WHEN THIEF MEETS THIEF

CHAPTER I

YOUNG LOVE AND A SKULL

MY name is Jerry Hammond. J. Hammond, yeggman in the vernacular of gangsterdom and the underworld, safe-cracker in everyday English. Also gentleman and take that last or leave it! So now Im placed in the general scheme of things. Yeggman, boxman, peterman, ironworker, blaster there are more names for the racket that has kept wrinkles out of the lining of my interior for a good eight years than there are fleas on a cats ear when hes being dipped to his whiskers in insecticide. I know how to cook dynamite in a pail of hot water over a one-hole gas burner, and take off from the bottom a half-ounce of pure nitro-glycerine, known among us users of the stuff as soup. Or how to crumble the dynamite into wood-alcohol and bring the nitro-glycerine out and straight to the top! with cold distilled water. I know how to drill into an ordinary fire-proof safe and lay my nitro-glycerine, fused and timed, all ready for the touch-off that will bring the door away. I know how to get to the inside of a chilled-steel receptacle with no more noise than a cockroach, drunk after emerging from an uncorked gin-bottle in a garbage can, would make as he sneaked back to Mrs. C., waiting up to biff him on the beezer for leaving her to mind the youngsters while he went skyhooting. I can saw past the bolts of any cast-iron contraption, using two saws at the same time, one in each mitt. Or I can blowpipe an entry to an armourplated vault, and leave any driller, whos had no more sense than to try and blow it open, to scuttle off faster than a hold-up man at the wheel of a sports Dusenberg, when he hears the radio outfit on it squawking Calling all cars!A lone wolf, me for I have never worked with a gang, though I could have been top dog in more than one crowd where brains count. Also, I have never been caught at the game, and consequently have never been up before any hard-hearted Horatio on the bench. Theres not a line of pedigree, as the crooks call police record, against me in any detective bureau in America. Further to that, in all the jobs I have pulled off I have never carried a gun, except for a wooden one with which to put fear into any chance onlooker at my operations. In fact, a famous old safe-cracker who knew me well used to call me Wooden Gun. My point of view was that if the wooden gun couldnt get me out of a jam, Id sooner put up my hands and take a sentence than rob some woman of her man, and a pack of kids of their living.But, as I said, I have never had to put up my hands, and that for many reasons. The old wooden gun pulled me out of a few scrapes, but the main reason, now I come to weigh things up, I put down as imported French rubber gloves, thin and supple as the skin of a new-born child, yet you couldnt chop the finger off one with an ordinary axe, nor rub the finger-tip through on a pad of sandpaper. Yes, I think I must put that down as the main reason, for it only takes one little finger-print on a piece of nitro-smoked metal to send the safe-cracker up for a long stretch in the penitentiary. And the other reason for my immunity I have always played a lone hand. For it only needs one ally, seeing the job through with you, and then, well-heeled with a wad of notes and full to the back teeth, bragging between hiccups in a saloon within hearing of a Pinkerton detective, to put the minions of the law on the trail of Old-Man-Back-Of-The-Job. And there is still one more reason, which I will explain fully before I start my tale, and which prevented me from ever yearning for a dainty damsel to soothe the old fevered brow and then go passing out all she knows to the nearest district attorney, so that she can be free to freeze on to a new man who can buy her a better fur coat. Im where I am to-day, free, white, and thirty-five, because of these things, and because I have always planned and surveyed every job from three to six months in advance and then, if I so much as suspected a possible let-down over it, Ive ditched it and gone on for something easier. Ive left the big and tough chances alone: better a mere thousand dollars out of an easy job, and a chance to lie up somewhere for a half-year in comfort, than ten thousand out of a tough project, and the whole to pay away to some gangsters lawyer for saving a long spell in Joliet or some other state institution for all of us who buck against society.I am, as may have appeared, strong on the gangster dialect, the language of crookdom, but it happens that I am just as strong on good English perfect English, in fact, at need. My grandmother, who brought me up, was a lady, one of the finest ladies I have ever known, in fact. She had me well educated by her own efforts, put all her earnings into assuring that I should be fitted to face the world and take an honourable place in it, and, by means of a paltry inheritance which fell to her, she put me part way through college, intending that I should graduate as a dental surgeon. But the money gave out a year and a half before I was due to take my diploma: grandmother died, too, in the summer of 29, and I squeezed one more term out of the sale of her effects. Then came the great financial panic, with the world going dizzy but there is no need for me to recapitulate all that ancient history. What I am trying to put over is that when all was over, Jerry Hammond, D.D.S., with white starched coat and drills complete, became, as you might say, a user of other kinds of drills.And now I have to explain how it was that, in addition to being a lone wolf in my vocation, never once did I look at the damsels who might have played havoc with my affections and probably helped to send me up for one of the long terms that often come of friendships or alliances with them. For all that belongs to my college days.Good days they were, too. My especial chum was a lanky, solemn-looking divinity student named Phil Dottworth, who used to be a leading figure in all theatricals that were got up, and one of the best hands at make-up who ever mistook his profession though, for that matter, he may have become quite a good parson after his ordination. It was Phil who managed to get a gaudy pair of pyjama trousers hauled up the flagstaff on the parade ground and broken out to fly in the breeze in place of Old Glory on a certain important occasion, and he, too, who managed to smuggle a prairie owl into the professorial desk just before old Professor Hoyte was due to begin his lecture. The owl broke the professors spectacles when he opened the desk, and we got no lecture from him that morning. These are two instances which go to prove that Phil was not as solemn as he looked, by a long way.Phil and I and another half-dozen students made a clique, into which came some six or seven girls, including old Professor Hoytes daughter Elsie, whom nobody knew by that name, since she was always called Princess. The rags we organized would fill a book, and, as far as the girls were concerned, Princess was easily the leader, and easily the most admired. Justly so, for she was the sweetest and loveliest and well, I think we all loved her. Healthy, happy boys and girls we were, old enough to realize love as something big and serious, and young enough to be a little reverent over it. Hard up, every one of us, but not less cheery for that, and I can look back on the times Phil and I and the Princess spent together as some of the happiest I have ever known, and the happiest and proudest day of them all was the one in which Princess owned that she cared for me as much as I cared for her.What could come of our young love we did not know I doubt if we thought much about it, being just happy together. If I thought of it, probably my mind ran on a decent practice somewhere after I had got my diploma, and a little home with my Princess beside me, but I think we were more concerned with present happiness than future possibilities. She and I paired in all the parties and rags that our little clique organized, and all went well until my last term was half-way through, when I realized that, still a year and a half short of getting the diploma and turning out as a fully-fledged dental surgeon, I had to give it all up and trust to a vague and most unpromising future to bring me and my Princess together again.Our problem was badly complicated by the Princesss mother, a semi-invalid with social aspirations, who did all she could to separate us two and throw my Princess at a youngster whom I will call just Wally, son and heir of a big manufacturer out west, and far too superior to belong to our clique of merrymakers. He dressed perfectly, ran a splendid sports Stutz, and did all that he could to ingratiate himself with the Princess, mainly through Mrs. Hoyte, while he sneered at me and my pretensions. One day he sneered too loudly in Phil Dottworths hearing, and Phil hammered hell out of him and so far spoilt his looks that neither Mrs. Hoyte nor the Princess saw anything of him for another month. He was big and consequential, but Phil had speed and skill and was one of the best boxers who ever kept out of the professional ring, and Wally soon found that he had met more than his match. This was in my last term, when the Princess and I knew that a long parting was not far ahead of us, and for that reason we made the most of our time together.Then came my last day of all, and to celebrate it we had a party in Phils rooms, to which, most surprisingly to me, Wally was invited. What was more surprising still, he accepted the invitation, and, so far as could be seen with regard to the scrap they had had, it was a case of forgive and forget on both sides. But I felt sure that Phil had something up his sleeve in giving such an invitation: he was not the sort to put himself to trouble for nothing. The party was his farewell to college, too, for he was due for ordination at the terms end.We were all very merry, although it was an occasion of farewells, and down in my heart I felt far from merry, since I knew that it might be a very long time before I should see my Princess