P G Wodehouse, page 26
“Well, Skinner, my man,” said Jimmy, “how goes it?”
Mr. Crocker looked about him cautiously. Th
en his priestly
manner fell from him like a robe, and he bounded forward.
“Jimmy!” he exclaimed, seizing his son’s hand and shaking it
violently. “Say, it’s great seeing you again, Jim!”
Jimmy drew himself up haughtily.
“Skinner, my good menial, you forget yourself strangely! You
will be getting fi red if you mitt the handsome guest in this chummy
fashion!” He slapped his father on the back. “Dad, this is great! How
on earth do you come to be here? What’s the idea? Why the but-
tling? When did you come over? Tell me all!”
Mr. Crocker hoisted himself nimbly onto the writing-desk, and
sat there, beaming, with dangling legs.
“It was your letter that did it, Jimmy. Say, Jim, there wasn’t any
need for you to do a thing like that just for me.”
“Well, I thought you would have a better chance of being a peer
without me around. By the way, dad, how did my step-mother take
the Lord Percy episode?”
A shadow fell upon Mr. Crocker’s happy face.
178
PICADILLY JIM
“I don’t like to do much thinking about your step-mother,” he
said. “She was pretty sore about Percy. And she was pretty sore about
your lighting out for America. But, gee! what she must be feeling
like now that I’ve come over, I daren’t let myself think.”
“You haven’t explained that yet. Why did you come over?”
“Well, I’d been feeling homesick – I always do over there in the
baseball season – and then talking with Pett made it worse—”
“Talking with Pett? Did you see him, then, when he was in
London?”
“See him? I let him in!”
“How?”
“Into the house, I mean. I had just gone to the front door to
see what sort of a day it was – I wanted to know if there had been
enough rain in the night to stop my having to watch that cricket
game – and just as I got there the bell rang. I opened the door.”
“A revoltingly plebeian thing to do! I’m ashamed of you, dad!
Th
ey won’t stand for that sort of thing in the House of Lords!”
“Well, before I knew what was happening they had taken me
for the butler. I didn’t want your step-mother to know I’d been
opening doors – you remember how touchy she was always about it
so I just let it go at that and jollied them along. But I just couldn’t
help asking the old man how the pennant race was making out,
and that tickled him so much that he off ered me a job here as but-
ler if I ever wanted to make a change. And then your note came
saying that you were going to New York, and – well, I couldn’t
help myself. You couldn’t have kept me in London with ropes. I
sneaked out next day and bought a passage on the Carmantic – she
sailed the Wednesday after you left – and came straight here. Th
ey
gave me this job right away.” Mr. Crocker paused, and a holy light
of enthusiasm made his homely features almost beautiful. “Say,
Jim, I’ve seen a ball-game every darned day since I landed! Say,
two days running Larry Doyle made home-runs! But, gosh! that
guy Klem is one swell robber! See here!” Mr. Crocker sprang down
from the desk, and snatched up a handful of books, which he pro-
ceeded to distribute about the fl oor. “Th
ere were two men on bases
in the sixth and What’s-his-name came to bat. He lined one out to
centre-fi eld – where this book is – and—”
“Pull yourself together, Skinner! You can’t monkey about with
the employer’s library like that.” Jimmy restored the books to their
179
P. G. WODEHOUSE
places. “Simmer down and tell me more. Postpone the gossip from
the diamond. What plans have you made? Have you considered the
future at all? You aren’t going to hold down this buttling job forever,
are you? When do you go back to London?”
Th
e light died out of Mr. Crocker’s face.
“I guess I shall have to go back some time. But how can I yet,
with the Giants leading the league like this?”
“But did you just light out without saying anything?”
“I left a note for your step-mother telling her I had gone to
America for a vacation. Jimmy, I hate to think what she’s going to
do to me when she gets me back!”
“Assert yourself, dad! Tell her that woman’s place is the home
and man’s the ball-park! Be fi rm!”
Mr. Crocker shook his head dubiously.
