by Otto Penzler
Anderson’s stories are written in a slow, circuitous style that may discourage the impatient reader but have a subtle richness that rewards the careful one who will appreciate the events that transpire between the lines.
“The Infallible Godahl” was first published in the February 15, 1913, issue of The Saturday Evening Post; it was first collected in The Adventures of the Infallible Godahl (New York, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1914).
THE INFALLIBLE GODAHL
Frederick Irving Anderson
OLIVER ARMISTON never was much of a sportsman with a rod or gun—though he could do fancy work with a pistol in a shooting gallery. He had, however, one game from which he derived the utmost satisfaction. Whenever he went traveling, which was often, he invariably caught his trains by the tip of the tail, so to speak, and hung on till he could climb aboard. In other words, he believed in close connections. He had a theory that more valuable dollars-and-cents time and good animal heat are wasted warming seats in stations waiting for trains than by missing them. The sum of joy to his methodical mind was to halt the slamming gates at the last fraction of the last second with majestic upraised hand, and to stroll aboard his parlor-car with studied deliberation, while the train crew were gnashing their teeth in rage and swearing to get even with the gateman for letting him through.
Yet Mr. Armiston never missed a train. A good many of them tried to miss him, but none ever succeeded. He reckoned time and distance so nicely that it really seemed as if his trains had nothing else half so important as waiting until Mr. Oliver Armiston got aboard.
On this particular June day he was due in New Haven at two. If he failed to get there at two o’clock he could very easily arrive at three. But an hour is sixty minutes, and a minute is sixty seconds; and, further, Mr. Armiston, having passed his word that he would be there at two o’clock, surely would be.
On this particular day, by the time Armiston finally got to the Grand Central the train looked like an odds-on favorite. In the first place, he was still in his bed at an hour when another and less experienced traveler would have been watching the clock in the station waiting-room. In the second place, after kissing his wife in that absent-minded manner characteristic of true love, he became tangled in a Broadway traffic rush at the first corner. Scarcely was he extricated from this when he ran into a Socialist mass-meeting at Union Square. It was due only to the wits of his chauffeur that the taxicab was extricated with very little damage to the surrounding human scenery. But our man of method did not fret. Instead, he buried himself in his book, a treatise on Cause and Effect, which at that moment was lulling him with this soothing sentiment:
“There is no such thing as accident. The so-called accidents of every-day life are due to the preordained action of correlated causes, which is inevitable and over which man has no control.”
This was comforting, but not much to the point, when Oliver Armiston looked up and discovered he had reached Twenty-third Street and had come to a halt. A sixty-foot truck, with an underslung burden consisting of a sixty-ton steel girder, had at this point suddenly developed weakness in its off hindwheel and settled down on the pavement across the right of way like a tired elephant. This, of course, was not an accident. It was due to a weakness in the construction of that wheel—a weakness that had from the beginning been destined to block street-cars and taxicabs at this particular spot at this particular hour.
Mr. Armiston dismounted and walked a block. Here he hailed a second taxicab and soon was spinning north again at a fair speed, albeit the extensive building operations in Fourth Avenue had made the street well-nigh impassable.
The roughness of the pavement merely shook up his digestive apparatus and gave it zest for the fine luncheon he was promising himself the minute he stepped aboard his train. His new chauffeur got lost three times in the maze of traffic about the Grand Central Station. This, however, was only human, seeing that the railroad company changed the map of Forty-second Street every twenty-four hours during the course of the building of its new terminal.
Mr. Armiston at length stepped from his taxicab, gave his grip to a porter and paid the driver from a huge roll of bills. This same roll was no sooner transferred back to his pocket than a nimble-fingered pickpocket removed it. This, again, was not an accident. That pickpocket had been waiting there for the last hour for that roll of bills. It was preordained, inevitable. And Oliver Armiston had just thirty seconds to catch his train by the tail and climb aboard. He smiled contentedly to himself.
