Trouble & Attitude 1/Trouble and Attitude - Issue 01.iso/mac/PCTEXT/THESPYB.TXT

Text File | 1995-06-02 | 21KB | 460 lines

At first I took comfort in the thought that Schnitzel
was a liar. Later, I began to wonder if all of it were
a lie, and finally, in it way I could not doubt, it
was proved to me that the worst he charged was true.
        The night I first began to believe him was the
night we touched at Cristobal, the last port in
Valencia. In the most light-hearted manner he had been
accusing all concerned in the nitrate fight with every
crime known in Wall Street and in the dark reaches of
the Congo River.
        "But, I know him, Mr. Schnitzel," I said
sternly. "He is incapable of it. I went to college
with him."
        "I don't care whether he's a rah-rah boy or
not," said Schnitzel, "I know that's what he did when
he was up the Orinoco after orchids, and if the tribe
had ever caught him they'd have crucified him. And I
know this, too: he made forty thousand dollars out of
the Nitrate Company on a ten-thousand-dollar job. And
I know it, because he beefed to me about it himself,
because it wasn't big enough."
        We were passing the limestone island at the
entrance to the harbor, where, in the prison fortress,
with its muzzle-loading guns pointing drunkenly at the
sky, are buried the political prisoners of Valencia.
        "Now, there," said Schnitzel, pointing, "that
shows you what the Nitrate Trust can do. Judge Rojas
is in there. He gave the first decision in favor of
the Walker-Keefe people, and for making that decision
William T. Scott, the Nitrate manager, made Alvarez
put Rojas in there. He's seventy years old, and he's
been there five years. The cell they keep him in is
below the sea-level, and the salt-water leaks through
the wall. I've seen it. That's what William T. Scott
did, an' up in New York people think 'Billy' Scott is
a fine man. I seen him at the Horse Show sitting in a
box, bowing to everybody, with his wife sitting beside
him, all hung out with pearls. An' that was only a
month after I'd seen Rojas in that sewer where Scott
put him."'
        "Schnitzel," I laughed, "you certainly are a
magnificent liar."
Schnitzel showed no resentment.
        "Go ashore and look for yourself," he
muttered. "Don't believe me. Ask Rojas. Ask the first
man you meet." He shivered, and shrugged his
shoulders. "I tell you, the walls are damp, like
sweat."
 The Government had telegraphed the
commandant to come on board and, as he expressed it,
"offer me the hospitality of the port," which meant
that I had to take him to the smoking room and give
him champagne. What the Government really wanted was
to find out whether I was still on board, and if it
were finally rid of me, I asked the official
concerning Judge Rojas.
        "Oh, yes," he said readily. "He is still
incommunicado."
 Without believing it would lead to
anything, I suggested:
        "It was foolish of him to give offense to Mr.
Scott?"
 The commandant nodded vivaciously.
        "Mr. Scott is very powerful man," he assented.
"We all very much love Mr. Scott. The president, he
love Mr. Scott, too, but the judges were not
sympathetic to Mr. Scott, so Mr. Scott asked our
president to give them a warning, and Senor Rojas he
is the warning."
"When will he get out?" I asked.
        The commandant held up the glass in the
sunlight from the open air-port, and gazed admiringly
at the bubbles.
        "Who can tell," he said. "Any day when Mr.
Scott wishes. Maybe, never. Senor Rojas is an old man.
Old, and he has much rheumatics. Maybe, he will never
come out to see our beloved country any more."
        As we left the harbor we passed so close that
one could throw a stone against the wall of the
fortress. The sun was just sinking and the air became
suddenly chilled. Around the little island of
limestone the "waves swept through the seaweed and
black manigua up to the rusty bars of the cells. I saw
the barefooted soldiers smoking upon the sloping
ramparts, the common criminals in a long stumbling
line bearing kegs of water, three storm-beaten palms
rising like gallows, and the green and yellow flag of
Valencia crawling down the staff. Somewhere entombed
in that blotched and mildewed masonry an old man of
seventy years was shivering and hugging himself from
the damp and cold. A man who spoke five languages, a
just, brave gentleman. To me it was no new story. I
knew of the horrors of Cristobal prison; of political
rivals chained to criminals loathsome with disease, of
men who had raised the flag of revolution driven to
suicide. But never had I supposed that my own people
could reach from the city of New York and cast a
fellow-man into that cellar of fever and madness.
        As I watched the yellow wall sink into the
sea, I became conscious that Schnitzel was near me, as
before, leaning on the rail, with his chin sunk on his
arms. His face was turned toward the fortress, and for
the first time since I had known him it was set and
serious. And when, a moment later, he passed me
without recognition, I saw that his eyes were filled
with fear.
