The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  “You hadn’t no right to do ut, Hop!” bleated Humpy, who had tipped his chair against the wall and was sucking a cold pipe. And then, professional curiosity overmastering his shocked conscience, he added: “What’d she measure, Hop?”

  The Hopper grinned.

  “Flubbed! Nothin’ but papers,” he confessed ruefully.

  Mary and Humpy expressed their indignation and contempt in unequivocal terms, which they repeated after he told of the suspected “bull” whose presence on the local had so alarmed him. A frank description of his flight and of his seizure of the roadster only added to their bitterness.

  Humpy rose and paced the floor with the quick, short stride of men habituated to narrow spaces. The Hopper watched the telltale step so disagreeably reminiscent of evil times and shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

  “Set down, Hump; ye make me nervous. I got thinkin’ to do.”

  “Ye’d better be quick about doin’ ut!” Humpy snorted with an oath.

  “Cut the cussin’!” The Hopper admonished sharply. Since his retirement to private life he had sought diligently to free his speech of profanity and thieves’ slang, as not only unbecoming in a respectable chicken farmer, but likely to arouse suspicions as to his origin and previous condition of servitude. “Can’t ye see Shaver ain’t use to ut? Shaver’s a little gent; he’s a reg’ler little juke; that’s wot Shaver is.”

  “The more ’way up he is the worse fer us,” whimpered Humpy. “It’s kidnapin’, that’s wot ut is!”

  “That’s wot it ain’t,” declared The Hopper, averting a calamity to his watch, which Shaver was swinging by its chain. “He was took by accident I tell ye! I’m goin’ to take Shaver back to his ma—ain’t I, Shaver?”

  “Take ’im back!” echoed Mary.

  Humpy crumpled up in his chair at this new evidence of The Hopper’s insanity.

  “I’m goin’ to make a Chris’mas present o’ Shaver to his ma,” reaffirmed The Hopper, pinching the nearer ruddy cheek of the merry, contented guest.

  Shaver kicked The Hopper in the stomach and emitted a chortle expressive of unshakable confidence in The Hopper’s ability to restore him to his lawful owners. This confidence was not, however, manifested toward Mary, who had prepared with care the only cereal her pantry afforded, and now approached Shaver, bowl and spoon in hand. Shaver, taken by surprise, inspected his supper with disdain and spurned it with a vigor that sent the spoon rattling across the floor.

  “Me wants me’s paw-widge bowl! Me wants me’s own paw-widge bowl!” he screamed.

  Mary expostulated; Humpy offered advice as to the best manner of dealing with the refractory Shaver, who gave further expression to his resentment by throwing The Hopper’s watch with violence against the wall. That the table-service of The Hopper’s establishment was not to Shaver’s liking was manifested in repeated rejections of the plain white bowl in which Mary offered the porridge. He demanded his very own porridge bowl with the increasing vehemence of one who is willing to starve rather than accept so palpable a substitute. He threw himself back on the table and lay there kicking and crying. Other needs now occurred to Shaver: he wanted his papa; he wanted his mamma; he wanted to go to his gwan’pa’s. He clamored for Santa Claus and numerous Christmas trees which, it seemed, had been promised him at the houses of his kinsfolk. It was amazing and bewildering that the heart of one so young could desire so many things that were not immediately attainable. He had begun to suspect that he was among strangers who were not of his way of life, and this was fraught with the gravest danger.

  “They’ll hear ’im hollerin’ in China,” wailed the pessimistic Humpy, running about the room and examining the fastenings of doors and windows. “Folks goin’ along the road’ll hear ’im, an’ it’s terms fer the whole bunch!”

  The Hopper began pacing the floor with Shaver, while Humpy and Mary denounced the child for unreasonableness and lack of discipline, not overlooking the stupidity and criminal carelessness of The Hopper in projecting so lawless a youngster into their domestic circle.

  “Twenty years, that’s wot ut is!” mourned Humpy.

  “Ye kin get the chair fer kidnapin’,” Mary added dolefully. “Ye gotta get ’im out o’ here, Bill.”

  Pleasant predictions of a long prison term with capital punishment as the happy alternative failed to disturb The Hopper. To their surprise and somewhat to their shame he won the Shaver to a tractable humor. There was nothing in The Hopper’s known past to justify any expectation that he could quiet a crying baby, and yet Shaver with a child’s unerring instinct realized that The Hopper meant to be kind. He patted The Hopper’s face with one fat little paw, chokingly declaring that he was hungry.

