“I know it’s practically hopeless. To get an idea into your head one wants a proper outfit—drills, blasting-powder, and so on. But there’s just a chance, perhaps, if I talk slowly. Has it occurred to you, Spike—my bonny, blue-eyed Spike—that every other man, more or less, in this stately home of England is a detective who has probably received instructions to watch you like a lynx? Do you imagine that your blameless past is a sufficient safeguard? I suppose you think that these detectives will say to themselves, ‘Now, whom shall we suspect? We must leave out Spike Mullins, of course, because he naturally wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. It can’t be dear old Spike who’s got the stuff.’”
“But, boss,” interposed Spike brightly. “I ain’t! Dat’s right—I ain’t got it. Youse has!”
Jimmy looked at him with reluctant admiration. After all, there was a breezy delirium about Spike’s methods of thought which was rather stimulating when you got used to it. The worst of it was that it did not fit in with practical, everyday life. Under different conditions—say, during convivial evenings at Colney Hatch—he could imagine the Bowery boy being a charming companion. How pleasantly, for instance, such remarks as that last would while away the monotony of a padded cell!
“But, laddie,” he said, with steely affection, “listen once more. Reflect! Ponder! Does it not seep into your consciousness that we are, as it were, subtly connected in this house in the minds of certain bad persons? Are we not imagined by Mr. McEachern, for instance, to be working hand in hand like brothers? Do you fancy that Mr. McEachern, chatting with his tame sleuth-hound over their cigars, will have been reticent on this point? I think not. How do you propose to baffle that gentlemanly sleuth, Spike, who, I may mention once again, has rarely moved more than two yards away from me since his arrival?”
An involuntary chuckle escaped Spike.
“Sure, boss, dat’s all right!”
“All right, is it? Well, well! What makes you think it is all right?”
“Why, say, boss, dose sleuts is out of business.” A merry grin split his face. “It’s funny, boss! Gee, it’s got a circus skinned! Listen! Deyse bin an’ arrest each other.”
Jimmy moodily revised his former view. Even in Colney Hatch this sort of thing would be coldly received. Genius must ever walk alone. Spike would have to get along without any hope of meeting a kindred spirit, a fellow-being in tune with his brain-processes.
“Dat’s right,” chuckled Spike. “Leastways, it ain’t.”