XVIII
It had taken George some considerable time to establish connection with the Waddington home at Hempstead; but he had done it at last, only to be informed that Molly did not appear to be on the premises. She had driven up in her two-seater, a Swedish voice gave him to understand, but after remaining in the house a short while had driven off again.
“Fine!” said George, as his informant was beginning to relapse into her native tongue.
A yeasty feeling of pleasure and goodwill towards his species filled him as he hung up the receiver. If Molly had started back to New York, he might expect to see her at any moment now. His heart swelled: and the fact that he was in the unfortunate position of being a fugitive from justice and the additional fact that the bloodhound of the Law most interested in his movements was probably somewhere very close at hand entirely escaped him. Abandoning the caution which should have been the first thought of one situated as he was, he burst into jovial song.
“Hey, Pinch!”
George, who had been climbing towards a high note, came back to earth again, chilled and apprehensive. His first impulse was to dash for his bedroom and hide under the bed—a thing which he knew himself to be good at. Then his intelligence asserted itself and panic waned. Only one man of his acquaintance could have addressed him as “Hey, Pinch!”
“Is that Mr. Waddington?” he murmured, opening the door of the sitting-room and peering in.
“Sure it’s Mr. Waddington.” The reek of a lively young cigar assailed George’s nostrils. “Don’t you have any lights in this joint?”
“Are there any policemen about?” asked George in a conspiratorial undertone.
“There’s one policeman down in young Beamish’s apartment,” replied Mr. Waddington with a fruity chuckle. “He’s just sold me all his holdings in the Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal., for three hundred smackers: and I’ve come here to celebrate. Set up the drinks,” said Mr. Waddington, who was plainly in as festive a mood as a man can be without actually breaking up the furniture.
George switched on the light. If the enemy was in as distant a spot as Hamilton Beamish’s apartment, prudence might be relaxed.
“ ’At’s right,” said Mr. Waddington, welcoming the illumination. He was leaning against a bookshelf with his hat on the back of his head and a cigar between his lips. His eyes were sparkling with an almost human intelligence. “I’ve got a smart business head, Pinch,” he said, shooting the cigar from due east to due west with a single movement of his upper lip. “I’m the guy with the big brain.”
Although all the data which he had been able to accumulate in the course of their acquaintanceship went directly to prove the opposite, George was not inclined to combat the statement. He had weightier matters to occupy him than an academic discussion of the mentality of this poor fish.
“I found that girl,” he said.
“What girl?”
“The girl who stole the necklace. And I’ve got the necklace.”
He had selected a subject that gripped. Mr. Waddington ceased to contemplate the smartness of his business head and became interested. His eyes widened, and he blew out a puff of poison-gas.
“You don’t say!”
“Here it is.”
“Gimme!” said Mr. Waddington.
George dangled the necklace undecidedly.
“I think I ought to hand it over to Molly.”
“You’ll hand it over to me,” said Mr. Waddington with decision. “I’m the head of the family, and from now on I act as such. Too long, Pinch, have I allowed myself to be trampled beneath the iron heel and generally kicked in the face with spiked shoes, if you get my meaning. I now assert myself. Starting from today and onward through the years till my friends and relatives gather about my bier and whisper, ‘Doesn’t he look peaceful,’ what I say goes. Give me that necklace. I intend to have it reset or something. Either that, or I shall sell it and give Molly the proceeds. In any case, and be that as it may, gimme that necklace!”
George gave it to him. There was a strange new atmosphere of authority about Sigsbee H. tonight that made one give him things when he asked for them. He had the air of a man whom somebody has been feeding meat.
“Pinch,” said Mr. Waddington.
“Finch,” said George.
“George,” said a voice at the window, speaking with a startling abruptness which caused Mr. Waddington to jerk his cigar into his eye.
A wave of emotion poured over George.
“Molly! Is that you?”
“Yes, darling. Here I am.”
“How quick you’ve been.”
“I hurried.”
“Though it seems hours since you went away.”
“Does it really, precious?”
Mr. Waddington was still shaken.
“If I had been told that any daughter of mine would come and bark at me from behind like that,” he said querulously, “I would not have believed it.”
“Oh, father! There you are. I didn’t see you.”
“There,” said Mr. Waddington, “is right. You nearly scared the top of my head off.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Too late to be sorry now,” said Mr. Waddington moodily. “You’ve gone and spoiled the best ten-cent cigar in Hempstead.”
He eyed the remains sadly: and, throwing them away, selected another from his upper waistcoat-pocket and bit the end off.
“Molly, my angel,” said George vibrantly, “fancy you really being with me once more!”
“Yes, Georgie, darling. And what I wanted to say was, I believe there’s somebody in your sleeping-porch.”
“What!”
“I’m sure I heard voices.”
Come right down to it, and there is no instinct so deeply rooted in the nature of Man as the respect for property—his own property, that is to say. And just as the mildest dog will tackle bloodhounds in defence of its own backyard, so will the veriest of human worms turn if attacked in his capacity of householder. The news that there was somebody in his sleeping-porch caused George to seethe with pique and indignation. It seemed to him that the entire population of New York had come to look on his sleeping-porch as a public resort. No sooner had
