The Heads of Cerberus

by Francis Stevens

  "I'll advise Jimmy to get him a new safe," chuckled Trenmore as he tossed his burden on the bed. "If there's aught of value here he deserves to be robbed, keeping it in that old tin box of a thing. But perhaps I'm ungrateful. I never thought, so freely he offered it, that he had to clear his own things out of this wall safe to give me the use of it. I'll share it with him from this day, and if there's anything missing from this lot I'll make the value up to him so be he'll let me, which he will not, being proud, stiff-necked, and half a Sassenach, for all he's my mother's third cousin on the O'Shaughnessy side. So I'll do it in a most underhand and secretive manner and get the better of him."

  Still running along in a light, commonplace tone which denied any trace of the unusual in the situation, he again rang for Martin, and when that young man appeared bade him prepare breakfast for his guest as well as himself. The servant did his best to conceal a not unnatural amazement; but his imitation of an imperturbable English man-servant was a rather forlorn and weak one.

  He went off at last, muttering to himself: "How'd the fellow get in? That's what I want to know! He wasn't here last night, and Mr. Trenmore hasn't been out of his room or I'd have heard him, and I never let his friend in, that's sure!"

  Not strangely, perhaps, it did not occur to Martin that Mr. Trenmore's mysterious friend might have come a-visiting through the roof.

  CHAPTER 2: DUST OF PURGATORY

  LESS than an hour later, Robert Drayton, amateur burglar and so shortly previous a desperate and hunted man, sat down at table in the respectable Philadelphia residence he had fortunately chosen for his first invasion. His wounded temple was adorned with several neatly adjusted strips of plaster, and if his head ached, at least his heart was lighter than it had been in many a day. This last, as it were, in spite of himself. He felt that he should really be cringing under the table-anywhere out of sight. But with Terence Trenmore sitting opposite, his countenance fairly radiating satisfaction and good cheer, Drayton could not for the life of him either cringe or slink.

  The breakfast, moreover, proved Martin to be what his master had boasted-an uncommonly good cook. Before the charms of sweet Virginia ham, fresh eggs, hot muffins, and super-excellent coffee, Drayton's misery and humiliation strangely faded into the background of consciousness.

  Trenmore was an older man than he, by ten years of time and thrice their equivalent in rough experience. The two had first met in Chicago during the strenuous period of a strike. Drayton, unwise enough to play peaceful bystander at a full-grown riot, had found himself involved in an embattled medley of muscular slaughter-house men and equally muscular and better-armed police. He had stood an excellent chance of being killed by one party or arrested by the other, and none at all of extricating himself, when Trenmore, overlooking the fight from the steps of a near-by building, and seeing a young, slender, well-dressed man in a struggle in which he obviously had no place, came to his aid and fought a way out for the two of them.

  Later they had joined forces on a long vacation in the Canadian woods. Drayton was then a rising young lawyer of considerable independent means, high-strung, nervous, and with a certain disposition toward melancholy. In the Irishman, with his tireless strength and humorous optimism, he found an ideal companion for that outdoor life, while Trenmore, well read, but self-educated, formed a well-nigh extravagant admiration for the young lawyer's intellect and character. And Terence Trenmore, his faith once given, resembled a large, loyal mastiff; he was thenceforth ready to give at need all that was his, goods, gains, or the strength of his great brain and body.

  Following those months in Canada, however, Drayton returned to Cincinnati, his home. The two had kept up for some time a desultory correspondence, but Trenmore's fortune, acquired in the Yukon, permitted him to live the roving life which suited his restless temperament. His address changed so frequently that Drayton found it difficult to keep track of him, and as the latter became more and more desperately absorbed in certain ruinous complications of his own affairs, he had allowed his correspondence with Trenmore to lapse to nothing.

  Their appetites pleasantly quelled at last, and cigars lighted, the two men adjourned to the library and settled themselves to talk things out.

  "You've been in Ireland, you say-" began Drayton, but the other interrupted with raised hand.

