The Owl Taxi E-Book

Hulbert Footner

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Suppose you were a young and very rich New Yorker, and you suddenly lost all your money. Suppose you met a taxi-driver and for reasons good to both you agreed to exchange identities. Suppose, having started up Fifth Avenue in the old taxi at one a.m., you were about to admit your first fare when you discovered a dead body already occupying the car. Humor, espionage, romance, and adventure make this novel thrilling.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. THE TRANSFER

II. GREG'S FIRST FARE

III. GREG'S SECOND FARE

IV. IN THE HOUSE ON NINTH STREET

V. THE TAXI YARD

VI. GREG'S RIVAL

VII. THE UNDERTAKER

VIII. THE HOLD-UP

IX. THE FLIVVER AS A POST-OFFICE

X. AMY'S STORY

XI. THE RIDE HOME

XII. WHAT THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK CONTAINED

XIII. DE SOCOTRA HIRES T7011 AGAIN

XIV. THROUGH THE STREETS

XV. NINA

XVI. THE "PSYCHOPATHIC SANITARIUM"

XVII. THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE LITTLE BLACK MUSTACHE

XVIII. BLOSSOM'S REPORT

XIX. THE ABDUCTION

XX. EXIT SEÑOR SAUNDERS

XXI. UP-STAIRS AND DOWN

XXII. NEMESIS

XXIII. CONCLUSION

I. THE TRANSFER

AT eleven o’clock of a moist night in December, Gregory Parr was making his way far westward on Twenty-third Street. At his right hand stretched that famous old row of dignified dwellings with pilasters and little front yards, and ahead of him was Tenth Avenue, the stronghold of the Irish. The wet pavements glistened under the street lamps, and the smell of influenza was in the air. The street was deserted except for a cross-town car at long intervals, hurling itself blithely through the night on a flat wheel.

Greg was on his way to the Brevard Line pier at the foot of the street to take passage on the great Savoia, premier steamship of her day and on this particular trip the “Christmas ship.” The Savoiaran as true to the hour as a railway train, and was scheduled to leave at one A.M. in order to make the best rail connections. There was no reason why Greg should have walked to the pier except that at the last moment his heart was loath to leave little old New York, and even the least interesting of her streets called to him. As he walked he communed with himself somewhat after this fashion: “Lord! I didn’t know the old burg meant so much to me till I made up my mind to leave it! After all maybe I’m a fool to pull up stakes here. I know the folks on this side; their ways are my ways. I speak New York. Perhaps in London I’ll be like a fish in the grass.” But his baggage was on the pier and he had paid a deposit on his ticket. It never occurred to him that he could still change his mind. On such trifles do the weightiest human decisions turn!

He crossed Tenth Avenue and passed through the long block beyond with its escarpments of dark factories on either hand. At Eleventh Avenue the street opened into a plaza with the ferry houses facing him from the other side, and a long line of steamship piers stretching south, of which the Brevard pier was the nearest. Over the pier sheds Greg saw the masthead light of the Savoiagleaming brightly and heard the soft murmur of escaping steam. On the corner was a little waterfront hotel, the Brevard House, with inviting brilliantly lighted bar. Greg was irresistibly drawn to enter. “One last drink to my own town,” he said to himself.

Within, the bar was absolutely typical, and therefore dear to Greg. There was the very red and well-wiped mahogany counter, finished with a round cornice to lean the elbows on, and with a brass rail below for feet. Behind the counter the usual elaborate structure of mahogany and plate glass reared itself to the ceiling, a super-mantel-piece as it were, while between counter and mirrors moved a pink-cheeked young man, in command, one might say, of the battalion of bottles behind him. Bar-tenders used to be mustachioed, but now they are smooth and pink-cheeked.

To Greg’s disappointment he found the place almost empty; he desired company; he longed to hear the racy speech of the Manhattan pavements before he finally shook their dust from his feet. There were two travelers, but they, having downed their drinks, were preparing to leave; across the room sitting at a table was a human derelict, without which no picture of a bar- room would be complete–but he was sleeping under his hat like a candle under its extinguisher. The only other customer present was a taxi-driver who was making friendly overtures to the bar-tender. For some reason the pink-cheeked one scorned him. These instinctive antipathies are impossible to explain; the bartender was perfectly willing to hob-nob with the two travelers–invited to drink with them he took a swig out of his private stock of cold tea with gusto and charged them fifteen cents for the privilege; but as for the poor taxi-driver, well, they did not belong to the same herd, that was all.

