“Oh, I’m not a fool, Tham!”
“No? You don’t want to be, in thith buthineth! Now we’ll lay off tomorrow and next day. Thothe copth are mad and there are a million of them in the thubway.”
Shifty Peter smiled to his reflection in the mirror over Thubway Tham’s dresser and departed. He walked around the streets for a time and sensed that inaction did not appeal to him. Thubway Tham might have been a clever man in his day, but was not Shifty Peter clever now? Tham was like an old woman, giving lectures and offering advice.
Shifty Peter decided to work alone for once. He felt confident. He felt lucky, he told himself. He would work alone, and afterward he would tell Thubway Tham and laugh at the other’s advice. There was the subway, and there were people on the trains. Shifty Peter was just at the point of deciding that he was clever.
He entered the subway and rode to Times Square, and he lifted a leather. He crossed to Grand Central Station, and on the way he lifted another. He extracted the money and got rid of the purses, then went back downtown. He had been successful, and without Thubway Tham’s guiding presence. He had not taken more than fifty dollars from the two wallets, but he had increased his confidence in himself, and that was the principal thing with him.
Late that afternoon, he visited Thubway Tham in his room.
“Well, I’ve done it!” Shifty Peter announced.
“What?”
“I failed to take your advice, Tham. I didn’t see the sense of not working when there are so many people with money running around. So I went out and worked.”
“You did what?”
“I went into the subway and lifted a couple of leathers. Here’s your half of the swag, though you weren’t working with me.”
“Why, you thilly ath! You poor thimp!” Tham cried. “And maybe thome detective trailed you right here to thith room and will nab me, too.”
“Oh, I guess not!”
“Thwelled in the head, are you? Then it ith all off! I thought you wath goin’ to make a clever man, and I thee you are nothin’ but a thwelled-head kid! Great Thcott! Don’t I want coin ath much ath you do? Wouldn’t I have worked with you if I had thought it would have been thafe?”
“Well, it seems to have been safe enough,” Shifty Peter sneered. “You worry too much, Tham.”
“I don’t like it!” Tham said. “After thith, you do ath I thay! Grathp me?”
“I wanted to see you about that, too, Tham.”
“What now?”
“I want to thank you for what you’ve taught me, of course. But I’ve picked up some pretty good leathers since we’ve been working together this way, and I’ve given you half of it, so I guess you ain’t got any kick coming.”
“What are you talkin’ about?” Tham demanded.
“Well, Tham—I’ve decided to go into business for myself.”
Thubway Tham looked at him in amazement and then got slowly out of his chair.
“Go into buthineth for yourthelf!” he said. “Why, you unthpanked kid! Goin’ to leave me in the lurch, you mean? Got an idea in your head that you are thome little dip, have you? Don’t care to thplit the coin any more, ith that it?”
“What’s the use, when I can work alone?”
“Tho that ith the kind you are, ith it? You can’t even be thquare! Go right ahead, and you’ll be in jail in a week. You wath lucky today, that ith all!”
“Well, I’ll take the chance, Tham. I’ve decided.”
“How and where are you goin’ to work?” Thubway Tham asked, with sudden suspicion.
“Well, in the subway, I guess.”
“In the thubway? I teach you all you know, and now you want to thteal my graft?”
“You don’t own the subway, do you?”
“There ith thuch a thing ath profethional honor!” Thubway Tham reminded him.
“That’s more bunk!”
“Tho? Goin’ to thmath all the ruleth, are you? Goin’ to be a regular little double-crother? You will latht, boy, about ath long ath a piethe of ithe in a furnathe!”
“I know what I’m doing, all right!”
“But you don’t!” Tham said. “You ain’t got thenthe enough. You think you know all about the world and the people in it, and nobody can tell you different! I hate to thee thith! I had hopeth for you, boy, but I ain’t now. Tho you are goin’ to work in the thubway!”
“Don’t talk rot, Tham! I guess the subway is big enough to let more than one man work in it.”
