OCR Text |
Show , THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 14, 19LU Trr-- r BY Jil -- Frederick Irving Anderson " When an Amateur Turns t Thief, answered story' inquiring silence by v A lrnetmcnl ln coffe up lnff: First There Is Nothing So thrre. Zti lime 1 go eee fbr znyuelf. And Prcciohs to Him as His Loot. jouT" I go where you go, Cummins, said Story. ShorttyThere Comes a Time When The defaulter was conscious that his finger ' There Is Nothing So Precious to tips were Icy cold, a phenomenon which so Hint, as His Liberty far arrested hi attentlflh that he began testadd-a- . f that means, Cummins? He'll stay, "Well see to that (The constant reiteration of that ' wel) But you'll see for yourself When you get up there. He knew you were trailing him, I suppose," said Cummins, bis votes a Utile husky. He had himself tn hand again. O, yes. I told him. That's part of our game. Ono night we were sitting at table-j-ust like this. Cummins raised his eyes and looked full at the easy young dandy, Why didn't he kill you?" asked Cum-min- e Hello! Haven't you a night like a home to go to, on And then what? They would miss Story port Inspection. The skipper would say, "Why I eaw you with him at midnight. The smoking room stewards would say, " He went on deck 1 1 o'clock, and you followed him out. Sparks" would say, "He filed this dispatch at one ten; he filed these every twenty four hours." . Cummins gasped as If this tightening of tho cords of circumstances were real Instead of the product of his fevered imagination. Almost, at this instant, hs could se the honest eyes of his questioners averted, as tf In very pity for tho miserable wietch before them. What a fool Impulse can make of a man! ln a flash it demolishes him. Then suddenly he aat up in bed, tense. Those dispatches! Somehow, some way, he must contrive to see thorn. Here was his opportunity. Undoubtedly they would be In code. He was an expert ln code. Once he had the key, Storys ghost could be laid for good. Then he, Cummins, could Ole thoea at this?"-The- he was gone ln a dark alley wgy. Amateur! That stung! Ha was no amateur. He had prepared for years for this one greet stroke. He hud the habit of Integrity. In his career of safeguarding other peoples money ho had studied fraud. To thwart It had been his profession. And this young whipper snapper, with scarcely veiled contempt, had called him an amateur! He gritted his teeth. He paused abruptly, But wait a minute! Hsd het Or waa It his own con science, not this young haberdasher's model, accusing 4 him? Cummins laughed harshly. Conscience? Condolence what had conscience to say to him? He had taken what he wanted, jes. But he had not taken it from widows and orphans, or the line of mechanics who filed past his window on pay day. IIo had not robbed them. Tho wages of such a sin would ing them, with a puzzled 6mlle. After a few midnight the smoking room moments of this, he hsd no difficulty In perout. A squall had come suading himself that he had the nerves ot a TOWARD put of the bosom of the placid rabbit. Ho had pictured, ln th event of tropical hea, Just after dark, and aent most failure (to which he calmly conceded Its perr of the tourlatae to their bunks. Denied the centage of chance, his eventual confounding. solace ot bridge and hie tipple, your tourlsta But he had never painted that scene tn Just That occurred to him, of course, said is a person of small resource on shipboard. And he had the nerve! this way. There waa nothing of the sleuth - Story, nonchalantly. The ten thousand ton refrigerator ship, He had a lot of nerve in the beginning. But hound, either aa he had met the breed In with her elite upstairs company, plunged he thought better-ofiction or as a bank official, about his blue-eyeit. He was Ingenious d Uiunkenly through the tumbling waters. and capable. He never rhould have been vis Bwtftly be reviewed hie Heeling, listing shaking herself, with a a thief. He made frienthi w ith Sparks, the Intimacy wills this man. There was shudder as she took a blow at her heart, no Incident to give significance to his last wireless man. One way or another, he con-- ' she was a creature of many complaining words. Cummins took a long puff and said trived to get a look at tho dispatches I sent whimpers. Her ratlines whined, her bpars He paused, and home every day at noon. slowly : creaked, her lashed booms groaned. But "ni7 above It all came the reassuring deeper note,' the crunch of her screws. She was dnv.ng through It stuidily. It was only a little blow. The