Chapter VI

It was necessary that she go immediately back to the lunch room to relieve Mrs. Halsey, who was white of face, and almost ready to drop when Janice arrived.

Rather glad, Janice was, of the opportunity to work and think alone. Bob, apparently, was almost relieved at their temporary parting.

He bid a cheerful good-by to her from the taxi, when she got out before the lunch room; then he went on to the room Rickey had engaged for him, without once looking back, though Janice watched for him to do so.

All afternoon, while she worked, she waited for Bob to come to the lunch room; and, at dinner time, she thought surely he would appear. But the hours passed, and there was no sign of him.

At last, after closing up, she decided to go to his rooming house. Probably there would be some sort of lobby, where they could talk; perhaps Bob would take her out for a walk.

How lovely it would be to walk with him, to show him the things that had interested her, when she had first come to the city; watch his eyes open wide at the sights she could show him: the huge Municipal Beach, the Lake Shore Drive, and its constant pageant of beautiful motor cars!

How delightful it would have been to rest her arm upon his big, strong one and walk closely to him, side by side, as they often had through the countryside at home, talking so understandingly, without ever a thought of any one coming between them!

And she had ruined all that; her heart was near to breaking as she drew close to the address that had been contained in the note from Rickey.

The building proved to be close to the edge of a run-down section on the north side, where two twisted short streets joined.

A slatternly old woman shuffled up some steps that led down into a basement doorway. The woman eyed Janice strangely when she asked that the young man who had come in that afternoon for the room Rickey had recommended be notified that she was downstairs.

“He’s in the hospital,” the woman said, with an abruptness that was nothing short of brutal.

“In the _hospital_?” Janice gasped. “_In the hospital!_ Oh! I see! You just don’t understand who it is that I’m looking for. I suppose more than one man came in for a room this afternoon, of course.”

“No, no—I know who you mean,” interrupted the woman, “the country jake. Sure. I know. There was a big fight in his room. He was hurt. They took him to the Grant Brothers’ hospital.”

As fast as she could get there by taxi, Janice rushed out to the hospital on the northwest side. Explaining that she was affianced to the injured man, she was at last dubiously admitted, after some complications due to the fact that it was a time at which visitors were not permitted entry.

“H’lo,” Bob greeted her cheerfully, from his bed in a small ward wherein he was, at the time, the only patient.

“_Bob!_” she cried, kneeling down by the side of the bed, taking one of his big, rough hands into her own tiny ones: “Bob. How badly are you hurt?” She tried to force back the tears, but her lips trembled so that she scarce could speak, and the film of smarting tears almost blinded her eyes.

“Hurt! Shucks! I’m not hurt. Got a wallop over the head with a billy that split open my scalp. Knocked me out for a time. They insist that I’ve got to lie here until morning.

“I’ve been hurt worse on the farm, lots of times, and went right on working.” His head was bandaged, and there was blood upon the bandage.

“But how did it happen?”

“Stickups; they came into my room. They got my wallet, and everything that was in it,” he added.

Janice tried to speak, but it was impossible. Looking into his cheerful face, the tears fell fast. She was thinking of the years it had taken him to save that money.

“Don’t mind, dear,” she managed at last. “I’ll keep on working. If I have to give up the place in the lunch room, when Mrs. Halsey sells it, I’ll find another job, and I’ll help you find one. We’ll be married at once, and work together.”

“Maybe,” he pointed out, “the police will recover my wallet. They got one of the fellows. I knocked him out before they got me. But he didn’t have the wallet on him, they said.

“And, anyway, how about this Rickey chap? Maybe you _do_ truly love him. Maybe he could help you to buy the restaurant right away. Maybe you only thought you loved me because there was nobody else around, back home.”

“Don’t even talk that way,” put in Janice, blushing. “I don’t ever want to see Rickey again so long as I live—I’ll never forgive him for having let you go to a questionable place.”

“You’re sure you don’t love him?”

“Oh, Bob! _Please_ believe me when I say that I don’t.”

He smiled up at her confidently. “I believe you, and I fully understand. There are men who could fool anybody.” His eyes told her that she was fully forgiven. She threw herself upon her knees, by the side of the bed, putting her arms about him.

“You _sure_ you’re not badly hurt?” she asked, holding him so tightly that, strong as he was, he winced and looked up into her face in surprise.