“It’s all very well to talk that way when you’re three thousand
miles from home, but you know as well as I do, Jim, that your step-
mother, though she’s a delightful woman, isn’t the sort you can as-
sert yourself with. Look at this sister of hers here. I guess you haven’t
been in the house long enough to have noticed, but she’s very like
Eugenia in some ways. She’s the boss all right, and old Pett does
just what he’s told to. I guess it’s the same with me, Jim. Th
ere’s a
certain type of man that’s just born to have it put over on him by a
certain type of woman. I’m that sort of man and your stepmother’s
that sort of woman. No, I guess I’m going to get mine all right, and
the only thing to do is to keep it from stopping me having a good
time now.”
Th
ere was truth in what he said, and Jimmy recognised it. He
changed the subject.
“Well, never mind that. Th
ere’s no sense in worrying oneself
about the future. Tell me, dad, where did you get all the ‘dinner-is-
served, madam’ stuff ? How did you ever learn to be a butler?”
“Bayliss taught me back in London. And, of course, I’ve played
butlers when I was on the stage.”
Jimmy did not speak for a moment.
“Did you ever play a kidnapper, dad?” he asked at length.
“Sure. I was Chicago Ed. in a crook play called ‘Th
is Way Out.’
Why, surely you saw me in that? I got some good notices.”
Jimmy nodded.
180
PICADILLY JIM
“Of course. I knew I’d seen you play that sort of part some time.
You came on during the dark scene and—”
“—switched on the lights and—”
“—covered the bunch with your gun while they were still blink-
ing! You were great in that part, dad.”
“It was a good part,” said Mr. Crocker modestly. “It had fat. I’d
like to have a chance to play a kidnapper again. Th
ere’s a lot of pep
to kidnappers.”
“You shall play one again,” said Jimmy. “I am putting on a little
sketch with a kidnapper as the star part.”
“Eh? A sketch? You, Jim? Where?”
“Here. In this house. It is entitled ‘Kidnapping Ogden’ and
opens to-night.”
Mr. Crocker looked at his only son in concern. Jimmy appeared
to him to be rambling.
“Amateur theatricals?” he hazarded.
“In the sense that there is no pay for performing, yes. Dad, you
know that kid Ogden upstairs? Well, it’s quite simple. I want you to
kidnap him for me.”
Mr. Crocker sat down heavily. He shook his head.
“I don’t follow all this.”
“Of course not. I haven’t begun to explain. Dad, in your rambles
through this joint you’ve noticed a girl with glorious red-gold hair,
I imagine?”
“Ann Chester?”
“Ann Chester. I’m going to marry her.”
“Jimmy!”
“But she doesn’t know it yet. Now, follow me carefully, dad. Five
years ago Ann Chester wrote a book of poems. It’s on that desk there.
You were using it a moment back as second-base or something. Now,
I was working at that time on the Chronicle. I wrote a skit on those
poems for the Sunday paper. Do you begin to follow the plot?”
“She’s got it in for you? She’s sore?”
“Exactly. Get that fi rmly fi xed in your mind, because it’s the
source from which all the rest of the story springs.”
Mr. Crocker interrupted.
“But I don’t understand. You say she’s sore at you. Well, how is it
that you came in together looking as if you were good friends when
I let you in this morning?”
181
P. G. WODEHOUSE
“I was waiting for you to ask that. Th
e explanation is that she
doesn’t know that I am Jimmy Crocker.”
“But you came here saying that you were Jimmy Crocker.”
“Quite right. And that is where the plot thickens. I made Ann’s
acquaintance fi rst in London and then on the boat. I had found out
that Jimmy Crocker was the man she hated most in the world, so I
took another name. I called myself Bayliss.”
“Bayliss!”
