He found the ladder after a short search and stood
at the bottom, looking up at me. “Well,
I suppose you haven’t seen him?” he inquired.
“There are enough darned cubbyholes in this
house to hide a patrol wagon load of thieves.”
He lighted a fresh match. “Hello, here’s
another door!”
By the sound of his diminishing footsteps I supposed
it was a rear staircase. He came up again in
ten minutes or so, this time with the policeman.
“He’s gone, all right,” he said
ruefully. “If you’d been attending
to your business, Robison, you’d have watched
the back door.”
“I’m not twins.” Robison was
surly.
“Well,” I broke in, as cheerfully as I
could, “if you are through with this jolly little
affair, and can get down my ladder without having
my housekeeper ring the burglar alarm, I have some
good Monongahela whisky—eh?”
They came without a second invitation across the roof,
and with them safely away from the house I breathed
more freely. Down in the den I fulfilled my
promise, which Johnson drank to the toast, “Coming
through the rye.” He examined my gun rack
with the eye of a connoisseur, and even when he was
about to go he cast a loving eye back at the weapons.
“Ever been in the army?” he inquired.
“No,” I said with a bitterness that he
noticed but failed to comprehend. “I’m
a chocolate cream soldier—you don’t
read Shaw, I suppose, Johnson?”
“Never heard of him,” the detective said
indifferently. “Well, good night, Mr.
Blakeley. Much obliged.” At the door
he hesitated and coughed.
“I suppose you understand, Mr. Blakeley,”
he said awkwardly, “that this—er—surveillance
is all in the day’s work. I don’t
like it, but it’s duty. Every man to his
duty, sir.”
“Sometime when you are in an open mood, Johnson,”
I returned, “you can explain why I am being
watched at all.”
THE CINEMATOGRAPH
On Monday I went out for the first time. I did
not go to the office. I wanted to walk.
I thought fresh air and exercise would drive away
the blue devils that had me by the throat. McKnight
insisted on a long day in his car, but I refused.
“I don’t know why not,” he said
sulkily. “I can’t walk. I haven’t
walked two consecutive blocks in three years.
Automobiles have made legs mere ornaments—and
some not even that. We could have Johnson out
there chasing us over the country at five dollars an
hour!”
“He can chase us just as well at five miles
an hour,” I said. “But what gets
me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all.
How do the police know I was accused of that thing?”
“The young lady who sent the flowers—she
isn’t likely to talk, is she?”
“No. That is, I didn’t say it was
a lady.” I groaned as I tried to get my
splinted arm into a coat. “Anyhow, she
didn’t tell,” I finished with conviction,
and McKnight laughed.
