CHAPTER II
DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES
Standing there staring after him, I felt like a murderer of the deepestdye. It is one thing to hand over to the police their natural prey, athief taken red-handed, but quite another, and a much more harrowingone, to have him slip through your fingers, precipitate himself intomid-air, and drop four stories to the pavement, scattering his brainsfar and wide. There was not a vestige of hope for the poor wretch.
Unnerved, I groped to the window and peered downward for his remains.My first glance proved my regrets to be superfluous. Beneath my window,which, owing to the crowded condition of the hotel, opened on a sidestreet, a fire-escape descended jaggedly; and upon it, just out of arm'sreach, my recent guest clung and wobbled, struggling with an attack ofnatural vertigo before proceeding toward the earth.
By this time my rage was such that I would have followed that littlethief almost anywhere. It was not the dizziness of the yawning void thatstayed me. I should have climbed the Matterhorn with all cheerfulness tocatch him at the top. But sundry visions of the figure I would cut, thecrowd that might gather, and the probable ragging in the morning papers,were too much for me, and I sorrowfully admitted that the game was notworth the price.
The little man's nerves, meanwhile, seemed to be steadying. Feelingeach step, he began cautiously to work his way down. To my wrath heeven looked up at me and indulged in a grimace--but his triumph wasill-timed, for at that very instant I beheld, strolling along the streetbelow, humming and swinging his night-stick, as leisurely, complacent,and stalwart a representative of the law as one could wish to see.
"Hi, there! Officer!" I shouted lustily. My hail, if not my words,reached him; he glanced up, saw the figure on the ladder, and was seizedinstantaneously with the spirit of the chase.
Yelling something reassuring, the gist of which escaped me, heconstituted himself a reception committee of one and started for theladder's foot. But our doughty Teuton was a resourceful person. Rousedto the urgency of his plight, he looked wildly up at me, down at theofficer, and, hastily pushing up the nearest window, hoisted himselfacross its sill, and again took refuge in the St. Ives Hotel.
With a bellow of rage, the policeman dashed toward the porte-cochere,while I ducked back into the room, rapidly revolving my chances ofcutting off the man's retreat below. If the system of numbering was thesame on every floor, my thief must, of course, emerge from Room 303. Butthis similarity was problematical, and to invade apartments at random,disturbing women at their opera toilets and maybe even waking babies,was too desperate a shift to try.
It reminded me to wait with what patience I could summon for the housedetective. And where was he, by the way? I had turned in my alarm a goodfive minutes before.
In an unenviable humor I stumbled across the room, tripping and barkingmy shins over various malignant hassocks, tables, and chairs. Findingthe switch at last, I flooded the room with light, and saw myself in themirror, with tie and coat askew.
"Now," I muttered, straightening them viciously, "we'll see what hetook away." But the trunk seemed undisturbed when I examined it, and myvarious bags and suitcases were securely locked. I had found Forrest'spower of attorney and was storing it in my pocket when voices roseoutside.
A group of four was approaching, comprised of a spruce, dress-coatedmanager; a short thick-set, broad-faced man who was doubtless thelong-overdue detective; a professional-appearing gentleman with ablack bag, obviously the house-physician; and the policeman that I hadsummoned from his stroll below. The latter, in an excited brogue, wasrecounting his late vision of the thief, "hangin' between hivin andearth, no less," while the detective scornfully accused him of havingbeen asleep or jingled, on the ground of my late telephone to the effectthat I was holding the man.
The manager, as was natural, took the initiative, bustling past me intomy room and peering eagerly around.
"I needn't say, Mr. Bayne," he orated fluently, "how sorry I am thatthis has happened--especially beneath our roof. It is our first case,I assure you, of anything so regrettable. If it gets into the papers itwon't do us any good. Now the important thing is to take the fellowout by the rear without courting notice. Why, where is he?" he askedhopefully. "Surely he isn't gone?"
"Sure, and didn't I tell ye? 'Tis without eyes ye think me!" Thepoliceman was resentful, and so, to tell the truth, was I. The wholemaddening affair seemed bent on turning to farce at every angle; thedoctor, as a final straw, had just offered _sotto voce_ to mix me asoothing draft!
"Gone! Of course he's gone, man!" I exclaimed with some natural temper."Did you expect him to sit here waiting all this time? What on earthhave you been doing--reading the papers--playing bridge? A dozen thievescould have escaped since I telephoned downstairs!"
"But you said," he murmured, apparently dazed, "that you could holdhim." A tactless remark, which failed to assuage my wrath!
"So I could," I responded savagely. "But I didn't expect him to turninto a conjuring trick, which is what he did. He went out that windowhead foremost, down the ladder, and into the room below. Let's be afterhim--though we stand as much chance of catching him as we do of findingthe King of England!" and I turned toward the doorway, where themanager, the doctor and the detective were massed.
The manager put his hand upon my arm. I looked down at it with raisedeyebrows, and he took it away.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, adopting a manner of appeal, "but if you'llreflect for a moment you'll see how it is, I know. People don't care forhouses where burglars fly in and out of windows; it makes them nervous;you wouldn't believe how easily a hotel can get a bad name and lose itsclientele. Besides, from what you tell me, the fellow must be well awayby this time. You'd do me a favor--a big one--by dropping the matterhere."
"Well, I won't!" I snapped indignantly. "I'll see it through--or startsomething still livelier. Are you coming down with me to investigatethe room beneath us or do you want me to ring up police headquarters andfind out why?"
In the hall the policeman looked at me across the intervening headsand dropped one slow, approving eyelid. "If the gintleman says so--" heremarked in heavy tones fraught with meaning, and fixed a cold,blue, appraising gaze on the detective, who thereupon yielded withunexpectedly good grace.
