The Substitute Millionaire Page #12

Jack Norman had no idea he was Silas Gyde's sole heir—until the multimillionaire was killed by an anarchist's bomb and Jack found himself the richest man in New York. The inheritance included a warning from his benefactor about an elaborate protection scheme promising to protect the wealthy from anarchists, in which Gyde had declined to enroll. Recognizing his own danger, Jack enlists a out-of-work actor to take on his own identity, while he, in the guise of Jack Norman's secretary, works furiously behind the scenes to break up the gang and unmask their leader, the mysterious Mr. B.

• Fiction
• Mystery

								


"Easy, Mrs. Regan," whispered Jack.  "That clerk's got ears like a water pitcher."

"I'll be careful.  What did you want of me, Mr. Nor--Robinson?"

"First, I want you to know my friend Jumbo," said Jack, handing him over.  "Let him have my eats while I'm away."

"Laws!  Ain't he cute!"

"I'll telephone in every little while for news.  Please pack up my things for me.  I'll tell you later where to send them."

"You're going to leave!" cried Mrs. Regan.  "But of course it's natural," she added quickly.

"Don't you make any mistake," said Jack.  "I'm not going to forget any of the friends who knew me when I was poor."

"I done my best for you!  But with prices the way they is----!"

"I know.  Now I want you to promise not to give out a thing about me, no descriptions of me, no information of any kind.  I know it will be hard to resist those taking young reporters, but I ask it as a favor."

"Oh, Mr. N--Robinson!  Go on!  At my age!--  It's little they'll get out of me, I can tell you!"

"I knew I could bank on you.  I'll tell you all about it some day. I've got to beat it now."

"Good-by.  Oh--wait!  I almost forgot.  I'm that excited!  A messenger boy left a note for you at the door this evening.  I brought it along."

Jack took the note and left.  Mrs. Regan, a little disappointed at not being taken further into his confidence, turned in the other direction. When she was out of sight, Jack stopped under a street lamp and examined what she had given him.

It was a cheap, flimsy envelope much soiled.  The address was scrawled in an illiterate hand.  He opened it, and this was what he read:

"Jack Norman:

"We don't call you dear sir, because this ain't no friendly letter. We know all about you.  We're the gang what croaked old Silas Gyde, and we're going to get you next, see?  You needn't think you're going to be let to blow in his tainted money.  You millionaires are a dirty disgrace, and we're going to rid the country of you.  You can't hide away from us.  We are everywhere.  Gun, knife, bomb or dope: it's all the same to us.  And if you show this to the police you'll only get yours quicker.

"The Red Gang."

Jack's young face turned grim.  "So it's begun!" he thought.  "Well, I'm just as glad they didn't keep me in suspense.  I'm ready to start. We'll see who's got the best set of wits!"

7

Jack, forbidden the refuge of his own little room, continued to walk the streets, while he debated how best to meet the complicated situation that faced him.  Stumbling at last on Bryant Park in his wanderings, he dropped on a bench.  His eyes moved sightlessly over the scene before him.

"Once the newspaper guys get hold of me, and print my picture on the front page, I'm a marked man," he was thinking, "I couldn't walk down the street then, without a crowd following.  It would be a cinch for this gang to keep tab on me, and a fat chance I'd have of getting anything on them.  So I've got to keep out of the papers if I can. That's decided.

"But it's not going to be so easy.  For the more of a mystery I make of myself the hotter they'll get on my trail.  A paper like the Sphere, I suppose, would spend a hundred thousand to run me down.  What I ought to do is to get some harmless young fellow to take the part of Jack Norman, while I lie low and do my work."

"Who could I get in our gang?  There's Bill Endicott; good fellow, but too much of a talker, specially with a girl.  He'd never do.  There's Joe Welland, he's close enough--but too thick.  He couldn't take a part any more than a bronze statue.  They say Stan Larkin and I look alike. He might do.  No!  He's too hard-headed.  He wouldn't do what I wanted. It's too risky anyhow to let one of the gang in on this.  The others would have to know.  I'd better keep away from them for the present."

Jack's reflections were interrupted by an appeal from alongside: "Say, fella, can you help a fella to a meal?"

He became aware for the first that he shared the bench with another. It was a fat youth of about his own age with an expression at once piteous and absurd.  There is bound to be something ludicrous in the spectacle of a fat beggar.  Chubby cheeks were designed to wear a good-natured smile.  The shame-faced look that accompanied the appeal did not suggest the professional beggar in this case.

Jack had reached the point where he was glad of a diversion.  His thoughts had begun to chase themselves in circles.  "What's the trouble, 'Bo?" he asked in friendly fashion.

"Down on my luck, that's all.  I'm an actor.  Got a job to walk on in a big show called 'Ulysses.'  Rehearsed three weeks and then they flivved.  I had borrowed every cent I could on the job, and now I dassent be seen where my friends are.  I'm done!  Ain't eaten since yesterday.  Say, it's Hell for a fat man to be hungry!"

Jack laughed.  Moreover the word "hunger" started something insistent in his own internals.  He dropped a further consideration of his problems until that should be satisfied.

"By Gad!  That reminds me I haven't had any dinner myself!  Come on, let's see what we can find."

"You mean it!"

"Where'll we go."

"There's Little's over here on Sixth."

"To Hell with Little's!  I'm fed up on beaneries.  It would take a hundred of Little's little portions to fill me.  No, I got money 'Bo! Us for the big eats.  Let's try that swell French café on the south side of the square.  The French know how to eat."

"Ahh!  They wouldn't serve a guy like me in there!"

"Well, the clothing stores over on Broadway are open yet.  Let's go and get you an outfit.  An actor's got to show his Tuppenheimers they say, before he can pull down a salary."

"Ahh!  You're stringin' me!"

"Come along!  I got a wad that's burning a hole in my jeans!  I might as well blow it on you!"

The fat youth made up his mind that Jack had been drinking.  He had an open countenance, and upon it was clearly visible his thankfulness to Heaven for sending such a one his way.  As Jack started off he took his arm, either with the idea of guiding his footsteps, or in fear that he might escape.  His anxious glance, prepared for any sudden, unfavorable change in the weather, never left Jack's face.  He even pretended for the sake of camaraderie to be a little spiffed himself.

Jack was vastly tickled by the whole incident.  It gave him a new luxurious sensation of opulence.  Besides, he had reached the point where he felt he had to blow off a little steam.

"What a fool I was to worry myself to a standstill!  Too much thinking is worse than none at all.  If you mull over a thing too long, your thoughts begin to go round like a squirrel in a revolving cage.  Here's the whole town open to us!  We'll have us a time and forget our troubles!"

The fat youth who had no idea of the nature of these troubles made haste to agree.  "You're dead right, fellow!  Eat, drink and be merry, as the poet says, for to-morrow the rent falls due!"
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