“Do you know, you thimp, that every trick that ith turned in the thubway ith blamed on me?”
“Oh, so that’s what’s troubling you, is it?” said Shifty Peter.
“I thee there ith no uthe talkin’ to a boy like you! You are goin’ to be caught before you turn half a dozen trickth! You’d better not try it, boy!”
“So you’ll put the cops wise to me, will you?” Shifty Peter sneered.
Thubway Tham grasped him by the throat. “You thimp!” he cried. “I ought to choke you to death! Am I a thtool pigeon? If you don’t know anything about profethional honor, I do! Now you get out of here!”
He angled Shifty Peter to the door, opened it, thrust him out, then slammed the door and locked it. He shook his fists at the ceiling.
“That ith the way of it!” he said. “Never again will I try to help anybody! That thimp will get me a bad reputation! I won’t be able to work until he ith caught! Well, I got money enough to live for a time. That Craddock man ith goin’ to thee a lot of me in the next few dayth. I’ve got to be his thort of perthonal friend to have an alibi. Havin’ a bull ready to thwear you are an innothent man. I gueth that ain’t thome alibi!”
V.
The following morning, Thubway Tham stepped from the lodging house and greeted Detective Craddock with a smile.
“Why, Tham, I am astonished!” Craddock said. “Why the joyous mood? You are positively human this morning.”
“I wath jutht thinkin’ that you ain’t thuch a bad thport after all,” Tham told him.
“That is certainly fine of you, Tham. What’s the object?”
“Thir?”
“You heard me! What are you up to now?”
“I want protection, thir,” Tham said.
“I don’t quite get this.”
“Well, there hath been conthiderable theft in the thubway of late, hath there not?”
“There has.”
“And there may be more. Now, I am not goin’ to be blamed for thomething I didn’t do. You can watch me all you pleathe, and it will tickle me to death. I’ll give you my word that I will not touch any other man’s purthe thith week.”
“Well, when you pass your word, you keep it; I’ll say that much for you, Tham. I get you, I think. You’ve done enough yourself without being made to answer for what other people do.”
“Thir?”
“You heard me!”
“Yeth, thir!”
“And whoever is doing all this work—we’re going to land him, Tham, and make an example of him. I have an idea, from the way you act, that you know who it is.”
“Great Thcott!” Tham gasped. “What maketh you think that?”
“Oh, just the way you act. If you do know, Tham, why not slip me a bit of information? The fellow is stepping on your toes, you know. How about it?”
“No, thir!”
“Very well, then, Tham! I won’t urge you again. But we’ll get that chap, all right, and he’ll get all that is coming to him.”
Craddock turned away abruptly and hurried down the street. For the time being, he feared nothing from Thubway Tham. And Tham went down the street in the other direction, toward the restaurant.
He ordered his breakfast and began eating. Shifty Peter would be nabbed before long, he felt sure; and Craddock had intimated that they would make an example of him!
To Thubway Tham there came, then, a vision of the big prison up the river. He had spent three years of his life there—and that had been a short sentence. He remembered the
misery of it, the endless and monotonous days, the cruelties, the little things that break down a man’s pride and self-respect until he has none left, until he is but a hulk of a human to be buffeted about the world constantly under suspicion.
Shifty Peter was but a boy. His life would be ruined. Ten years he would get—perhaps fifteen! It would break him, turn him into a beast!
Tham did not finish his breakfast. He paid his check and did not even stop to exchange words with the little cashier. He hurried from the restaurant and went down the street. He guessed where Shifty Peter could be found at this hour.
Tham found him. Already Peter was beginning to show that he was prosperous, and was laying the foundation for his own undoing. Tham called him to one side, and Peter went to him with an ingratiating smile on his lips.
“I told you yesterday that I had decided, Tham!” he said.
