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Officer 666, a novel by Barton W. Currie |
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Chapter 27. Misadventures Of Whitney Barnes |
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_ CHAPTER XXVII. MISADVENTURES OF WHITNEY BARNES Just as it had not occurred to Travers Gladwin to ask Michael Phelan to define the limits of his beat along Fifth avenue so it happened that Whitney Barnes went forth in search of his friend without even the vaguest notion of where he might be found. It is doubtful if young Mr. Barnes knew what a policeman's beat was. Certainly he did not conceive of it as a restricted territory. He had gone about six blocks at his best stride, eagerly scanning both sides of the avenue before the thought came into his mind that he might be going in the wrong direction and that he might keep on indefinitely to the Staten Island ferry and obtain never a glimpse of the borrowed uniform of Officer 666. "But I must warn the chap," he thought fiercely, "or there will be the very deuce and all to pay." Whitney slowed down, came to a full stop and was meditatively chewing the head of his cane when an automobile halted at the curb. A head thrust itself out of a window of the limousine and a musical voice asked: "Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?" Whitney Barnes guiltily jumped and barely missed swallowing his cane. Volplaning to earth, he looked for the source of this dismaying interruption. He recognized with a start one of the past season's debutantes whose mamma had spread a maze of traps and labyrinths for him--Miss Sybil Hawker-Sponge of New York, Newport, Tuxedo and Lenox. Before he could even stutter a reply a motor footman had leaped down from the box and opened the door of the limousine. Miss Hawker-Sponge fluttered out, contrived her most winning smile and repeated: "Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?" Her big doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most aristocratically mortgaged dwellings in America. "It is rather late for a call," she gushed suddenly, "but I know mamma"---- "Impossible!" cried Barnes. "That is--I beg your pardon--I should be charmed, but the fact is I was looking for a friend--I mean a policeman. Er--you haven't seen a good looking policeman going by, have you, Miss Sybil?" All the coquetry in Miss Hawker-Sponge's eyes went into stony eclipse. "You are looking for a policeman friend, Mr. Barnes?" she said icily, gathering up her skirts and beginning to back away. "I hope you find him." She gave him her back with the abruptness of a slap in the face. In another moment he was again a lone wayfarer in the bleak night wilderness of out-of-doors Fifth avenue. Indubitably he had committed a hideous breach of good manners and could never expect forgiveness from Miss Hawker-Sponge. She had really invited him into her home and he had preferred to hunt for a "policeman friend." Yet the tragedy of it was so grotesquely funny that Whitney Barnes laughed, and in laughing dismissed Miss Hawker-Sponge from his mind. He must find Travers Gladwin, and off he went at another burst of speed. He covered about three blocks without pause. A second and far more sensational interruption came from a side street, and again of the feminine gender. It was a tall, weird looking figure wound in a black shawl and it bumped squarely into Whitney Barnes and brought him up sharply, spinning on one foot. Before he stopped spinning he felt himself seized by the arm. Without warning a bundle was thrust into his arms and he had to clutch it. In another instant the weird figure had fled up the avenue, turned a corner and vanished. Instantly the bundle that Whitney Barnes held awkwardly and painfully, as if it were a firebrand, emitted an anguished wail. If that wasn't a pretty pickle for Whitney Barnes! His cane had clattered to the pavement and he did not dare stoop to pick it up. The anguish from the bundle he held increased terrifically in volume. He could feel beads of perspiration running down his face. What in desperation was he going to do with that awful bundle? He knew intuitively that the tall, shawled figure would never return. "My God!" he cried, "I'll be arrested as the father of it, and what will Sadie say to that?" It was no wonder that the son and heir of Old Grim Barnes sweated. It wasn't perspiration. One doesn't perspire in such awful straits--one sweats, like a navvy. It seemed ages before he could form the impulse to move in any direction for any definite purpose. He was on the point of making up his mind to lay the bundle on the doorstep when he sensed a heavy step from behind and was paralyzed by the gruff