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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Amateur, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Amateur
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Release Date: May 12, 2006 [EBook #1822]
+Last Updated: September 26, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMATEUR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AMATEUR
+
+
+By Richard Harding Davis
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was February off the Banks, and so thick was the weather that, on
+the upper decks, one could have driven a sleigh. Inside the smoking-room
+Austin Ford, as securely sheltered from the blizzard as though he had
+been sitting in front of a wood fire at his club, ordered hot gin for
+himself and the ship’s doctor. The ship’s doctor had gone below on
+another “hurry call” from the widow. At the first luncheon on board the
+widow had sat on the right of Doctor Sparrow, with Austin Ford facing
+her. But since then, except to the doctor, she had been invisible. So,
+at frequent intervals, the ill health of the widow had deprived Ford of
+the society of the doctor. That it deprived him, also, of the society
+of the widow did not concern him. HER life had not been spent upon ocean
+liners; she could not remember when state-rooms were named after the
+States of the Union. She could not tell him of shipwrecks and salvage,
+of smugglers and of the modern pirates who found their victims in the
+smoking-room.
+
+Ford was on his way to England to act as the London correspondent of the
+New York Republic. For three years on that most sensational of the New
+York dailies he had been the star man, the chief muckraker, the chief
+sleuth. His interest was in crime. Not in crimes committed in passion or
+inspired by drink, but in such offences against law and society as
+are perpetrated with nice intelligence. The murderer, the burglar, the
+strong-arm men who, in side streets, waylay respectable citizens did not
+appeal to him. The man he studied, pursued, and exposed was the cashier
+who evolved a new method of covering up his peculations, the dishonest
+president of an insurance company, the confidence man who used no
+concealed weapon other than his wit. Toward the criminals he pursued
+young Ford felt no personal animosity. He harassed them as he would
+have shot a hawk killing chickens. Not because he disliked the hawk,
+but because the battle was unequal, and because he felt sorry for the
+chickens.
+
+Had you called Austin Ford an amateur detective he would have been
+greatly annoyed. He argued that his position was similar to that of
+the dramatic critic. The dramatic critic warned the public against bad
+plays; Ford warned it against bad men. Having done that, he left it to
+the public to determine whether the bad man should thrive or perish.
+
+When the managing editor told him of his appointment to London, Ford had
+protested that his work lay in New York; that of London and the English,
+except as a tourist and sight-seer, he knew nothing.
+
+“That’s just why we are sending you,” explained the managing editor.
+“Our readers are ignorant. To make them read about London you’ve got
+to tell them about themselves in London. They like to know who’s been
+presented at court, about the American girls who have married dukes; and
+which ones opened a bazaar, and which one opened a hat shop, and which
+is getting a divorce. Don’t send us anything concerning suffragettes and
+Dreadnaughts. Just send us stuff about Americans. If you take your meals
+in the Carlton grill-room and drink at the Cecil you can pick up more
+good stories than we can print. You will find lots of your friends over
+there. Some of those girls who married dukes,” he suggested, “know you,
+don’t they?”
+
+“Not since they married dukes,” said Ford.
+
+“Well, anyway, all your other friends will be there,” continued the
+managing editor encouragingly. “Now that they have shut up the tracks
+here all the con men have gone to London. They say an American can’t
+take a drink at the Salisbury without his fellow-countrymen having a
+fight as to which one will sell him a gold brick.”
+
+Ford’s eyes lightened in pleasurable anticipation.
+
+“Look them over,” urged the managing editor, “and send us a special.
+Call it ‘The American Invasion.’ Don’t you see a story in it?”
+
+“It will be the first one I send you,” said Ford. The ship’s doctor
+returned from his visit below decks and sank into the leather cushion
+close to Ford’s elbow. For a few moments the older man sipped doubtfully
+at his gin and water, and, as though perplexed, rubbed his hand over his
+bald and shining head. “I told her to talk to you,” he said fretfully.
+
+“Her? Who?” inquired Ford. “Oh, the widow?”
+
+“You were right about that,” said Doctor Sparrow; “she is not a widow.”
+
+The reporter smiled complacently.
+
+“Do you know why I thought not?” he demanded. “Because all the time she
+was at luncheon she kept turning over her wedding-ring as though she was
+not used to it. It was a new ring, too. I told you then she was not a
+widow.”
+
+“Do you always notice things like that?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Not on purpose,” said the amateur detective; “I can’t help it. I see
+ten things where other people see only one; just as some men run ten
+times as fast as other men. We have tried it out often at the office;
+put all sorts of junk under a newspaper, lifted the newspaper for five
+seconds, and then each man wrote down what he had seen. Out of twenty
+things I would remember seventeen. The next best guess would be about
+nine. Once I saw a man lift his coat collar to hide his face. It was in
+the Grand Central Station. I stopped him, and told him he was wanted.
+Turned out he WAS wanted. It was Goldberg, making his getaway to
+Canada.”
+
+“It is a gift,” said the doctor.
+
+“No, it’s a nuisance,” laughed the reporter. “I see so many things I
+don’t want to see. I see that people are wearing clothes that are not
+made for them. I see when women are lying to me. I can see when men are
+on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and whether it is drink or debt or
+morphine--”
+
+The doctor snorted triumphantly.