Rebuffed in this direction the driver turned eagerly to the latest comer, Greg. There was something almost pathetic in his anxiety to make friends. Every soul has those moments of desperate lonesomeness. Greg was not at all backward in responding. The driver was a spare little man in an overcoat sizes too big for him and almost reaching the ground. Greg was reminded of an old illustration of the Artful Dodger. He had a sharp, humorous, apelike face, much seamed, and in his eyes was a light at once childlike, impudent and deprecating. Taxi-drivers, that is to say “owl-drivers” like this one, wear no uniform, but they are unmistakable. It may be their overcoats which are full of character. This one was incredibly worn and shapeless. With it went a round cloth cap with a flap let down behind to protect the wearer’s ears and neck.

“Say fella,” said this individual with engaging impudence; “drink with me, will yeh, if it’s not a liberty?”

“Sure,” said Greg, “if you’ll have another with me after.”

“What are you drinking?”

“Rye high-ball.”

“Well I don’t gen’ally dilute my liquor but just to be high- toned–say Jack! Two rye high-balls.”

The refreshment was duly served. Greg noticed that as the taxi-driver lifted his glass his hand trembled, yet he was a young and healthy-looking man. Greg wondered momentarily if he had a secret agitation, and then forgot about it.

They exchanged opinions upon the quality of the whiskey and the rottenness of the weather outside. These and other pleasant conventionalities, not to speak of two high-balls apiece, opened the way for more personal communications. They decided they liked each other.

“I’m Hickey Meech,” said the driver. “Christened Robert at birth, but Hickey because I come from the country, though that’s fifteen years ago, and I’m like to die before I see it again.”

“I shan’t tell you my name,” said Greg. “Meaning no offense, you understand; but it’s been in the papers lately, and I want it to be forgotten.”

“Sure that’s all right,” said Hickey. “What’s in a man’s label anyhow; ‘taint guaranteed by no poor feud law.” He glanced sideways at Greg’s good clothes. “You’re a bit off your regular beat to-night, ain’t you?”

“I’m sailing on the Savoia.”

“The Hell you say! Well some guys has all the luck!”

Greg laughed shortly. He experienced a sudden desire to talk about himself; to put his case before a disinterested party who did not know him, and whom he would never see again; it would help him to grasp his own situation, he felt. During the last difficult weeks he had not talked to any one.

“I don’t know as anybody would call me lucky,” he said. “I’ve lately had a good crack over the head. Maybe it was good for my character, but it hurt just the same.”

“Oh, we all get those,” the other replied sententiously.

“My Dad died when I was a kid,” Greg went on. “He left us well-fixed as things go. The property was all in the hands of his partner as trustee. Well, since then I’ve been accustomed to sucking my silver spoon, as you might say; went to the most expensive schools and college, and didn’t learn much except how to drive a racing car. I can drive a car, but that’s not going to lay up any bonds in a safe deposit vault.

“Well, it’s an old story, but, believe me, when it happens to yourself it has all the effect, if not the charm, of novelty! A month ago our trustee died and left his affairs in a snarl. Our property has just vamoosed; he didn’t steal it, you understand; it just naturally melted in his hot hands.

“I managed to save enough out of the wreck–it was my first experience of business and I don’t like it–to keep the girls from actual want, but there wasn’t a penny left for me. Of course I was well known in certain circles and there were plenty of men who would have given me a job out of charity; but I wasn’t going to be a poor relation in the crowd where I had once kept my end up with the best. I was pried loose from my old foundations and I wanted an entirely fresh start. So I decided to try my luck in London. No small town stuff for me. It seemed like a good idea when it came to me but now–I don’t know–”

The driver was all sympathy. “What’s the matter? Leaving somebody behind you?”

“No,” said Greg smiling; “only the old town. I didn’t know it had such a hold on me!”

