The Cab of the Sleeping Horse. John Reed Scott
of looking down those unattractive muzzles. Ah! thank you!—The chairs, gentlemen!" with a fine gesture of welcome.
"We haven't time to sit down, thank you," said Sparrow. "Time presses and we must away as quickly as possible. We shall, we sincerely hope, inconvenience you but a moment, Mr. Harleston."
"Pray take all the time you need," Harleston responded. "I've nothing to do until nine o'clock—except to sleep; and sleep is a mere incidental to me. I would much rather chat with visitors, especially those who pay me such a delightfully early morning call."
"Do you know what we came for?" Marston asked.
"I haven't the slightest idea. In fact, I don't seem to recall ever having met either of you. However—you'll find cigars and cigarettes on the table in the other room. I'll be greatly obliged, if one of you will pass me a cigarette and a match."
Both men laughed; Sparrow produced his case and offered it to Harleston, together with a match.
"Thank you, very much," said Harleston, as he struck the match and carefully passed the flame across the tip. "Now, sirs, I'm at your service. To what, or to whom, do I owe the honour of this visit?"
"We have ventured to intrude on you, Mr. Harleston," said Marston, "in regard to a little matter that happened on Eighteenth Street near Massachusetts Avenue shortly before one o'clock this morning."
Harleston looked his surprise.
"Yes!" he inflected. "How very interesting."
"I'm delighted that you find it so," was the answer. "It encourages me to go deeper into that matter."
"By all means!" said Harleston, pushing the pillow aside and sitting up. "Pray, proceed. I'm all attention."
"Then we'll go straight to the point. You found certain articles in the cab, Mr. Harleston—we have come for those articles."
"I am quite at a loss to understand," Harleston replied. "Cab—articles! Have they to do with your little matter of Eighteenth and Massachusetts Avenue several hours ago?"
"They are the crux of the matter," Marston said shortly. "And you will confer a great favour upon persons high in authority of a friendly power if you will return the articles in question."
"My dear sir," Harleston exclaimed, "I haven't the articles, whatever they may be; and pardon me, even if I had, I should not deliver them to you; I've never, to the best of my recollection, seen either of you gentlemen before this pleasant occasion."
"My dear Mr. Harleston," remarked Sparrow, "all your actions at the cab of the sleeping horse were observed and noted, so why protest?"
"I'm not protesting; I'm simply stating two pertinent facts!" Harleston laughed.
"We will grant the fact that you've never seen us," said Marston, "but that you have not got the articles in question, we," with apologizing gesture, "beg leave to doubt."
"You're at full liberty to search my apartment," Harleston answered. "I'm not sensitive early in the morning, whatever I may be at night."
"The letter is easy to conceal," was the reply, "and the safe yonder is an impasse without your assistance."
"The safe is not locked," Harleston remarked. "I think I neglected to turn the knob. If you will—"
"Don't disturb yourself, I pray," was the quick reply, the revolver glinting in his hand; "we will gladly relieve you of the trouble."
"I was only about to say that if you try the door it will open for you," Harleston chuckled. "Go through it, sir," he remarked to the younger, "and don't, I beg of you, disturb the papers more than necessary. The key to the locked drawer is in the lower compartment on the right. Proceed, my elderly friend, to search the apartment; I'll not balk you. The thing's rather amusing—and entirely absurd. If it were not—if it didn't strike my funny-bone—I should probably put up some sort of a fight; as it is, you see I'm entirely acquiescent. Your tiny automatics didn't in the least intimidate me. I could have landed you both as you entered. I've got a gun of a much larger calibre right to my hand. See!" and he lifted the pillow and exposed a 38. "Want to borrow it?"
"Why didn't you land us?" Marston asked, as he took the 38.
"It wouldn't have been kind!" Harleston smiled. "When visitors come at such an hour, they deserve to be received with every attention and courtesy—particularly when they come on a mistaken impression and a fruitless quest."
The man looked at Harleston doubtfully. Just how much of this was bluff, he could not decide. Harleston's whole conduct was rather unusual—the open door, the open safe, the unemployed revolver, were not in accordance with the game they were playing. He should have made a fight, some sort of a fight, and not—
"The letter's not in the safe," Sparrow reported.
"I didn't think it was," said the other, "but we had to make search."
"You're very welcome to look elsewhere and anywhere," Harleston interjected. "I'll trust you not to pry into matters other than the letter. By the way, whose was the letter?"
"His Majesty of Abyssinia!" was the answer.
"Taken by wireless, I presume."
"Exactly!"
"Then, why so much bother, my friend?" Harleston asked. "If you do not find it, you can get others by the same quick route."
"The King of Abyssinia never duplicates a letter."
"When," supplemented Harleston, "it has been carelessly lost in a cab."
"Just so. Therefore—"
"I repeat that I have not got the articles," said Harleston, a bit wearily, "nor are they in my apartment. You have been misinformed. I find I am getting drowsy—this thing is not as absorbing as I had thought it would be. With your permission I'll drop off to sleep; you're welcome to continue the search. Make yourselves perfectly at home, sirs." He lay back and drew up the sheet. "Just pull the door shut when you depart, please," he said, and closed his eyes.
"You're a queer chap," remarked Sparrow, pausing in his search and surveying Harleston with a puzzled smile. "One would suppose you're used to receiving interruptions at such hours for such purposes."
"I try never to be surprised at anything however outré," Harleston explained. "Good-night."
The two men looked at the recumbent figure and then at each other and laughed.
"He acts the part," said the elder. "Have you found anything?"
"Nothing! It's not in the safe nor the writing-table—nor anywhere else that is reasonable. I've been through everything and there's nothing doing."
"You're not going?" Harleston remarked.
"You're asleep, Mr. Harleston!" Marston reminded. "The letter is here: we've simply got to find it."
"A letter is easy to conceal," the younger replied. "There's nothing but to overturn everything in the place—and so on; and that will require a day."
"So that you replace things, I've not the slightest objection," Harleston interjected. "Bang away, sirs, bang away! Anything to relieve me from suspicion."
"It prevents him from sleeping!" Sparrow laughed.
"Also yourselves," Harleston supplemented. "However, you for it, remembering that cock-crow comes earlier now than in December, and the people too are up betimes. You risk interruption, I fear, from my solicitous friends."
And even as he spoke the corridor door opened and a man stepped in.
From where he lay, Harleston could see him; the others could not.
"'Pon my soul, I'm popular this morning!" Harleston remarked, sitting up.
Instantly the new-comer covered him with his revolver.
"What did you say?" Sparrow inquired from