“I had to think of something quick, because the clerk at the
shipping offi
ce was waiting to fi ll in my ticket. I had just been talk-
ing to Bayliss on the phone and his was the only name that came
into my mind. You know how it is when you try to think of a name
suddenly. Now mark the sequel. Old Bayliss came to see me off at
Paddington. Ann was there and saw me. She said ‘Good evening,
Mr. Bayliss’ or something, and naturally old Bayliss replied ‘What
ho!’ or words to that eff ect. Th
e only way to handle the situation was
to introduce him as my father. I did so. Ann, therefore, thinks that
I am a young man named Bayliss who has come over to America
to make his fortune. We now come to the third reel. I met Ann
by chance at the Knickerbocker and took her to lunch. While we
were lunching, that confi rmed congenital idiot, Reggie Bartling,
who happened to have come over to America as well, came up and
called me by my name. I knew that, if Ann discovered who I really
was, she would have nothing more to do with me, so I gave Reg-
gie the haughty stare and told him that he had made a mistake. He
ambled away – and possibly committed suicide in his anguish at
having made such a bloomer – leaving Ann discussing with me the
extraordinary coincidence of my being Jimmy Crocker’s double. Do
you follow the story of my life so far?”
Mr. Crocker, who had been listening with wrinkled brow and
other signs of rapt attention, nodded.
“I understand all that. But how did you come to get into this
house?”
“Th
at is reel four. I am getting to that. It seems that Ann, who
is the sweetest girl on earth and always on the lookout to do some
one a kindness, had decided, in the interests of the boy’s future,
to remove young Ogden Ford from his present sphere, where he is
being spoiled and ruined, and send him down to a man on Long
Island who would keep him for awhile and instil the fi rst principles
182
PICADILLY JIM
of decency into him. Her accomplice in this admirable scheme was
Jerry Mitchell.”
“Jerry Mitchell!”
“Who, as you know, got fi red yesterday. Jerry was to have done
the rough work of the job. But, being fi red, he was no longer avail-
able. I, therefore, off ered to take his place. So here I am.”
“You’re going to kidnap that boy?”
“No. You are.”
“Me!”
“Precisely. You are going to play a benefi t performance of your
world-famed success, Chicago Ed. Let me explain further. Owing
to circumstances which I need not go into, Ogden has found out
that I am really Jimmy Crocker, so he refuses to have anything more
to do with me. I had deceived him into believing that I was a profes-
sional kidnapper, and he came to me and off ered to let me kidnap
him if I would go fi fty-fi fty with him in the ransom!”
“Gosh!”
“Yes, he’s an intelligent child, full of that sort of bright ideas.
Well, now he has found that I am not all his fancy painted me, he
wouldn’t come away with me; and I want you to understudy me
while the going is good. In the fi fth reel, which will be released to-
night after the household has retired to rest, you will be featured.
It’s got to be tonight, because it has just occurred to me that Ogden,
knowing that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may go to him with the
same proposal that he made to me.”
“Lord Wisbeach a crook!”
“Of the worst description. He is here to steal that explosive stuff
of Willie Partridge’s. But as I have blocked that play, he may turn
his attention to Ogden.”
“But, Jimmy, if that fellow is a crook – how do you know he is?”
“He told me so himself.”
“Well, then, why don’t you expose him?”
“Because in order to do so, Skinner my man, I should have to
explain that I was really Jimmy Crocker, and the time is not yet ripe
for that. To my thinking, the time will not be ripe till you have got
safely away with Ogden Ford. I can then go to Ann and say ‘I may
have played you a rotten trick in the past, but I have done you a good
turn now, so let’s forget the past!’ So you see that everything now
depends on you, dad. I’m not asking you to do anything diffi
cult. I’ll
183
P. G. WODEHOUSE
go round to the boarding-house now and tell Jerry Mitchell about
what we have arranged, and have him waiting outside here in a car.
Th
en all you will have to do is to go to Ogden, play a short scene
as Chicago Ed., escort him to the car, and then go back to bed and
have a good sleep. Once Ogden thinks you are a professional kid-
napper, you won’t have any diffi
culty at all. Get it into your head
that he wants to be kidnapped. Surely you can tackle this light and
attractive job? Why, it will be a treat for you to do a bit of character
acting once more!”
Jimmy had struck the right note. His father’s eyes began to
gleam with excitement. Th
e scent of the footlights seemed to dilate
his nostrils.
“I was always good at that rough-neck stuff ,” he murmured
meditatively. “I used to eat it!”
“Exactly,” said Jimmy. “Look at it in the right way, and I am do-
ing you a kindness in giving you this chance.”