“Every dog loves its own lamp-posts,” said Hickey. “It’ll do you good to see the world. Wish to God I had the chance! And you’ll make good. Even though you’ve lost your coin you’ve got the habit of class. Nobody can’t take that from you. And people just naturally give up to a classy guy.”

“I don’t quite get you,” said Greg.

“You’ve got style,” said the taxi-driver. “Anybody could see you were accustomed to traveling with top-notchers.”

“Nothing in it,” said Greg. “My ‘style’ as you call it only gets in my way now that I’ve nothing to keep it up on. I’d do better if I could begin life over on a section gang.”

“Don’t you fool yourself,” retorted the taxi-driver. “That’s the way a swell always talks. ‘Gee!’ says he, ‘if I was on’y a horny handed ton of soil I could make something of myself!’ It reads well in a book. But take it from me, kid, the ditch-digger is the scratch man in the race of life; he’s got twice as far to run. Why any ordinary fella born in a soft bed can keep it, but it takes one o’ these here now Napoleons to win one. Look at me now. I may as well say I ain’t no Napoleon and here I am. I was born to sweat, and I’m still sweating. Of course I got my vices. I shoot craps; that helps keep me poor. But it’s the habit of being poor that’s so hard to break. If I could only once get ahead far enough to buy me a real swell outfit nothing could stop me.”

“You’re dead wrong,” said Greg. “There’s not so much in appearances as people like to think. Why, the richest man I know goes around looking like a rag-picker. And there’s many a fancy vest covers an empty stomach. A workman with a good trade is a king alongside one of those poor devils that clings to the edge of what is called Society.”

“Well, I’d like to try a little clinging.”

“There’s nothing like honest work.”

“For others. Anybody can have my share. I wisht I had your chances, that’s all.”

“I’d give my ‘chances’ as you call them quick enough for a trade.”

Hickey favored Greg with a queer look. “Do you mean that?”

“Sure I mean it.”

There was a silence of a moment or two while Hickey dipped his forefinger in a wet spot and drew designs on the mahogany. At last he asked very off-hand:

“Would you call driving a taxi a trade?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Well, why don’t you try that? You said you could drive.”

“Well, in London I don’t suppose I could compete with the native article.”

“I mean here.”

“I’m going to London, I told you.”

“But you don’t have to go. According to yourself it’s just a notion that you’re sorry you took already.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m just trying you out to see if you meant anything by your ideas. Are you willing to take a sporting chance?”

“Try me.”

Once more Hickey hesitated, and then the proposal came with a rush. “Swap with me. I’ll give you my flivver outside for three hundred and those clothes you’re wearing. She’s mine free and clear. Paid the final installment last week. She’s not new, you may say, but all the better. She’s well suppled up. And a bargain at the price. Got an elegant meter on her. Runs fast for fares and slow for the inspector. I’ll let you try her out of course before you pay the money.”

Greg drew a long breath and stared at the other with widening eyes. His life had come to the parting of the ways, and he was free to choose any direction. This offer presented fascinating possibilities. Like most young men Greg fancied–it would be hard to say why–that the life of a cab-driver must be full of romance.

“You wouldn’t have to leave the old town then,” Hickey went on craftily. “Believe me, you’d begin to see it for the first time. Inside and out!”

Greg needed little persuasion. His own imagination pictured the adventure in more glowing colors than the taxi-driver had at command. It was something else made him hesitate.

“Sorry,” he said regretfully. “I haven’t but two hundred in the world.” An idea occurred to him, and his face cleared. “But I’ve plenty more clothes like these. They’re in trunks and bags on the pier yonder. The outfit must be worth more than a hundred even at second-hand clothes prices. I’ll give you the claim checks. I’ll throw in the deposit receipt too, if you want to travel.”

“I’ll take you,” said Hickey with suspicious promptitude; but Greg on his part was too eager to be warned by it. “I’ll take a flyer among the English swells. If I make any breaks over there, they’ll think it’s just because I’m a Yank.”

“Well, let’s take a look at the flivver,” said Greg. “I suppose she’ll run.”

“Run!” cried Hickey. “She can run like Duffy in the quarter mile! Before we go out let me show you my papers is all right.” He exhibited cards for his car license and operator’s license.

“You said your name was Meech,” objected Greg. “These are made out to Elmer Fishback.”

