Part 40 (1/2)

”Steady!” said he. ”Of course you remembered, parson. It's the only way. Didn't I tell her there's always a way out? Well, here it is!”

His funny, twisted smile came to his lips; it twisted the heart in my breast. No thought of himself, of what this thing might mean to him, seemed to cross his mind.

”I prayed,” said I, almost sobbing, ”I prayed. And, John, there stood St. Stanislaus--” I stopped again, choking.

He nodded, understandingly. He was methodically spreading out the not unbeautiful instruments. And as he picked them up one by one, handling them with his strong and expert fingers and testing each with a hawk-eyed scrutiny, a most curious and subtle change stole over the b.u.t.terfly Man.

I felt as if I were witnessing the evocation of something superhuman.

Horrified and fascinated, I saw what might be called the apotheosis of Slippy McGee, so far above him was it, come back and subtly and awfully blend with my scientist. It was as if two strong and powerful individualities had deliberately joined forces to forge a more vital being than either, since the training, knowledge, skill and intellect of both would be his to command. If such a man as _this_ ever stepped over the deadline he would not be merely ”the slickest cracksman in America”; he would be one of the master criminals of the earth. I fancy he must have felt this intoxicating new access of power, for there emanated from him something of a fierce and exalted delight. A potentiality, as yet neither good nor evil, he suggested a spiritual and physical dynamo.

He gave a tigerish purr of pleasure over the tools, handling them with the fingers of the artist and admiring them with the eyes of the connoisseur. ”The best I could get. All made to order. Tested blue steel. I never kicked at the price, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you what this layout cost in cold cash. But they paid. Good stuff always pays in the long run. It was lucky I winded the cops on that last job, or I'd have had to leave them. As it was, I just had time to grab them up before I hit the trail for the skyline. They don't need anything but a little rubbing--a saint's elbow must be a snug berth. I wish I had some juice, though.”

”Juice?”

”Nitroglycerine,” very gently, as to a child. ”It does not make very much noise and it saves time when you're in a hurry--as you generally are, in this business,” he smiled at me quizzically. ”Not that one can't get along without it.” The swift fingers paused for a fraction of a second to give a steel drill an affectionate pat. ”I used to know one of the best ever, who never used anything but a particular drill, a pet bit, and his ear. Somebody snitched though, so the last I heard of him he was doing a twenty-year stretch. Pity, too. He was an artist in his line, that fellow. And his taste in neckties I have never seen equaled.” The b.u.t.terfly Man's voice, evenly pitched and pleasantly modulated, a cultivated voice, was quite casual.

He gathered his tools together and replaced them in the old worn case.

”Wonder if that safe is a side-bolt?” he mused. ”Most likely. I dare say it's only the average combination. A one-armed yegg could open most of the boxes in this town with a tin b.u.t.ton-hook. Anyhow, it would have to be a new-laid lock _I_ couldn't open. If he's left the letters in the safe we're all right--so here's hoping he has. I certainly don't want to go to his room unless I have to. Hunter's not the sort to sit on his hands, and I'm not feeling what you'd call real amiable.”

A glance at his face, with little glinting devil-lights s.h.i.+ning far back in his eyes, set me to babbling:

”Oh, no, no, no, no, that would never do! G.o.d forbid that you should go to his rooms! He must have left them in the safe! He had to leave them in the safe!”

”Sure he's left them in the safe: why shouldn't he?” he made light of my palpable fears. Slipping into his gray overcoat, he pulled on his felt hat, thrust his hands into his wellworn dogskin gloves, and picked up the package. n.o.body in the world ever looked less like a criminal than this brown-faced, keen-eyed man with his pleasant bearing. Why, this was John Flint, the kindly bug-hunter all Appleboro loved, ”that good and kind and Christian man, our brother John Flint, sometimes known as the b.u.t.terfly Man.”

”Now, don't you worry any at all, parson,” he was saying. ”There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll take care of myself, and I'll get those letters if they're in existence. I've got to get them. What else was I born for, I'd like to know?”

The question caught me like a lash across the face.

”You were born,” I said violently, ”to win an honored name, to do a work of inestimable value. And you are deliberately and quixotically risking it, and I allow you to risk it, because a girl's happiness hangs in the balance! If you are detected it means your own ruin, for you could never explain away those tools. Yes! You are facing possible ruin and disgrace. You might have to give up your work for years--have you considered that? Oh, John Flint, stop a moment, and reflect! There is nothing in this for you, John, nothing but danger. No, there's nothing in it for you, except--”

He held up his hand, with a gesture of dignity and reproach.

”--except that I get my big chance to step in and save the girl I happen to love, from persecution and wretchedness, if not worse,” said he simply. ”If I can do that, what the devil does it matter what happens to _me_? You talk about name and career! Man, man, what could anything be worth to me if I had to know she was unhappy?”

The tides of emotion rushed over him and flooded his face into a s.h.i.+ning-eyed pa.s.sion nakedly unashamed and beautiful. And I had thought him casual, carelessly accepting a risk!

”Parson,” he wondered, ”didn't you _know_? No, I suppose it wouldn't occur to anybody that a man of my sort should love a girl of hers. But I do. I think I did the first time I ever laid eyes on her, and she a girl-kid in a red jacket, with curls about her shoulders and a face like a little new rose in the morning. Remember her eyes, parson, how blue they were? And how she looked at me, so friendly--_me_, mind you, as I was! And she handed me a Catocala moth, and she gave me Kerry.

'You're such a good man, Mr. Flint!' says she, and by G.o.d, she meant it! Little Mary Virginia! And she got fast hold of something in me that was never anybody's but hers, that couldn't ever belong to anybody but her, no, not if I lived for a thousand years and had the pick of the earth.

”It wasn't until she came back, though, that I knew I belonged to her who could never belong to me. If I was dead at one end of the world and she dead at the other, we couldn't be any farther apart than life has put us two who can see and speak to each other every day!”

”And yet--” he looked at me now and laughed boyishly, ”and yet it isn't for Mayne, that she loves, it isn't for you, nor Eustis, nor any man but me alone to help her, by being just what I am and what I have been! Risks? Fail her? _I?_ I couldn't fail her. I'll get those letters for her to-night, if Hunter has hidden them in the beam of his eye!” He turned to me with a sudden white glare of ferocity that appalled me. ”I could kill him with my hands,” said he, with a quiet cold deadliness to chill one's marrow, ”and Inglesby after him, for what they've made her endure! When I think of to-night--that brute daring to touch _her_ with his swine's mouth--I--I--”

His face was convulsed; but after a moment's fierce struggle the disciplined spirit conquered.

”No, there's been enough trouble for her without that, so they're safe from me, the both of them. I wouldn't do anything to imperil her happiness to save my own life. She was born to be happy--and she's going to have her chance. _I'll_ see to that, Mary Virginia!”