Jim Hanvey, Detective

by Octavus Roy Cohen

  Jim delighted himself with a further survey of his mirrored self. And, in truth, whatever the ensemble might have lacked from an esthetic standpoint it more than atoned in brilliancy.

  The enormous and pudgy figure of the detective was enfolded in a new and ill-fitting suit of near tweeds. A pink silk shirt was stretched tightly over the upper portion of his anatomy. A collar of inconsequential height but amazing girth encased the vivid tie. Below the trouser cuffs was a brief expanse of white sox which topped a pair of peak-toed russet shoes. Above Jim’s collar flopped twin chins which bounded on the south a countenance of bovine heaviness. The whole was topped by a new gray felt hat which seemed in constant danger of tobogganing from the crest of the bulbous head.

  Jim Hanvey’s tiny, fishlike eyes held a gleam of self-approval. Then, as he inspected himself, they closed slowly, held shut for a moment, and uncurtained with even greater deliberateness. His big hands were elevated idly until the fingers found the elaborate golden toothpick which hung suspended from the heavy chain connecting the upper vest pockets. His chest inflated and a sigh escaped his pursy lips—“I’ve been wantin’ an outfit like this for a mighty long time,” he commented. “An’ I just never sort of come around to gettin’ it.”

  The clerk discreetly lowered his head to scribble hieroglyphics on a sales pad. “Anything else, Sir?” he interrogated meekly.

  “No-o. Don’t believe there is.…Oh! yes—a silk handkerchief.”

  That article was purchased and Jim fitted it with meticulous care into the breast pocket of his coat so that the pink edging was displayed to weirdest advantage. “How much does it amount to, Son?”

  “Seventy-two, fifty.”

  Jim whistled. “Gosh! Swell clothes sure do come high.” Reluctantly he extracted a battered wallet. “Here y’are. I want my other clothes sent to the hotel.” Then, with pitiful eagerness, “I couldn’t look no better, could I?”

  “No,” answered the clerk with perfect candor. “You surely couldn’t.”

  Jim Hanvey departed. He walked with the peculiarly stiff and self-conscious gait inevitably attendant upon the wearing of new clothes. His big shoes creaked with every step. His expression was one of radiant self-satisfaction. For years he had craved an orgy of new-clothes purchasing and now that the exigencies of his profession had furnished an adequate excuse he had done himself exceeding proud.

  He entered a suburban street car and sat stiffly in his seat misinterpreting the amusement of the other passengers for envy. It never occurred to Jim that his clothes were in shockingly bad taste or that his appearance was grotesque. He was a simple and lonely soul with the male’s innate love of bright colors and flaring finery rampant within him, his desires untempered by the inhibitions of culture. He loved the flagrant and flamboyant in dress and secretly harbored an ambition to carry a cane. He owned two but thus far in his career they had remained cloistered. He had never quite mustered sufficient courage to drag one of them into the street. But some day…

  Forty minutes later the street car reached the end of its run and Jim alighted. The suburb silently proclaimed the opulence of its residents. Wide, tree-shaded streets bounded by broad, velvety lawns behind which hugely handsome residences reared their architecturally perfect forms; gardens which paid flowering tribute to landscape experts; sinuously winding driveways, spurting fountains, cleanly clipped hedges. An atmosphere of forbidding and exclusive wealth. Parked by the curbs were limousines of the more expensive makes. Early that morning Jim Hanvey would have felt ill-at-ease in the neighborhood. Now, resplendent in his new regalia, he believed serenely that he fitted comfortably into the picture. His manner was that of the man who belongs. He regretted that he had not bought a cane: a heavy, gold-headed cane. Or, perhaps, a man of his mammoth physical proportions would better carry a malacca stick52—one of the slender, whippy ones.…

  He sought information from a disdainful chauffeur as to which of these estates was the property of Mr. Theodore Weston. But even with the confidence begotten of his magnificent raiment he hesitated briefly before turning up the walkway which led from the street to the massive brownstone mansion nestling far back behind a screen of elms, poplars and shrubbery. There was something about the Weston estate which seemed to elevate it above even its formidable neighbors; a mute announcement of conscious superiority; a formal indifference; an air of casualness such as that affected by the young girl who spends an hour before her mirror carefully arranging her hair in the most attractive way. Jim experienced difficulty in conceiving this palatial place as a home. It wasn’t at all Jim’s idea of what a home should be. His own tastes inclined to a six-room bungalow set level with the street and perhaps twenty feet back from the sidewalk where a chap could loll of an evening in his shirt sleeves and suspenders with his feet cocked up on the porch railing and the potted geraniums only slightly obstructing his vision.