“Oh, a coupla fellas owned the boat since Fishback,” said Hickey. “The cards always goes with the car. You’ll have to be Fishback when the inspector comes round. Here’s my receipts for the payments.”

These were signed by one Bessie Bickle.

“She financed the deal,” explained Hickey. “She keeps a little yard over on the East side, and I rent space from her. You might do worse than keep on with her. Bessie’s on the level. It’s Gibbon Street south of Houston. Jumping-off place on the East side. Better put it down.”

“Gibbon Street; I’ll remember it by the Decline and Fall,” said Greg.

Paying their shot they went out by the front door. The taxi rested easily by the curb, like an old horse asleep. She had a slight list to starboard–”From the bloated rich climbing aboard that side,” explained Hickey. Her absurd little engine hood was like a nose without character, and the smoky lamps at either side like bleary eyes. To complete the likeness to a head, the top projected over the windshield like the visor of a cap. Greg was strongly reminded of the human derelict inside the bar and his face fell. Romance receded into the background.

Hickey watching him close made haste to remove the bad impression. “Hell! Nobody expects looks in a flivver. Wait till you feel her move under you! She’s a landaulet, see? The top lets down in fine weather. Take the wheel! Take the wheel! I’ll crank her.”

Greg remembered afterward that during this preliminary inspection, Hickey stood squarely in front of the door of the cab, thus blocking any view of the interior. But it never occurred to him to look inside. He took the driver’s seat, and Hickey cranked her. They started.

They had not gone a hundred feet before Greg discovered, though Hickey kept up a running fire of praise to drown the myriad voices of the flivver, that her piston rings were worn and her transmission loose. She was indeed well suppled, a little too supple in fact. There were other rattles, squeaks and knocks that he could not at the moment locate. Nevertheless she ran; she ran indeed with the noisy enthusiasm characteristic of her kind. There is no false delicacy about a flivver. Greg never hesitated. He was a natural born mechanic, and the engine of a flivver held no terrors for him.

When, having completed the circuit of the long block, they drew up before the Brevard House again, Hickey said anxiously: “Well?”

“It’s a go,” said Greg curtly.

A little sigh escaped the other. “Where’ll we change?”

“In the car,” said Greg.

“Ain’t room enough,” hastily objected Hickey. “If we’re going to change we can’t dress one at a time or the other would have to stop outside naked.”

“Well, I suppose we could get a room in this hotel.”

“And let Nosey the bar-tender in on our business? No, sir! I tell you. Let’s go down behind the hogsheads.”

Below, along the deserted waterfront, were great piles of heavy freight which had overflowed from the pier-sheds. Here there were many secluded nooks suitable for their purpose. Letting the taxi stand in the roadway outside, the change of their outer clothing was soon effected. Greg handed over money, baggage checks and receipt for the deposit money; receiving in return the license cards and bill of sale.

“Don’t forget you’re Elmer Fishback to the inspectors,” said Hickey.

In the light of an electric lamp overhead he strutted up and down the aisle between the rows of hogsheads, swinging Greg’s stick and “getting the feel of his clothes” he said. They were several sizes too big for him by the way, but he seemed not to be aware of that.

“Well, come on,” said Greg. “Hop in, and I’ll drive you up to the Savoiain style.”

His hand instinctively went to the door handle as he spoke. Hickey hastily pushed it aside. “Oh Hell, I’ll ride on the front seat with you,” he said. “I ain’t proud.”

Greg ran her back to the Brevard Line pier. Many cabs were arriving now bringing luxurious parties direct from the theaters and restaurants. Greg took his place in the slow-moving line and in due course reached the first cabin gangway. Hickey hopped off, and hooking the stick over his arm, squared his meager shoulders with a swagger.

“Well ta-ta, old chap,” he said in a throaty voice; “I’ll write you from dear old Lunnon.”

“By-by,” said Greg, biting his lip. He was sorry he had to miss the comedy that would be played out on the Savoia’spromenade deck during the next five days.

