He saw the mild-appearing man and another. The second was a headquarters detective Thubway Tham knew well.
“I want you, Tham!” the detective said.
“Thir?”
“You heard me! Got you now, boy! Craddock might not be able to land you, but I have.”
“What ith thith all about?” Tham wanted to know.
“This gentleman says that you lifted his wallet a few minutes ago in the subway. He watched you and followed you until he found me. You haven’t had time to get rid of the money, Tham. And some of the bills are marked!”
And the man from headquarters grinned. Thubway Tham felt a sudden lump in his throat and gulped. So there had been an attempt to “frame” him! The little, mild-looking man undoubtedly was another headquarters officer. There had been an attempt to “plant” marked bills on him. It was a raw deal!
“Here’s where I search you, Tham!” the detective said. “It’s up the river for you!”
“Jutht a minute!” Tham said. “You thay that thith man declareth I took hith wallet, and that he hath watched me?”
“That’s it!”
“And if I did, I mutht have the coin on me right now—and they are marked billth?”
“You’ve got it!”
“The man lieth!” Thubway Tham declared. “You go right ahead and thearch me! How are thothe, billth marked?”
“Little red cross in each corner, Tham.”
“Huh! That man ith crathy! Go ahead and thearch me!”
At this the headquarters man appeared to be a bit uncertain. But the other nodded, and so the search began. It brought forth no marked bills, of course. Tham had some money with him, but none of it was marked.
“Tho!” he said. “You want to be careful how you go around accuthin’ honetht men. For ten centth I’d punch you on the nothe! My goodnethth!”
He turned his back angrily and walked on down the street, and the two men he left behind looked at each other and growled curses low down in their throats. Thubway Tham had escaped them. They did not exactly know how, but they realized that he had done it.
Far down the street, Tham began to chuckle. “Lucky day!” he said. “I’ll thay it ith!”
And a puzzled, hard-working clerk, much in debt, was examining two hundred and fifty dollars in bills at that moment and wondering whether Heaven had sent manna at a time when manna was needed badly.
THUBWAY THAM’S OPERATION
At an earlier hour than usual this night Thubway Tham retired, thoroughly disgusted with the day that was ending and hoping that he would not see another like it soon.
It had been an unprofitable day for Thubway Tham. In the morning he had experienced a peculiar feeling that he could not analyze, and it seemed to him to be a “hunch” and a warning for him to “watch his step.” Tham always regarded such feelings as tips from another sphere that there was danger in the offing, and he gave them a great deal of attention.
The feeling disappeared after he had breakfasted, and Thubway Tham got the idea that possibly the feeling had been induced by hunger. But it recurred to him during the day, and puzzled him exceedingly.
He entered the subway, keeping both eyes open in a search for officers of the law who might interfere with his activities, and made an effort to “lift a leather.” But it appeared that this day the subway crowds contained no prosperous gentlemen with well-filled and fat wallets in hip pockets.
Thubway Tham looked in vain for a victim. He made trip after trip, and when night came he journeyed to the poor lodging house where he had a room he called home, muttered a surly “good evening” to “Nosey” Moore, the one-eyed landlord, and went to his den on the third floor of the hostelry.
Tham passed a restless night, and when he got up in the morning he discovered that he had a pain. Now and then Thubway Tham did have a pain, the same as other imperfect human beings, but thought little of it. Generally it came from a slight cold, or possibly from a minor attack of indigestion.
But this pain was not to be misunderstood. It advertised itself well, and called to Tham’s mind every half second or so the fact that it existed. Tham, getting into his clothes, discovered that he had not only a pain, but also a sore spot and a swelling.
“I hope I am not goin’ to be thick,” he told himself, glancing into the mirror and shuddering at the look in his face, “There ith no thenth in it. My goodneth, how white I am! And I theem to have a fever, too.”
It worried Tham a little. As he went down the stairs he found that the pain increased. It shot through his side with every step he took. When he came to the second floor, where Nosey Moore had his office, Tham was obliged to stop and lean against the battered counter, gasping for breath.