  "Let that wait. Do you not guess that I'm fair burning up with curiosity? There, there, when you look like that you make me want to cry, you do! Tell me the name of the scoundrel that's been driving you and I'll-I'll obliterate him. But don't act like the world was all black and you at your own wake. Sure, there's no trouble in life that's worth it! Now, what's wrong?"

  Drayton smiled in spite of himself. The big man's good humor was too infectious for resistance. His face, however, soon fell again into the tragic lines drawn there by recent events.

  "It can be told quickly," he began. "You know we had a very fair legal practice, Simon Warren and I. Up there in the woods I'm afraid I talked a lot about myself, so I don't need to tell you of the early struggles of a couple of cub lawyers. It was Warren, though, who made us what we were. Poor Warren! He had married just before the crash, and his young wife died three days after Simon was sentenced to a ten-year term in the penitentiary."

  "So? And what did your partner do to deserve all that?"

  "That is the story. We had built up a good clientele among the Cincinnati real-estate men and contractors. Simon specialized on contracts, and I on the real-estate end. We had a pretty fair reputation for success, too.

  "Then Warren found out a thing about Interstate General Merchandise which would have put at least five men behind the bars. Unluckily for us they were big men. Too big for us small fry to tackle, though we didn't quite realize that. They tried to settle it amicably by buying us over. We were just the pair they were looking for, they said. And both Warren and I could have cleared over twenty-five thousand a year at the work they offered.

  "Well, we'd have liked the money, of course-who wouldn't? — but not enough to take it as blackmail. Simon stuck to his guns and laid the affair before the district attorney. Before we could clinch the matter, Interstate Merchandise came down on us like a triphammer on a soft-boiled egg.

  "Oh, yes, they framed us. They got Simon with faked papers on a deal he wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot pair of tongs. Of course we went down together. The disgrace killed his wife. Three weeks ago Simon died in prison of tuberculosis. That or a broken heart-

  "And I-well, you see me here. I got off without a jail term. But I'd been disbarred for illegal practice, and what money I had was all gone in the fight. After that-I don't know if it was for revenge or that they were still afraid of me, but Terry, those Interstate devils hounded me out of one job after another-broke me-drove me clean out of life as I knew it.

  "Yesterday I landed here in Philadelphia without a cent in my pockets, hungry and with no hope or faith left in anything. Last night I said, 'So be it! They have killed Simon, and they will not let me live as an honest man. But, by God, I'll live!' And that's the way criminals are created. I've learned it."

  Drayton ended with a catch in his voice. His clear, honest eyes were bright with the memory of that desperate resolve, so utterly alien to his nature, and his long, sensitive fingers opened and closed spasmodically.

  Then Trenmore did a strangely heartless thing. Having stared at his friend for a moment, he threw back his head and laughed-laughed in a great Olympian peal of merriment that rang through the silent house.

  Drayton sprang to his feet. "By heavens, Terry, I wish I could see the joke! But I'm damned if there's anything funny about what I've been through!"

  As abruptly as he had begun, his host stopped laughing and forced his face into solemnity. But his blue eyes still twinkled dangerously.

  "Sit down-sit down, man, and forgive me for a fool of an Irishman! Should you kill me right here for laughing, I'd not be blaming you and my heart aching this minute the way I can't wait to get at the crooks that h
ave ruined you, and as soon as may be we'll go back to your home, you and I, and see what there is to be done.

  "But, sure you're the most original criminal that ever tried to rob a man! You get in, you locate the box-did you call it a box, Bobby? — all in good form. And, by the way, were you thinking of carrying the safe away in your pocket? Or had you a stick of dynamite handy? Well, some obliging professional comes along and works the combination for you and leaves the door open. You awaken from pleasant dreams to find all that was inside, or most of it, lying right at your feet. And what is it you do? You flee as if from the devil himself, and if I hadn't stopped you you'd be straying about the streets this minute as near starvation as you were before!"

  Drayton forced a smile for his friend's good-natured raillery. He could not be angry at ridicule so obviously meant to dissipate self-condemnation in laughter. "I could hardly begin on you, Terry," he said. "And speaking of that, I've already enjoyed more hospitality than I have any right to. I'm cured of crime, Terry; but if you have any idea that I am going to load myself down on you-"

  Springing up with his usual impetuosity, the big Irishman fairly hurled Drayton back into his chair.