+
+“You did not see that the widow was on the verge of a breakdown!”
+
+“No,” returned the reporter. “Is she? I’m sorry.”
+
+“If you’re sorry,” urged the doctor eagerly, “you’ll help her. She is
+going to London alone to find her husband. He has disappeared. She
+thinks that he has been murdered, or that he is lying ill in some
+hospital. I told her if any one could help her to find him you could. I
+had to say something. She’s very ill.”
+
+“To find her husband in London?” repeated Ford. “London is a large
+town.”
+
+“She has photographs of him and she knows where he spends his time,”
+ pleaded the doctor. “He is a company promoter. It should be easy for
+you.”
+
+“Maybe he doesn’t want her to find him,” said Ford. “Then it wouldn’t be
+so easy for me.”
+
+The old doctor sighed heavily. “I know,” he murmured. “I thought of
+that, too. And she is so very pretty.”
+
+“That was another thing I noticed,” said Ford.
+
+The doctor gave no heed.
+
+“She must stop worrying,” he exclaimed, “or she will have a mental
+collapse. I have tried sedatives, but they don’t touch her. I want to
+give her courage. She is frightened. She’s left a baby boy at home, and
+she’s fearful that something will happen to him, and she’s frightened
+at being at sea, frightened at being alone in London; it’s pitiful.” The
+old man shook his head. “Pitiful! Will you talk to her now?” he asked.
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Ford. “She doesn’t want to tell the story of her
+life to strange young men.”
+
+“But it was she suggested it,” cried the doctor. “She asked me if you
+were Austin Ford, the great detective.”
+
+Ford snorted scornfully. “She did not!” he protested. His tone was that
+of a man who hopes to be contradicted.
+
+“But she did,” insisted the doctor, “and I told her your specialty was
+tracing persons. Her face lightened at once; it gave her hope. She will
+listen to you. Speak very gently and kindly and confidently. Say you are
+sure you can find him.”
+
+“Where is the lady now?” asked Ford.
+
+Doctor Sparrow scrambled eagerly to his feet. “She cannot leave her
+cabin,” he answered.
+
+The widow, as Ford and Doctor Sparrow still thought of her, was lying on
+the sofa that ran the length of the state-room, parallel with the lower
+berth. She was fully dressed, except that instead of her bodice she wore
+a kimono that left her throat and arms bare. She had been sleeping,
+and when their entrance awoke her, her blue eyes regarded them
+uncomprehendingly. Ford, hidden from her by the doctor, observed that
+not only was she very pretty, but that she was absurdly young, and
+that the drowsy smile she turned upon the old man before she noted the
+presence of Ford was as innocent as that of a baby. Her cheeks were
+flushed, her eyes brilliant, her yellow curls had become loosened and
+were spread upon the pillow. When she saw Ford she caught the kimono so
+closely around her throat that she choked. Had the doctor not pushed her
+down she would have stood.
+
+“I thought,” she stammered, “he was an OLD man.”
+
+The doctor, misunderstanding, hastened to reassure her. “Mr. Ford is old
+in experience,” he said soothingly. “He has had remarkable success.
+Why, he found a criminal once just because the man wore a collar. And
+he found Walsh, the burglar, and Phillips, the forger, and a gang of
+counterfeiters--”
+
+Mrs. Ashton turned upon him, her eyes wide with wonder. “But MY
+husband,” she protested, “is not a criminal!”
+
+“My dear lady!” the doctor cried. “I did not mean that, of course not. I
+meant, if Mr. Ford can find men who don’t wish to be found, how easy for
+him to find a man who--” He turned helplessly to Ford. “You tell her,”
+ he begged.
+
+Ford sat down on a steamer trunk that protruded from beneath the berth,
+and, turning to the widow, gave her the full benefit of his working
+smile. It was confiding, helpless, appealing. It showed a trustfulness
+in the person to whom it was addressed that caused that individual to
+believe Ford needed protection from a wicked world.
+
+“Doctor Sparrow tells me,” began Ford timidly, “you have lost your
+husband’s address; that you will let me try to find him. If I can help
+in any way I should be glad.”
+
+The young girl regarded him, apparently, with disappointment. It was
+as though Doctor Sparrow had led her to expect a man full of years
+and authority, a man upon whom she could lean; not a youth whose smile
+seemed to beg one not to scold him. She gave Ford three photographs,
+bound together with a string.
+
+“When Doctor Sparrow told me you could help me I got out these,” she
+said.
+
+Ford jotted down a mental note to the effect that she “got them out.”
+ That is, she did not keep them where she could always look at them. That
+she was not used to look at them was evident by the fact that they were
+bound together.
+
+The first photograph showed three men standing in an open place and
+leaning on a railing. One of them was smiling toward the photographer.
+He was a good-looking young man of about thirty years of age, well fed,
+well dressed, and apparently well satisfied with the world and himself.
+Ford’s own smile had disappeared. His eyes were alert and interested.
+
+“The one with the Panama hat pulled down over his eyes is your husband?”
+ he asked.
+
+“Yes,” assented the widow. Her tone showed slight surprise.
+
+“This was taken about a year ago?” inquired Ford. “Must have been,” he
+answered himself; “they haven’t raced at the Bay since then. This was
+taken in front of the club stand--probably for the Telegraph?” He lifted
+his eyes inquiringly.
