The Brass Bowl/Chapter 12
XII
ON RECONSIDERATION
Gently but with decision Sergeant Hickey set his face against the allurement of the wine-cup and the importunities of his fellow-officers.
He was tired, he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight of O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under either arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed to move the temperate soul.
"Nah," he waved temptation aside with a gesture of finality. "I don't guess I'll take nothin' to-night, thanks. G'night all."
And, wheeling, shaped a course for Broadway.
The early morning air breathed chill but grateful to his fevered brow. Oddly enough, in view of the fact that he had indulged in no very violent exercise, he found himself perspiring profusely. Now and again he saw fit to pause, removing his hat and utilizing a large soiled bandana with grim abandon.
At such times his face would be upturned, eyes trained upon the dim infinities beyond the pale moon-smitten sky. And he would sigh profoundly—not the furnace sigh of a lover thinking of his mistress, but the heartfelt and moving sigh of the man of years and cares who has drunk deep of that cup of bitterness called Unappreciated Genius.
Then, tucking the clammy bandana into a hip pocket and withdrawing his yearning gaze from the heavens, would struggle on, with a funereal countenance as the outward and visible manifestation of a mind burdened with mundane concerns: such as (one might shrewdly surmise) that autographed portrait of a Deputy Commissioner of Police which the detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire, unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the mighty processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of charges preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet high-principled martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank, "breaking," transfers; or—yet a third possibility—with the prevailing rate of wage as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder," and the cost of living as contrasted between Manhattan, on the one hand, and Jamaica, Bronxville, or St. George, Staten Island, on the other.
A dimly lighted side-entrance presently loomed invitingly in the sergeant's path. He glanced up, something surprised to find himself on Sixth Avenue; then, bowed with the fatigue of a busy day, turned aside, entering a dingy back room separated from the bar proper (at that illicit hour) by a curtain of green baize. A number of tables whose sloppy imitation rosewood tops shone dimly in the murky gas-light, were set about, here and there, for the accommodation of a herd of sleepy-eyed, case-hardened habitués.
Into a vacant chair beside one of these the detective dropped, and familiarly requested the lantern-jawed waiter, who presently bustled to his side, to "Back meh up a tub of suds, George. … Nah," in response to a concerned query, "I ain't feelin' up to much to-night."
Hat tilted over his eyes, one elbow on the chair-back, another on the table, flabby jowls quivering as he mumbled the indispensable cigar, puffy hands clasped across his ample chest, he sat for many minutes by the side of his unheeded drink, pondering, turning over and over in his mind the one idea it was capable of harboring at a time.
"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself. … He's wise enough. … Yeh can't fool Hickey all the time. … I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good 'r it's the sidewalks f'r mine. … Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest livin'. … 'Nd him with all kinds of money!"
The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein, touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its possessor did not require to examine it to reassure himself as to its legitimacy as a work of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in its embellishment of engraved arabesques.
"A century," he reflected sullenly; "one lonely little century for mine. 'Nd he had a wad like a ham … on him. … 'Nd I might've had it all for my very own if. …" His brow clouded blackly.
"Sleuth!" Hickey ground the epithet vindictively between his teeth. And spat. "Sleuth! Ah hell!"
Recalled to himself by the very vehemence of his emotion, he turned hastily, drained to its dregs the tall glass of lukewarm and vapid beer which had stood at his elbow, placed a nickel on the table, and, rising, waddled hastily out into the night.
It was being borne in upon him with much force that if he wished to save his name and fame somethin' had got to be done about it.
"I hadn't oughtuh left him so long, I guess," he told himself; "but … I'll get him all right."
And turning, lumbered gloomily eastward, rapt with vain imaginings, squat, swollen figure blending into the deeper, meaner shadows of the Tenderloin; and so on toward Maitland's rooms—morose, misunderstood, malignant, coddling his fictitious wrongs; somehow pathetically typical of the force he represented.
On the corner of Fifth Avenue he paused, startled fairly out of his dour mood by the loud echo of a name already become too hatefully familiar to his ears, and by the sight of what, at first glance, he took to be the beginning of a street brawl.