The cabs pressing behind forced Greg to move on. Turning on the pier, he hastened away back to the town. As he went he endeavored to take stock of his sensations, but without much success; they were rather confused. Here he was a taxi-driver on his own cab, looking for a fare, he told himself, but without quite believing it. The change had been too sudden. He couldn’t quite rid himself of the feeling that he would wake up presently. He didn’t feel like a taxi-driver inside. The whole thing seemed a bit unreal. He had an absurd feeling that the dark-windowed houses were racing past waving their stoops at him, while he sat still in the middle of the road.

Little by little he began to believe in what had happened. For one thing the flivver made a most convincing racket. Yes, there could be no doubt of it! Here he was starting on the bottom rung of the ladder just as he had always told himself he wished to do. Well, time would show how far he could climb. Meanwhile there ought to be fun in it, rich fun! Many a dollar had Greg spent in his day on the prowling cabs of night! Here’s where he would get some of it back. He knew the very air, the confidential, everything-goes-between-good-fellows air with which he must touch his cap and say: “Cab, sir?”

The old flivver rattled and bumped companionably across town. Greg was making for the White Light district, of course, where fares were to be picked up after midnight. At Madison Square he turned north on the Avenue. With its disappearing perspective of twin lights in a double row reflected from the wet pavement it was like a Venetian canal at carnival time, but the old taxi was a noisy gondola.

Greg had gone no farther than Twenty-sixth Street when he was hailed from the sidewalk by two men in evening dress, who had come perhaps from the club down the street. Greg pulled up beside the curb and leaned out to open the door as he had always seen the chauffeurs do.

“Where to, sir?”

“The Chronos Club.”

One of the men made to get in and staggered back with a queer throaty gasp: “Good God, what’s this!”

Greg hastily slipped out of his seat. “What’s the matter?”

“A dead body!” the man gasped, and instinctively looked around for a policeman.

On the floor of the cab before them lay a bulky body queerly huddled on top of an old valise. When the door had been opened the feet pushed out uncompromisingly. The light of a street lamp fell full on the upturned, yellow, dreadfully quiet face.

Greg’s mind after an instant’s stand of horror worked like lightning. He shut the door pushing the feet in with it.

“Oh, he’s only soused,” he said carelessly. “I didn’t know his friend had left him behind. I’ll have to take him to the station house now.”

Springing back into the driver’s seat he opened her up wide. The two men looked after him with an uncertain air. The taxi leaped ahead. He turned the next corner on two wheels, and the next and the next after that. His blood was pounding in his ears. Finally in the middle of a quiet block he ventured to draw up and listen. No sound of a raised alarm reached him.

II. GREG’S FIRST FARE

GREG had come to a stop beside a gas lamp in a long block of little houses. Not a soul was in sight, and no window showed a light. Slipping out of his seat he opened the door to have a better look at his gruesome freight. Perhaps after all he had been mistaken. When the door was opened the feet impatiently pushed out again. There was something piteously human in the aspect of these turned-up toes in common-sense shoes with soft kid uppers comfortable for old feet. There was no doubt that the man was dead; the slack, huddled attitude, the awful serenity of his expression proclaimed it. Greg ventured to touch his hand; it was death cold.

It was the body of a man of middle age, plump rather than corpulent. He was well-dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned style, the open overcoat revealing a cutaway beneath, while a silk hat not new, lay on the seat of the cab where it had fallen. A gold watch chain still stretched across his waistcoat, and the little finger of the hand Greg touched displayed a handsome ring. So he had not been robbed. This ring bore a curious red stone cut in octagonal form. The clean-shaven face had a notably benignant look–this had been a kind old gentleman in life; he was very dark and had a slightly foreign look, a Spanish-American, Greg guessed. There was nothing to show how he had come by his death. The bag under his body was an old-fashioned suit-case with a collapsible side.

Meanwhile the question was hammering on Greg’s brain: “What am I to do? What am I to do?” His obvious duty of course was to take the body to the nearest police station, but he shivered at the prospect of what would assuredly follow, the searching questions, the pitiless publicity. He could not hope to conceal his identity, for as yet the cabman Elmer Fishback had no background. And then to have his family and friends read next morning how Gregory Parr had become the driver on an owl taxi and was implicated in a murder–well, anything rather than that!

