Local Color Part 35

"What's wrong with my moustache?" asked Keller, craning to contemplate himself over Bronston's shoulder in the mirror. "Seems to me you used to wear a moustache yourself. The description that was sent to our people said you wore one, and your not wearing it made it all the harder for me to trail you when I was put on the case."

"Oh, I cut mine off months ago," said Bronston, "and besides it was always a modest, close-cropped affair. I never wore the ends of my moustache turned up like a cow's horns." He glanced at Keller quizzically. "Honestly, aside from any other considerations, I think you'd look better without one."

"Let's drop the moustache part," said Keller, who seemed nettled. "Tell me, what's wrong with my clothes?"

"To be frank," criticised Bronston, "you run just a bit to extremes.

There's that cap you bought yesterday evening when we stopped at that store on our way across town. It struck me as being--well, a trifle loud."

"I don't see anything wrong with this cap, if you're asking me," said Keller. He drew it forth from his opened handbag and slipped it on his head. It slipped down until his ears stopped it; its owner whistled in astonishment. "Yes, by gee!" he exclaimed, "there is something wrong with it too--it's too large." He drew it off and examined the little tag pasted in the crown. "Why, it's a full half size too large." He turned to Bronston.

"You told the clerk what numbers we wanted. Remember, don't you, offering to attend to that while I was getting me a bathrobe, so as to save time? See if he made any mistake in yours?"

Bronston slid on the cap he had bought, a plain grey one; it stuck on the top of his head.

"Yes," he said, "the idiot must have got the sizes twisted. This one is a half size too small for me."

"And mine's a half size too large," said Keller. "I suppose we'll have to trade."

"There's nothing else to do," said Bronston, "although I can't say I fancy this plaid design much."

In accordance with the plan of Keller, as stated the night before, they went to breakfast together to find that they had been a.s.signed places at a five-seated, circular table on the balcony of the dining saloon.

Their tablemates were an elderly couple, who said little to each other and nothing at all to strangers, and a tall, reserved, exceedingly silent Englishman. The indefinable something that marked these two men as hailing from different circles and different environments was accentuated in their table manners. Keller ate correctly enough, but there was a suggestion of grossness about him, an awkwardness in his fashion of holding his fork while he cut his ham. But he watched Bronston closely, and before the end of the meal had begun to copy Bronston's method of handling a fork.

They had quit the dining room and sought out the location of their deck chairs when, for the first time, the detective seemed to become aware that Bronston's cheeks were rosy and smooth, whereas a roughened stubble covered his own jowls. "I think I'll go below and take a shave," he said, running the palm of his hand over his chops.

"Use my safety, if you feel like it," suggested Bronston casually.

"There's a new blade in it."

Half an hour later, when Bronston invaded the stateroom to get a pocketful of cigars, Keller stood facing the mirror, putting on his collar and tie.

"I couldn't find my razor," he said, with his head turned away from Bronston; "I must've left it on that Chicago train. And yet I'd have sworn I put it into my valise. So I had to use yours. But you were wrong when you said it had a new blade in it. If that's a new blade I'll eat it. It mighty near pulled my upper lip off."

"Your upper lip?" echoed Bronston instantly.

"Sure," said Keller. There was a touch of embarra.s.sment in his tone as he faced Bronston. "I took your advice about this moustache of mine--clipped it close with the scissors and then gave myself the twice-over with your safety." His upper lip showed bare; the skin had a bleached look and was raw from the sc.r.a.ping it had just undergone.

As Keller pa.s.sed out of the room, caressing the place where his moustache had been, Bronston noted that Keller had made other changes in his person. Keller had exchanged the bright green tie which he wore at breakfast for a dull brown bow; and he had put on a lighter pair of shoes--patent-leather shoes, with thin soles and b.u.t.toned uppers. His broad-toed, heavy-soled pair showed under his bed where he had shoved them.

Conceding the weather to be fair, as in this instance it a.s.suredly was, the majority of the pa.s.sengers upon a big liner eastward bound give over their first day at sea to getting used to their new and strange surroundings, to getting lost in various odd corners of the ship and finding themselves again, to asking questions about baggage gone astray, to wondering why they are not seasick. As regards the two princ.i.p.al characters of this narrative, nothing of interest occurred during the first day except that Keller went below late in the afternoon to take a nap, and that shortly before dark, when he had waked, Bronston limped in with a look of pain upon his face, to report that while watching a lifeboat drill he had got a foot hurt.

