“Shut up!” Craddock was getting angry. “Wilson, another yap out of you and I’ll have you investigated. I’ll find how you make your living and maybe check back and see if you have a record.”
Wilson’s face paled.
“Smith,” Craddock went on, to the auctioneer, “let’s clear this up. You probably pocketed that five hundred during the fuss. Dig it up!”
“I didn’t! Search me! The table almost tipped over once. The money may have fallen to the floor. Somebody picked it up.”
“Search the runt,” Wilson suggested.
“Step down here, Smith,” Craddock ordered. “And you stand against the platform with your hands up,” he told Tham, without naming him. “I’ll search you both.”
Amos Smith’s pockets did not give up the five hundred in currency folded and held with a paper clip. Craddock searched Tham methodically as the other two men watched. Tham was clean. Craddock even opened the lid of the carton of cigarettes and gave a quick glance inside.
“Looks like somebody picked the money up off the floor during the fuss,” Craddock judged. “That’s your hard luck, Smith. This man has the winning ticket, and I want you to pay him his money.”
“I’ll have to take this up with others,” Smith protested.
“Maybe I’d better take everybody to the precinct station and go into this thing,” Craddock hinted.
Tham did not desire to be involved in any proceeding like that. “Oh, under the thircumthanceth, give me a hundred and I’ll call it thquare,” he offered generously. “All thith ekthitement geth on my nerveth. Therveth me right for comin’ into thutch a plathe.”
Amos Smith argued a moment longer. But when Craddock got a grim look on his face again, the auctioneer counted out a hundred cash and extended it to Craddock. The detective took Tham’s ticket stub and handed it to Smith, then took the handcuffs off Oscar Wilson.
“That settles it,” Craddock said. “I know the game you’ve been working here. I’ll report on it. Wilson, better keep away from here, or I’ll check on you. And, Mr. Smith, you’d better give a more modest prize—and really give it! Come along, you!” This last was to Tham.
“What are you arrethtin’ me for?” Tham wailed.
“I’m not arresting you. And I don’t intend to leave you here alone to be beaten up and that hundred taken from you. I want peace here! I’ll just escort you over to the avenue.”
Tham walked beside him, demure and silent. They were not followed.
“Tham, you certainly do get into mixups,” Craddock complained. “But I’m really glad this happened. It exposed that racket to the people of the neighborhood. I know you didn’t pick the pocket of Oscar Wilson to get that ticket. You prefer wallets.”
“Thir?” Tham raged.
“Anyhow, you got a hundred out of it, so behave yourself while you’re spending that. If you’d stuck along, I’d have made those crooks give you the five hundred, but they might have caused a long delay.”
“Yeth, and a hundred in the hand ith worth five hundred in the buthh,” Tham commented.
“On your way, Tham, then!”
Craddock went up the avenue. Clutching his carton of cigarettes, Tham went to the subway station and caught a downtown express.
* * * *
Half an hour later, he was in his dingy room in the lodging house of Mr. “Nosey” Moore. He put his carton of cigarettes on the stand and removed his coat and lit a smoke. He grinned.
Then he opened the carton of cigarettes, into which Craddock had looked at the auction room. Tham had removed one of the ten packages of cigarettes when he had bought the carton. But from the looks of things, the entire ten packages were still in the carton. There was no depression in the top layer of packages to show where one had been removed.
Tham grinned again and extracted the middle package. And there, in the place beneath it, was five hundred dollars in folding money. It was folded now and fastened with a paper clip, just as it had been when it had fallen from the table on the platform in the auction room during the riot. And it made a tiny bundle just large enough to lift and hold up a package of cigarettes and make the box look full.
“It ith a good thing Craddock wath in a big hurry,” Tham muttered. “But the thigarette packageth in the carton looked natural, and that wath enough for him.”
He stuffed the currency into his pocket—and began wondering how to spend it. Tham never thought of the proverbial rainy day.