  He moved stiffly up the elm-sentinelled walkway to the broad and imposing veranda which spanned the palace of the industrial king, meticulously scraped a bit of mud from his new shoes, tiptoed to the front door and somewhat timorously pressed the button. Like magic the door swung back and a butler appeared.

  “Mr. Weston home?”

  The butler’s forehead corrugated slightly. His face lost some of the fixed rigidity of expression natural to it. He surveyed the visitor with an admixture of bewilderment and insolence.

  “Yes.”

  Jim fidgeted nervously. The butler maintained an uncompromising silence—which Jim eventually terminated.

  “Tell him Jim Hanvey wants to see him.”

  “Hmm! Your card, please.”

  Jim fumbled wildly. “Gosh! I left my card in my other suit.” He jerked his thumb in apologetic explanation. “Just tell him it’s Jim Hanvey and everything’ll be jake.”

  The butler disappeared in the cavernous recesses of the mansion leaving the monster detective thoroughly ill-at-ease. In a few moments he returned, expression slightly altered. “Right this way, Sir.”

  Hanvey followed. Their feet were soundless on the rich rugs. Jim was left alone in the dim, lavishly comfortable confines of the library. He seated himself on the lounge, hitched up his trousers at the knees to preserve the crease, and waited.

  Less than five minutes later Weston appeared. He was a thin, undersized man with a peculiarly high forehead and deep cavernous eyes. His step was mincing but his manner betokened a wealth of nervous energy. He paused on the threshold and stared with ill-concealed amazement at the unwieldy figure which rose from the lounge to greet him.

  It was a case of mutual surprise. Jim Hanvey had been prepared to meet a towering, aggressive, physically powerful individual—a man whose physique was in consonance with his reputation in the industrial world. For Jim knew that Weston was all-powerful: fair but ruthless, a hard fighter and a game one. The little man in the doorway was rather of the lounge-lizard type.…

  As for Weston he could not believe that this mammoth individual who bulked before him was the person who had been recommended as the best detective in the country. Jim was not at all of the detective type. His new raiment accentuated the flabbiness of the form, intensified the general impression of lethargic indifference and general unfitness. And so the two men stared, each struggling to readjust in a moment his preconceived idea of the other. It was the financier who spoke first, his voice snapping with a peculiar steely timbre not at all in accord with his diminutive size.

  “Mr. Hanvey?”

  “Yeh.…Mr. Weston?”

  “I am Mr. Weston.”

  “Mr. Theodore Weston?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gosh.…” Jim paused suddenly. Weston stared intently.

  “Say it,” he prompted.

  “You’re a runt,” proferred Jim. “I thought I was gonna meet a big feller.”

  “And you,” countered Weston, “look more like a side-show freak than a
detective.”

  “You said it. I never was awful strong on looks an’ my figger never caused me to be mistook for no sylph.”

  They stood facing one another in the subdued light of the library. Jim covertly straightened his tie and patted his new coat. Jim was very well pleased with himself. He wondered whether this man had noticed his new suit—

  “Nice suit of clothes you’ve got on, Mr. Weston.”

  “Eh?” The smaller man was startled. “Oh! Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Jim hesitated. “I’m awful strong for swell clothes, ain’t you?”

  “I don’t notice them much.”

