I looked across at him as he sat, plump and rosy and complacent, puffing at his cigarette, and my heart warmed to the old ruffian. It was impossible to maintain an attitude of righteous iciness with him. I might loathe his mode of life, and hate him as a representative—and a leading representative—of one of the most contemptible trades on earth, but there was a sunny charm about the man himself which made it hard to feel hostile to him as an individual.
I closed my book with a bang and burst out laughing.
“You’re a wonder!” I said.
He beamed at what he took to be evidence that I was coming round to the friendly and sensible view of the matter.
“Then you think, on consideration—” he said. “Excellent! Now, my dear young man, all joking aside, you will take me with you to that address, will you not? You observe that I do not ask you to give it to me. Let there be not so much as the faintest odour of the double-cross about this business. All I ask is that you allow me to accompany you to where the Nugget is hidden, and then rely on my wider experience of this sort of game to get him safely away and open negotiations with the dad.”
“I suppose your experience has been wide?” I said.
“Quite tolerably—quite tolerably.”
“Doesn’t it ever worry you the anxiety and misery you cause?”
“Purely temporary, both. And then, look at it in another way. Think of the joy and relief of the bereaved parents when sonny comes toddling home again! Surely it is worth some temporary distress to taste that supreme happiness? In a sense, you might call me a human benefactor. I teach parents to appreciate their children. You know what parents are. Father gets caught short in steel rails one morning. When he reaches home, what does he do? He eases his mind by snapping at little Willie. Mrs. Van First-Family forgets to invite mother to her freak-dinner. What happens? Mother takes it out of William. They love him, maybe, but they are too used to him. They do not realize all he is to them. And then, one afternoon, he disappears. The agony! The remorse! ‘How could I ever have told our lost angel to stop his darned noise!’ moans father. ‘I struck him!’ sobs mother. ‘With this jewelled hand I spanked our vanished darling!’ ‘We were not worthy to have him,’ they wail together. ‘But oh, if we could but get him back!’ Well they do. They get him back as soon as ever they care to come across in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. And after that they think twice before working off their grouches on the poor kid. So I bring universal happiness into the home. I don’t say father doesn’t get a twinge every now and then when he catches sight of the hole in his bank balance, but, darn it, what’s money for if it’s not to spend?”
He snorted with altruistic fervour.
“What makes you so set on kidnapping Ogden Ford?” I asked. “I know he is valuable, but you must have made your pile by this time. I gather that you have been practising your particular brand of philanthropy for a good many years. Why don’t you retire?”
He sighed.
“It is the dream of my life to retire, young man. You may not believe me, but my instincts are thoroughly domestic. When I have the leisure to weave daydreams, they centre around a cosy little home with a nice porch and stationary washtubs.”
He regarded me closely, as if to decide whether I was worthy of these confidences. There was something wistful in his brown eyes. I suppose the inspection must have been favourable, or he was in a mood when a man must unbosom himself to someone, for he proceeded to open his heart to me. A man in his particular line of business, I imagine, finds few confidants, and the strain probably becomes intolerable at times.
“Have you ever experienced the love of a good woman, sonny? It’s a wonderful thing.” He brooded sentimentally for a moment, then continued, and—to my mind—somewhat spoiled the impressiveness of his opening words. “The love of a good woman,” he said, “is about the darnedest wonderful layout that ever came down the pike. I know. I’ve had some.”
A spark from his cigarette fell on his hand. He swore a startled oath.
“We came from the same old town,” he resumed, having recovered from this interlude. “Used to be kids at the same school … Walked to school together … me carrying her luncheon-basket and helping her over the fences … Ah! … Just the same when we grew up. Still pals. And that was twenty years ago … The arrangement was that I should go out and make the money to buy the home, and then come back and marry her.”
“Then why the devil haven’t you done it?” I said severely.
He shook his head.
“If you know anything about crooks, young man,” he said, “you’ll know that outside of their own line they are the easiest marks that ever happened. They fall for anything. At least, it’s always been that way with me. No sooner did I get together a sort of pile and start out for the old town, when some smooth stranger would come along and steer me up against some skin-game, and back I’d have to go to work. That happened a few times, and when I did manage at last to get home with the dough I found she had married another guy. It’s hard on women, you see,” he explained chivalrously. “They get lonesome and Roving Rupert doesn’t show up, so they have to marry Stay-at-Home Henry just to keep from getting the horrors.”
“So she’s Mrs. Stay-at-Home Henry now?” I