THUBWAY THAM’S SENSE OF HONOR
At the instant the subway express stopped at the Grand Central Terminal, Thubway Tham pressed quickly against the prosperous-looking gentleman standing in the doorway, thrust him gently aside, hurried along the platform and up one of the numerous exits to the street—and carried with him the fat wallet of the prosperous-looking gentleman, who had not the faintest idea that he had been “touched” for his “roll.” Thubway Tham’s work was clever.
But getting possession of the wallet without a hue and cry being raised was only a part of the game, the first step toward the proper culmination of the illegal and somewhat nefarious act known to the underworld and the police as “lifting a leather,” Retaining the money and getting rid of the “leather” was just as important. It is difficult to identify currency positively, unless the bills are of large denomination and have been registered somewhere for some purpose; but it is not difficult to identify a wallet. And many a clever dip has found himself in durance vile because he did not get rid of the leather in time and was searched, only to have it found in his possession.
So Thubway Tham, as soon as he reached the street, went along it rapidly like a man on important business. He turned into a side street and maintained his speed, and finally he passed an alley and saw in the distance, standing at the curb, a trash can placed there by a benevolent street-cleaning department for the assistance of pickpockets and other folk.
Thubway Tham’s hand, fumbling in his pocket, took the currency from the wallet. Then, as he passed the trash can, making sure that nobody was watching, he withdrew the wallet from his pocket and tossed it carelessly into the can—and hurried on.
Tham felt safer now; he always felt safer when he had thrown away a leather he had lifted. He slowed down a bit, circled the block, and went to Broadway, and he whistled a gay tune softly to himself. Tham felt that the day was auspicious. He had started out to get himself additional funds. His first trip on the subway had resulted in his spotting the prosperous-looking gentleman, and getting the wallet had not been at all difficult. Tham had not looked at his loot yet, of course, but he felt it in his pocket and imagined that the sum total would be respectable and worth the effort he had made, even though the bills were small ones. The wallet had been in that condition commonly spoken of as “stuffed.”
Several blocks down the street Thubway Tham removed the currency from his pocket and glanced at it. The roll totaled about a hundred and fifty dollars; not bad for an ordinary touch. Tham started to fold the bills and put them into a pocket of his waistcoat—and came upon a newspaper clipping that he had extracted from the wallet with the bills.
Tham decided to glance at the thing before throwing it away. It was a bit of news or sentiment, he judged, in which the owner of the wallet had been interested. Tham read the clipping swiftly.
Every person, no matter what his walk in life, should cultivate and retain a high sense of honor. There is said to be honor even among thieves. Business, friendship, love, the association of man with man—all depend upon honor.
A second time Tham read it, then rolled the clipping into a tiny ball and tossed it nonchalantly into the gutter. But the few words, written possibly by some hack engaged to turn out half a column of such high-sounding stuff every day, remained with Thubway Tham. They had made an impression upon him.
“The thilly ath who wrote that ith right,” Tham declared to himself as he journeyed downtown toward Madison Square and a favorite bench there. “There thould be honor in all clatheth of folkth. It ith ju
tht ath eathy to be honorable ath to be crooked. I flatter mythelf that I am an honorable man. Even Craddock, the big thtiff, thayth that I am ath good ath my word!”
He referred to Detective Craddock, of course, that energetic member of the city police department who had sworn to catch Thubway Tham in the act of robbing a purse some fine day and see him sent to the big prison up the river for a term of many years. Between Craddock and Thubway Tham there was war—as there should have been, since one was a pickpocket and the other an officer of the law. But it was an honorable war, in which each side observed the rules, used what strategy it could, and played the game. Craddock had been on Thubway Tham’s trail for over a year without success and had learned to like the little dip and admire him for many things. But Craddock stood ready to make a “pinch” at the earliest opportunity.
Reaching Madison Square, Thubway Tham sat down on a bench on a cross walk and observed the antics of the sparrows and pigeons that haunt that little bit of green in the city’s midst.
“Even a bird hath honor,” Tham grunted to himself. “Them thparrowth fight like blatheth thometimeth, but they are thquare with one another.”