  "Sit down! Sit down there where you belong! Is it load yourself you're talking of? It's to be loaded with me you are! Do you know that my very life's been threatened?"

  "Please don't joke any more, Terry," protested the other wearily.

  "I've not gone into details, but all the fun has been crushed out of me in the last year or so."

  "Take shame to yourself, then! But this is no joke. You'll well believe me it's not when you've heard it all. Stay here now a minute, for I've a thing to show you."

  In no little wonder, Drayton obeyed while Trenmore left the room and ascended the stairs to his bedchamber. A few minutes later he returned, and, drawing his chair close to Drayton, dropped into it and disclosed the thing he had brought. It seemed to be a glass vial. About six inches in length, it tapered to a point at one end, while the other was capped with silver, daintily carved to the shape of three dogs' heads. These heads, with savage, snarling jaws, all emerged from one collar, set with five small but brilliant rubies. The vial was filled to the top with some substance of the color of gray emery.

  "A pretty little thing," commented Drayton.

  "Aye, 'tis a pretty little thing," the other assented, staring down at the odd trifle with frowning brows. "Now what would you be thinking it might be?"

  "I could hardly say. It looks like a bottle for smelling salts. What is that stuff inside?"

  "Ah, now you're asking! And what do you think of the handsome silver cap to it?"

  "Really, Terry," replied Drayton with a touch of impatience, "I am no judge of that sort of work. It is intended, I suppose, to represent the three-headed dog, Cerberus-the one that guarded the gates of Pluto's realm in the old mythology. The carving is beautiful."

  Trenmore nodded. "It is that. And now I'll tell you how I came by it. You know it's an ignorant, rude man I am; but hid away somewhere inside me there's a great love for little, pretty, delicate things. And though I've no real education like you, Bobby, I've picked up one thing here and another there, and when I happen on some trifle with a bit of a history it just puts the comether on me, and have it I must, whether or no.

  "Behind that small steel door you saw in the wall of my room I've some amazing pretty toys that I'd not like to part with. I'll show you them later, if you care, and tell you the tales that go with them. Did you read in the paper last month how Thaddeus B. Crane was after dying and all his great collection to go at auction?"

  "I didn't notice."

  "You wouldn't. You'd something worse to think of. But I did; so I remembered this which I had heard the fame of, and to that auction I went three days running until they came to the thing I wanted. ',' it's called, just as you named it like the clever lad you are. It's old, and they say 'twas made in Florence centuries ago. But I'll read you the bit of description Crane had for it."

  He produced a sheet of time-yellowed paper he read. "'Said to have been carved by Benvenuto Cellini for his patron, the Duke of Florence. Its contents have never been examined. The legend runs, however, that the gray dust within it was gathered from the rocks at the gates of Purgatory by the poet Dante, and that it was to contain this dust that the duke required the vial. More probably, from a modern viewpoint, the contents are some sort of poison, which a Florentine duke may well have carried in self-protection or for the destruction of his enemies. The vial itself is of rock crystal and the cap-closed with cement-a peculiarly beautiful specimen of sixteenth century work. It is probably a genuine Cellini. It passed into the hands-' But I'll not be reading the rest. It tells the names of those who have owned it, and the astonishing number of them that died violently or disappeared from the face of God's earth, and no more trace left of them than a puff of smoke from your cigar!"

  Drayton's lips twisted to an involuntary smile.

  "A very extraordinary history," he commented. "Dante, Benvenuto Cellini, and Dust from the Rocks of Purgatory! May I ask what you paid?"

  "Only five hundred. There'd word got about that Crane was no good judge and that there were more copies than originals in his collections. The regular collectors bought shy, and I misdoubt Crane's widow realized the half of what he'd spent on the lot. There was little bidding for this. The tale's too extravagant, and most would not believe it a true Cellini. However, no sooner had I got it and walked out of the salesrooms than a gray-haired old party came running after me and caught me by the sleeve.

