Ladies and GentlemenCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
General
Ladies and Gentlemen
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
Fiction; Short stories, American
Another night--this was months later, though--he was killing time with
some associate loafers in a poolroom in El Paso. His name now was
Harper; his Arizona name had been Hayes. Harper wore a mustache but no
chin beard. The original owner of the face, away back yonder, had been
smooth-shaven. It was a great convenience to be able to take on a new
personality either by using a razor or by letting it be. Harper owned a
brace of razors.
This night in the poolroom a heavy-set, sort of countrified guy, a guy
who didn't look at all as a detective should look, came in and flashed
a badge and a warrant on him and called him Chaney--Herbert H. Chaney,
that way, in full, to prove there was no mistake, and told him he was
under arrest.
Chaney was never the one to start a jam; the stranger had shown the
butt of an automatic when he was showing the badge. There was no
trouble whatsoever. With an admirable docility he submitted to being
pinched. His captor escorted him to a second-rate American-plan hotel
and took him up to a room on the third floor. Here after Chaney had
stripped to his undershirt and drawers, the other man handcuffed him by
the left wrist to the iron side-rail of one of the twin beds that were
in the room and Chaney lay down; then the officer took off his coat and
vest and collar and took a chair and sat down to talk the thing over
with him.
Almost the talk ran through a friendly groove; really across stretches
of it you might call it downright friendly. The stranger was jubilant
over his coup, having made the arrest so deftly with no mussiness or
cutting up. It seemed that there had been a long stern chase leading up
to this present culmination and he wanted a breathing space in which to
get his wind back, so to speak, and congratulate himself.
For his part, Chaney was inclined to accept the inevitable without
crabbing. Something the heavy-set man said now at the outset bent him
strongly to that course. It stilled a sudden fear in him. What charge
could these insurance people bring against him except breach of trust,
or whichever fancy name it was they called it by when a fellow kept
his mouth shut and let somebody else pay over coin that wasn't exactly
owing?
Of course, having rounded him up this way, they would have to go
through the forms of getting him extradited to Montana and getting him
indicted and then bringing him to trial or something; but from what he
knew about the law, he judged it would be more like a civil proceeding
than a criminal one. It wasn't as though he had profited in a money
way by his own duplicity. An innocent party to the transaction had
the spending of that five thousand. All along Chaney had viewed his
behavior under this head in more or less a heroic light--standing aside
and not saying a word while a dependent woman came into a mighty snug
little fortune.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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