Speaker 1: The B flat Trombone by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Three men
sat in the Cosmic Club discussing the question what's the
matter with Jones? Waldemar, the oldest of the confres, was
the owner and at times the operator, of an important
and decent newspaper. His heavy face wore the expression of
good humored power characteristic of the experienced and successful journalist.
Beside him sat Robert Bertram, the club idler, slender, and
languidly elegant. The third member of the conference was Jones himself. Average.
Jones had come by his nickname inevitably. His parents had
fordoomed him to it when they furnished him with the
initials A V R. E as preface to his birthright
of j for Jones, his character apparently justified the chance concomitants.
He was, so to speak, a composite photograph of any thousand,
well conditioned, clean living Americans between the ages of twenty
five and thirty. Happily, his otherwise commonplace face was relieved
by the one unfailing characteristic of composite photographs, large deep
set and thoughtful eyes. Otherwise he would have passed in
any crowd, and nobody would have noticed him pass. Now
at twenty seven, he looked back over the five years
since his graduation from college and wondered what he had
done with them, and at the four previous years of
undergraduate life, and wondered how he had done so well
with those, and why he had not, in some manner
justified the parting words of his favorite professor. You have
one rare faculty, Jones. You can, when you choose, sharpen
the pencil of your mind to a very fine point. Specialize,
my boy, specialize. If the recipient of this admins had
specialized in anything, it was in life. Having twenty five
thousand a year of his own, he might have continued
in that path indefinitely, but for two influences. One was
an eruptive craving within him to take some part of
the dynamic activities of the surrounding world. The other was
the freak will of his late and little lamented uncle,
from whom he had his present income and his future
expectations of some ten millions. Adrian van Rape and Edgerton had,
as Waldemar once put it, one into the mayor's chair
with a good name and come out with a block
of ice stock in a will whose cynical humor was
the topic of its day. Mister Edgerton jeered posthumously at
the public which he had despoiled, and promised restitution of
a sort through his heir. Therefore, he had written, I
give and bequeath to the Seine ed Adrian van Rapen
Edgerton Jones, the residue of my property, the principle to
be taken over by him at such time as he
shall have completed five years of continuous residence in New
York City. After such time the virus of the metropolis
will have worked through his entire being. He will squander
his unearned, undeserved fortune, thus completing the vicious circle and
returning the millions acquired by my political activities in a
poisoned shower upon the city for which, having bossed, bullied,
and looted it, I feel no sentiment other than contempt.
And now, remarked Waldemar in his heavy rumbling voice, you
aspire to disappoint that good old man. It is only
human nature, you know, said average Jones. When a man
puts a ten million dollar curse on you and suggests
that you haven't the backbone of a shrimp, you you
naturally yearn to prove him a liar, supplied Bertram. Exactly. Anyway,
I've no taste for dissipation, either moral or financial. I
want action, something to do. I'm bored in this infernal city,
the wail of the unslaked Romanticist, commented Bertram. Romanticism nothing
protested the other. My ambitions are practical enough, if I
could only get them stirred up. Exactly. Boredom is simply
romanticism with a morning after thirst. You're panting for romance,
for something bizarre. Egypt and Saint Petersburg and Buenos Aires
and Samoa have all become commonplace to you. You've overdone them.
That's why you're back here in New York, waiting with
stretched nerves for the adventure of life to cat creep
up from behind and toss the lariat of rainbow dreams
over your shoulders. Waldemar laughed, Not a bad diagnosis. Why
don't you take up a hobby, mister Jones, What kind
of hobby? Any kind? The club is full of hobby writers.
Of all people that I know, they have the keenest
appetite for life. Look at old Denishow. He was a
misanthrope until he took to gathering scabs. Fenton over There
has the finest collection of circus posters in the world.
Bellardinge's house is a museum of obsolete musical instruments. De
Gay collects venomous insects from all over the world. No
harmless ones need apply. Terra Barry has a mania for
old railroad tickets. Some are really very curious. I've often
wish I had the time to be a crank. It's
a happy life. What line would you choose, asked Bertram languidly.
Nobody has gone in for queer advertisements yet, I believe,
replied the older man if one could take the time
to follow them up. But it would mean all one's leisure.