Which demonstrates clearly that Thubway Tham may have had a great deal of knowledge of a sort, but knew little or nothing concerning English sparrows.
Tham was resting, “taking it easy,” anticipating another trip in the subway when the rush hour came, and the lifting of another fat wallet. His eyes were half closed as he leaned back on the bench. It was a warm afternoon and Thubway Tham felt drowsy. He was susceptible to the spring fever.
A man stopped before him, and Tham opened his eyes wider and looked up. It was as he had expected. Detective Craddock was before him, fists against hips, legs spread apart, a grin on his face.
“Tho I thee your ugly fathe again!” Tham said.
“Even so, Tham, old boy. Behaving yourself these days?” the detective asked.
“I alwayth behave mythelf,” Tham remarked. “Have you theen anything lately to lead you to believe the contrary?”
“Regret to report that I have not,” Craddock replied. “But the world is yet young, Tham, old-timer. One of these days—”
“I know! One of theth dayth I’ll make thome little thlip, and then you’ll thend me up the river. You’re wathtin’ your prethiouth time, Craddock.”
“Yes?”
“Yeth! You’ll never get me ath long ath I live.”
“No?”
“No!” said Tham with conviction. “What theemth to be botherin’ you today? Did you look me up juth to pethter me thome more?”
“I’m just drifting around, Tham.”
“Ath uthual,” Tham said. “I am goin’ to get me a job on the detective forth. It ith a thinch!”
“So?”
“Tho!” said Tham. “If I wath a crook—”
“Oh, I say!”
“If I wath a crook,” Tham repeated with determination, “I would athk nothin’ better than to work where you wath thuppothed to be prethervin’ the peath.”
“Indeed?”
“Quite tho!” said Tham. “Your dithtrict would be the crook’th paradithe. I’ll bet I could find a dip in thith town that could lift your own watch while you wath lookin’ at him.”
“Meaning yourself?”
“Did I thay I wath a dip?”
“You did not,” Detective Craddock answered. “Such a statement would be entirely unnecessary, Tham, and a great waste of breath. The big book at headquarters says you are a dip, and that—”
“Jutht becauthe I made a mithtake when I wath young,’” Tham said. “Give a dog a bad name—”
“Let us stop the comedy, Tham, please,” Craddock begged. “I’m about fed up on it, you see. Put a new record on the machine. We understand each other, all right.”
“Maybe you underthtand me; but I do not underthtand you,” Tham declared. “Thomebody lotht the key to the thipher.”
“Be that as it may, Tham, I’d like to ask you a question.”
“What ith itth nature?”
“Have you any intention of taking a little ride on the subway this glorious day?”
“If I wanted a ride I motht thertainly would not uthe the elevated or thurfathe carth—and I cannot afford a tathi.”
“No?”
“No, thir,” said Tham.
“I asked because, if you do take such a ride, I’m going right along, Tham.”
“I thuppothe the company can uthe your nickel,” Tham said.
“Strange as it may seem, Tham, certain gentlemen object to losing their wallets in the subway.”
“There ith no accountin’ for thome folk’th tathte,” said Tham.
“They have a right to such objection, of course, since many of them pay taxes.”
“I thuppothe tho,” said Tham.
“And your activities are such, Tham, that they cause annoyance in certain quarters.”
“Dear me! Can it be pothible?”
“Tham, just between ourselves, this life of yours is going to bring you sorrow. You can’t get away with it forever. Sooner or later—”
“I’ll make a little thlip?”
“Precisely. You’ll make the little slip. And then the judge will say ‘ten years,’ or something of that nature. There’s a bit of good in you, Tham. Why don’t you go straight, get a job, and be honest?”
“My goodneth!” Thubway Tham cried. “Are you gettin’ to be one of the thtreet oratorth, Craddock? Where ith your grandthtand? You ought to play a banjo firtht to draw a crowd. Are you goin’ to take up a collection, or are you livin’ on your thalary and doin’ thith oratory extra jutht for the love of it?”
