“She’s got it in for you? She’s sore?”
“Exactly. Get that firmly fixed in your mind, because it’s the source from which all the rest of the story springs.”
Mr. Crocker interrupted.
“But I don’t understand. You say she’s sore at you. Well, how is it that you came in together looking as if you were good friends when I let you in this morning?”
“I was waiting for you to ask that. The explanation is that she doesn’t know that I am Jimmy Crocker.”
“But you came here saying that you were Jimmy Crocker.”
“Quite right. And that is where the plot thickens. I made Ann’s acquaintance first in London and then on the boat. I had found out that Jimmy Crocker was the man she hated most in the world, so I took another name. I called myself Bayliss.”
“Bayliss!”
“I had to think of something quick, because the clerk at the shipping office was waiting to fill in my ticket. I had just been talking to Bayliss on the phone and his was the only name that came into my mind. You know how it is when you try to think of a name suddenly. Now mark the sequel. Old Bayliss came to see me off at Paddington. Ann was there and saw me. She said ‘Good evening, Mr. Bayliss’ or something, and naturally old Bayliss replied ‘What ho!’ or words to that effect. The only way to handle the situation was to introduce him as my father. I did so. Ann, therefore, thinks that I am a young man named Bayliss who has come over to America to make his fortune. We now come to the third reel. I met Ann by chance at the Knickerbocker and took her to lunch. While we were lunching, that confirmed congenital idiot, Reggie Bartling, who happened to have come over to America as well, came up and called me by my name. I knew that, if Ann discovered who I really was, she would have nothing more to do with me, so I gave Reggie the haughty stare and told him that he had made a mistake. He ambled away–and possibly committed suicide in his anguish at having made such a bloomer–leaving Ann discussing with me the extraordinary coincidence of my being Jimmy Crocker’s double. Do you follow the story of my life so far?”
Mr. Crocker, who had been listening with wrinkled brow and other signs of rapt attention, nodded.
“I understand all that. But how did you come to get into this house?”
“That is reel four. I am getting to that. It seems that Ann, who is the sweetest girl on earth and always on the lookout to do some one a kindness, had decided, in the interests of the boy’s future, to remove young Ogden Ford from his present sphere, where he is being spoiled and ruined, and send him down to a man on Long Island who would keep him for awhile and instil the first principles of decency into him. Her accomplice in this admirable scheme was Jerry Mitchell.”
“Jerry Mitchell!”
“Who, as you know, got fired yesterday. Jerry was to have done the rough work of the job. But, being fired, he was no longer available. I, therefore, offered to take his place. So here I am.”
“You’re going to kidnap that boy?”
“No. You are.”
“Me!”
“Precisely. You are going to play a benefit performance of your world-famed success, Chicago Ed. Let me explain further. Owing to circumstances which I need not go into, Ogden has found out that I am really Jimmy Crocker, so he refuses to have anything more to do with me. I had deceived him into believing that I was a professional kidnapper, and he came to me and offered to let me kidnap him if I would go fifty-fifty with him in the ransom!”
“Gosh!”
“Yes, he’s an intelligent child, full of that sort of bright ideas. Well, now he has found that I am not all his fancy painted me, he wouldn’t come away with me; and I want you to understudy me while the going is good. In the fifth reel, which will be released to-night after the household has retired to rest, you will be featured. It’s got to be tonight, because it has just occurred to me that Ogden, knowing that Lord Wisbeach is a crook, may go to him with the same proposal that he made to me.”