Would it be so demanding a career? Said average Jones,
smiling decidedly. I once knew a man who gave away
twenty dollars daily on clues from the day's news. He
wasn't bored for lack of occupation. But the ordinary run
of advertising is nothing more than an effort to sell
something by yelling in print, objected Average Jones. Is it well,
perhaps you don't look in the right place. Waldemar reached
for the morning's copy of The Universal and ran his
eye down the columns of classified matter. Hark to this,
he said, and read, is there any work on God's
Green Earth for a man who has just got to
have it? Or this? Wanted a venerable looking man with
white beard and medical degree, good pay to write applicant?
What's that? Asked Average Jones with awakened interest. Only a
quack medical concern looking for a stall to impress their
come ons, explained Waldemar. Average Jones leaned over to scan
the paper in his turn. Here's one, said he and
read wanted performer on a B flat trombone, can use
it once, apply with instrument after one pm, three hundred East,
one hundredth Street. That seems ordinary enough, said Waldemar. What's
it doing in a daily paper? There must be technical
publications or journals, you know, for this sort of demand.
When Average's words come slow, you've got him interested, commented Bertram.
Sure sign. Nevertheless, he's right, said Waldemar. It is rather misplaced.
How is this for one that says what it means?
Said Bertram. Wanted at once a brass howitzer and a
man who isn't afraid to handle it, missus Ann Cullen
Peer nineteen and a half, East River, the woman who
is fighting the barge combine, explained Waldemar. Not so good
as it looks she's bluffing. Anyway, I'd like a shy
at this business, declared averag Jones, with sudden conviction. It
looks to me like something to do. Make it a business,
then advise Waldemar, if you care really to go in
for it. My newspaper would be glad to pay for
information such as you might collect. We haven't time, for example,
to trace down fraudulent advertisers. If you could start an
enterprise of that sort, you'd certainly find it amusing and
at times perhaps even adventurous. I wouldn't know how to
establish it, objected average Jones. The newspaper owner drew a
rough diagram on a sheet of paper and filled it
with writing, crossing out and revising liberally divided upon his
pattern into lines. The final draft said, have you been stung? Thousands?
Have thousands? Will be? They're laying for you? Who the
advertising crooks? A Jones adviser can protect you against them
before spending your money. Call on him advice on all subjects.
Connected with newspaper, magazine or display advertising. Free consultation to
persons unable to pay, call or write in closing postage.
This is on the level, advisor. Do you expect me
to blight my budding career by a poisonous pun like that?
Demanded average Jones with a wry face. It may be
a poisonous pun, but it's an arresting catchword, said waldemar
unmoved single column about fifty lines will do in nice
open style, caps in lower case and blackface type for
the name and title. Insert twice a week in every
New York and Brooklyn paper. Isn't it a little blatant?
Suggested bertram with lifted eyebrows. Blatant repeated its inventor. It's
more than that. It's howlingly vulgar. It's a riot of
glaring yellow. How else would you expect to catch the pue?
Suppose then I do burst into flame to this effect,
query the prospective adviser. A Aprey, as we proudly say,
after spending a week in Paris, Aprey, oh plenty of things.
You hire an office, a clerk, two stenographers, and a
clipping expert, and prepare to take care of the work
that comes in, you'll be flooded, promised Waldemar. And between
times I'm to go skipping about, chasing long white whiskers
and brass howitzers and b flat trombones. I suppose until
you get your work systematized, you'll have no time for skipping.
Within six months, if you're not sandbagged or jailed on
fake libel suits, you'll have a unique bibliography of swindles.
Then I'll begin to come and buy your knowledge to
keep my own columns clean. The speaker looked up to
meet the gaze of an iron gray man with a harsh,
sallow face. Excuse my interrupting, said the newcomer. Just one question, Waldemar.
Who's going to be the nominee? Linder Lynder surely not.
Why his name hasn't been heard? It will be his
federal job. He resigns in two weeks, his record will
kill him. What record? You and I know he's a grafter,
but can we prove anything His cork has always handled
all the money? Wasn't there an old scandal? A woman
case asked the questioner, vaguely that Washington Man's wife too old.
Linder would deny it. Flatly, and there would be no witnesses.
The woman is dead, killed by his brutal treatment of her,
they say. But the whole thing was hushed up at
the time by Lynder's pull, and when the husband threatened
to kill him, Linder quietly set a Commissioner of insanity
on the case and had the man put away. He's
never appeared since. No, that wouldn't be politically effective. The
gray man nodded and walked away, musing. Egbert, the traction boss,
explained Waldemar, We're generally on opposite sides, but this time
we're both against Linder. Egbert wants a cheaper man for mayor.
