And negligent as could be, Allardyce says: “Then I’ll pay you three thousand. But enough of these petty delays, my man, you had better get cracking. Your deadline is noon tomorrow. Until then you can reach me at the Excelsior Hotel.” And presenting one of his cards, he leaves the shop.
I had made my own hotel known to Kaller in the course of making my purchase, so the next thing that jeweler does is run over to see me. Not wanting to involve little Amelia in the sordid affair, I let him into my bedroom and closed the door. She was taking one of her singing lessons with Signorina Carmella, anyway, in the parlor, and that screeching did not serve to soothe old Kaller’s nerve none.
“A terrible thing has happened, my dear Mr. Crabb,” he says. “That brooch had already been purchased by another and paid for in full, I fear, to one of my associates, although I was in ignorance of the transaction. I wonder whether I might refund your money and take it along. A terrible inconvenience, I know, and I mean to make it up to you, dear sir. Please accept any other piece of jewelry at ten per cent discount.”
I was grinning to myself at a memory of what Allardyce had told me of the bunco philosophy: that in any swindle there was two crooks, both victim and victimizer, and that you couldn’t never work a confidence scheme on a square man. Then, however, he went on to say that in all his travels he had never met an individual of the latter type. But look at old Kaller: he was out to make $2700, in return for which he’d allow me a twenty-buck deduction.
So I didn’t feel no sympathy for him. I said it was out of the question, that my darling little niece in the next room, the famous concert artist, had fell in love with that pretty and I’d rather cut my throat than take it away from her now; that the sale was proper legal and not my lookout if he run an inefficient business.
Well, at length he got to offering me more, and I says money meant nothing in this circumstance, so he increased the sum by degrees, and my only worry is that the old devil would in his desperation get a heart attack and die on my carpet before he got to two thousand, which is what Allardyce and I had decided on as a reasonable amount, for if Kaller’s profit got cut down much more than that he might smell a rodent.
He reached the destination in about two hours, and I says: “Mr. Kaller, you got yourself a deal. I can’t stand to see a human being in misery.”
He had the cash with him, and when he pulled out his roll I regretted not having gone to twenty-five hundred, for it looked like he had brought along that much, but hell, even so, it wasn’t bad for my first time out. I had made a hundred times ten for a couple hours’ work. Later I met Allardyce at a saloon and we split the take down the middle.
“I registered at the Excelsior,” he says, “and left word at the desk for Kaller that I had changed my plans and gone on a hunting trip out west of Topeka, returning in a week, at which time I trusted he and I could do business. That,” he says, “will cover my leisurely escape from town.”
“Where are you going, Allardyce?” I asks, because he led an interesting way of life.
“Oh, St. Louis, I suppose. I’m clean there. And what about yourself, Jack? I would advise your leaving Kansas City. It is true that Kaller has nothing on you, but he will soon get the picture and I imagine might cause you discomfort. What about coming along with me? I think you have a real talent for bunco.”
He didn’t know about Amelia, you see, for I had kept him away from my hotel. After all, he was a crook.
“That might well be,” I says. “But I believe my real calling lays outdoors. I’m heading down to the buffalo country for the winter hunt.”
Allardyce stuck out his hand. “It has been a pleasure, Jack.”
“I’m real proud, Allardyce,” says I, “and I wish you the best in whatever mischief you next take up.”
That was the last I saw of him, standing there in that lowdown saloon, ordering a bottle of champagne, so anxious to begin the high life he couldn’t wait to get to where he could rightly practice it. I had the feeling he would be broke again within a day or so, for what he liked about bunco was the acting required rather than the money gained. What a professional he was! And a real nice fellow who helped me out in K.C.
I give a pittance to my creditors to show good faith and to quiet their baying for a spell, and I laid down an advance payment on a girls’ boarding school that I finally found for Amelia—it was a snob place where the students lived in, with a headmistress so stuck up she could hardly say a word.
