as I could?” protested his companion. He spoke as if in self-defence, or at least in extenuation.

“Easy? Didn’t you put these things on me? Haven’t I worn them every minute since then, awake or asleep, except when I was dressing or undressing?”

“What’s the use of going into all that all over again? This was too big a case for me to be taking any risks. I’d had a hard enough job locating you; I couldn’t afford to lose you. Let me ask you a few questions: Didn’t we travel all the way from Denver in a stateroom, so that outside of the conductors and a couple of porters there wasn’t a soul knew you was in trouble? Didn’t I show you how to carry that overcoat over your arms when we were changing cars at Chicago, and again coming across New York to-night, so’s nobody would catch on? Didn’t I steer clear of reporters all along the line? Didn’t I keep it all a secret when I was sending the wire on ahead to book the passage?”

He paused; then remembered something else:

“Didn’t I go to the trouble of buying a lighter pair of cuffs than the ones I usually use and having an extra link set in the chain so as to keep your arms from cramping, wearing them? Yes, I did – I did all those things and you can’t deny it.

“Nobody on this boat suspects anything,” he went on. “Nobody here knows you’re Bronston, wanted in London for that Atlas Investment Company swindle, and I’m Keller, chief operative for the Sharkey Agency. So far as anybody else knows we’re just Mr. Brown and Mr. Cole, a couple of friends travelling together. Until the day we land over there on the other side you can keep on being Mr. Brown and I’ll keep on being Mr. Cole. I’ll keep this stateroom door locked at night just to be on the safe side. And seeing as we’ve got seats together at the same table I guess we’d better make a point of taking our meals together at the same time. Otherwise, you can do just what you please and go where you please and I won’t bother you. These folks on this boat will think we’re just a couple of pretty close friends.” He fished a key ring out of his pocket, selected a certain key and bent over the other man. “Here, hold your hands up for a minute. You ought to be glad enough to get rid of those darbies. There!”

He lifted the opened bracelets off his prisoner’s wrists and pitched them, clinking, upon the bedcover.

“Have it your own way,” said the freed Bronston. “But remember, I’ve had my say. I’m making no pledges, now or hereafter.” With his fingers, which were long and slender, he chafed his flesh where the steel had bruised it red.

“Oh, all right, all right,” answered Keller; “I’m willing to take the chance – although there ain’t really any chance to take. I’ll get these things out of sight first thing.”

He picked up the handcuffs and dropped them into a pocket of his ulster where it lay on the one chair in the room, and wadded a handkerchief down into the pocket upon them. “Now, then, everything is shipshape and proper. There’s no reason why we can’t be pals for three or four days anyway. And now what do you say to turning in and getting a good night’s rest? I’m good and tired and I guess you are too.”

Whistling to himself like a man well satisfied with the latest turn in a difficult situation, he began to undress. The other followed suit. They were both in their pajamas and both were in bed and the lights had been put out before Bronston spoke:

“Mind you, Keller,” he said, “I’m not fooled to any great extent by this change in attitude on your part.”

“What do you mean?” asked Keller sharply.

“Well,” said Bronston, “I can’t help but realise that you’ve got a selfish and a personal motive of your own for doing what you’ve just done. You’re bound to know that if the truth about us were to get out the people on this boat probably wouldn’t value your company any higher than they’d value mine – maybe not so highly as they might value mine.”

Keller sat up in bed.

“I don’t get you,” he said. “Just what do you mean by that?”

“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”

“Well, what of it?” demanded Keller. “What’s wrong with my being a private detective?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” said Bronston, suddenly grown drowsy. He settled his head down in the pillow and rolled over on his side, turning his back to his roommate. “Let’s go to sleep.”

Instantly he seemed to be off; he began drawing long, heavy breaths. With a snort Keller settled down, uttering grumbled protests in an injured and puzzled tone. Presently he slept, too, with the choky snores of a very weary man.