+
+Rising on her elbow the young wife bent forward toward the photograph.
+“Does it say that there,” she asked doubtfully. “How did you guess
+that?”
+
+In his role as chorus the ship’s doctor exclaimed with enthusiasm:
+“Didn’t I tell you? He’s wonderful.”
+
+Ford cut him off impatiently. “You never saw a rail as high as
+that except around a racetrack,” he muttered. “And the badge in his
+buttonhole and the angle of the stand all show--”
+
+He interrupted himself to address the widow. “This is an owner’s badge.
+What was the name of his stable?”
+
+“I don’t know,” she answered. She regarded the young man with sudden
+uneasiness. “They only owned one horse, but I believe that gave them the
+privilege of--”
+
+“I see,” exclaimed Ford. “Your husband is a bookmaker. But in London he
+is a promoter of companies.”
+
+“So my friend tells me,” said Mrs. Ashton. “She’s just got back from
+London. Her husband told her that Harry, my husband, was always at the
+American bar in the Cecil or at the Salisbury or the Savoy.” The girl
+shook her head. “But a woman can’t go looking for a man there,” she
+protested. “That’s why I thought you--”
+
+“That’ll be all right,” Ford assured her hurriedly. “It’s a coincidence,
+but it happens that my own work takes me to these hotels, and if your
+husband is there I will find him.” He returned the photographs.
+
+“Hadn’t you better keep one?” she asked.
+
+“I won’t forget him,” said the reporter. “Besides”--he turned his eyes
+toward the doctor and, as though thinking aloud, said--“he may have
+grown a beard.”
+
+There was a pause.
+
+The eyes of the woman grew troubled. Her lips pressed together as though
+in a sudden access of pain.
+
+“And he may,” Ford continued, “have changed his name.”
+
+As though fearful, if she spoke, the tears would fall, the girl nodded
+her head stiffly.
+
+Having learned what he wanted to know Ford applied to the wound a
+soothing ointment of promises and encouragement.
+
+“He’s as good as found,” he protested. “You will see him in a day, two
+days after you land.”
+
+The girl’s eyes opened happily. She clasped her hands together and
+raised them.
+
+“You will try?” she begged. “You will find him for me”--she corrected
+herself eagerly--“for me and the baby?”
+
+The loose sleeves of the kimono fell back to her shoulders showing the
+white arms; the eyes raised to Ford were glistening with tears.
+
+“Of course I will find him,” growled the reporter.
+
+He freed himself from the appeal in the eyes of the young mother
+and left the cabin. The doctor followed. He was bubbling over with
+enthusiasm.
+
+“That was fine!” he cried. “You said just the right thing. There will be
+no collapse now.”
+
+His satisfaction was swept away in a burst of disgust.
+
+“The blackguard!” he protested. “To desert a wife as young as that and
+as pretty as that.”
+
+“So I have been thinking,” said the reporter. “I guess,” he added
+gravely, “what is going to happen is that before I find her husband I
+will have got to know him pretty well.”
+
+Apparently, young Mrs. Ashton believed everything would come to pass
+just as Ford promised it would and as he chose to order it; for the next
+day, with a color not born of fever in her cheeks and courage in
+her eyes, she joined Ford and the doctor at the luncheon-table. Her
+attention was concentrated on the younger man. In him she saw the one
+person who could bring her husband to her.
+
+“She acts,” growled the doctor later in the smoking-room, “as though
+she was afraid you were going to back out of your promise and jump
+overboard.”
+
+“Don’t think,” he protested violently, “it’s you she’s interested in.
+All she sees in you is what you can do for her. Can you see that?”
+
+“Any one as clever at seeing things as I am,” returned the reporter,
+“cannot help but see that.”
+
+Later, as Ford was walking on the upper deck, Mrs. Ashton came toward
+him, beating her way against the wind. Without a trace of coquetry or
+self-consciousness, and with a sigh of content, she laid her hand on his
+arm.
+
+“When I don’t see you,” she exclaimed as simply as a child, “I feel so
+frightened. When I see you I know all will come right. Do you mind if I
+walk with you?” she asked. “And do you mind if every now and then I ask
+you to tell me again it will all come right?”
+
+For the three days following Mrs. Ashton and Ford were constantly
+together. Or, at least, Mrs. Ashton was constantly with Ford. She told
+him that when she sat in her cabin the old fears returned to her, and in
+these moments of panic she searched the ship for him.
+
+The doctor protested that he was growing jealous.
+
+“I’m not so greatly to be envied,” suggested Ford. “‘Harry’ at
+meals three times a day and on deck all the rest of the day becomes
+monotonous. On a closer acquaintance with Harry he seems to be a decent
+sort of a young man; at least he seems to have been at one time very
+much in love with her.”
+
+“Well,” sighed the doctor sentimentally, “she is certainly very much in
+love with Harry.”
+
+Ford shook his head non-committingly. “I don’t know her story,” he said.
+“Don’t want to know it.”
+
+The ship was in the channel, on her way to Cherbourg, and running as
+smoothly as a clock. From the shore friendly lights told them they were
+nearing their journey’s end; that the land was on every side. Seated
+on a steamer-chair next to his in the semi-darkness of the deck, Mrs.
+Ashton began to talk nervously and eagerly.
