CHAPTER XVII — BAGLEY SHINES OUT
“I beg pardon,” said Turl, coolly, as if he had not heard aright.
“You needn't try to bluff me,” said Bagley. “I've been on to your game for a good while. You can fool some of the people, but you can't fool me. I'm too old a friend, Murray Davenport.”
“My name is Turl.”
“Before I get through with you, you won't have any name at all. You'll just have a number. I don't intend to compound. If you offered me my money back at this moment, I wouldn't take it. I'll get it, or what's left of it, but after due course of law. You're a great change artist, you are. We'll see what another transformation'll make you look like. We'll see how clipped hair and a striped suit'll become you.”
Larcher glanced in sympathetic alarm at Turl; but the latter seemed perfectly at ease.
“You appear to be laboring under some sort of delusion,” he replied. “Your name, I believe, is Bagley.”
“You'll find out what sort of delusion it is. It's a delusion that'll go through; it's not like your illusion, as you call it—and very ill you'll be—”
“How do you know I call it that?” asked Turl, quickly. “I never spoke of having an illusion, in your presence—or till this evening.”
Bagley turned redder, and looked somewhat foolish.
“You must have been overhearing,” added Turl.
“Well, I don't mind telling you I have been,” replied Bagley, with recovered insolence.
“It isn't necessary to tell me, thank you. And as that door is a thick one, you must have had your ear to the keyhole.”
“Yes, sir, I had, and a good thing, too. Now, you see how completely I've got the dead wood on you. I thought it only fair and sportsmanlike”—Bagley's eyes gleamed facetiously—“to let you know before I notify the police. But if you can disappear again before I do that, it'll be a mighty quick disappearance.”
He started for the hall, to leave the house.
Turl arrested him by a slight laugh of amusement. “You'll have a simple task proving that I am Murray Davenport.”
“We'll see about that. I guess I can explain the transformation well enough to convince the authorities.”
“They'll be sure to believe you. They're invariably so credulous—and the story is so probable.”
“You made it probable enough when you told it awhile ago, even though I couldn't catch it all. You can make it as probable again.”
“But I sha'n't have to tell it again. As the accused person, I sha'n't have to say a word beyond denying the identity. If any talking is necessary, I shall have a clever lawyer to do it.”
“Well, I can swear to what I heard from your own lips.”
“Through a keyhole? Such a long story? so full of details? Your having heard it in that manner will add to its credibility, I'm sure.”
“I can swear I recognize you as Murray Davenport.”
“As the accuser, you'll have to support your statement with the testimony of witnesses. You'll have to bring people who knew Murray Davenport. What do you suppose they'll swear? His landlady, for instance? Do you think, Larcher, that Murray Davenport's landlady would swear that I'm he?”
“I don't think so,” said Larcher, smiling.
“Here's Larcher himself as a witness,” said Bagley.
“I can swear I don't see the slightest resemblance between Mr. Turl and Murray Davenport,” said Larcher.
“You can swear you know he is Murray Davenport, all the same.”
“And when my lawyer asks him how he knows,” said Turl, “he can only say, from the story I told to-night. Can he swear that story is true, of his own separate knowledge? No. Can he swear I wasn't spinning a yarn for amusement? No.”
“I think you'll find me a difficult witness to drag anything out of,” put in Larcher, “if you can manage to get me on the stand at all. I can take a holiday at a minute's notice; I can even work for awhile in some other city, if necessary.”
“There are others,—the ladies in there, who heard the story,” said Bagley, lightly.
“One of them didn't know Murray Davenport,” said Turl, “and the other—I should be very sorry to see her subjected to the ordeal of the witness-stand on my account. I hardly think you would subject her to it, Mr. Bagley,—I do you that credit.”
“I don't know about that,” said Bagley. “I'll take my chances of showing you up one way or another, just the same. You are Murray Davenport, and I know it; that's pretty good material to start with. Your story has managed to convince me, little as I could hear of it; and I'm not exactly a 'come-on' as to fairy tales, at that—”
“It convinced you as I told it, and because of your peculiar sense of the traits and resources of Murray Davenport. But can you impart that sense to any one else? And can you tell the story as I told it? I'll wager you can't tell it so as to convince a lawyer.”
