Adventure of Billy Durgin, sleuth
I spoke to Solon of Billy Durgin, whose peculiar, not to say mysterious, behavior I had been compelled to notice. I had first observed him that afternoon as we passed the City Hotel. Through the window of the little wash-room, where I saw that he was polishing a pair of shoes, he had winked at me from over his task, and then erected himself to make a puzzling gesture with one hand. Again, while we stood dream-bound before the window of the corner drug store, he had sent me a low whistle from across the street, following this with another puzzling arm wave; whereat he had started toward us. But instead of accosting me, as I had thought he meant to, he rushed by, with eyes rigidly ahead and his thin jaws grimly set. Throughout the stroll he haunted us, adhering to this strange line of conduct. I would turn a corner, to find Billy apparently waiting for me a block off. Then would follow a signal of no determinable import, after which he would walk swiftly past me as if unaware of my presence. Once I started to address him, but was met with "Not a word!" hissed at me in his best style from between clenched teeth.
I decided at last that Billy was playing a game of his own. For Billy Durgin, though sixteen years old, had happy access to our world of fine fabling; and to this I knew he resorted at those times when his duties as porter at the City Hotel palled upon his romantic spirit.
Billy, in short, was a detective, well soaked in the plenteous literature of his craft and living in the dream that criminals would one day shudder at the bare mention of his name.
Nor was he unprovided with a badge of office. Upon his immature chest, concealed by his waistcoat, was an eight-pointed star emblazoned with an open eye. Billy had once proudly confided to me that the star was "pure German Silver." A year before he had answered an advertisement which made known that a trusty man was wanted in every community "to act for us in a confidential capacity. Address for particulars, with stamp."
The particulars were that you sent the International Detective Association five dollars for a badge. After that you were their confidential agent, and if a "case" occurred in your territory, you were the man they turned to.
Billy's five hard-earned dollars had gone to the great city, and back had come his star. He wore it secretly at first, but was moved at length to display it to a few chosen friends; not wisely chosen, it would appear, for now there were mockers of Billy among the irreverent of the town. As he sat aloft on his boot-blacking throne, waiting for crime to be done among us, conning meantime one of those romances in which his heroes did rare deeds, he would be subjected to intrusion. Some coarse town humorist would leer upon him from the doorway—a leer of furtive, devilish cunning—and whisper hoarsely, "Hist! Are we alone?"
Struck thus below the belt of his dignity, our hero could only respond:—
"Aw, that's all right! You g'wan out a' here now an' quit your foolin'!"
But criminals seemed to have conspired against Little Arcady, to cheat it of its rightful distinction. In vain had Billy waited for a "case" to be sent him by the International Detective Agency. In vain had he sought to develop one by his own ferreting genius. Each week he searched the columns of the police paper in Harpin Cust's barber-shop, fixing in his mind the lineaments of criminals there advertised as wanted in various corners of our land. These were counterfeiters, murderers, embezzlers, horse-thieves, confidence men, what not—criminals to satisfy a sleuth of the most catholic tastes; but they were all wanted elsewhere—at Altoona, Pennsylvania, or Deming, New Mexico; at Portland, Maine, or Dodge City, Kansas. In truth, the country elsewhere swarmed with Billy's lawful prey, and only Little Arcady seemed good.
Billy also gloated over the portraits of well-known deputy sheriffs and other officers of the law printed in the same charming police paper. It seemed not too much to hope that his own likeness might one day grace that radiant page—himself in a long, fashionable overcoat, carelessly flung back to reveal the badge, with its never closing eye, and underneath, "William P. Durgin, the Dashing Young Detective, whose Coolness, Skill, and Daring have made his Name a Terror to Evil-Doers."