+
+“Now that we are so near,” she murmured, “I have got to tell you
+something. If you did not know I would feel I had not been fair. You
+might think that when you were doing so much for me I should have been
+more honest.”
+
+She drew a long breath. “It’s so hard,” she said.
+
+“Wait,” commanded Ford. “Is it going to help me to find him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then don’t tell me.”
+
+His tone caused the girl to start. She leaned toward him and peered
+into his face. His eyes, as he looked back to her, were kind and
+comprehending.
+
+“You mean,” said the amateur detective, “that your husband has deserted
+you. That if it were not for the baby you would not try to find him. Is
+that it?”
+
+Mrs. Ashton breathed quickly and turned her face away.
+
+“Yes,” she whispered. “That is it.”
+
+There was a long pause. When she faced him again the fact that there was
+no longer a secret between them seemed to give her courage.
+
+“Maybe,” she said, “you can understand. Maybe you can tell me what it
+means. I have thought and thought. I have gone over it and over it until
+when I go back to it my head aches. I have done nothing else but think,
+and I can’t make it seem better. I can’t find any excuse. I have had no
+one to talk to, no one I could tell. I have thought maybe a man could
+understand.” She raised her eyes appealingly.
+
+“If you can only make it seem less cruel. Don’t you see,” she cried
+miserably, “I want to believe; I want to forgive him. I want to think he
+loves me. Oh! I want so to be able to love him; but how can I? I can’t!
+I can’t!”
+
+In the week in which they had been thrown together the girl
+unconsciously had told Ford much about herself and her husband. What she
+now told him was but an amplification of what he had guessed.
+
+She had met Ashton a year and a half before, when she had just left
+school at the convent and had returned to live with her family. Her home
+was at Far Rockaway. Her father was a cashier in a bank at Long Island
+City. One night, with a party of friends, she had been taken to a dance
+at one of the beach hotels, and there met Ashton. At that time he was
+one of a firm that was making book at the Aqueduct race-track. The girl
+had met very few men and with them was shy and frightened, but with
+Ashton she found herself at once at ease. That night he drove her and
+her friends home in his touring-car and the next day they teased her
+about her conquest. It made her very happy. After that she went to hops
+at the hotel, and as the bookmaker did not dance, the two young people
+sat upon the piazza. Then Ashton came to see her at her own house, but
+when her father learned that the young man who had been calling upon her
+was a bookmaker he told him he could not associate with his daughter.
+
+But the girl was now deeply in love with Ashton, and apparently he with
+her. He begged her to marry him. They knew that to this, partly from
+prejudice and partly owing to his position in the bank, her father would
+object. Accordingly they agreed that in August, when the racing moved to
+Saratoga, they would run away and get married at that place. Their plan
+was that Ashton would leave for Saratoga with the other racing men, and
+that she would join him the next day.
+
+They had arranged to be married by a magistrate, and Ashton had shown
+her a letter from one at Saratoga who consented to perform the ceremony.
+He had given her an engagement ring and two thousand dollars, which he
+asked her to keep for him, lest tempted at the track he should lose it.
+
+But she assured Ford it was not such material things as a letter, a
+ring, or gift of money that had led her to trust Ashton. His fear of
+losing her, his complete subjection to her wishes, his happiness in her
+presence, all seemed to prove that to make her happy was his one wish,
+and that he could do anything to make her unhappy appeared impossible.
+
+They were married the morning she arrived at Saratoga; and the same day
+departed for Niagara Falls and Quebec. The honeymoon lasted ten days.
+They were ten days of complete happiness. No one, so the girl declared,
+could have been more kind, more unselfishly considerate than her
+husband. They returned to Saratoga and engaged a suite of rooms at one
+of the big hotels. Ashton was not satisfied with the rooms shown him,
+and leaving her upstairs returned to the office floor to ask for others.
+
+Since that moment his wife had never seen him nor heard from him.
+
+On the day of her marriage young Mrs. Ashton had written to her father,
+asking him to give her his good wishes and pardon. He refused both. As
+she had feared, he did not consider that for a bank clerk a gambler made
+a desirable son-in-law; and the letters he wrote his daughter were
+so bitter that in reply she informed him he had forced her to choose
+between her family and her husband, and that she chose her husband.
+In consequence, when she found herself deserted she felt she could not
+return to her people. She remained in Saratoga. There she moved into
+cheap lodgings, and in order that the two thousand dollars Ashton
+had left with her might be saved for his child, she had learned to
+type-write, and after four months had been able to support herself.
+Within the last month a girl friend, who had known both Ashton and
+herself before they were married, had written her that her husband was
+living in London. For the sake of her son she had at once determined to
+make an effort to seek him out.
+
+“The son, nonsense!” exclaimed the doctor, when Ford retold the story.
+“She is not crossing the ocean because she is worried about the future
+of her son. She seeks her own happiness. The woman is in love with her
+husband.”
+
+Ford shook his head.
+
+“I don’t know!” he objected. “She’s so extravagant in her praise of
+Harry that it seems unreal. It sounds insincere. Then, again, when I
+swear I will find him she shows a delight that you might describe as
+savage, almost vindictive. As though, if I did find Harry, the first
+thing she would do would be to stick a knife in him.”