Why not dump the body out where he was, and let things take their course? The crime was none of his. But suppose, just as he started to drag it out of the cab, some one turned into the street, or came out of one of the houses? Or suppose, as was not unlikely, that the crime was already known, and the police even now were in search of a cab bearing his number? In that case to cast the body adrift would be to incriminate himself. For a moment or two Greg was inclined to abandon the whole outfit where it stood, but it now represented all he possessed in the world, and his native obstinacy would not permit of a surrender so abject. After all, he had done nothing wrong; he determined to see the thing through.

A hot tide of anger surged up in him against the man who had fooled him. What made it more bitter was the fact that he had liked the garrulous little cabman and had taken his word, only to be betrayed. How easily he had been deceived–fool that he was! But if he could get hold of him–! Well, even now it was only half-past twelve, and if the man really intended to sail on the Savoiathere was time–! At this point in his reflections Greg shut the door again, and sliding back into the driver’s seat turned his car and hastened back across town.

His state of mind was very different from that in which he had so blithely set forth, for now he carried a burden of horror behind. The picture of that poor form of human clay seemed etched on his brain, and he could not forget it for an instant. He was frankly terrified too; the hardest thing in the world to get rid of is a dead body that you cannot account for. He conceived the idea of driving out in the country and abandoning it in a lonely road. In that case he would have to have gasoline. Suppose while his tank was filling, some one glanced inside. Perhaps he ought to stop and set the body up on the seat and put its hat on its head–but what was the use? At the first jolt it would fall over again. When Greg passed a policeman he instinctively slumped down in his seat, and his heart stood still for a moment as he awaited the expected peremptory hail. But he was allowed to pass.

Back outside the Brevard Line pier, Greg stopped, at a loss what to do with his cab. He could not bring himself to drive out on the busy, lighted pier again; that they had escaped discovery the first time seemed miraculous now. He finally decided to leave it outside in a spot a little apart from the procession passing in and out. If anybody happened to look in while he was gone, well, so be it! The matter would be decided for him.

It is scarcely necessary to state that Mr. Gregory Parr, alias Hickey Meech, was not aboard the Savoia. As Greg looked for him voices were already warning all but intending passengers ashore. “Mr. Parr,” Greg was informed, had not paid the balance of his passage money, and his reservation was therefore canceled. He was not in the stateroom that had been allotted him. His baggage still lay unclaimed on the pier.

“Safely hidden by now!” Greg said to himself bitterly, “leaving me to dispose of the issue of his crime! He knows of course that I dare not report the matter to the police! What a downy bird I have been!”

With a long earth-shaking rumble of her whistle the Savoiabegan to back out of her slip, while Greg made his way heavily back towards the spot where he had left his cab. He took a survey of it from a little distance, prepared for instant flight if necessary, but there was no one near it. He approached it gingerly, cranked his engine, and drove away, his problem still unsolved.

Once more the lights of the Brevard House across the plaza attracted him. The front door of the bar was now closed, but business was still being done by means of the side door. Greg went in with a foolish hope that he might find Hickey propped in his old place against the mahogany. It was doomed to disappointment, of course. The pink-cheeked bar-tender was still on duty. There was no use asking him if he knew where Hickey was, because Greg had seen on his first visit that they were not acquainted. The bar-tender looked hard at Greg, and the latter had not even the nerve to order a drink, but walked out again.

As he came out he got a sickening turn. A man was standing close beside his cab, looking around. Had he looked inside? The windows were closed, and one could not see very well without opening the door. Greg’s first impulse was to run for it, but once again his obstinacy forced him to stand fast, forced him to march up to the man. He was a tall, handsome, distinguished- looking individual of middle-life, with hawklike patrician features. He had a slightly foreign air. His dress was perfection without being in any way conspicuous. He did not look as if he had just become aware of something horrible; on the contrary as Greg came closer he saw that the man was slightly intoxicated. “He does not know!” Greg thought with a great lift of the heart.

“This your cab?” the man said in a thick voice. “Want to engage you.” His voice retained only a trace of a foreign accent.

“I’ve got a fare,” Greg said.

“Where?” asked the other trying to peer through the glass.

“He’s drunk,” said Greg quickly. “He’s lying down.”

The tall man sniggered in a foolish way. “Well, he won’t mind waiting a bit then. Take me while he’s having his sleep out. I’ll ride in front with you.”