day's log, posted at the dining saloon companionway. would tersely state "choppy sea '' It was all In a day's wotk. Old Jensen, the skipper, shiny In his oil skins peered in through a port as he made his last rounds. He never came tn here a man doesn't sail his ship from the smoking room. He slead.ed himself against a brass rail. Is a mountain of rolling water smote Lis ship mightily. Inside, a table shot like a catapult across the upending floor, bowling over chairs as it crashed against a divan. In one corner, the two stewards were roused momentarily from tlietr attitude of prufoe-s'omi- l torpor, then relapsed, like somnolent c.ib hursts between fares Braced agilnst a staiicldon was one table with fiddles up, glasses empty ah trays full and two men, smoking the only passengers abioad. In communing silence over their smokes, they seemed oblivious to the anllcsof the storm. The skipper passed Mi and up to hla ej toe, . p domestic little eagle's neet that swung like a pendulum from one star to another with ciery surging sea. He ciawled out of his oil skins, out of his clothes. Ilia passengers wete always happy; at this season the down tr.p was always more or less of a family party. The skipper closed bis eyes in paternal content. Down below the two stewards continued to , nod and doze. One of the smokers at the table with the fiddles was a big bony man with a bronze skin, a sombrero, and a Pittsburgh stogy He was Cummins of Colorado, bank defaulter, making hla getaway, with no small entertainment ln the opeiation. He had salted several trails, adding artistic touches suggested by a keen sense of liumor; arid then, w hen the hounds were ln full cry. he had walked about here, weighed In his baggage, placed his deck chair, and proceeded to dream. In three weeks he w ould be tn Guatemala, where there would be a coffee plantation, with a red tiled hacienda, slaves, bull tights, and- - always summer. With a a genuine attack of mal de mer to abt his desire for seclusion at the outset, he had Issued from hie retirement once the sunken city' of Port Royal was put astern, and become a member of Capt Jensen's t happy family. Tonight, at gentle penny bridge, ' he had as a partner a church organist sent out for a sea change by an admiring vestry: In a Rath it cam to him. Thu was hit predecessor kit prototype. "Fairbanks " he gasped. s opponent there was a type founder, bound south to brush up Latin American trade, and " I'll be glad ot your company. Story. have daunted him. No, be had not robbed twirled an empty glass, emillnfc. Into the cryptic messages that dally trailed his flight. thin young haberdasher's model sitting oppoIn pins, across the map. He chuckled in shook his head, smiling over his heart of the murderer for Cummins, the them. He had robbed a coterie of smug Story site lilm now and pulling at one of tho Jafrock coated gentlemen, his sureties. They defaulter, at this moment conceded himself grisly humor. Those pine would see a good cigar. maica cigars, which smoko very good in this You won't, Cummins. deal of the world before he got til rough with the right to kill there crept a daunting fear. had accepted him as a moral hazard. and "No, he said. climate. If things had been otherwise, jf he them. And there would be no second man It's a rotten job. Ive been there before-un- der It was the insolent pureness of this man charged him a stiff fee set him down on had been gathering friends. Instead of one step behind. Finally, he fell asleep, across the table from him. He wetted his lips, the same circumstances. their books as a "risk, and assumed the sloughing them, Cummins might have perII. His pause might have been merely reand wajted; his hands trembled slightly In burden of his honesty. Moral hazard was mitted himself to warm towards this enterare flective. If In of ills stock best coffee, Cummins, you'd control. at you effort their no If were trade. there moral talking eplte Story's taining cosmopolitan, who 'called himself better see me." Do you recollect Fairbanks, the Ginners hazard there would be no need for surety. smooth tones never faltered. Btory. Htory had been everywhere and seen " I'd like to have talk with you, general. bank W'recker? he went on. By an overCynically their actuaries reduced It - to In jny office tn New York, he said, The organist and the type everything. ot per cent, priced it accordingly. Th effort Cummins forced himself to Well; come out come outl Ill send a terms, mastering there la a map. Every day at noon a clerk founder had, an hour