+
+“Maybe,” volunteered the doctor sadly, “she has heard there is a woman
+in the case. Maybe she is the one she’s thinking of sticking the knife
+into?”
+
+“Well,” declared the reporter, “if she doesn’t stop looking savage every
+time I promise to find Harry I won’t find Harry. Why should I act the
+part of Fate, anyway? How do I know that Harry hasn’t got a wife in
+London and several in the States? How do we know he didn’t leave his
+country for his country’s good? That’s what it looks like to me. How can
+we tell what confronted him the day he went down to the hotel desk to
+change his rooms and, instead, got into his touring-car and beat the
+speed limit to Canada. Whom did he meet in the hotel corridor? A woman
+with a perfectly good marriage certificate, or a detective with a
+perfectly good warrant? Or did Harry find out that his bride had a devil
+of a temper of her own, and that for him marriage was a failure? The
+widow is certainly a very charming young woman, but there may be two
+sides to this.”
+
+“You are a cynic, sir,” protested the doctor.
+
+“That may be,” growled the reporter, “but I am not a private detective
+agency, or a matrimonial bureau, and before I hear myself saying, ‘Bless
+you, my children!’ both of these young people will have to show me why
+they should not be kept asunder.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+On the afternoon of their arrival in London Ford convoyed Mrs. Ashton to
+an old-established private hotel in Craven Street.
+
+“Here,” he explained, “you will be within a few hundred yards of the
+place in which your husband is said to spend his time. I will be living
+in the same hotel. If I find him you will know it in ten minutes.”
+
+The widow gave a little gasp, whether of excitement or of happiness Ford
+could not determine.
+
+“Whatever happens,” she begged, “will you let me hear from you
+sometimes? You are the only person I know in London--and--it’s so big it
+frightens me. I don’t want to be a burden,” she went on eagerly, “but if
+I can feel you are within call--”
+
+“What you need,” said Ford heartily, “is less of the doctor’s nerve
+tonic and sleeping draughts, and a little innocent diversion. To-night I
+am going to take you to the Savoy to supper.”
+
+Mrs. Ashton exclaimed delightedly, and then was filled with misgivings.
+
+“I have nothing to wear,” she protested, “and over here, in the evening,
+the women dress so well. I have a dinner gown,” she exclaimed, “but it’s
+black. Would that do?”
+
+Ford assured her nothing could be better. He had a man’s vanity in
+liking a woman with whom he was seen in public to be pretty and smartly
+dressed, and he felt sure that in black the blond beauty of Mrs. Ashton
+would appear to advantage. They arranged to meet at eleven on the
+promenade leading to the Savoy supper-room, and parted with mutual
+satisfaction at the prospect.
+
+
+The finding of Harry Ashton was so simple that in its very simplicity it
+appeared spectacular.
+
+On leaving Mrs. Ashton, Ford engaged rooms at the Hotel Cecil. Before
+visiting his rooms he made his way to the American bar. He did not go
+there seeking Harry Ashton. His object was entirely self-centred. His
+purpose was to drink to himself and to the lights of London. But as
+though by appointment, the man he had promised to find was waiting for
+him. As Ford entered the room, at a table facing the door sat Ashton.
+There was no mistaking him. He wore a mustache, but it was no disguise.
+He was the same good-natured, good-looking youth who, in the photograph
+from under a Panama hat, had smiled upon the world. With a glad cry Ford
+rushed toward him.
+
+“Fancy meeting YOU!” he exclaimed.
+
+Mr. Ashton’s good-natured smile did not relax. He merely shook his head.
+
+“Afraid you have made a mistake,” he said. The reporter regarded him
+blankly. His face showed his disappointment.
+
+“Aren’t you Charles W. Garrett, of New York?” he demanded.
+
+“Not me,” said Mr. Ashton.
+
+“But,” Ford insisted in hurt tones, as though he were being trifled
+with, “you have been told you look like him, haven’t you?”
+
+Mr. Ashton’s good nature was unassailable.
+
+“Sorry,” he declared, “never heard of him.”
+
+Ford became garrulous, he could not believe two men could look so much
+alike. It was a remarkable coincidence. The stranger must certainly
+have a drink, the drink intended for his twin. Ashton was bored, but
+accepted. He was well acquainted with the easy good-fellowship of his
+countrymen. The room in which he sat was a meeting-place for them. He
+considered that they were always giving each other drinks, and not only
+were they always introducing themselves, but saying, “Shake hands with
+my friend, Mr. So-and-So.” After five minutes they showed each other
+photographs of the children. This one, though as loquacious as the
+others, seemed better dressed, more “wise”; he brought to the exile the
+atmosphere of his beloved Broadway, so Ashton drank to him pleasantly.
+
+“My name is Sydney Carter,” he volunteered.
+
+As a poker-player skims over the cards in his hand, Ford, in his mind’s
+eye, ran over the value of giving or not giving his right name. He
+decided that Ashton would not have heard it and that, if he gave a false
+one, there was a chance that later Ashton might find out that he had
+done so. Accordingly he said, “Mine is Austin Ford,” and seated himself
+at Ashton’s table. Within ten minutes the man he had promised to
+pluck from among the eight million inhabitants of London was smiling
+sympathetically at his jests and buying a drink.
