“Yes, my name’s Windsor,” Billy was saying.
The waiter bowed and retired to one of the tables where a young man in evening clothes was seated. Psmith recollected having seen this solitary diner looking in their direction once or twice during dinner, but the fact had not impressed him.
“What is happening, Comrade Windsor?” he inquired. “I was musing with a certain tenseness at the moment, and the rush of events has left me behind.”
“Man at that table wanted to know if my name was Windsor,” said Billy.
“Ah?” said Psmith, interested; “and was it?”
“Here he comes. I wonder what he wants. I don’t know the man from Adam.”
The stranger was threading his way between the tables.
“Can I have a word with you, Mr. Windsor?” he said.
Billy looked at him curiously. Recent events had made him wary of strangers.
“Won’t you sit down?” he said.
A waiter was bringing a chair. The young man seated himself.
“By the way,” added Billy; “my friend, Mr. Smith.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said the other.
“I don’t know your name,” Billy hesitated.
“Never mind about my name,” said the stranger. “It won’t be needed. Is Mr. Smith on your paper? Excuse my asking.”
Psmith bowed. “That’s all right, then. I can go ahead.” He bent forward.
“Neither of you gentlemen are hard of hearing, eh?”
“In the old prairie days,” said Psmith, “Comrade Windsor was known to the Indians as Boola-Ba-Na-Gosh, which, as you doubtless know, signifies Big-Chief-Who-Can-Hear-A-Fly-Clear-Its-Throat. I too can hear as well as the next man. Why?”
“That’s all right, then. I don’t want to have to shout it. There’s some things it’s better not to yell.”
He turned to Billy, who had been looking at him all the while with a combination of interest and suspicion. The man might or might not be friendly. In the meantime, there was no harm in being on one’s guard. Billy’s experience as a cub-reporter had given him the knowledge that is only given in its entirety to police and newspaper men: that there are two New Yorks. One is a modern, well-policed city, through which one may walk from end to end without encountering adventure. The other is a city as full of sinister intrigue, of whisperings and conspiracies, of battle, murder, and sudden death in dark by-ways, as any town of mediaeval Italy. Given certain conditions, anything may happen to any one in New York. And Billy realised that these conditions now prevailed in his own case. He had come into conflict with New York’s underworld. Circumstances had placed him below the surface, where only his wits could help him.
“It’s about that tenement business,” said the stranger.
Billy bristled. “Well, what about it?” he demanded truculently.
The stranger raised a long and curiously delicately shaped hand. “Don’t bite at me,” he said. “This isn’t my funeral. I’ve no kick coming. I’m a friend.”
“Yet you don’t tell us your name.”
“Never mind my name. If you were in my line of business, you wouldn’t be so durned stuck on this name thing. Call me Smith, if you like.”
“You could select no nobler pseudonym,” said Psmith cordially.
“Eh? Oh, I see. Well, make it Brown, then. Anything you please. It don’t signify. See here, let’s get back. About this tenement thing. You understand certain parties have got it in against you?”
“A charming conversationalist, one Comrade Parker, hinted at something of the sort,” said Psmith, “in a recent interview. Cosy Moments, however, cannot be muzzled.”
“Well?” said Billy.
“You’re up against a big proposition.”
“We can look after ourselves.”
“Gum! you’ll need to. The man behind is a big bug.”
Billy leaned forward eagerly.
“Who is he?”
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. You wouldn’t expect a man like that to give himself away.”
“Then how do you know he’s a big bug?”
“Precisely,” said Psmith. “On what system have you estimated the size of the gentleman’s bughood?”
The stranger lit a cigar.
“By the number of dollars he was ready to put up to have you done in.”
Billy’s eyes snapped.
“Oh?” he said. “And which gang has he given the job to?”
“I wish I could tell you. He–his agent, that is–came to Bat Jarvis.”