I want a straighter one, and I could get him
this year if Linder wasn't so well fortified. However, to
get back to our project, mister Jones, get back to
it they did with such absorption that, when the group
broke up several hours later, Average Jones was committed by
plan and wrote to the new and hopeful adventure of
life in the great human hunt, which has ever been
and ever shall be, till the last bird flies into
the last light. Some call it business, some call it art,
some call it love, and a very few know it
for what it is, the very mainspring of existence. The
path of the pursuer and the prey often run obscurely parallel.
What time the Honorable William Lender matured his designs on
the Mayoralty, Average Jones sat in a suite of offices
Astra Court, a location which Waldemar had advised as being central,
expensive and inspirational of confidence, and considered with a whirling
brain the minor woes of humanity. Other people's troubles had
swarmed down upon him in answer to his advertised offer
of help as Sparrow's flocked of scattered breadcrumbs. Mostly these
were of the lesser order of difficulties. But for what
he gave in advice and help, the adviser took payment
in experience and knowledge of human nature. Still, it was
the hard, honest study and the helpful toil which held
him to the task, rather than the romance and adventure
which he had hoped for and Waldemar had foretold. Until
in a quiet street in Brooklyn, of which he had
never so much as heard, there befell that which first
of many events justified the prophetic Waldemar and gave Average
Jones a part in the greater drama of the metropolis.
The party of the set second part was the Honorable
William Linder. Mister Linder sat at five p m. Of
an early summer day, behind lock and bolt, the third
floor front room of his ornate mansion on Brooklyn's Park
Slope was dedicated to peaceful thought. Sprawled in a huge
and softly upholstered chair at the window, he took his
ease in his house. The chair had been a recent
gift from an anonymous admirer, whose political necessities, the honorable
mister Linder idly surmised, had not yet driven him to
reveal his identity. Its occupants. Stretched his shoeless feet, as
was his custom, upon the broad window sill, flooded by
the seasonal warmth of sunshine. The while he considered the
ripening mayoralty situation, he found it highly satisfactory in the
language of his inner man. It was a cinch. Below,
in Cannard Street, a solitary musician plotted, his pretzel shaped
brass rested against his shoulder. He appeared to be the
scout of one of those prevalent and melancholious German bands
which under Brooklyn's easy ordinances are privileged to draw echoes
of the past, writhing from their forgotten recesses. The man
looked slowly about him, as if appraising potential returns. His
gravid glance encountered the prominent feet in the third story
window of the Lender mansion, and rested. He moved forward
opposite the window. He paused. He raised the mouthpiece to
his lips, and embarked upon a perilous sea of notes,
from which the tutored ear might have inferred that once
popular ditty egypt Love of music was not one of
Honorable William Linder's attributes. An irascal temper was. Of all
the instruments, the B flat trombone possesses the most nerve
jarring tone. The master of the mansion leaped from his
RESTful chair, where his feet had or of the coping.
His face now appeared far out. He leaned and roared
at the musician below. The brass throat blared back at him,
while the soloist, his eyes closed in the ecstasy of art,
brought the verst part of his selection to an excruciating conclusion,
half a tone below pitch before the chorus. There was
a brief pause for effect. In this pause, from mister
Linder's open face, a voice fell like a falling star.
Although it did not cry excelsior, its output of vocables
might have been mistaken by a casual ear for that
clarion call. What the honorable mister Linder actually shouted was
get the hell out of here. The performer upturned a
mild and vacant face. What you say, he inquired in
a softly teutonic accent. The Honorable William Lender made urgent
gestures like a brakeman, go away, move on. The musician
smiled reassuringly. I already got paid for this, he explained.
Up went the brass to his lips again. The tonal
stairway which leads up to the chorus of Egypt rose
in raspy wailfulness. It culminated in an excessive, unendurable, brazen shriek,
and the Honorable William Lender experienced upon the undefended rear
of his person the most violent kick of a lifetime
not always devoted to the arts of peace. It projected
him clear of the window sill. His last visible vision
was the face of the musician, the mouth of surdly
hollow and pursed above the suddenly removed mouthpiece. Then an
awning intercepted the politician's flight. He passed through this, penetrated
a second and similar stretch of canvas shading the next
window below, and lay placid on his own front doorsteps,
with three ribs caved in and a variegated fracture of
the collarbone. By the time the descent was ended, the
German musician had tucked his brass under his arm and
was hurrying in panic down the street, his ears still
ringing from the concussion which had blown the angry householder
from his own front window. He was intercepted by a
running policeman. Where was the explosion, demanded the officer. Explosion,
I heard a noise in the large house on the corner,
replied the musician dully. The policeman grabbed his arm. Come
along back, you for a witness. Come on, you and
your horn. It is not a horn, exclaimed the German patiently.