again. She too, I knew, felt it, though we both played up and kept the others from seeing what the parting meant to us both. From time to time Wally eyed her in a way that made me itch to repeat the treatment Phil had handed out to him, but he gave me no chance, keeping well away from me.Mischief or concerted planning I am not sure which it was set Slim Cornish, one of our clique, to guying Phil over his ordination.A fine cleric youll make, you old bean pole, Slim told him. I bet you couldnt bury a man without giving him half the marriage service before you got the coffin out of sight.Theres no subject handy to work on, Phil said, and I couldnt possibly work without a lay figure. That is he looked across at Wally maybe theres a subject I wouldnt mind reading the funeral service over, but he gives no sign of turning his toes up.Well, lets test you out on the marriage service, Slim suggested. Bet you couldnt go through it on a couple without losing yourself.Thats a whiz, Phil said promptly. Get that third book from the end of the top shelf there and turn up the marriage service in it, and if you check me as I go through it from memory Ill bet you five dollars I dont make five mistakes.Bets on, said Slim, and reached down the book. He turned up the marriage service in it. Go ahead, he bade. Ill check you on it.Yeah, but I got to have lay figures, Phil objected. Cant do it on nothing, old hoss. I know! You, Jerry, and the Princess spot of rehearsal for you for when you celebrate the real thing. Come along here and stand up before me get the right side of her, Jerry.We complied, and as I saw Wallys black look at me I wondered if the whole thing were being worked for his benefit, and if, in fact, he had been invited to the party for this very purpose, for all of us knew how he tried to force his attentions on the girl, and how her mother backed him up because his father had more money than he could count. We two stood up before Phil, while Slim Cornish held the book and followed the words of the service, and we made the appropriate responses, both in our hearts wishing that it were no mere rehearsal. Right to the end Phil took it, and he put a punch into the final benediction that marked him as cut out for a parson, for, as I have said, he was a born actor.Thats that, he said after he had finished. How come, Slim?Two errors only, so you win, Slim answered. That is, if you know how to fill in a certificate of marriage.Here, gimme a sheet of paper, Phil ordered, and reached for his fountain-pen. Ill win that five dollars or bust. And he made out the certificate, which he handed to the Princess.Look it over, he bade, and let Slim gaze at it and weep. Its all in order, sound as youd get anywhere five dollars, please, Slim.He pocketed the money and grinned at me. Wally, I saw, was fuming in the background, and the rest of the party looked amused.Pity my ordination hasnt come through yet, Phil said to me. If it had, you two would be so well tied up that only Reno could separate you unless the movie stars have found a place where divorce goes through slicker than under Colorado law. Anyhow boys and girls, let us drink to the happy pair, and give them a drink, too, for standing it so well. You sure made the responses ring true, Jerry.I wish they had been, I said.But youve one more trick to take yet, he pointed out. Its your business to kiss the bride at the end of the job. Hop to it.I needed no second invitation, and my Princesss lips met my own with just as much fervour as if the ceremony had been real And, I noticed, she folded the certificate Phil had given her and put it away in her handbag as a memento, I guessed. But, for me, the memento that counted was her kiss. I can feel it on my lips yet.And the only one that did not drink to us right heartily was Wally, who scowled apart from the rest. I grew more and more convinced that Phil had invited him solely to witness this little play, and had arranged the dialogue that led up to it beforehand, with Slim as his coadjutor. And I knew that in Wallys place I myself would have felt pretty sick over it, as he looked for the rest of the evening.When it was all over, I took the Princess as far as the gateway of her home. It was our parting, we did not know for how long, and she put her arms about my neck with no restraint and looked up at me.I shall always remember, she told me.Darling, if only that to-night had been real! I said.Our day may come, she said hopefully. I know youre going off in bitter disappointment at this break in your career, but I feel sure that some day, somehow, youll win through, and then I shall be waiting. Whatever happens, my Jerry, I shall not forget.And as for me, Princess, I said, no other girl or woman shall take your place as long as we both live. Whatever comes to me, that holds good. Ive given you all my love, and theres none left for any other. If you wait, Ill come back when Ive won through.Old sentiment, I know, but we were both so young, then, that it did not seem old to us. And I left her there by the gate under the stars and went my way, the long way that took me into many strange places and stranger adventures, but never once did I forget that promise to her, nor look at any other woman to love her. Few men can say that of themselves, I know: few are made that way, but of the few I am one.Now, to make the story complete, I must tell what happened to her after I had gone, though it did not come to my knowledge till a long while after till I got to Kamehameha Park in Honolulu, to be exact.For a little while her letters came through to me, rather pitiful letters towards the end, for she never received one of mine. Her mother saw to that: from that sweet ladys point of view, Jerry Hammond was an undesirable, and she wanted to cut her daughter off from him. She succeeded, too, by the help of circumstance.Professor Hoyte, my Princesss father, was a born gambler, though nobody guessed it. To all appearances he was the usual college don, upright and stiff, but with the very devils own temper at times, and a gift for sarcasm that could make any unlucky student whom he made a target squirm helplessly under the lash of his tongue. All to himself, and unknown even to his wife and daughter, he had a taste for plotting curves on squared paper, the said curves representing the rise and fall of various stocks, including quite a few wild-cat propositions. If he had been satisfied with the squared paper and the curves, all would have been well, but he took to making investments on the strength of his curves. He appears to have won a bit at first, and, encouraged by the luck, to have increased his speculations more and more.That, I suppose, is a story that has been told a thousand times and more. It led Professor Hoyte down the hill that so many gamblers have descended, and ended, for him, with a bullet through his brain in his study one winter morning, and the squared papers showing his fatal curves on the desk beside which his body had fallen. He had gambled away every penny, and even gone to a moneylender on the strength of forthcoming salary. Mrs. Hoyte and the Princess were left practically destitute, six months or a bit more after my college career had terminated. I have already said that Mrs. Hoyte was a semi-invalid. Under the shock of her husbands suicide she went all to pieces for a while, and then so far recovered that the Princess was able to look after her. All that while, Wally had never ceased his attentions to the girl: he was on the spot in their trouble, and as far as he could he smoothed the way for the stricken widow and her daughter, never letting himself get far from that daughters sight. She had written to me time and again and won no reply, and, naturally, thought I had forgotten my promise and her too. But, loyal soul that she was, she waited and waited, hoping against hope for some word from me, though, since as shall be told I landed in a South American jail, my letters ceased. She went on hoping until one day Wally took to her a cutting from a San Francisco paper, in which was announced my marriage to an heiress of the Pacific slope, a quarter-column slip which enumerated the celebrities at the wedding, and gave me beyond question as a student of the college at which I had gone through my unfinished training. It was no other than myself, unmistakably, and the Princess had to believe it.I have that cutting to-day. It was never printed in the ordinary way, nor did it appear in any newspaper. Some linotyper set the slugs, and then the quarter-column was pulled as a proof and carefully trimmed to look like a genuine cutting from a paper there is even a rule between it and the supposed adjoining column down one side. I have said that Wally was a rich youth: he was out to get the Princess, and did not care what means he used to that end.And so he won. His money meant comfort for the ailing mother, and her persuasions were added to his. My Princess married him, rather more than two years after she and I had said good-bye at the gate under the stars, that night of our marriage by Phil Dottworth. I could not blame her over it: as far as she knew, I had forgotten all about her; she was next to penniless, and her mother a suffering woman who needed the care and luxury that only money can provide. She did what she thought best, but I know that in her heart she never forgot.Now mark how old lady Fate takes a hand in things sometimes, and maybe hands out what people deserve for their trickery. Wally and the Princess were married, gorgeously, and set off on their wedding trip. They went from the ceremony straight through to San Francisco by car, there to board a cruising steamer due to make the trip through the Panama Canal and run around among the West Indies. Going up the gangplank to the steamer, Wally slipped, missed his footing and hold altogether, and made a drop of about thirty feet on to the hard concrete of the quayside, for the tide was at the full and the ship riding high. He was picked up and taken to hospital, and thence to a swell nursing home, with a damaged