# Detective Story/'Funeral Frank'

Extracted from Detective Story magazine, 29 Oct 1921, pp. 92–101.
“Funeral Frank”
By Ethel Watts Mumford
COULD I see Mr. Manning?”
The maid stared at the little old gentleman and at the drooping dog in his arms and opened her mouth several times before she could articulate. “Why, why, Mr. Manning's dead, sir!”
The visitor stepped back. He seemed immeasurably shocked and grieved. “Dead—not Mr. Gerald Manning?”
“Yes, sir,” the girl answered, and tears gathered in her eyes. “Yesterday morning!”
“But, but wasn't it very sudden? What could have happened? Dear, dear, this is dreadful! My old friend, Gerald Manning! Could I—could I, do you think, see one of the family—somebody, not Mrs. Manning, of course, but any one who might tell me something of this bereavement?”
“I don't know,” replied the servant, hesitatingly. “Step into the parlor, please, and I'll see if Miss Elsie'll see you.”
“Miss Elsie, of course, if she will, or, perhaps, her sister.”
“Mrs. Wallace isn't here yet. She's coming on from Denver.”
“Of course, of course. I haven't a card. Will you tell her, Mr. Davis, an old friend of her father, wishes to see her?”
“I'll ask her,” murmured the maid.
Mr. Davis tiptoed into the subdued twilight of the drawing-room and looked about him. Everything was costly and in good taste. This should be an easy graft. He waited, seated stiffly on the edge of a massive Empire chair, his face solemn and reflective, as he absently caressed the mongrel that nestled against his breast.
There was a step on the stairs, a stirring of the portières, and a girl dressed in black entered the room. Her eyes were red with weeping, but she was composed. “Mr. Davis, the maid tells me you asked to see me. You were”—she choked back a sob—“a friend of my father?”
“My dear Miss Manning,” the old man's tones were vibrant with sympathy, “this is a shock to me, a great shock. I had no idea of what had happened. I—I was passing, and I hadn't seen your dear father in years. I thought to stop in for a reminiscent chat, to exchange the news of old acquaintances—and—I—I can't believe it! It's a blow—a severe blow.”
The girl nodded, turning away he head. “Perhaps you didn't know that father underwent an operation a week ago. We thought him on the way recovery, and then——”
“Poor Gerald!” Her visitor continued to fondle the little dog. “He was always so kind, so generous. Tell me, your mother is bearing up well?”
The girl shook her head. “No, she is quite prostrated.”
“And your sister—you are Elsie, of course. It was your sister who married. Ah, I remember, Wallace, that was the name your father told me. Is she coming on from the West?”
“We expect her to-night,” she replied. “We notified her when he began to fail.”
“I suppose, said the old man humbly, “there is nothing I can do.”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, nothing. My brother and Doctor Ellis have done all that there is to do, thank you.”
“I wish there was, I wish there was something I could do for Gerald's family in the hour of need. Your dear father was the first person one thought of in an emergency, so kind, so generous. In fact,” he smiled sadly, “it was that very trait in him that led me here to-day. I live in New Rochelle, you see, and I came into town to bring my little dog to the veterinary. Of course they won't allow dogs on trains or on the surface lines. I had to hide him in my coat. It made me an easy prey for some pickpocket, and he picked me clean. 'Oh, heavens,' I said to myself, 'here's a go!' I was in Grand Central Station, you see, and then I thought of Gerald. I knew that I might find him at home, since he'd retired from active business. 'I'll go right up to Gerald Manning,' I said to myself, 'and borrow enough to do my little shopping and take Vicky to the vet and go home.' I had no more idea that I'd come here and learn that he was dead! Why, I couldn't believe the maid when she told me. She must have thought me daft, the way I looked at her, but it seemed incredible—incredible.”
The dog stirred uneasily and whined.
“Poor little thing,” said Elsie Manning, her eyes softening, “what's the matter?”
