"Steady!" said he. "Of course you remembered, parson. It"s the only way. Didn"t I tell her there"s always a way out? Well, here it is!"
His funny, twisted smile came to his lips; it twisted the heart in my breast. No thought of himself, of what this thing might mean to him, seemed to cross his mind.
"I prayed," said I, almost sobbing, "I prayed. And, John, there stood St. Stanislaus--" I stopped again, choking.
He nodded, understandingly. He was methodically spreading out the not unbeautiful instruments. And as he picked them up one by one, handling them with his strong and expert fingers and testing each with a hawk-eyed scrutiny, a most curious and subtle change stole over the b.u.t.terfly Man.
I felt as if I were witnessing the evocation of something superhuman.
Horrified and fascinated, I saw what might be called the apotheosis of Slippy McGee, so far above him was it, come back and subtly and awfully blend with my scientist. It was as if two strong and powerful individualities had deliberately joined forces to forge a more vital being than either, since the training, knowledge, skill and intellect of both would be his to command. If such a man as _this_ ever stepped over the deadline he would not be merely "the slickest cracksman in America"; he would be one of the master criminals of the earth. I fancy he must have felt this intoxicating new access of power, for there emanated from him something of a fierce and exalted delight. A potentiality, as yet neither good nor evil, he suggested a spiritual and physical dynamo.
He gave a tigerish purr of pleasure over the tools, handling them with the fingers of the artist and admiring them with the eyes of the connoisseur. "The best I could get. All made to order. Tested blue steel. I never kicked at the price, and you wouldn"t believe me if I told you what this layout cost in cold cash. But they paid. Good stuff always pays in the long run. It was lucky I winded the cops on that last job, or I"d have had to leave them. As it was, I just had time to grab them up before I hit the trail for the skyline. They don"t need anything but a little rubbing--a saint"s elbow must be a snug berth. I wish I had some juice, though."
"Juice?"
"Nitroglycerine," very gently, as to a child. "It does not make very much noise and it saves time when you"re in a hurry--as you generally are, in this business," he smiled at me quizzically. "Not that one can"t get along without it." The swift fingers paused for a fraction of a second to give a steel drill an affectionate pat. "I used to know one of the best ever, who never used anything but a particular drill, a pet bit, and his ear. Somebody snitched though, so the last I heard of him he was doing a twenty-year stretch. Pity, too. He was an artist in his line, that fellow. And his taste in neckties I have never seen equaled." The b.u.t.terfly Man"s voice, evenly pitched and pleasantly modulated, a cultivated voice, was quite casual.
He gathered his tools together and replaced them in the old worn case.
"Wonder if that safe is a side-bolt?" he mused. "Most likely. I dare say it"s only the average combination. A one-armed yegg could open most of the boxes in this town with a tin b.u.t.ton-hook. Anyhow, it would have to be a new-laid lock _I_ couldn"t open. If he"s left the letters in the safe we"re all right--so here"s hoping he has. I certainly don"t want to go to his room unless I have to. Hunter"s not the sort to sit on his hands, and I"m not feeling what you"d call real amiable."
A glance at his face, with little glinting devil-lights shining far back in his eyes, set me to babbling:
"Oh, no, no, no, no, that would never do! G.o.d forbid that you should go to his rooms! He must have left them in the safe! He had to leave them in the safe!"
"Sure he"s left them in the safe: why shouldn"t he?" he made light of my palpable fears. Slipping into his gray overcoat, he pulled on his felt hat, thrust his hands into his wellworn dogskin gloves, and picked up the package. n.o.body in the world ever looked less like a criminal than this brown-faced, keen-eyed man with his pleasant bearing. Why, this was John Flint, the kindly bug-hunter all Appleboro loved, "that good and kind and Christian man, our brother John Flint, sometimes known as the b.u.t.terfly Man."
"Now, don"t you worry any at all, parson," he was saying. "There"s nothing to be afraid of. I"ll take care of myself, and I"ll get those letters if they"re in existence. I"ve got to get them. What else was I born for, I"d like to know?"
The question caught me like a lash across the face.