Famished for adventure, thirsting for danger, yearning for the perilous midnight encounter, avid of secrecy and disguises, Billy had been forced to toil prosaically, barrenly, unprofitably, about the sinless corridors of the City Hotel. All he had been able to do thus far was to regard every newcomer to the town with a steely eye of distrust; to watch each one furtively, to shadow him in his walks, and to believe during his sojourn that he might be "Red Mike, alias James K. Brown, wanted for safe-breaking at Muskegon, Michigan; reward, $1000," or some like desperado.
As such did he view them all—from the ornately garbed young man who came among us purveying windmills to the portly, broadclothed, gray-whiskered and forbiddingly respectable colporteur of the American Bible Society. Some day would his keen gray eye penetrate the cunning disguise; some day would he step quietly up to his man and say in low but deadly tones: "Come with me, now. Make no trouble or it will be the worse for you." Whereupon the guilty wretch would blanch and say in shaking voice: "My God, it's Billy Durgin, the famous detective! Don't shoot—I'll come!"
Billy had faith that this dramatic episode would occur in the very office of the City Hotel, and he believed that some of those who had joked him about his life passion would thereafter treat him in a very different manner.
Though I had long won these facts from Billy, I had never known him to play his game so openly before. But when I mentioned the thing to Solon, thinking to beguile him from his trouble, I found him more interested than I had thought he could be; for Solon knew Billy as well as I did.
"Did Billy follow you here?" he asked. "Perhaps he has a clew."
"A clew to what?"
"A clew to Potts. Billy volunteered to work up the Potts case, and I told him to go ahead."
"Was that fair, Solon, to pit a sleuth as relentless as Billy against poor Potts?"
"All's fair in love and war."
"Is it really war?"
"You ask Westley Keyts if he thinks it's love."
I think I noticed for the first time then that the Potts affair was etching lines into Solon's face.
"Of course it's war," he went on. "You know the fix I'm in. I had the plan to get Potts out. It was a good plan, too. The more I think of it the better I like it. With any man in the world but Potts that plan would have been a stroke of genius. But I don't mind telling you that this thing has robbed me of sleep for three months. Potts has got me talking to myself. I wake up talking of him, out of the little sleep I do get. I'll tell you the fact—if Potts is here six weeks longer, and let to finish this canvas, my influence in Slocum County is gone. I might as well give up and move on to another town myself, where my dreadful secret is unknown."
"Nonsense! But what can Billy Durgin do?"
"Well, I'm desperate, that's all. And one night Billy had me meet him up by the cemetery—he came disguised in long black whiskers—and he told me that Potts was James Carruthers, better known to the police of two continents as 'Smooth Jim,' wanted for robbing the post-office at Lima, Ohio. Of course that's nonsense. Potts hasn't the wit to rob a post-office. But I didn't have the heart to tell Billy so. I told him, instead, that this was the chance of his life; to fasten to Potts like an enraged leech, and draw out every secret of his dark past. You can't tell—Billy might find something to pry him into the next county with, anyway."
"He certainly looked charged with information this afternoon. He was fizzing like an impatient soda fountain. But why did he follow me?"
"Well, that might be Billy's roundabout way of getting to me. The other time he shadowed Marvin Chislett to get a message to me. If you're a detective, you can't do things the usual way, or all may be lost."
At that instant a low whistle sounded in our ears, a small missile was thrown over the evergreen hedge, bounding almost to our feet, and a slight but muscular figure was seen retreating swiftly into the dusk.
Solon sprang for the mysterious object. It was a stone, about which was wrapped a sheet of paper. This he took off and smoothed out. By the fading light we made out to read: "Meet me at graveyard steps at midnight. You know who."
We looked at each other. "Why didn't he come inhere?" I asked.
"That wouldn't have been detective-like."
"But the graveyard at midnight!"
"Well, perhaps he won't hold out for midnight—Billy is merely poetic at times—and maybe if we hurry along, we can catch up with him and have it out by the marble works there instead of going clear on to the cemetery. Perhaps that will be near enough in the right spirit for Billy."
