Читать книгу The Iron Trail - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4
ОглавлениеA Bit of Plated Steel
The sheriff blinked a little. Even if he had heard this related in epilogue or fairy tale it would have been somewhat of a shock, but this smooth-faced youngster chatted on with perfect ease.
“By confidence game,” said he, “I don’t mean the ordinary run of the workers along this line. They’re a dirty crew. They won’t keep their hands clean!”
“Explain,” said the sheriff. “Explain, son. Though I can’t help saying that the judge will have to hear all of this.”
“You let the judge hear it,” retorted Clewes, “and he’ll have you examined to see if you’re not simple-minded, letting a prisoner pull your leg with a line of talk like this. Do you think that anybody but me can believe the truth about myself?”
“Go on,” the sheriff urged. “You tickle me, kid!”
“Thanks,” said Clewes. “I’m lighting this cigarette, then?”
“All right. It won’t break the rules, so long as I stay here and smoke with you. You were saying how clean you keep your hands in your business.”
“I mean that I don’t work the women, for instance. They’re too easy, and that work is dirty. It’s queer how easy you can get a woman started weeping over you. And then her purse is yours. Or you can pick them for long shots of a gambling nature. A woman will always take a thousand-to-one shot—for a few dollars!”
“You don’t know any of this at first hand?” asked the sheriff.
“Yes, I trimmed a few when I was young. That was before I grew a soul and found out how a man should work. But I’m glad to say that I paid back every penny that I’d ever taken from them in the past.”
“Humph!” grunted the sheriff.
“Come, come,” said Mr. Clewes, lifting an imperious hand. “The minute you start doubting, I stop telling the truth. I feel like talking about myself, just now, but if you make it hard for me, I’ll have to string you along. And no lie can be as entertaining as the truth about myself.”
He said this so blandly and smilingly that the sheriff leaned back on the stool which he had propped against the bars and chuckled a little.
“Go on, Clewes,” he said. “By the way, how old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” replied Clewes. “Don’t interrupt. I’m talking to a priest, not a sheriff! I was telling you about the fine points of the code of the confidence man—the perfect worker, like myself!”
“Right! You were explaining that it is a business that’s as clean, as good, and as hard as any other!”
“About it being hard, sheriff, you won’t fight with me.”
“Not a bit.”
“About the goodness of it—what does a lawyer do to make a living?”
“He wins cases, of course.”
“In other words, he beats the other man?”
“I suppose so.”
“What does the grocery keeper do?”
“Runs a store; well?”
“Runs such a good store that he puts out of business every other store in the town, if he can?”
“I suppose that he does.”
“When you run for office, Sheriff, you and your friends go up and down the streets telling what a fine fellow the other candidate is, don’t you?”
“Not exactly that!”
“No, not exactly. You make him out a thug and a crook—you laugh at the idea of the job being put into his hands. And you try to wreck that fellow who runs against you!”
“You make a black case of it.”
“Confess, Matthews, that every man gets on by beating out some other man. Even the poor devil who repairs shoes tries to cut out the other fellow who repairs shoes across the street, eh?”
“Inside of limits, yes,” the sheriff acknowledged.
“Inside of limits, of course. That is to say, he doesn’t burn the other man’s house down at night, and he doesn’t put a gun to his head. He tries to beat him simply by the use of his wits, eh?”
“Exactly.”
“There you are, Matthews! By the use of his wits a good confidence man tries to talk dollars out of the purses of other men and into his own pocket. What could be fairer than that? What could be a cleaner business? It’s hard to outtalk and outthink the other fellow. And the real workers, like myself, tackle nothing but the biggest game. We don’t rap at back doors. We go up to the fellows in the finest offices. And we introduce ourselves, and at the end of a quarter of an hour, without a gun or a can opener, we painlessly extract fifteen hundred dollars! Now, Sheriff, can you beat that, honestly, for a good clean business?”
“Good for you,” nodded the sheriff. “But how is it good for the rest of the world?”
“You’re an idealist, I see,” grinned Eddie Clewes. “I’ll tell you what it does for the rest of the world. Keeps their brains from being covered with fat. Keeps them awake. Keeps them working hard. Keeps them from getting too contented with themselves. As a matter of fact, Sheriff, it brings tears to my eyes, when I think of all the good that a hard-working confidence man can do in the world, or a salesman of green goods. So, from the ideal side of it, there you are, Matthews.”