“Honestly, it’s nothing,” he assured her, a new pleasure in his voice. “And,” he added softly, “you _do_ really care, don’t you, Janie? It doesn’t seem possible you could care for a big, awkward stiff like me!”

She lowered her head to his shoulder and hid her face against the side of his neck. He felt the damp of her tears.

“Why! What are you crying about, Janie, little angel? There’s nothing for you to cry over.”

“I’m crying,” she got out, “to think that I ever for a moment supposed that any man but you could hold even a very tiny corner of my heart.”

He raised her up and, kissing her, patted her head lovingly. Several moments later a surgeon came in and lifted her up, escorting her to the door with a polite:

“Please—he ought to get a nap now.”

Outside the ward she asked the surgeon tensely:

“How badly hurt _is_ he? I must know.”

“It’s almost nothing,” the doctor told her with a shrug. “He really could go right now, only I thought it best that he stay until morning, so that I can have one more look at the abrasion on his head.

“There’s not the slightest danger, but I don’t want to take any chances on an infection setting up. I can check it easily, if I have him where I can watch.”

He picked up a paper from the waiting room table and handed it to her.

“Seen this last edition?” he asked politely, “there’s an account of the affair in it.” Janice took the early morning edition of one of the city’s leading dailies and was confronted with a picture of Rickey.

The news article ran:

“Gentleman Sanders” is in trouble again. This nimble-witted
ex-convict, who has kept the smartest minds at the detective
bureau busy for several years, met his Waterloo yesterday
in the person of a farmer from Iowa who, in company with
several of his notorious companions, he succeeded in relieving
of his wallet—but only after the gentleman from Iowa had
handed him a haymaker which kept him in dreamland until the
police arrived.

Unfortunately Gentleman Sanders’s companions made off with
their victim’s wallet, and no trace has been found of them
or the wallet.

However, the various rewards on Gentleman, which will naturally
go to Iowa’s husky son, should more than make up for the
contents of the wallet.

Several of Gentleman Sanders’s bigamous wives have been searching
for the slick young college man who turned to crime.

Early the following morning, Janice went again to the hospital. Another surgeon, then on duty, cheerfully permitted “the hard-hitting gentleman from Iowa,” as he called him, to leave with her in a taxi.

As they drove toward the lunch room, Bob took her into his arms, kissed her, and hugged her until Janice squealed for mercy.

“You’re not so slow,” she told him delightedly, “catching one of the keenest crooks in the city, and carrying on like this in a taxicab—how did you know that city people often kiss and hug in taxicabs?”

“Been getting the Chicago papers ever since you left,” he laughed. “All I’ve thought about since you pulled out was you and Chicago; can’t we be married _right away_?”

“I’ll get Mrs. Halsey to come to the lunch room for an hour or so this afternoon, and we’ll go down town and be married.”

“O. K.,” he grinned.

When they got to the lunch room and opened up, Bob sat down at a table and grandly ordered breakfast.

“I’ll cook it for you myself, before the cook comes,” Janice told him.

“No, you won’t!” He looked very stern. “I won’t have you cooking a meal in a restaurant for me—and I won’t have you waiting on table in a restaurant. We’re going to have plenty of capital now; we’ll rent that store next door, and join it to this one.

“I understand that that reward money will run to nearly five thousand dollars. That’ll be enough to run the new restaurant on, on a good, substantial scale, to start, and yet leave a small, safety-first reserve, in case things don’t go well, so that we can get into something else later, if needs be.”

Just then the mailman came in. There was the usual deluge of advertising matter, which Janice threw on the table unopened; but, this time, there was also a letter for her. It was a large envelope, registered and insured. After signing for it, Janice excitedly tore it open.

A sheaf of currency fell out upon the table, and with the bills was a letter, which read:

My own dear little Janice:

From what you’ve told me about this Rickey chap, I’m afraid.
I think he was in on that holdup you described, as a lookout,
and that he decided to go after bigger game when he got
inside the store and saw beautiful little you.

I am afraid he has engaged the room for me with intentions
not wholly kindly; you may have let him trick you into telling
him about the money I would have with me when I came to Chicago.
It would be so easy for him to get both my money and my girl,
if he’s the wrong kind.

But he may not give me credit for a little smartness, myself;
and he may be overestimating his hold on you. We’ll see.

If I’m all wrong, I’ll humbly apologize to him. But, in the
meantime, I’m going to play safe and mail this money to you for
safekeeping.

Bob.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in _Argosy_ magazine, July 28, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]