Duane started off with Tommy, and winked to the reporters to follow. At the Quadrangle, a bachelor apartment house noted for its high rents and exclusiveness, Duane was met at the entrance by the superintendent, who told the officer that there was nothing in the story, after all. It was a lark of a friend of his, Mr. Carrington had said, and was annoyed that news of the affair had been sent to the police. The superintendent was glad that Tommy had not reached the station house. Duane looked inquiringly at the superintendent, who gravely winked.
"Good night," said Duane, holding out his hand. "Good night," replied the other, taking the hand. "You won't report this at the station?" "No," said Duane, who then put his hand in his pocket and returned to the reporters. He told them what the superintendent had said.
"What do you make out of it?" asked Fetner.
"Nothing," the officer replied. "If I tried to make out the cases we are asked not to investigate, I'd have mighty little time to work on the cases we are wanted in. If Mr. Carrington says he hasn't been robbed, it isn't our business to prove that he has been. You won't print anything about this?"
Fetner said he would not. To have done so after that promise would have closed a fruitful source of Tenderloin stories. The reporters left the officer at Broadway and resumed their interrupted walk to supper. "Lots of funny things happen in the Tenderloin," Fetner remarked, in the manner of one dismissing a subject.
"But," exclaimed Holt, quite as excited as Tommy had been, "I know Carrington."
"So does every one," answered Fetner, "by name and reputation. He's just a swell—swell enough to be noted. Isn't that all?"
"He was a couple of classes ahead of me at college," continued Holt. "I didn't know him there—one doesn't know half of one's own class—but his family and mine are old friends, and without troubling himself to know me, more than to nod, he sometimes sent me word to use his horses when he was away. Before I left college and went to work on a Boston paper, Carrington started on a trip around the world. My people heard of him through his people at times, and learned that he was doing a number of crazy things, among them getting lost in all sorts of No-man's-lands. His people were usually asking the State Department to locate him, through the diplomatic and consular services."
"Then this is one of his eccentricities," commented Fetner.
"How can you treat it like that?" exclaimed Holt. "I think it is a fascinating mystery, and I'm going to solve it."
"Not for publication," warned Fetner.
"For my own satisfaction," declared Holt, with great earnestness.
When the superintendent of the Quadrangle had shaken hands with the officer he turned to Tommy and said: "You go up to Mr. Carrington. He wants to see you."
"Tommy," said Mr. Carrington, "I think this is a joke on you."
This view of the event was such a relief to Tommy that he grinned broadly.
"It is certainly a joke on you. Now, Thomas, did my friend make himself up to look so much like me that you could not have told the difference, even if you were not distracted by the discomfiture of the New York nine this season?"
"I can't say how much he looked like you, and how much he didn't. I naturally thought he was you—that's all."
"Not all, Thomas: nothing is all. He asked in an easy, nice voice for a coat, so you thought he was somebody who had a coat here. How did you know whose coat he preferred?"
"Because I thought he was you."
"If I had not been the last tenant to leave the house before that, would you have thought so? If Mr. Hopkins had just left, and that man had come in and asked for 'My coat,' wouldn't you have got Mr. Hopkins' coat?"
"Mr. Hopkins did go out after you," Tommy admitted, reluctantly.
"Oh, he did, eh? Well, Hopkins is always going out. I never knew such a regular out-and-outer as Hopkins. He should reform. It's a joke on you, Thomas, and if I were you I wouldn't say anything about it."
"I ain't going to say anything," declared Tommy. "If I don't lose my job for it, I'll be lucky."
"I'll see that you do not lose your job. What police did you see?"
"Only a plain-clothes man I know, and a couple of his side-partners. They won't say anything, for the superintendent fixed them."
Mr. Carrington secured his college degree a year after his class. The delay resulted from an occurrence which he never admitted deserved a year's rustication. By mere chance he had learned the date of the birthday of one of the least known and least important instructors, and decided that it would be well to celebrate it. So he made the acquaintance of the instructor and invited him to a birthday dinner. A large and exultant company were the instructor's fellow guests at the St. Dunstan, and there was jollity that seemed out of drawing with the dominant lines of the guest of honor; yet the scope of the celebration was extended until it included the burning of much red fire and explosion of many noisy bombs at a late hour, as the instructor was making a speech of thanks in the yard, surrounded by the dinner guests, heartily encouraging him. It seemed that upon the manner in which the affair was to be presented to the Faculty depended the dismissal of the instructor or the rustication of Mr. Carrington; and the latter managed to present the case so as to save the instructor. If he had foreseen all the consequences of taking all the blame for an occurrence promptly distorted in report into the aspect of a riotous carousal, perhaps Mr. Carrington would not have sacrificed himself for a neutral personality which had so recently swum into his ken. One consequence was a letter from Mr. Draper Curtis, of New York, commanding Mr. Carrington to cease correspondence with Miss Caroline Curtis; and a note from Caroline, in which a calmer man than a distracted lover would have seen signs of parental censorship, wherein that young lady said that she had read her father's letter and added her commands to his. She had heard from many sources, as had numerous indignant relatives and friends, the particulars of the shocking affair which had compelled the Faculty to discipline Mr. Carrington; and she could but agree with her family that her happiness would rest upon insecure ground if trusted to the inciter and principal offender in such a terrible transaction. He was to forget her at once, as she would try to forget him.
Caroline and her mamma sailed for Europe the next day, and several letters Carrington wrote to her, giving a less censurable version of the little dinner to the little instructor, were returned to him unopened.
After receiving his delayed degree Carrington began a tour around the world. In the court of the Palace Hotel, the day of his departure from San Francisco, a commonplace-looking man stepped up to him briskly, and said, placing a hand on his shoulder: "Presidio, you've got a nerve to come back here. You, to the ferry; or with me to the captain!"
Carrington turned his full face toward the man for the first time as he brushed aside the hand with some force. The man reddened, blinked, and then stammered: "Excuse me, but you did look so—Say, you must excuse me, for I see that you are a gentleman."
"Isn't Presidio a gentleman?" Carrington asked, good-naturedly, when he saw that the man's confusion was genuine.
"Why, Presidio is—do you mind sitting down at one of these tables? I feel a little shaky—making such a break!"
He explained that he was the hotel's detective, and had been on the city's police force. In both places he had dealings with a confidence man, called Presidio—after the part of the city he came from. Presidio was an odd lot; had enough skill in several occupations to earn honest wages, but seemed unable to forego the pleasure of exercising his wit in confidence games and sneak-thievery. Among his honest accomplishments was the ability to perform sleight-of-hand