Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

“Not saying, mind you, that this Flash is in love with the girl — not a bit of it. But she’s all mired down in it herself. Had hold of one of his arms with both of her hands, and clinging like the well-known wistaria. Eyes all shiny, face flushed, drinking in his line of bull with eyes, ears, and all the rest of her senses — except maybe that sixth one we hear so much about. Trouble there, Tug — for the girl and old man Bailey. Maybe for Flash. Watch ’em.”

“Anything else?” I grunted, besting the tie at last.

“Ain’t that enough?” Jim demanded truculently. “Remember, I ain’t been here a week. Just part of one day.”

“That’s a fact, now you mention it, Jim,” I agreed. “Now, get this: Don’t do any night time snoozing while you’re guarding Flash. You can sleep all you want to in the daytime. I’d suggest that you provide yourself with a lot of light literature — Henty, Oliver Optic, and the like. Something that won’t tax you too much. Settle down in Flash’s sitting-room, which is admirably situated for the purpose of watching the only door leading onto the corridor. The bed room has no exit except through the sitting-room.

“Read, but don’t fall asleep while doing it. Tell Flash, if he gets inquisitive, that I’ve ordered you to watch over him carefully, and that you can’t carry out the order while doing a Morpheus.

“Get this, too: If Flash leaves that bedroom, after he has announced his intention of retiring, you go with him. My orders again, if he objects. Don’t let him out of your sight, except in the bedroom. I’m thinking he won’t try anything like that, but you never can tell.

“Frankly, I believe that he is on the level about this job he’s given us — but, again, you never can tell. Report to me, of course, every morning, when you come off watch.”

I buckled on my six-guns; then, as an afterthought, added a derringer to my equipment. It was hard indeed to associate the smiling, debonair, good-looking Flash Santelle with anything evil, but, as I had just said to Jim, you never can tell.

“How’s the scenery?” I asked, after. I was fully geared.

Jim surveyed me critically — pretty much as a trader does a horse which he is mighty suspicious of — and replied:

“O.K, except that you bulge a trifle over each hip. But that will be laid to avoirdupois, rather than hardware, I reckon. On the whole, and considering who they’re on, the glad rags do the tailor proud.

“Don’t forget and split the tails of the coat when you sit down. You might expose your rear attachments, and them cannons certainly ain’t good taste in polite society, and the other is that such ain’t being done. Sit right down on the tails, and let the presser take care of the wrinkles—”

“I merely asked for an opinion, Jim,” I interrupted, “and not a whole statute by the supreme court en banc. Time for dinner, I see, so you’ll have to say the rest of it to yourself. Remember me, old man, about an hour from now — when you’re scoffing with the rest of the servants.”

I made an exit on that, and strolled leisurely down the stairway and joined a group on the big veranda. I’d been introduced at tea time that afternoon and, so far as I knew, had stood the test. So I wasn’t worrying any to speak of.

Uncle Cato was relating something tunny, as I approached, and the group about him did him the honor to laugh appreciatively. They were a cultured and high-toned lot, those guests.

Old Anderson Bailey was paying a good deal in the way of lost social prestige by backing young Mr. Cletus Santelle to the extent of taking him and his uncle up, but he could afford to do as he darned well pleased — and did do just that, on all occasions. He was a bullheaded man, to put it mildly.

His laugh was loudest, and a hand rested friendly upon Uncle Cato’s off shoulder.

Besides his money, Anderson Bailey had something else to distinguish him. A daughter. The girl — about twenty years old — was a blonde, but not the type called dizzy. She was a little slip of a person, slender and graceful, with lots of honest yellow hair, and a pair of big, violet-colored eyes that seemed to be always laughing. If I’d been a trifle older, I’d have loved her like a father.

She had been christened Martha, but later on changed it to Marthe. She’d have changed the family name, too, the story goes, but came squarely up against the old man’s veto when she tried it. She desired it spelled Baillie. The old man wanted it to remain Bailey — and it remained. That episode surely ought to furnish a fair line-up on Marthe.

Roscoe Patterson, a cattle baron of a past era, then a retired magnate of some kind, had a good-looking wife, a fair-looking daughter — and a son who was the real article.