Once, while Johnny was alone, he drew the roll of bills from his pocket.
“What am I to do with these?” he asked himself. “Give them to that truck farmer? Simple enough. But where is he? Where does he live?”
He examined the bills closely, then let out a low whistle. Two of them were marked with a faint red cross in the corner.
57
“Marked money!” he exclaimed in a low tone. “Bad business! Dangerous! Like to throw them away.”
Yet, because this roll represented a fairly large sum of money, he did not obey that impulse. Instead, he thrust them once more into his pocket.
Half an hour later, having returned from one more fruitless search, Drew and Tom were about to join Johnny in a steaming cup of coffee when, without ceremony, a curious individual crept into the tent.
At sight of him Johnny started back. A very small man, with a long sharp nose and piercing yellow eyes, he might have been said to crawl rather than walk.
“It’s all right,” Drew assured Johnny. “Meet the Ferret. He is one of us. Very much so.”
“Hello, Ferret,” he greeted the newcomer. “What’s up?”
The man did not reply at once. Instead, he put out a hand for a cup of the scalding coffee, placed it to his lips and drained it without a pause.
58
“Hot stuff!” muttered Johnny.
“Very hot!” agreed Drew.
The dog has been named man’s best friend. Yet as a hunter he has his handicaps. True, he is a swift runner and can make a great noise. Often by sheer bluff6 he drives the coyote from the hen roost. Then, too, he can dig. At times he drags a rat from his den7 and destroys him.
The cat has his good points also. He is sly, patient. For hours he waits beside some enemy’s trail until the great moment comes. Then one swift spring, a cry of surprise and pain, and all is over.
Yet dog and cat alike are powerless before the sly, deep-digging weasel, the mink8 and the skunk9. Only one crafty10, half tamed pet of mankind can cope with these. The ferret with his slim, snake-like body, his beady eyes, his prying11 nose, glides12 noiselessly into the deepest burrows13 and sends its denizens14 rushing from their dark haunts into sunshine and death.
59
So, too, in the ranks of mankind the ferret is to be found. Lacking in physical strength and prowess, yet endowed with a faculty15 for discovering hidden dens16, the human ferret is ever closely associated with the police. He wears neither badge nor uniform. His name is not on the pay roll. Despised by some, he is feared by many. For it is he who many times brings the evil doer to justice.
The strange person who crept into Johnny’s tent was of this sort. Indeed, so definitely had his vocation17 been chosen for him by nature that he was known only as “The Ferret.” If he had any other name it had been forgotten.
“The Ferret” had one great redeeming18 quality. He was a sincere friend of justice. He furnished information only to those who made an honest attempt to enforce the law. He was possessed19 of an uncanny power. He appeared to read men’s minds. Was an officer a traitor20 to the cause he had sworn to serve? “The Ferret” knew it on the instant. No information was forthcoming to such a one. Indeed, if he did not watch his step he was likely to feel “The Ferret’s” bite.
60
The source of his income was not known. Some rumors21 had it that a rich philanthropist, realizing his value to the community, had endowed him for life. Another was that he was rich in his own name, that he owned a flat building, stocks, bonds and mortgages, and that his occupation was but a hobby. Strange hobby, you will say; yet there have been stranger, and far less useful.
Because they were honest, sincere and fearless, Drew and Howe were ever in “The Ferret’s” favor.
Drew Lane’s eyes were alight as they fell upon the insignificant22 form of “The Ferret.”
“What’s up?” he demanded once more.
“Mailplane brought down and robbed ten miles from here.” “The Ferret’s” voice was low and soft.
How could “The Ferret” know this so quickly? Who can say? The source of his information must have been of an obscure nature. For when Drew pressed him for details he could furnish none. Nor could he tell whether Greasy Thumb had a hand in it.
61
“But what’s so valuable in the Air Mail?” Johnny asked. “I thought that was for the most part personal messages, important to the sender, but worthless to others.”
“For the most part, yes,” Drew agreed. “But think of the emergencies the Air Mail is prepared to meet. A big deal in stocks is on. The actual securities must be delivered within twenty-four hours. The Air Mail brings them. Mrs. Jones-Smith-Walker, the millionaire widow, arrives in Chicago only to find that a great reception has been planned for her at the country home of her bosom23 friends, Mrs. Burns-Walker. Her jewels, a hundred thousand dollars’ worth or more, are in New York. Without them she will not be properly dressed. The Air Mail brings them. And who knows but that, through some secret channels the powerful, sometimes rich, sometimes poor, gang that is forever preying24 upon the foolish rich society folks are tipped off in advance regarding the consignment25. Worth going after. What? If you don’t care for the law and have little fear of prison.
62
“Mind,” he added, “I don’t say this is the case. I have no information which would even lead me to suspect such a thing.
“Only one fact stands out clearly!” he exclaimed, springing into action. “The trail leads to the city. Big affairs may be pulled off by crooks26 in the country at times. But they always speed away to the city afterward27. For it is there that they may most effectually lose themselves.
“Come. Let’s be moving. We will find Greasy Thumb in the city.”
“I wonder if we will,” Johnny murmured to himself, as he began a hasty pack-up of his personal effects preparatory to leaving his spindle wheel and many baskets of groceries to anyone who chose to take them over on the morrow.