“It's his paw,” said the visitor, gently touching a quivering forefoot. “He was run over, oh, quite a while ago, but his shoulder dislocates, and he seems to have recurrent pain. I suppose it's sort of rheumatic; I can't reset the joint, but the vet can. I suppose I could on a pinch, but I'm so afraid of hurting the poor little beggar that I don't trust myself.”
“Of course, Mr. Davis, you must let me lend you what you need. I'm sure father would wish it; and that poor creature should be looked after right away.”
The old man's face brightened. “It's awfully good of you, Miss Manning. I hate to ask it, but if you could let me have twenty-five dollars conveniently, I'll mail you my check to-night from New Rochelle.”
She rose and left him, returning a moment later with a gold mesh bag, from which she produced two tens and a five. “Is that really all you will need?” she asked, handing him the bills. He looked at the bulging bag greedily, but decided to let well enough alone.
“Ample, thank you, and I am very grateful. I feel like a dreadful intruder, Miss Manning.” He patted the dog and held it toward the girl. “Thank the lady, Vicky, she's helping you to be well again.” The little silky-haired cur turned melting eyes on his benefactress, tried to extend a quivering paw, yelped, and settled back again against his master's coat. “Silly to love a little beast like that,” said the man, “but I can't help it, never could. Animals somehow creep into my heart. Vicky, let's go before Miss Manning thinks your master is quite the old fool he is.” He rose and tiptoed toward the door. “I'm infinitely obliged, Miss Elsie. Forgive me for the freedom of speech, but your dear father used to speak of you so often. I knew him very well in a business way, you see. In my younger and more prosperous days I was a stock-broker—met him first on the Exchange. Dear, dear, how time flies, and now Gerald Manning is gone, and a worthless old codger like me lives on. Strange, isn't it? Thank you a thousand times, my dear young lady. Believe me, your sorrow is my sorrow.”
“I hope your little dog will be quite all right, Mr. Davis. Good-by.”
Mr. Davis, alias “Funeral Frank,” drew a breath of relief, as he stood outside on the stoop. He wished now he'd told another story and made it fifty, or even a hundred. The tale about the pawned jewelry that had been his dear dead wife's and must be redeemed that very day, or go under the hammer at a pawnbroker's auction, had always taken well, but that game he always played with the corroborating tickets in his hand. It worked better, too, when the prospective victims were mourning for a woman, preferably a wife. The appeal was immediate in such cases, and Vicky was always “dear wife's little dog,” treasured because of her love for him. The dog was always an actor in the lone man's little dramas. The dog's adoration of him inspired confidence, and his ability to play hurt and yelp when handled by a stranger was touching.
Funeral Frank hurried down the steps and walked rapidly toward Fifth Avenue, cradling the dog tenderly. Although Vicky's four feet were perfectly good, he did not like to run, especially in crowds. If his master put him down he would stand on his hind legs and yap loudly until taken up. Mr. Davis never displayed him very conspicuously. There were too many people who had met him in times of distress and might remember to his great inconvenience. Mr. Davis had planned to drop in at the darkened home of Mrs. Elbert Peabody, whose son had just met with a fatal motor accident, but decided to be satisfied with the morning's work and go home. He was already well ahead on his week, and there was an excellent lead in Hartford that should be worked the following day, and he must look up his fraternal-society button and tooth charm. He redeemed his dog basket, disguised as a black leather hand bag, at the parcel room at the railway station, settled Vicky comfortably and boarded an uptown subway. It would not be long now before he would be home.
II.
An hour later he was contentedly seated in the big armchair by the grate fire of his snug little flat, with Vicky tucked into the folds of his dressing gown. On the table at his elbow lay heaps of obituary notices and death columns, while between the book ends of two butting elephants stood a row of society and business directories. Trade newspapers were piled on a chair, and the club list of every association in the city, for either men or women, lay on the second shelf of the whatnot. Mr. Davis worked at his despicable trade with scientific thoroughness.