since, staggered off for you. cart limeet those mlld,.unchangiiig eyes. of moral dividends hazard them brought sticks a new pin in that map. That pin through the bouncing gale, to the more cerAnd the little general, none other than No; I don't seem to. houses and With mousine big plate glass shoves w here I am and w hither bound. If tain security of their bunks, carrying with Lannon himself, the old Deaths Head that Cummins was pulling windows. finger tips ' them the twenty-fouhours elapse without a new pin pleasing consciousness of a rai 9 w hlspered Into the ear of the dictator twenNo! It was not again. conscience, Cummins told another man picks up my lost trail. There evening. These two lingered. four hours each day, rose, pierced Cumty Fairbanks. continued Story, with the himself again. By carefully calculated is always a man just one step behind. One It was as near an approach to companionmin with a friendly glance from his on detached air of the raconteur, had the usual had built up a structure of stratagems he step behind! He repeated these three words ship as Cummins had permitted himself offered a hand with two fingers shot and eye, idea that extradition couldn't reach him Integrity, and destroyed it and oollected the slowly. since he had closed the door of his past bein some down there. It can, you know. But we away long forgotten tight corner of inaura ncc. He had paid He had calculated hind him. There would be days ahead, beThat's what broke Fall banks nerve," he his adventurous life. Gen. Bannon clapped didn't want him. We wanted hla loot. That's the now And beforehand. were price they yond this roaring Caribbean, days of loose his hands sharply snd Ills mosos, sleeping rambled on. I think he had half a hope, tho difference between robbing widows and sending their man hunter after him, to tell linens, of languid smoke rings, soft tropical we under the awning of a dirty pink portico when got into Colon, that port inspection and robbing ones sureties. When orphans him he hadnot paid enough. breezes, and fellowship with world wander-eis- . that overhung the fetid street, came to life, would catch him and send hlnr' back in you rob widows and orphans the law puts An amateur, was he? lie laughed aloud. He allowed hjmself a rare moment of and began' vigorously attacking a pair of irons. That was his only hope of beating you in Jail. It doesn't do the widows ami, orIt was 2 oclock when he climbed Into hia relaxation. YVith a little a tart he recovered mules hitched with a queer brass laden har? us! Port inspection sifts for yellow fever any good but the law, one way or anberth. For the first night since he had himelf. He had a sharp sense of momentary phans seem to be ness to n equipage the like of which Cumin not and much know We Colon, didn't germ: you other, appeased: stepped aside he was sleepless. In the dim fright It waa not time yet to yield to the mins had never before seen. The old war Fall banks did. mesh. loot! that hla We Fairbanks. want wanted Hs gets through watches ho sorted hla thought. H refepeli of content. horse mounted, opened his umbrella, and He grinned. I saw to that, i wanted him knew Chat, and tried to stick It out. But ho volved In hia memory the disc of that g Bewaie he cautioned himself, suddenwith a leer at Cummins gave the signal. to sample Guatemala. white man can, Cummins. Rats fleas and dialogue ln the smoking room. He ly coming out of hla dreams, You wrill bd Away he went at a breakneck pace, rattling fever and dirty native women withdandy tho of his He tossed butt Story yawned. took It to pieces, studied its mechanism. For talking in your sleep presently." over the rough cobbles. out any clothes and quite unabashed about cigar away and rose. One of the stewards one period of a few seconds, by dint of hard He put aside hla stump of a stogy, helped Bannon bad been here, and hereabouts, for made a wry face, shook bis head la lie it" to turn out the immediately began lights. himself to hie feet with the aid of the wishing, he managed to hj pnotize himself fifty years. It was said be couldn't go any . disgust. It's a rotten place. You won t like it a Into' the belief that It waa all a false alarm, stanchion, and risked a lazy stretch between else, that there was an invisible line place little bit, be said. After about six months of it. Fairbanks YVcll, Ill turn in. to be explained merely by coincidence. But sc as. drawn about him, over which be must not ' on.' over went hla bone lie added and fetched hla he It, Sleep well, Cummins, dug