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X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries
THUBWAY THAM, FASHION PLATE
Having partaken of an excellent breakfast, Thubway Tham strolled from the little restaurant, lighted a cigarette, and wandered toward Union Square like a man who is pleased with life and what it offers.
It had been three days since Tham had invaded the subway for the purpose of “lifting a leather.” Tham was in funds due to a windfall of a week before, when a wallet he had obtained by nefarious means proved to hold a considerable amount.
“Thith ith great weather,” Tham told himself.
Autumn was in the air, men and women walked with a swinging stride, eyes sparkled; hot summer was behind, and cold winter still some distance ahead. Thubway Tham enjoyed it. His breakfast had been good, and his cigarette tasted better than usual.
“Muth have made a mithtake and put thome tobacco in thith one,” Tham decided.
He went around Union Square and continued toward the north, having no particular place to go. For two days he had not seen Craddock, the one detective who trailed him with a determination that was creditable, and who had sworn to catch him “with the goods” some fine day, much to Thubway Tham’s amusement. Tham enjoyed his conflict with Craddock; it kept him alert, which is good for any man known to officers of the law as a professional pickpocket of more than usual ability.
In time, Tham stopped before the window of an art store to look at the pictures displayed there. Somebody touched him on the shoulder. Tham did not flinch, as crooks are supposed to do when anybody touches them on the shoulder. He merely turned slowly, inquiry in his countenance. “Nifty” Noel stood before him.
It may be remarked that Nifty Noel was a sort of jack-of-all-trades in the underworld, and seemed to be prosperous. The mode of the moment, as far as clothes were concerned, was not quite modern enough for Noel. He was a delight to the eye. His shirts were things of beauty, his coat and trousers possessed an ultra-fashionable cut; he wore spats and carried a stick, and always had the latest in hats on his head tilted in a becoming fashion. Noel was a walking fashion plate; Thubway Tham was not.
“I haven’t seen you for some time, Tham,” said Nifty Noel. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Jutht around,” Tham replied.
“I thought maybe you’d been sick; you certainly do look seedy.”
“Tho?”
“Yes. You aren’t beginning to feel your age, are you?”
“Thay!”
“Well, you look it. Slowing up, Tham? On the square, haven’t you been sick?”
“Thertainly not,” Tham declared.
“Look frayed and frazzled, you do. Been working too hard or something, I guess. The bulls haven’t been worrying you, have they?”
“Nothin’ of the thort!”
“Come on, now, tell an old pal what the trouble is. I’m dead willing to help. I always liked you, Tham.”
“Thay, there ain’t anything the matter with me!”
“Just between ourselves, Tham. Maybe I can help you a lot. You must either be sick, or else you’re worrying too much. Worry is bad business, Tham, and you should know it. Walk on down the street with me and spill it. I’m right here with the helping hand, old-timer.”
“My goodneth! There ain’t anything the matter with me, I thaid. Where do you get that thtuff? What ith the matter with you yourthelf? You make me thick!”
“Surely you can trust me, Tham,” said Nifty Noel. “I’m a square guy, I am.”
“Nobody thaid you wath not thquare.”
“Then come through with your tale of woe. Is it coin?”
“I have all the coin I need.”
“Better let me help you, Tham. There’s a hollow look around your eyes and the corners of your mouth are drawn. You’re pale, too. Been getting plenty of sleep?”
Thubway Tham snarled at him and turned his back.
“Anxious to help you, Tham,” Noel went on. “You look like you were down on your luck. You certainly do look seedy. Don’t you ever get your pants pressed? And look at the wrinkles in that coat! And no shine! Good Lord, Tham, I hate to see an old-timer like you go to pieces—”
“Thay,” Tham cried, whirling upon him, “I feel all right and I am all right. Thee? And you are a thilly ath!”
Thubway Tham walked briskly up the street and left Nifty Noel standing at the curb swinging his stick and looking after him, a thoughtful expression upon his face. Tham turned the corner and made his way toward Broadway. Why, he had remarked to himself a few minutes before meeting Noel that the weather was great, and that he felt great, that breakfast had been good, and the cigarette made from real tobacco! And now this Nifty Noel spoke as if—
Tham began wondering whether he really was all right. Possibly those hot cakes he had eaten
would give him a slight attack of indigestion. Come to think of it, he was experiencing a sort of tired feeling. And his head felt light, just as it does when—
“It ith juth the talk of that thimp,” Tham declared to himself. “He ith enough to make any man thick. I am all right. I thaid I wath all right, and I am all right. I thay it again—I am all right.”