  "'And is it you that bought the Cerberus?' he demands. 'It's myself that did,' I conceded him. 'And will you sell it again to me?' 'I will not,' says I. 'Not for twice what you paid for it?' inquires he with a cunning look in his eye that I did not like. 'No, I'll not,' says I. 'Nor for two or four times what I paid for it. I'm a gentleman collector. I am not a dealer. I bought this for myself and I will keep it. Good day to you, sir,' says I, and with that I walked on.

  "But do you believe he would accept my polite rebuff? Not he. He runs along by the side of me, taking three steps to my one. 'If you'll not sell it me you'll be sorry,' he keeps on saying. 'It should be mine. I went to buy it, but my chauffeur ran over a man on Broadway. Confound the fool! The police took my chauffeur and delayed me till I came too late for the bidding. I'd have had it if it cost me five thousand, and that's what I'll give now, if you'll sell.'

  "By then I'd taken a real dislike to the man with his persistence and his sharp eyes. In plain words I told him if he'd not desist from following me about I'd be calling an ambulance, for he'd be needing one shortly. 'You can join in the hospital the poor devil your car murdered,' says I. And at that he takes a squint up at me sideways, like I was an elephant he'd just discovered himself to be walking with and him thinking all along I was just a small pigling, and he turns white and stops dead in his tracks. The poor midget! I'd not have laid my little finger on him for fear of crushing him entirely. But for all that he gets courage to shake his fist and call after me, 'You'll be sorry for this. You don't know what you've bought and I do! I'll have it yet!'

  "Well, I thought no more of the silly madman that day. But on the next I received a letter that came to me at the hotel where Viola and me were then stopping. It said that if I'd not sell for ten thousand I'd sell for worse than nothing, and to put an ad in the paper if I'd changed my mind.

  "Of course, I did nothing. But from that day I've had no peace at all. Twice my baggage has been gone over, and last week two thugs tried to hold me up in Jersey City. The poor devils are in the hospital this minute; but they could not or would not tell the name of the man who employed them.

  "There have been two more letters which I'll show you presently, and the last was addressed here, showing how the fellow has watched and spied on my movements. In it he declares that my very life shall not stand in the way, but he must have the Cerberus. I'm a man of peace, and it's fair getting on my nerves.

  "Last night t
hey must have tried again, and it's a wonder I was not murdered in my bed! You've come in the nick of time to save me from nervous prostration, Bobby, lad, for it's little they can do against the two of us, your brains and my brawn!"

  Now it was Drayton's turn to laugh. The picture of Terence Trenmore suffering from nervous collapse, or caring two straws for all the crooks and madmen in America, was too much for his friend. He laughed and laughed, while the Irishman stared at him in a grieved surprise which only added fuel to his hysterical mirth.

  "And why," demanded Trenmore indignantly, "why wouldn't I be thinking of you when I want a lad at my side? Jimmy, my host here, is a fine man, but not the one to consult on such a Mysterious matter, life meaning to him just business, with his club for diversion, heaven help him! And were he not a distant cousin of my own mother on the O'Shaughnessy side, Jimmy and me would have never become acquainted. And wasn't I meaning to go clear to Cincinnati next week, just to be asking your advice? And does that list of folk who have had ill luck from the Cerberus-does that mean nothing at all? I tell you, I need your help and counsel, Bobby, and it's glad I am that you are here to give it."

  Drayton suddenly perceived that the Irishman had been entirely serious throughout. The tale was not, as he had believed, a mere excuse seized on with intent to delude him, Drayton, into feeling that he might be of value as an ally. Hidden away in one secret corner of his friend's giant heart there dwelt a small, imaginative and quite credulous child. "Dust from the Rocks of Purgatory!" It was that which had fascinated Trenmore, and it was that more than any dread of midnight assassins which had driven him to appeal to his lawyer friend. What he wished was moral, not physical, backing.

  "But, Terry," said Drayton, sobered and really touched by this unexpected demand upon him, "if the thing bothers you so much why not sell and be rid of it?"

  Trenmore's mouth set in a straight, obstinate line. "No, I'll not," he declared. "They cannot bully a Trenmore, and Viola says the same. But if I could I'd lay hands on the old villain that's after it the way he'd trouble us no more, so I would!"