+
+On the steamer Ford had rehearsed the story with which, should he meet
+Ashton, he would introduce himself. It was one arranged to fit with his
+theory that Ashton was a crook. If Ashton were a crook Ford argued
+that to at once ingratiate himself in his good graces he also must be
+a crook. His plan was to invite Ashton to co-operate with him in some
+scheme that was openly dishonest. By so doing he hoped apparently to
+place himself at Ashton’s mercy. He believed if he could persuade Ashton
+he was more of a rascal than Ashton himself, and an exceedingly
+stupid rascal, any distrust the bookmaker might feel toward him would
+disappear. He made his advances so openly, and apparently showed his
+hand so carelessly, that, from being bored, Ashton became puzzled,
+then interested; and when Ford insisted he should dine with him, he
+considered it so necessary to find out who the youth might be who was
+forcing himself upon him that he accepted the invitation.
+
+They adjourned to dress and an hour later, at Ford’s suggestion, they
+met at the Carlton. There Ford ordered a dinner calculated to lull his
+newly made friend into a mood suited to confidence, but which had on
+Ashton exactly the opposite effect. Merely for the pleasure of his
+company, utter strangers were not in the habit of treating him to
+strawberries in February, and vintage champagne; and, in consequence, in
+Ford’s hospitality he saw only cause for suspicion. If, as he had first
+feared, Ford was a New York detective, it was most important he should
+know that. No one better than Ashton understood that, at that moment,
+his presence in New York meant, for the police, unalloyed satisfaction,
+and for himself undisturbed solitude. But Ford was unlike any detective
+of his acquaintance; and his acquaintance had been extensive. It
+was true Ford was familiar with all the habits of Broadway and the
+Tenderloin. Of places with which Ashton was intimate, and of men with
+whom Ashton had formerly been well acquainted, he talked glibly. But, if
+he were a detective, Ashton considered, they certainly had improved the
+class.
+
+The restaurant into which for the first time Ashton had penetrated,
+and in which he felt ill at ease, was to Ford, he observed, a matter
+of course. Evidently for Ford it held no terrors. He criticised the
+service, patronized the head waiters, and grumbled at the food; and
+when, on leaving the restaurant, an Englishman and his wife stopped at
+their table to greet him, he accepted their welcome to London without
+embarrassment.
+
+Ashton, rolling his cigar between his lips, observed the incident with
+increasing bewilderment.
+
+“You’ve got some swell friends,” he growled. “I’ll bet you never met
+THEM at Healey’s!”
+
+“I meet all kinds of people in my business,” said Ford. “I once sold
+that man some mining stock, and the joke of it was,” he added, smiling
+knowingly, “it turned out to be good.”
+
+Ashton decided that the psychological moment had arrived.
+
+“What IS your business?” he asked.
+
+“I’m a company promoter,” said Ford easily. “I thought I told you.”
+
+“I did not tell you that I was a company promoter, too, did I?” demanded
+Ashton.
+
+“No,” answered Ford, with apparent surprise. “Are you? That’s funny.”
+
+Ashton watched for the next move, but the subject seemed in no way to
+interest Ford. Instead of following it up he began afresh.
+
+“Have you any money lying idle?” he asked abruptly. “About a thousand
+pounds.”
+
+Ashton recognized that the mysterious stranger was about to disclose
+both himself and whatever object he had in seeking him out. He cast a
+quick glance about him.
+
+“I can always find money,” he said guardedly. “What’s the proposition?”
+
+With pretended nervousness Ford leaned forward and began the story
+he had rehearsed. It was a new version of an old swindle and to every
+self-respecting confidence man was well known as the “sick engineer”
+ game. The plot is very simple. The sick engineer is supposed to be a
+mining engineer who, as an expert, has examined a gold mine and reported
+against it. For his services the company paid him partly in stock. He
+falls ill and is at the point of death. While he has been ill much gold
+has been found in the mine he examined, and the stock which he considers
+worthless is now valuable. Of this, owing to his illness, he is
+ignorant. One confidence man acts the part of the sick engineer, and the
+other that of a broker who knows the engineer possesses the stock but
+has no money with which to purchase it from him. For a share of the
+stock he offers to tell the dupe where it and the engineer can be found.
+They visit the man, apparently at the point of death, and the dupe gives
+him money for his stock. Later the dupe finds the stock is worthless,
+and the supposed engineer and the supposed broker divide the money he
+paid for it. In telling the story Ford pretended he was the broker and
+that he thought in Ashton he had found a dupe who would buy the stock
+from the sick engineer.
+
+As the story unfolded and Ashton appreciated the part Ford expected
+him to play in it, his emotions were so varied that he was in danger
+of apoplexy. Amusement, joy, chagrin, and indignation illuminated his
+countenance. His cigar ceased to burn, and with his eyes opened wide he
+regarded Ford in pitying wonder.
+
+“Wait!” he commanded. He shook his head uncomprehendingly. “Tell me,” he
+asked, “do I look as easy as that, or are you just naturally foolish?”
+
+Ford pretended to fall into a state of great alarm.
+
+“I don’t understand,” he stammered.
+
+“Why, son,” exclaimed Ashton kindly, “I was taught that story in the
+public schools. I invented it. I stopped using it before you cut
+your teeth. Gee!” he exclaimed delightedly. “I knew I had
+grown respectable-looking, but I didn’t think I was so damned
+respectable-looking as that!” He began to laugh silently; so greatly was
+he amused that the tears shone in his eyes and his shoulders shook.