“Funny, aren’t you?” Craddock said.
“Maybe tho, but I’d never get a job ath a comedian if you wath after the thame one. I’ll thay I wouldn’t have a chanthe, Craddock.”
“Yes?”
“Yeth! You’d thell out thith weekth in advance, Craddock. You’d be a riot—take it from one who knowth. You could open in Augutht and run right through to hot weather again, and then maybe go over to London and thtand them on their headth there. Comedian? I’ll thay you are!”
“All right, Tham. I’ve warned you.”
“That wath nithe and friendly of you, Craddock.”
“And I’ll land you some day, and say that I told you so.”
“If that day ever cometh, Craddock, I’ll admit that you told me tho. I’ll give you all the credit. But you mutht excuthe me now, pleathe. I don’t want to be theen talkin’ to you too much. Thomebody might think I wath a thtool pigeon.”
Thubway Tham stood up, bowed courteously, and continued along the walk. Detective Craddock, his face fiery, followed at his heels, sudden determination gripping him.
II.
Tham crossed the park, turned up the Avenue, and made his way slowly through the crowds of pedestrians, no particular objective in his mind. He realized that Craddock was following him, and he did not care, for Tham had no intention of working at the present time. Later he would go into the subway, and if Craddock persisted in following him he would not attempt to lift another leather. He had the proceeds of his first robbery of the day, and could get along very well on that amount, if necessary.
As usual, Tham was dressed in inconspicuous clothing. He did not believe in advertising his presence in a crowd. His suit of dark blue was neat, but worn, and a cap covered his head, instead of a hat. Nine persons out of every ten would have taken him to be a struggling bookkeeper or a clerk in some small establishment.
Before a gigantic mercantile place a doorman in uniform deliberately thrust Thubway Tham and several pedestrians aside to clear the way for the passage of a stately woman bound for her limousine. Tham gulped back his sudden anger.
“Ath!” he growled. “Every perthon thould have a thenth of honor, tho he thould!”
That brought to Tham’s remembrance the clipping he had read, and also the fact that he had the loot from the wallet in his waistcoat pocket
. He fumbled at the pocket to be sure, and unknowingly he worked up the folded currency until the edge of it showed.
He went merrily on his way, stopping now and then to glance in at a shop window, while Detective Craddock followed close behind and observed Tham’s tactics and manner, and believed that Tham was playing a waiting game, waiting until Craddock got tired before entering the subway. Craddock, who was on no special assignment that afternoon, decided that he would follow Tham until he went home, at least causing him a certain measure of annoyance.
At Forty-second Street Thubway Tham turned toward Times Square. Craddock turned after him. Tham walked slowly, taking in the sights like a man not a native of the city. He was thinking of the newspaper clipping again. It rang in his brain like the appeal of a spellbinder, and Thubway Tham did not know why. He always tried to act in an honorable manner, he told himself. So far as he knew, his sense of honor was fully developed. Of course, he was a dip, and he supposed many persons would say a thief; but that was his line of business. Had it not been said that there was honor even among thieves? Very well, then.
Reaching Broadway, Tham turned north and continued his slow walk, and Detective Craddock, a short distance behind him, held communion with himself.
“If that bird thinks he is going to shake me by walking me to death, he is mistaken,” Craddock mused. “I can walk as long as he can, and as fast.”
Tham had not looked around once, had acted as though Detective Craddock did not exist. Nor did he look around now. After a time he crossed the street and went back down it toward Times Square. He entered a corner cigar store and made a purchase, but did not attempt to dodge out the door on the side street, as Craddock had anticipated.
“Playing the long game,” Craddock growled. “But when he goes into the subway I’ll be right behind him!”
Tham stopped at the curb near one of the subway entrances at the square, lighted a cigarette, and began watching the passing throng. Heaven knew that he looked innocent enough, but Detective Craddock had learned years before not to judge by appearances. Craddock stood before a store window a few feet away and waited, chewing savagely at an unlighted cigar.
The Thubway Tham Megapack Page 16