  “ ’Course Shaver’s hungry; an’ Shaver’s goin’ to eat nice porridge Aunt Mary made fer ’im. Shaver’s goin’ to have ’is own porridge bowl to-morry—yes, sir-ee, oo is, little Shaver!”

  Restored to the table, Shaver opened his mouth in obedience to The Hopper’s patient pleading and swallowed a spoonful of the mush, Humpy holding the bowl out of sight in tactful deference to the child’s delicate aesthetic sensibilities. A tumbler of milk was sipped with grateful gasps.

  The Hopper grinned, proud of his success, while Mary and Humpy viewed his efforts with somewhat grudging admiration, and waited patiently until The Hopper took the wholly surfeited Shaver in his arms and began pacing the floor, humming softly. In normal circumstances The Hopper was not musical, and Humpy and Mary exchanged looks which, when interpreted, pointed to nothing less than a belief that the owner of Happy Hill Farm was bereft of his senses. There was some question as to whether Shaver should be undressed. Mary discouraged the idea and Humpy took a like view.

  “Ye gotta chuck ’im quick; that’s what ye gotta do,” said Mary hoarsely. “We don’t want ’im sleepin’ here.”

  Whereupon The Hopper demonstrated his entire independence by carrying the Shaver to Humpy’s bed and partially undressing him. While this was in progress, Shaver suddenly opened his eyes wide and raising one foot until it approximated the perpendicular, reached for it with his chubby hands.

  “Sant’ Claus comin’; m’y Kwismus!”

  “Jes’ listen to Shaver!” chuckled The Hopper. “ ’Course Santy is comin,’ an’ we’re goin’ to hang up Shaver’s stockin’, ain’t we, Shaver?”

  He pinned both stockings to the footboard of Humpy’s bed. By the time this was accomplished under the hostile eyes of Mary and Humpy, Shaver slept the sleep of the innocent.

  IV

  They watched the child in silence for a few minutes and then Mary detached a gold locket from his neck and bore it to the kitchen for examination.

  “Ye gotta move quick, Hop,” Humpy urged. “The white card’s what we wuz all goin’ to play. We wuz fixed nice here, an’ things goin’ easy; an’ the yard full o’ br’ilers. I don’t want to do no more time. I’m an ole man, Hop.”

  “Cut ut!” ordered The Hopper, taking the locket from Mary and weighing it critically in his hand. They bent over him as he scrutinized the face on which was inscribed:—

  Roger Livingston Talbot

  June 13, 1913

  “Lemme see; he’s two an’ a harf. Ye purty nigh guessed ’im right, Mary.”

  The sight of the gold trinket, the probability that the Shaver belonged to a family of wealth, proved disturbing to Humpy’s late protestations of virtue.

  “They’d be a heap o’ kale in ut, Hop. His folks is rich, I reckon. Ef we wuzn’t playin’ the white card—”

  Ignoring this shocking evidence of Humpy’s moral instability, The Hopper became lost in reverie, meditatively drawing at his pipe.

  “We ain’t never goin’ to quit playin’ ut square,” he announced, to Mary’s manifest relief. “I hadn’t ought t’ ’a’ done th’ dippin’. It were a mistake. My ole head wuzn’t workin’ right er I wouldn’t ’a’ slipped. But ye needn’t jump on me no more.”

  “Wot ye goin’ to do with that kid? Ye tell me that!” demanded Mary,
unwilling too readily to accept The Hopper’s repentance at face value.

  “I’m goin’ to take ’im to ’is folks, that’s wot I’m goin’ to do with ’im,” announced The Hopper.

  “Yer crazy—yer plum’ crazy!” cried Humpy, slapping his knees excitedly. “Ye kin take ’im to an orphant asylum an’ tell um ye found ’im in that machine ye lifted. And mebbe ye’ll git by with ut an’ mebbe ye won’t, but ye gotta keep me out of ut!”