"A clumsy a.s.s of a coal pa.s.ser dropped his oar and hit me right on the big toe with the b.u.t.t of it," he explained. "I didn't give him away, because the second officer was right there and I judged he would have given the poor devil fits for being so careless. But it hurts like the very mischief."

He got his left shoe off and sat for a bit caressing the bruised member.

"The skin isn't broken evidently," he continued, in response to Keller's inquiries concerning the extent of the injury; "but there's some swelling and plenty of soreness." He started to put his shoe back on his stockinged foot, but halted with a groan.

"If you don't mind," he said to Keller, "I'm going to wear those heavy shoes of yours for a day or two. They're easier than mine and broader in the toe."

"Help yourself," agreed Keller. "Seeing as we've swapped caps we might as well swap shoes too. Anyhow, I kind of like this pair I've got on, even if they do pinch a little." He contemplated his shining extremities admiringly. Shortly afterward they went up to dinner. After dinner Bronston found reason for returning to the stateroom. Here he did a strange thing. He dropped a pair of perfectly good shoes out of the porthole.

Conceding further that on a big liner's second day out the weather continues fine, the Americans among the first-cabin pa.s.sengers begin making acquaintances; and, under official guidance, go on trips of exploration and discovery to the engine room and the steerage and the steward's domain. Card games are organised and there is preliminary talk of a ship's concert. The British travellers, on the other hand, continue for the most part to hold themselves aloof. This also was true of the second day's pa.s.sage of the _Mesopotamia_.

Keller--or Cole, to use the name which he now used--met some congenial fellow countrymen in the smoking room and played bridge with them for small stakes during most of the afternoon. Bronston, who apparently did not care for cards, saw his warder only at the lunch hour, preferring to spend the time in his steamer chair upon the deck, enjoying the air, which was balmy and neither too warm nor yet too cool, but just right.

Presently as he sat there he fell into a conversation--which was at first desultory, although it shortly took on a more animated character--with a rather fluffy young lady who occupied the steamer chair next his own. She dropped a book which she had been reading; he picked it up and returned it to her. That was how it started, at first with an interchange of polite commonplaces, then with a running bestowal of small confidences on the part of the young lady, who proved to be talkative.

By bits and s.n.a.t.c.hes it developed that her name was Miss Lillian Cartwright and that her home was in Evanston, Illinois. There were several other Evanston people on the boat--she pointed out a group of them some distance down the deck--but she was not travelling with them.

She was travelling with her uncle, Major Sloc.u.m. Perhaps her new acquaintance had heard of her uncle, Major Sloc.u.m? He was a prominent attorney in Chicago, quite a prominent attorney, and he was also on the staff of the present governor of Illinois, and in former years had taken a deep interest in the welfare of the Illinois National Guard.

"Possibly you may have seen his name in the papers," she said. "Uncle is always getting into the papers."

Bronston rather thought he had heard the name. Miss Cartwright talked on. This was her first trip at sea. She had expected that she would be seasick, but on the contrary she felt splendid; not a suggestion of seasickness so far. Really she felt almost disappointed--as though she had been cheated out of something. But seriously, wasn't the sea just perfectly lovely? She loved the sea. And she loved the _Mesopotamia_ too; it was so big and so roomy and the officers were so polite; and even the seamen were accommodating about answering questions. She was always going to travel on the _Mesopotamia_ after this. They--her uncle and she--were on their way to Scotland to visit her married sister who lived there. It wasn't certain yet whether they would leave the ship at Fishguard and run up to London for a day or two, or go straight on to Liverpool and from there take the train for Scotland and stop off in London on the way back. Her uncle rather favoured going on to Liverpool.

Here Bronston found a chance to slip in a word or two.

"I'm sure I've noticed your uncle--tall, isn't he, and distinguished and rather military looking? I should like very much to meet him. You might introduce him to me, and then perhaps he would be good enough to introduce us two properly to each other. I answer to the name of Brown."

He stood up and lifted his cap. "I expect to be back in a little while."

The plan seemed to please Miss Cartwright. "That would be fun, wouldn't it?" she said, as Bronston moved off up the deck.