"Aw, what's eating you?" was his amiable demand. "Sure, we was goingright down there anyhow--soon's we found out how the land lay up here."
The five of us took the elevator to the lower floor. An unfriendlyatmosphere surrounded me. I was held a hotel wrecker without reason. Wefound the corridor empty, the floor desk abandoned--a state of thingsrather strikingly the duplicate of that reigning overhead--and in duecourse paused before Room 303, where the manager, figuratively speaking,washed his hands of the affair.
"Here is the room, Mr. Bayne, for which you ask." If I would persist inmy nefarious course, added his tone.
The detective, obeying the hypnotic eye of the policeman, knocked. Therewas silence. The bluecoat, my one ally, was crouching for a spring. Thenlight steps crossed the room, and the door was opened. There stood agirl,--a most attractive girl, the girl that I had seen downstairs.Straight and slender, spiritedly gracious in bearing, with gray eyesquestioning us from beneath lashes of crinkly black, she was a radiantfigure as she stood facing us, with a coat of bright-blue velvet thrownover her rosy gown.
"Beg pardon, miss," said the policeman, brightly, "this gintleman's beenrobbed."
As her eyebrows went up a fraction, I could have murdered him, for howelse could she read his statement save that I took her for the thief?
"I am very sorry," I explained, bowing formally, "to disturb you. Weare hunting a thief who took French leave by my fire-escape. I must havebeen mistaken--I thought that he dodged in again by this window. Youhave not seen or heard anything of him, of course?"
"No, I haven't. But then, I just this instant came up from dinner,"she replied. Her low, contralto tones, quite impersonal, were yetdelightful; I could have stood there talking burglars with her tilld
awn. "Do you wish to come in and make sure that he is not in hiding?"With a half smile for which I didn't blame her, she moved a step aside.
"Certainly not!" I said firmly, ignoring a nudge from the policeman."He left before you came--there was ample time. It is not of the leastconsequence, anyhow. Again I beg your pardon." As she inclined her head,I bowed, and closed the door.
"I trust Mr. Bayne, that you are satisfied at last." This was the St.Ives manager, and I did not like his tone.
"I am satisfied of several things," I retorted sharply, "but before Ishare them with you, will you kindly tell me your name?"
"My name is Ritter," he said with dignity. "I confess I fail to see whatbearing--"
"Call it curiosity," I interrupted. "Doctor, favor me with yours."
The doctor peered at me over his glasses, hesitated, and then revealedhis patronym. It was Swanburger, he informed me.
"But, my dear sir, what on earth--"
"Merely," said I, with conviction, "that this isn't an Allies' night. Itis _Deutschland uber Alles_; the stars are fighting for the Teuton race.Now, let's hear how you were christened," I added, turning to the housedetective, who looked even less sunny than before if that could be.
"See here, whatcher giving us?" snarled that somewhat unpolished worthy."My name's Zeitfeld; but I was born in this country, don't you forgetit, same as you."
"A great American personality," I remarked dreamily, "has declared thatin the hyphenate lies the chief menace to the United States. Andwhat's your name?" I asked the representative of law and order. "Is itSchmidt?"
"No, sir," he responded, grinning; "it's O'Reilly, sorr."
"Thank heaven for that! You've saved my reason," I assured him as Ileaned against the wall and scanned the Germanic hordes.
"Mr. Ritter," said I, addressing that gentleman coldly, "when I am nextin New York I don't think I shall stop with you. The atmosphere here istoo hectic; you answer calls for help too slowly--calls, at least, inwhich a guest indiscreetly tells you that he has caught a German thief.It looks extremely queer, gentlemen. And there are some other points aswell--"
But there I paused. I lacked the necessary conviction. After all I wasthe average citizen, with the average incredulity of the far-fetched,the melodramatic, the absurd. To connect the head waiter's panic at mydeparture with the episode in my room, to declare that the floor clerkshad been called from their posts for a set purpose, and the hallsdeliberately cleared for the thief, were flights of fancy that werebeyond me. The more fool I!
By the time I saw the last of the adventure I began that night--it wasall written in the nth power, and introduced in more or less importantroles the most charming girl in the world, the most spectacular hero ofFrance, the cleverest secret-service agent in the pay of the fatherland,and I sometimes ruefully suspected, the biggest imbecile of the UnitedStates in the person of myself--I knew better than to call any ideaimpossible simply because it might sound wild. But at the moment myeducation was in its initial stages, and turning with a shrug from threescowling faces, I led my friendly bluecoat a little aside.
"I've no more time to-night to spend thief-catching, Officer," I toldhim. I had just recalled my dinner, now utterly ruined, and Dunny,probably at this instant cracking walnuts as fiercely as if each onewere the kaiser's head. "But I'm an amateur in these affairs, and youare a master. Before I go, as man to man, what the dickens do you makeof this?"
Flattered, he looked profound.
"I'm thinking, sorr," he gave judgment, "ye had the rights of it. Seein'as how th' thafe is German, ye'll not set eyes on him more--for divila wan here but's of that counthry, and they stick together somethingfierce!"
"Well," I admitted, "our thoughts run parallel. Here is something todrink confusion to them all. And, O'Reilly, I am glad I'm going to sailto-morrow. I'd rather live on a sea full of submarines than in thishotel, wouldn't you?"
Touching his forehead, he assented, and wished me good-night and agood journey; part of his hope went unfulfilled, by the way. That oceanvoyage of mine was to take rank, in part at least, as a first-classnightmare. The Central powers could scarcely have improved on it bytorpedoing us in mid-ocean or by speeding us upon our trip with a cargoof clock-work bombs.