  “I found the machine in th’ road, right here by th’ house; an’ th’ kid was in ut all by hisself. An’ bein’ humin an’ respectible I brought ’im in to keep ’im from freezin’ t’ death,” said The Hopper, as though repeating lines he was committing to memory. “They ain’t nobody can say as I didn’t. Ef I git pinched, that’s my spiel to th’ cops. It ain’t kidnapin’; it’s life-savin’, that’s wot ut is! I’m a-goin’ back an’ have a look at that place where I got ’im. Kind o’ queer they left the kid out there in the buzz-wagon; mighty queer, now’s I think of ut. Little house back from the road; lots o’ trees an’ bushes in front. Didn’t seem to be no lights. He keeps talkin’ about Chris’mas at his grandpa’s. Folks must ’a’ been goin’ to take th’ kid somewheres fer Chris’mas. I guess it’ll throw a skeer into ’em to find him up an’ gone.”

  “They’s rich, an’ all the big bulls’ll be lookin’ fer ’im; ye’d better ’phone the New Haven cops ye’ve picked ’im up. Then they’ll come out, an’ yer spiel about findin’ ’im’ll sound easy an’ sensible like.”

  The Hopper, puffing his pipe philosophically, paid no heed to Humpy’s suggestion even when supported warmly by Mary.

  “I gotta find some way o’ puttin’ th’ kid back without seein’ no cops. I’ll jes’ take a sneak back an’ have a look at th’ place,” said The Hopper. “I ain’t goin’ to turn Shaver over to no cops. Ye can’t take no chances with ’em. They don’t know nothin’ about us bein’ here, but they ain’t fools, an’ I ain’t goin’ to give none o’ ’em a squint at me!”

  He defended his plan against a joint attack by Mary and Humpy, who saw in it only further proof of his tottering reason. He was obliged to tell them in harsh terms to be quiet, and he added to their rage by the deliberation with which he made his preparations to leave.

  He opened the door of a clock and drew out a revolver which he examined carefully and thrust into his pocket. Mary groaned; Humpy beat the air in impotent despair. The Hopper possessed himself also of a jimmy and an electric lamp. The latter he flashed upon the face of the sleeping Shaver, who turned restlessly for a moment and then lay still again. He smoothed the coverlet over the tiny form, while Mary and Humpy huddled in the doorway. Mary wept; Humpy was awed into silence by his old friend’s perversity. For years he had admired The Hopper’s cleverness, his genius for extricating himself from difficulties; he was deeply shaken to think that one who had stood so high in one of the most exacting of professions should have fallen so low. As The Hopper imperturbably buttoned his coat and walked toward the door, Humpy set his back against it in a last attempt to save his friend from his own foolhardiness.

  “Ef anybody turns up here an’ asks for th’ kid, ye kin tell ’em wot I said. We finds ’im in th’ road right here by the farm when we’re doin’ th’ night chores an’ takes ’im in t’ keep ’im from freezin’. Ye’ll have th’ machine an’ kid here to show ’em. An’ as fer me, I’m off lookin’ fer his folks.”

  Mary buried her face in her apron and wept despairingly. The Hopper, noting for the first time that Humpy was guarding the door, roughly pushed him aside and stood for a moment with his hand on the knob.

  “They’s things wot is,” he remarked with a last attempt to justify his course, “an’ things wot ain’t. I reckon I’ll take a peek at that place an’ see wot’s th’ best way t’ shake th’ kid. Ye can’t jes’ run up to a house in a machine with his folks all settin’ round cryin’ an’ cops askin’ questions. Ye got to do some plannin’ an’ thinkin’. I’m goin’ t’ clean ut all up before daylight, an’ ye need n’t worry none about ut. Hop ain’t worryin’; jes’ leave ut t’ Hop!”

  There was no alternative but to leave it to Hop, and they stood mute as he went out and softly closed the door.

  V

  The snow had ceased and the stars shone brightly on a white world as The Hopper made his way by various trolley lines to the house from which he had snatched Shaver. On a New Haven car he debated the prospects of more snow with a policeman who seemed oblivious to the fact that a child had been stolen—shamelessly carried off by a man with a long police record. Merry Christmas passed from lip to lip as if all creation were attuned to the note of love and peace, and crime were an undreamed-of thing.