Mr. Crocker rubbed his cheek with his forefi nger.
“You’d want me to make up for the part?” he asked wistfully.
“Of course!”
“You want me to do it to-night?”
“At about two in the morning, I thought.”
“I’ll do it, Jim!”
Jimmy grasped his hand.
“I knew I could rely on you, dad.”
Mr. Crocker was following a train of thought.
“Dark wig . . . blue chin . . . heavy eyebrows . . . I guess I can’t
do better than my old Chicago Ed. make-up. Say, Jimmy, how am I
to get to the kid?”
“Th
at’ll be all right. You can stay in my room till the time comes
to go to him. Use it as a dressing-room.”
“How am I to get him out of the house?”
“Th
rough this room. I’ll tell Jerry to wait out on the side-street
with the car from two o’clock on.”
Mr. Crocker considered these arrangements.
“Th
at seems to be about all,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s anything else.”
“I’ll slip downtown and buy the props.”
“I’ll go and tell Jerry.”
A thought struck Mr. Crocker.
184
PICADILLY JIM
“You’d better tell Jerry to make up, too. He doesn’t want the kid
recognising him and squealing on him later.”
Jimmy was lost in admiration of his father’s resource.
“You think of everything, dad! Th
at wouldn’t have occurred to
me. You certainly do take to Crime in the most wonderful way. It
seems to come naturally to you!”
Mr. Crocker smirked modestly.
Chapter
Celestine Imparts Information
Plit is only as strong as its weakest link. Th
e best-laid schemes of
mice and men gang agley if one of the mice is a mental defective or
if one of the men is a Jerry Mitchell. . . .
Celestine, Mrs. Pett’s maid – she who was really Maggie O’Toole
and whom Jerry loved with a strength which deprived him of even
that small amount of intelligence which had been bestowed upon
him by Nature – came into the house-keeper’s room at about ten
o’clock that night. Th
e domestic staff had gone in a body to the mov-
ing-pictures, and the only occupant of the room was the new par-
lourmaid, who was sitting in a hard chair, reading Schopenhauer.
Mr. Crocker looked about him cautiously. Th
en his priestly
manner fell from him like a robe, and he bounded forward.
“Jimmy!” he exclaimed, seizing his son’s hand and shaking it
violently. “Say, it’s great seeing you again, Jim!”
Jimmy drew himself up haughtily.
“Skinner, my good menial, you forget yourself strangely! You
will be getting fi red if you mitt the handsome guest in this chummy
fashion!” He slapped his father on the back. “Dad, this is great! How
on earth do you come to be here? What’s the idea? Why the but-
tling? When did you come over? Tell me all!”
Mr. Crocker hoisted himself nimbly onto the writing-desk, and
sat there, beaming, with dangling legs.
“It was your letter that did it, Jimmy. Say, Jim, there wasn’t any
need for you to do a thing like that just for me.”
“Well, I thought you would have a better chance of being a peer
without me around. By the way, dad, how did my step-mother take
the Lord Percy episode?”
A shadow fell upon Mr. Crocker’s happy face.
178
PICADILLY JIM
“I don’t like to do much thinking about your step-mother,” he
said. “She was pretty sore about Percy. And she was pretty sore about
your lighting out for America. But, gee! what she must be feeling
like now that I’ve come over, I daren’t let myself think.”
“You haven’t explained that yet. Why did you come over?”
“Well, I’d been feeling homesick – I always do over there in the
baseball season – and then talking with Pett made it worse—”
“Talking with Pett? Did you see him, then, when he was in
London?”
“See him? I let him in!”
“How?”
“Into the house, I mean. I had just gone to the front door to
see what sort of a day it was – I wanted to know if there had been
enough rain in the night to stop my having to watch that cricket
game – and just as I got there the bell rang. I opened the door.”
“A revoltingly plebeian thing to do! I’m ashamed of you, dad!
Th
ey won’t stand for that sort of thing in the House of Lords!”