+
+“I’m sorry for you, son,” he protested, “but that’s the funniest thing
+that’s come my way in two years. And you buying me hot-house grapes,
+too, and fancy water! I wish you could see your face,” he taunted.
+
+Ford pretended to be greatly chagrined.
+
+“All right,” he declared roughly. “The laugh’s on me this time, but just
+because I lost one trick, don’t think I don’t know my business. Now that
+I’m wise to what YOU are we can work together and--”
+
+The face of young Mr. Ashton became instantly grave. His jaws
+snapped like a trap. When he spoke his tone was assured and slightly
+contemptuous.
+
+“Not with ME you can’t work!” he said.
+
+“Don’t think because I fell down on this,” Ford began hotly.
+
+“I’m not thinking of you at all,” said Ashton. “You’re a nice little
+fellow all right, but you have sized me up wrong. I am on the ‘straight
+and narrow’ that leads back to little old New York and God’s country,
+and I am warranted not to run off my trolley.”
+
+The words were in the vernacular, but the tone in which the young man
+spoke rang so confidently that it brought to Ford a pleasant thrill
+of satisfaction. From the first he had found in the personality of the
+young man something winning and likable; a shrewd manliness and tolerant
+good-humor. His eyes may have shown his sympathy, for, in sudden
+confidence, Ashton leaned nearer.
+
+“It’s like this,” he said. “Several years ago I made a bad break and,
+about a year later, they got on to me and I had to cut and run. In a
+month the law of limitation lets me loose and I can go back. And you can
+bet I’m GOING back. I will be on the bowsprit of the first boat. I’ve
+had all I want of the ‘fugitive-from-justice’ game, thank you, and I
+have taken good care to keep a clean bill of health so that I won’t
+have to play it again. They’ve been trying to get me for several
+years--especially the Pinkertons. They have chased me all over Europe.
+Chased me with all kinds of men; sometimes with women; they’ve tried
+everything except blood-hounds. At first I thought YOU were a ‘Pink,’
+that’s why--”
+
+“I!” interrupted Ford, exploding derisively. “That’s GOOD! That’s one
+on YOU.” He ceased laughing and regarded Ashton kindly. “How do you know
+I’m not?” he asked.
+
+For an instant the face of the bookmaker grew a shade less red and
+his eyes searched those of Ford in a quick agony of suspicion. Ford
+continued to smile steadily at him, and Ashton breathed with relief.
+
+“I’ll take a chance with you,” he said, “and if you are as bad a
+detective as you are a sport I needn’t worry.”
+
+They both laughed, and, with sudden mutual liking, each raised his glass
+and nodded.
+
+“But they haven’t got me yet,” continued Ashton, “and unless they get
+me in the next thirty days I’m free. So you needn’t think that I’ll help
+you. It’s ‘never again’ for me. The first time, that was the fault of
+the crowd I ran with; the second time, that would be MY fault. And there
+ain’t going to be any second time.”
+
+He shook his head doggedly, and with squared shoulders leaned back in
+his chair.
+
+“If it only breaks right for me,” he declared, “I’ll settle down in one
+of those ‘Own-your own-homes,’ forty-five minutes from Broadway, and
+never leave the wife and the baby.”
+
+The words almost brought Ford to his feet. He had forgotten the wife and
+the baby. He endeavored to explain his surprise by a sudden assumption
+of incredulity.
+
+“Fancy you married!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Married!” protested Ashton. “I’m married to the finest little lady
+that ever wore skirts, and in thirty-seven days I’ll see her again.
+Thirty-seven days,” he repeated impatiently. “Gee! That’s a hell of a
+long time!”
+
+Ford studied the young man with increased interest. That he was speaking
+sincerely, from the heart, there seemed no possible doubt.
+
+Ashton frowned and his face clouded. “I’ve not been able to treat her
+just right,” he volunteered. “If she wrote me, the letters might give
+them a clew, and I don’t write HER because I don’t want her to know
+all my troubles until they’re over. But I know,” he added, “that five
+minutes’ talk will set it all right. That is, if she still feels about
+me the way I feel about her.”
+
+The man crushed his cigar in his fingers and threw the pieces on the
+floor. “That’s what’s been the worst!” he exclaimed bitterly. “Not
+hearing, not knowing. It’s been hell!”
+
+His eyes as he raised them were filled with suffering, deep and genuine.
+
+Ford rose suddenly. “Let’s go down to the Savoy for supper,” he said.
+
+“Supper!” growled Ashton. “What’s the use of supper? Do you suppose cold
+chicken and a sardine can keep me from THINKING?”
+
+Ford placed his hand on the other’s shoulder.
+
+“You come with me,” he said kindly. “I’m going to do you a favor. I’m
+going to bring you a piece of luck. Don’t ask me any questions,” he
+commanded hurriedly. “Just take my word for it.”