So far as we know they both slept the sleep of travel-worn men until morning. It was seven o’clock and the sunlight was flooding in at the porthole when their bathroom steward knocked upon the outer panels of their door, at first softly, then more briskly. When they had roused and answered him, he told them that their baths were ready and waiting for them; also that the weather was fine and the sea smooth. It was Bronston who went first to the bathroom. He had come back, and was dressing himself when Keller, after clearing his throat several times, reopened a subject which seemingly had laid uppermost in his dormant mind while he slept.

“Say, Bronston,” he began in an aggrieved voice, “what made you say what you said just after we turned in last night – about private detectives, you know?”

“Oh, let it drop,” answered Bronston, as though the topic were of no consequence.

“No,” pressed Keller, “I won’t let it drop. I’d like to know what you meant. I don’t care much for that sort of talk.”

Bronston had his shaving kit open and was soaping his cheeks in front of a small mirror at a stationary washstand in the corner of the room. He turned with the lather brush in his hand.

“If you insist then,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I meant. If the facts about our relationship should get out – if the truth should leak out in any way – I’m inclined to think there might be some sympathy for me aboard this ship. People are apt to have a sympathy for any man who’s in trouble through no real fault of his own, especially as there are apt to be people on this boat – Americans – who’ve heard some of the inside history of this trouble I’m in. They might believe me when I told them that I was an innocent party to the transaction, especially as there is no way, as things stand now, of my proving my innocence. But you’re a private detective, and at the risk of wounding your feelings I’m going to repeat something which you probably realise already, and that is that people at large don’t particularly fancy a person of your calling in life. No, nor the calling either. I presume you remember, don’t you, what the biggest detective in America said not so very long ago in a signed article? He said most of the private detective agencies were recruited from among ex-convicts – said a big percentage of the private detectives in the United States were jailbirds and evidence-fixers and blackmailers and hired thugs!”

“I don’t care what Burns or anybody else said.” Keller’s voice betokened indignation. “I may not have had as much education as some other people, but I’ve made my own way in the world and I’m no crook, nor no old lag neither. There’s nobody got anything on me. Besides, unless somebody tells ’em, how’re they going to know what line of business I’m in, any more than they’ll know, just from looking at you, that you’re on your way back to London to stand trial for a felony?”

“My friend,” said Bronston gently, “everything about you spells private detective. You’ve got it written all over you in letters a foot high.”

“What now, for instance, gives me away?” There was incredulity in the question, but also there was a tinge of doubtfulness too.

“Everything about you, or nearly everything, gives you away – your clothes, your shoes, your moustache. But particularly it’s your shoes and your moustache. I wonder why all detectives wear those broad-toed, heavy-soled shoes?” he added, half to himself.

“What’s wrong with my moustache?” asked Keller, craning to contemplate himself over Bronston’s shoulder in the mirror. “Seems to me you used to wear a moustache yourself. The description that was sent to our people said you wore one, and your not wearing it made it all the harder for me to trail you when I was put on the case.”

“Oh, I cut mine off months ago,” said Bronston, “and besides it was always a modest, close-cropped affair. I never wore the ends of my moustache turned up like a cow’s horns.” He glanced at Keller quizzically. “Honestly, aside from any other considerations, I think you’d look better without one.”

“Let’s drop the moustache part,” said Keller, who seemed nettled. “Tell me, what’s wrong with my clothes?”

“To be frank,” criticised Bronston, “you run just a bit to extremes. There’s that cap you bought yesterday evening when we stopped at that store on our way across town. It struck me as being – well, a trifle loud.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with this cap, if you’re asking me,” said Keller. He drew it forth from his opened handbag and slipped it on his head. It slipped down until his ears stopped it; its owner whistled in astonishment. “Yes, by gee!” he exclaimed, “there is something wrong with it too – it’s too large.” He drew it off and examined the little tag pasted in the crown. “Why, it’s a full half size too large.” He turned to Bronston.

“You told the clerk what numbers we wanted. Remember, don’t you, offering to attend to that while I was getting me a bathrobe, so as to save time? See if he made any mistake in yours?”

Bronston slid on the cap he had bought, a plain grey one; it stuck on the top of his head.

“Yes,” he said, “the idiot must have got the sizes twisted. This one is a half size too small for me.”

“And mine’s a half size too large,” said Keller. “I suppose we’ll have to trade.”