“Well, before I knew what was happening they had taken me
for the butler. I didn’t want your step-mother to know I’d been
opening doors – you remember how touchy she was always about it
so I just let it go at that and jollied them along. But I just couldn’t
help asking the old man how the pennant race was making out,
and that tickled him so much that he off ered me a job here as but-
ler if I ever wanted to make a change. And then your note came
saying that you were going to New York, and – well, I couldn’t
help myself. You couldn’t have kept me in London with ropes. I
sneaked out next day and bought a passage on the Carmantic – she
sailed the Wednesday after you left – and came straight here. Th
ey
gave me this job right away.” Mr. Crocker paused, and a holy light
of enthusiasm made his homely features almost beautiful. “Say,
Jim, I’ve seen a ball-game every darned day since I landed! Say,
two days running Larry Doyle made home-runs! But, gosh! that
guy Klem is one swell robber! See here!” Mr. Crocker sprang down
from the desk, and snatched up a handful of books, which he pro-
ceeded to distribute about the fl oor. “Th
ere were two men on bases
in the sixth and What’s-his-name came to bat. He lined one out to
centre-fi eld – where this book is – and—”
“Pull yourself together, Skinner! You can’t monkey about with
the employer’s library like that.” Jimmy restored the books to their
179
P. G. WODEHOUSE
places. “Simmer down and tell me more. Postpone the gossip from
the diamond. What plans have you made? Have you considered the
future at all? You aren’t going to hold down this buttling job forever,
are you? When do you go back to London?”
Th
e light died out of Mr. Crocker’s face.
“I guess I shall have to go back some time. But how can I yet,
with the Giants leading the league like this?”
“But did you just light out without saying anything?”
“I left a note for your step-mother telling her I had gone to
America for a vacation. Jimmy, I hate to think what she’s going to
do to me when she gets me back!”
“Assert yourself, dad! Tell her that woman’s place is the home
and man’s the ball-park! Be fi rm!”
Mr. Crocker shook his head dubiously.
“It’s all very well to talk that way when you’re three thousand
miles from home, but you know as well as I do, Jim, that your step-
mother, though she’s a delightful woman, isn’t the sort you can as-
sert yourself with. Look at this sister of hers here. I guess you haven’t
been in the house long enough to have noticed, but she’s very like
Eugenia in some ways. She’s the boss all right, and old Pett does
just what he’s told to. I guess it’s the same with me, Jim. Th
ere’s a
certain type of man that’s just born to have it put over on him by a
certain type of woman. I’m that sort of man and your stepmother’s
that sort of woman. No, I guess I’m going to get mine all right, and
the only thing to do is to keep it from stopping me having a good
time now.”
Th
ere was truth in what he said, and Jimmy recognised it. He
changed the subject.
“Well, never mind that. Th
ere’s no sense in worrying oneself
about the future. Tell me, dad, where did you get all the ‘dinner-is-
served, madam’ stuff ? How did you ever learn to be a butler?”
“Bayliss taught me back in London. And, of course, I’ve played
butlers when I was on the stage.”
Jimmy did not speak for a moment.
“Did you ever play a kidnapper, dad?” he asked at length.
“Sure. I was Chicago Ed. in a crook play called ‘Th
is Way Out.’
Why, surely you saw me in that? I got some good notices.”
Jimmy nodded.
180
PICADILLY JIM
“Of course. I knew I’d seen you play that sort of part some time.
You came on during the dark scene and—”
“—switched on the lights and—”
“—covered the bunch with your gun while they were still blink-
ing! You were great in that part, dad.”
“It was a good part,” said Mr. Crocker modestly. “It had fat. I’d
like to have a chance to play a kidnapper again. Th
ere’s a lot of pep
to kidnappers.”
“You shall play one again,” said Jimmy. “I am putting on a little
sketch with a kidnapper as the star part.”
“Eh? A sketch? You, Jim? Where?”
“Here. In this house. It is entitled ‘Kidnapping Ogden’ and
opens to-night.”
Mr. Crocker looked at his only son in concern. Jimmy appeared
to him to be rambling.
“Amateur theatricals?” he hazarded.
“In the sense that there is no pay for performing, yes. Dad, you
know that kid Ogden upstairs? Well, it’s quite simple. I want you to
kidnap him for me.”
