The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

  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 spunky feller, TootWatts. Anybody'd think you never rocked a dory before yourself. Get upin the stern, Turkey. Now pull her in to the bridge and hold on to thelogs. That'll balance her."

  With one hand the Whistler held the drowning man's arm, while with theother 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 unconsciousand could not struggle. In a half-dozen strokes Turkey had brought thedory's stern up against one of the piles of the pier. This support heclasped with might and main, while Toot and the Whistler drew the bodyover the bow. Both were breathing hard when it was finally boarded.

  "Turn him over," cried the Whistler. "You take the oars, Turkey, and rowlike fury for the beach. Get the bloke's head around, Toot, up againstthe bow. That's it. Now work his left arm up and down; I'll take theright--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 andthey 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, precociousin many kinds of knowledge, does not peep without tremors behind theveil of the mystery of mysteries. No one answered his query. An answerwas not necessary, for over his shoulder the white line of the surfcould 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 armsto the headway of the boat. The water hardly rippled the glorious ribbonof moonlight behind them and wind and tide were set toward shore. Underthese favoring circumstances the dory was carried high and dry upon thesands.

  "Lift him out," cried the Whistler. Shagarach's body was laid upon thebeach, dripping and disheveled. "You run up to the refectory, Toot, andtell the cop there to bring some whisky. Turn him over, Turkey, and letthe 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 toresuscitate the limp body. Even the catching of their boat on ahigh-crested wave did not seduce them from their work.

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

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

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

  "Take my coat, mister. You're shivering," said the Whistler, suitingaction to word, so that Shagarach found himself embraced by a garment,not dry by any means, but more grateful than the soaked apparel whichwas chilling his skin.

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

  Shagarach 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 fishing for smelts androwed over and saved you."

  "That was fortunate. I thank you," murmured Shagarach.

  "Can't yer swim?" asked Turkey in a pitying tone, but Shagarach waspreoccupied with his recollections. He had made a mistake of judgment.He should have declined the rendezvous. But who and what was theassailant, the leering oaf he had passed on the pier? Was it some agentof the Arnolds? The anonymous letters pointed to that source. They wereall seamed with allusions to the trial of Robert Floyd. And they formedhis only clew. Stay, the hat he still clutched in his hand. He raised itfeebly--for the mental energies of the lawyer were more elastic than thephysical--and his teeth were still chattering though his brain wasclear. It was a round, rimless cap of a common pattern.

  "Here comes Toot." The Whistler, who was all eyes, had been the first toespy him, running at the top of his speed. Out of the darkness behindhim 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 warmyou up."

  Shagarach 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 comingover him.

  The officer stooped down to the man's face.

  "Why, Mr. Shagarach----" Surprise prevented him from saying more andShagarach 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 badaccident. 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 Shagarach on his feet. For a momenthis knees sunk. Then he shook himself like a draggled dog. The liquorwas working its way to his marrow and banishing the deep-seated chill.

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

  "Hello, what are you stripping for?" asked the officer, turning around.

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

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

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

  "One moment, till the boy comes back." Shagarach knew that his assailanthad 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 hesketched the story of the letters, the rendezvous and the struggle, inhis curt, forcible style.

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

  "There was nobody on the bridge?"

  "Nobody but the oaf I described."

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

  "Come ashore, young feller. The gentleman wants to thank you," saidChandler.

  "We must look for the fishing-pole under the pier," answered theWhistler. It was true that he had thrown his rod away when they heardthe loud splash of Shagarach's body in the water. But his mannerindicated 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 dorywith the Whistler's outer raiment. The Whistler was digging the blade infor his first stroke when Shagarach addressed him in a tone that madehim pause.

  "My young friends, I am too weak to thank you to-night. To-morrow isSaturday. Could you call at my office in the morning, 31 Putnam street?Mr. Shagarach. Can yo
u come?"

  "Yes, sir," answered the boys, with more submission than gladness intheir voices. All the gamin's impudence melts at a touch of truekindness. The boys waited a moment, then disappeared into the night,while Shagarach, with the policeman's assistance, made his way throughthe gathering crowd to the refectory.