“There’s nothing else to do,” said Bronston, “although I can’t say I fancy this plaid design much.”

In accordance with the plan of Keller, as stated the night before, they went to breakfast together to find that they had been assigned places at a five-seated, circular table on the balcony of the dining saloon. Their tablemates were an elderly couple, who said little to each other and nothing at all to strangers, and a tall, reserved, exceedingly silent Englishman. The indefinable something that marked these two men as hailing from different circles and different environments was accentuated in their table manners. Keller ate correctly enough, but there was a suggestion of grossness about him, an awkwardness in his fashion of holding his fork while he cut his ham. But he watched Bronston closely, and before the end of the meal had begun to copy Bronston’s method of handling a fork.

They had quit the dining room and sought out the location of their deck chairs when, for the first time, the detective seemed to become aware that Bronston’s cheeks were rosy and smooth, whereas a roughened stubble covered his own jowls. “I think I’ll go below and take a shave,” he said, running the palm of his hand over his chops.

“Use my safety, if you feel like it,” suggested Bronston casually. “There’s a new blade in it.”

Half an hour later, when Bronston invaded the stateroom to get a pocketful of cigars, Keller stood facing the mirror, putting on his collar and tie.

“I couldn’t find my razor,” he said, with his head turned away from Bronston; “I must’ve left it on that Chicago train. And yet I’d have sworn I put it into my valise. So I had to use yours. But you were wrong when you said it had a new blade in it. If that’s a new blade I’ll eat it. It mighty near pulled my upper lip off.”

“Your upper lip?” echoed Bronston instantly.

“Sure,” said Keller. There was a touch of embarrassment in his tone as he faced Bronston. “I took your advice about this moustache of mine – clipped it close with the scissors and then gave myself the twice-over with your safety.” His upper lip showed bare; the skin had a bleached look and was raw from the scraping it had just undergone.

As Keller passed out of the room, caressing the place where his moustache had been, Bronston noted that Keller had made other changes in his person. Keller had exchanged the bright green tie which he wore at breakfast for a dull brown bow; and he had put on a lighter pair of shoes – patent-leather shoes, with thin soles and buttoned uppers. His broad-toed, heavy-soled pair showed under his bed where he had shoved them.

Conceding the weather to be fair, as in this instance it assuredly was, the majority of the passengers upon a big liner eastward bound give over their first day at sea to getting used to their new and strange surroundings, to getting lost in various odd corners of the ship and finding themselves again, to asking questions about baggage gone astray, to wondering why they are not seasick. As regards the two principal characters of this narrative, nothing of interest occurred during the first day except that Keller went below late in the afternoon to take a nap, and that shortly before dark, when he had waked, Bronston limped in with a look of pain upon his face, to report that while watching a lifeboat drill he had got a foot hurt.

“A clumsy ass of a coal passer dropped his oar and hit me right on the big toe with the butt of it,” he explained. “I didn’t give him away, because the second officer was right there and I judged he would have given the poor devil fits for being so careless. But it hurts like the very mischief.”

He got his left shoe off and sat for a bit caressing the bruised member.

“The skin isn’t broken evidently,” he continued, in response to Keller’s inquiries concerning the extent of the injury; “but there’s some swelling and plenty of soreness.” He started to put his shoe back on his stockinged foot, but halted with a groan.

“If you don’t mind,” he said to Keller, “I’m going to wear those heavy shoes of yours for a day or two. They’re easier than mine and broader in the toe.”

“Help yourself,” agreed Keller. “Seeing as we’ve swapped caps we might as well swap shoes too. Anyhow, I kind of like this pair I’ve got on, even if they do pinch a little.” He contemplated his shining extremities admiringly. Shortly afterward they went up to dinner. After dinner Bronston found reason for returning to the stateroom. Here he did a strange thing. He dropped a pair of perfectly good shoes out of the porthole.

Conceding further that on a big liner’s second day out the weather continues fine, the Americans among the first-cabin passengers begin making acquaintances; and, under official guidance, go on trips of exploration and discovery to the engine room and the steerage and the steward’s domain. Card games are organised and there is preliminary talk of a ship’s concert. The British travellers, on the other hand, continue for the most part to hold themselves aloof. This also was true of the second day’s passage of the Mesopotamia.