Mr. Crocker sat down heavily. He shook his head.
“I don’t follow all this.”
“Of course not. I haven’t begun to explain. Dad, in your rambles
through this joint you’ve noticed a girl with glorious red-gold hair,
I imagine?”
“Ann Chester?”
“Ann Chester. I’m going to marry her.”
“Jimmy!”
“But she doesn’t know it yet. Now, follow me carefully, dad. Five
years ago Ann Chester wrote a book of poems. It’s on that desk there.
You were using it a moment back as second-base or something. Now,
I was working at that time on the Chronicle. I wrote a skit on those
poems for the Sunday paper. Do you begin to follow the plot?”
“She’s got it in for you? She’s sore?”
“Exactly. Get that fi rmly fi xed in your mind, because it’s the
source from which all the rest of the story springs.”
Mr. Crocker interrupted.
“But I don’t understand. You say she’s sore at you. Well, how is it
that you came in together looking as if you were good friends when
I let you in this morning?”
181
P. G. WODEHOUSE
“I was waiting for you to ask that. Th
e explanation is that she
doesn’t know that I am Jimmy Crocker.”
“But you came here saying that you were Jimmy Crocker.”
“Quite right. And that is where the plot thickens. I made Ann’s
acquaintance fi rst in London and then on the boat. I had found out
that Jimmy Crocker was the man she hated most in the world, so I
took another name. I called myself Bayliss.”
“Bayliss!”
“I had to think of something quick, because the clerk at the
shipping offi
ce was waiting to fi ll in my ticket. I had just been talk-
ing to Bayliss on the phone and his was the only name that came
into my mind. You know how it is when you try to think of a name
suddenly. Now mark the sequel. Old Bayliss came to see me off at
Paddington. Ann was there and saw me. She said ‘Good evening,
Mr. Bayliss’ or something, and naturally old Bayliss replied ‘What
ho!’ or words to that eff ect. Th
e only way to handle the situation was
to introduce him as my father. I did so. Ann, therefore, thinks that
I am a young man named Bayliss who has come over to America
to make his fortune. We now come to the third reel. I met Ann
by chance at the Knickerbocker and took her to lunch. While we
were lunching, that confi rmed congenital idiot, Reggie Bartling,
who happened to have come over to America as well, came up and
called me by my name. I knew that, if Ann discovered who I really
was, she would have nothing more to do with me, so I gave Reg-
gie the haughty stare and told him that he had made a mistake. He
ambled away – and possibly committed suicide in his anguish at
having made such a bloomer – leaving Ann discussing with me the
extraordinary coincidence of my being Jimmy Crocker’s double. Do
you follow the story of my life so far?”
Mr. Crocker, who had been listening with wrinkled brow and
other signs of rapt attention, nodded.
“I understand all that. But how did you come to get into this
house?”
“Th
at is reel four. I am getting to that. It seems that Ann, who
is the sweetest girl on earth and always on the lookout to do some
one a kindness, had decided, in the interests of the boy’s future,
to remove young Ogden Ford from his present sphere, where he is
being spoiled and ruined, and send him down to a man on Long
Island who would keep him for awhile and instil the fi rst principles
182
PICADILLY JIM
of decency into him. Her accomplice in this admirable scheme was
Jerry Mitchell.”
“Jerry Mitchell!”
“Who, as you know, got fi red yesterday. Jerry was to have done
the rough work of the job. But, being fi red, he was no longer avail-
able. I, therefore, off ered to take his place. So here I am.”
“You’re going to kidnap that boy?”
“No. You are.”
“Me!”
“Precisely. You are going to play a benefi t performance of your
world-famed success, Chicago Ed. Let me explain further. Owing
to circumstances which I need not go into, Ogden has found out
that I am really Jimmy Crocker, so he refuses to have anything more
to do with me. I had deceived him into believing that I was a profes-
sional kidnapper, and he came to me and off ered to let me kidnap
him if I would go fi fty-fi fty with him in the ransom!”
“Gosh!”