It was not until he called for his ticket that he discovered his loss. For a full precious second he gazed at the hand that came away empty from his money pocket, and then:
“I find I left my purse at home,” he said, with a grand air he knew how to assume on occasion. “My name is Mister Oliver Armiston.”
Now Oliver Armiston was a name to conjure with.
“I don’t doubt it,” said the ticket agent dryly. “Mister Andrew Carnegie was here yesterday begging carfare to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and Mister John D. Rockefeller quite frequently drops in and leaves his dollar watch in hock. Next!”
And the ticket-agent glared at the man blocking the impatient line and told him to move on.
Armiston flushed crimson. He glanced at the clock. For once in his life he was about to experience that awful feeling of missing his train. For once in his life he was about to be robbed of that delicious sensation of hypnotizing the gatekeeper and walking majestically down that train platform that extends northward under the train-shed a considerable part of the distance toward Yonkers. Twenty seconds! Armiston turned round, still holding his ground, and glared concentrated malice at the man next in line. That man was in a hurry. In his hand he held a bundle of bills. For a second the thief-instinct that is latent in us all suggested itself to Armiston. There within reach of his hand was the money, the precious paltry dollar bills that stood between him and his train. It scared him to discover that he, an upright and honored citizen, was almost in the act of grabbing them like a common pickpocket.
Then a truly remarkable thing happened. The man thrust his handful of bills at Armiston.
“The only way I can raise this blockade is to bribe you,” he said, returning Armiston’s glare. “Here—take what you want—and give the rest of us a chance.”
With the alacrity of a blind beggar miraculously cured by the sight of much money Armiston grabbed the handful, extracted what he needed for his ticket, and thrust the rest back into the waiting hand of his unknown benefactor. He caught the gate by a hair. So did his unknown friend. Together they walked down the platform, each matching the other’s leisurely pace with his own. They might have been two potentates, so deliberately did they catch this train. Armiston would have liked very much to thank this person, but the other presented so forbidding an exterior that it was hard to find a point of attack. By force of habit Armiston boarded the parlor car, quite forgetting he did not have money for a seat. So did the other. The unknown thrust a bill at the porter. “Get me two chairs,” he said. “One is for this gentleman.”
Once inside and settled, Armiston renewed his efforts to thank this strange person. That person took a card from his pocket and handed it to Armiston.
“Don’t run away with the foolish idea,” he said tartly, “that I have done you a service willingly. You were making me miss my train, and I took this means of bribing you to get you out of my way. That is all, sir. At your leisure you may send me your check for the trifle.”
“A most extraordinary person!” said Armiston to himself. “Let me give you my card,” he said to the other. “As to the service rendered, you are welcome to your own ideas on that. For my part I am very grateful.”
The unknown took the proffered card and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket without glancing at it. He swung his chair round and opened a magazine, displaying a pair of broad unneighborly shoulders. This was rather disconcerting to Armiston, who was accustomed to have his card act as an open sesame.
�
�Damn his impudence!” he said to himself. “He takes me for a mendicant. I’ll make copy of him!”
This was the popular author’s way of getting even with those who offended his tender sensibilities.
—
Two things worried Armiston: One was his luncheon—or rather the absence of it; and the other was his neighbor. This neighbor, now that Armiston had a chance to study him, was a young man, well set up. He had a fine bronzed face that was not half so surly as his manner. He was now buried up to his ears in a magazine, oblivious of everything about him, even the dining-car porter, who strode down the aisle and announced the first call to lunch in the dining-car.
“I wonder what the fellow is reading,” said Armiston to himself. He peeped over the man’s shoulder and was interested at once, for the stranger was reading a copy of a magazine called by the vulgar The Whited Sepulcher. It was the pride of this magazine that no man on earth could read it without the aid of a dictionary. Yet this person seemed to be enthralled. And what was more to the point, and vastly pleasing to Armiston, the man was at that moment engrossed in one of Armiston’s own effusions. It was one of his crime stories that had won him praise and lucre. It concerned the Infallible Godahl.