He turned another corner, and bumped into Detective Craddock. The officer grinned, and Thubway Tham removed his cap and scratched at his head.
“It wath a fine day until juth a thecond ago,” he announced. “Tho I thee your ugly fathe again, do I?”
“You certainly do, Tham, old boy. I haven’t had the pleasure of looking into your glowing countenance for a few days. Been behaving yourself?”
“I alwayth behave mythelf.”
“Tell that to some infant, Tham. You couldn’t behave yourself in the subway, and you know it. How are the wallets running now, fat and juicy?”
“Thay! Juth becauthe I wath railroaded up the river on the—”
“Don’t make me laugh now, Tham! Cut out that innocent stuff with me,” said Craddock. “I’ve been neglecting you for a few days and keeping an eye on a certain other gent who likes to pick up a jewel here and there. But he’s behind bars now, Tham, where I’ll have you some day.”
“It theemth to me that I have heard thomething like that before,” Tham told him.
“All jokes aside, Tham, old boy, what’s the matter with you?”
“With me? I am all right. I juth wath thayin’ to mythelf that I am all right.”
“Trying to kid yourself along, are you? Really, Tham, you do look pretty seedy.”
Tham blinked his eyes rapidly as he surveyed the detective. “Where do you get that thtuff?” he demanded. “What ith the matter with me, Craddock?”
“Look sick,” Craddock commented. “Been drinking?”
“You know I don’t drink.”
“Smoking too much, perhaps. How are your nerves?”
“Thay! I’m all right, I thaid!”
“It’s all right to try to influence yourself that way, Tham, and I admire a man who won’t give up; but when a man is really sick, he’d better call a doctor.”
“Well, my goodneth,” Tham cried. “I ain’t thick! Ith everybody in thith town crathy?”
“Run down at the heels, too,” Craddock commented. “Business must have been bad with you lately. You wouldn’t be a bad-looking chap, Tham, if you’d spruce up a bit. But some men don’t know how to dress.”
“Ith that tho?”
“Well, take care of yourself, Tham, old boy. I’ve got a little business on now, but I’ll have my eye on you a little later. I’ll get you yet, old-timer!”
Detective Craddock hurried on down the street. Thubway Tham stood at the curb and watched the seething traffic without seeing it. Was he sick? Did he look pale?
He stepped back to a show window and looked at his reflection there.
“I am all right,” he stubbornly declared again. “I juth need a thave and a hair cut and a mathage. Thith thuit ith an old one, too. I need thome new thenery!”
Then and there, in some peculiar manner and without being heralded, twin ideas were born in the brain of Thubway Tham. The first was that if a man got seedy as to clothes and general appearance, that condition was reflected in his thoughts and manner. So, to be full of “pep,” and alive to the experiences of the moment, a man should dress well and force himself to respect himself, thus forcing other folk to do the same.
The second idea was that Nifty Noel enjoyed a reputation for sartorial display that should be dimmed and put in the background.
“He ith no better lookin’ than I am,” Thubway Tham declared to himself. “The thilly ath thinkth he ith the only man that can wear clothe.”
Tham chuckled as he walked on up the street, slowly, allowing the twin ideas to expand. He had ample funds, and he really needed clothes. Why not play a double game? Why not purchase clothing that would influence his disposition and health, and at the same time dim the luster of Nifty Noel, dude of New York’s underworld?
“It would be a good thtunt,” Thubway Tham decided, after due reflection. “It ith a long time thinthe I have given anybody a thock. It thall be done!”
Tham walked briskly now, and stopped to look in at the windows of establishments that catered to gentlemen who desired to wear clothing that would attract attention. Presently he turned and walked back, and went into a store he had noticed, one noted for its window displays. A salesman took Tham in charge, and there followed a lengthy conversation.
The salesman was an artist in his line, without doubt. He made suggestions—some of them with his hand before his lips to hide a smile—and Thubway Tham accepted the majority of the suggestions as excellent.
Finally, Thubway Tham departed from the establishment with several large bundles beneath his arms, and left behind a sum of money that substantially increased the salesman’s totals for the week.
II.
For business reasons, Thubway Tham lived in a lodging house that was conducted by a reformed convict, and where the other tenants were gentlemen liable at any time to a visit from the police. The rooms were small and not over-clean, the hallways were dark, the stairs were rickety.