        When we touched at Curacao, I sent a cable to
my sister, announcing the date of my arrival, and then
continued on to the Hotel Venezuela. Almost
immediately Schnitzel joined me. With easy
carelessness he said: "I was in the cable office just
now, sending off a wire, and that operator told me he
can't make head or tail of the third word in your
cable."
 "That is strange," I commented, "because
ii's a French word, and he is French. That's why I
wrote it in French."
        With the air of one who nails another in a
falsehood, Schnitzel exclaimed:
        "Then, how did you suppose your sister was
going to read it? It's a cipher, that's what it is.
Oh, no, you're not on a secret mission! Not at all!"
        It was most undignified of me, but in five
minutes I excused myself, and sent to the State
Department the following words:
"Roses red, violets blue, send snow."
        Later at the State Department the only person
who did not eventually pardon my jest was the clerk
who had sat up until three in the morning with my
cable, trying to fit it to any known code.
        Immediately after my return to the Hotel
Venezuela Schnitzel excused himself, and half an hour
later returned in triumph with the cable operator and
ordered lunch for both. They imbibed much sweet
champagne.
 When we again were safe at sea, I said:
"Schnitzel, how much did you pay that Frenchman to
let you read my second cable?"
        Schnitzel's reply was prompt and complacent.
        "One hundred dollars gold. It was worth it. Do
you want to know how I doped it out?"
        I even challenged him to do so. "'Roses red'
war declared; 'violets blue' outlook bad, or blue;
'send snow' send squadron, because the white squadron
is white like snow. See? It was too easy."
        "Schnitzel," I cried, "you are wonderful!"
        Schnitzel yawned in my face.
        "Oh, you don't have to hit the soles of my
feet with a night-stick to keep me awake," he said.
        After I had been a week at sea, I found that
either I had to believe that in all things Schnitzel
was a liar, or that the men of the Nitrate Trust were
in all things evil. I was convinced that instead of
the people of Valencia robbing them, they were robbing
both the people of Valencia and the people of the
United States.
        To go to war on their account was to degrade
our Government. I explained to Schnitzel it was not
becoming that the United States navy should he made
the cat's-paw of a corrupt corporation. I asked his
permission to repeat to the authorities at Washington
certain of the statements he had made.
        Schnitzel was greatly pleased.
        "You're welcome to tell 'em anything I've
said," he assented. "And," he added, "most of it's
true, too."
        I wrote down certain charges he had made, and
added what I had always known of the nitrate fight. It
was a terrible arraignment. In the evening I read my
notes to Schnitzel, who, in a corner of the
smoking-room, sat, frowning importantly, checking off
each statement, and where I made an error of a date or
a name, severely correcting me.
        Several times I asked him, "Are you sure this
won't get you into trouble with your 'people'? You
seem to accuse everybody on each side."
        Schnitzel's eyes instantly closed with
suspicion.
 "Don't you worry about me and my people,"
he returned sulkily. "That's my secret, and you won't
find it out, neither. I may be as crooked as the rest
of them, but I'm not giving away my employer."
I suppose I looked puzzled.
        "I mean not a second time," he added hastily.
"I know what you're thinking of, and I got five
thousand dollars for it. But now I mean to stick by
the men that pay my wages."
        "But you've told me enough about each of the
three to put any one of them in jail."
        "Of course, I have," cried Schnitzel
triumphantly.
 "If I'd let down on any one crowd
you'd know I was working for that crowd, so I've
touched 'em all up. Only what I told you about my
crowd isn't true."
        The report we finally drew up was so
sensational that I was of a mind to throw it
overboard. It accused members of the Cabinet, of our
Senate, diplomats, business men of national interest,
judges of the Valencia courts, private secretaries,
clerks, hired bullies, and filibusters. Men the trust
could not bribe it had blackmailed. Those it could not
corrupt, and they were pitifully few, it crushed with
some disgraceful charge.
        Looking over my notes, I said:
        "You seem to have made every charge except
murder."
 "How'd I come to leave that out?" Schnitzel
answered flippantly. "What about Coleman, the foreman
at Bahia, and that German contractor, Ebhardt, and old
Smedburg? They talked too much, and they died of
yellow-fever, maybe, and maybe what happened to them
was they ate knockout drops in their soup."
        I disbelieved him, but there came a sudden
nasty doubt.
        "Curtis, who managed the company's plant at
Barcelona, died of yellow-fever," I said, "and was
buried the same day."
        For some time Schnitzel glowered uncertainly
at the bulkhead.