+
+They had sat so late over their cigars that when they reached the
+restaurant on the Embankment the supper-room was already partly
+filled, and the corridors and lounge were brilliantly lit and gay with
+well-dressed women. Ashton regarded the scene with gloomy eyes. Since
+he had spoken of his wife he had remained silent, chewing savagely on a
+fresh cigar. But Ford was grandly excited. He did not know exactly what
+he intended to do. He was prepared to let events direct themselves, but
+of two things he was assured: Mrs. Ashton loved her husband, and her
+husband loved her. As the god in the car who was to bring them together,
+he felt a delightful responsibility.
+
+The young men left the coat-room and came down the short flight of
+steps that leads to the wide lounge of the restaurant. Ford slightly in
+advance, searching with his eyes for Mrs Ashton, found her seated alone
+in the lounge, evidently waiting for him. At the first glance she was
+hardly be recognized. Her low-cut dinner gown of black satin that clung
+to her like a wet bath robe was the last word of the new fashion; and
+since Ford had seen her her blond hair had been arranged by an artist.
+Her appearance was smart, elegant, daring. She was easily the prettiest
+and most striking-looking woman in the room, and for an instant Ford
+stood gazing at her, trying to find in the self-possessed young woman
+the deserted wife of the steamer. She did not see Ford. Her eyes were
+following the progress down the hall of a woman, and her profile was
+toward him.
+
+The thought of the happiness he was about to bring to two young people
+gave Ford the sense of a genuine triumph, and when he turned to
+Ashton to point out his wife to him he was thrilling with pride and
+satisfaction. His triumph received a bewildering shock. Already Ashton
+had discovered the presence of Mrs. Ashton. He was standing transfixed,
+lost to his surroundings, devouring her with his eyes. And then, to the
+amazement of Ford, his eyes filled with fear, doubt, and anger. Swiftly,
+with the movement of a man ducking a blow, he turned and sprang up the
+stairs and into the coat-room. Ford, bewildered and more conscious of
+his surroundings, followed him less quickly, and was in consequence only
+in time to see Ashton, dragging his overcoat behind him, disappear into
+the court-yard. He seized his own coat and raced in pursuit. As he ran
+into the court-yard Ashton, in the Strand, was just closing the door of
+a taxicab, but before the chauffeur could free it from the surrounding
+traffic, Ford had dragged the door open, and leaped inside. Ashton was
+huddled in the corner, panting, his face pale with alarm.
+
+“What the devil ails you?” roared Ford. “Are you trying to shake me?
+You’ve got to come back. You must speak to her.”
+
+“Speak to her!” repeated Ashton. His voice was sunk to a whisper. The
+look of alarm in his face was confused with one grim and menacing. “Did
+you know she was there?” he demanded softly. “Did you take me there,
+knowing--?”
+
+“Of course I knew,” protested Ford. “She’s been looking for you--”
+
+His voice subsided in a squeak of amazement and pain. Ashton’s left hand
+had shot out and swiftly seized his throat. With the other he pressed an
+automatic revolver against Ford’s shirt front.
+
+“I know she’s been looking for me,” the man whispered thickly. “For two
+years she’s been looking for me. I know all about HER! But, WHO IN HELL
+ARE YOU?”
+
+Ford, gasping and gurgling, protested loyally.
+
+“You are wrong!” he cried. “She’s been at home waiting for you. She
+thinks you have deserted her and your baby. I tell you she loves you,
+you fool, she LOVES you!”
+
+The fingers on his throat suddenly relaxed; the flaming eyes of Ashton,
+glaring into his, wavered and grew wide with amazement.
+
+“Loves me,” he whispered. “WHO loves me?”
+
+“Your wife,” protested Ford; “the girl at the Savoy, your wife.”
+
+Again the fingers of Ashton pressed deep around his neck.
+
+“That is not my wife,” he whispered. His voice was unpleasantly cold and
+grim. “That’s ‘Baby Belle,’ with her hair dyed, a detective lady of the
+Pinkertons, hired to find me. And YOU know it. Now, who are YOU?”
+
+To permit him to reply Ashton released his hand, but at the same moment,
+in a sudden access of fear, dug the revolver deeper into the pit of
+Ford’s stomach.
+
+“Quick!” he commanded. “Never mind the girl. WHO ARE YOU?”
+
+Ford collapsed against the cushioned corner of the cab. “And she begged
+me to find you,” he roared, “because she LOVED you, because she wanted
+to BELIEVE in you!” He held his arms above his head. “Go ahead and
+shoot!” he cried. “You want to know who I am?” he demanded. His voice
+rang with rage. “I’m an amateur. Just a natural born fool-amateur! Go on
+and shoot!”
+
+The gun in Ashton’s hand sank to his knee. Between doubt and laughter
+his face was twisted in strange lines. The cab was whirling through a
+narrow, unlit street leading to Covent Garden. Opening the door Ashton
+called to the chauffeur, and then turned to Ford.
+
+“You get off here!” he commanded. “Maybe you’re a ‘Pink,’ maybe you’re
+a good fellow. I think you’re a good fellow, but I’m not taking any
+chances. Get out!”
+
+Ford scrambled to the street, and as the taxicab again butted itself
+forward, Ashton leaned far through the window. “Good-by, son,” he
+called. “Send me a picture-postal card to Paris. For I am off to
+Maxim’s,” he cried, “and you can go to--”
+
+“Not at all!” shouted the amateur detective indignantly. “I’m going back
+to take supper with ‘Baby Belle’!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Amateur, by Richard Harding Davis
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