Greg reflected that he needed the money, and moreover that the man riding beside him would afford him a certain protection. Not much danger that he in his befuddled state would discover anything.

“All right,” he said. “Where to?”

“Jersey City,” said the tall man pointing across the plaza to the Erie ferry.

They seated themselves side by side and started.

“Where did you pick up the drunken man?” asked Greg’s fare.

“Had him all evening,” replied Greg. “His friends beat it and left him on my hands. I have to wait until he sleeps it off before I can collect my fare.”

“You’ll have to wait a long time,” said the tall man with his foolish snigger.

It gave Greg a nasty turn. Was it possible he had seen or was this just the maundering of a drunken man? Perhaps he was not so drunk as he seemed. Greg thought “detective!” and his heart went slowly down into his boots. But surely this man with his inimitable air of breeding and his proud glance could not be a plain-clothes man. And anyway why should a detective want to take him to Jersey City? And if he were not a detective, what interest could he have in merely tormenting Greg. After a moment of sheer panic, Greg’s spirits rose a little.

In his turn he began to wonder what errand a man of this kind could have across the river at such a time of night. That quarter is not usually thought of as the abode of aristocrats.

“Where to in Jersey City?” asked Greg.

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“I just asked because I don’t know the town.”

“Neither do I.”

By this time they were at the ferry house. There was no boat in the slip and they had to wait outside for some minutes. When the gates were finally opened they were almost the first in line, but Greg’s fare would not let him enter until all the express wagons, milk wagons, mail wagons and other late vehicles had gone in.

“Wait till the last! Wait till the last!” he said. “It’s safer.”

Greg laughed. “What do you mean, safer?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t want to be caught in the middle of the boat if anything happened,” the tall man said with the obstinacy of one in his condition. “Drive on last, and stay out on the back deck in the open. It’s safer.”

“There’s nothing in that,” said Greg.

“Well, you do what I tell you anyhow. I’m willing to pay for what I want. Here’s five dollars on account.”

Greg shrugged and took the money. He was sure then that he had the vagaries of a drunken man to deal with.

As his fare desired he let his taxi stand out on the after deck of the ferry-boat. As soon as she left her slip this part of the deck was deserted, for everybody else instinctively pressed up forward to be ready to land. Greg’s fare lit a cigar of wonderful fragrance.

“This is nice,” he said, taking his ease. “I don’t like to be crowded on a boat.”

But presently he underwent a feather-headed change of mood. “Let’s stroll up to the bow so we can see where we’re going,” he said.

“But I thought you wanted to stay here,” said Greg astonished.

“As long as the cab’s here it’s all right,” he said with perfect inconsistency. “I didn’t want to be penned up.”

There was no making any sense out of this. Useless to argue with a man in his condition. “You go ahead,” said Greg good- naturedly. “I’ll stay with the cab.”

“No, you come too,” the other said with childish insistence. “I’ve got to have somebody to talk to. Mustn’t be left alone.”

Greg shrugged, and gave in.

The Twenty-third Street ferry to Jersey City is one of the longer routes, and the passage consumes upwards of twenty minutes. There were not many passengers at this hour–in the center of the deck a group of half a dozen drivers comparing notes, and at either side as many late commuters and Jersey citizens homeward bound. The overhanging bow of the ferry-boat trod the dark water remorselessly underfoot. On either hand it heaved in a silent tumult, like an agonized black breast. Along the shores the lights, yellow, red and green, sparkled with an incredible brightness, and over the center of Manhattan hung a dim radiance like the reflection of the embers of a burnt-out conflagration.

At Greg’s elbow the tall man chattered on in the inconsequential way that accorded so ill with his aristocratic mask and falcon-like glance. “I hope the old boy’s resting easily in the cab back there. He must be cramped lying on the floor.” (So he had seen inside!) “Well, there’s no accounting for taste in beds. You can’t blame a man for taking a drop too much in weather like this. The dampness gnaws your bones. In my country the sun never forsakes us like this.”

“What country is that?” asked Greg idly.

“Er–Peru,” came the answer after a second’s hesitation. He went on with his snigger: “I guess maybe I’ve had a drop or two too many myself. Two too many! English is a funny language! I had my first cocktail at five this afternoon–no, yesterday afternoon, and after dinner I seemed to lose count. Oh well, what’s the difference! We only live once. I’ll buy you a drink, cabby, when we land on the other side.”