  Jim sighed disappointedly. “Thought not.…”

  Weston motioned his visitor to a chair. He extracted from his desk a humidor of fragrant Havana cigars, and as he was doing so, Jim reached for a battered, near-silver cigar case which reposed in the inside pocket of his coat. Each extended his to the other. Jim’s were short and fat and very, very black. Weston took one from the case and Jim accepted one from his host. Each sniffed at his gift, each made a poorly concealed wry face and each placed the cigar carefully beside him with the remark—“Smoke it later.” Then each man lighted one of his own. As the fierce aroma of Jim’s projectile assailed Weston’s nostril’s, the little man winced. But Jim did not notice. He was inexpressibly content with the strong fumes he generated. And so they smoked on as they chatted idly. Weston finally caused the conversation to veer to the subject.

  “You have been recommended to me, Mr. Hanvey, as the one man capable of helping me out of a dilemma. I cannot question the judgment of the men who have bespoken you.”

  “Fine. That’s awful nice of you, Mr. Weston.”

  “I’ll admit—” honestly “—that I am somewhat surprised by your appearance. This is a matter which requires infinite tact and delicacy. It’s not—er—what you might call strong-arm work.”

  “That’s good,” endorsed the detective. “I’m in awful poor trim.”

  “It is, in fact, a problem such as detectives seldom meet with; an affair of diplomacy. It involves no particular moral turpitude. Yet the intervention and assistance of friends cannot aid me at all—which is why I have sought outside—and professional—help.”

  “In other words,” summarized Jim slowly, “somebody’s tryin’ to slip somethin’ over on you.”

  “Precisely. Not in a business way. That would be relatively easy to cope with. In entrusting you with this story I must impress upon you the necessity for strictest secrecy. My confidence must remain inviolate. As a matter of fact, I find myself excessively embarrassed.…I—I—scarcely know where to begin.”

  “Hmm! An’ you’re doubtful about beginnin’ at all, ain’t you, Mr. Weston?”

  “No. Not exactly. With the endorsement you have received from business associates of mine.…”

  “You still think I look like such a slob I ain’t the man to show no finesse. Ain’t that it?”

  “You state it rather crudely, Mr. Hanvey, but you have hit the bull’s-eye.”

  “Well,” Jim slumped in his chair. His eyes closed with maddening slowness—remained shut for a second—then opened even more slowly.…“I’m willin’ to do my best to help you out. But if you want me to enter a beauty contest, I guess we’d better call it off.”

  “It isn’t that, Mr. Hanvey. You see, the primary essential is that you come here as my guest for two or three weeks.”

  “In this house? Gosh!”

  “That will be necessary.”

  Hanvey deliberated. Once again he gave vent to the ocular yawn which interested—and somewhat exasperated—his host. “I reckon I’ll have to put up with it then,” he sighed.

  Weston smiled slightly. “I don’t believe it will be as terrible as you anticipate. The—er—reimbursement in this affair, Mr. Hanvey, will be adequate. More than adequate, should you happen to be successful.”

  Jim waved a pudgy hand. “Never mind that. I’ll take a chance if you will.”

  Again silence settled between them. Weston sat forward in his chair with his keen eyes glittering across the room. Finally he rose abruptly and stepped mincingly across the library to the window. Jim remained slouched on the lounge, apparently asleep. A miasma of rancid smoke hovered about his Brobdingnagian figure.

  The descending sun of early evening bathed the dapper figure of the little industrial giant in a soft, mellow light. He stood by the window staring out—at something—silent, intense, a bit morose. And finally he spoke without turning his head.

  “Hanvey?”

  “Yeh?”

  “Come here.”

  Jim rose with a grunt and waddled across the room. His enormous bulk completely shadowed that of the smaller man. And now there had come a slight change in the atmosphere. Weston’s use of Jim’s last name and a sudden pathetic drooping of the narrow shoulders bespoke the fact that he had reconciled himself to his disappointment in Jim’s appearance and was willing to place his trust in the big detective. He spoke in a sharp but toneless voice.

  “Look yonder,” he directed, pointing down the winding, poplar-lined bridle path which twisted toward the house from a rich green valley beyond.