Quickly we made ready for the desperate assignation, pulling our hats well down, in a way that we thought Billy would approve.
Four blocks along the street, by rapid walking, we came within hail of the intrepid young detective. We were also opposite the marble yard of Cornelius Lawson, who wrought monuments for the dead of Little Arcady. In front of the shop were a dozen finished and half-finished stones, ghostly white in the dusk. It seemed indeed to be a spot impressive enough to meet even Billy's captious requirements, but we had underrated the demands of his artist's conscience. Solon called to him.
"Won't this do, Billy?"
Billy stopped dramatically, turned back upon us, and then exploded:—
"Fools! Would you ruin all? You must not be seen addressing me. Now I must disguise myself."
Turning stealthily from us, he swiftly adjusted a beard that swept its sable flow down his youthful chest. Then he addressed us again, still in tense, hoarse accents.
"Are you armed?"
"To the teeth!" answered Solon, with deadly grimness, and with a presence of mind which I envied.
"Then follow me, but at a distance!"
Meekly we obeyed. While our hero stalked ahead, stroking his luxuriant whiskers ever and anon, we pursued him at an interval so great that not the most alert citizen of Little Arcady could have suspected this sinister undercurrent to his simple life.
It is a long walk to the cemetery, but we reached it to find Billy seated on the steps that lead over the fence, still shielded by his hairy envelope.
"A tough case!" he whispered as we sat by him. "Our man has his spies out, and my every step is dogged both night and day."
"Indeed?" we asked.
"You know that slim little duck that got in last night, purtendin' he's a shoe-drummer? Well, he's a detective hired by Potts to shadow me. You know that big fat one, lettin' on he's agent for the Nonesuch Duplex Washin' Machine? He's another. You know that slick-lookin cuss—like a minister—been here all week, makin' out he was canvassin' for 'The Scenic Wonders of Our Land' at a dollar a part, thirty-six parts and a portfoly to pack 'em away in? Well, he's an—"
"Hold on, Billy, let's get down to business," reminded Solon.
"But I've throwed 'em all off for the nonce," continued Billy, looking closely, I thought, to see if we were rightly affected by "nonce."
"Yes, sir, it's been the toughest darned case in my whole experience as an inside man."
He waited for this to move us.
"What have you found out?" asked Solon; "and say, can't you take off those whiskers, now that we are alone and unobserved? You know they kind of scramble your voice."
With cautious looks all about him, Billy bared his tender young face to the night. A weak wind fretted in the cedars back of us, and an owl hooted. It was not an occasion that he would permit to glide by him too swiftly.
"Well, first I had to git my skeleton keys made."
"I thought you said his door was never locked," interrupted Solon.
"That might be only a ruse," suggested our hero. "Well, I got my keys made, and then I begun to search his room. That's always a delicate job. You got to know just how. First I looked under the aidges of the carpet, clear around. Nothing rewarded my masterly search. Then I examines the bed and mattress inch by inch, with the same discouragin' results." Billy had now drifted fairly into the exciting manner of his favorite authors.
"Baffled, but not beaten, I nex' turns my attention to the pictures, examinin' with a trained eye the backs of same, where might be cunningly concealed the old will—uh—I mean the incriminatin' dockaments that would bring the craven wretch to bay and land him safely behind the bars of jestice. But it seemed like I had the cunning of a fiend to contend with. No objeks of interest was revealed to my swift but thorough examination. Thence I directed my attentions to the wall-paper, well knowin' the desperate tricks to which the higher class of criminal will ofttimes resort to. Once I thought the game was up and all was lost. That new Swede chambermaid walks right in an ketches me at my delicate tasks.
"Always retainin' my calm presence of mind and coolness in emergencies, quick to think an' as ready to act, with an undaunted bravery I sprang at the girl's throat and hissed, 'How much will it take to silence your accursed tongue?' She draws her slight girlish figure up to its full height—'Ten thousand dollars!' she hissed back at me. 'Ten thousand devils!' I cried, hoarse with rage—"
Too palpably our hero had been overwhelmed by his passion for fictitious prose narrative.
