Young Wallingford Part 20

Blandly Wallingford produced the telegram he had received that morning.

"This wire," he condescendingly explained, "is from the National Clockers' a.s.sociation of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts, United States of America, who are charitable enough to pa.s.s out long-shot winners, at the mere bag-o'-sh.e.l.ls service-price of five dollars per day or twenty per week."

They looked from the magic word "Razzoo" to the smiling face of J.

Rufus more in sorrow than in anger.

"And they happened to hand you a winner!" said the cadaverous Mr.

Teller, folding the telegram dexterously with the long, lean fingers of one hand, and pa.s.sing it back as if he hated to see it.

"Winner is right," agreed J. Rufus. "I couldn't pick 'em any other way, and I took a chance on this game because it's just as good a system as going to a clairvoyant or running the cards."

There was a short laugh from the raw-boned Mr. Pickins.

"I don't suppose they'll ever do it again," he observed, "but I feel almost like taking a chance on it myself."

"Go to it," advised J. Rufus heartily. "Go to it, and come home with something substantial in your pocket, like this," and most brazenly, even in the face of what he knew of them, young Wallingford flaunted before their very eyes an a.s.sorted package of orange-colored bank-bills, well calculated to excite discord in this company. "Lovely little package of doc.u.ments," he said banteringly; "and I suppose you burglars are already figuring how you can chisel it away from me."

They smiled wanly, and the smile of Larry Teller showed his teeth.

"No man ever pets a hornet but once," said Billy, the only one st.u.r.dy enough to voice his discomfiture.

Wallingford beamed over this tribute to his prowess.

"Well, you get a split of it, anyhow," he offered. "I'll take you all to dinner, then afterward we'll have a little game of stud poker if you like--with police interference barred."

They were about to decline this kind invitation when Short-Card Larry turned suddenly to him, with a gleam of the teeth which was almost a snarl.

"We'll take you," he said. "Just a little friendly game for small stakes."

J. Rufus elevated his eyebrows a trifle, but smiled. Inwardly he felt perfectly competent to protect himself.

"Fine business," he a.s.sented. "Suppose we have dinner in my rooms. I'm beginning to get them educated at my hotel."

At the hotel he stopped for a moment at the curb to give his chauffeur some instructions, while the other four awaited him on the steps.

"How'd you come to fall for this stud game, Larry?" inquired Phelps.

"I can't see poker merely for health, and this w.i.l.l.y Wisdom won't call any raise of over two dollars when he's playing with us."

"I know he won't," snapped Larry, setting his jaws savagely, "but we're going to get his money just the same. Billy, you break away and run down to Joe's drug-store for the K.O."

They all grinned, with the light of admiration dawning in their eyes for Larry Teller. "K.O." was cipher for "knock-out drops," a pleasant little decoction guaranteed to put a victim into fathomless slumber, but not to kill him if his heart was right.

"How long will it be until dinner's ready, Wallingford?" asked Billy, looking at his watch as J. Rufus came up.

"Oh, about an hour, I suppose."

"Good," said Billy. "I'll just have time. I have to go get some money that a fellow promised me, and if I don't see him to-night I may not see him at all. Besides, I'll probably need it if you play your usual game."

"Nothing doing," replied Wallingford. "I only want to yammer you fellows out of a hundred apiece, and the game will be as quiet as a peddler's pup."

J. Rufus conducted the others into the sitting-room of his suite and sent for a waiter. There was never any point lacking in Wallingford's hospitality, and by the time Billy came back he was ready to serve them a dinner that was worth discussing. The dinner despatched, he had the table cleared and brought out cards and chips. It was a quiet, comfortable game for nearly an hour, with very mild betting and plenty to drink. It was during the fifth bottle of wine, dating from the beginning of the dinner, that Short-Card Larry, by a dexterous accident, pitched Wallingford's stack of chips on the floor with a toss of the deck. Amid the profuse apologies of Larry, Mr. Phelps, who was at Wallingford's left, stooped down to help that gentleman pick up his chips, and in that moment Badger Billy quietly emptied the colorless contents of a tiny vial in Wallingford's gla.s.s. J. Rufus never was able to remember what happened after that.

Silk pajama clad, but still wearing portions of his day attire, he awoke next day with a headache, and a tongue that felt like a shredded-wheat biscuit. He held his head very level to keep the leaden weight in the top of it from sliding around and b.u.mping his skull, and opened the swollen slits that did him painful duty for eyelids wide enough to let him find the telephone, through which instrument he ordered a silver-fizz. Of the butler who brought it he asked what time it was.

"One o'clock, sir," replied the butler with the utmost gravity.

One o'clock! J. Rufus pondered the matter slowly.

