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“I was a fellow-traveller, on the steamship, with Sparrow MacCoy, andat least I had the satisfaction of spoiling his little game for thevoyage. The very first night I went into the smoking-room, and found himat the head of a card table, with half-a-dozen young fellows who werecarrying their full purses and their empty skulls over to Europe. He wassettling down for his harvest, and a rich one it would have been. But Isoon changed all that.
“‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘are you aware whom you are playing with?’
“‘What’s that to you? You mind your own business!’ said he, with anoath.
“‘Who is it, anyway?’ asked one of the dudes.
“‘He’s Sparrow MacCoy, the most notorious cardsharper in the States.’
“Up he jumped with a bottle in his hand, but he remembered that he wasunder the flag of the effete Old Country, where law and order run, andTammany has no pull. Gaol and the gallows wait for violence and murder,and there’s no slipping out by the back door on board an ocean liner.
“‘Prove your words, you——!’ said he.
“‘I will!’ said I. ‘If you will turn up your right shirt-sleeve to theshoulder, I will either prove my words or I will eat them.’
“He turned white and said not a word. You see, I knew something of hisways, and I was aware that part of the mechanism which he and all suchsharpers use consists of an elastic down the arm with a clip just abovethe wrist. It is by means of this clip that they withdraw from theirhands the cards which they do not want, while they substitute othercards from another hiding-place. I reckoned on it being there, and itwas. He cursed me, slunk out of the saloon, and was hardly seen againduring the voyage. For once, at any rate, I got level with MisterSpa
rrow MacCoy.
“But he soon had his revenge upon me, for when it came to influencingmy brother he outweighed me every time. Edward had kept himself straightin London for the first few weeks, and had done some business with hisAmerican watches, until this villain came across his path once more. Idid my best, but the best was little enough. The next thing I heardthere had been a scandal at one of the Northumberland Avenue hotels: atraveller had been fleeced of a large sum by two confederatecard-sharpers, and the matter was in the hands of Scotland Yard. Thefirst I learned of it was in the evening paper, and I was at oncecertain that my brother and MacCoy were back at their old games. Ihurried at once to Edward’s lodgings. They told me that he and a tallgentleman (whom I recognized as MacCoy) had gone off together, and thathe had left the lodgings and taken his things with him. The landlady hadheard them give several directions to the cabman, ending with EustonStation, and she had accidentally overheard the tall gentleman sayingsomething about Manchester. She believed that that was theirdestination.
“A glance at the time-table showed me that the most likely train was atfive, though there was another at 4.35 which they might have caught. Ihad only time to get the later one, but found no sign of them either atthe depôt or in the train. They must have gone on by the earlier one, soI determined to follow them to Manchester and search for them in thehotels there. One last appeal to my brother by all that he owed to mymother might even now be the salvation of him. My nerves wereoverstrung, and I lit a cigar to steady them. At that moment, just asthe train was moving off, the door of my compartment was flung open, andthere were MacCoy and my brother on the platform.
“They were both disguised, and with good reason, for they knew that theLondon police were after them. MacCoy had a great Astrakhan collar drawnup, so that only his eyes and nose were showing. My brother was dressedlike a woman, with a black veil half down his face, but of course it didnot deceive me for an instant, nor would it have done so even if I hadnot known that he had often used such a dress before. I started up, andas I did so MacCoy recognized me. He said something, the conductorslammed the door, and they were shown into the next compartment. I triedto stop the train so as to follow them, but the wheels were alreadymoving, and it was too late.
“When we stopped at Willesden, I instantly changed my carriage. Itappears that I was not seen to do so, which is not surprising, as thestation was crowded with people. MacCoy, of course, was expecting me,and he had spent the time between Euston and Willesden in saying all hecould to harden my brother’s heart and set him against me. That is whatI fancy, for I had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. Itried this way and I tried that; I pictured his future in an Englishgaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with thenews; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose. Hesat there with a fixed sneer upon his handsome face, while every now andthen Sparrow MacCoy would throw in a taunt at me, or some word ofencouragement to hold my brother to his resolutions.
“‘Why don’t you run a Sunday-school?’ he would say to me, and then, inthe same breath: ‘He thinks you have no will of your own. He thinks youare just the baby brother and that he can lead you where he likes. He’sonly just finding out that you are a man as well as he.’
“It was those words of his which set me talking bitterly. We had leftWillesden, you understand, for all this took some time. My temper gotthe better of me, and for the first time in my life I let my brother seethe rough side of me. Perhaps it would have been better had I done soearlier and more often.
“‘A man!’ said I. ‘Well, I’m glad to have your friend’s assurance of it,for no one would suspect it to see you like a boarding-school missy. Idon’t suppose in all this country there is a more contemptible-lookingcreature than you are as you sit there with that Dolly pinafore uponyou.’ He coloured up at that, for he was a vain man, and he winced fromridicule.
“‘It’s only a dust-cloak,’ said he, and he slipped it off. ‘One has tothrow the coppers off one’s scent, and I had no other way to do it.’ Hetook his toque off with the veil attached, and he put both it and thecloak into his brown bag. ‘Anyway, I don’t need to wear it until theconductor comes round,’ said he.
