John Marvel, Assistant Part 28

"Wm. Langton, Private Detective."

It was not until long afterward that I knew that the man he was following when he sprang on the car and I saved him was myself, and that I owed the attention to my kinsman and to Mr. Leigh, to whom Peck had given a rather sad account of me. My kinsman had asked him to ascertain how I lived.

I called on my new friend, Langton, earlier than he had expected. In my distress about Dix I consulted him the very next day and he undertook to get him back. I told him I had not a cent to pay him with at present, but some day I should have it and then----

"You'll never owe me a cent as long as you live," he said. "Besides, I'd like to find that dog. I remember him. He's a good one. You say you used the back stairway at times, opening on the alley near Mick Raffity's?"

"Yes."

He looked away out of the window with a placid expression.

"I wouldn't go down that way too often at night," he said presently.

"Why?"

"Oh! I don't know. You might stumble and break your neck. One or two men have done it."

"Oh! I'll be careful," I laughed. "I'm pretty sure-footed."

"You need to be--there. You say your dog's a good fighter?"

"He's a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever saw. I never fought him, but I had a negro boy who used to take him off till I stopped him."

"Well, I'll find him--that is, I'll find where he went."

I thanked him and strolled over across town to try to get a glimpse of the "Angel of the Lost Children." I saw her in a carriage with another young girl, and as I gazed at her she suddenly turned her eyes and looked straight at me, quite as if she had expected to see me, and the smile she gave me, though only that which a pleasant thought wings, lighted my heart for a week.

A day or two later my detective friend dropped into my office.

"Well, I have found him." His face showed that placid expression which, with him, meant deep satisfaction. "The police have him--are holding him in a case, but you can identify and get him. He was in the hands of a negro dog-stealer and they got him in a raid. They pulled one of the toughest joints in town when there was a fight going on and pinched a full load. The n.i.g.g.e.r was among them. He put up a pretty stiff fight and they had to hammer him good before they quieted him. He'll go down for ninety days sure. He was a fighter, they said--b.u.t.ted men right and left."

"I'm glad they hammered him--you're sure it's Dix?"

"Sure; he claimed the dog; said he'd raised him. But it didn't go. I knew he'd stolen him because he said he knew you."

"Knew me--a negro? What did he say his name was?"

"They told me--let me see--Professor Jeams--something."

"Not Woodson?"

"Yes, that's it."

"Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He sold me the dog. You say he's in jail? I must go and get him out."

"You'll find it hard work. Fighting the police is a serious crime in this city. A man had better steal, rob, or kill anybody else than fight an officer."

"Who has most pull down there?"

"Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He runs the police. He may be next Mayor."

I determined, of course, to go at once and see what I could do to get Jeams out of his trouble. I found him in the common ward among the toughest criminals in the jail--a ma.s.sive and forbidding looking structure--to get into which appeared for a time almost as difficult as to get out. But on expressing my wish to be accorded an interview with him, I was referred from one official to another, until, with my back to the wall, I came to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who went by the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my request to him. I might as well have undertaken to argue with the stone images which were rudely carved as Caryatides beside the entrance. He simply puffed his big black cigar in silence, shook his head, and looked away from me; and my urging had no other effect than to bring a snicker of amus.e.m.e.nt from a couple of dog-faced shysters who had entered and, with a nod to him, had sunk into greasy chairs.

"Who do you know here?"

A name suddenly occurred to me, and I used it.

"Among others, I know Mr. McSheen," and as I saw his countenance fall, I added, "and he is enough for the present." I looked him sternly in the eye.

He got up out of his seat and actually walked across the room, opened a cupboard and took out a key, then rang a bell.

"Why didn't you say you were a friend of his?" he asked surlily. "A friend of Mr. McSheen can see any one he wants here."

I have discovered that civility will answer with nine-tenths or even nineteen-twentieths of the world, but there is a cla.s.s of intractable brutes who yield only to force and who are influenced only by fear, and of them was this sodden ruffian. He led the way now subserviently enough, growling from time to time some explanation, which I took to be his method of apologizing. When, after going through a number of corridors, which were fairly clean and well ventilated, we came at length to the ward where my unfortunate client was confined, the atmosphere was wholly different: hot and fetid and intolerable. The air struck me like a blast from some infernal region, and behind the grating which shut off the miscreants within from even the modified freedom of the outer court was a ma.s.s of humanity of all ages, foul enough in appearance to have come from h.e.l.l.

At the call of the turnkey, there was some interest manifested in their evil faces and some of them shouted back, repeating the name of Jim Woodson; some half derisively, others with more kindliness. At length, out of the mob emerged poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, Oh, how changed!

His head was bandaged with an old cloth, soiled and stained; his mien was dejected, and his face was swollen and bruised. At sight of me, however, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing forward tried to thrust his hands through the bars of the grating to grasp mine. "Lord, G.o.d!" he exclaimed. "If it ain't de Captain. Glory be to G.o.d! Ma.r.s.e Hen, I knowed you'd come, if you jes' heard 'bout me. Git me out of dis, fur de Lord's sake. Dis is de wuss place I ever has been in in my life. Dey done beat me up and put handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling me in de patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, and put me through the third degree, till I thought if de Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be gone for sho. Can't you git me out o' dis right away?"

I explained the impossibility of doing this immediately, but a.s.sured him that he would soon be gotten out and that I would look after his case and see that he got justice.

"Yes, sir, that is what I want--jestice--I don't ax nothin' but jestice."

"How did you get here?" I demanded. And even in his misery, I could not help being amused to see his countenance fall.

"Dey fetched me here in de patrol-wagon," he said evasively.

"I know that. I mean, for what?"

"Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly an' drunk, but you know I don' drink nothin'."

"I know you do, you fool," I said, with some exasperation. "I have no doubt you were what they say, but what I mean is, where is Dix and how did you get hold of him?"

"Well, you see, Ma.r.s.e Hen, it's dthis way," said Jeams falteringly. "I come here huntin' fur you and I couldn' fin' you anywheres, so then I got a place, and while I wus lookin' 'roun' fur you one day, I come 'pon Dix, an' as he wus lost, jes' like you wus, an' he didn't know where you wus, an' you didn't know where he wus, I tuk him along to tek care of him till I could fin' you."

"And incidentally to fight him?" I said.

Again Jeams's countenance fell. "No, sir, that I didn't," he declared stoutly. "Does you think I'd fight dthat dog after what you tol' me?"

"Yes, I do. I know you did, so stop lying about it and tell me where he is, or I will leave you in here to rot till they send you down to the rockpile or the penitentiary."

"Yes, sir; yes, sir, I will. Fur G.o.d's sake, don' do dat, Ma.r.s.e Hen.

Jes' git me out o' here an' I will tell you everything; but I'll swear I didn't fight him; he jes' got into a fight so, and then jist as he hed licked de stuffin out of dat Barkeep Gallagin's dog, them d----d policemen come in an' hammered me over the head because I didn't want them to rake in de skads and tek Dix 'way from me."

I could not help laughing at his contradictions.

"Well, where is he now?"

"I'll swear, Ma.r.s.e Hen, I don' know. You ax the police. I jes' know he ain't in here, but dey knows where he is. I prays night and day no harm won't happen to him, because dat dog can beat any dog in this sinful town. I jes' wish you had seen him."