“Yes, he’s an intelligent child, full of that sort of bright ideas.
Well, now he has found that I am not all his fancy painted me, he
wouldn’t come away with me; and I want you to understudy me
while the going is good. In the fi fth reel, which will be released to-
night after the household has retired to rest, you will be featured.
It’s got to be tonight, because it has just occurred to me that Ogden,
knowing that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may go to him with the
same proposal that he made to me.”
“Lord Wisbeach a crook!”
“Of the worst description. He is here to steal that explosive stuff
of Willie Partridge’s. But as I have blocked that play, he may turn
his attention to Ogden.”
“But, Jimmy, if that fellow is a crook – how do you know he is?”
“He told me so himself.”
“Well, then, why don’t you expose him?”
“Because in order to do so, Skinner my man, I should have to
explain that I was really Jimmy Crocker, and the time is not yet ripe
for that. To my thinking, the time will not be ripe till you have got
safely away with Ogden Ford. I can then go to Ann and say ‘I may
have played you a rotten trick in the past, but I have done you a good
turn now, so let’s forget the past!’ So you see that everything now
depends on you, dad. I’m not asking you to do anything diffi
cult. I’ll
183
P. G. WODEHOUSE
go round to the boarding-house now and tell Jerry Mitchell about
what we have arranged, and have him waiting outside here in a car.
Th
en all you will have to do is to go to Ogden, play a short scene
as Chicago Ed., escort him to the car, and then go back to bed and
have a good sleep. Once Ogden thinks you are a professional kid-
napper, you won’t have any diffi
culty at all. Get it into your head
that he wants to be kidnapped. Surely you can tackle this light and
attractive job? Why, it will be a treat for you to do a bit of character
acting once more!”
Jimmy had struck the right note. His father’s eyes began to
gleam with excitement. Th
e scent of the footlights seemed to dilate
his nostrils.
“I was always good at that rough-neck stuff ,” he murmured
meditatively. “I used to eat it!”
“Exactly,” said Jimmy. “Look at it in the right way, and I am do-
ing you a kindness in giving you this chance.”
Mr. Crocker rubbed his cheek with his forefi nger.
“You’d want me to make up for the part?” he asked wistfully.
“Of course!”
“You want me to do it to-night?”
“At about two in the morning, I thought.”
“I’ll do it, Jim!”
Jimmy grasped his hand.
“I knew I could rely on you, dad.”
Mr. Crocker was following a train of thought.
“Dark wig . . . blue chin . . . heavy eyebrows . . . I guess I can’t
do better than my old Chicago Ed. make-up. Say, Jimmy, how am I
to get to the kid?”
“Th
at’ll be all right. You can stay in my room till the time comes
to go to him. Use it as a dressing-room.”
“How am I to get him out of the house?”
“Th
rough this room. I’ll tell Jerry to wait out on the side-street
with the car from two o’clock on.”
Mr. Crocker considered these arrangements.
“Th
at seems to be about all,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s anything else.”
“I’ll slip downtown and buy the props.”
“I’ll go and tell Jerry.”
A thought struck Mr. Crocker.
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PICADILLY JIM
“You’d better tell Jerry to make up, too. He doesn’t want the kid
recognising him and squealing on him later.”
Jimmy was lost in admiration of his father’s resource.
“You think of everything, dad! Th
at wouldn’t have occurred to
me. You certainly do take to Crime in the most wonderful way. It
seems to come naturally to you!”
Mr. Crocker smirked modestly.
Chapter
Celestine Imparts Information
Plit is only as strong as its weakest link. Th
e best-laid schemes of
mice and men gang agley if one of the mice is a mental defective or
if one of the men is a Jerry Mitchell. . . .
Celestine, Mrs. Pett’s maid – she who was really Maggie O’Toole
and whom Jerry loved with a strength which deprived him of even
that small amount of intelligence which had been bestowed upon
him by Nature – came into the house-keeper’s room at about ten
o’clock that night. Th
e domestic staff had gone in a body to the mov-
ing-pictures, and the only occupant of the room was the new par-
lourmaid, who was sitting in a hard chair, reading Schopenhauer.
