"If I know him, he is!" agreed Mr. Tutt, referring to William's probable proximity to Eset el Gazzar.
"Speaking of camels," said Tutt as he lit a cigarette, "makes me think of brass beds."
"Yes," nodded his partner. "Of course it would, naturally. What on earth do you mean?"
"I mean this," began Tutt, clearing his throat as if he were addressing twelve good and true men—"a camel is obviously an unusual—not to say peculiar—animal to be roosting over there in that attic. It is an exotic—if I may use that term. It is as exotic as a brass bed from Connecticut would be, or is, in Damascus or Lebanon. Now, therefore, a camel will as assuredly give cause for trouble in New York as a brass bed in Bagdad!"
"The right thing often makes trouble if put in the wrong place," pondered Mr. Tutt.
"Or the wrong thing in the right place!" assented Tutt. "Now all these unassimilated foreigners—"
"What have they got to do with brass beds in Lebanon?" challenged Miss Wiggin.
"Why," continued Tutt, "I am credibly informed that the American brass bed—particularly the double bed—owing to its importation into Asia Minor was the direct cause of the Armenian massacres."
"Tosh!" said Miss Wiggin.
"For a fact!" asserted Tutt. "It's this way—an ambassador told me so himself—the Turks, you know, are nuts on beds—and they think a great big brass family bed such as—you know—they're in all the department-store windows. Well, every Turk in every village throughout Asia Minor saves up his money to buy a brass bed—like a nigger buys a cathedral clock. Sign of superiority. You get me? And it becomes his most cherished household possession. If he meets a friend on the street he says to him naturally and easily, without too much conscious egotism, just as an American might say, 'By the way, have you seen my new limousine?'—he says to the other Turk, 'Oh, I say, old chap, do you happen to have noticed my new brass bed from Connecticut? They just put it off the steamer last week at Aleppo. Fatima's taking a nap in it now, but when she wakes up—'"
"What nonsense!" sniffed Miss Wiggin.
"It's not nonsense!" protested the junior partner. "Now listen to what happens. Some Armenian—the Armenians are the pawnbrokers of Asia Minor—moves into that village and in three months he has a mortgage on everything in it, including that brass bed. Then the Turkish Government, which regards him as an undesirable citizen, tells him to move along; and Mister Armenian piles all the stuff the inhabitants have mortgaged to him into an oxcart and starts on his way, escorted by the Sultan's troops. On top of the load is Yusuf Bulbul Ameer's brass bed. Yusuf looks out of his doorway and sees the bed moving off and rushes after it to protect his property.
"'Look here!' he shouts. 'Where are you going with my brass bed?'
"'It isn't yours!' retorts Mister Pawnbroker. 'It's mine. I loaned you eighty-seven piasters on it!'
"'But I've got an equity in it! You can't take it away!'
"'Of course I can!' replies the Armenian. 'Where I goeth it will go. The Turkish Government is responsible.'
"'Not much,' says Yusuf, grabbing hold of it, trying to pull it off the cart.
"'Hands off there!' yells the Armenian.
"Then there is a mix-up and everybody piles in—and there is a massacre!"
"That's a grand yarn!" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Still, it may be—"
"Bunk!" declared Miss Wiggin. "And what has that got to do with camels?"
"My point is," affirmed Tutt, waving his index finger—"my point is that just as a Yankee brass bed in Turkey will make certain trouble, so a Turkish camel in New York is bound to do the same thing."
A door slammed behind them and Willie's voice interrupted the conversation.
"Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" he cried hysterically. "There's been a murder down there—and we—I'm—partly responsible. I spent the night with the camel and he's—she's—all right—in Regan's Boarding Stable. But Kasheed is in the Tombs, and I told them you'd defend him. You will, won't you?"
Mr. Tutt looked at the excited boy.
"Who killed whom?" he asked correctly. "And where does the camel come in?"
"Somebody killed Sardi Babu," explained Willie. "I don't know exactly who did it—but they've arrested Kasheed Hassoun, the owner of Eset el Gazzar."
"Who?" roared Tutt.
"The camel. You see, nobody knew she was in the attic until I saw her stick her head out of the hole in the roof. Then I told Murphy and he went up and found her there. But Kasheed thought Sardi had told on him, you see, and nobody would believe him when he said he hadn't. The judge fined Kasheed twenty-five dollars, and he—Kasheed—accused Sardi of being a Turk and they had a big row right there in court. Nothing happened until the cops had got Eset out of the window and she was over at Regan's. I stayed there. Her head is bright red from the ink, you know. Then somebody went over to the restaurant where Sardi was and killed him. So you see, in a way, I'm to blame, and I didn't think you'd mind defending Kasheed, because he's a corker and if they electrocute him Eset will starve to death."
"I see," said. Mr. Tutt thoughtfully. "You think that by rights if anybody was going to get killed it ought to have been you?"
Willie nodded.
"Yes, sir," he assented.
And that is how a camel was the moving cause of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt appearing as counsel in the case of The People against Kasheed Hassoun, charged with the crime of murder in the first degree for having taken the life of Sardi Babu with deliberation and premeditation and malice aforethought and against the peace of the People of the State of New York.
"And then there's this here Syrian murder case," groaned the chief clerk of the district attorney's office plaintively to his chief. "I don't know what to do with it. The defendant's been six months in the Tombs, with all the Syrian newspapers hollering like mad for a trial. He killed him all right, but you know what these foreign-language murder cases are, boss! They're lemons, every one of 'em!"
"What's the matter with it?" inquired the D.A. "It's a regular knock-down-and-drag-out case, isn't it? Killed him right in a restaurant, didn't he?"
"Sure! That part of it's all right," assented the chief clerk. "He killed him—yes! But how are you going to get an American jury to choose between witnesses who are quite capable of swearing that the corpse killed the defendant. How in hell can you tell what they're talking about, anyway?"
"You can't!" said the D.A. "Send the papers in to Pepperill and tell him on the side it'll make him famous. He'll believe you."
"But it'll take ten weeks to try it!" wailed the chief clerk.
"Well, send it down to old Wetherell, in Part Thirteen. He's got the sleeping sickness and it will be sort of soothing for him to listen to."
"Might wake him up?" suggested the other.
"You couldn't!" retorted the D.A. "What's the case about, anyhow?"
"It's about a camel," explained the subordinate hesitatingly.
The D.A. grinned. Said he: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a just prosecutor to convict a Syrian of murder. Well, old top, send for a couple of dozen Korans and hire rooms