ejaculation: "Well, I'll be damned!" Barnes twisted his head and beheld a big, deep-chested policeman--a haughty domineering policeman--who showed in every inch of him that the gods had anointed him above the mere ranks of mortal patrolmen. "Take it! take it!" cried Barnes, extending the bundle toward the uniformed presence. "It's not mine," he almost shrieked. "A woman gave it to me--and I have a very important engagement and must hurry." Sergeant McGinnis--for 'twas none other--drew back and waved the bundle from him. "Just a minute, my young friend," he spoke through one side of his large mouth. "You'll hold that infant till its mother comes or you'll go with me to the police station and tell your story to the captain." "But I can't wait," wailed Barnes. "I've got to find a policeman." "A policeman, eh? Well, here's one for you, and a sergeant at that." "I mean a friend. It's horribly important. I'll give you anything you ask if you'll only take this howling bundle." "None o' that, young feller," McGinnis snapped him up. "You'll give me nothing and you'll come sharp and straight to the station. Now I know there's something back o' this." "But I haven't time," Barnes objected. "It's most horribly important that I should find"---- "Chop it! Chop it! You'll come with me, and you'll lug that infant. If you won't come quiet I'll slip the nippers on you." Barnes realized the hopelessness of the situation and looked about him wildly. "Stop that taxicab, officer," he urged, as he saw one of the vehicles approaching. "I can't walk like this. I'll pay the fare--I'll pay everything." McGinnis consented to this arrangement. The taxicab stopped. A few minutes later it bore the sergeant, his prisoner and the still howling infant to the threshold of the East Eighty-eighth street police station. McGinnis consented to carry the infant as they got out and once inside the station lost no time in turning it over to the matron. "Hello, McGinnis," said Lieut. Einstein from the desk; "what's all this?" McGinnis explained in a few crisp sentences. "Is the captain in, Lieutenant?" he asked. "This young fellow is after trying to bribe me." Barnes protested that such a thought had never entered his head. "I simply told him," he declared hotly, "that I had an important engagement"---- "Looking for a policeman, he says." "For a friend. I may have said policeman--I may have said anything in such a beastly situation. I am sure that when the captain hears me he will understand immediately." "That may be true, sir," said the lieutenant politely, "but the captain is out at present and won't be back till after midnight. If you want to, you can sit in the back room and wait for him." Further protestations were unavailing. With a sigh of despair Barnes permitted himself to be led to the back room, where he dropped down on a chair and looked savagely about him. The room was empty and there was nothing to gaze at save four blank walls and a black cat sitting in a corner idly washing its paws. Now and then a door opened, a face peered in and the door shut again. Somewhere a clock ticked dolefully. An hour passed while the young man sought in vain to enchain his incoherent thoughts. He could think of nothing vividly. He could recall nothing at all. Whenever the wail of that infant the matron was caring for reached him he writhed and ground his teeth. In this sad plight he remained until a door near him opened and a man in plain clothes came stealthily in. He walked straight to Barnes, bent down and whispered: "If you've got a hundred-dollar bill about you drop it onto the floor and walk out. The lieutenant won't see you." The individual turned on his heel and went out the way he had come. He did not shut the door tightly behind him. Barnes felt that an eye was watching through the slit, so he lost no time in jumping to his feet, getting his money out of his wallet and dropping two one-hundred-dollar bills on the floor. This done, he jammed the wallet back in his pocket, picked up his cane and gloves and opened the door through which he had entered the room. He started warily forward with his eyes straight ahead. He could feel that the lieutenant who sat behind the high-railed-off desk was the only person in the room and he could hear the scratch of his busy pen. Gaining the street entrance, he drew an immense sigh of relief, opened it eagerly and fairly leaped outside to the steps. As the door shut behind him he thought he heard a sudden explosive laugh, but it meant nothing to him as he hurried along blindly, increasing his pace at every stride. At the corner of Third avenue he stopped and consulted his watch. It was midnight! _ |
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