It's iss a B flat trombone. Along with several million
other readers, Average Joan followed the lender bomb outrage through
the scandalized headlines of the local press. The perpetrator declared.
The excited journals had been skillful. No clue was left.
The explosion had taken care of that. The police, with
the characteristic stoopidity of a corps of former truck drivers
and bartenders, decorated with brass buttons and shields, and without
further qualification dubbed detectives, vacillated from theory to theory. Their
putty and pasteboard fantasies did not long survive. The honorable
William Lenders return to consciousness and coherence. An inside job,
they had said. The door was locked and bolted, mister
Linder declared, and there was no possible place for an
intruder to conceal himself clockwork. Then how would any human
being guess what time to set it for, demanded the
politician in disgust. When I never know myself where I'm
going to be at any given hour of any given day.
Then that Dutch horn player threw the bomb, propounded the
head of the detective bureau ponderously, of course, tossed it
right up three stories, and kept playing his infernal trombone
with the other hand all the time you ought to
be carrying a hod Nevertheless, the police hung tenaciously to
the theory that the musician was involved, chiefly because they
had nothing else to hang to. The explosion had been
very localized, the room not generally wrecked, but the chair,
which seemed to be the center of the disturbance, and
from which the Honorable William Lender had risen just in
time to save his life, was blown to pieces, and
a portion of the floor beneath it was much shattered.
The force of the explosion had been above the floor downward,
not up through the flooring, as to murderously inclined foes.
Mister Linder disclaimed knowledge of any The notion that the
trombonus had given a signal he derided as in old
sleuth pipe dream. As time went on and clues came
to nothing, the police had no greater concern than quietly
to forget, according to custom, a problem beyond their limited powers.
With the release of the German musician, who is found
to be simple minded to the verge of hat witlessness,
public interest waned, and the case faded out of current print.
Average Jones, who was much occupied with a pair of
blackmailers operating through faked photographs about that time, had almost
forgotten the lender case. When one day, a month after
the explosion, Waldemar dropped in at the Astro court offices,
he found a change Jones, much thinner and finer than
when eight weeks before he had embarked on his new
career at the newspaper owner's insistence. The young man's color
was less pronounced, and his eyes, though alert and eager,
showed rings under them. You have found the work interesting,
I take it, remarked his visitor, rather drawled average Jones appreciatively.
That was a good initial effort running down the opium
pill mail order enterprise. It was simple enough as soon
as I saw the catchword in the wanted line. Anything
is easy to a man who sees it, returned the
older man sententiously. The open eye of the open mind.
That has more to do with real detective work than
all the deduction and induction and analysis ever devised. It
is the detective part that interests me most in the game.
But I haven't had much of it yet. You haven't
run across any promising ads lately, have you, Waldemar's wide,
florid brow wrinkled. I hadn't thought or dreamed of anything
for a month, but this infernal bomb explosion. Oh the
lender case, you're personally interested politically, it makes Linder's nomination
certain persecution, attempted assassination. He becomes a near martyr. I
am almost ready to believe that he planted a fake
bomb himself and fell out of a third story window
to carry out the idea. That's pushing realism rather far,
isn't it, Waldemar laughed. There's the weakness unless we suppose
that he under reckoned the charge of a explosive. They
let the musician go, didn't they? Yes, there was absolutely
no proof against him, except that he was in the
street below. Besides, he seemed quite lacking mentally. Mightn't that
have been a sham? Alienists of good standing examined him.
They reported him just a shade better than half witted.
He was like a one idea child, his whole being
comprised in his ability and ambition to play his B
flat trombone. Well. If I needed an accomplice, said average Jones, thoughtfully,
I wouldn't want any better one than a half witted man.
Did he play well? Atrociously? And if you know what
a soul shattering blare exudes from a b flat trombone,
mister Waldemar lifted expressive hands. Within average jones overstocked mind,
something stirred at the repetition of the words b flat trombone.