"Hold on, Billy!—back up," broke in Solon. "This is business, you know—this isn't an Old Cap' Collyer tale."
"Well, anyway," resumed Billy, a little abashed, "I silenced the girl. I threatened to have her transported for life if she breathed a word. Mebbe she didn't suspect anything after all. Tilly ain't so very bright. So at length I continues my researches into every nook and cranny of the den, and jest as I was about to abandon the trail, baffled and beaten at every turn, what should I git but an idee to look at some papers lyin' in plain sight on the table at the head of the bed."
"Well, out with it! "I thought Solon was growing a little impatient. But Billy controlled the situation with a firm hand.
"It's an old trick," he continued, "one that's fooled many a better man than Billy Durgin—leavin' the dockaments carelessly exposed like they didn't amount to anything; but havin' the well-known tenacity of a bloodhound, I was not to be thwarted. Well—to make a long story short—"
Solon brightened wonderfully.
"I have to admit that my first suspicion was in correct He ain't the one that done that Lima, Ohio, job and carried off them eight hundred dollars' worth of stamps—"
"But what did he do?"
"Well, I got a clew to another past of his—"
"What is it? Let's have it!"
Billy was still not to be driven faster than a detective story should move.
We heard, and dimly saw, him engaged with a metallic object which he drew from under his coat We were silent. Then we heard him say:—
"My lamp's went out—darn these matches!"
At last he seemed to light something. He unfolded a bit of paper before us and triumphantly across its surface he directed the rays of a bull's-eye lantern. This was his climax. We studied the paper.
"Billy," said Solon, after a pause, "this looks like a good night's work. True, it may come to naught. We may still be baffled, foiled, thwarted at every turn—and yet something tells me that the man is in our power—that by this precious paper we may yet bring the scoundrel to his knees in prayers for our mercy, craven with fear at our knowledge."
"Say," said Billy, stung to admiration by this flow of the right sort of talk, "Mr. Denney, did you ever read 'Little Rosebud, or is Beauty a Curse to a Poor Girl?' That sounded just like the detective in that—you remember—where he's talkin' to Clarence Armytage just after he's overheard the old lawyer tell Mark Vinton, the villain, 'If this child lives, you are a beggar!' Remember that?"
"Why, no, Billy. I must get that, first thing in the morning. My tribute to your professional skill was wholly spontaneous, though perhaps a shade influenced by having listened to your own graphic style. But come, men! Let us separate and be off, ere we are discovered. And mind, not a word of this. One false step might ruin all! So have a care."
It must have been one of the few perfect moments in the life of Billy.
"You may rely upon William Durgin to the bitter end," said he, with a quiet dignity. "But there is work yet ahead for me to-night.
"I got to regain my hotel unobserved. My life is not safe a moment with my every step dogged by the hired assassins of that infamous scoundrel."
"If death or disaster come to you, Billy, you shall not be unavenged. We swear it here on this spot. Swear, Cal!"
"Say," Billy called back to us, after adjusting his beard, "if anything comes of this,—rewards or anything,—first thing I'm goin' a' do—git me a good forty-four Colts. You can't stop a man with this here little twenty-two, an it's only a one-shot at that. I'd be in a nice hole sometime, wouldn't I, with my back up against a wall an six or seven of 'em comin' for me an' nothin' but this in my jeans?"
"Point that the other way, Billy—we 'll see about a bigger one later. We can't do anything to-night. And sell your life as dearly as possible if you have to sell it."
I fell asleep that night on a conviction that our taste for barren reality is our chief error. If we could only believe forever, what a good world it could be "a world of fine fabling," indeed! Also I wondered what J. Rodney Potts might have to apprehend from the leaven of fact in the fabling of Billy Durgin.