THE COMPLETE JIM MAITLAND SERIES. H. C. McNeile / Sapper
to Monte Carlo. We did.
* * * * *
It was not till much later on that he consented to allay my curiosity. At intervals through the afternoon he had shaken with silent laughter until he had almost driven me insane.
I knew there had been an interview with Jack, and the girl had been there too; a girl who had left with eyes misty with joy and happiness, and a boy who had left almost dazed by his good fortune.
The girl came up to me as I sat reading the paper, and I rose with a smile.
"He's just the most wonderful man in the world, Mr. Leyton," she said, and her voice trembled a little.
"He is that," agreed Jack fervently.
And with that they were gone, and I sat on waiting for Jim.
He came at last, a quiet smile on his face, and we decided it was cocktail time.
"A good bluff that, Dick," he said thoughtfully.
"Darned good!" I agreed. "What had you got on the darts?"
"Some stuff the chemist made up. Quite harmless, but irritates abominably."
And then he started to choke with laughter.
"What's the jest?" I demanded.
"My dear old man," he spluttered, "you haven't got the plum— the supreme gem of the affair. That lies in the antidote."
I looked at him. "What the deuce was the antidote?"
"It came to me in the chemist's shop this morning," he murmured gravely. "All great ideas come suddenly like that. The antidote, Dick, was just half a pint of castor-oil."
IV. — COLETTE
FROM Paris to Valparaiso is a long call, and what started us off in that direction for the life of me I can't remember. I know Jim's shoulder was a much longer job than we anticipated: I also have distinct recollections that Paris may have been partially responsible for the fact.
But that is neither here nor there: at Valparaiso we arrived one fine morning, and at Valparaiso we decided to stay. And in Valparaiso we ran into one of those adventures for which Jim seemed to have a special attraction. They came to him as a nail goes to a magnet, though he always swore he was the most peaceable of men. And, as a matter of fact, he never did look for trouble. It just came, and that saved him the bother.
It came this time right enough, and it nearly cost us both our lives. But since it didn't quite, and moreover was responsible for a magnificent work of art, all was well. It lies before me as I write—that work of art. It consists of a photo of a family group, taken by a local photographer down in Sussex and printed on a picture postcard. Sitting on a chair is a girl—a pretty girl with happiness written all over her lace, and on her lap are two remarkably healthy-looking infants. Standing behind her is the proud father arrayed in his best clothes, with a collar half an inch too small and an inch and a half too high. The girl's arms are round her babies, and it's only when I look very close that I can notice the difference between those two arms. For the right one was splintered to pieces, and the splintering saved us from death, and the girl from a fate far worse. Though even now, maybe, she hardly realises it, which is just as well.
* * * * *
The thing happened in MacTavert's bar. Incidentally, it was more than a mere bar; flamboyant notices and flaring lights in the street outside proclaimed it to be a dancing saloon. And even that fell short of the full truth, for Bully MacTavert knew—none better—the principal source of income from sailors just in from a voyage. When a man has taken forty days merely to get a wind-jammer round the Horn, on the top of the rest of the voyage, and has then beaten up the west coast of South America towards Valparaiso, it isn't only drink he wants. When the second officer, with a marlin-spike in his hand as an adjunct to speech, has discharged every possible member of the crew to save the wage-bill while unloading and loading, men are apt to run a bit wild. There's money to burn in their pockets, and when it's finished a crew will be wanted for some other boat. Until then— there are women.
That was MacTavert's principal line. It means a quicker return for your money, and not such a rapid depreciation of stock. Not that MacTavert laid out much money to start with; there are quicker and surer ways into which it is perhaps better not to enter. And MacTavert was a past master in them all. All that may be said is that once a girl was there, God help her! for she was beyond human aid. She was MacTavert's property body and soul, and as such she did his bidding for the price of her keep.
For MacTavert was no believer in letting them have any money. Money makes for independence, and independence was the very last thing he wished to encourage. He fed them, he housed them, he bought them their tawdry finery, because that was a good investment. But money—no; that was his side of the contract. They could be bought like his drink—no credit allowed—and MacTavert pocketed the cash.
Not often does one find a man so completely dead to every sense of human decency as he was. Originally, as his name implied, he was a Scotsman. Just about forty-eight years ago he had first seen the light of day in a Glasgow slum. There may be kind-hearted people who will say that he never had a chance; maybe he didn't. Born and nurtured in the gutter, at ten years old he was a man in vice, or at any rate, in his knowledge of it. At fifteen he went to sea in the three-masted ship Celandine, and Glasgow saw him no more. At thirty he decided that he could do better for himself than seafaring, and, helped by a strong will, an utterly unscrupulous character, and an intimate knowledge of what seamen wanted when they came ashore, he started on his own in Valparaiso.
He began small; perhaps the only Scotch trace left to him save his name was an unusual canniness over money. During those fifteen years while he roamed the seven seas from Newfoundland to Australia, from China to Suez, he managed to save a little out of his pay, which he had banked here and there all over the globe. And when he finally gave up the life and decided on Valparaiso as the scene of his future operations, he found that he had quite a respectable sum he could draw on for capital. He chose Valparaiso because the majority of shipping there is American, and the American sailor gets paid higher. Trifles like that told with MacTavert.
And now, eighteen years later, the small, stuffy saloon in which he had started had grown into a big garish dancing hall, while its owner, heavy- jowled and gross, looked on his creation with beady eyes and found it good. His clientþle remained the same, but many more could be accommodated. And, further, a very lucrative side-show had developed gradually during the last few years. Tourists, anxious, as they put it, to see the sights, were apt to be escorted there by specially-selected touts of his own— people who paid anything up to ten times the regular tariff without a murmur. And MacTavert himself would welcome the poor fools with an expansive smile, which displayed his yellow teeth to the full advantage.
It was one of these touts who approached Jim and me before dinner. We neither of us knew Valparaiso, and we were at a loose end, but that tout had "tout" written altogether too largely all over him. So Jim, with commendable brevity, consigned him to his undoubted future destination, and we turned back towards our hotel for a cocktail before dinner.
And then there occurred one of those things which a man ignores or does not ignore, according to the particular brand he is. When a woman gives a little cry for help, it is as often as not advisable to continue one's stroll and leave matters to the proper authorities to deal with. Ulterior motives have been known to be behind such cries.
Not, however, for Jim. He was perfectly capable of dealing with ulterior motives should they arise, and, until they arose, he was of the brand who emphatically does not ignore. He swung round, and the next instant I was standing alone. And when I came up with him again, the tout who had recently accosted us was struggling impotently in his grasp, and Jim was staring over his head at a girl who was standing on the pavement beyond. She was a pretty little thing, but what struck me most was the look of terror in her eyes as she glanced at the man whom Jim was holding.
"Can