  Jim blinked slowly—and looked. His first impression was one of enthusiasm for the pastoral beauty of the scene: a gradual blending of formal gardening into the rich lusciousness of untrammelled nature; a gentle tinting of the gold of early evening; the silver of a brook in the valley below…a wealth of color and of natural beauty.

  Then his fishlike eyes discerned two persons on horseback, a man and a woman, who were walking their mounts slowly toward the house. They rode close together and they were conversing with an absorption which made plain that the outside world did not exist for them. The girl had half-turned in her saddle in order that her eyes might feast unrestrainedly upon the man; while he, conscious of his power, was injecting the full wealth of an engaging personality into the task of holding her undivided attention.

  They approached slowly, the mounts scarce moving, and as they came closer something in the magnificent stature and military carriage of the man stirred memory in the mind of the obese detective. But before recognition came to him his attention was once more attracted to the girl.

  She was young—that much was evident even at the distance separating her from Jim. There was something about the slim, boyish figure; the artless eagerness with which she hung upon the words of her companion, which proclaimed extreme youth. And, too, the way she sat her horse—carelessly, easily, as though she belonged. The girl wore no hat, her rich brown hair was piled carelessly atop the exquisitely shaped head. Her left hand held the rein loosely, her right hung by her side. It held a riding crop which she twiddled aimlessly. Up through the poplar-lined bridle path they came…the shadows spotting the roadway like the stippling of a pen-and-ink artist.

  “My daughter,” said Weston simply and without turning. There was affection in his voice—and worry—and abounding pride. Jim responded to the tone with all the sincerity of his emotionful nature.

  “Swell-lookin’ kid,” was his comment.

  He turned his attention to the man, now limned in the glow of the late evening sun. He was a perfect foil for the girl; a figure of powerful, dominant masculine maturity offsetting her naïve girlishness. He wore an immaculate riding costume. He rode like a Centaur, swaying to the stride of his horse…oblivious to everything save the girl by his side. He was talking, head inclined toward her. And then Jim recognized the man and he emitted a slow, amazed whistle. Theodore Weston turned.

  “You know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  Jim favored the man with a prolonged scrutiny. It was scarcely possible…but there was certitude in the tone with which he made answer to his host’s question.

  “That’s Whitey Kirk.”

  “Who is
Whitey Kirk?”

  “The cleverest con man in the world,” was the answer, and there was a ring of professional admiration in his voice. “I didn’t know he was a friend of yours—”

  “He isn’t.”

  “There ain’t anything to be ashamed of if he is. Y’know I’m awful strong for Whitey—Warren is his real name—because of the fact that he is so good. For ten years that baby has been pullin’ jobs, big jobs, wide-open jobs—and they’ve never fastened a thing on him. He’s a wizard, that’s what. He’s tackled everything from stock swindling to smuggling and he’s gotten away with it. I can’t help liking a man with his brains and ability. And nerve—Oh! Mamma!”

  Weston walked heavily back to the table of black walnut which occupied the middle of the library. Jim followed slowly, and then, seeing that the attention of his host was not upon him, deftly exchanged the two cigars which lay upon the desk—so that his own vicious black one was once more in his possession. “Fair exchange,” he told himself, “ain’t always robbery.”

  Absently Weston reached for the rich Havana which had thus been returned to him, lighted it, and puffed meditatively for a few moments. Hanvey slouched opposite in an easy chair, allowed his fat fingers to toy idly with the golden toothpick which hung from his cable-strength watch chain. He contemplated the little man, wondering what was coming, and, without knowing why, feeling a sense of sorrow and of personal responsibility.

  “That,” said Weston suddenly, waving toward the window which they had just vacated, “is why I sent for you.”

  “Yeh?”

  Silence. From outside came the crunch-crunch of horses’ hoofs on the gravel driveway, the sound of a man’s voice—and a girl’s—then nothing save the soft sighing of the evening breeze through the trees which surrounded the stately home. It was Theodore Weston who punctured the silence—

  “What is this man’s criminal record?”

  “He ain’t got none. We know he’s crooked, we even know most of what he’s done. But we ain’t ever been able to get the goods on him.”