“How much will you wager?” said Bagley, scornfully, the gambling spirit lighting up in him.
“I merely used the expression,” said Turl. “I'm not a betting man.”
“I am,” said Bagley. “What'll you bet I can't convince a lawyer?”
“I'm not a betting man,” repeated Turl, “but just for this occasion I shouldn't mind putting ten dollars in Mr. Larcher's hands, if a lawyer were accessible at this hour.”
He turned to Larcher, with a look which the latter made out vaguely as a request to help matters forward on the line they had taken. Not quite sure whether he interpreted correctly, Larcher put in:
“I think there's one to be found not very far from here. I mean Mr. Barry Tompkins; he passes most of his evenings at a Bohemian resort near Sixth Avenue. He was slightly acquainted with Murray Davenport, though. Would that fact militate?”
“Not at all, as far as I'm concerned,” said Turl, taking a bank-bill from his pocket and handing it to Larcher.
“I've heard of Mr. Barry Tompkins,” said Bagley. “He'd do all right. But if he's a friend of Davenport's—”
“He isn't a friend,” corrected Larcher. “He met him once or twice in my company for a few minutes at a time.”
“But he's evidently your friend, and probably knows you're Davenport's friend,” rejoined Bagley to Larcher.
“I hadn't thought of that,” said Turl. “I only meant I was willing to undergo inspection by one of Davenport's acquaintances, while you told the story. If you object to Mr. Tompkins, there will doubtless be some other lawyer at the place Larcher speaks of.”
“All right; I'll cover your money quick enough,” said Bagley, doing so. “I guess we'll find a lawyer to suit in that crowd. I know the place you mean.”
Larcher and Bagley waited, while Turl went upstairs for his things. When he returned, ready to go out, the three faced the blizzard together. The snowfall had waned; the flakes were now few, and came down gently; but the white mass, little trodden in that part of the city since nightfall, was so thick that the feet sank deep at every step. The labor of walking, and the cold, kept the party silent till they reached the place where Larcher had sought out Barry Tompkins the night he received Edna's first orders about Murray Davenport. When they opened the basement door to enter, the burst of many voices betokened a scene in great contrast to the snowy night at their backs. A few steps through a small hallway led them into this scene,—the tobacco-smoky room, full of loudly talking people, who sat at tables whereon appeared great variety of bottles and glasses. An open door showed the second room filled as the first was. One would have supposed that nobody could have heard his neighbor's words for the general hubbub, but a glance over the place revealed that the noise was but the composite effect of separate conversations of groups of three or four. Privacy of communication, where desired, was easily possible under cover of the general noise.
Before the three newcomers had finished their survey of the room, Larcher saw Barry Tompkins signalling, with a raised glass and a grinning countenance, from a far corner. He mentioned the fact to his companions.
“Let's go over to him,” said Bagley, abruptly. “I see there's room there.”
Larcher was nothing loath, nor was Turl in the least unwilling. The latter merely cast a look of curiosity at Bagley. Something had indeed leaped suddenly into that gentleman's head. Tompkins was manifestly not yet in Turl's confidence. If, then, it were made to appear that all was friendly between the returned Davenport and Bagley, why should Tompkins, supposing he recognized Davenport upon Bagley's assertion, conceal the fact?
Tompkins had managed to find and crowd together three unoccupied chairs by the time Larcher had threaded a way to him. Larcher, looking around, saw that Bagley had followed close. He therefore introduced Bagley first; and then Turl. Tompkins had the same brief, hearty handshake, the same mirthful grin—as if all life were a joke, and every casual meeting were an occasion for chuckling at it—for both.
“I thought you said Mr. Tompkins knew Davenport,” remarked Bagley to Larcher, as soon as all in the party were seated.
“Certainly,” replied Larcher.
“Then, Mr. Tompkins, you don't seem to live up to your reputation as a quick-sighted man,” said Bagley.
“I beg pardon?” said Tompkins, interrogatively, touched in one of his vanities.