"Did you know him?" he asked.
        "When I was in the legation I knew him well,"
I said.
        "So did I," said Schnitzel. "He wasn't
murdered. He murdered himself. He was wrong ten
thousand dollars in his accounts. He got worrying
about it and we found him outside the clearing with a
hole in his head. He left a note saying he couldn't
bear the disgrace. As if the company would hold a
little grafting against as good a man as Curtis!"
        Schnitzel coughed and pretended it was his
cigarette.
 "You see you don't put in nothing against
him," he added savagely.
        It was the first time I had seen Schnitzel
show emotion, and I was moved to preach.
        "Why don't you quit?" I said. "You had an A1
job as a stenographer. Why don't you go back to it?"
        "Maybe, some day. But it's great being your
own boss. If I was a stenographer, I wouldn't be
helping you send in a report to the State Department,
would I? No, this job is all right. They send you
after something big, and you have the devil of a time
getting it, but when you get it, you feel like you had
picked a hundred-to-one shot."
        The talk or the drink had elated him. His
fish-like eyes bulged and shone. He cast a quick look
about him. Except for ourselves, the smoking-room was
empty. From below came the steady throb of the
engines, and from outside the whisper of the waves and
of the wind through the cordage. A barefooted sailor
pattered by to the bridge. Schnitzel bent toward me,
and with his hand pointed to his throat.
        "I've got papers on me that's worth a million
to a certain party," he whispered. "You understand, my
notes in cipher."
He scowled with intense mystery.
        "I keep 'em in an oiled-silk bag, tied around
my neck with a string. And here," he added hastily,
patting his hip, as though to forestall any attack I
might make upon his person, "I carry my automatic. It
shoots nine bullets in five seconds. They got to be
quick to catch me."
        "Well, if you have either of those things on
you," I said testily, "I don't want to know it. How
often have I told you not to talk and drink at the
same time?"
        "Ah, go on," laughed Schnitzel. "That's an old
gag, warning a fellow not to talk so as to make him
talk. I do that myself."
        That Schnitzel had important papers tied to
his neck I no more believe than that he wore a shirt
of chain armor, but to please him I pretended to be
greatly concerned.
        "Now that we're getting into New York," I
said, "you must be very careful. A man who carries
such important documents on his person might be
murdered for them. I think you ought to disguise
yourself."
 A picture of my bag being carried ashore
by Schnitzel in the uniform of a ship's steward rather
pleased me.
        "Go on, you're kidding!" said Schnitzel. He
was drawn between believing I was deeply impressed and
with fear that I was mocking him.
        "On the contrary," I protested, "I don't feel
quite safe myself. Seeing me with you they may think I
have papers around my neck."
        "They wouldn't look at you," Schnitzel
reassured me. "They know you're just an amateur. But,
as you say, with me, it's different. I got to be
careful. Now, you mightn't believe it, but I never go
near my uncle nor none of my friends that live where I
used to hang out. If I did, the other spies would get
on my track. I suppose," he went on grandly, "I never
go out in New York but that at least two spies are
trailing me. But I know how to throw them off. I live
'way downtown in a little hotel you never heard of.
You never catch me dining at Sherry's nor the Waldorf.
And you never met me out socially, did you, now?"
I confessed I had not.
        "And then, I always live under an assumed
name."
"Like 'Jones'?" I suggested.
"Well, sometimes 'Jones,"' he admitted.
        " To me," I said, "'Jones' lacks imagination.
It's the sort of name you give when you're arrested
for exceeding the speed limit. Why don't you call
yourself Machiavelli?"
        "Go on, I'm no dago," said Schnitzel, "and
don't you go off thinking 'Jones' is the only disguise
I use. But I'm not tellin' what it is, am I? Oh, no."
        "Schnitzel," I asked, "have you ever been told
that you would make a great detective?"
        "Cut it out," said Schnitzel. "You've been
reading those fairy stories. There's no fly cops nor
Pinks could do the work I do. They're pikers compared
to me. They chase petty larceny cases and kick in
doors. I wouldn't stoop to what they do. If It's being
mixed up the way I am with the problems of two
governments that catches me." He added magnanimously,
"You see something of that yourself."
        We left the ship at Brooklyn, and with regret
I prepared to bid Schnitzel farewell. Seldom had I met
a little beast so offensive, but his vanity, his lies,
his moral blindness, made one pity him. And in the
days in the smoking room together we had had many
friendly drinks and many friendly laughs. He was going
to a hotel on lower Broadway, and as my cab, on my way
uptown, passed the door, I offered him a lift. He
appeared to consider the advisability of this, and
then, with much by-play of glancing over his shoulder,
dived into the front seat and drew down the blinds.