In the middle of all this he pulled himself up short and a great breath escaped him–was it of relief? For a moment his foolishness seemed to fall away. “Well, that’s all right,” he murmured.

“What did you say?” asked Greg curiously.

“Nothing.” He resumed his chatter. Greg scarcely remarked the interruption, but he remembered it later; remembered too, that the man had been listening.

They returned to the cab. As they rolled out of the ferry house on the Jersey City side Greg said:

“Where to?”

His fare seemed to have become a little drunker. “Fellow told me you could get a drink in Jersey City any time you wanted. Said there was a place called Stack’s over here. Something doing there all night. Stacks of liquor, stacks of fun–that’s how I remembered the name. I forget the address. But it must be on the main street. Drive up a way and look for the sign.”

Greg, reflecting that taxi-drivers had more to put up with than he had supposed, obediently drove quite a long way up the principal thoroughfare leading from the ferry. No “Stack’s” appeared among the street signs. Greg’s fare hummed snatches of a little Spanish song to himself, and did not appear to pay the slightest attention to the signs.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” asked Greg at last. “We seem to be coming to the outskirts now.”

“Oh, ask a policeman,” said the tall man foolishly.

Greg couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he was being made game of. “What do you think I am!” he said. “If he did know such a place he couldn’t give himself away by letting on. Very likely he’d want to run us in for asking.”

“Oh well, let’s go back to New York then. We’ve had a pleasant drive.”

For a moment Greg forgot his role of the submissive cabman. “What the Hell–!” he began thoroughly exasperated.

“What do you care so long as you get your pay?” said the tall man unconcernedly.

Greg reflected that it did indeed make no difference, so he shrugged his shoulders once more, and turning, drove back to the ferry at a smart pace. He privately determined to charge this capricious fare double rates.

On the return trip the tall man evinced not the slightest concern as to where the taxi was put on the ferry. He had got over his talkativeness. He sat deep in thought, smoking one cigar after another. When they landed on the New York side he curtly ordered Greg to drive him to the Hotel Tours at One Hundred and Second Street and Broadway.

During the long drive to Eighth Avenue, to Columbus Circle, and up Broadway he scarcely spoke. He had apparently recovered from his drunkenness. The night air had cured him perhaps. As a natural result his spirits had sunk. Greg stealing curious side glances into his face as it was revealed in the light of the street lamps saw that his head was sunk on his chest, and that something grim and haggard and perhaps a little wistful had appeared in the handsome features. It suggested the face of a desperate gamester dreaming of the simple life.

Somewhere about Eightieth Street Greg’s engine began to sputter. His fare was evidently an experienced automobilist.

“Gas running low?” he asked.

Greg nodded, and looked out for a garage. The first they came to was an open-air place in a vacant lot. A light was still burning in the little office, and Greg turned in. With a hail he brought a man out to the tank. He and his fare had to get out while the flivver was filled up. Afterwards the fare with true aristocratic carelessness handed Greg another bill and resumed his seat. Greg went back to the office with the man to get change. This was fifty feet or so behind the cab. It was dark in the vicinity.

As Greg stepped out of the office he felt a light touch on his arm. He beheld an eager young face looking up into his, a face whose speaking beauty went to his heart like an arrow. The glance of the brilliant eyes at once implored his assistance and enjoined secrecy upon him. Greg was won before a word was spoken. As for the rest he saw a slender, jaunty figure in boy’s clothes with cap pulled low over the head. Amazement grew in him, for he knew instantly that it was no boy. A boy’s eyes could not have moved him so. He gazed at her breathlessly as at a lovely apparition. He did not realize that she was speaking to him. She had to repeat her question.

“That’s your cab there?”

He nodded.

“Where are you taking that man?”

“Hotel Tours.”

“All right. I’m following in another cab. When you drop him go on for half a block and wait for me, will you? I want to talk to you.”

Greg nodded eagerly. Just here his fare looked around the cab to see what was keeping him, and the pseudo-youth melted like a shadow into the darkness. Greg resumed his place at the wheel in a kind of dream.