Keller – or Cole, to use the name which he now used – met some congenial fellow countrymen in the smoking room and played bridge with them for small stakes during most of the afternoon. Bronston, who apparently did not care for cards, saw his warder only at the lunch hour, preferring to spend the time in his steamer chair upon the deck, enjoying the air, which was balmy and neither too warm nor yet too cool, but just right. Presently as he sat there he fell into a conversation – which was at first desultory, although it shortly took on a more animated character – with a rather fluffy young lady who occupied the steamer chair next his own. She dropped a book which she had been reading; he picked it up and returned it to her. That was how it started, at first with an interchange of polite commonplaces, then with a running bestowal of small confidences on the part of the young lady, who proved to be talkative.

By bits and snatches it developed that her name was Miss Lillian Cartwright and that her home was in Evanston, Illinois. There were several other Evanston people on the boat – she pointed out a group of them some distance down the deck – but she was not travelling with them. She was travelling with her uncle, Major Slocum. Perhaps her new acquaintance had heard of her uncle, Major Slocum? He was a prominent attorney in Chicago, quite a prominent attorney, and he was also on the staff of the present governor of Illinois, and in former years had taken a deep interest in the welfare of the Illinois National Guard.

“Possibly you may have seen his name in the papers,” she said. “Uncle is always getting into the papers.”

Bronston rather thought he had heard the name. Miss Cartwright talked on. This was her first trip at sea. She had expected that she would be seasick, but on the contrary she felt splendid; not a suggestion of seasickness so far. Really she felt almost disappointed – as though she had been cheated out of something. But seriously, wasn’t the sea just perfectly lovely? She loved the sea. And she loved the Mesopotamia too; it was so big and so roomy and the officers were so polite; and even the seamen were accommodating about answering questions. She was always going to travel on the Mesopotamia after this. They – her uncle and she – were on their way to Scotland to visit her married sister who lived there. It wasn’t certain yet whether they would leave the ship at Fishguard and run up to London for a day or two, or go straight on to Liverpool and from there take the train for Scotland and stop off in London on the way back. Her uncle rather favoured going on to Liverpool. Here Bronston found a chance to slip in a word or two.

“I’m sure I’ve noticed your uncle – tall, isn’t he, and distinguished and rather military looking? I should like very much to meet him. You might introduce him to me, and then perhaps he would be good enough to introduce us two properly to each other. I answer to the name of Brown.” He stood up and lifted his cap. “I expect to be back in a little while.”

The plan seemed to please Miss Cartwright. “That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” she said, as Bronston moved off up the deck.

It is possible that she repeated to her uncle what Bronston – or Brown – had said. For when Bronston happened along again a few minutes later, Major Slocum was sitting with his niece, and upon being introduced, arose and clasped Mr. Bronston’s hand with a warm cordiality. The Major was one of those native-born Demostheneses with a stiff spine and a fine mane of rather long, iron-grey hair. His manner of speech betrayed him instantly as one addicted to after-dinner oratory. Instinctively, as it were, one gathered that his favourite toast was The Ladies – God Bless ’Em.

As he confided to his niece afterward, the Major found this Mr. Brown to be an exceedingly well-mannered, well-informed person; and indeed the conversation did cover a wide range of subjects that afternoon.

It first took on a briskened tone when a lone porpoise came tumbling across the waves to race with the ship. From porpoises the talk turned to whales, and from whales to icebergs, and from icebergs to disasters at sea, and from that to discipline aboard ship, and from that to discipline in the army and in the national guard, which was where Major Slocum shone. Thence very naturally it drifted to a discussion of police discipline as it existed in certain of the larger American cities, notably New York and Chicago, and thence to police corruption and crime matters generally. Here Mr. Bronston, who had until now been third in the conversational output, displayed a considerable acquaintance with methods of crime detection. He knew about the Bertillon system and about finger-print identifications, and what was more he knew how to talk about them – and he did. There are two classes of people who are interested in shop talk of crime – those who know something of the subject and those who do not. Miss Cartwright and Major Slocum listened attentively to most of what the young man had to say, and both professed themselves as having been deeply entertained.