Somewhere they had attracted his notice in print, and some
they were connected with Waldemar. Then, from amidst the hundreds
of advertisements with which in the past weeks he had
crowded his brain, one stood out clear. He had voiced
the desire of an unknown gentleman on the near border
of Harlem for the services of a performer upon that
semi exotic instrument, one among several. It had been cut
from the columns of the Universal on the evening which
had launched him upon his new enterprise. Average Jones made
two steps to a bookcase, took down a huge scrap
book from an alphabetized row, and turned the leaves rapidly.
Three hundred east one hundredth You won't mind, will you,
he said to Waldemar. If I leave you unceremoniously recall
the forgotten engagement, asked the other, rising, Yes, No, I
mean I'm going to Harlem to hear some music. Thirty
fourth the nearest station, isn't it? Thanks so long? Waldemar
rubbed his head thoughtfully as the door slammed behind the
speeding adviser. Now what kind of tune is he on
the track of, I wonder, he mused. I wish it
hadn't struck him until I'd had time to go ovill
Lender business with him. But while Waldemar rubbed his head
in cogitation, and the Honorable William Lender in his Brooklyn
headquarters breathed cheerily out of respect to his creaking rib,
Average Jones was following fate northward three hundred East one
hundredth Street. Is a house decrepit with the disease of
the aged. Its windowed eyes are roomy, its SAgs backward
on narl joints. All its poor old bones creak when
the winds shake it. To Average Jones, inquiring gaze on
this summer day, it opposed the secrecy of a senile indifference.
He hesitated to pull at its bell knob lest by
that act he should exert this eruptive force, which might
bring all the frail structure rattling down in ruin. When
at length he forced himself through the summons, the merest
ghost of a tinkle complained petulantly from within against his violence.
An old lady came to the door. She was sleek
and placid, round and comfortable. She did not seem to
belong in that house at all. Average Jones felt as
if he had cracked open one of the grisly locust
shells which clung lifelessly to tree trunks, and had found
within a plump and prosperous beetle. Was an advertisement for
a trombone player inserted from this house. Ma'am? He inquired
long ago, said she am? I too late, then much?
It was answered nearly two months since. I have never
said the old lady with conviction, seen such a frazzled
lot of folks as B flat trombone players. The person
who inserted the advertisement has left a month since. Could
you tell where he went? Left no address? His name
was Telford, wasn't it, said Average Jones. Strategically might be,
said the old lady, who had evidently formed no favorable
impression of her ex lodger. But he called himself ransom.
He had a furnished room, the whole third floor furnished.
Is it let? Now? Part of it? The rear. I'll
take the front room without even looking at it. Yes,
you're a queer young man. As to price, whatever you choose,
you're a very queer young man. Are you a B
flat trombone player? I collect him, said Average Jones references,
said the old lady abruptly, and with suspicion all varieties,
replied her prospective lodger, cheerfully. I will bring him tomorrow
with my grip. For five successive evenings thereafter, average Jones
sat in the senile house awaiting personal response to the
following advertisement, which he had inserted in the universal Wanted
B flat trombonists must have had experience as street player.
Apply between eight and ten pm, r three hundred East
one hundredth Street. Between the EBB and flow of applicant musicians,
he read exhaustively upon the unallied subjects of trombones and
high explosives, or talk with his landlady, who proved to
be a sociable person, not disinclined to discuss the departed
guest ransom, his supplanter learned, had come light and gone light.
Two dress suitcases had sufficed to bring in all his belongings.
He went out but little, and then she opined with
a disgustful sniff for purposes. Strictly alcoholic parcels came for
him occasionally. They were usually labeled glass handle with care.
Oh there was one other thing, a huge easy armchair
from Carruthers and Company, mighty luxurious for an eight dollar lodger.
Did he take that with him, asked average Jones. No.
After he had been here a while he had a
man come in and box it up. He must have
sent it away, but I never saw it go. Was
this before or after the trombone players came? Long after?
It was after he had picked out his man and
had him up there practicing. Did uh you ever see
this musician? Drawled Average Jones in the slow tones of
his peculiar excitement. Bless you. Yes, I talked with him.
What was he like? He was a stupid old German?
I always thought he was a sort of natural. Yes,
Average Jones peered out of the window. Is this the
man coming up the street? It surely is, said the
old lady. Now, mister Jones, if he commences his blaring
and blatting, and there'll be no more music, ma'am, promised
the young man, laughing as she went out to the answer.