spine the wedding trip was off, and for good, as it turned out. He left that nursing home, nine months later, on a wheeled carriage, a helpless, querulous log of a man to whom the Princess was tied for life; no husband, but a subject for nursing, from then on to the day of his death. I, knowing all, do not pity him.She played up nobly, kept patience with him, nursed and tended him, and even took charge of business affairs for him at need. Having made her bed, she lay on it uncomplainingly, and, after her mothers death, gave up herself to caring for him. Women do these things far more often than men: the average man, in such a position, would lose patience after a few months and run off with some other woman, but a woman seizes such a chance to prove the angel in herself, as did the Princess my Princess, as I still thought her, for I knew nothing of these things then. Fate was so to twist things as to give me the knowledge, long later, but all I knew then was that her letters had ceased. Being beyond reach of newspapers that would give local affairs of her home town, I did not even know of the professors suicide or of her marriage for a long while, though news of the latter event reached me before I had finished with the series of adventures that befell me in Central and South America, in those little republics that sit like flies on a ceiling between Mexico and Columbia the republic of Columbia, that is.Well, that is the story of the Princess, the story of my first and only love affair, which kept me lone wolf all through the years between that mock marriage by Phil Dottworth and the end of my campaign against Tillary Steevens but Whoa! Im getting ahead of myself. There is much to tell, including the why and how of my going to Honolulu in a curious way, and on a curious errand. The way was one by which I could save at least half of a certain hundred and fifty dollars round-trip passage money entrusted to me by a man in Chicago, since I was flat broke and needed it. And the errand being a confidential one for the donor of this magnificent largess. No less, in fact, than Tillary Steevens, recognized for years as one of the foremost mystery-story writers in America if not the foremost. For, to be sure, I know Tillary Steevens. I knew him, moreover, ever since I was thirteen, and he about the same age though I must put in here that our acquaintance languished during my college days, and in fact until I returned from Pueblo San Diego and bade farewell for ever to mestizo statesmen, the breed of fleas they disseminate, the possibility of becoming His Excellency the President, and Senorita Carmen de Alvarado. All these I bade good-bye without a tear, and returned to embark on that remarkable affair in which Tillary Steevens figured, together with a skull and jawbone! Wherefore I went to Honolulu.He lived in a house that I know well, since I have visited it more than once, and studied it with a discerning and interested eye. 363, Fullerton Parkway, was the address, and there Steevens lived with one man-of-all-work has lived, till lately. It is a grand old-time mansion with curved window-panes, and curving stone balustrades down high front steps of black marble. There is a pool and billiard-room on the top floor, a chandelier with a million pendent crystals in the high-ceilinged main reception-room, and a dirt-floored basement devoted to Steevens particular fool hobby mushroom-growing! And Steevens himself who has not seen his portrait in the newspapers? Pointed brown beard in fact, he told me once in conversation that he was emulating a certain D. H. Lawrence, and I knew that, like Lawrence, he was covering up a pitifully weak chin that had marked him as an abnormality, even as Lawrences marked him, from boyhood onward. His moustache was of the same colour as the beard, and he wore a red-framed monocle in his eye, with a black ribbon nearly a foot wide pendant from it. Add to these personal possessions a velvet jacket, flowing black tie, and, when he appeared among his fellow-men, a wide-brimmed grey velour hat and a cane big enough for use in stunning an elephant, by the look of it.My errand for Tillary Steevens in Honolulu the errand which eventually made the big change in my life was confidential damned confidential, in fact. For it was to get hold of and bring back a skull. Rather, a skull plus lower jaw, to state the case fully. It was, moreover, a sconce with a strange history, for it had been owned worn, I ought to say some thirty or forty years ago by an English Shakespearean actor, who died insane and also penniless with the delusion that he himself was Hamlet. Psychiatrists, I believe, can explain a delusion of this sort. The man had played the part so many times that he had lived himself into it, and the woes and eccentricities of the Prince of Denmark, so far as his mentality was concerned, became his own. And past question he was insane on this point long before the fact was recognized; it was, in most ways, a perfectly harmless delusion, and the business of certifying a man as insane is complicated and difficult, while, since a certain decision in the courts, doctors are very reluctant to become parties to the procedure, for fear of damages being subsequently claimed by relatives of the supposedly insane but possibly sane man. Beyond doubt this actor, Sylvanus Axton by name, was insane long before he was certified, and, to himself, was Hamlet and no other.His will had been drawn up and signed by him in good legal form before he was certified, and therefore it was not contested, although it contained a number of, to say the least of them, doubtful propositions. One clause demanded that his heart should be removed from his body after his death, enclosed in a silver casket, and buried with fitting ceremonies at Elsinore, but I believe the executors ruled this out on the ground that it would involve difficulties with a foreign state. Another clause declared that the skull of myself, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark shall bring great luck to each and every one of its succeeding possessors and called for immediate preparation in a London medical college, in the natural form as it would have been uncovered by the two grave-diggers, and its shipment then to the Theatre League of Chicago for incorporation in their new Museum of Drama. Chicago, it seems, had always liked Axton tremendously more so, even, than his home city London had; and had always turned out for him. And so, in the days when Axtons mind was breaking up, it was to Chicago that it turned as a recipient of his own skull or Hamlets skull whichever way one wants to put it! Anyway, the sconce and jaw were sent in due course to the Theatre League of Chicago the Theatre League finally blew up all the things in its museum were sold the sconce and jaw reached a curio agent and then, in turn, became the property of a man on Tillary Steevenss own street, who subsequently treasured them like hell because they really did seem to bring him good luck. And Tillary loved luck; in fact he loved anything treasured by anybody else; and there came not long ago the day when Tillary not only coveted the skull rather, skull and jawbone but needed them. But of that, more anon as the scribblers say.A queer proposition, Jerry Hammond doing a confidential errand for the famous Tillary Steevens!For Jerry Hammond is a thief.But a straight-from-the-shoulder thief who takes his liberty and his life in his hands on any kind of a thieving job.While Tillary Steevens is also a thief! A thief who has stolen every one of the twenty-six successful mystery novels that have been published under his name in the last eleven years to date. Stolen them bag and baggage from a man who has been dead now for thirty years. A man whom I knew or at least knew a lot about. And because every novel Tillary Steevens has had published has been stolen then all the rich perquisites that have come out of each book are therefore stolen too: the screen sales the dozen different foreign translation rights the British sales the radio-broadcast rights the newspaper syndications all the huge side money that goes into the purse of a smug, respectable, so-called novelist living on a smug, respectable boulevard in a smug, would-be-respected city.And the curious thing about Tillary Steevens and his great theft the greatest theft of its kind, probably, in all the history of larceny! is that the man who penned all those fine books Steevens is publishing to-day, very slightly doctored to fit present-day conditions, left me in the long, long ago his entire estate. An estate which, unfortunately, amounted to but $8 cash and a Bible!So it seems that Tillary is robbing me! I should be proud, perhaps, to be able to say that Tillary Steevens, with such literary carpentryship talents as he evidently has, is my friend. Whereas, strangely, the only man after whose name I can tack the words Real Friend is describable only by the words ignorant, uncouth, illiterate Negro. In short, one Laughing Sam from Alabam! Though Laughing Sam knew little of Alabama, since he was brought from there, by his mammy, to Georgia or some such place when he was only five.And I call Laughing Sam friend supreme because he saved me from a South American gallows. By a double risking of his life and not a single risking. He saved me from strangling to death, on the end of a hempen rope, in a dark execution chamber below water-level. And for an offence that I never committed and which those who hoped to hang me know, even to-day, that I never committed.And so it was to Laughing Sam that I went when the day came on which I desired to get the goods on Tillary Steevens. And show him up before the world as the whited sepulchre, the hypocritical buzzard, the contemptible thief, that he is. And show the world exactly how he stole all his but perhaps I should first state how and where I met Laughing Sam from Alabam before I present the case, and cite the proofs, that Tillary Steevens is the worlds worst Literary Fraud bar none.And so Ill begin with Laughing Sam!

