It was set forth3 in the programme of this tropic vaudeville4 that it would be made known why Shorty O'Day, of the Columbia Detective Agency, lost his position. Also that Smith should come again to tell us what mystery he followed that night on the shores of Anchuria when he strewed5 so many cigar stumps6 around the cocoanut palm during his lonely night vigil on the beach. These things were promised; but a bigger thing yet remains to be accomplished—the clearing up of a seeming wrong that has been done according to the array of chronicled facts (truthfully set forth) that have been presented. And one voice, speaking, shall do these three things.
Two men sat on a stringer of a North River pier7 in the City of New York. A steamer from the tropics had begun to unload bananas and oranges on the pier. Now and then a banana or two would fall from an overripe bunch, and one of the two men would shamble forward, seize the fruit and return to share it with his companion.
One of the men was in the ultimate stage of deterioration8. As far as rain and wind and sun could wreck9 the garments he wore, it had been done. In his person the ravages10 of drink were as plainly visible. And yet, upon his high-bridged, rubicund11 nose was jauntily12 perched a pair of shining and flawless gold-rimmed glasses.
The other man was not so far gone upon the descending13 Highway of the Incompetents14. Truly, the flower of his manhood had gone to seed—seed that, perhaps, no soil might sprout15. But there were still cross-cuts along where he travelled through which he might yet regain16 the pathway of usefulness without disturbing the slumbering17 Miracles. This man was short and compactly built. He had an oblique18, dead eye, like that of a sting-ray, and the moustache of a cocktail19 mixer. We know the eye and the moustache; we know that Smith of the luxurious20 yacht, the gorgeous raiment, the mysterious mission, the magic disappearance21, has come again, though shorn of the accessories of his former state.
"Deuce take all fruit!" he remarked, in a patrician24 tone of disgust. "I lived for two years where these things grow. The memory of their taste lingers with you. The oranges are not so bad. Just see if you can gather a couple of them, O'Day, when the next broken crate25 comes up."
"Did you live down with the monkeys?" asked the other, made tepidly26 garrulous27 by the sunshine and the alleviating28 meal of juicy fruit. "I was down there, once myself. But only for a few hours. That was when I was with the Columbia Detective Agency. The monkey people did me up. I'd have my job yet if it hadn't been for them. I'll tell you about it.
"One day the chief sent a note around to the office that read: 'Send O'Day here at once for a big piece of business.' I was the crack detective of the agency at that time. They always handed me the big jobs. The address the chief wrote from was down in the Wall Street district.
"When I got there I found him in a private office with a lot of directors who were looking pretty fuzzy. They stated the case. The president of the Republic Insurance Company had skipped with about a tenth of a million dollars in cash. The directors wanted him back pretty bad, but they wanted the money worse. They said they needed it. They had traced the old gent's movements to where he boarded a tramp fruit steamer bound for South America that same morning with his daughter and a big gripsack—all the family he had.
"One of the directors had his steam yacht coaled and with steam up, ready for the trip; and he turned her over to me, cart blongsh. In four hours I was on board of her, and hot on the trail of the fruit tub. I had a pretty good idea where old Wahrfield—that was his name, J. Churchill Wahrfield—would head for. At that time we had a treaty with about every foreign country except Belgium and that banana republic, Anchuria. There wasn't a photo of old Wahrfield to be had in New York—he had been foxy there—but I had his description. And besides, the lady with him would be a dead-give-away anywhere. She was one of the high-flyers in Society—not the kind that have their pictures in the Sunday papers—but the real sort that open chrysanthemum29 shows and christen battleships.
"Well, sir, we never got a sight of that fruit tub on the road. The ocean is a pretty big place; and I guess we took different paths across it. But we kept going toward this Anchuria, where the fruiter was bound for.
"We struck the monkey coast one afternoon about four. There was a ratty-looking steamer off shore taking on bananas. The monkeys were loading her up with big barges30. It might be the one the old man had taken, and it might not. I went ashore31 to look around. The scenery was pretty good. I never saw any finer on the New York stage. I struck an American on shore, a big, cool chap, standing32 around with the monkeys. He showed me the consul33's office. The consul was a nice young fellow. He said the fruiter was the Karlsefin, running generally to New Orleans, but took her last cargo34 to New York. Then I was sure my people were on board, although everybody told me that no passengers had landed. I didn't think they would land until after dark, for they might have been shy about it on account of seeing that yacht of mine hanging around. So, all I had to do was to wait and nab 'em when they came ashore. I couldn't arrest old Wahrfield without extradition35 papers, but my play was to get the cash. They generally give up if you strike 'em when they're tired and rattled36 and short on nerve.
"After dark I sat under a cocoanut tree on the beach for a while, and then I walked around and investigated that town some, and it was enough to give you the lions. If a man could stay in New York and be honest, he'd better do it than to hit that monkey town with a million.