It followed, quite in the order of things, therefore, that the three of them should agree to meet in the lounge after dinner and take their coffee together. They did meet there, and the evening was made to pass both pleasantly and rapidly. The Major, who told quite a considerable number of his best stories, was surprised when eleven o’clock arrived. Meanwhile, Keller played bridge in the smoking room. He didn’t turn in until after midnight, finding Bronston already in bed.

At the latter’s suggestion they breakfasted abed the following morning; and so the forenoon was well spent when they got upon deck. Fine weather continuing, the ship ran a steady course. The side-to-side motion was barely perceptible. Having finished the prescribed morning constitutional – twelve times round the ship – Miss Cartwright was sitting in her steamer-chair, feeling just a wee bit lonely and finding so smooth a crossing just a trifle monotonous, when Bronston came up, looking spick and span. She preened herself, greeting him with sprightly words, and when after a few minutes of small talk he offered to initiate her into the mysteries of horse billiards, up on the boat deck, she accepted the invitation instantly.

They went up and the young lady proved an apt and willing pupil. There on the boat deck Major Slocum presently found them. He didn’t care to play, but he kept score for them. The Major put the sonorous emphasis of the true orator’s delivery into everything he said; his calling off of the count invested it with the solemnity and vocal beauty of a well-delivered ritual.

Presently when the game was over and they sat, all three, side by side upon a bench in the lee of one of the huge ventilator funnels, the younger man spoke up and said he was afraid Miss Cartwright must be getting chilled without a wrap. She insisted that she was perfectly comfortable, but masterfully declaring that she needed better protection for her shoulders than a silken blouse and a light jacket he got up.

“I’ll just run down and get my grey ulster,” he said. “I think I left it in my chair.”

Leaving uncle and niece together he hurried below. True enough, his grey ulster dangled across the arm of the steamer chair, but after picking it up he made a trip on down to D-deck and spent perhaps a minute in his stateroom with the door closed. No, probably it wasn’t more than half a minute that he spent there. At any rate he was back upon the boat deck almost immediately, holding up the coat while Miss Cartwright slipped her arms into the sleeves. All women like to be waited on and most women like to wear masculine garments of one sort or another. He buttoned the collar about her throat and she smiled up at him her appreciation of his thoughtfulness.

“Aren’t men’s overcoats just adorable!” she babbled; “so big and warm and comfy and everything! And they have such lovely big pockets! The very next coat I get is going to be made like a man’s, and have some of those nice big pockets in it.” She shoved her hands deep into the side pockets in what she fondly conceived to be a mannish manner.

“Why, what’s this?” she asked. “There’s something heavy and jingly in – ”

She stopped short, for the owner of the ulster was looking at her meaningly and shaking his head as a signal for silence.

“What did you say, my dear?” inquired her uncle absently.

“Nothing,” she answered, but her fingers continued to explore the depths of the pocket, and into her eyes came a half-puzzled, half-excited look. She opened her lips as though to speak, then closed them with an effort.

Bronston proposed another go at horse billiards – just a short game before luncheon. Again the Major volunteered to score for them. The game was still going on when Keller appeared. He stopped within easy hailing distance of the trio.

“About ready for luncheon?” he called out, addressing Bronston.

“Just a minute or so,” answered Bronston, and went on showing his pupil how to make a certain shot.

Keller took a turn up and down the deck. He felt rather out of the picture somehow. His appetite was active too; trust the North Atlantic air for that. He took a turn or two more, growing hungrier with every step. Five minutes passed, and still the game showed no sign of breaking up. He swung about and approached them.

“Say,” he said, seeking to put a subtle shade of meaning into his words, “I’d like to go to lunch – if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, very well,” said Bronston; “we’ll stop, then.” Keller advanced until he was quite near them. As he did so he became aware that Miss Cartwright was staring hard at him. Bronston, all of a sudden, seemed to remember the small proprieties of the occasion.