The door bell. The musician ushered in looked about him,
an expression of bewildered and childish surprise on his rabbit
like face. I am schleeking, he murmured. I come to
play the bee flat trombone. Glad to see you, mister schleekling,
said Daverage Jones, leading away upstairs. Sit down. The visitor
put his trombone down and shook his head with conviction.
It is the same room, yes, he observed, but it
is not the same gent. No, you expected to find
mister Ransom here. I don't know mister Ransom. I know
only to play the bee flat trombone. Mister Ransom. The
gentleman who employed you to play in the street in Brooklyn,
mister Sleeting made large and expansive gestures. It is a
pleasure to play for such a gent he said, warmly,
two dollars a day. You have played often in Canard Street.
I don't know Canard Street. I know only to play
the b flat trombone Canard Street in Brooklyn, where the
fat gentleman told you to stop and fell out of
the window. A look of fear overspread the worn and
innocent face. I don't go there no more. The police,
they take there, but you had gone there before. Not
to play? No, not to play? Are you sure? The
German considered, painfully there of us no feet in the window,
he explained. Brightening upon that surprising phrase, Average Jones pondered,
you were not to play unless there were feet in
the window. He said, at length, was that it? The
musician assented, it does look like a signal to show
that Linder was in music. The interrogator, do you know Linder?
I don't know nothing. Only to play the B flat trombone,
repeated the other patiently. Now, Schleeting said average Jones. Here
is a dollar every evening. You must come here. Whether
I am here or not, there will be a dollar
for you. Do you understand? By way of answer, the
German reached down and lifted his instrument to his lips. No,
not that, forbade Average Jones put it down. Not to
play my B flat trombone, asked the other, innocently hurt.
The other gent he may play here always did, he
drawled average Jones, And he listened. He listened from out there.
The musician pointed to the other room. How long different times,
was the reply. But he was always in the other room. Always,
and I play Egypt like this, no, said average Jones,
as the other stretched out a hopeful hand. He liked
it Egypt, said the German. Wistfully. He said, bravo, encore
beasts sometimes nine, sometimes ten times I play it the chorus,
and then he sent you home. Then sometimes something goes
spring like that in the back room. Then he comes out,
and I may go home. Hum muttered Average Jones discontentedly.
When did you begin to play in the street After
a long time? He'd take me away to Brooklyn and
tell me, when you see the feet that's in the window,
you play hard. There was a long pause, then average
Jones asked casually, did you ever notice a big easy
chair here? I do not notice nothing. I play my
B flat trombone and there his limitations were established. But
the old lady had something to add. It's all true that,
he said. She confirmed. I could hear his racket in
the front room and mister Ransom working in the back.
And then after the old man was gone, mister Ransom
sweeping up something by himself, sweeping what was he sweeping glass?
I think the girl used to find little slivers of it.
First in one part of the room. Then in another
I raised the rent for that and for the racket.
The next thing, said average Jones, is to find out
where that big easy chair went from here. Can you
help me there? The old lady shook her head. All
I can do is tell you the nearby truck men
canvas of the local trucking industry brought to light the
conveyor of that elegant article of furniture. It had gone,
Average Jones learned not to the mansion of the Honorable
William Lynder, as he had fondly hoped, but to an
obscure address not far from the Navy Yard in Brooklyn.
To this address, having looked at up and gathered in
the b flat trombonist, Average Jones led the way. The
pair lurked in the neighborhood of the ramshackle house, watching
the entrance until toward evening, as the door opened to
let out a tremulous wreck of a man, palsied with
debauch schleeting, observed, datis him. He has been drinking once again,
Average Jones hurried the musician around the corner into concealment.