CHAPTER II

LAUGHING SAM FROM ALABAM!

WHEN I first met Laughing Sam from Alabam he wasnt any Laughing Sam! He was a crying, moaning, sobbing Sam. Bawling, actually screaming in pain.And I was a prisoner. Being locked up incommunicado. Incommunicado plus! And destined, though heaven knows I didnt even guess it at the moment to hang.And to live, before that hanging, for many weary months, in a stone cell some 20 feet square, partly below the surface of a deep river flowing outside, in a South American calaboose. My only companions an American Negro from El Paso and parts about. And a safe-blower the cleverest, Ive since heard, who ever plied the trade from South Africa. Whereabouts in South America this took place doesnt matter. It could have no bearing on my situation here to-night, ten long years after. And Im not forgetting, either, that those human tigers, even after these ten long years, probably have some of their phoney devilish papers by which to extradite me: to shut my mouth; and, if they should extradite me, I might have to pay out money which I havent got! to fight it; and, if I lost, I would have to take the same noose that, ten years ago, I slipped out from under. And it all has nothing to do to-day with any of to-days happenings outside of but the simple fact that there I met the best and finest and truest friend a white man ever had Laughing Sam. Who was to become, in due course, my right bower in getting the goods on Tillary Steevens!And so as the big iron-grill door of that damned underground lock-up clanged behind me that fateful day, and I stood, ill at ease, gazing about the high stone walls of that cell dripping here and there, on the side where the river flowed not a stick of furniture in it except the three straw-stuffed pallets of coarse burlap the high-barred 18-inch-square window through which a shaft of sunlight fell in a square upon the cement floor, I didnt see Cape Town Slim at first. For Slim sat as he ever sat, arms folded, knees drawn up, against the right-hand wall and ever that supercilious, scornful look on his lips. I saw only Sam. Clad in faded cast-off overalls, frayed at the cuffs, tattered at trouser-ends. About twenty-one years or so in age. Rocking back and forth upon his own straw-stuffed pallet.Oh God, mah teef, he was wailing; Ah dyin by inches God, please, deah good kin God, hep me to die Ah jes caint stand de pain it eatin out mah brains, dat whut it is. Please, deah God strike me daid Ah caint stand it. Ah caint, Ah caint!Then only did I see Slim. Handsome. Well built, Grey eyes. Cosmopolitan and gentleman if ever there was one. Looked forty-three. And wearing a once fine tweed English lounge suit now going here and there into tatters.Welcome, stranger, he said in a dry voice. For if I know this goddamn joint any youll be here a long time. Weve all been! Slims my name Cape Town Slim safe-cracker I give you the lowdown since theyve got the goods on me. The dinge yonder is an American dinge Laughing Sam from Alabam. Whats your name, buddy?And I told him. Truthfully. Jerry Hammond. From U.S.A. Many places. Wanderer with many near-trades but all legitimate. As they were them.Sit down, he bade me. And for Gods sake, Dinge, pipe down. You gotta stand it. You or mell go barmy and Ill have to slough you out in another minute. My nerves are cracking.I was seated on the floor close to Slim within a few minutes.Ill jolly well wager, he inquired, that you dont even know what youre in for? Yes? No?God, no! I said. I only came to this city a couple of days ago. This morning a pack of these dago police came to the door of my hotel room made a lot of accusations in poor English that Id forged a cheque and then requested that I write my name for em on the bottom of a sheet of blank paper; part of em then went away and the rest up and lugged me off here.What for, buddy, did you come to such a godamned banana republic as this?Well, I told him, Im everything but a full-fledged dental surgeon. Dentist, you know. And Whaddye mean, buddy everything but a dentist? How can a bloke be everything but?Just, I explained, that I never graduated, grandmother had a tough time to get me through such schools as I did get through. Her earnings and the money Ive always earned in the summers got me up as far as college, and a small inheritance she got from a sister put me in college! Grandmother and the money both petered out when I was three and a half years through the five-year course. Though in that three and a half years in the free clinic, you know Ive done every kind of technical dental work thats done on the outside received graduation points for it but never yet have done a professional job. Reason: never graduated hence no licence! For Grandmothers death in the summer of twenty-nine all the available tuition money giving out in mid-fall of nineteen twenty-nine then the beginning of the Big Panic thats even going on right now up North well, that put me blotto as to finishing. Though even if I could practise to-day, the damned panic up North is starving even them that have a licence. Knocked around the States like the glass ball in a pin-ball game. Finally tried Canada. Montreal. Got two hours a day nailing boxes. That petered out. Soup queues then. And so I finally came down here. Stowaway, yes. Thinking that here, where there arent any licence laws at all, I might dig up a chance to help some South American dentist who had too much trade to handle or else needed more free time to run with women or maybe wanted all his time to be drunk. Either a few pesos earned that way at my rightful profession or else spend the rest of my life nailing boxes, as I told you I was doing in Montreal when I left the North.And that was the first time that Laughing Sam spoke up. His eyes, in his high-cheeked black face, had been open as wide as saucers.Good God, boss is you a a daintist?Yes, I said.God, boss tek a look, will yu, at mah po teef Ah clah, dey is slow killin me daid wid pain.And so while Slim waited, ever sitting stoically in his place, his hands linked around his knees, I turned Sam around, and let the sun from that high-up barred window pour straight into his mouth and throat. Then I shook my head slowly.God, black boy, I told him, but youve some badly exposed nerves. You sure could stand plenty of cleaning out of bone cavities, and something to cover those nerve endings. Your mouth, black boy, is a classical example of number three of Dr. Spencer Albrights studies of Negro oral conditions found only in large Southern cities. Chewing negro taffy, rich in synthetic esters, as a kid; then five or six years of dental neglect with your folks in the meanwhile using the old carbolic acid bottle on you whenever you had toothache and you learning to do the same. Why dont you apply to the warden here for care?Slim, over across the room, laughed grimly.When youre in this place of forgotten men, he said, youre buried alive head deep!I was fumbling in my pockets. And I found the lone pill of zirconium citrate. Id brought it down with me to show some South American dentist the latest in quick local oral anesthetics. The manufacturers claimed that zirconium citrate, reacting with saliva, made a perfect local anesthetic. I told the facts to Sam. Now then, coloured boy, dissolve this in your spit dont dare swallow it its all weve got shake it around in your mouth and youll feel better oh, for a half-day, anyway.He did so. Even before it must have dissolved, one could absolutely see the relief spread over Sams black face. Though I knew it could be but a temporary relief at best.Now, Sam, Slim was saying, catch up a little on your sleep while that stuffs working. You havent slept for four days and nights. And you, buddy, to me, sit down here again. For youre going to be here a while!I did. Sam, his pill dissolved, his body completely worn out, was as good as asleep already.How long have you been here Cape Town Slim if I may ask?Two months.What are you charged with? I asked. If you dont mind?Not at all, buddy. Illegal entry plus complete outfit of crib-cracking tools found in my room. Ill undoubtedly catch All of the Book down here. Only Ill never read it!Catch the Book? I said, for I was green in those days.Catch the full limit of the sentence, you lug, he said friendlily. Life! Only Ill never read all the Book if they do hand it to me.Why? I asked, bewildered greatly.The old ticker here, he explained simply, putting his hand on his heart. Forty-eight buddy and a valve leaking badly. They wont lock this baby up for long. He changed the subject. I see the dinge is peacefully sleeping. Chest moving as regularly as a babys.I paused helplessly. And then asked: And what is he the Negro locked up for?Suspicions of having been sent down here specially to steal valuable military secrets because he got acquainted right off the bat with some American Negress whos known down here to be the darling mistress of some high-up dignitary whos at some Austrian spa right now getting his own heart treated.Well, I responded, illegal entry is the only charge they have against me. Since I did sneak in myself, without hide nor hair of a passport. Could I do anything for you on the outside? British consul or anyone else? For Ill sure be getting out of here soon though with maybe sixty days of jail sentence attached.Oh yeah? Slim said sarcastically. Im betting all Ive got in Cape Town which happens to be a one-pound note owing to me by the keeper of the pub in the Mount Nelson Hotel! against a plugged shillin, that you wouldnt have been stuck in this particular dungeon if they werent plotting to sock you and how! Im saying youll be here good and long and plenty!I looked about those grim stone walls one wall dripping. A tough place to amuse oneself in.Amuse oneself? He laughed gleefully. Why, there isnt a goddamned thing to do in this hole but chew the rag. And now that Ive a white man to talk to for Sam, pounding his ear over yonder, hasnt enough brains to be worth talking to! I may even start a technical school. Crib-cracking all branches! Id say that in ninety theoretical lessons, of one hour each maybe only seventy-five I could turn a bird who had the mechanical and chemical training of a Dental Surgeon into a bird who possessed the practical quintessence of the accumulated knowledge of all the safe-crackers in history!And that is how, where, and from whom I learned the entire technique and art of cracking a crib!

CHAPTER III

KANGAROO COURT

FOR I did not get out as I had blithely supposed! I never even left that cursed cell till one certain day when I was whisked down some stone corridors and up and down some winding stairways. And into a huge room studded with dripping stone pillars. It was full of men, some in brilliant uniforms, all speaking a language which I couldnt understand. Improvised planks and barrels, and a makeshift judges bench, showed that it was a temporary courtroom. They held some kind of a trial With a jury of the hardest-looking men Id ever seen. I attempted to expostulate. A greasy-looking man with huge moustaches said: Kip quee-it. Me I am your att-turnee. I take good care for you.In due course the jury went out. And came back in three minutes.A lot of talking followed.And I was brought back to Cape Town Slim and Laughing Sam. And that night I learned from a turnkey who spoke a little English the bitter fact. I had been condemned to death for the murder of a Spanish girl found stabbed to death in the park I They had the signed deposition of three police witnesses who swore they had found the dagger, cleansed carefully of finger-prints, hidden in the closet of my hotel room. Also the deposition of two men who had seen me on the lonely park bench, the night before the killing, quarrelling bitterly with the girl. They even had a typewritten confession, signed by me, in which I had thrown myself upon the mercy of the court. And because of that confession the judge, hypocritical viper, had ordered clemency of the rope, instead of the torture of the spike-studded garrotte, in case the jury found me guilty. Damned farce! All of it. For several of the jurymen were fast asleep while the case was going on but the whole twelve proclaimed me guilty. And mercifully gave me the rope instead of the steel garrotte!That was all I knew. And I lived in a state of shell-shock for forty-eight hours. And finally, a few days later, they took Slim out. Took him somewhere in the old cabildo. He was gone about two hours. Then they brought him back. And when the door clanged, he motioned me over. I picked up the whole low-down on your case, buddy, he told me gravely. And a little on mine. I was just up for more interrogation, in front of some kind of military big-wig around here, thats all. About myself, Im to be tried after after youre knocked off. So itll have to mean life for me in some dungeon sos I dont get word out about you. But about you well you see, Ive never yet let on to any of you or them that I speak this lingo. Ive kept that one little fact back. So they let me sit in a side room, whilst a couple of their plain-clothes coppers talked near me. Buddy, they jobbed you all right. This white senorita was, it seems, the mistress of every police and political higher-up in this town. She played them all. The little fool! And when they all finally commenced comparing notes and found shed done just that they decided shed have to take a ride, a la American. So a couple of their local hoods, armed with rubber gloves, squeezed her gold-digging hand about a dagger to get her f.p.s on it, slipped the dagger between her ribs late that night and right in her quarters and lugged her across a lane and set her up in the park, on a bench, with a phoney suicide note to be found with her. They themselves got bumped off by the powers that be one hour after they copped their pay-off. For it seems theyd bungled the case. And a bird an ex-dick, and a member of the politico-military gang who inspected it, found the bungle. For she was left-handed and the dagger-hole was on the wrong side; moreover, it was a bit too far back for her hand to reach. Her knock-off then had to be, obviously, a bump-off. The dick used his brains, drew out the dagger and copped the phoney suicide note. Now, since it had to be a bump-off, this politico-military gang had to have a scapegoat before a certain bright mouthpiece for the minority party, suspecting the truth, tried to put the heat on them. The scapegoat might easily have been me only I was already apparently in limbo. They picked on you: new-comer under surveillance ever since you got here and no passport. That name you wrote on the bottom of that sheet was the signature to your confession typed in later above it. Every man-jack on that jury was a police or military henchman. The judge was the lousiest bastard of his kind in all South America. They held the trial down here so that nobody but their own gang could be present. Not a words been in the papers; so the consuls know nothing. The morning after youre hung, your confession, which absolutely clinches the fake testimony, is to be published. And this, buddy, is the low-down.I gulped. I was young and soft. And only twenty-five years old.But why why why, Slim, are they waiting?Because, Slim told me, it seems that in all these banana republics an execution, an entry order into stir for a life term, or an extradition, is nought per cent. legal or one hundred per cent. illegal! unless the Big Bug and you know now, of course, who he is is inside the boundary lines and. technically, appealable to. Though just try to appeal. Eh? And this devil has been, all this time, in Europe. At a spa. Treating his goddamn precious heart whilst Cape Town Slim sits here in pain with his own heart. This fellows in with em all but hes got to be this side of the boundary line, else the minority party here, which controls the one bench that administers breaches of office, can cast every one involved with that execution out of office: that is, of course, after they learn of it. So, in the meantime, the buzzards that are in are waiting, waiting, on the head Buzzards return. So youre safe for a while.And then then what? I asked helplessly.Then what? Cape Town Slim said. He shrugged his shoulders. Never cross a bridge, lad, till you reach it. Theres more things happen in this old world than you ever dreamed of. From what I hear, its a long time off yet. And something may happen. All right, sit down, he ordered, and take your to-days lesson. For now that theyve given us this soap-box to eat our stinking horsemeat stew off of, and we got a sort of model of a safe, were moving a hell of a sight faster. And the Grand Old Iron Worker is going to make an expert cribman out of you on the one chance in a million that you might get out of this country though, frankly, Im doing it really to keep myself from going barmy; So lets see where are we? Yesterday was Lesson Forty-four: How the V-door is wedged open, for the seepage of the soup, in case you havent got wedge, nor knife, nor even safety-razor blade. Boy, that lesson was worth a twenty-pound note in itself. And to-day well go into something new: torching. And if youll consider our soap-box a chlled-steel cannon-ball safe, which cant be blown, Ill show you exactly how to find the little old point Achilles Heel himself where the acetylene jet can eat through in half the time. Ready now?I might as well, I returned desperately. Either that or go crazy.Crazy? moaned Sam for this was one of his bad, bad days. Its me Laughin Sam whos goin crazy. Ah clahs to hell-an-gone, Slim an Jehhy, Ah gonna die dis night for Ah suffen so dat Ah des gonna kill mahsef wid mah own hands. Ah will! Ah will. Ah will!