He flattered himself that he had no heart. Tears and sorrow he could look on unmoved. They were signs of weakness to be taken advantage of by a clever man, People's brains did not function accurately under the stress of emotion. Therefore bereavements netted him a weekly revenue that averaged a hundred and fifty, ample for his simple needs and requiring little outlay of either time or money on his part. Other crooks despised him, but he was as callous to the opinion of his fellow practitioners of dishonesty as he was to the world he preyed upon.
They might sneer at him and nickname him Funeral Frank and pass him up as the meanest con in Christendom! He cared not at all, and it let him out of collections for various funds that were continually being passed around. Aid for the families of men sent to stir, funds for lawyers to defend unlucky crooks, money to buy evidence for some worthy who needed an alibi, all the underworld charities passed him by. They didn't want his dirty money. So much the better. His dirty money stayed, with him that much longer. Only Mr. Wellington, who threw the best imitation epileptic fit in the city and robbed the good Samaritan who came to his aid, had shown a disposition to chum him, but Funeral Frank gave him scant encouragement.
The bogus epileptic, who was professionally known as “Frothy Fred,” persisted, and Mr. Davis, after all, being a creature endowed with speech and vanity, found it agreeable occasionally to exchange the one and air the other with a fellow being. Therefore it was with a grunt of greeting that he bade Mr. Frederick Weitz enter, although he had hardly begun his researches for to-morrow's prospect.
Frothy Fred was tall and lean. His appearance was a great asset in his profession. It was impossible to look upon his haggard face and gaunt figure without a feeling of pity, and, when wrestling in the throes of well-simulated agony, he presented a picture of human suffering not to be resisted. He could “froth,” too, as his nickname denoted, and not even a physician could detect the fake until he had made a thorough examination. Indeed it was Mr. Wellington's proudest boast that he had collected from three doctors in the same evening, when the gentlemen were returning from a convention of a medical society. A grudging mutual admiration existed between the two men, for Mr. Wellington was forced to admit that Mr. Davis' talents as an actor were but little short of genius. Therefore, on this occasion, in spite of the visitor's interruption of his host's study of the characteristics, family, and interests of the just departed Mr. Edgar Baines of Hartford, Mr. Davis waved a welcoming hand toward the sideboard. Mr. Wellington relieved the sideboard of some of the liquid weight that it upheld and, approaching his host, took the chair indicated and looked up lugubriously.
“Look here, Funeral,” even his voice had a tone of sickly pain, “you'll have to quit the game and take a hide out.”
“Whatcha mean?” demanded Davis, setting down the Druggist Journal.
“I met up with 'Whitey' Welsh, the stool pigeon,” said Frothy, “and he tells me to put you wise that the complaints have been coming in thick. They're out to get you, and they're watchin' the lists of deaths that you might be expected to think good pickin's. When you get nabbed, believe me, it won't be just one prosecution you'll get. They'll be a whole army of suckers will fall in line to get you, and, what's worse for you, a charity organization is going to put an ad in all the papers, and they're goin' to make a Sunday story, all about the meanest crook, see? When they get through, you an' your dawg is goin' to be too all-fired famous for your own health. Get me?”
That Mr. Davis “got” him became obvious. Spilling the astonished Vicky from his lap, he jumped to his feet. “Whitey Welsh told you that?” he asked. “Now isn't that the luck! I've got a prospect up the line for to-morrow, but I hate this running round, me and Vicky do!”
“Try Chi,” suggested Frothy.
“Chicago! Naw!” snorted Mr. Davis. He opened out his hands in a gesture that embraced all the simple, but comfortable, furnishings of his simple and comfortable flat. “Me, at my age, got to get out, go to another city, find another place? Say, that's fierce, and me with a lifetime o' study behind me?” He banged his hand down on the “Who's Who In New York City” so violently that the heavy volume jumped. “Me, with prospects all mapped out, an' everything. What do I knick 'em for, twenty-five here, fifty bones there. And look at the undertakers and the doctors gettin' theirs by the thousand, and the florists and the nurses and everybody gettin' theirs, and here they set up a holler about me and my little rake-off. Isn't this burg big enough for them an' me?”