“Lithen! I have been talking to Craddock. Thifty, the copth are crathy! The houndth are on the trail! Boy, they are goin’ to get you thure! For heaventh thake, don’t do it! Do you know what a term up the river meanth? I’ve been there, boy! I know! I’m not thore at you for throwin’ me down! I’m tryin’ to thave you, boy!”
“Piffle!”
“It ith not! Can’t you take an old-timer’th word for it? I don’t want to thee them get a lad like you. Jutht becauthe you got the thwelled head, you want to go it alone.”
“Yes, and I’m going to go it alone! This little bluff won’t keep me out of your old subway, if that’s what’s bothering you!”
“It ith not that—”
“Bunk!” said Shifty Peter. He swung around and left Thubway Tham standing there.
Tham regained the street and stood on the corner. He felt a certain amount of anger, of course, yet he felt sorry for Peter. He felt some responsibility in the affair, for he had taught the boy, had suggested the career to him, in fact.
Tham waited across the street until half an hour later, when Peter came out and started toward the nearest subway entrance. Thubway Tham shadowed him as cleverly as any detective ever shadowed a suspect. He followed him to the platform, into the train. He glanced quickly around the car, saw a detective he knew, nodded to him, and moved over closer to him. He wanted the officer to be able to say, afterward, that Thubway Tham could not have done it.
As he talked, he watched Shifty Peter. He saw Peter select his victim. Tham approved of the selection. He watched Peter step nearer as the train approached a station. Peter was working after Thubway Tham’s own manner.
He saw the quick move of Peter’s hand—and then there was a sudden turmoil. The victim had thrown back his own hand just in time to encounter Peter’s and had voiced his anger and surprise in no uncertain tones.
Peter had managed to step back half a dozen feet—but he had the loot in his pocket! Thubway Tham could tell by the expression in the boy’s face that he was terrified, that he had lost his nerve for the moment, when he needed it most. He had forgotten all that Thubway Tham had told him to do in case of such an emergency.
The detective had sprung forward, and Tham darted after him. He knew that, when they reached the station, a search would be made of everybody in that car. He reached Peter’s side, his hand darted down and took the wallet from Peter’s pocket. The boy, suddenly remembering, thanked him with his eyes.
Then Thubway Tham lunged forward again. Once more his hand made a quick movement.
Back in the crowd again, Thubway Tham waited patiently for the searching process. Peter had had sense enough to get away from his vicinity. The detective called other officers at the station, and the men were searched well. They frisked Shifty Peter and found nothing. Finally they turned to Thubway Tham.
“Oh, I didn’t get it!” Tham said. “I wath talkin’ to the bull when it happened.”
“You’ll stand a search, just the same!” they told him.
There was an expression of horror in the face of Shifty Peter. They would find the wallet on Tham, he supposed. Tham would be sent up the river for something he had not done. Poor old Thubway Tham! And he, a headstrong boy, would be the cause of it!
His eyes widened. They had ended their search of Tham and had discovered nothing. They found no stolen wallet on anybody in the car. They opened the doors, and the passengers stepped to the platform and went up to the street.
Shifty Peter followed Thubway Tham dumbly. Four blocks down the street, he stepped alongside.
“Thanks, Tham—thanks!” he whispered. “You saved me, Tham! My nerve was gone for a moment. And, Tham, I don’t want to work alone any more.”
“We’ll talk it over later, boy.”
“But where did that wallet go?”
“Why, you thilly ath! I knew that they would thearch everybody in that car. You didn’t think I would keep it and let them find it on me, did you?”
“But they didn’t find it on anybody else!”
“Thertainly not! That detective never thearched himthelf, did he? I knew he wouldn’t. Tho I jutht dropped that wallet in the detective’th pocket. Thee? When he findth it there, he will be one thurprithed cop!”
And Thubway Tham walked on down the street, while Shifty Peter, his conceit gone, looked after him in wonder.