These stories were pure reason incarnate in the person of a scientific thief. The plot was invariably so logical that it seemed more like the output of some machine than of a human mind. Of course the plots were impossible, because the fiction thief had to be an incredible genius to carry out the details. But nevertheless they were highly entertaining, fascinating, and dramatic at one and the same time.
And this individual read the story through without winking an eyelash—as though the mental effort cost him nothing—and then, to Armiston’s delight, turned back to the beginning and read it again. The author threw out his chest and shot his cuffs. It was not often that such unconscious tribute fell to his lot. He took the card of his unknown benefactor. It read:
MR. J. BORDEN BENSON
* * *
THE TOWERS NEW YORK CITY
“Humph!” snorted Armiston. “An aristocrat—and a snob too!”
At this moment the aristocrat turned in his chair and handed the magazine to his companion. All his bad humor was gone.
“Are you familiar,” he asked, “with this man Armiston’s work? I mean these scientific thief stories that are running now.”
“Ye—yes. Oh, yes,” sputtered Armiston, hastily putting the other’s card away. “I—in fact, you know—I take them every morning before breakfast.”
In a way this was the truth, for Armiston always began his day’s writing before breakfasting.
Mr. Benson smiled—a very fine smile at once boyish and sophisticated.
“Rather a heavy diet early in the morning, I should say,” he replied. “Have you read this last one then?”
“Oh, yes,” said the delighted author.
“What do you think of it?” asked Benson.
The author puckered his lips.
“It is on a par with the others,” he said.
“Yes,” said Benson thoughtfully. “I should say the same thing. And when we have said that there is nothing left to say. They are truly a remarkable product. Quite unique, you know. And yet,” he said, frowning at Armiston, “I believe that this man Armiston is to be ranked as the most dangerous man in the world to-day.”
“Oh, I say——” began Armiston. But he checked himself, chuckling. He was very glad Mr. Benson had not looked at his card.
“I mean it,” said the other decidedly. “And you think so yourself, I fully believe. No thinking man could do otherwise.”
“In just what way? I must confess I have never thought of his work as anything but pure invention.”
It was truly delicious. Armiston would certainly make copy of this person.
“I will grant,” said Benson, “that there is not a thief in the world to-day clever enough—brainy enough—to take advantage of the suggestions put forth in these stories. But some day there will arise a man to whom they will be as simple as an ordinary blueprint, and he will profit accordingly. This magazine, by printing these stories, is merely furnishing him with his tools, showing him how to work. And the worst of it is——”
“Just a minute,” said the author. “Agreeing for the moment that these stories will be the tools of Armiston’s hero in real life some day, how about the popular magazines? They print ten such stories to one of these by Armiston.”
“Ah, my friend,” said Benson, “you forget one thing: The popular magazines deal with real life—the possible, the usual. And in that very thing they protect the public against sharpers, by exposing the methods of those same sharpers. But with Armiston—no. Much as I enjoy him as an intellectual treat, I am afraid——”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he fell to shaking his head, as though in amazement at the devilish ingenuity of the author under discussion.
“I am certainly delighted,” thought that author, “that my disagreeable benefactor did not have the good grace to look at my card. This is really most entertaining.” And then aloud, and treading on thin ice: “I should be very glad to tell Oliver what you say and see what he has to say about it.”
Benson’s face broke into a wreath of wrinkles:
“Do you know him? Well, I declare! That is a privilege. I heartily wish you would tell him.”
“Would you like to meet him? I am under obligations to you. I can arrange a little dinner for a few of us.”
“No,” said Benson, shaking his head; “I would rather go on reading him without knowing him. Authors are so disappointing in real life. He may be some puny, anemic little half-portion, with dirty fingernails and all the rest that goes with genius. No offense to your friend! Besides, I am afraid I might quarrel with him.”
“Last call for lunch in the dinin’ cy—yah—aa,” sang the porter. Armiston was looking at his fingernails as the porter passed. They were manicured once a day.