Frothy watched him, a sad smile lifting the droop of his weary, lined face. “That's about the size of it,” he said sympathetically. “You see, you and me are in the same boat.”
“No such thing!” Funeral came back, his face dark with anger. “What I get they give me, hand it out to me. What you get, you lift, go through the sucker's pockets, while he's helping you to your feet. That's different, even the police'll say that's different.”
“Well, as between a dip and a con, believe me,” Frothy said, “the dip is the better class. Anyway, I came here outter friendship for you, Davis, and you've no call to ball me out. Take it from me, Whitey Welsh's tip is good. Keep off it for a while. Was you out this morning?” he inquired shrewdly.
“I sure was! Name of Manning. A real nice little girl, Elsie was her name, contributed twenty-five bones in memory of her father.”
“Well, I told you,” condoled Frothy, “that the police will canvass that house. They'll be too late, of course. You got there first. But they'll get your Elsie girl to lodge a complaint as sure as you're born. These easy marks are awful soreheads, and, when they're not ashamed to be shown up as easy marks, they are the hardest on the smart guy that puts it over. If I was you, I'd take me and my educated hound and sell books up State for a month or so, that's what!”
Davis relapsed into gloomy silence, from which he emerged into a string of curses that fell ill from his benevolent elderly mouth. “Anyway,” he said at length when he had eased his injured feelings, “I've got a good bit laid by. Guess I'll lay off and take it easy. One thing I've always noted, suckers fall even quicker than most folks, and it's a good, easy little act. I won't queer it. Guess I'll let this Hartford bunch alone, too,” he added after a moment's further cogitation. “If this publicity thing starts they might catch on in the syndicated Sunday write-up.” Regretfully he crumpled the sheet of notes which he had been compiling and tossed it into the fire. Then, with another sigh, he dropped the fraternal tooth charm and button into the drawer of the table. “Nope, won't do.”
Frothy crossed to the sideboard and composed two soothers, one of which he placed before his friend, and Mr. Davis, having no present use for his fatherly and respectable appearance, and Mr. Wellington, having no need for such in his business, the two meanest crooks in Christendom, spent a pleasant and unprofitable evening.
III.
The events proved the value of Whitey' Welsh's warning. Publicity stared Mr. Davis and his canine wonder in the face. He saw himself in the news, written large. The Sunday story was particularly annoying. It gave a detailed description of his appearance and manner, and that of Vicky, a sort of composite, derived from the reminiscences of a host of his victims. It began to look to Funeral that he would have to take Frothy's unwelcome advice and begin operations in another city. Still Funeral Frank sat back and hoped for the best. None of the squealers had any idea of where he lived. If he did not appear on the scene at his chosen time he was safe. If he left Vicky behind he was even safer. There were thousands of men who answered the description, and the addition of a scrubby, almost white, mustache went far toward a complete disguise. To his landlady he explained that his doctor had advised a complete rest from all business and a strict diet. “Nothing much,” he explained, “a mere matter of blood pressure.”
Three weeks passed uneventfully Then a catastrophe occurred. Vicky was ill. In vain his master tried all the remedies he knew. In vain he walked the floor, cradling the whining dog. Vicky's nose was burning, his tongue lolled, he could hardly unclose his feverish eyes, his silky coat was dry and brittle, and his pathetic whimper was only too genuine. Anxiety devoured the soul of the meanest crook. His love for the cur was the one real affection he owned.