CHAPTER IV

NEGOTIATIONS

I LOOKED at Sam. His sufferings were bad all right, for they were pulling him continuously down. He was thin as a rail. His eyes were like bloodshot black walnuts sunken deep in his head. All night he would moan. Hardly ever slept. I looked at Slim.Listen, Slim youve been badly shaken by knowing youre going to catch the Book in this country but youve kept yourself from going crazy by teaching me safe-cracking which Ill never be able to use and wouldnt use, I guess, even if I could. But Ive got to do something to keep myself from going crazy. And from keeping Sam over there from going crazy too.What? he asked.Will you translate some words into Spanish for me to the guard who sits just up the corridor there? It means, of course, giving away the fact that you know the lingo.He looked at me. Well I might as well. But thatll end all chance of picking up any more news. Okay.He motioned the guard over. A tall man with face the colour of an olive.And I told Slim, sentence by sentence, what to say and he translated to me, the same way, the answers, though giving them a typical South American accent, grim humorist that Slim ever was.This young man, he began, is a dentist. He even received, in North America, the highest degree known in dentistry: that of Doctor in the Integrity Calculation is of Account Collecting. I cant translate that last exactly, but the degree would also be known as P.D.Q. Phooey to You, Brother.Ees danteest, eh? Well, can he stop theez black man from owling? We guards, even in the guardroom up yon flight of stairs, no can sleep. So gr-reatly are our senseebeelities disturbed.Your sensibilities, you goddamned black-eyed son-of-a-bitch with a Woolworth-Kresge military coat. What do you suppose our feelings are?I know not wat zat word beetch mean so how I know wat son of same is? However wat you wan?Listen, you wont let a dentist be brought here because this black bird is liable to slip him a piece of info that you dont want to leak out of this calaboose.Well, I know notheeng about that. I am hired but to be a guard. From six in the morning till eight at night. I know notheeng.Well, so be it. But this fellow at my elbow here says if he could only get some dental apparatus and a little material to work with hed be glad to work on the black mans teeth just to keep from going crazy himself.Ee would, eh? Well, wait.The fellow was gone. While Slim and I waited.Presently he returned.My fran oo work on upper corridor, Slim translated quizzically to me, had a brother oo was danteest in an adjoining contree. Ees brother ees dead. So ee as a foot dreel. And a drawer full of of nutpeecks.Ah fine. Thats what the lad here requires. Oh yes the lad here asks me to ask you: has your fran any gold or silver paste? Or mercury?No gold. No. He sold eet. But ee say ee has the silver dust. And the mercuree.Good. Bring the apparatus here and hell manage somehow to fix the black mans teeth so the poor devil wont howl all night.But ow we know you won dreel your way out that weendow?You ass! Dont you sit all day where you can look right in this cell? Go and examine that one window each night and if you see evidences of drilling call everything off.Hokay! I weel breeng the appratus. Slim shrugged his shoulders. A hell of a chance wed have to drill our way out, he commented. And if we did only a deep river to plunge into with plenty of man-eating gators. But to stop that dinges howling is the next best thing, says I. Now come on while the apparatus comes. For you havent recited your yesterdays lesson yet, let alone seen to-days demonstration.

CHAPTER V

J. HAMMOND, D.D.S., HOURS 10.05 A.M. TO 11.20 A.M. DAILY!

AT last, outside of our mutual terrible predicaments, things were much happier in our cell.The old foot drill that the guard brought was a fair enough one. Not like the ones Id had in the different dental colleges Id attended. But it did the work. The nutpicks, as the guard called them drills, burrs, and so forth were all there. Silver and mercury for amalgam. Even cement. All I needed.Each day Laughing Sam was in less and less pain, as I cleaned out those terribly rotten cavities; Three extractions, in fact, I had to make. Twice I had to take out a half-dead nerve, We had no anesthetic. Sam stood it manfully, sweating great beads of sweat. The only mouth-washing apparatus vouchsafed to us was an old stinking scrub-pail half-filled with filthy water which more than once actually held the remains of scrub water in it. After a drilling, Sam would wallop some of the black muddy contents of the pail around his mouth, yodelling with pain, expectorate it all out, and wed start drilling again. Lucky, lucky for him that I found a small bottle half-filled with Steriline made in my own country to sterilize those cavities just before working the amalgam in.As for a chair to put the patient in, they would not give us hide nor hair of one. And I had to work on Sam, he seated on the cold cement floor, his back against Slims back for a prop. His head lying back on Slims shoulder for a head-rest. It was in those days that I realized that Cape Town Slim was one of Gods own gentlemen. I had to squat low on my heels but could work the drill-pedal with one foot just the same. Only from about five minutes after . ten each morning, to about five minutes after eleven, though, could I work by natural light, while that is the sun from the high window poured straight down into Sams mouth and throat. A further fifteen minutes could often be got on sunny days by Slim holding out the hand-mirror above his and Sams head, and actually reflecting the sunlight into Sams mouth. Those fifteen minutes I always reserved for the difficult technique, for the concave mirror actually focused the rays on the site of the work. But when the sun completely passed the work was up for the day. And, working swiftly as I did often to beat the sun I had to put in strange-shaped fillings square triangular God knows what other forms which, though they protected the underlying cavity too per cent., would have actually demoted me back to freshman year in a dental college clinic!Each day Slim taught me more and more of his trade.Down in his soul, assuredly, he had the criminals hunch gained from lots of strange experiences that always there might be a last-minute crush-out, as he termed it.Each learned lesson he made me actually demonstrate, over and over again, on the soap-box. But soon he commenced to look bluer and bluer.For we had heard that the Big Bug had left Austria and would soon land on the coast of South America. Which meant that Slims trial would take place very soon and, in all probability, be ratified the same day. While mine, already held, would be ratified, and probably carried out the day before Slim would go to prison.And the day after that was the day when the military big-wig of the Bastille ruled that we had no rights to have a dental drill. Even though the guard was rigorously inspecting the lone square window every morning and evening. But luckily! I had fixed Sam up completely. By the evening before. It had taken thirty mornings working swiftly to do it. The first out-of-college job Id ever done. Professional, by God, because it was paid for! Because Sam subsequently paid for it, in fact, a thousand times over. By getting me out of there. And by but thats getting ahead of my story.What in hell am I going to do, Slim? I asked. For my nerve was slipping. God if I could only reach the American consul.He thought hard.The trouble is, Jerry, he said, that were being kept here for just that reason: so that we cant notify our consuls. Were incommunicado that and plus! But tell you what Ill do, old chap. To-night Im going to lie awake. All night. The moons full. And I always think well brilliantly when the moon is full! I get ideas galore. And when morning comes, Jerry, I swear Ill have some sort of an idea. By which one of us, at least, may escape. And, notifying the consuls, get the rest out!That night, Slim, on his straw-stuffed pallet, was very quiet. I knew he was thinking as never in his life he had thought before. I wondered what desperate ideas were surging through his head. I caught a look at him once, when the penumbra of the moving moonlight crept across and beyond him. His eyes were staring thoughtfully at the farther ceiling edge, and he was actually smiling. Smiling so intently that I knew hed found at last the solution to outwit these devils who held us.The solution by which one of us, at least, might escape and thus save the other two.And when morning came, my conjecture of the night was confirmed for Slim had, indeed, found a way in which one and one only of us might make an escape.An escape more perfect than anything which we had ever mutually discussed and tossed aside as hopelessly impractical.Moreover, Slim had achieved it!For he lay on his burlap pallet dead!