“Come lunch with me,” said Benson heartily. “I should be pleased to have you as my guest. I apologize for being rude to you at the ticket window, but I did want to catch this train mighty bad.”
Armiston laughed. “Well, you have paid my carfare,” he said, “and I won’t deny I am hungry enough to eat a hundred-and-ten-pound rail. I will let you buy me a meal, being penniless.”
Benson arose, and as he drew out his handkerchief the card Armiston had given him fluttered into that worthy’s lap. Armiston closed his hand over it, chuckling again. Fate had given him the chance of preserving his incognito with this person as long as he wished. It would be a rare treat to get him ranting again about the author Armiston.
But Armiston’s host did not rant against his favorite author. In fact he was so enthusiastic over that man’s genius that the same qualities which he decried as a danger to society in his opinion only added luster to the work. Benson asked his guest innumerable questions as to the personal qualities of his ideal, and Armiston shamelessly constructed a truly remarkable person. The other listened entranced.
“No, I don’t want to know him,” he said. “In the first place I haven’t the time, and in the second I’d be sure to start a row. And then there is another thing: If he is half the man I take him to be from what you say, he wouldn’t stand for people fawning on him and telling him what a wonder he is. That’s about what I should be doing, I am afraid.”
“Oh,” said Armiston, “he isn’t so bad as that. He is a—well, a sensible chap, with clean fingernails and all that, you know, and he gets a haircut once every three weeks, the same as the rest of us.”
“I am glad to hear you say so, Mister—er——”
Benson fell to chuckling.
“By gad,” he said, “here we have been talking with each other for an hour, and I haven’t so much as taken a squint at your card to see who you are!”
He searched for the card Armiston had given him.
“Call it Brown,” said Armiston, lying gorgeously and with a
feeling of utmost righteousness. “Martin Brown, single, read-and-write, color white, laced shoes and derby hat, as the police say.”
“All right, Mr. Brown; glad to know you. We will have some cigars. You have no idea how much you interest me, Mr. Brown. How much does Armiston get for his stories?”
“Every word he writes brings him the price of a good cigar. I should say he makes forty thousand a year.”
“Humph! That is better than Godahl, his star creation, could bag as a thief, I imagine, let alone the danger of getting snipped with a pistol ball on a venture.”
Armiston puffed up his chest and shot his cuffs again.
“How does he get his plots?”
Armiston knitted his ponderous brows. “There’s the rub,” he said. “You can talk about so-and-so much a word until you are deaf, dumb, and blind. But, after all, it isn’t the number of words or how they are strung together that makes a story. It is the ideas. And ideas are scarce.”
“I have an idea that I have always wanted to have Armiston get hold of, just to see what he could do with it. If you will pardon me, to my way of thinking the really important thing isn’t the ideas, but how to work out the details.”
“What’s your idea?” asked Armiston hastily. He was not averse to appropriating anything he encountered in real life and dressing it up to suit his taste. “I’ll pass it on to Armiston, if you say so.”
“Will you? That’s capital. To begin with,” Mr. Benson said as he twirled his brandy glass with long, lean, silky fingers—a hand Armiston thought he would not like to have handle him in a rage—“To begin with, Godahl, this thief, is not an ordinary thief, he is a highbrow. He has made some big hauls. He must be a very rich man now—eh? You see that he is quite real to me. By this time, I should say, Godahl has acquired such a fortune that thieving for mere money is no longer an object. What does he do? Sit down and live on his income? Not much. He is a person of refined tastes with an eye for the esthetic. He desires art objects, rare porcelains, a gem of rare cut or color set by Benvenuto Cellini, a Leonardo da Vinci—did Godahl steal the Mona Lisa, by the way? He is the most likely person I can think of—or perhaps a Gutenberg Bible. Treasures, things of exquisite beauty to look at, to enjoy in secret, not to show to other people. That is the natural development of this man Godahl, eh?”