"Dinky little mud houses; grass over your shoe tops in the streets; ladies in low-neck-and-short-sleeves walking around smoking cigars; tree frogs rattling37 like a hose cart going to a ten blow; big mountains dropping gravel38 in the back yards, and the sea licking the paint off in front—no, sir—a man had better be in God's country living on free lunch than there.
"The main street ran along the beach, and I walked down it, and then turned up a kind of lane where the houses were made of poles and straw. I wanted to see what the monkeys did when they weren't climbing cocoanut trees. The very first shack39 I looked in I saw my people. They must have come ashore while I was promenading40. A man about fifty, smooth face, heavy eyebrows41, dressed in black broadcloth, looking like he was just about to say, 'Can any little boy in the Sunday school answer that?' He was freezing on to a grip that weighed like a dozen gold bricks, and a swell42 girl—a regular peach, with a Fifth Avenue cut—was sitting on a wooden chair. An old black woman was fixing some coffee and beans on a table. The light they had come from a lantern hung on a nail. I went and stood in the door, and they looked at me, and I said:
"'Mr. Wahrfield, you are my prisoner. I hope, for the lady's sake, you will take the matter sensibly. You know why I want you.'
"'Who are you?' says the old gent.
"'O'Day,' says I, 'of the Columbia Detective Agency. And now, sir, let me give you a piece of good advice. You go back and take your medicine like a man. Hand 'em back the boodle; and maybe they'll let you off light. Go back easy, and I'll put in a word for you. I'll give you five minutes to decide.' I pulled out my watch and waited.
"Then the young lady chipped in. She was one of the genuine high-steppers. You could tell by the way her clothes fit and the style she had that Fifth Avenue was made for her.
"'Come inside,' she says. 'Don't stand in the door and disturb the whole street with that suit of clothes. Now, what is it you want?'
"'Three minutes gone,' I said. 'I'll tell you again while the other two tick off.
"'You'll admit being the president of the Republic, won't you?'
"'I am,' says he.
"'Well, then,' says I, 'it ought to be plain to you. Wanted, in New York, J. Churchill Wahrfield, president of the Republic Insurance Company.
"'Also the funds belonging to said company, now in that grip, in the unlawful possession of said J. Churchill Wahrfield.'
"'Oh-h-h-h!' says the young lady, as if she was thinking, 'you want to take us back to New York?'
"'To take Mr. Wahrfield. There's no charge against you, miss. There'll be no objection, of course, to your returning with your father.'
"Of a sudden the girl gave a tiny scream and grabbed the old boy around the neck. 'Oh, father, father!' she says, kind of contralto, 'can this be true? Have you taken money that is not yours? Speak, father!' It made you shiver to hear the tremolo stop she put on her voice.
"The old boy looked pretty bughouse when she first grappled him, but she went on, whispering in his ear and patting his off shoulder till he stood still, but sweating a little.
"She got him to one side and they talked together a minute, and then he put on some gold eyeglasses and walked up and handed me the grip.
"'Mr. Detective,' he says, talking a little broken, 'I conclude to return with you. I have finished to discover that life on this desolate43 and displeased44 coast would be worse than to die, itself. I will go back and hurl45 myself upon the mercy of the Republic Company. Have you brought a sheep?'
"'Sheep!' says I; 'I haven't a single—'
"'Ship,' cut in the young lady. 'Don't get funny. Father is of German birth, and doesn't speak perfect English. How did you come?'
"The girl was all broke up. She had a handkerchief to her face, and kept saying every little bit, 'Oh, father, father!' She walked up to me and laid her lily-white hand on the clothes that had pained her at first. I smelt46 a million violets. She was a lulu. I told her I came in a private yacht.
"'Mr. O'Day,' she says. 'Oh, take us away from this horrid47 country at once. Can you! Will you! Say you will.'
"'I'll try,' I said, concealing48 the fact that I was dying to get them on salt water before they could change their mind.
"One thing they both kicked against was going through the town to the boat landing. Said they dreaded49 publicity50, and now that they were going to return, they had a hope that the thing might yet be kept out of the papers. They swore they wouldn't go unless I got them out to the yacht without any one knowing it, so I agreed to humour them.
"The sailors who rowed me ashore were playing billiards51 in a bar-room near the water, waiting for orders, and I proposed to have them take the boat down the beach half a mile or so, and take us up there. How to get them word was the question, for I couldn't leave the grip with the prisoner, and I couldn't take it with me, not knowing but what the monkeys might stick me up.
"The young lady says the old coloured woman would take them a note. I sat down and wrote it, and gave it to the dame52 with plain directions what to do, and she grins like a baboon53 and shakes her head.
"Then Mr. Wahrfield handed her a string of foreign dialect, and she nods her head and says, 'See, señor,' maybe fifty times, and lights out with the note.
"'Old Augusta only understands German,' said Miss Wahrfield, smiling at me. 'We stopped in her house to ask where we could find lodging54, and she insisted upon our having coffee. She tells us she was raised in a German family in San Domingo.'
"'Very likely,' I said. 'But you can search me for German words, except nix verstay and noch einst. I would have called that "See, señor" French, though, on a gamble.'
