The Brass Bowl | Page 7

Dan. Now, a
safe deposit vault--"
"Um-m-m," considered Maitland. "You really believe that Mr. Anisty
has his bold burglarious eye on my property?"

"It's a big enough haul to attract him," argued the lawyer earnestly;
"Anisty always aims high.... Now, will you do what I have been
begging you to do for the past eight years?"
"Seven," corrected Maitland punctiliously. "It's just seven years since I
entered into mine inheritance and you became my counselor."
"Well, seven, then. But will you put those jewels in safe deposit?"
"Oh, I suppose so."
"But when?"
"Would it suit you if I ran out to-night?" Maitland demanded so
abruptly that Bannerman was disconcerted.
"I--er--ask nothing better."
"I'll bring them in town to-morrow. You arrange about the vault and
advise me, will you, like a good fellow?"
"Bless my soul! I never dreamed that you would be so--so--"
"Amenable to discipline?" Maitland grinned, boylike, and, leaning back,
appreciated Bannerman's startled expression with keen enjoyment.
"Well, consider that for once you've scared me. I'm off--just time to
catch the ten-twenty for Greenfields. Waiter!"
He scrawled his initials at the bottom of the bill presented him, and rose.
"Sorry, Bannerman," he said, chuckling, "to cut short a pleasant
evening. But you shouldn't startle me so, you know. Pardon me if I run;
I might miss that train."
"But there was something else--"
"It can wait."
"Take a later train, then."
"What! With this grave peril hanging over me? _Im_possible! 'Night."
Bannerman, discomfited, saw Maitland's shoulders disappear through
the dining-room doorway, meditated pursuit, thought better of it, and
reseated himself, frowning.
"Mad Maitland, indeed!" he commented.
As for the gentleman so characterized, he emerged, a moment later,
from the portals of the club, still chuckling mildly to himself as he
struggled into a light evening overcoat. His temper, having run the
gamut of boredom, interest, perturbation, mystification, and plain
amusement, was now altogether inconsequential: a dangerous mood for
Maitland. Standing on the corner of Twenty-sixth Street he thought it
over, tapping the sidewalk gently with his cane. Should he or should he

not carry out his intention as declared to Bannerman, and go to
Greenfields that same night? Or should he keep his belated engagement
with Cressy's party?
An errant cabby, cruising aimlessly but hopefully, sighted Maitland's
tall figure and white shirt from a distance, and bore down upon him
with a gallant clatter of hoofs.
"Kebsir?" he demanded breathlessly, pulling in at the corner.
Maitland came out of his reverie and looked up slowly. "Why yes,
thank you," he assented amiably.
"Where to, sir?"
Maitland paused on the forward deck of the craft and faced about,
looking the cabby trustfully in the eye. "I leave it to you," he replied
politely. "Just as you please."
The driver gasped.
"You see," Maitland continued with a courteous smile, "I have two
engagements: one at Sherry's, the other with the ten-twenty train from
Long Island City. What would you, as man to man, advise me to do,
cabby?"
"Well, sir, seein' as you puts it to me straight," returned the cabby with
engaging candor, "I'd go home, sir, if I was you, afore I got any worse."
"Thank you," gravely. "Long Island City depôt, then, cabby."
Maitland extended himself languidly upon the cushions. "Surely," he
told the night, "the driver knows best--he and Bannerman."
The cab started off jogging so sedately up Madison Avenue that
Maitland glanced at his watch and elevated his brows dubiously; then
with his stick poked open the trap in the roof.
"If you really think it best for me to go home, cabby, you'll have to
drive like hell," he suggested mildly.
"Yessir!"
A whip-lash cracked loudly over the horse's back, and the hansom,
lurching into Thirty-fourth Street on one wheel, was presently jouncing
eastward over rough cobbles, at a regardless pace which roused the
gongs of the surface cars to a clangor of hysterical expostulation. In a
trice the "L" extension was roaring overhead; and a little later the ferry
gates were yawning before them. Again Maitland consulted his watch,
commenting briefly: "In time."
Yet he reckoned without the ferry, one of whose employees

deliberately and implacably swung to the gates in the very face of the
astonished cab-horse, which promptly rose upon its hind legs and
pawed the air with gestures of pardonable exasperation. To no avail,
however; the gates remained closed, the cabby (with language) reined
his steed back a yard or two, and Maitland, lighting a cigarette,
composed himself to simulate patience.
Followed a wait of ten minutes or so, in which a number of vehicles
joined company with the cab; the passenger was vaguely aware of the
jarring purr of a motor-car, like that of some huge cat, in the immediate
rear. A circumstance which he had occasion to recall ere long.