Part 11 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Throw up your hands, boys; it's no use!” cried Hood in mock despair.]
When they reached the town hall a melancholy jailer roused himself and conducted them to the lockup in the rear of the building. Careful search revealed nothing but a ma.s.s of crumpled clippings and a pipe and tobacco in Hood's pockets.
”Guess they dropped their tools somewhere,” muttered one of the officers.
”My dear boy,” explained Hood, ”the gentleman in the nightie, whom I take to be a citizen and merchant of standing in your metropolis, may be able to a.s.sist you in finding them. We left our safe-blowing apparatus in a chicken-coop in his back yard.”
They were entered on the blotter as R. Hood, F. Tuck, and Ca.s.s O'Weary--the last Hood spelled with the utmost care for the scowling turnkey--and charged with attempt to commit burglary and arson.
Hood grumbled; he had hoped it would be murder or piracy on the high seas; burglary and arson were so commonplace, he remarked with a sigh.
The door closed upon them with an echoing clang, and they found themselves in a large coop, bare save for several benches ranged along the walls. Two of these were occupied by prisoners, one of whom, a short, thick-set man, snored vociferously. Hood noted his presence with interest.
”Fogarty!” he whispered with a triumphant wave of his hand.
A tall man who had chosen a cot as remote as possible from his fellow prisoner sat up and, seeing the newcomers, stalked majestically to the door and yelled dismally for the keeper, who lounged indifferently to the cage, puffing a cigar.
”This is an outrage!” roared the prisoner. ”Locking me up with these felons--these common convicts! I demand counsel; I'm going to have a writ of habeas corpus! When I get out of here I'm going to go to the governor of your d.a.m.ned State and complain of this. All Connecticut shall know of it! All America shall hear of it! To be locked up with one safe-blower is enough, and now you've stuck three murderers into this rotten hole. I tell you I can give bail. I tell you----”
The jailer snarled and bade him be quiet. In the tone of a man who is careful of his words he threatened the direst punishment for any further expression of the gentleman's opinions. Whereupon the gentleman seized the bars and shook them violently, and then, as though satisfied that they were steel of the best quality, dropped his arms to his sides with a gesture of impotent despair.
”Father!”
In spite of Constance's a.s.sertion, confirmed by Ca.s.sowary, Deering had not believed that his father was in jail; but the outraged gentleman who had demanded the writ of habeas corpus was, beyond question, Samuel J.
Deering, head of the banking-house of Deering, g.a.y.l.o.r.d & Co. Mr. Deering was striding toward his bench with the sulky droop of a premium batter who has struck out with the bases full.
Scorning to glance at the creature in rags who had flung himself in his path, Samuel J. Deering lunged at him fiercely with his right arm. Billy, ducking opportunely, saved his indignant parent from tumbling upon the floor by catching him in his arms. Feeling that he had been attacked by a ruffian, Mr. Deering yelled that he was being murdered.
”I'm Billy! For G.o.d's sake, be quiet!”
The senior Deering tottered to the wall.
”Billy! What are _you_ in for?” he demanded finally.
”Burglary, arson, and little things like that,” Billy answered with a jauntiness that surprised him as much as it pained his father, who continued to stare uncomprehendingly.
”You've been reading that d.a.m.ned book, too, have you?” he whispered hoa.r.s.ely in his son's ear. ”You've gone crazy like everybody else, have you?”
”I've been kidnapped, if that's what you mean,” Billy answered with a meaningful glance over his shoulder, and then with a fine attempt at bravado: ”I'm Friar Tuck, and that chap smoking a pipe is Robin Hood.”
Ordinarily his father's sense of humor could be trusted to respond to an intelligent appeal. A slow grin had overspread Mr. Deering's face as Friar Tuck was mentioned, but when Billy added Robin Hood his father's countenance underwent changes indicative of hope, fear, and chagrin.
Clinging to Billy's shoulder, he peered through the gloom of the cage toward Hood, who lay on a bench, his coat rolled up for a pillow, tranquilly smoking, with his eyes fixed upon the steel roof.
”Hood!” Mr. Deering walked slowly toward Hood's bench.
Hood sat up, took his pipe from his mouth, and nodded.
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