The Haunted Pajamas Part 45

By Jove, I was so frozen with horror, I couldn't even look away; just stood there, helpless, you know, and my jolly monocle hanging limp--couldn't have lifted it to have saved my life! Felt my senses just growing numb all the while with the tragedy of the thing, the thought of this coa.r.s.e monster's touch defiling the dainty, gossamer garment that had shrouded her sacred what-you-call-'ems--Oh, it was _awful_!

I wondered if the housekeeper could be looking still from her tower, like Sister Anne in the story of what's-his-name! Perhaps, if I could, I would better hold out just--

"Um--_ah_, I see! It _was_, then!"--he was nodding with an air of understanding, pausing in the struggle with the refractory cigar. His strained and reddened face shaped sympathetically. "Just what _I_ thought and told 'em!" he bobbed with satisfaction. "_I_ understand! You ain't got no need to make no explanations to _me_!" and he lifted his fat hand to restrain them. "Why, my wife's own grandmother had a club foot, and to her last day if she got outer bed on the wrong side, the old lady went a header sure--oh, _I_ know!"

A moment before, I had thought that so far as the mere matter of jolly misery was concerned, I had sounded the what-you-call-'ems; but now my dashed brain was reeling before this new horror! To think that _she_ was--but oh, it _couldn't_ be! And yet I recalled ominously that most of the time I had known her, I had only seen her sitting!

Mr. O'Keefe exerted another vain pull at his cigar and poised it critically between his fingers. "I don't seem to make this piece of rope go," he remarked superfluously, and I thought his eye cut me with a mild reproach. There was nothing to do but take the hint and produce my case--just refilled in my room with Paloma perfectos. Oh, I was glad to do it, by Jove!--glad to be able to do it--devilish glad to find I wasn't paralyzed, I mean!

"Why, thanks!" His fingers only removed three cigars, but I just made him take them all! _Oh_, yes, for the case would _have_ to be refilled now, anyhow, dash it!

"By-y-y the way, sir!" He closed one eye at me as he carved from the brown beauty a half inch of its waxy bud, using for the maltreatment a perfectly brutal knife. "That was a neat try-on you made to copper the thief yourself--a _leetle_ irregular, you know," he shook his head at me, "but, as the captain said, we ain't making no point about that with a gent like _you_--sure not!"--another imperishable line of beauty upon the receptive stone, and he puffed inhalations of joy. "But I knew you never could get him to the station--I could have told you."

"Oh!" I remarked, puzzled. By Jove, I had a dashed awful thought for a moment that I must be losing my intelligence! I looked at Jenkins again, but he had not yet come back to the ground.

"Oh, I'm on, sir!" Another one of those awful winks as his club scratched his helmet sideways. "You know I saw everything--I was right there at the Kahoka, you know!"

"Oh, _that_!" I said, understanding. For I knew then that he was talking about Foxy Grandpa in my rooms. I had almost forgotten the jolly old vagabond, but it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to show some interest as they must have recaptured him along with the pajamas. "I say!" I chirped up, "did you have much trouble about it--getting him again, you know?"

"Trouble?" O'Keefe's lip doubled contemptuously. "It was easy as b.u.t.ter!" His hand spread, palm downward, in an expressive gesture. "Why, he doubled right back to the Kahoka!"

"By Jove, you know!" I exclaimed, startled.

"Surest thing you know! I collared him right in front and with the goods!" Mr. O'Keefe expectorated eloquently. "My, but he did put up an awful holler--said the pajamas were his own and he had just had 'em made. And bluff--_well_!"--he fanned the air for a moment in the effort to find an appropriate gesture--"I'm used to these swell con men, but that gun was the limit--pulled out a card case, mind you, and letters, and wanted me to go with him to his club--his _club_--" the big fellow doubled over in a spasm of mirth that all but choked him. "I told him I'd _give_ him the club if he didn't go quietly--for you see I recognized him in a minute; you can't lose them freak kind! Besides, he give himself away: told me he'd overlook my conduct on this occasion _and the other_, if I would release him. Well, that was enough! I beckoned Jimmy Dwyer across and we run him down the line to the station.

Oh, we got him there, but it wasn't easy--for _him_! And there he'll stay a while!"

He had to pause and pump air, he was so winded.

"Jove!" I said absently. Fact is, I was getting jolly tired standing so long--never had stood so long that I could remember. Wondered if the housekeeper wasn't getting tired, too, wherever she was watching from!

Better give her a few minutes more, though; so I shifted to the other leg, but yawned comfortably and openly. As for Jenkins, he had just frozen up like a jolly image, his eyes getting filmier and duller as O'Keefe proceeded, his chin gradually working higher and his mouth corners lower, until now they almost pointed to the ground. He was impressive and devilish correct, but somehow the whole dashed thing seemed lost on O'Keefe.

He even asked Jenkins for a match--but of course received no attention.

"Gone off in a trance!" he said to me, with a vulgar jerk of his fat thumb. And then he touched Jenkins with his stick--fact; touched him!--and winked!

"But it _woulder_ tickled you," he resumed, using one of the vestas I extended and puffing the cigar until it almost flamed, "if you coulder seen the grand-stand play this guy put up before the sergeant! But the old man just let him blow it all off; just sat there calm behind the desk, chewing away and jabbing a pen through the blotter, while this stiff fumed and spouted--oh, something scandalous--bringing in the names of mighty near all the important people in New York; his _friends_, he said! Oh, yes, he mentioned _you_ in particular, sir!"--and his face expanded in a relishing grin.

