The Haunted Pajamas Part 21

wallet on the table.

The very thing, by Jove!

Examination showed, first thing, a wad of yellow-backs, fresh from the bank. I peeled off two and pushed them into the officer's hand.

"This belongs to a friend of mine," I remarked; "but it's just the same as my own, don't you know, and he won't mind. Dash it, we're just like brothers!"

A howl of maniacal laughter from the old fool in the chair startled us both.

"Regular Damon and Pythias, d.a.m.n it!" he gabbled, grinning with hideous face contortions. "One for all, and all for one! And just help yourself; don't mind me. Why--_h.e.l.l_!"

O'Keefe prodded him sharply in the shoulder with his night stick.

"Stop your skylarking now, Foxy," he admonished angrily, "and come on.

Here the gentleman's gone and put up his money for a cab for you and you ought to want to get out of his way so he can rest."

"He's sure been kind to you," supplemented Tim, whose eye had noted the pa.s.sing of the yellow boys.

"Kind!" mocked the old geezer, showing his scattered teeth in a horrible grin. "Why, he's a lu-lu, a regular Samaritan!"

"No names!" warned O'Keefe, slightly lifting his night stick. "Come on to the street--you seem to forget you're under arrest."

He added hastily:

"And I ought to have warned you that anything you may say, Foxy--"

"Oh, you go to--Brooklyn!" snarled Foxy. "For two pins I'd knock your block off, you fat-headed Irish fool! Think I'm going down to the sidewalk without my clothes?"

"Are your clothes somewhere in this building?" I asked with some sympathy.

He whirled on me sneeringly and jeered like a jolly screech owl:

"Oh, no; not exactly _in_ the building--they're on the flagpole on the roof, of course! He-he-he! b.l.o.o.d.y good joke, isn't it?"

I sat on the edge of the table wearily; and, catching the policeman's eye, shrugged my shoulders significantly.

"You're right, sir," he said apologetically. "We won't fool a second longer. Here, you take that side, Tim. Let's pull!"

And they did pull, but, by Jove, they couldn't raise him.

"Queerest go I ever see," Tim gasped. "He ain't holding on to nothing, is he? And, O'Keefe, he _feels big_!"

"Pshaw, it's not that," the other panted; "it's just the way he's sitting. Why, you can _see_ he ain't so very big." He nodded to Jenkins and the janitor. "Here, you two! Help us, can't you?"

And with one mighty, united heave, they brought the loudly protesting old man to his feet and held him there. O'Keefe faced me.

"Might be well to take a look around, sir, and see if you think of anything else he's stolen, before we take him off."

"Good idea, Lightnut!" Old Braxton stopped struggling and whirled his head toward me, his face almost black with rage. "Ha, ha! Why don't you have me searched? There's not a pocket in these d.a.m.n pajamas!"

"Anything whatever, sir, we'll have him leave behind," said O'Keefe.

"By Jove!" I don't know how I ever managed to say it. Fact is, things had just suddenly spun round before me like a merry what's-its-name. For I _did_ recognize something! The old fellow's unabashed reference to pajamas was what brought it to my attention.

"Ha!" O'Keefe nodded. "There _is_ something! Just say the word, sir."

I looked helplessly at Jenkins, and then I saw that of a sudden he recognized them, too. His eyes rolled at me understandingly.

"What is it, sir?" demanded O'Keefe respectfully. "The law requires--"

I swallowed hard. "It--it's the pajamas," I said faintly.

The old rascal uttered a roar and tried to get at me.

"You cold-blooded scoundrel!" he bellowed. "So this is why--"

But here a jab of the night stick took him in the side with a sound like a blow on a punching bag. Words left the old man and he gasped desperately for breath. O'Keefe tried to shake him.

"Did you get those pajamas in here?" he demanded fiercely, and he drew back his stick as though for another jab. But the old geezer nodded quickly, glaring at me and trying to wheeze something.

"That's enough," said the officer. He turned to me. "You recognize them, do you, sir?"

"I--I think so," I stammered, looking at Jenkins, who nodded. "They belong to a friend of mine who--a--must have left them here."

"I see." He fished out a note-book. "Mind giving me the name, sir? Just a matter of form, you know--" He licked his pencil expectantly.

"Oh, I say, you know--" I gasped at Jenkins. "I don't think she--I--"

"Certainly not, sir," affirmed Jenkins, solemnly looking upward.

"She?" The note-book slowly closed, then with the pencil went back into the officer's pocket. "Excuse _me_, sir. H'm!"

"H'm!" echoed Tim apologetically. Then they both glared at Foxy.

The old man just snarled at them. He was like a dog at bay.

"All right!" he hissed. "You just try to take them off--I'll kill somebody, that's all. Think I'm going to make a spectacle of myself?"

Jenkins whispered to me.

"To be sure," I said aloud. "He might as well wear them now to the station. Just so he returns them when he gets his clothes."

"Very good, sir," said O'Keefe, relieved. "We'll see he does that. Come along now, Braxton--_shut_ up, I tell you!"

And with all four of them behind the charge, they managed to rush the loudly protesting old man to the door.

"I _won't_ go without my clothes, I tell you," he raged.

But he did. Fighting, swearing and protesting, the jolly old vagabond was roughly bundled into the elevator.