up this lulling senae was short lived. He smiled "Not going to ride out the gale?1- asked put a foot. Be that as it may, he was not I gave him his choice between staying shoulder, as he moved from one chair to young Story. There was something reenote-lgrimly. honor here. He lived Uk a prince, without fleas there among the rata and and fever another across the swaying floor. .The door Don't delude yourself. Do you underdisconcerting in the gaze of thoee mild he was the good right hand of the dictator, and females, and coming home with me. siammed on him. blue eyes. stand Bible English? Or must he shake w horn he had established and maintained ln p, Cummins, when an amateur turns thief, at " No: Ill turn in, said Cummins. After a time the defaulter rose and got the pinnacles before your eyes?" power by the simple process of assassinafirst there Is nothing so precious to him as to the deck. The blow was abating, but the Story looked over his shoulder at the moThis man tied to his heels. Cummins tion. Neither revolution nor reform exist hi loot. Shortly there comes a time when tionless figures of the two stewards. Then, seas, still breaking, covered him with warm, must untie that knot. But he must untie a head, Bannon removed the head. without Is there nothing so precious to him as his in a low tone as he helped himself to a fresh stinging rime. He clung to the rail, hypIt without breaking the skein. He had alThis was decidedly a change for the better liberty. He will endure any apvount of ? notized by the tumbling mass of dark wacigar. most acted cn .Impulse tonight, at that moln the fortune of th defaulter. When he wretchedness for the privilege of flinging to " They're fast asleep. ters. At the top of the bridge ladder was Smoke another ment when Story, shutting the wireless room first came up here to the capital city, a Curiwho a man like know be thst epark. It's a bright open doorway. In the opening, cigar ' dooe behind him, was climbing down the ous chance had seemed to forward hla Is doomed to die by slow starvation, but still Cummins resumed his seat, selected a new framed, was propped securely th figure of ladder In the dark. It had been touch and affairs. There were letters at his hotel to Ufe. cltngs more than with a lithe young man. It was Story, chatting and necessary care, stogy go with impulse during that moment. Story awaiting J. L. Cummins, the Identical name His drawl had become slow torture to tho with Sparks, seated at a table flanked by himself had probably felt Jt. else why did he accepted a lirlit from the other's match. he had assumed for this latter chapter of hla fascinated listener. batteries of vacuum tubes that glowed redly, They smoked a few moments ln silence turn In the jet darkness end speak. Cumlife. They were Invitations, expressive of Fairbanks chose freedom, said Story. Aie you making the round trip, Cumand bright spirals of copper strip. After a min shivered. What If he had struck and the lavish hospitality of a restricted circle He laughed shortly. mins Well, hea got It. Hc'a time Story came out and down the Udder-pa- rsed missed! But be wouldn't have missed. It of whites, at the advent of one of the? . own ' No I tranship at Barrios. am going within ten feet of Cummins, stopped, got it yet. A w hite man who Is a pauper in would have been all over In a second in kind, from the outside world. Flattered at Cummins paused, he a yellow man's country. Do you know what up into Guatemala.' and raid cbeci lly; that second of Und fury. attenUuiu which iufured bis Importance, d ship-boai- O- . d at-hi- r hair-liftin- y ' 'l hungry for th society of hi kind, Cummins quite Innocently accepted an invitation for luncheon. JI found himself engulfed ln a whirl of exotic gayety. In the midst ot these butterfly courtesies be suddenly awoke to th fact that hs was credited as a British oil magnate of the cam name whoee advent had long been anticipated. Tills wa the explanation of the open sesame; and. coming abruptly on the truth, he lackjd th courage to destroy the houae of card that chanc had built for him. Ther were dinnere; there were trip across the valley to mountain villas; one evening they embarked by special train, and h passed an unbelievable three days as the honored guest of a white man who lived like a grande. One night he sat at dinner chek by Jowl w llh the American ohargd; on night h gambled with tho youths of the British consulate, and went back to hla hotel plucked dry. Through It all when the talk turned to oil he twitched It to