"Well, we three made a sneak55 around the edge of town so as not to be seen. We got tangled56 in vines and ferns and the banana bushes and tropical scenery a good deal. The monkey suburbs was as wild as places in Central Park. We came out on the beach a good half mile below. A brown chap was lying asleep under a cocoanut tree, with a ten-foot musket57 beside him. Mr. Wahrfield takes up the gun and pitches it into the sea. 'The coast is guarded,' he says. 'Rebellion and plots ripen58 like fruit.' He pointed59 to the sleeping man, who never stirred. 'Thus,' he says, 'they perform trusts. Children!'
"I saw our boat coming, and I struck a match and lit a piece of newspaper to show them where we were. In thirty minutes we were on board the yacht.
"The first thing, Mr. Wahrfield and his daughter and I took the grip into the owner's cabin, opened it up, and took an inventory60. There was one hundred and five thousand dollars, United States treasury61 notes, in it, besides a lot of diamond jewelry62 and a couple of hundred Havana cigars. I gave the old man the cigars and a receipt for the rest of the lot, as agent for the company, and locked the stuff up in my private quarters.
"I never had a pleasanter trip than that one. After we got to sea the young lady turned out to be the jolliest ever. The very first time we sat down to dinner, and the steward63 filled her glass with champagne—that director's yacht was a regular floating Waldorf-Astoria—she winks64 at me and says, 'What's the use to borrow trouble, Mr. Fly Cop? Here's hoping you may live to eat the hen that scratches on your grave.' There was a piano on board, and she sat down to it and sung better than you give up two cases to hear plenty times. She knew about nine operas clear through. She was sure enough bon ton and swell. She wasn't one of the 'among others present' kind; she belonged on the special mention list!
"The old man, too, perked65 up amazingly on the way. He passed the cigars, and says to me once, quite chipper, out of a cloud of smoke, 'Mr. O'Day, somehow I think the Republic Company will not give me the much trouble. Guard well the gripvalise of the money, Mr. O'Day, for that it must be returned to them that it belongs when we finish to arrive.'
"When we landed in New York I 'phoned to the chief to meet us in that director's office. We got in a cab and went there. I carried the grip, and we walked in, and I was pleased to see that the chief had got together that same old crowd of moneybugs with pink faces and white vests to see us march in. I set the grip on the table. 'There's the money,' I said.
"'And your prisoner?' said the chief.
"I pointed to Mr. Wahrfield, and he stepped forward and says:
"'The honour of a word with you, sir, to explain.'
"He and the chief went into another room and stayed ten minutes. When they came back the chief looked as black as a ton of coal.
"'Did this gentleman,' he says to me, 'have this valise in his possession when you first saw him?'
"'He did,' said I.
"The chief took up the grip and handed it to the prisoner with a bow, and says to the director crowd: 'Do any of you recognize this gentleman?'
"They all shook their pink faces.
"'Allow me to present,' he goes on, Señor Miraflores, president of the republic of Anchuria. The señor has generously consented to overlook this outrageous66 blunder, on condition that we undertake to secure him against the annoyance67 of public comment. It is a concession68 on his part to overlook an insult for which he might claim international redress69. I think we can gratefully promise him secrecy70 in the matter.'
"They gave him a pink nod all round.
"'O'Day,' he says to me. 'As a private detective you're wasted. In a war, where kidnapping governments is in the rules, you'd be invaluable71. Come down to the office at eleven.'
"I knew what that meant.
"'So that's the president of the monkeys,' says I. 'Well, why couldn't he have said so?'
"Wouldn't it jar you?"
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1
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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obligatory
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| adj.强制性的，义务的，必须的 | |
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3
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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vaudeville
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| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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deterioration
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| n.退化；恶化；变坏 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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rubicund
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| adj.(脸色)红润的 | |
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jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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13
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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incompetents
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| n.无能力的，不称职的，不胜任的( incompetent的名词复数 ) | |
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sprout
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| n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条 | |
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16
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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17
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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18
oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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19
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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patrician
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| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
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25
crate
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| vt.(up)把…装入箱中；n.板条箱，装货箱 | |
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tepidly
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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alleviating
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| 减轻，缓解，缓和( alleviate的现在分词 ) | |
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chrysanthemum
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| n.菊，菊花 | |
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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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extradition
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| n.引渡（逃犯） | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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shack
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| adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚 | |
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40
promenading
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| v.兜风( promenade的现在分词 ) | |
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41
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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42
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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49
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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51
billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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52
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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53
baboon
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| n.狒狒 | |
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54
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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55
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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56
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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57
musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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58
ripen
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| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
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59
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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60
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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61
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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62
jewelry
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| n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝 | |
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63
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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64
winks
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| v.使眼色( wink的第三人称单数 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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65
perked
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| （使）活跃( perk的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）增值； 使更有趣 | |
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66
outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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67
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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68
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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69
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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70
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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71
invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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