"Dashed impudence!" I murmured feebly.

"_Oh_, yes," carelessly, "but the sarge quieted him--just purty near soothed him to sleep before he got _through_, you know--it's one of his ways!"--his glance lifted solemnly.

"Fine, you know!" I murmured admiringly. I reflected approvingly upon what a dashed good thing it was to have a man in that position--whatever it was--who was of such a devilish mild and gentle temperament: the quiet word--the soft answer--the kindly remonstrance--all that sort of thing, you know.

"We're a leetle crowded now," the big cop pursued, reflectively gouging into the mortar with the long blade of his knife, "and we had to put him in the cell with a gorilla what's always wandering back to the jungle for too much strong-arm work--maybe you read about him? He scragged a whole family th' other night and threw 'em down the fire-escape."

"Oh!" I said uneasily. "But isn't he--er--rather dangerous?"

"_Naw!_" A careless but vigorous head shake. "_Only_ in his sleep, you know--it's his dreams leads him off--_or_ unless some one touches or crowds him; then he gets peevish and--oh, well he _might_, of course--"

Mr. O'Keefe's expressive shrug finished out the idea. But I wouldn't have heard it anyhow, I was in such a yawn.

By Jove, I was sure the housekeeper would have chucked it by now, or else worked herself up into a swoon! Why, _my_ jolly foot was asleep! It was safe to let him go. I looked at my watch and coughed, and Jenkins came to and backed up to the door, sidling for me to pa.s.s within. The policeman straightened his helmet and murmured words of adieu.

"But, if no offense, there's just one question I'd like to ask you, sir." He swung his club with a smiling, genial air.

"Oh, dash it, no!" I responded absently.

My eye had been suddenly attracted by a feathery gleam of white through the trees. It was slowly moving up the slope to a pavilion overlooking the Tappan Zee.

He drew nearer with a confidential air. "Just a little argument I had with the old woman, you know, about them pajamas. Would you mind telling me--_as_ man to man, y'understand--if them garments is"--his voice dropped--"is like her real shape--figger, I mean--h'm?" And he tapped the parcel lightly with his stick.

Jenkins cleared his throat loudly and shifted the pajamas to his other side. As for myself, I just winced as under the stroke of a what-you-call-it, but one end of my dashed brain was being pulled by the flashing play of the dappling sunlight there upon--

"By Jove, her figure exactly!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, staring.

For it _was_ her--no, dash it, _she_, I mean! I had a perfectly clear view of her now as she paused on a little point and hung there looking out over the Hudson. In her hand was a full-blown, ripened rose, and her lips were shaping in ravishing little pouts as musingly she blew the petals from her. But go they would not, but hugged back in the arms of the light breeze, circling and fluttering about her glorious sunny head like a swarm of rosy b.u.t.terflies. It made a pretty picture!

"And what's more, they're just her color, too!" I murmured tenderly, forgetful of everything but her, unmindful that I was not alone. For under my hand I could feel my jolly heart quivering like a champagne cork, freshly unfettered and thrilling eagerly under the impulse of the mad, dancing, joyous spirit within.

"The one lovely woman in all the world!" I breathed aloud, and I felt my eyes grow oddly moist.

And for a minute I went off in a jolly trance.

"Good-by, sir!"

It was O'Keefe's voice--oddly constrained.

"Eh?" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, blinking at him as I came back. Then I remembered--but what was it he had been asking? Something--

"Just, good-by!" he repeated with elaborated gentleness. Then, straightening: "_No_ offense, I hope, if we let it go at that--I mean, I guess you won't miss it if we _don't_ shake hands?"

I glanced at the gloves he was drawing on.

"Oh, dash it, no!" I responded absently, and my eyes coasted up the slope again--then dropped back disappointedly, for she had disappeared within the pavilion.

"Of course, rich people has got privileges," Mr. O'Keefe was ruminating somberly; "and I ain't saying a word, not a word, mind you!"--the glove that lightly emphasized this displayed all fingers widely and generously spread. "The captain'll tell you he ain't having to tell me, like some of 'em, to be careful about keeping off the gra.s.s"--he shrugged--"oh, well, perhaps enough said!"--and he turned away.

Then he turned back. "Of course, that other part of it"--it would seem that his club, extended pistol-like, was not leveled at Jenkins so much as at the pajamas--"of course, n.o.body can't _help_ that--that's Nature--I'm some that way myself, though nothing like _so_ much, and nothing like so heavy as I was. We'll leave that part out of it--_I'm_ willing--but, _gentlemen_"--Jenkins paled, and swayed so horribly, I was almost sure he would go--"when it comes to--comes to--" With a helpless head-shake, he gave it up and contented himself with expectorating violently upon the ground. Then he moved slowly away.

His helmet tossed as he looked back. "I guess we _all_'ve got our little prejudices," he remarked sententiously; "I know _I_ have! I'm from the South!"

And without another word, Mr. O'Keefe presented his broad back to us, and swinging his stick carelessly, sauntered down the drive.

"What the deuce!" I exclaimed, looking after him. "I say, Jenkins, what did he mean?"

Jenkins' face expressed mild reproach and surprise.

"Can it possibly matter, sir?" he questioned wearily. "Persons of--er--that sort, you know, sir?"

"Jove!" I uttered, relieved.