CHAPTER VI

TWO LEFT

NOW that Slims defective heart had proved ticket-of-leave for him, there were but the two of us left in that cell, myself and Laughing Sam. He tried fearfully to cheer me up. Joked with me jigged and buck-danced for me sung for me told me stories of strange adventures hed had in the Black Belts of many Southern and Northern cities of the U.S.A., including particularly El Paso. I tried desperately, frantically, to, keep from thinking of what was to happen to me. And soon. For I had seen huge drilled beams being carried past the door. And I knew a gallows was being bolted together in some cell in some farther part of that Bastille of Hell.Sam, I said, I suppose as soon as as they get rid of me theyll be letting you out. After all, they dont claim anything on you and youve nothing on them.God, boss but Ah hates to heah you talk lak dat. Fo Ah sure lubs you, boss. You done did pull me out ob Hell. Mah mouf don ache an mah haid an face an evathing up dah dont ache no ma, Ah wish to God, boss, Ah could do somepn fo you. Oh, Mist Jehhy, is dey evah annbody you wan fo me to to to notify when dey dat is, ifn dey dey dey gibs you de rope?No, Sam, I said, and truthfully. The only relative I ever had my grandmother has been dead three years now.No kid friens, Mist Jehhy?No, Sam. She and I gypsied about so much when I was a kid that I didnt have time to make permanent friends.We were silent. What could be said, anyway? And still sitting there, we both heard a rapping against the bars of our cell-door. We both jumped up.The governor of the prison in red coat and epaulettes stood there. Scowling.You black man, he said, in fair English, get ready to get out of here in five minutes. Put your stinking socks on. Your flapping shoes, also. Get your few rags together.Whah whah Ah goin? quavered Sam. Youre going to be put aboard a native fruit freighter that leaves to-night. And when you get back to the U.S.A. dont ever show yourself back here. Or youll get exactly what this fellow is going to get.What what am I going to get? I asked.You are to be hanged to-morrow some time. For he whose presence is required to ratify your execution order and who, my fine murderer of innocent girls, has already stated by wire that he will ratify the order at the border if met there with it is now within less than twelve hours of the border.And he turned from the cell. And his military-shod feet were clicking rapidly up the corridor.Sam turned to me. We were quite alone. Even our guard was gone, bowing and scraping along behind the governor.Mist Jehhy, Sam burst out, gib me yo socks yes don ax no questions and put mah socks on instid.But Sam why why, Sam, in Gods name, why? Theyre going to hang me. So why?Oh God, Mist Jehhy don ax. In case it it don wuhk. But quick, now. Dis sock. Yes. And dis un. Gi me yourn quick. Ah caint tell you. It mebbe is ouah ony chance. Quick now. Fo dese debillsll inspeck me sure wen Ah goes out.I put his stinking socks on my feet. And gave him mine equally stinking in that place of no soap and little water.And they were back for him within two minutes not five.And a second later I was left alone.Up and down, up and down, I paced that evening. For the first time, I would have relished a corridor guard. But guard there never was at night. Not in that section, anyway.That night I lay on my lone pallet in the moonlight. Slim gone to a happier land for good and for all and Sam now far, far out at sea. I thought of many things. Thought thought thoughtAbout then something wrapped in paper hit the bars of the high square window. Fell back into the river. For I heard the distinct plash of its impact with the water, Again, within a minute, the strange manoeuvre was repeated. This time the wrapped stone, as obviously it was, came clean through the bars. I clambered over to it. Unwrapped it in the bright moonlight. It said:SAID NOAT ONLY NUMMER 2Unrabble de sock, and let unrabblment down quik. Wuk fas for de cuhrrant in dis ribber is swif and if im cotched ahll git life centense.Sam! How how had he done it?And then it commenced dawning on me the reason for his strange last-minute demand. The socks hed given me were knit socks. Knit for him, as I remembered now his having told me, by some coloured girl in the last place hed been before he came south. I peeled one off pulled at one of its worn-through spots. And the thin but tough cotton yarn unravelled! Once or twice I had to start again at a new worn spot and tie the two broken ends together. At last I had a 25-foot piece of yarn. I tied to it the piece of rock that had come in the note, and tossed the latter over the window-sill. Let it down. Down. Down. Felt an answering tug on it. Pulled it slowly back. Much heavier this time.A metal hacksaw was on the end! A beautiful saw. Three extra blades tied to it, too!I worked as never in my life. By standing on the up-ended box, I could reach the lower cemented-in cross-bar which held all the vertical rods of the window. That beautiful saw almost silent literally ate through that ancient soft metal. The upper cross-bar was harder harder, that is, to reach. By straining on tiptoes and straining my very shoulder I sawed it through. On the right side. And half-way through on the left. Then up on to the sill I drew myself.Muscled the nearly freed web of iron rods towards me, feet on sill, body bent double, straining furiously. The web of rods, held to the stone frame now only by a single bit of iron, bent beautifully inward. I sidestepped around it. Then pressed it clear around in towards the wall. Forcing my body through the nearly 18-inch square opening, I caught a glimpse of brackish but swift-flowing water, perhaps seven feet below. And a boat bobbing about six feet away, tethered to some spike in the wall. A black man in it. And one end of the boat standing dangerously in full moonlight. I made a clean-cut head-first dive. Probably soundless. In a minute strong arms were about me, pulling me in. At once my saviour Sam, of course was rowing furiously down-river. A half-mile farther, Sam was telling me all. Hed been liberated and made room-orderly to the captain of the fruit-freighter the very second the ship weighed anchor and pulled out. Which was sundown. Hed noticed the ship was not provided with wiahless wiahs nowhah. He dived over the rail when it was out of the harbour, and in the sea. And, despite the sharks known to infest that nations coast, hed succeeded in making the shore of the outer harbour. But before diving, hed taken 1,000 American dollars that were in a Houston Texas bank-book on the captains dressing-table. Once on shore, hed bought a sailors whole outfit of clothes for $20 American, and then, spotting the captain of the very freighter who had smuggled him in many months before and who liked him he had made a dicker with the latter to take himself and one other person on board. This captain evidently realized that this was hot, hot stuff for him to be playing in with; especially with gunboats in the harbour to find, maybe, on his ship some missing white political convict or what not. Then zip! his licence to come into port at that country gone for ever. But he told Sam hed play in. Price: $500. As for the rowboat Sam bought, it had cost him $200. The saw had cost him $75. Prices can jump skyhigh on a Southern America waterfront when the goods are manifestly for smuggling or for revolutionaries.Sam and I made the freighter, far out in the harbour, two hours before dawn. And it sailed at dawn. Before, indeed, my own absence probably was discovered. Sam insisted absolutely on splitting the remaining near $200 between us.