You have been here before to meet mister Ransom. No
where did he meet you to pay you your wages
on some corner, said the other vaguely. Then he took
you to the big house and left you there, urged Jones. No,
he left me on the street corner. When the feet
is in the window, he says, you play. It comes
to this, drawled average Jones, intently looking the employee between
his vacuous eyes. Ransom shipped the chair to Plymouth Street
and from there to Lyndeuse. He figured that Linder would
put it in his study and do his sitting at
the window in it. And you were to know when
he was there by seeing his feet in the window,
and give the signal when you saw him. It must
have been a signal to somebody pretty far off, or
he wouldn't have chosen so loud an instrument as a
B flat trombone. I can play the B flat trombone
louder as any man in the business, asserted schleeting with
proud conviction. But what gets me, pursued average Jones, is
the purpose of the signal. Whom was it for? I
don't know nothing, said the other complacently. I only know
how to play the B flat trombone louder as any
man in the world. Average Jones paid him a lump sum,
dismissed him, and returned to the Cosmic Club, there to
ponder the problem. What next to accuse Ransom, the mysterious
hirer of a B flat trombone virtuosity without sufficient proof
upon which to base even a claim of cross examination,
would be to block his own game. Then and there,
for Ransom could and very likely would go away, leaving
no trace. Who was Ransom anyway, and what relation, if any,
did he bear to Linder. Absorbed in these considerations, he
failed to notice that the club was filling up beyond
its wont A hand fell on his shoulder. Hello, Average,
haven't seen you at a Saturday special night since you
started your hobby. It was Bertram. What's on, Average Jones
asked him, shaking hands. Freak concert Belwarding has trotted out
part of his collection of medieval musical instruments, and some
professionals are going to play them. Waldemar is at our table,
Come and join us. Conversation at the round table was
general and lively that evening, and not until the port
came on The Prideful Club Port served only on special
occasions and in wonderful delicate glasses. Did average Jones get
an opportunity to speak to Waldemar's side. I've been looking
into that lender matter a little. Indeed, I've about given
up hope. You spoke of an old scandal in lender's career.
What was the husband's name, our buthnot? I believe do
you know what sort of looking man he was? No?
I could find out from Washington? What was his business? Government? Employment?
I think in the scientific line, perhaps, drawled Jones? Why, yes,
I believe it was. Hmm. Suppose now Linders should drop
out of the combination. Who would be the most likely nominee? Marsden,
the man I've been grooming for the place, A first class, honorable,
fearless man. Well, it's only a chance, But if I
can get one dark point cleared up, he paused as
a curious tingling now came from the platform where the
musicians were tuning tip one of Bellarding's sweet dulcets. Observed Bertram.
The performer nearest them, was a running a slow bass
scale on a sort of two stringed horsepittle of a
strange shape. Average Joanes, still untouched, glass almost full of
the precious port, trembled and sang a little tentative response.
Up up, up, mounted the thrilling notes in crescendo force.
What a racking sort of tone. For all his sweetness,
said average Jones. His delicate and fragile port glass evidently
shared the opinion, for without further warning, it split and shivered.
They used to show that experiment in the laboratory, said Bertram.
You must have just the accurate amount of liquid in
the glass. Average move back, you lunatic. It's dripping all
over you. But average Jones sat unheeding the liquor dribbled
down into his lap. He kept his fascinated gaze fixed
on a shattered glass. Bertram dabbed him with a napkin. Thanks,
Bertram drawled the beneficiary of this attention, does it matter?
Excuse me good night. Leaving his surprised companions, he took
hat and cane and caught a third avenue car. By
the time he had reached Brooklyn Bridge, he had his
campaign mapped out. It all depended upon the opening question.
Average Jones decided to hit out and hit quick. At
the house near the navy Yard, he learned that his
man was out, so he sat upon the front steps
while one of the highest priced wines in New York,
dried into his knees. Shortly before eleven, a shuffling figure
paused at the steps, feeling for a key. Mister arbuthnot
otherwise Ransom, said Average Jones blandly. The man's chin jerked back,
his jaw dropped. Would you like to hire another B
flat trombonist, pursued the young man. Who are you? Gasped
the other. What do you want? I want to know?
Drawled average Jones. How you planted the glass bulb, the
sulfuric glass bulb you know, in the chair that you
sent to the Honorable William Linder, so that it wouldn't
be shattered by anything but the middle C note of
a B flat trombone. The man sat down weakly and
bowed his face in his hands. Presently, he looked up.
I don't care, he said, come inside. At the end
of an hour's talk, Arbuthnot alias Ransom agreed to everything.
At Average Jones proposed, mind you, he said, I don't
promise I won't kill him later, but meantime it'll be
some satisfaction to put him down and out politically. You
can find me here any time you want me. You
say you'll see Linder tomorrow. Tomorrow, said average Jones. Look
in the next day's paper for the result, setting his
telephone receiver down. The Honorable William Linder lost himself in conjecture.
He had just given an appointment to his tried and
true but quite impersonal enemy, mister Horace Waldemar. What can
Waldemar want of me? Ran his thoughts. And who is
this friend Jones that he's bringing Jones? Jones, Jones. He
tried it in three different accents, without extracting any particular meaning.
