Last Trump

Southland Times, Issue 23308, 18 September 1937, Page 13

Last Trump

Macrowan was showing us around. He was proud of his big house, filled with his sporting trophies. Nowadays he could not do much beyond showing them off—poor fellow. He was a cripple with rheumatism. But he had been a great man in his day. The thing we admired most of all his treasures was the Jockey Club Gold Cup. “Did I ever tell you?” asked MacRowan, propelling his wheel-chair up to it and handling it lovingly, “how I nearly had that stolen a week after I won it?”

We said “No. How did it happen?” “I’ll tell you in a minute,” said MacRowan, looking rather important, “when we get back to the smoking room.” After that we rather scamped the rest of the trophies. Macßowan propolled his chair ahead of us along the narrow dark passage that led to his smoking room. We spread ourselves about the room and lighted cigarettes. Macßowan leaned back and surveyed us from his wllßel-chair. “This used to be my bedroom,” he said, commencing the story. “And I used to have a bed beside the window over there. I was lying in it one night —reading. Nobody else was at home. The family was in town at the theatre. The servants had gone out, all except my man, and I had sent him into the village to catch the last mail with a letter.

“I’m not a nervous man as a rule, but I must own I didn’t like being left alone in that house so soon after racetime, the sole obstacle, so to speak, between a thief and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. “I told myself that I was foolish, however, and went on reading as though an army were within call. At the same time my thoughts kept wandering from the story and I regretted more than once that I had sent my man to the village. I knew that I was no match for a gang of burglars, and I valued that cup. Apart from its importance as a trophy it was worth 1200 guineas. “My man would be gone for an hour. It was nearly two miles to the village.

By

LEONORA GREGORY

I refused to allow myself to be upset, but try as I would I could not prevent my eyes from glancing around the room from time to time to reassure myself that there was no intruder. '“I also listened for sounds. But there was nothing. I saw nothing—heard nothing. Just the ticking of the clock and the turning of my pages. Then my eyes travelled for about the fourth time away from the page and over the contents of the room, ending as usual at the big window-sill facing my bed. “Thev halted there and were riveted. I thought I was having an hallucination; for, silent and still as a mummy, a man crouched there, squatting on his haunches, sighting over his knees at me with a long-barrelled revolver. “He said nothing. Never moved. Just kept me covered. I tell you it was uncanny. I lay there as still as he was, though I don’t mind owning that my heart was pounding. “Then he evidently felt that some move on his part was called for, so he said, still squinting along the barrel, and in broad American: “ ‘Waal, boss, I guess you got to shell out!’

“‘What do you mean?’ I asked,playing for time and pretending to be ‘dumb’ as he would have put it. “He laughed when I asked him what he meant and the barrel of his gun shook so that how he didn’t pull the trigger by accident was a mystery. “ what .do I mean boss?’ he said to me. Then, ‘Well, I mean just this: If you don’t let me collect your valuables, if you stir one foot or try to get out of bed to raise the alarm on me I’ll just pump you that full of lead you’ll

“At that moment I had an inspiration. I felt suddenly certain I knew my man. The line to take became as clear as daylight. I interrupted him: ‘My good fellow’, I said, ‘you needn’t be afraid that I’ll stir one foot, or try to get out of bed. I assure you I shan’t. Go ahead with your robbery and take anything you can lay your hands on. I’m helpless to prevent you, beingp-«is I expect you

know—a complete cripple with rheumatism.’ “Well you should have seen that man’s face when I said that. He lowered his gun as though it burnt him.

‘“Go on,’ I said, pressing home my advantage. ‘Take anything you like. I can’t stop you.’ “‘Say, boss,’ he protested, clambering down off the window-sill and coming over to my bed. ‘Cut out the rough stuff. I don’t rob cripples.’ “ ‘Don’t you,’ I answered, ‘well, why did you come here?’ “‘I didn’t know, boss. Gawd’s truth I didn’t.’ He came close and stood looking down at me. ‘Whar does it take you boss? In yer legs and down yer back, like?’ “ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘lt’s awful. In all the joints. If I move an inch it’s agony.’ “‘I know,’ he said, quite concerned. ‘I knew a guy like that. Took him somethin’ cruel from standin’ in the rain one winter. It was terrible to see that man. And holler! By crikey he’d holler! Yer could hear him six blocks away. But he got cured. Rubbing with St. Peter’s oil. Did yuh know that boss? Just warm it and rub it on. Yer missis could do it. Yuh wouldn’t believe the difference. This guy was about again in no time.’

“I couldn’t help grinning a little, but I thanked him and said I would remember it. ‘Sit down,’ I said, ‘and have a drink. It’s quite safe, there’s no one within miles. Fetch the whisky from the cupboard.’ “So he brought out a bottle and glasses, and there I lay, drinking whisky and discussing symptoms vzith a burglar as though we had been pals from boyhood. I was listening for the sound of my man coming back all the time, and doing everything I could to keep the burglar in a good humour so that he wouldn’t be tempted to think better of his chivalry, and go nosing about, and find that cup in the library. “I plied him with whisky and listened to his descriptions of his mother’s symptoms, and his grandmother’s, and what he did to prevent their appearance in himself. For over half an hour we went on like this and then I heard very faintly in the distance, footsteps on the gravel drive. “It was my man coming back.

“The burglar heard them, too. He was on his guard in a minute. “ ‘Boss, you ain’t double-crossed me?’ he asked in a sort of gasp. “That made me feel mean, I can tell

you. On a sudden impulse I pulled my note-case from under my pillow, took out £5, pressed it into his hand, and said: “There, that’s for your wasted evening. Now, get out quickly and don’t come back or I’ll have to have you arrested.’

“Before I had finished talking he had vanished out the window.

“My man came in two minutes later, but I said nothing about what had happened. I’ve never seen nor heard, of my burglar from that day to this.” “He was lucky to get £5 out of it,” two or three of us exclaimed simultaneously. “Oh, I don’t know,” Macßowan mused. “I felt I owed him something. In a way I had cheated him out of 1200 guineas. You see, I was quite hale and hearty in those days. It wasn’t till years later that I was crippled with rheumatism.”