  It was the misfortune of Jacob, Shagarach's office boy, to be the ownerof a most preposterous nose, the consciousness of which led him to fearsociety and shun the mannerless multitude. Boys of his own age inparticular he dreaded, as a tame crow is said to fear nothing so much asa wild one. So when our three mischiefmakers entered the office the nextmorning and seated themselves till Mr. Shagarach should return, the poorlad began squirming by anticipation in his chair as if its seat were apin cushion with the points of the pins protruding. As a matter ofdefensive tactics, this was the worst possible attitude to take, as itcourted assault. 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 wassubjected to a running fire of personal questions, the tone of whichspeedily began to mimic the muffled nasals of his own richly accentedresponses. This would have been acute torment to a sensitive lad and aspirited one would have ended the comedy by an appeal to arms. But poorJacob was stolid and peaceable. So his tormenters had things their ownway. The Whistler especially seemed to have neither conscience norreason in his make-up, but an enormous funny-bone which usurped thefunctions of both. It was not until Aronson came in that Jacob was ableto make his escape.

  Saul Aronson was not a musical young man. If he yawned down the majorchord twice or thrice at bedtime this was the nearest he ever got tosinging. But when the Whistler raised his flexible pipe, at firstsoftly, then loudly, with wonderful trills, breaking into still morewonderful tremolos, with staccato volleys, and ascending arpeggios thatwould have put a mocking-bird to shame, it is no wonder that he gave upthe attempt to insert the metes and bounds correctly in a quit-claimdeed and contented himself with furtively watching the o-shaped orificefrom which this flood of melody issued. This was his occupation whenShagarach's form, crossing the threshold, sent him back to his copyingand checked the Whistler in the full ecstasy of an improvised cadenza.

  "You have saved my life," said Shagarach to the boys when they hadfollowed him into the inner room. He used the plural number, but hisgaze seemed to be attracted to the Whistler, whose neatly brushed hairtold of a mother's hand, and whose restless blue eyes, fringed withheavy dark lashes, centered a face oval, high-born and sweet, which gaveout in every contour the glad emanation of a youth which was natural andpure. There was less in the others to make them distinctive. Turkeyseemed to be a hulking clod and Toot was wizened and shrill-voiced andsharp.

  "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 youabout the fire."

  "What fire?"

  "Turkey said you was defending the bloke that set fire to the house onCazenove 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 medischarge 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 nameand address and I will send her five."

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

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

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

  But still the Whistler blushed and shook his head till Shagarachperceived the boy's principle could not be shaken.

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

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

  "And now----" he pushed the memorandum book aside. "I am defendingFloyd. 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 Shagarach's eyes never left the Whistler.

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

  "Yes."

  "A big bloke--I mean a tall man--was running down the alleyway intoBroad street. I noticed him, because the alley was narrow and he knockedme 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 asingle scull up the river."

  Shagarach remembered having seen a portrait of Harry Arnold displayed ina fashionable photographer's showcase--shaggy cape-coat and fur capsetting off his splendid beauty. Immediately he wrote the address on acard, and, summoning Aronson, bade him obtain a half-dozen copies of thephotograph.

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

  The three guesses varied from 21 to 27. Either of these ages seemsfabulously advanced from the standpoint of 14.

  "Did you notice anything about his hands? Were they bare or did he weargloves?"

  "His right hand was bare," answered the Whistler, "'cause his fingernailscratched me when he thrun me--when he threw me down."

  Shagarach drew forth the glove which Chandler had brought him and wasstudying it profoundly. Apparently he forgot the presence of the boys,so deep was his meditation. Then at last he started out of the reverie,thanked them again and with kind assurances of friendship shook theirhands in parting at the door.

  "Ain't he a dandy bloke?" whispered Turkey on the stairs.

  "Why didn't yer take it, Whistler?" said Toot.

  But the Whistler held his peace.