THUBWAY THAM’S BAGGAGE CHECK
He sat in one corner of the smoking compartment of the Pullman car, next to the window, and watched the flying landscape closely. In one hand he held a railroad time-table, and he glanced at it, and at his watch, as each station was passed. If the limited was on time, very well and good; but, if it happened to be a couple of minutes late at any particular point, he acted as if about to go in search of the conductor and demand an immediate explanation.
For he was going home!
He was a little man, and apparently nervous to a great degree. His nostrils were thin, and his eyes furtive, and it seemed that his fingers were continually moving. Those same fingers were clever, though the other men in the smoking room did not guess it. Those fingers had been trained through the years, to explore foreign pockets quickly and without discovery.
But their owner had no intention of making them do their regular work now. The men in the smoking room with him, even had they been aware of his identity and reputation, could have continued their journeys without fear, and without keeping their hands on their wallets and watches continually. Those fingers, as a usual thing, did their nefarious work only in a certain small section of the vast country—a section toward which the limited now was rushing.
The little man who sat next the window in the smoking room had almost fought at Chicago to get an upper berth in an extra-fare train. He wanted to get to New York as quickly as possible, he had explained, hinting that it was a matter of life and death or something like that and even the extra-fare limited would be too slow. He had obtained the reservation—and now he sat at the window and watched the stations and the time-table, and fumed and fussed.
He made no attempt to hold a conversation with any of the other passengers in the smoking room, and if a man addressed him he got only a grunt by way of reply. The little man sitting next the window appeared to be occupied with his thoughts—which was exactly the case.
Down the river rushed the train, through city after city, devouring the miles with a speed that was amazing. Now it passed within a short distance of a great gray prison, whereupon the little man sitting next the window seemed to be trying to make himself yet smaller, and he almost closed his eyes. He knew that prison well—he had spent a terrible three years there some time before. He shuddered at the memory of those three years.
He watched the sparkling river through the window. He began to notice things that he recognized and knew. His heart was warming gradually. He was getting home!
He had been away with the exception of one flying visit to the city, for a little more than a year, had been to the Pacific coast, had spent the greater part of the time in southern California, where the warm sunshine and soft sea breezes had done much for him.
&nbs
p; He had been glad to make the journey to the Western country, for the state of his health had demanded an instant change of climate—and there had been other important reasons. But recently the great city on the Hudson had been calling him again, and finally he had packed his trunk and had answered the call.
The train was entering the outskirts of the city now, and the little man sat up straighter in his seat and betrayed a sudden interest. This was New York! This was home! She had her faults, but in all the world there was no other city like her! She could be cruel, and she could be kind. She was vast in some things, and small in others.
The little man left the smoking room and went into the car. He stopped beside his seat, put on his coat and hat and picked up his traveling bag.
“You gettin’ off at Hundred an’ Twenty-fifth?” the porter asked.
“I am!” the little man grunted.
The porter took the bag and started toward the end of the car, and the little man followed. He did not care to continue downtown to the Grand Central Terminal. He was not eager to have certain persons know that he had returned to the city—at least not until he had had an opportunity to see how things were going and learn any news that might have a peculiar interest for him. And at the Grand Central Terminal, he knew, there might be certain men who would recognize him instantly, and draw their own conclusions.
When the train stopped at the uptown station, he dropped off, hurried to the street; and walked along it rapidly for a distance of a few blocks. He came to a subway station—and stopped.
He dropped the bag to the walk and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He looked around at the people and the signs and the buildings and at the subway station again. And then he grinned after the manner of a man who is well pleased.
“Thame old thubway!” he exclaimed. “Thame old plathe! It thertainly lookth good to me!”
And so Thubway Tham—
What? You didn’t guess that it was Thubway Tham?
You know Thubway Tham, of course, the clever little pickpocket who worked only in the subway during rush hours—so clever that a city detective had been assigned especially to trail him. You remember, perhaps, how Thubway Tham outwitted certain gentlemen with considerable profit to himself—one of the gentlemen being Craddock, the detective mentioned—and then went West for his health?
The Thubway Tham Megapack Page 22