“Is it possible you don't recognize this gentleman?” asked Bagley, indicating Turl. “As somebody you've met before, I mean?”
“Extremely possible,” replied Tompkins, with a sudden curtness in his voice. “I do not recognize this gentleman as anybody I've met before. But, as I never forget a face, I shall always recognize him in the future as somebody I've met to-night.” Whereat he grinned benignly at Turl, who acknowledged with a courteous “Thank you.”
“You never forget a face,” said Bagley, “and yet you don't remember this one. Make allowance for its having undergone a lot of alterations, and look close at it. Put a hump on the nose, and take the dimples away, and don't let the corners of the mouth turn up, and pull the hair down over the forehead, and imagine several other changes, and see if you don't make out your old acquaintance—and my old friend—Murray Davenport.”
Tompkins gazed at Turl, then at the speaker, and finally—with a wondering inquiry—at Larcher. It was Turl who answered the inquiry.
“Mr. Bagley is perfectly sane and serious,” said he. “He declares I am the Murray Davenport who disappeared a few months ago, and thinks you ought to be able to identify me as that person.”
“If you gentlemen are working up a joke,” replied Tompkins, “I hope I shall soon begin to see the fun; but if you're not, why then, Mr. Bagley, I should earnestly advise you to take something for this.”
“Oh, just wait, Mr. Tompkins. You're a well-informed man, I believe. Now let's go slow. You won't deny the possibility of a man's changing his appearance by surgical and other means, in this scientific age, so as almost to defy recognition?”
“I deny the possibility of his doing such a thing so as to defy recognition by me. So much for your general question. As to this gentleman's being the person I once met as Murray Davenport, I can only wonder what sort of a hoax you're trying to work.”
Bagley looked his feelings in silence. Giving Barry Tompkins up, he said to Larcher: “I don't see any lawyer here that I'm acquainted with. I was a bit previous, getting let in to decide that bet to-night.”
“Perhaps Mr. Tompkins knows some lawyer here, to whom he will introduce you,” suggested Turl.
“You want a lawyer?” said Tompkins. “There are three or four here. Over there's Doctor Brady, the medico-legal man; you've heard of him, I suppose,—a well-known criminologist.”
“I should think he'd be the very man for you,” said Turl to Bagley. “Besides being a lawyer, he knows surgery, and he's an authority on the habits of criminals.”
“Is he a friend of yours?” asked Bagley, at the same time that his eyes lighted up at the chance of an auditor free from the incredulity of ignorance.
“I never met him,” said Turl.
“Nor I,” said Larcher; “and I don't think Murray Davenport ever did.”
“Then if Mr. Tompkins will introduce Mr. Larcher and me, and come away at once without any attempt to prejudice, I'm agreed, as far as our bet's concerned. But I'm to be let alone to do the talking my own way.”
Barry Tompkins led Bagley and Larcher over to the medico-legal criminologist—a tall, thin man in the forties, with prematurely gray hair and a smooth-shaven face, cold and inscrutable in expression—and, having introduced and helped them to find chairs, rejoined Turl. Bagley was not ten seconds in getting the medico-legal man's ear.
“Doctor, I've wanted to meet you,” he began, “to speak about a remarkable case that comes right in your line. I'd like to tell you the story, just as I know it, and get your opinion on it.”
The criminologist evinced a polite but not enthusiastic willingness to hear, and at once took an attitude of grave attention, which he kept during the entire recital, his face never changing; his gaze sometimes turned penetratingly on Bagley, sometimes dropping idly to the table.
“There's a young fellow in this town, a friend of mine,” Bagley went on, “of a literary turn of mind, and altogether what you'd call a queer Dick. He'd got down on his luck, for one reason and another, and was dead sore on himself. Now being the sort of man he was, understand, he took the most remarkable notion you ever heard of.” And Bagley gave what Larcher had inwardly to admit was a very clear and plausible account of the whole transaction. As the tale advanced, the medico-legal expert's eyes affected the table less and Bagley's countenance more. By and by they occasionally sought Larcher's with something of same inquiry that those of Barry Tompkins had shown. But the courteous attention, the careful heeding of every word, was maintained to the end of the story.