63
“The city,” he murmured after a time, “the strangest, weirdest28, most fascinating, most beautiful, most dangerous place man has ever known. In the jungle the tiger slinks away from man. There you may sleep in peace. On the polar waste the great white bear floats by on his palace of ice. He will not molest30 you. In the Rockies where the grizzly31 roams and the mountain lion inhabits the treetops you are safe. But the city? Oh, well, perhaps you are safe enough there. Who knows?
“Good-bye,” he whispered back as he left his booth, “good-bye, old carnival1. Good-bye, big-noise-about-nothing. Good-bye, screaming women. Good-bye, laughing children. We’re here to-day and away to-morrow.” He choked a little over these last words. This strange life, the carnival spirit, had got under his skin. Gladly he would have remained. But duty called. “Good-bye, good-bye. We’re here to-day and away to-morrow. The city beckons32. We must go.”
Settled on the cushions on the back seat of a high-powered police car driven by Drew Lane, Johnny Thompson had time for a few sober reflections.
64
As you know from reading The Arrow of Fire, Johnny’s latest venture was in the field of police detection. Many tales Johnny had read of shrewd private detectives who outwitted clever criminals and showed up the stupidity of the police. Johnny had found it difficult to believe that all police detectives were stupid. By contact with four men, Herman McCarthey, Newton Mills, Drew Lane and Tom Howe, he had come to know that men with keen minds and sturdy bodies were more and more offering their services to the police departments of their cities.
“No better detective ever lived than Drew Lane,” a reporter had once said to Johnny. And Johnny had found this to be true. He gave himself over with genuine abandon to the business of being Drew Lane’s understudy.
Yet, at this moment he found himself missing certain friends who had added joy and inspiration to his life. In a great city friends come and go quickly. Herman McCarthey had retired33 from active service.
Where indeed? Johnny had once lifted this shadow of a great detective out from a living hell of remorse35 and drink and had set him doing marvelous things for the law again.
65
“But now he is gone,” he mourned. “I wonder if drink has claimed him. Or is he dead?
“Hardly dead,” he corrected himself. “Men, like wounded fish, come to the surface to die. Had he died I would have known it.”
Strangely enough, at this moment he thought once more of that spectre-like individual, the Gray Shadow, that had three times crossed his path and three times vanished.
“Unusual sort of person, if it be a person,” he said to himself. “Always appears when I am in more or less danger. If I believed in the return of the spirits of the dead I’d say it was the spirit of some dead friend set to guard me.”
And Joyce Mills, that daring daughter of a famous father, you will recall her. Johnny, too, recalled her with a sigh.
Some people he found it difficult to understand. Joyce Mills was one of these. Once she had inspired him. Now she had gone into the humdrum36 business of selling books in a department store.
66
“At least that’s what she was doing when I saw her last. Queer business for a girl like that,” he grumbled.
And yet, as he recollected37 his last meeting with her, he seemed again to detect a mysterious twinkle in her eyes which appeared to say: “You don’t know all; nor even half.”
“Odd sort of girl,” he said to himself. “Have to look her up.”
But here we are nearing the city and a new day.
“Turn, turn my wheel,
All things must change
To something new,
To something strange.
The wind blows east,
The wind blows west,
The blue eggs in the robin’s nest
Will soon have wings
And flutter and fly away;
To-morrow be to-day.”
67
So much for the thoughts of Johnny Thompson. He expressed himself in verse at times. Not so, Drew Lane. His thoughts were of a grim and practical sort.
“Tom,” he said, speaking to his companion and pal29, “Tom, old boy, if we see Greasy Thumb and his pardner, Three Fingers Barbinelle, we’ll arrest them on sight.”
“And arrange a case against them later,” agreed Tom.
“Almost sure to.”
“Then,” Johnny broke in, “you’ll need to be quick.”
“Son,” replied Drew with a drawl, “In this sort of work there are but two classes of people, ‘the quick and the dead.’”
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1
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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carnivals
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| 狂欢节( carnival的名词复数 )； 嘉年华会； 激动人心的事物的组合； 五彩缤纷的颜色组合 | |
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doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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scouting
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| 守候活动，童子军的活动 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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6
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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7
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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mink
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| n.貂，貂皮 | |
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skunk
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| n.臭鼬，黄鼠狼；v.使惨败，使得零分；烂醉如泥 | |
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crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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12
glides
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| n.滑行( glide的名词复数 )；滑音；音渡；过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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13
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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14
denizens
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| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
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15
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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16
dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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17
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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21
rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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24
preying
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| v.掠食( prey的现在分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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25
consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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26
crooks
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| n.骗子( crook的名词复数 )；罪犯；弯曲部分；（牧羊人或主教用的）弯拐杖v.弯成钩形( crook的第三人称单数 ) | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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28
weirdest
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| 怪诞的( weird的最高级 )； 神秘而可怕的； 超然的； 古怪的 | |
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29
pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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30
molest
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| vt.骚扰，干扰，调戏 | |
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31
grizzly
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| adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊 | |
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32
beckons
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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33
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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34
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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35
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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36
humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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37
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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39
vagrancy
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| （说话的，思想的）游移不定； 漂泊； 流浪； 离题 | |
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