Three sevens A detective story

Fairhaven. You see, I’m the man----” Craig paused. “May I ask who you are?” The office boy almost fainted--twice: once when he heard Craig’s statement, again when he heard Craig’s question. Said the young man with the gray eyes and the sandy hair: “I’m Courtney.” “Connected with the paper?” “Why, yes. I happen to own it. Come on in.” It wasn’t merely an inheritance of great wealth that had made Richard Courtney a man of prominence in the newspaper business, any more than it was the good salaries he paid that made his paper a power in politics. A year or so of journalism made cynics out of most men. It had made no cynic of Courtney. His interest in humanity had survived a half dozen years of exceedingly active politics. With an air of nonchalance he conducted Craig through a large room where young men sat in their shirt sleeves hammering at the typewriters Craig had heard. Some of them looked up, then went on with their work. It was nothing new for the chief to come in with a man in old clothes. He was always doing that. He had all sorts of friends. And some said it was a pose. But stories often resulted--queer stories of obscure tragedy, or humor, or of the underside of movements in mines and wheat fields, forests and shipping. The chief and his caller disappeared into the former’s private office. They hadn’t been there long before the buzzer rang. The office boy who answered the call came back and summoned the boy in the anteroom. The boy from the anteroom entered the private office and stood at awed attention. The chief and the ragged caller were smoking, had the appearance of friends. “Benny,” said the chief, “what did this gentleman say about himself just now at the door?” “Nuttin’,” said Benny, with prompt intuition. “You’ll make a good newspaperman, Benny,” said the chief seriously. “If any one asks you, tell them the same thing. Go tell Mr. Barden that I said he’s to raise your pay. That’s all. And now----” The chief had turned again to Craig. “I’d feel better about this,” said Craig, after a time, “if I were earning my own money. I want to work. I’m crazy to work. I’m an engineer--or expect to be one. I don’t want gifts.” “Gifts,” said Courtney. “Are you aware what a story like this will be worth to a property like mine?” “No, I was thinking only of its value to the community and myself. Meanwhile, I want to work.” Courtney regarded his visitor thoughtfully. He said: “Work for me for a week or a month. There’s no time to lose, if we are to get Wolf up from Mexico, locate Leamy, and bring him back. Anyway, to do the thing right you’ll need more money in the next thirty days or so than you could ever earn and be honest.” “How do you know”--Craig hesitated for a moment before completing the question--“that I am honest?” “How do you know”--Courtney also hesitated--“that I’m honest myself?” “It’s a case of trust,” said Craig. “When I came here, I was merely trusting myself and people in general. I was going to tell my story, tell what I was trying to do, what I had done in the past, and expected to do in the future.” “That was a good scheme, too,” said Courtney. “It always is, if a fellow’s straight. But so few of us are straight enough. And, anyway, you can always do that later on if things don’t go the way we expect them to. Is it all understood?” “I think so.” “Let me repeat: First, to the cashier with your order for funds. Second, what you need in the way of clothes and things. Third, a room at the Ritz-Astor----” “As Daniel Craig.” “As Daniel Craig, and fourth, a conference to-night--formal dress--in suite No. 53 with the district attorney. From this time on none of us must ever be seen together.” Those friends were right who said that all of Richard Courtney’s brains were not under the hats of high-priced editors. Craig felt that this was the truth as he stepped into the street. He had Courtney’s money in his pocket. In exchange for this Courtney had only his word. Yet Courtney had somehow divined that he, Craig--escaped convict, “Napoleon of the Underworld”--held that given word more precious than his eyes. CHAPTER XXIII THE LETTER As Craig looked at himself in the long mirror of his own room in the Ritz-Astor, that evening, there was no vanity in him, but he was satisfied with the appearance that he made. Any man would have been. He was the figure of a man to stir the admiration of men as much as of women--tall, supple, narrow-waisted, broad and flat as to the shoulders. He had dined in his room, at Courtney’s suggestion. He glanced at the small electric clock on the mantel. Eight thirty. Time for the meeting in suite No. 53. Craig had the comfortable feeling that neither did Courtney find anything amiss with his appearance. Courtney was just a bit relieved, perhaps. The district attorney was frankly surprised. He was an elderly man, nervous and alert, and was also groomed to perfection. His gray hair was curly and parted in the middle, the smooth waves of it giving a rather effeminate air to his shaven face. Also, his voice had a prettiness of accent and intonation that would have been reckoned effeminate perhaps--except by those who knew his record or had heard him in court. “Mr. Craig, Colonel Bird.” The two shook hands. “Mr. Craig,” said the colonel, without loss of time, “Mr. Courtney has told me about you. I dare say things will turn out nicely. Has he told you about political conditions here in the county? No? Well, it will require but a word. I happen to have the honor to be the candidate again of the coalition. You’ve heard about that. No? Well, I detest the word, but it will perhaps make it clearer to you when I call them