CHAPTER VII

RETURN TO PURGATORY

THUS we went seaward, hopeful of seeing the coast of Uncle Sams country rise on the skyline one fine morning. It was a little after dawn when Sam and I leaned on the rail, watching the coast of that infernal country grow grey behind us, and glad of every yard of distance between it and ourselves, after all we had endured there.If ever a man pulled another out of hell, Sam, I said, it was you when you threw that stone through the window. You saved my life.Ah, boss Jehhy, didnt you do jes so. much fo me? Sam inquired earnestly. In dat stinkin rotten place, whah you got no nuffin to make de job proper, you made me de good toofs agin. Id sure been daid in dah, if it wasnt fo yo doctorin.Then the voice of the captain broke in on our mutual thanks to each other, and caused me to turn round to face him.Mr. Hammond I believe it is Mr. Hammond, he said, Ive just had a wireless from the port weve left, and Boss, you promised to take us fo de five hunderd dollars! Sam broke in, seeing the mans intention in his face. Yo promised!To take you away from there yes, and Ive done it, the captain said. But Ive more than five hundred dollars to think about. The wireless message Ive just received and my wireless operator acknowledged it is to the effect that a boat was seen to come alongside my ship last night with two men aboard, and was later found drifting, empty of any man at all. Also, two prisoners have escaped. And they want me to submit to search, in case the two prisoners are aboard.There is no right of search on the high seas, I objected.Quite so, he agreed smoothly, and I saw he was of the sort that will argue a way round anything, smoothly and detestably. But there is the question of my licence to trade in the ports of this republic, and if I refuse to be searched, I lose the licence. Since the boat belongs to a company, I lose my job if the licence is revoked, and well, to put it plainly, for the sake of five hundred dollars I cannot afford to take that risk. No man in his senses would do it.But you have already taken the risk, I pointed out.He shrugged his shoulders, and I hated him, badly.Accepted the five hundred dollars to take you aboard, he pointed out in turn. You may think it implies that I am to take you to my destination, but that was not stated when your coloured friend made the contract. It was simply to take him and one other aboard, and I took that risk. But I have to submit to search, and if you are found He ended it with another shrug, and I hated him still more. But he held the whip-hand a captain on his own ship is a god of sorts.Then what do you propose to do with us? I asked.Im going up parallel with the coast, he answered, with the air of one who has already made up his mind and will not be moved from his intent, and putting in off Pueblo San Diego theres no harbour, and I shall have to lie off. Its a roadstead, and Pueblo San Diego is their northern frontier town. Ive had a talk by wireless with them, and agreed to lie off there for search at eleven to-night and you can bet your back teeth the search will be thorough. I cant hide you two.Then ? I asked. Are you throwing us to the sharks?Not quite so bad, he answered with a smile. Frankly, Mr. Hammond, I dont want you aboard Id be happier without you, for they may find out if I land you at New Orleans when I get there, and Id lose my licence to trade in their ports just the same as if theyd found you at Pueblo San Diego. Therefore, I propose to hand you back three hundred out of the five hundred dollars you paid for your passage, and drop you overside into one of the ships boats and pray to God its cloudy till youre too far away from the ship to be connected with it. Ill see that all identifying marks are scraped off the boat before you board it.You know that means death for me if Im caught? I asked.I cant help it, Mr. Hammond, he answered.If we refuse this, what is the alternative? I demanded.Well he looked over the side Id say theres quite a lot of sharks in these waters, if you go in without a boat.You mean you are absolutely determined to get rid of us in this way, and to give us no chance of evading the search?Ive got my licence and my job to think about, he replied sullenly.Right! I said. Hand over the three hundred dollars, and well take your offer. But put in a couple of good automatic pistols with it. You say Pueblo San Diego is a border town we may be able to shoot our way across the border, and get clear in spite of you.For I felt that, having escaped a hanging, I had no need to fear what might happen in this border town, given money and sufficient armament for self-protection. Moreover, I put a different value on life from that which I had entertained before that spell in the dungeon: I was far more willing, now, to take risks, and Sam, I knew, would follow me to hell and through it, so fully was he devoted to me.Them pistolsll cost you twenty-five dollars apiece, and Ill throw in five hundred rounds of ammunition for em, the captain stated.We will agree to that hand over the remaining two hundred and fifty dollars right now, I bade. And then go away till its time for us to get together over final arrangements. I dont like your face I dont like any of you for letting two American citizens down like this.He produced the money in silence. Possibly his conduct weighed on his conscience a little he was throwing us to the wolves, and knew it. But, over that and everything, his licence and his job ruled him some men are like that, I know. Probably he would have been glad to know that we had been caught and killed by the mestizo politicians of that infernal state, for then he would have been absolved of all complicity in our attempt at escape. I know that in his place in any place, for that matter I would never have played it low down on a fellow countryman as he did on us two, But his was a yellow nature, obviously.At about ten oclock that night, in black darkness since the moon was past the full and not due to rise till later Sam and I went over the side of the freighter and down into a boat towing alongside, with four oars laid in it for our use. The ship was then about three miles short of the roadstead of Pueblo San Diego, and lay with her engines stopped for our descent, after which she would go on to her anchorage, We had the two automatics for which I had asked, and the two hundred and fifty dollars of passage money, which, although it belonged to Sam, he insisted on dividing, so that we were possessed of over two hundred good American dollars apiece. As I shoved with an oar against the vessels side after we had settled ourselves in the boat, I heard the telegraph on the bridge give an engine-room signal, and then the rumble of the propeller. The freighter drew away from us, and presently we were rocking in the wash of her movement, while flakes of the loveliest phosphorescence I have ever seen lightened the darkness of the waters and showed me Sams eyes as he turned his black face towards me.What we gonna do now, boss Jehhy? he asked.It looks to me as if weve got to go back to purgatory, I told him. Its not as if I knew anything about the lie of this country, but we cant get anywhere in this boat, while we may by land.Yeah, boss, but if we gotta go back in, how we goin to git back out? he persisted, Mebbe we lan back in dat ar prison.We must chance it, I said. Head for the shore, now.It seemed to me the only possibility. At my request, the captain had let me study his charts, but they gave only the coast-line, showing Pueblo San Diego as about ten kilometres inside the actual frontier, and the nearest town to northward, beyond the frontier, a good sixty kilometres away from it. What lay between the two I had no idea: my plan then, as far as I had any, was to get ashore, buy provisions for the boat, and then attempt to row up the coast to land again outside this infernal Republic. The ships captain, for some reason that I could not fathom, had refused to provision us: I think he wanted to drive us ashore, and hoped we would be caught to avert suspicion from himself. There seemed no other reason for his refusal.We laid to the oars. I could see the freighters lights distant to north of us, and, on shore, sundry twinkles of light that revealed the existence of Pueblo San Diego, which the volume of sailing directions gave as a town of six thousand inhabitants. Its lights, like the steamers, were to north of us, and we rowed directly for the coast, my intention being to land outside the town and then reconnoitre. Each dip of our oars raised ripples of phosphorescent light, and the wake we left was a path of luminous glory. So still was the hot, starlit night that I heard the rattle of the freighters anchor cable when she reached her station in the roadstead: sound carries farther across water than over land; I know, but it was strange to hear that sound come out of the distance, and I remember cursing the captain again as I heard it.We drove up, after about an hours rowing, on to a beach of fine white sand, beyond which showed the blackness of a line of foliage of some sort, and, rising out from it, the tops of five palm trees in a line parallel with the coast cut the sky. They would give us our direction, I knew, when we came back to the boat if we had to return in darkness. The tide had been three-quarters of an hour short of full when we left the freighter, as I had ascertained before going down into the boat, so that it was now slack water of full tide, and since we pulled our craft up on to the sand, taking the aid of each big roller that came in and broke on the shore, I had little fear of its getting afloat again before our return to it with the provisions I meant to secure. All the same, I paid out the rope I found in the bows to its limit while Sam went up over the sand with the other end, and, by dragging the boat another Couple of yards up from the waters edge, we had enough line to make fast to a stunted shrub up at the inner edge of the beach.So that was that. We buried the oars in the sand close by the shrub, in case anyone should take a liking to the boat in our absence, and went off northward along the inner edge of the beach towards Pueblo San Diego. We left nothing in the boat, for the all-sufficient reason that, apart from our automatics and money, which we wanted, we had nothing to leave. Moonrise told me that it must be near on midnight when we struck a sandy track and entered on it, heading inland and still towards the town. We passed one silent, unlighted hut, and another where a dog barked furiously at our nearly silent footfalls. The track gave place to a pot-holed, badly kept highway; to the left I saw a big white mansion with lights showing through venetians of two windows on the ground floor; it was set back from the road in a shrub-spotted garden, divided from the road by a five-foot white wall, and in the gateway I saw a sentry with a rifle lounging. He took no notice whatever of us, and we passed on. Midnight struck from a clock somewhere ahead of us.A bend in the way revealed to us what I conjectured rightly, too was the main street of Pueblo San Diego, though they call it the avenida. There were electric lights on standards at infrequent intervals, still alight, and giving us view of the frontages of some well-built stone buildings, interspersed with adobe and wooden structures, mostly closed and silent at this hour. But not all the town was asleep, by any means. We saw loungers in doorways, and passed twos and threes of little brown devils on their way home or to mischief; some of them stared at us as, shabby and by this time weary, we tramped on, but most of them took no notice of us. Two drinking dens, I saw, were well patronized, and the little tables on the sidewalk were occupied by groups of these little brown devils, of the same breed as those who had guarded us in the prison from which we had escaped. Then, a mile or more beyond the sentry-guarded mansion which stood just outside the town, we came to a brightly lighted establishment with more little tables set out on the sidewalk, and the murmur of many voices from its patrons. A linen slip pinned along the frontage announced it in scarlet letters as the Posada de Sandoval, and advertised drinks of probably local brands, together with angostura and cognac, It was of superior type to the two drinking dens we had passed, and, on the opposite side of the avenida from it, I paused to look across.Sam, I said, if we knew this infernal language we could get all we want for the boat inside there. They sell grub as well as drink.Sure we could, boss Jehhy, he assented. Dats the wust ob puggatohy, ez yo said dis place wuz. Dahs alwuz a catch in it.Then, as we stood gazing, a voice came to us across the avenida, and to my amazement and delight it was an English voice, while the words I heard seemed to indicate that Providence had directed us here.Hells bells! it said. Of all the god-forsaken holes on earth, this sure is the worst. Then, in a shout of wrath A dentist! A dentist! My kingdom for a dentist!English, it was, not American, as I knew on hearing it. Beside me Sam drew a sharp, audible breath, and whispered De good Lawd! in an awed way. As for me, I made one step towards the voice, drawn by almost irresistible curiosity, but then halted. My dentistry on Sam might be known here by this time these little brown devils might have talked about what had gone on among the two escapees from that hell of a prison where we had been held, and, if I betrayed myself as a dentist here, probably it would be all up with me and with Sam too. Such were my first thoughts, but on top of them came a realization of the amazing coincidence that made a man shout in English for a dentist in such a place as this, exactly at the time that I happened to be passing. Somehow it seemed more than mere coincidence a direction by Providence, fate, or whatever you choose to call it, which I must follow.I took two more steps to cross the avenida to where that voice had sounded, and then Sam had me by the arm and stopped me.Boss Jehhy, he said. Ef we uns go dah, we gonna git cotched, fo sure. Dat place no good to we too much folkses dah.Weve got to get our grub somewhere, Sam, I told him, and it looks to me that shout is our guidepost mine, anyhow. Come along.He followed me then. The lights of the posada shone down on the men at the little tables, and showed me at once the man who had shouted. He was clad in decent English clothes, and his face was white, not chocolate-coloured as were most of the others. He had with him a brown-faced little man in a uniform that fairly glittered with gold braid, finished off with a Sam Browne belt from which depended a holstered pistol. The two of them sat near the outer edge of the rows of tables, and I went straight to him and looked down as he looked up. I saw a lean, aristocratic-looking face, and a pair of steady blue eyes: he had, I could see, the quiet dignity of a well-bred Englishman, and for a moment, gazing down at him, I questioned inwardly whether I had not been mistaken after all; he did not look the sort of man who would shout like that, but appeared altogether too well-bred and quiet. Still, I risked it, while his companion stared up at me curiously.What do you want with a dentist? I asked.He leaned back in his chair, and a faint, satiric smile grew about his lips. Those blue eyes of his took in all of me, travelled down to my water-sodden, dingy trouser-legs, and up again, dwelling for an instant on the bulge of my coat pocket where my automatic rested ready loaded, too! and came up to my face. Then he spoke.And what the hell has that to do with you? he inquired calmly.Oh, nothing, maybe, I said, as easily as I could, while Sam peered past my shoulder and this Englishman took in all of him, too. I happened to hear you screech for one, thats all.Do you know where to find one? he inquired, with slightly more interest. Because well, Im stumped on it, here.I am one, I told him, and risked the consequences of the statement. A man of my own colour and race, I reasoned, was not likely to betray me, even if he knew I was the escaped prisoner.Well, by Jove! he remarked, with faint, satiric amusement. I should never have guessed it. Sit down, wont you? Not that you look like one or like anything, in fact. But do sit down.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HANG OF IT