coffee. It was after the plucking that he aat up lat reading Voltaire. From a ponderous volume, of which the letterpress was vellum, he ripped out a page, steamed It over a braes kettle while he brewed a toddy, and extract' ed therefrom a fat bank note. , From the first the defaulter had felt th pressure of espionage, but he never saw It. lie studied faces, the faces of men who seemed destined to become his familiars; he even catalogued th features of ragged boys in th street In fiout of his hotel. II listened with all his cars for th footfall of that one step behind. But he beard nothing. Story had seen him through to Barrios. There had never been another word between these two to recall that evening when ho had said; " I go where you go, Cummins. In his farewell the easy youth, fixing th defaulter with tils Urltatlngly mild gaze, had said with a half smile: "When you want me. Cummins, you will find me at your elbow.' That was the last be had seen of Story. His humorous plan of wiping out the trail had gone to pot for lack of opportunity, Waiting for opportunity, its necessity hsd gradually faded out of hla calculations. Then bad com his involuntary absorption by thes lonely exiles,' the whites ln a land A her an Is black, yellow, or red; ln a society without fouhdatlons, where no man asked one's background. the Invitations had ceased. Suddenly Nothing wss ever said. Th lost magnate never appeared. There was no act merely a negation where before ther had been affirmation. When Cummins approached groups they ceased talking, turned to him, listened to w hat he had to say, replied politely, and resumed the conversation hi entranco had Interrupted.' He saw them off on their Jaunts, waved to them, and they nodded back hi salutations. He blamed It to his Impolitic tacit acceptance of their mistake in hia identity. They thought him a cheap Impostor, and were snubbing him In their ch 11 way. There was no fighting It. These people were decent people, accepting the conventions of tho country and abiding by them. They asked a man nothing of hla past; but they demanded an Impeccable present. And he, without an Identity of hla own, had permitted them to fit him with another's. There wa no mend- ing that error. At first he took refuge in solitude. H pored over the book of Voltaire and Montesquieu. his old vellum classics, with their occasional missing sheets. He fingered th thick sheets, counted them till they were thumbed and greased Ilk the oft perused holy tales of the ancient priest of which they were coplee. This had been sheer cleverness on his part, to which hs brought technical skill. Whll the sleuths of the law had been nosing . among safety deposit boxes for hla hidden loot he had walked away with hla few sacred tomes ln a trunk a trunk that had been turned upside down by baggage inspector and port officials f nd by Story, too, If h could Judge from the few earmarks that thorough young gentleman left behind in hia secret searchings Among the effects .of th defaulter. Servants handled his precious volumes every day tidying hla room. Once, during the period of hla reign as a British oil magnate, he had even loaned one of thes volumes to a nice old English lady who loved Voltaire. Then hla loneliness drove Cummins forth again. Never a drinking man, he began to ..haunt the cafds affected by the tourists who came ln a body every week from the fruit steamers. He Insinuated himself into their parties at table, picked up threads of conversation, bought drinks, became an adept with absinthe, .mixing it at the fountain w here Ice cold eprtng water dripped drop by drop. But the tourlstas frightened him. They were too direct in their questionings. Why waa he here? How did he like the Ufe? When was he going home? How did h amuse himself? And so on indefinitely. At last he moved on, bag and baggag, he panorama of Ufe, with Ita social effervescence . where he alone was uncompanioned, warped hla endurance. In the chUly dawn of a gray day he moved over to the old city, with lta hundred churches and their tumbled bastions, that once proudly, under the Spanish captain had reigned over this torn land from the far oft Rio Grande south to th equator. It was only th ghost of its former self. But some of Its noble monuments and a few of Ita people still obstinately remained, with the earthquake always trembling ln the air above one's head. The great cathedral, its huge bell lying where it had fallen, sat twisted and deserts as if sortie prehistoric monster, buried under t f"(CouU3U?d. calPigcTive, . |