The landlord, who really operated quite a decent place of its kind, had a habit of sitting behind the battered desk in the office, from where he could watch every one who entered or left the place. It was his habit, too, to speak to men of his ilk of the good old days when he had been an active criminal, the burden of his song being that criminals of the present day were a ladylike brood who feared to crack a skull or carry a gun.
Thubway Tham, having listened to these recitals often, had become a sort of pet of the landlord’s. He always greeted Thubway Tham with a smile and a wave of his hand, and had been known, upon two occasions, to give Tham a cigar.
It was no more than natural, then, that the landlord was waiting to see Tham leave the place the following morning. Tham was regular—he generally went down the stairs and out for his breakfast at the same hour.
The landlord glanced at the clock on the morning after Tham made his purchases, and wondered why Tham did not put in an appearance; it was fifteen minutes past the hour. For an instant he had a fleeting thought that Tham might be ill and confined to his bed, but he decided to wait half an hour longer before climbing the rickety stairs to ascertain whether that was the truth.
And then he blinked his eyes and got up slowly from his chair, his hand reaching mechanically in a drawer of the desk, where he kept an old revolver about which he had woven many fanciful tales. Down the rickety stairs was coming a man that the landlord felt sure he never had seen before.
Nifty Noel in all his glory never had been arrayed like this. The landlord saw, first, a suit of clothes that fairly shrieked its presence. The pattern, to say the least, had not been designed with a thought toward modesty. The style was more than ultra-fashionable.
Then there was a shirt that made Joseph’s coat a thing of drab inconspicuousness. There were yellow gloves and spats to match, and a hat with a yellow ribbon for a band. This being who descended the rickety stairs also carried a stick like a willow wand.
The landlord blinked his eyes again and decided to allow the gun to remain in the desk and resort to his fists. He opened and closed his hands, shot out his lower jaw, gritted his teeth, and narrowed his eyes.
“Say, you!” he called in stentorian tones.
The being turned to face him, and the landlord collapsed.
“Thay it,” Thubway Tham advised. “I wath thinkin’ of thomethin’ and didn’t mean to path without thpeakin’.”
“Is—is that you, Tham?”
“It thertainly ith! Did you think it wath a cop?”
“No cop would dare appear at headquarters dressed like that, Tham,” the landlord said, his tone sorrowful. “I didn’t think it of you, Tham. Here I’ve been your close friend, and all that, and let ever
ybody know it—”
“What theemth to be the matter?” Tham wanted to know.
“You must have been workin’ too hard, Tham, and it’s touched your brain. You ain’t goin’ insane with age, are you?”
“Thay!”
“Is that a shirt, Tham?”
“Thome thirt!”
“I’ll say it is. I’ll remark that it certainly, without doubt, all others to the contrary, is some shirt. Looks like it had been made out of scraps!”
“Thay! I paid good coin for that thirt.”
“Have those gloves faded, Tham, or is that their natural color? My eyes ain’t as good as they were once, and I’ve only got one at that; but them gloves—”
“Your act ith good,” Tham commented.
“And the band around your hat is lemon, Tham—lemon! It’s as yellow as a stool pigeon, Tham! To think I have lived to see this. And everybody in this end of town knows that you’re a friend of mine. What have I ever done to you, Tham, that you should bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave?”
“I’ll bring them to the grave, all right, if you don’t thtop your nonthenthe,” Tham declared. “Ith it thomethin’ awful if a man dretheth up now and then?”
“Oh, so you are dressed up? Where is the masquerade, Tham, and why don’t they hold it at night instead of morning? Got your mask in your pocket? What are you supposed to represent, anyway? I’ll bet you’ll have all of ’em guessin’.”
“Your remarkth,” said Tham, “are thilly!”
“Maybe so, Tham—maybe so! But let me say—Great and noble Sing Sing! What are you carryin’ around that long lead pencil for? Is that a part of the costume?”
“A lead—Thay! That ith a cane, you thimp!”
“A cane,” the landlord said, gasping. “He says it is a cane. Well, we have been pals for several years, Tham, and far be it from me to contradict you. A cane! Mighty Auburn!”
Thubway Tham glared at him, flicked an imaginary spot of dust from the sleeve of his coat, twirled his stick, and went on down the stairs to the street. Tham was painfully conscious of his clothes, but judged that the feeling would wear away. He swung down the street to his favorite restaurant, entered as usual, and took his place at the regular table. The customary waitress went forward to take his order.
Tham did not notice that the girl grinned and winked at another, for he was busy glancing over the morning paper. And when his breakfast arrived he ate it quickly, picked up his check, and hurried to the cashier’s cage.
The Thubway Tham Megapack Page 2