“What seems to be the matter?” Nosey asked. The landlord, who had been a burglar in what he called the good old days when a man had to have nerve and muscle, had a warm spot in his heart for Thubway Tham and was not ashamed to reveal it.
“I’m thick!” Thubway Tham declared. “I’ve got a pain.”
“Better see a sawbones about it,” Nosey informed him. “Maybe you’ve eaten somethin’ that’s poisoned you.”
“I didn’t feel well yethterday, either,” Tham acknowledged. “But I gueth I will be all right after breakfatht.”
He struggled against the pain for a few minutes, and then in a spirit of bravado lighted a cigarette and went down the other flight of stairs to the busy street.
As he reached the street he was forced to stand still again for a few minutes. Things seemed to be reeling as though the big town had been in the throes of an earthquake. Thubway Tham closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again and found that his sight was normal. But the pain in his side persisted.
He started up the street toward the little restaurant where he generally ate his breakfast, but he walked slowly and without comfort. The stabs of pain seemed to rob him of breath. They weakened him, confused him. He found that he could not center his mind on anything.
He struggled manfully on up the street, but he did not reach the restaurant. As he neared it he reeled and almost fell. He grasped the side of an awning frame for support, braced himself against a building.
“’Smatter with you?” a passer-by asked. “Sick? Better see a doctor, my friend.”
The passer-by went on, leaving that atom of advice with Thubway Tham, His mind revolved around it, considered it from every angle. Tham staggered into the entrance of the building and sought information from an elevator starter.
“There’s a good doctor on the third floor, second door to your right,” the starter told him.
Thubway Tham experienced peculiar agony going up in the elevator. When he left it he staggered again, and with difficulty found the door of the doctor’s office. He opened it and almost sprawled inside. The doctor had just arrived, and was in the outer office. He aided Thubway Tham to the consultation room.
Tham found that the physician made short work of his case.
“Nothing to it, my man,” he reported. “You have a severe attack of appendicitis. Probably been neglecting it. Nothing for it but an operation as soon as possible.”
“You jutht give me thome medithin,” Tham begged. “I don’t want any operation.”
“Nobody wants an operation, yet they are forced to have them,” the doctor said. “This is no time for argument, my man. An operation is the only thing. Every minute you delay makes matters worse. Every minute!”
“I thuppoth tho,” said Tham.
“Well, do you wish me to operate?”
“Yeth, thir, if it ith nethethary.”
“Relatives? Friends?” the physician inquired.
Thubway Tham mentioned Nosey Moore and the address, and the doctor wrinkled his nose.
“I have the prithe,” Tham assured him. “You jutht athk Nothey Moore. You’ll get paid, all right. And I want a good job, doc. Don’t you go to gettin’ careleth.”
“Sir, I never am careless,” the physician said severely.
But Thubway Tham could give no more information or orders. He gasped and toddled forward, and the next thing he knew he was on a stretcher and being put into an ambulance. There was a crowd of the morbidly curious onlookers, and his side felt as though several men with sledge hammers were hammering at it and striking the target at every blow.
II.
It seemed to Thubway Tham that he passed, then, through a period that was utterly confusing. He caught a glimpse of a nurse or two, and of a surgeon playing with deadly looking instruments. Through a haze peopled with grotesque monsters he seemed to journey to a new country.
And then it was as though he found himself out in the street, his period of convalescence at an end, the wide world before him once more.
He felt a bit weak, and he walked slowly as he turned toward the nearest entrance of his beloved subway. Down the steps and into the big bore he went, and stood against a pillar for a moment, listening to the customary roar of an arriving train, watching the rush of human beings to catch it, as though their lives depended upon catching that particular string of cars.
“It ith good to be alive!” Thubway Tham told himself.