"Morning or afternoon," he huskily asked.

"Afternoon, sir," and this time the butler permitted himself the slightest trace of a smile as he noted the electric lights, still blazing in sickly defiance of the bright suns.h.i.+ne which crept in around the edges of the double blinds.

"Huh!" grunted J. Rufus, and pondered more.

Half dozing, he stood, gla.s.s in hand, for full five minutes, while the butler, with a lively appreciation of tips past and to come, stood patiently holding his little silver tray, with check and pencil waiting for the signature. At the expiration of that time, however, the butler coughed once, gently; once, normally; the third time very loudly. These means failing, he dropped the tray clattering to the floor, and with a cheerful "Beg your pardon, sir," picked it up. Not knowing that he had been asleep again, Wallingford took a sip of the refres.h.i.+ng drink and walked across to a garment which lay upon the chair, feeling through the pockets one after the other. In one pocket there was a little silver, but in the others nothing. He gave a coin to the butler and signed the check in deep thoughtfulness, then sat down heavily and dozed another fifteen minutes. Awakening, he found the gla.s.s at his hand on the serving-bench, and drank about a fourth of the contents very slowly.

"Spiked!" he groaned aloud.

He had good reason to believe that his wine had been "doctored," for never before had anything he drank affected him like this. Another glance at the garment of barren pockets reminded him to look about for the coat and vest he had worn the night before. They were not visible in his bedroom, and, still carrying the gla.s.s of life-saving mixture with him, he made his way into his sitting-room and surveyed the wreck. On the table was a confusion of cards and chips, and around its edge stood five champagne gla.s.ses, two of them empty, two half full, one full. Against the wall stood a row of four empty quart bottles. In an ice pail, filled now with but tepid water, there reposed a fifth bottle, neck downward. Five chairs were grouped unevenly about the table, one of them overturned and the others left at random where they had been pushed back. The lights here, also, were still burning.

Heaped on a chair in the corner were the coat and vest he sought, and he went through their pockets methodically, reaching first for his wallet. It was perfectly clean inside. In one of the vest-pockets he found a soiled, very much crumpled two-dollar bill, and the first stiff smile of his waking stretched his lips.

"I wonder how they overlooked this?" he questioned.

Again his eyes turned musingly to those five empty bottles, and again the conviction was borne in upon him that the wine had been drugged.

Under no circ.u.mstances could his share, even an unequal share, of five bottles of champagne among five persons have worked this havoc in him.

"Spiked," he concluded again in a tone of resignation. "At last they got to me."

The silver-fizz was flat now, but every sip of it was nevertheless full of reviving grace, and he sat in the big leather rocker to think things over. As he did so his eye caught something that made him start from his chair so suddenly that he had to put both hands to his head.

Under the table was a bit of light orange paper. A fifty-dollar bill!

In that moment--that is, after he had painfully stooped down to get it and had smoothed it out to a.s.sure himself that it was real--this beautifully printed government certificate looked to him about the size of a piano cover. An instant before, disaster had stared him in the face. This was but Thursday morning, and, having paid his hotel bill on Monday, he had the balance of the week to go on; but for that week he would have been chained to this hotel. Now he was foot-loose, now he was free, and his first thought was of his only possible resource, Blackie Daw, in Boston!

It took two hours of severe labor on the part of a valet, two bell-boys and a barber to turn the Wallingford wreck into his usual well-groomed self, but the hour of sailing saw him somnolently, but safely ensconced on a Boston packet.

CHAPTER XV

THE BROADWAY QUARTET CONTINUES TO TAKE WALLINGFORD'S MONEY

Blackie Daw's most recent Boston address had been: "Yellow Streak Mining Company, Seven Hundred and Ten Marabon Building," and yet when J. Rufus paused before number seven hundred and ten of that building he found its gla.s.s door painted with the sign of the National Clockers' a.s.sociation. Worried by the fact that Blackie had moved, yet struck by the peculiar coincidence of his place being occupied by the concern that had given him the tip on Razzoo, he walked into the office to inquire the whereabouts of his friend. He found three girls at a long table, slitting open huge piles of envelopes and removing from them money, postal orders and checks--mostly money, for the sort of people who patronized the National Clockers' a.s.sociation were quite willing to "take a chance" on a five- or a twenty-dollar bill in the mails. Behind a newspaper, in a big leather chair near a flat-top mahogany desk, with his feet conveniently elevated on the waste-basket, sat a gentleman who, when he moved the paper aside to see whom his visitor might be, proved to be Blackie Daw himself.

"h.e.l.lo, none other than the friend of me childhood!" exclaimed Blackie, springing to his feet and extending his hand. "What brings you here?"