“You almost believe it yourself, don’t you?” murmured the sheriff.
“Why not?” asked Eddie Clewes. “I believe anything, until somebody talks me down!”
“Well,” said Matthews, “I’m a simple man, and I dunno that I could ever aspire any higher than toward the job of a sheriff. But in this here argument, Clewes, I aim to have the last word.”
With that, he left Mr. Clewes and, going to the jailkeeper, left instructions that Clewes should be turned out of his clothes, searched to the skin, his very shoes probed. Then, after he had been permitted to dress again, he was to be loaded with all the irons that the jailkeeper had at his disposal.
It was done to the letter. The jailkeeper was a fellow even gloomier than his profession warranted, and he took the keenest pleasure in performing the orders of Matthews. Young Mr. Clewes was searched to the skin, and then, when nothing was found on him, he was covered with ponderous irons. The keeper, when he had finished, stood back sweating, but he was amazed to see that the prisoner was smiling broadly.
“It proves that the sheriff is an honest man,” said he. “He doesn’t want to have to pay his bet.”
“What in hell are you talking about?” asked the jailer.
“You tell the sheriff,” answered Eddie Clewes, “that a late search is worse than no search at all.”
The jailer considered this remark for a moment, but he merely remarked, at last, “You’re a fresh kid.” And he marched from the cell room and sat basking in the warm sun of the late afternoon. Presently a shrill, piercing whistling began from the inside of the jail. The keeper endured it as long as he could. Then he opened a door and roared, “Stop that damned noise!”
“I’ve got to do something,” said the prisoner cheerfully, “got to do something to make a noise. Otherwise you’d hear the file screeching on the steel. This tool-proof stuff is hard work, jailer!”
The jailer, thrilling with alarm in spite of himself, went hurriedly to the farther corner, and there he found Eddie Clewes, as usual, lying on his bunk, with an almost indistinguishable mass of irons hanging from him.
“You watch your step, kid,” he warned.
“I’m sleepy,” said Eddie. “Fetch me some supper, and then leave me alone. I want to think.”
The jailer departed. There was no amusement to be had from this confidence man. For the pleasure of that particular jailer was gained by bearing down as hard as the law allowed on those in his charge, and seeing them cringe under the pressure.
Supper came early, in that jail, so that the keeper could turn over his cares to the night watchman. And before dusk had well settled over the town, the jailkeeper was saying to his night assistant: “You got an easy job tonight. The sheriff has a grudge against a kid he picked up today, and I’ve got him blanketed down with irons. Fresh young sap. You’ll hear him whistling to keep himself company. There he goes now!”
“Let him go,” said the night man. “Noise in the jail don’t bother me on the outside!”
“Take a look at him by midnight,” ordered the jailer, “and if he’s all right then, there ain’t any reason why you shouldn’t take a nap.”
Eddie Clewes waited until the darkness was complete, for darkness made no difference to him. During the afternoon, he had mapped in his mind every detail of that cell and that jail, so far as his eyes had been able to probe it, while he was coming in and while he lay in his bunk.
But when the darkness had utterly screened him, he sat up and began to work.
There was a gold band, or what seemed a gold band, on the inside of Eddie’s upper front teeth. He managed to work a forefinger up to that band, and behold, it came freely away. It was a very tiny bit of plated steel; the plate was thinnest gold, on one side, the steel of the beautiful kind which only watchmakers can secure for their most expensive springs.
With this tiny film of steel, Eddie Clewes attacked his locks. It was as though he had the proper key for each one! And if he delayed over some, it was hardly longer than one might well have paused working the key among such rust!
But, one by one, the locks opened, and the chains were laid aside softly.
Then, free of hand and foot, he reached under the mattress and found there certain necessities which he had extracted from his clothes while the sheriff was talking to him in his cell. Three or four fine files came out in the hands of Mr. Clewes. Then there was a plain automatic pencil—or so it seemed. But when a certain cap was unscrewed, it was found that the barrel of the pencil was filled with the very finest lubricating oil!