Therefrom nothing much in the political game. He decided. It
was with a mingling of gruffness and dignity that he
greeted mister Waldemar an hour later. The introduction to average
Jones he acknowledged with a curt nod. Want a job
for this young man? Waldemar, he grunted, not at present,
thank you, returned the newspaper owner. Mister Jones has a
few arguments to present to you. Arguments, repeated the Honorable
William Lender contemptuously. What kind of arguments political arguments mayoralty
to be specific? To be more specific, still, arguments showing
why you should drop out of the race pinfeather reformer A.
The politician turned to meet average Jones's steady gaze and
mildly inquiring smile. Do you know anything of submarine minds,
mister Linder drawl the visitor, huh, return the Honorable William
Lender startled. Submarine minds, explained the other minds in the sea.
If you wish words of one syllable the lives of
the Honorable Lender contracted, You're in the wrong joint, he said.
This ain't the Naval College. Thank you. A submarine mind
is a very ingenious I've recently been reading somewhat extensively
on the subject. The main charge is some high explosive,
usually of the dynamite type. Above it is a small
jar of sulfuric acid. Teeth working on levers surround this jar.
The levers project outside the mine. When a ship strikes
the mine, one or more of the levers are pressed
in the teeth crushed the jar. The sulfuric acid drops
upon the main charge and explodes it. Do you follow me?
I'll follow you as far as the front door, said
the politician balefully. He rose if the charge were in
a chair and the cushion of an easy chair, will say,
on the third floor of a house in Brooklyn, the
Honorable William Linder sat down again. He sat heavily. The
problem would be somewhat different. Of course. It would be
easy to arrange that the first person to sit down
in the chair would, by his own weight, blow himself up.
But the first person might not be the right person.
You know, do you still follow me? The Honorable William
Lynder made a remark, like a fish. Now we have
if you will forgive my profossorial method, continued Average Jones.
A chair sent to a gentleman of prominence from an
anonymous source. In this chair is a charge of high
explosive and above it a glass bulb containing sulfuric acid.
The ball, we will assume, is so safeguarded as to
resist any ordinary shock of moving. But when this gentleman,
sitting at ease in his chair is noticed by a
trombonist placed for that purpose in the street below, the
dutch horn player, cried the politician. Then it was him,
and I'll only an innocent tool, interrupted Average Jones. In
his turn, he had no comprehension of what he was doing.
He didn't understand that the vibration from his trombone on
one particular note, by the slide of the scale, as
in the chorus of Egypt, would shiver that glass and
set off the charge. All that he knew was to
play the B flat trombone and take his pay his pay.
The question leaped to the politician's lips. Who paid him?
A man named arbuthnot drawled Average Jones. Linders's eyes did
not drop, but a film seemed to be drawn over them.
You once knew a missus Arbuthnut the thick shoulders quivered
a little. Her husband, her widower, is in Brooklyn. Shall
I push the argument any further to convince you that
you'd better drop out of the mayoralty race? Linda recovered
himself a little. What kind of game are you ringing
in on me? He demanded, don't you think? Suggested average
Jones sweetly. That considered as news this Linders caught the
word out of his mouth. News. He roared a fake story,
ten years old news at a news it's spite work.
Even your dirty paper Waldemar wouldn't rake that kind of
muck up after ten years. It'd be a boomerang. You'll
have to put up a stronger line of blackmail and
bluff than that. Blackmail is perhaps the correct word, technically,
admitted the newspaper owner. But bluff there you go wrong.
You've forgotten one thing that our buf knots arrest and
confession would make the whole story news. We stand ready
to arrest our buff Knot, and he stands ready to confess.
There was a long, tense minute of silence. Then what
do you want? The straight to the point question was
an admission of defeat, your announcement of withdrawal. I'd rather
print that than the arbuffknot story. There was a long silence. Finally,
the honorable lender dropped his hand on the table. You win,
he declared curtly. But you'll give me the benefit in
the announcements of bad health caused by the shock of
the explosion to explain my quitting Waldemar. It will certainly
make it more plausible, assented the newspaper owner with a smile.
Linda turned on average Jones. Did you dope this out,
young fellow? He demanded, Yes, Well, you've put me in
the down and out club, all right, and I'm just
curious enough to want to know how you did it
by abstaining returned average jones, cryptically from the best wine
that ever came out of the Cosmic Club's cellar. End
of the B flat trombone