the Reformers--the better elements. How about it, Courtney?” “Right! That’s why I’m backing you.” “Thank you, sir. And opposed to me I have the other part of the community, particularly the criminal elements, both little and big--and with excellent reason. Am I overstating it, Courtney?” “Not at all, colonel; not at all.” “And, as occasionally happens in even the best of communities, I have established, in my own mind, that the police and the crooks are again in collusion. You will understand, sir, that I have devoted a large part of my life to fighting corruption. If I err, Courtney, I’ll be grateful if you set me right.” “You haven’t erred yet, colonel.” “The point is, as I take it, to establish this collusion in such a striking way that the great masses of citizens--I detest the term, but the proletariat, let us say--the great majority of whom are always honest, will be impressed. Nothing does impress them unless it is hammered into their skulls. I do not wish to exaggerate, but they must see that this collusion actually and as a matter of fact does exist.” “Yes, sir,” said Craig. “You are pledged, I apprehend, to the taking of certain well-known and notorious offenders.” “Yes, sir.” “In that case, it is one of my prerogatives to assist you in every way I can. Let us suppose that you were to assemble these offenders in a certain place, at a certain time, when they will have had reason to believe that they had bought immunity from the police--not all the police, mind you, the great majority of whom are always honest--but the principals. I believe there are such, Courtney.” “You said it, colonel.” “Then, let us suppose that my men should accomplish the arrest without the cognizance of the police, and that this should occur just about a week before election.” “Two weeks,” said Courtney. “Two weeks,” amended the colonel. “But, of course, the criminals arrested should have to be of a certain eminence, a certain notoriety.” “How would Leamy do?” asked Craig. “Excellent!” “And Trick O’Ray, the safe blower?” “Excellent! Most excellent!” “Then, Count Wolf?” “Really! Really! Courtney, is this possible?” “Worth trying, colonel. It’s got to be big, or we can’t win with even you on the ticket--not even with your record!” “And Ben Jarvis,” said Craig. “I think that I can get him, also. I understand that he’s hiding out here in town, somewhere.” “Ben!” exclaimed the colonel with warmth. “He was one of the first men I ever sent to prison.” “I hope to do most of this myself,” said Craig. “It’s a personal debt. But I may need the help of your office and of Mr. Courtney’s paper in getting a line on various friends and past performances of the men we’re after.” After Craig said good night to his rich and powerful friends a little later he dared let his thought go, almost for the first time, openly and without apology, to Joan Gracie. He had returned to his room. He thoughtfully undressed. He pulled on a bathrobe. His eye rested on a writing desk. Paper, pen, and ink silently approved his longing, bade him to write to her. He seated himself at the desk. * * * * * When Joan Gracie received the letter that Craig had written her, she was in an instant tremor. She read his letter twice: DEAR JOAN: I think about you very often. It gives me strength. I want all the strength in the world, and I’ll have it, too. The red ledger is not a debt. It’s an asset. But I am fixing to pay off the debt in it, and become rich, and powerful and great, to justify your faith in me. Think of it! I am Daniel Craig again. I have a beautiful room here in the great and palatial Ritz-Astor. And I have friends whose faith also I’ll justify in justifying yours. It’s not in any ordinary way, and I know you will understand how I mean it, when I sign myself, Yours truly, DANIEL CRAIG. The queer thing was that she did understand. She understood in all the ramifications of the word. Had she been Craig’s mother she could not have understood better, nor if she had been Craig himself. She had been sitting on the porch of her home in Fairhaven. Heavily screened with vines, it had the seclusion of a room, and she wasn’t expecting callers. She certainly wasn’t expecting the caller who came. It was Gary Lee. Gary had, or thought he had, sufficiently quenched the burning in his bosom to come and see Joan again. He wasn’t going to apologize to her. Not that. On the other hand, it was absurd that a mere convict could come between him and her. And, well--there went that glow of heat in his breast again, as if he were jealous, as if it were imaginable that Joan could possibly prefer a convict to the only son of the Lees. But, about a minute before Gary arrived, Aunt Katherine, who had continued to live with Joan ever since the riot, while a gardener cared for her flowers, called to Joan for some small service or other, and Joan had bounced to obey. She wasn’t there when Gary came up to the porch, but the disorder she had left was eloquent of her recent presence and of her certain return. Gary, perfectly at home, strolled toward the hammock. He was going to stretch himself out in the hammock, light his pipe, and then, when he heard Joan come, pretend that he was asleep. There’d be a laugh when she saw him--no awkward embarrassment. But there were a couple of letters in the hammock, tossed there, ready for mailing. Gary picked them up. He was as innocent as a new-born babe. By sheer accident, or some devil inspiration, and still without thought of evil, his eye fell on the address: DANIEL CRAIG, ESQ. He gasped. Then the Maltese terrier began to bark, and he heard Joan coming. He had time to drop the letter back to the hammock, but not time to