It is possible that she repeated to her uncle what Bronston--or Brown--had said. For when Bronston happened along again a few minutes later, Major Sloc.u.m was sitting with his niece, and upon being introduced, arose and clasped Mr. Bronston's hand with a warm cordiality. The Major was one of those native-born Demostheneses with a stiff spine and a fine mane of rather long, iron-grey hair. His manner of speech betrayed him instantly as one addicted to after-dinner oratory. Instinctively, as it were, one gathered that his favourite toast was The Ladies--G.o.d Bless 'Em.

As he confided to his niece afterward, the Major found this Mr. Brown to be an exceedingly well-mannered, well-informed person; and indeed the conversation did cover a wide range of subjects that afternoon.

It first took on a briskened tone when a lone porpoise came tumbling across the waves to race with the ship. From porpoises the talk turned to whales, and from whales to icebergs, and from icebergs to disasters at sea, and from that to discipline aboard ship, and from that to discipline in the army and in the national guard, which was where Major Sloc.u.m shone. Thence very naturally it drifted to a discussion of police discipline as it existed in certain of the larger American cities, notably New York and Chicago, and thence to police corruption and crime matters generally. Here Mr. Bronston, who had until now been third in the conversational output, displayed a considerable acquaintance with methods of crime detection. He knew about the Bertillon system and about finger-print identifications, and what was more he knew how to talk about them--and he did. There are two cla.s.ses of people who are interested in shop talk of crime--those who know something of the subject and those who do not. Miss Cartwright and Major Sloc.u.m listened attentively to most of what the young man had to say, and both professed themselves as having been deeply entertained.

It followed, quite in the order of things, therefore, that the three of them should agree to meet in the lounge after dinner and take their coffee together. They did meet there, and the evening was made to pa.s.s both pleasantly and rapidly. The Major, who told quite a considerable number of his best stories, was surprised when eleven o'clock arrived.

Meanwhile, Keller played bridge in the smoking room. He didn't turn in until after midnight, finding Bronston already in bed.

At the latter's suggestion they breakfasted abed the following morning; and so the forenoon was well spent when they got upon deck. Fine weather continuing, the ship ran a steady course. The side-to-side motion was barely perceptible. Having finished the prescribed morning const.i.tutional--twelve times round the ship--Miss Cartwright was sitting in her steamer-chair, feeling just a wee bit lonely and finding so smooth a crossing just a trifle monotonous, when Bronston came up, looking spick and span. She preened herself, greeting him with sprightly words, and when after a few minutes of small talk he offered to initiate her into the mysteries of horse billiards, up on the boat deck, she accepted the invitation instantly.

They went up and the young lady proved an apt and willing pupil. There on the boat deck Major Sloc.u.m presently found them. He didn't care to play, but he kept score for them. The Major put the sonorous emphasis of the true orator's delivery into everything he said; his calling off of the count invested it with the solemnity and vocal beauty of a well-delivered ritual.

Presently when the game was over and they sat, all three, side by side upon a bench in the lee of one of the huge ventilator funnels, the younger man spoke up and said he was afraid Miss Cartwright must be getting chilled without a wrap. She insisted that she was perfectly comfortable, but masterfully declaring that she needed better protection for her shoulders than a silken blouse and a light jacket he got up.

"I'll just run down and get my grey ulster," he said. "I think I left it in my chair."

Leaving uncle and niece together he hurried below. True enough, his grey ulster dangled across the arm of the steamer chair, but after picking it up he made a trip on down to D-deck and spent perhaps a minute in his stateroom with the door closed. No, probably it wasn't more than half a minute that he spent there. At any rate he was back upon the boat deck almost immediately, holding up the coat while Miss Cartwright slipped her arms into the sleeves. All women like to be waited on and most women like to wear masculine garments of one sort or another. He b.u.t.toned the collar about her throat and she smiled up at him her appreciation of his thoughtfulness.

"Aren't men's overcoats just adorable!" she babbled; "so big and warm and comfy and everything! And they have such lovely big pockets! The very next coat I get is going to be made like a man's, and have some of those nice big pockets in it." She shoved her hands deep into the side pockets in what she fondly conceived to be a mannish manner.

"Why, what's this?" she asked. "There's something heavy and jingly in----"

She stopped short, for the owner of the ulster was looking at her meaningly and shaking his head as a signal for silence.

"What did you say, my dear?" inquired her uncle absently.