He passed through the gate, looking lovingly at the ticket chopper as though he had been a long-lost brother. He entered an express and journeyed downtown, got off at his usual station, ascended to the street, and made his way to the lodging house.
Nosey Moore was behind the counter when Thubway Tham reached the second floor, and he greeted Tham cordially.
“Ath good ath ever,” Tham told him. “The doc, thaid ath how an operation puth yearth on a man’th life.”
“Maybe so,” Nosey remarked. “You certainly paid for them.”
“How ith that?” Tham wanted to know.
“You sent me a note by the doc that I was to pay him what he asked, didn’t you?”
“Yeth.”
“And I had a lot of your coin in the safe, didn’t I, keepin’ it for you?”
“Of courth.”
“Well, you’d better get busy, Tham, at your well-known profession. Because you’re broke, and you owe me four weeks’ room rent besides. Not that I’m in any hurry—”
“Broke!” Thubway Tham gasped. “I had a thouthand in that thafe of yourth, didn’t I?”
“You certainly did, Tham. The doc came down here yesterday afternoon and demanded his pay and the coin for the hospital. He knew you’d be turned out this morning, I suppose.”
“Well?” Tham asked.
“Well, I asked him how much he wanted. He asked me how much of your coin I was keepin’ for you, and I told him a thousand. And he said the bill was nine hundred and ninety-eight, and he took the coin and gave me a receipt.”
“My goodneth!” Tham gasped.
“Seems to be pretty high,” Moore offered. “I had a friend who had an operation for appendicitis, and they only charged him two hundred.”
Thubway Tham’s eyes flashed fire.
“Thtung!” he exclaimed. “Thtung by a doc! The crook! If the thilly ath thinkth he can get away with that kind of—”
“I had to pay him, Tham. I had your note.”
“That ith all right, Nothey,” Than said. “You couldn’t do anything elth, of courth. Tho I am broke and in debt!”
“Don’t you worry about the rent, Tham. You wait until you’re stronger and then you can pay me. You take it easy for a week or so, and I’ll see that you have money for the eats.”
“Thith ith mighty fine of you. Nothey” Tham declared, “But I am throng enough now to collect a few thenth, I gueth. And all I ath ith that I get a chance at that doctor when he hath a roll on him.”
Tham rested for the remainder of the day, however. And on the following morning he began his old routine again, eating at the little restaurant, loitering around Madison Square, invading the subway at rush hours.
He found that he was a celebrity in a way, too. At the restaurant, Tham’s favorite waitress and the little cashier looked at him as at a man who had passed bravely through a terrible ordeal. A few friends he met questioned him concerning whether at hurt much or not. Tham began to think that having an operation was not the worst thing in the world, except when it came to paying the bill.
But he remembered that he was broke and in debt to Nosey Moore, and he was eager to work. He plunged into the subway and stood on the platform waiting for a downtown express to come along. A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned to find Detective Craddock smiling down at him.
“Your ugly fathe—” Tham began.
“I understand that you’ve been in the hospital, Tham.”
“Yeth, thir.”
“Operation for appendicitis, wasn’t if?”
“It wath;” Tham admitted.
“Hard luck, old-timer. Set you back a few dollars, I imagine.”
“You have a good imagthmation,” Thubway Tham admitted.
“Urn!” Craddock grunted. “And now, I suppose, you’ll try to collect enough to reimburse yourself.”
“What do you mean by that?” Tham asked.
“Let there be no secrets between us, Tham,” Craddock begged. “I know you, and you know me. We’ve been playing a pretty game for a year or so, but the game will end one of these days.”
“Yeth?”
“Yes!” Craddock declared. “I’m going to put my hands on you and catch you with the goods, and then, my boy, it’ll be the big house up the creek for you.”
“It theemth to me that I have heard that thtory theveral timeth before,” Tham remarked. “You are alwayth goin’ to catch me with the goodth and thend me up the creek. Craddock, you are a dethent thort of chap, but you are an ath.”
“Yes?”