"This hotel I am going to is an old-fashioned trap,"
he explained, "but the clerk is wise to me,
understand, and I don't have to sign the register."
        As we drew nearer to the hotel, he said: "It's
a pity we can't dine out somewheres and go to the
theatre, but you know?"
        With almost too much heartiness I hastily
agreed it would be imprudent.
        "I understand perfectly," I assented. "You are
a marked man. Until you get those papers safe in the
hands of your 'people,' you must be very cautious."
        "That's right," he said. Then he smiled
craftily.
 "I wonder if you're on yet to which my
people are!'
        I assured him that I had no idea, but that
from the avidity with which he had abused them I
guessed he was working for the Walker-Keefe crowd.
He both smiled and scowled.
        "Don't you wish you knew?" he said. "I've told
you a lot of inside stories, Mr. Crosby, but I'll
never tell on my pals again. Not me I That's my
secret."
 At the door of the hotel he bade me a hasty
good-by, and for a few minutes I believed that
Schnitzel had passed out of my life forever. Then, in
taking account of my belongings, I missed my
field-glasses. I remembered that, in order to open a
trunk for the customs inspectors, I had handed them to
Schnitzel, and that he had hung them over his
shoulder. In our haste at parting we both had
forgotten them.
        I was only a few blocks from the hotel, and I
told the man to return.
        I inquired for Mr. Schnitzel, and the clerk,
who apparently knew him by that name, said he was in
his room, number eighty-two.
        "But he has a caller with him now," he added.
"A gentleman was waiting for him, and's just gone up."
        I wrote on my card why I had called, and soon
after it had been borne skyward the clerk said: "I
guess he'll be able to see you now. That's the party
that was calling on him, there."
        He nodded toward a man who crossed the rotunda
quickly. His face was twisted from us, as though, as
he almost ran toward the street, he were reading the
advertisements on the wall.
        He reached the door, and was lost in the great
tide of Broadway.
        I crossed to the elevator, and as I stood
waiting, it descended with a crash, and the boy who
had taken my card flung himself, shrieking, into the
rotunda.
 "That man stop him!" he cried. "The man in
eighty-two he's murdered."
        The clerk vaulted the desk and sprang into the
street, and I dragged the boy back to the wire rope
and we shot to the third story. The boy shrank back. A
chambermaid, crouching against the wall, her face
colorless, lowered one hand, and pointed at an open
door.
"In there," she whispered.
        In a mean, common room, stretched where he had
been struck back upon the bed, I found the boy who had
elected to meddle in the "problems of two
governments."
 In tiny jets, from three wide
knife-wounds, his blood flowed slowly. His staring
eyes were lifted up in fear and in entreaty. I knew
that he was dying, and as I felt my impotence to help
him, I as keenly felt a great rage and a hatred toward
those who had struck him.
        I leaned over him until my eyes were only a
few inches from his face.
        "Schnitzel!" I cried. "Who did this? You can
trust me. Who did this? Quick!"
        I saw that he recognized me, and that there
was something which, with terrible effort, he was
trying to make me understand.
        In the hall was the rush of many people,
running, exclaiming, the noise of bells ringing; from
another floor the voice of a woman shrieked
hysterically.
 At the sounds the eyes of the boy grew
eloquent with entreaty, and with a movement that
,called from each wound a fresh outburst, like a man
strangling, he lifted his fingers to his throat.
        Voices were calling for water, to wait for the
doctor, to wait for the police. But I thought I
understood.
 Still doubting him, still unbelieving,
ashamed of my own credulity, I tore at his collar, and
my fingers closed upon a package of oiled silk.
        I stooped, and with my teeth ripped it open,
and holding before him the slips of paper it
contained, tore them into tiny shreds.
        The eyes smiled at me with cunning, with
triumph, with deep content.
        It was so like the Schnitzel I had known that
I believed still he might have strength enough to help
me.
 "Who did this?" I begged. "I'll hang him for it!
Do you hear me?" I cried.
        Seeing him lying there, with the life cut out
of him, swept me with a blind anger, with a need to
punish.
 "I'll see they hang for it. Tell me!" I
commanded. "Who did this?"
        The eyes, now filled with weariness, looked up
and the lips moved feebly.
"My own people," he whispered.
        In my indignation I could have shaken the
truth from him. I bent closer.
        "Then, by God," I whispered back, "you'll tell
me who they are!"
The eyes flashed sullenly.
"That's my secret," said Schnitzel.
The eyes set and the lips closed.
        A man at my side leaned over him, and drew the
sheet across his face.