THERE were two vacant chairs at the table at which the Englishman and his companion sat, and I drew out one and was about to seat myself when I glanced at Sam, standing tall and rather conspicuous at my elbow. The Englishman observed my look, and divined my difficulty.I forget, he said. Your er servant, I presume.No, I dissented. My friend.I saw the faintly satiric expression in the blue eyes give place to one of approval, and he nodded gravely at Sam, who, as I thus acknowledged him, gave me a glance which said he was more than repaid for anything he may have done for me. But he had saved my life, and I was not going back on him, whatever the consequences might be.In that case, said the Englishman, he had better sit down with us too, while I explain give you the hang of it, as I might say.In fact, the low-down, I suggested. I had been too near the hang of it recently to relish the expression.Er yes, he agreed. I believe that is the expression in the States, and gather that you hail from there. And now, perhaps, we may introduce ourselves. My friend there is General Juarez General Miguel Juarez, his excellencys chief of staff, and I am Monty that is, Montgomery Alden, private secretary to his excellency.The general half-rose and bowed to me as I seated myself and gestured to Sam to take the other chair. But I noticed that he pulled his own chair slightly away as Sam obeyed my gesture and seated himself too.Glad to meet you I hope Mr. Alden, I said. My name is Hammond, Jerry Hammond, and this is Sam Laffan it was as near as I felt myself able to get to Laughing Sam who has rendered me services that make me regard him as a friend. Now I think we all know each other, though I dont know whom you mean by his excellency.Why, the president, of course, Alden interposed.He must have seen my jaw drop. We had walked into a hornets nest, if ever men did. The president who had signed the warrant for my execution as soon as he crossed the border! I recovered myself.Oh yes, the president, I said, as calmly as I could. And And Ive been looking for a dentist, Alden pursued, frowning slightly. There is one in this godforsaken town, of course, but he happened to look with eyes of love on a lady patient, apparently, and her husband stuck a knife in him, It seems that he will be able to resume work in a week or thereabouts, but his excellency wants a dentist at once, or sooner. And there is only that one, out of action,I had a momentary gleam of joy over the possibility of putting a drill on to the presidents molars and hitting a nerve without any anesthetic. But Alden went on with his story, and extinguished the hope.You see, he said, weve just come back from Europe, all of us. That is, the president and his daughter, the senorita Carmen de Alvarado, General Juarez here, myself the secretary, and some dozen other members of the staff. And the senorita has gone down with toothache it began yesterday, just after we got here. Id just got his excellency to sign an execution warrant on some poor devil they were holding in the capital, and came out from his room to find the senorita with tears running down her cheeks and one of them bumped out and spoiling her face. Shes in real agony, and I turned out to-night to see if I could find anything resembling a dentist before we start for the capital to-morrow, so if you know anything about that sort of thing well er He broke off and gazed at me questioningly. But youve no tools, he added, unless that bulge in your pocket is a travelling-case.It isnt, I assured him, but probably I could get all the tools I need from this wounded tooth-yanker youve told me about, if we can get into his surgery without his trying to knife us.As representative of the president, I can get anywhere, Alden assured me. And the uniform of General Juarez the general bowed at me as his name was spoken is a perfect passport, even to a dentists surgery. In fact, we are the goods, as you Yankees say.I liked him. I liked that half-humorous, all-careless way of his, and his acceptance of all that came with perfect, easy calm. He even accepted me as a dentist, with no more than my mere word for it, and told his story with utter belief that Providence had rained a genuine dentist on him in response to his call. But then I remembered his offer, shouted as it had been, and remembered, too, the warrant that the president had signed. It was time to bargain.You were shouting my kingdom for a dentist a little while ago, I pointed out. As for me, no pay, no work, senorita or no senorita. Ill put up a proposition to you for this job.State it, he bade had he been American, he would have said As how? But he was as English as any man I have ever met.Simple, I answered, and, glancing at the general, decided that he did not understand English. All I ask is an escort to the frontier for myself and my friend here, and safe-conduct till were across.Then youre the Oh, hell! he breathed softly.I am, I agreed I had decided that this was a man worth trusting. Say, boy, how did you come to get to be secretary, anyhow?If you must know, I was one of six hundred applicants for the post while his excellency was in England, on his way back from his heart treatment, he answered. I beat the rest of them through my knowledge of South American Spanish, which is rather different from the European variety. But youre the well, Im damned!No, youre not, I contradicted. That is, not yet. Im putting my cards down because youre white, like myself. All that business that planted me in jail was a frame-up do I look like a guy that would knife a dame? You dont know this dirty country yet, or youd know that strange things get done in it and Im one of the strange things. My cards are down, and I can cure the senoritas toothache. Now what about it? Do you pay my price for the job? Or do my friend and myself shoot our way out of here?He laughed softly. Dont shoot, he answered. Have a drink.Suits me, I agreed, and my friend here too.He signalled a waiter it was an all-night joint we had struck, apparently and presently Sam and I were furnished with some sort of native wine, sweetish, heady stuff, in which we drank Aldens health, and that of the general too, who, though he obviously understood no English, bowed and smiled to the universal language of the lifted glass.Youre a nervy sort of cuss, Alden said to me. Else youd never have owned to me that youre a dentist whats more, youd never have come near the generals uniform. Personally, Im all for paying your price for professional services, but as you may realize, Im not top dog in this kennel. If you can stop the senoritas moans it will go a long way towards procuring your price from the one who is top dog her father, that is but whether it will go all the way, I dont know.But you feel like being on my side? I asked.I am on your side, he answered, My goldlaced friend here happened to know the real story of how you were due to swing, and so I knew before you told me that it was what you call a frame-up but I didnt know it until after the warrant for execution had been sent off. And to tell you the truth, Mr. Hammond, Im not so much in love with my job as I was on the voyage across. It seems, as you said, a dirty country.It sure is, I said, and my chief anxiety is getting out of it, with Sam, here though hes far less to fear from it than I have, being set at liberty and merely told to get out, while Im well, due to get the hang of it, as you said a while ago, But now what about this dental job? Where do I get tools for it, and when do I operate?I think you operate as soon as we get back, he answered thoughtfully. As for tools, I understand its a back tooth, so if I were you Id yank it out, make it a sudden operation rather than a lingering job. And youll get your tools at the regular practitioners place, a bit along the road that way. He nodded in the direction from which we had come. Youll know what you ought to take, of course.Sounds like a few pairs of forceps and no more, I said.Exactly, he agreed. The president speaks English, and so does the daughter, so youll have no trouble over that. But how to get you out after the job is done. Thats whats puzzling me.I let him think a while. It was growing very late, and even the