  For two years The Hopper had led an exemplary life and he was keenly alive now to the joy of adventure. His lapses of the day were unfortunate; he thought of them with regret and misgivings, but he was zestful for whatever the unknown held in store for him. Abroad again with a pistol in his pocket, he was a lawless being, but with the difference that he was intent now upon making restitution, though in such manner as would give him something akin to the old thrill that he experienced when he enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most skillful yeggs in the country. The successful thief is of necessity an imaginative person; he must be able to visualize the unseen and to deal with a thousand hidden contingencies. At best the chances are against him; with all his ingenuity the broad, heavy hand of the law is likely at any moment to close upon him from some unexpected quarter. The Hopper knew this, and knew, too, that in yielding to the exhilaration of the hour he was likely to come to grief. Justice has a long memory, and if he again made himself the object of police scrutiny that little forty-thousand-dollar affair in Maine might still be fixed upon him.

  When he reached the house from whose gate he had removed the roadster with Shaver attached, he studied it with the eye of an experienced strategist. No gleam anywhere published the presence of frantic parents bewailing the loss of a baby. The cottage lay snugly behind its barrier of elms and shrubbery as though its young heir had not vanished into the void. The Hopper was a deliberating being and he gave careful weight to these circumstances as he crept round the walk, in which the snow lay undisturbed, and investigated the rear of the premises. The lattice door of the summer kitchen opened readily, and, after satisfying himself that no one was stirring in the lower part of the house, he pried up the sash of a window and stepped in. The larder was well stocked, as though in preparation for a Christmas feast, and he passed on to the dining-room, whose appointments spoke for good taste and a degree of prosperity in the householder.

  Cautious flashes of his lamp disclosed on the table a hamper, in which were packed a silver cup, plate, and bowl which at once awoke the Hopper’s interest. Here indubitably was proof that this was the home of Shaver, now sleeping sweetly in Humpy’s bed, and this was the porridge bowl for which Shaver’s soul had yearned. If Shaver did not belong to the house, he had at least been a visitor there, and it struck The Hopper as a reasonable assumption that Shaver had been deposited in the roadster while his lawful guardians returned to the cottage for the hamper preparatory to an excursion of some sort. But The Hopper groped in the dark for an explanation of the calmness with which the householders accepted the loss of the child. It was not in human nature for the parents of a youngster so handsome and in every way so delightful as Shaver to permit him to be stolen from under their very noses without making an outcry. The Hopper examined the silver pieces and found them engraved with the name borne by the locket. He crept through a living-room and came to a Christmas tree—the smallest of Christmas trees. Beside it lay a number of packages designed clearly for none other than young Roger Livingston Talbot.

  Housebreaking is a very different business from the forcible entry of country post-offices, and The Hopper was nervous. This particular house seemed utterly deserted. He stole upstairs and found doors open and a disorder indicative of the occupants’ hasty departure. His attenti
on was arrested by a small room finished in white, with a white enameled bed, and other furniture to match. A generous litter of toys was the last proof needed to establish the house as Shaver’s true domicile. Indeed, there was every indication that Shaver was the central figure of this home of whose charm and atmosphere The Hopper was vaguely sensible. A frieze of dancing children and water-color sketches of Shaver’s head, dabbed here and there in the most unlooked-for places, hinted at an artistic household. This impression was strengthened when The Hopper, bewildered and baffled, returned to the lower floor and found a studio opening off the living-room. The Hopper had never visited a studio before, and, satisfied now that he was the sole occupant of the house, he passed about shooting his light upon unfinished canvases, pausing finally before an easel supporting a portrait of Shaver—newly finished, he discovered, by poking his finger into the wet paint. Something fell to the floor and he picked up a large sheet of drawing-paper on which this message was written in charcoal:—

  Six-thirty.

  Dear Sweetheart:—

  This is a fine trick you have played on me, you dear girl! I’ve been expecting you back all afternoon. At six I decided that you were going to spend the night with your infuriated parent and thought I’d try my luck with mine! I put Billie into the roadster and, leaving him there, ran over to the Flemings’ to say Merry Christmas and tell ’em we were off for the night. They kept me just a minute to look at those new Jap prints Jim’s so crazy about, and while I was gone you came along and skipped with Billie and the car! I suppose this means that you’ve been making headway with your dad and want to try the effect of Billie’s blandishments. Good luck! But you might have stopped long enough to tell me about it! How fine it would be if everything could be straightened out for Christmas! Do you remember the first time I kissed you—it was on Christmas Eve four years ago at the Billings’s dance! I’m just trolleying out to father’s to see what an evening session will do. I’ll be back early in the morning.