“Is that so, brother?” said the man, who as a servant had had the most quiet voice and repressed manner. “Just go ask Vicente Alcon y Rodriguez! That boy’s a little Sugar King, and he makes enough to sweeten several lives. He offered me twenty-five thousand if I could get the Jumel bracelet or its mate for him and get it down to the monkey zone. And now--yuh got me--what you going to do with me?” He snarled this.
“We’ll give you a nice chance to rest,” answered one of the men pleasantly, and, taking handcuffs from his pocket, snapped them on the man who had made me so much trouble, and all the mystery.
“I wonder why the Sugar King wanted it?” I asked as the men went off, taking Debson between them.
“I’ll find out,” S. K. answered. And he did.
Chapter XXIV--What made the Chase
To quote S. K., it had an entirely “sane and logical” explanation, and it was started by that little fellow who wears wings, carries a quiver, is talked of and felt often, but is never seen--except on Valentines. And of course you know whom I mean. His name comes from an old monk, which is strange, I think. S. K. said it was not. He said that everybody has their monastery garden where they, quite alone, make the prettiest rhymes to love. And he explained further that when you try to say them aloud, in the fumbling words of men, they will not echo even half of what is felt.
All this discussion came because of the date, which was February fourteenth. Much had happened since Christmas week, and this day we all sat in the living-room reviewing things.
Evelyn was hemming napkins, and Herbert sat on a foot-rest at her feet, muttering things like “Beautiful hands!” or “Did she prick her sweet finger!” which everybody heard, but had to pretend they didn’t. (That’s a funny sentence, but I haven’t time to alter it.) Amy and Willy were doing a picture puzzle, S. K. was sitting idle, and I was trying to address post-cards to people at home. Personally, I don’t like them, but the people to whom I was going to send them did. I could take part in all the talk, inasmuch as I only wrote, “Wish you were here,” and, “This is a picture of Grant’s tomb,” or, “The Woolworth Tower,” or whatever it was. Of course, it said what the picture was, in print; but people always do explain again in writing on post-cards, I suppose because it fills up space. Even real writers always use a great deal of explaining to do that, I have noticed.
Willy would leave the table now and again to read my messages, all of which were almost the same, in a different voice. He made it deeply dramatic, or Miss Hooper-high, and Amy giggled awfully. She laughs at anything he says; and he says she has more perception and appreciation of true humour than any woman he has ever met--which is what men always do say when women laugh at their jokes.
The fifth time he made a tour to the desk he picked up a card I had addressed to Colonel Sephus I. Lemley, who did detective work in Baltimore in 1892. He has been resting since then, and his wife takes in sewing. He explained that the business world was not a fit place for a Southern gentleman. Willy told about how he acts when he gets drunk. On one occasion he painted the entire house with apple butter (his wife had just made five crocks), and it was in fly season, too. And on another he sawed out the lower panel of the front door, and then he got down on his hands and knees and stuck his head through the hole and barked at everyone who passed. That was really very funny, because he has a little goatee which wags when he talks, and to see his head, topped by a wide-brimmed felt hat, and bottomed by wiggling fluff, to see this sticking through a hole in the door and hear him say, “Bow, wow!” in a high falsetto, was enough to make you yell. For three days he honestly thought he was Miss Hooper’s dog, Rover. His wife was visiting in a near town. When she is at home she tactfully restrains him, with a broom, the neighbours say, and it is noticeable that he stands in front of the Mansion House after these attacks, instead of occupying one of the rocking-chairs which trail all over the porch and half across the sidewalk.