"You were born," I said violently, "to win an honored name, to do a work of inestimable value. And you are deliberately and quixotically risking it, and I allow you to risk it, because a girl"s happiness hangs in the balance! If you are detected it means your own ruin, for you could never explain away those tools. Yes! You are facing possible ruin and disgrace. You might have to give up your work for years--have you considered that? Oh, John Flint, stop a moment, and reflect! There is nothing in this for you, John, nothing but danger. No, there"s nothing in it for you, except--"
He held up his hand, with a gesture of dignity and reproach.
"--except that I get my big chance to step in and save the girl I happen to love, from persecution and wretchedness, if not worse," said he simply. "If I can do that, what the devil does it matter what happens to _me_? You talk about name and career! Man, man, what could anything be worth to me if I had to know she was unhappy?"
The tides of emotion rushed over him and flooded his face into a shining-eyed pa.s.sion nakedly unashamed and beautiful. And I had thought him casual, carelessly accepting a risk!
"Parson," he wondered, "didn"t you _know_? No, I suppose it wouldn"t occur to anybody that a man of my sort should love a girl of hers. But I do. I think I did the first time I ever laid eyes on her, and she a girl-kid in a red jacket, with curls about her shoulders and a face like a little new rose in the morning. Remember her eyes, parson, how blue they were? And how she looked at me, so friendly--_me_, mind you, as I was! And she handed me a Catocala moth, and she gave me Kerry.
"You"re such a good man, Mr. Flint!" says she, and by G.o.d, she meant it! Little Mary Virginia! And she got fast hold of something in me that was never anybody"s but hers, that couldn"t ever belong to anybody but her, no, not if I lived for a thousand years and had the pick of the earth.
"It wasn"t until she came back, though, that I knew I belonged to her who could never belong to me. If I was dead at one end of the world and she dead at the other, we couldn"t be any farther apart than life has put us two who can see and speak to each other every day!"
"And yet--" he looked at me now and laughed boyishly, "and yet it isn"t for Mayne, that she loves, it isn"t for you, nor Eustis, nor any man but me alone to help her, by being just what I am and what I have been! Risks? Fail her? _I?_ I couldn"t fail her. I"ll get those letters for her to-night, if Hunter has hidden them in the beam of his eye!" He turned to me with a sudden white glare of ferocity that appalled me. "I could kill him with my hands," said he, with a quiet cold deadliness to chill one"s marrow, "and Inglesby after him, for what they"ve made her endure! When I think of to-night--that brute daring to touch _her_ with his swine"s mouth--I--I--"
His face was convulsed; but after a moment"s fierce struggle the disciplined spirit conquered.
"No, there"s been enough trouble for her without that, so they"re safe from me, the both of them. I wouldn"t do anything to imperil her happiness to save my own life. She was born to be happy--and she"s going to have her chance. _I"ll_ see to that, Mary Virginia!"
The man seemed to grow, to expand, to tower giant-like before me. Next to the white heat of this lava-flow of pure feeling, all other loves lavished upon Mary Virginia during her fortunate life seemed dwarfed and petty. Beside it Inglesby"s furious desire shrunk into a loathsome thing, small and crawling; and my own affection was only an old priest"s; and even the strong and faithful love of Laurence appeared pale and boyish in the light of this majestic pa.s.sion which gave all and in return asked only the right to serve and to save.
"_Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death_ ...
"_Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned_."
Trying desperately to cling to such rags and tatters of common sense as I could lay hold upon:
"There is your duty to yourself," I managed to say. "Yes, yes, one owes a great duty to oneself and one"s work, John. You are risking too much--name, friends, honor, work, freedom. For G.o.d"s sake, John, do not underestimate the danger. You have not had time to consider it."
"Ho! Listen to the parson preaching self-interest!" he mocked. "He"s a fine one to do that--at this hour of his life!"
"I tell you you endanger everything," I insisted. I might bring that package, but at least he shouldn"t rush upon the knife unwarned.
"I know that--I"m no fool. And _I_ tell _you_ it"s worth while.
To-night makes me and my whole life worth while, the good and the bad of it together. Risks? I"ll take all that"s coming. You stay here and say some prayers for me, parson, if it makes you feel any better. As for me, I"m off."
At that I lost my every last shred of commonplace everyday sanity, and let myself swing without further reserve into the wild current of the night.