“‘Nor then, either,’ said I, and taking the bag I slung it with all myforce out of the window. ‘Now,’ said I, ‘you’ll never make a Mary Janeof yourself while I can help it. If nothing but that disguise standsbetween you and a gaol, then to gaol you shall go.’
“That was the way to manage him. I felt my advantage at once. His supplenature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than toentreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears. ButMacCoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that I should notpursue it.
“‘He’s my pard, and you shall not bully him,’ he cried.
“‘He’s my brother, and you shall not ruin him,’ said I. ‘I believe aspell of prison is the very best way of keeping you apart, and you shallhave it, or it will be no fault of mine.’
“‘Oh, you would squeal, would you?’ he cried, and in an instant hewhipped out his revolver. I sprang for his hand, but saw that I was toolate, and jumped aside. At the same instant he fired, and the bulletwhich would have struck me passed through the heart of my unfortunatebrother.
“He dropped without a groan upon the floor of the compartment, andMacCoy and I, equally horrified, knelt at each side of him, trying tobring back some signs of life. MacCoy still held the loaded revolver inhis hand, but his anger against me and my resentment towards him hadboth for the moment been swallowed up in this sudden tragedy. It was hewho first realized the situation. The train was for some reason goingvery slowly at the moment, and he saw his opportunity for escape. In aninstant he had the door open, but I was as quick as he, and jumping uponhim the two of us fell off the footboard and rolled in each other’s armsdown a steep embankment. At the bottom I struck my head against a stone,and I remembered nothing more. When I came to myself I was lying amongsome low bushes, not far from the railroad track, and somebody wasbathing my head with a wet handkerchief. It was Sparrow MacCoy.
“‘I guess I couldn’t leave you,’ said he. ‘I didn’t want to have theblood of two of you on my hands in one day. You loved your brother, I’veno doubt; but you didn’t love him a cent more than I loved him, thoughyou’ll say that I took a queer way to show it. Anyhow, it seems a mightyempty world now that he is gone, and I don’t care a continental whetheryou give me over to the hangman or not.’
“He had turned his ankle in the fall, and there we sat, he with hisuseless foot, and I with my throbbing head, and we talked and talkeduntil gradually my bitterness began to soften and to turn into somethinglike sympathy. What was the use of revenging his death upon a man whowas as much stricken by that death as I was? And then, as my witsgradually returned, I began to realize also that I could do nothingagainst MacCoy which would not recoil upon my mother and myself. Howcould we convict him without a full account of my brother’s career beingmade public—the very thing which of all others we wished to avoid? Itwas really as much our interest as his to cover the matter up, and frombeing an avenger of crime I found myself changed to a conspiratoragainst Justice. The place in which we found ourselves was one of thosepheasant preserves which are so common in the Old Country, and as wegroped our way through it I found myself consulting the slayer of mybrother as to how far it would be possible to hush it up.
“I soon realized from what he said that unless there were some papers ofwhich we knew nothing in my brother’s pockets, there was really nopossible means by which the police could identify him or learn how hehad got there. His ticket was in MacCoy’s pocket, and so was the ticketfor some baggage which they had left at the depôt. Like most Americans,he had found it cheaper and easier to buy an outfit in London than tobring one from New York, so that all his linen and clothes were new andunmarked. The bag, containing the dust cloak, which I had thrown out ofthe window, may have fallen among some bramble patch where it is stillco
ncealed, or may have been carried off by some tramp, or may have comeinto the possession of the police, who kept the incident to themselves.Anyhow, I have seen nothing about it in the London papers. As to thewatches, they were a selection from those which had been intrusted tohim for business purposes. It may have been for the same businesspurposes that he was taking them to Manchester, but—well, it’s too lateto enter into that.
“I don’t blame the police for being at fault. I don’t see how it couldhave been otherwise. There was just one little clew that they might havefollowed up, but it was a small one. I mean that small circular mirrorwhich was found in my brother’s pocket. It isn’t a very common thing fora young man to carry about with him, is it? But a gambler might havetold you what such a mirror may mean to a cardsharper. If you sit back alittle from the table, and lay the mirror, face upwards, upon your lap,you can see, as you deal, every card that you give to your adversary. Itis not hard to say whether you see a man or raise him when you know hiscards as well as your own. It was as much a part of a sharper’s outfitas the elastic clip upon Sparrow MacCoy’s arm. Taking that, inconnection with the recent frauds at the hotels, the police might havegot hold of one end of the string.
“I don’t think there is much more for me to explain. We got to a villagecalled Amersham that night in the character of two gentlemen upon awalking tour, and afterwards we made our way quietly to London, whenceMacCoy went on to Cairo and I returned to New York. My mother died sixmonths afterwards, and I am glad to say that to the day of her death shenever knew what happened. She was always under the delusion that Edwardwas earning an honest living in London, and I never had the heart totell her the truth. He never wrote; but, then, he never did write at anytime, so that made no difference. His name was the last upon her lips.