“Yeth!” said Thubway Tham. “A thilly ath! A thimp! I ain’t feelin’ very well today, and I don’t want you to pethter me. A man can’t even be thick and have an operation in thith town without thome fly cop inthultin’ him ath thoon ath he geth out of the hothpital. It ith a thame!”
“So that’s the way you look at it!” Craddock said. “All right, old-timer, but you watch your step. I’ll be right behind you, Tham, all the way. Hospital bills have to be paid, but gentlemen who ride in the subway, strange though it may seem to you, object to having their pockets picked.”
“You thurprith me,” Tham said with some sarcasm.
The express roared into the station at that moment, and Thubway Tham darted into one of the cars, where human beings were jammed together in such a manner that no more could enter. But Craddock, being an adept at riding in the subway, managed to squeeze in behind Tham, and Tham glanced over his shoulder and saw the detective’s grin.
“Right behind you,” Craddock repeated.
Thubway Tham felt rage well up within him. It was bad enough, he told himself, to be obliged to go out and lift a leather to get funds in this emergency, bad enough to have been stripped by a mercenary physician, without having a detective dog his steps and prevent him accomplishing his object.
But he did not dare make a move with Craddock standing at his elbow. He had done it, before now, but this was different. He had been ill, had been in a hospital, had endured an operation. Perhaps his fingers were not so nimble as they had been before, perhaps he was not so perfect in his work. He might be caught if he attempted to lift a leather in Craddock’s presence.
And Thubway Tham did not care to contemplate what arrest would mean if he was “caught with the goods.” Early in his career of crime he had served one short term in prison, and he shuddered even now when he remembered the horrors of it. He felt that another term in prison would be the death of him.
The only thing to do, as Thubway Tham saw it, was to dodge Detective Craddock, outwit him, and go about his work in peace. So he deliberately turned his back upon the officer, yawned, and pretended that he merely was riding down
town with the innocent intention of going to his room to rest.
He waited until the express pulled into the next station, waited until the doors of the car started to slide shut, and then sprang forward quickly, dashed through the door, and gained the platform.
Ten feet away, he stopped and glanced back. His face flushed with anger. Detective Craddock, a grin on his face, was a short distance behind him.
“Can’t catch me napping, old-timer,” Craddock said. “I’m right behind you, I said. You don’t collect any hospital fees in the subway this day, my lad.”
“No?” Tham sneered.
“No!” Craddock replied. “Just before you took your little vacation in the hospital we had several reports at headquarters about missing wallets, and my big boss seems to think that you know something about it.”
“Yeth?”
“Yes!” said Craddock. “And he gave me strict orders, old-timer, to see that it didn’t happen again, even if I had to camp on your crooked trail day and night.”
“I am flattered,” Tham told him. “I thertainly am flattered, and you may tell your big both tho.”
“Yes, I may say, Tham, that you come in for special attention on our part.”
“And a lot of good it will do you,” Tham said bravely. “If I wanted to lift a leather I could do it right under your nothe, and you wouldn’t know it.”
“I’d admire to see you try it, Tham.”
“I don’t want to be pethtered,” Tham complained. “I have been a thick man, and I can’t thtand it.”
“Why not go home and behave, then?” Craddock asked.
“I have a perfect right to be out, and, bethideth, the doctor thaid to get a lot of freth air.”
“You won’t get much of it in the subway,” Craddock said. “It isn’t noted for fresh air.”
“I’m gettin’ a lot of it right here,” Tham remarked, and turned his back again and went up to the street. As he reached the street he turned for an instant. “Freth air and hot air!” he remarked, and made his way through the crowd.
III.
Throughout the remainder of the day Thubway Tham made futile efforts to dodge Detective Craddock. He did not know whether it was because Craddock was cleverer than usual, or whether he was not so adept at dodging. The fact remained that at dusk he went to the restaurant and ate his dinner, and then went on to the lodging house, the grinning Craddock following him.
The Thubway Tham Megapack Page 8