“And now, sir,” said Bagley, triumphantly, “I'd like to ask what you think of that?”
The criminologist gave a final look at Bagley, questioning for the last time his seriousness, and then answered, with cold decisiveness: “It's impossible.”
“But I know it to be true!” blurted Bagley.
“Some little transformation might be accomplished in the way you describe,” said the medico-legal man. “But not such as would insure against recognition by an observant acquaintance for any appreciable length of time.”
“But surely you know what criminals have done to avoid identification?”
“Better than any other man in New York,” said the other, simply, without any boastfulness.
“And you know what these facial surgeons do?”
“Certainly. A friend of mine has written the only really scientific monograph yet published on the art they profess.”
“And yet you say that what my friend has done is impossible?”
“What you say he has done is quite impossible. Mr. Tompkins, for example, whom you cite as having once met your friend and then failed to recognize him, would recognize him in ten seconds after any transformation within possibility. If he failed to recognize the man you take to be your friend transformed, make up your mind the man is somebody else.”
Bagley drew a deep sigh, curtly thanked the criminologist, and rose, saying to Larcher: “Well, you better turn over the stakes to your friend, I guess.”
“You're not going yet, are you?” said Larcher.
“Yes, sir. I lose this bet; but I'll try my story on the police just the same. Truth is mighty and will prevail.”
Before Bagley could make his way out, however, Turl, who had been watching him, managed to get to his side. Larcher, waving a good-night to Barry Tompkins, followed the two from the room. In the hall, he handed the stakes to Turl.
“Oh, yes, you win all right enough,” admitted Bagley. “My fun will come later.”
“I trust you'll see the funny side of it,” replied Turl, accompanying him forth to the snowy street. “You haven't laughed much at the little foretaste of the incredulity that awaits you.”
“Never you mind. I'll make them believe me, before I'm through.” He had turned toward Sixth Avenue. Turl and Larcher stuck close to him.
“You'll have them suggesting rest-cures for the mind, and that sort of thing,” said Turl, pleasantly.
“And the newspapers will be calling you the Great American Identifier,” put in Larcher.
“There'll be somebody else as the chief identifier,” said Bagley, glaring at Turl. “Somebody that knows it's you. I heard her say that much.”
“Stop a moment, Mr. Bagley.” Turl enforced obedience by stepping in front of the man and facing him. The three stood still, at the corner, while an elevated train rumbled along overhead. “I don't think you really mean that. I don't think that, as an American, you would really subject a woman—such a woman—to such an ordeal, to gain so little. Would you now?”
“Why shouldn't I?” Despite his defiant look, Bagley had weakened a bit.
“I can't imagine your doing it. But if you did, my lawyer would have to make you tell how you had heard this wonderful tale.”
“Through the door. That's easy enough.”
“We could show that the tale couldn't possibly be heard through so thick a door, except by the most careful attention—at the keyhole. You would have to tell my lawyer why you were listening at the keyhole—at the keyhole of that lady's parlor. I can see you now, in my mind's eye, attempting to answer that question—with the reporters eagerly awaiting your reply to publish it to the town.”
Bagley, still glaring hard, did some silent imagining on his own part. At last he growled:
“If I do agree to settle this matter on the quiet, how much of that money have you got left?”
“If you mean the money you placed in Murray Davenport's hands before he disappeared, I've never heard that any of it has been spent. But isn't it the case that Davenport considered himself morally entitled to that amount from you?”
Bagley gave a contemptuous grunt; then, suddenly brightening up, he said: “S'pose Davenport was entitled to it. As you ain't Davenport, why, of course, you ain't entitled to it. Now what have you got to say?”
“Merely, that, as you're not Davenport, neither are you entitled to it.”
“But I was only supposin'. I don't admit that Davenport was entitled to it. Ordinary law's good enough for me. I just wanted to show you where you stand, you not bein' Davenport, even if he had a right to that money.”
“Suppose Davenport had given me the money?”
“Then you'd have to restore it, as it wasn't lawfully his.”
“But you can't prove that I have it, to restore.”
“If I can establish any sort of connection between you and Davenport, I can cause your affairs to be thoroughly looked into,” retorted Bagley.