"Oh, very well!" said I shrilly. "You will take chances, you will run risks, _hein?_ My friend, you do not stir out of this house this night without _me_!" He stared, as well he might, but I folded my arms and stared back. Let him leave me, bent on such an errand? I to sit at home idly, awaiting the issue, whatever it might be?
"I mean it, John Flint. I am going with you. Was it not I, then, who saved those tools and had them ready to your hand? Whatever happens to you now happens to me as well. It is quite useless for you to argue, to scowl, to grind the teeth, to swear like that. And it will be dangerous to try to trick me: I am going!"
For he was protesting, violently and profanely. His profanity was so sincere, so earnest, so heartfelt, that it mounted into heights of real eloquence. Also, he did everything but knock me down and lock me indoors.
"Whatever happens to you happens to me," I repeated doggedly, and I was not to be moved. I had a hazy notion that somehow my being with him might protect him in case of any untoward happening, and minimize his risks.
I ran into his bedroom and clapped his best hat on my head, leaving my biretta on his bed; and I put on his new dark overcoat over my ca.s.sock. Both the borrowed garments were too big for me, the hat coming down over my ears, the coat-sleeves over my hands. I being as thin as a peeled willow-wand, and the clothes hanging upon me as on a clothes-rack, I dare say I cut a sad and ludicrous figure enough.
Flint, standing watching me with his burglarious bundle under his arm, gave an irrepressible chuckle and his eyes crinkled.
"Parson," said he solemnly, "I"ve seen all sorts and sizes and colors and conditions of crooks, up and down the line, in my time and generation, but take it from me you"re a libel and an outrage on the whole profession. Why, you crazy he-angel, you"d break their hearts just to look at you!" And he grinned. At a moment like that, he grinned, with a sort of gay and light-hearted _diablerie_. They are a baffling and inexplicable folk, the Irish. I suppose G.o.d loves the Irish because He doesn"t really know how else to take them.
"It will break my own heart, and possibly my mother"s and Mary Virginia"s will break to keep it company, if anything evil happens to you this night," said I, severely. I was in no grinning humor, me.
He reached over and carefully b.u.t.toned, with one hand, the too-big collar about my throat. For a moment, with that odd, little-boy gesture of his, he held on to my sleeve. He looked down at me; and his eyes grew wide, his face melted into a whimsical tenderness.
"When you get to heaven, parson, you"ll keep them all busy a hundred years and a day trying to cut and make a suit of sky clothes big enough to fit your real measure," said he, irrelevantly. "You real thing in holy sports, come on, since you"ve got to!" With that he blew out the light, and we stepped into the cold and windy night. It was ten minutes after three.
Armed with bottle-belt, knapsack, and net, many a happy night had I gone forth with the b.u.t.terfly Man a-hunting for such as we might find of our chosen prey. Armed now with nothing more nor less formidable than the black rosary upon which my hand shut tightly, I, Armand De Rance, priest and gentleman, walked forth with Slippy McGee in those hours when deep sleep falls upon the spirit of man, for to aid and encourage and abet and a.s.sist and connive at, nothing more nor less than burglary.
CHAPTER XIX
THE I O U OF SLIPPY MCGEE
The wind that precedes the dawn was blowing, a freakish and impish wind though not a vicious one. One might imagine it animated by those sportive and capricious nature-spirits an old Father of the church used to call the monkeys of G.o.d. Every now and then a great deluge of piled-up clouds broke into tossing billows and went rolling and tumbling across the face of the sky, and in and out of these swirling ma.s.ses the high moon played hide-and-seek and the stars showed like pin-points. Such street lights as we have being extinguished at midnight, the tree-shaded sidewalks were in impenetrable shadow, the gardens that edged them were debatable ground, full of grotesque silhouettes, backgrounded by black bulks of silent houses all profoundly asleep. As for us, we also were shadows, whose feet were soundless on the sandy sidewalks. We moved in the dark like travelers in the City of Dreadful Night.
And so we came at last to the red-brick bank, approaching it by the long stretch of the McCall garden which adjoins it. For years there have been battered "For Sale" signs tacked onto its trees and fences, but no one ever came nearer purchasing the McCall property than asking the price. Folks say the McCalls believe that Appleboro is going to rival New York some of these days, and are holding their garden for sky-sc.r.a.per sites.