“But you can't establish that connection, any more than you can convince anybody that I'm Murray Davenport.”
Bagley was fiercely silent, taking in a deep breath for the cooling of his rage. He was a man who saw whole vistas of probability in a moment, and who was correspondingly quick in making decisions.
“We're at a deadlock,” said he. “You're a clever boy, Dav,—or Turl, I might as well call you. I know the game's against me, and Turl you shall be from now on, for all I've ever got to say. I did swear this evening to make it hot for you, but I'm not as hot myself now as I was at that moment. I'll give up the idea of causing trouble for you over that money; but the money itself I must have.”
“Do you need it badly?” asked Turl.
“Need it!” cried Bagley, scorning the imputation. “Not me! The loss of it would never touch me. But no man can ever say he's done me out of that much money, no matter how smart he is. So I'll have that back, if I've got to spend all the rest of my pile to get it. One way or another, I'll manage to produce evidence connecting you with Murray Davenport at the time he disappeared with my cash.”
Turl pondered. Presently he said: “If it were restored to you, Davenport's moral right to it would still be insisted on. The restoration would be merely on grounds of expediency.”
“All right,” said Bagley.
“Of course,” Turl went on, “Davenport no longer needs it; and certainly I don't need it.”
“Oh, don't you, on the level?” inquired Bagley, surprised.
“Certainly not. I can earn a very good income. Fortune smiles on me.”
“I shouldn't mind your holding out a thousand or two of that money when you pay it over,—say two thousand, as a sort of testimonial of my regard,” said Bagley, good-naturedly.
“Thank you very much. You mean to be generous; but I couldn't accept a dollar as a gift, from the man who wouldn't pay Murray Davenport as a right.”
“Would you accept the two thousand, then, as Murray Davenport's right,—you being a kind of an heir of his?”
“I would accept the whole amount in dispute; but under that, not a cent.”
Bagley looked at Turl long and hard; then said, quietly: “I tell you what I'll do with you. I'll toss up for that money,—the whole amount. If you win, keep it, and I'll shut up. But if I win, you turn it over and never let me hear another word about Davenport's right.”
“As I told you before, I'm not a gambling man. And I can't admit that Davenport's right is open to settlement.”
“Well, at least you'll admit that you and I don't agree about it. You can't deny there's a difference of opinion between us. If you want to settle that difference once and for ever, inside of a minute, here's your chance. It's just cases like this that the dice are good for. There's a saloon over on that corner. Will you come?”
“All right,” said Turl. And the three strode diagonally across Sixth Avenue.
“Gimme a box of dice,” said Bagley to the man behind the bar, when they had entered the brightly lighted place.
“They're usin' it in the back room,” was the reply.
“Got a pack o' cards?” then asked Bagley.
The barkeeper handed over a pack which had been reposing in a cigar-box.
“I'll make it as sudden as you like,” said Bagley to Turl. “One cut apiece, and highest wins. Or would you like something not so quick?”
“One cut, and the higher wins,” said Turl.
“Shuffle the cards,” said Bagley to Larcher, who obeyed. “Help yourself,” said Bagley to Turl. The latter cut, and turned up a ten-spot. Bagley cut, and showed a six.
“The money's yours,” said Bagley. “And now, gentlemen, what'll you have to drink?”
The drinks were ordered, and taken in silence. “There's only one thing I'd like to ask,” said Bagley thereupon. “That keyhole business—it needn't go any further, I s'pose?”
“I give you my word,” said Turl. Larcher added his, whereupon Bagley bade the barkeeper telephone for a four-wheeler, and would have taken them to their homes in it. But they preferred a walk, and left him waiting for his cab.
“Well!” exclaimed Larcher, as soon as he was out of the saloon. “I congratulate you! I feared Bagley would give trouble. But how easily he came around!”
“You forget how fortunate I am,” said Turl, smiling. “Poor Davenport could never have brought him around.”
“There's no doubting your luck,” said Larcher; “even with cards.”
“Lucky with cards,” began Turl, lightly; but broke off all at once, and looked suddenly dubious as Larcher glanced at him in the electric light.