Vicky was his friend and companion, his pal, his coworker. He could not bear to think of the animal's suffering. He was filled with fright as the dog sickened more and more. The dog must go to a veterinary for examination, but he feared to take him; even if he carried the dog basket he must take him out when the doctor prescribed, and Vicky's description had been even more detailed and exact than his own. He tried to reach Frothy, but that worthy was working and not to be located; besides he wanted to hear personally what the veterinary had to say and be sure that he had the directions for treatment. Vicky grew worse. He lay in his basket in a stupor, only protesting weakly when he was implored to take beef juice, or a scrap of chicken. Occasionally he rallied enough to wag a feeble tail and roll adoring eyes at his frantic nurse.
The strain was too great. Fear at last sapped fear. Funeral Frank decided he must take the dog and take him at once, before he was beyond help. Carefully he went about his planning. In the classified directory he located a veterinary with a name unknown to fame and an address in a remote part of the city. It would not do to risk an appeal to any of the well-known uptown animal hospitals. They were in districts where he had been active. People in these localities who had dogs, and he recalled from the remarks of his victims that many of them had, would be likely to patronize these hospitals, and undoubtedly Vicky and his prowess had been discovered. Besides there were the papers, with the damnable Sunday feature story! No, the obscure veterinary on the far East Side was the safest.
Funeral Frank donned his oldest suit and his most battered hat. He had seen himself delineated with some pride, be it confessed, as “a middle-aged man of gentlemanly appearance, always well and appropriately dressed and of pleasant and sympathetic approach.” The man who sallied forth might have been described as “an elderly man, of seedy appearance and furtive manner.” Vicky he laid tenderly on the little blanket in his basket, and he caressed the wrinkled forehead and fondled the hot ears, noting for the thousandth time the brittle feeling of the skin and hair.
“Don't die,” he whispered brokenly. “Don't die, Vicky, your old master couldn't stand it, boy.”
Vicky looked up whining, and Funeral Frank's heart, that had been leather and iron to the grief of others, was likely to burst with his own anxiety and sorrow. There wasn't any danger, he told himself, and Vicky must have attention, Carrying the dog basket so as to avoid the slightest unnecessary jolting, Mr. Davis set out. He found himself surprisingly nervous, in spite of his new mustache and the unwonted slovenliness of his appearance. He caught himself looking furtively at every policeman; he hurried, a failing he had never allowed himself before. When he left the houses where he had plucked silver linings for himself from the darkest clouds of others, he had always walked away slowly, reverently, always in the picture, until, well out of sight. But worry over Vicky's condition had broken his nerve. He hurried, he was furtive, and, worst of all, he knew it. He negotiated the elevated railroad in safety. No one observed the bent old man with the hand bag on his knees, once he had breathlessly eased himself to an inconspicuous seat. He let the other passengers off at his station and was the last to descend. He darted across Sixth Avenue and almost ran eastward. Over there, beyond Third Avenue, was the place. He had made sure of the doctor's office hours by telephoning from a cigar store. As he neared the crowded corner debouching on Fifth Avenue he had a moment of sickening fear. Suppose his pocket should be picked, suppose he had no money to pay the doctor, or to get home with? Suppose the very thing that he had described so often with such convincing pathos should really happen? He grew hot with apprehension, like a spreading splash of boiling water on his diaphragm. It could happen, it might happen. He paused and leaned against a post of a decrepit brownstone house, afraid to enter the regulated, congested maelstrom of humanity that, regularly at the beckoning finger of the traffic cop, surged across the asphalt to the curb beyond. He felt Vicky's uneasy weight shift in the basket. It drove him to action and gave him courage. Pulling himself together he skurried out and fell in with the jam that now carried him along.
It was an automobile that, under the direction of the policeman, swinging out to take the cross street, proved his undoing. He was so absorbed in watching for possible pickpockets that he darted forward. He did not see the approaching wheels, but the policeman did, and instinctively started toward him, waving his upraised hand. Funeral Frank naturally misinterpreted the movement, and his heart quailed—he had been recognized! They were after him! He stopped, ready to dart into the saving crowd. A mud guard caught him, and he fell sprawling. The handle of the dog basket broke, and, with its precious contents, the bag rolled from him.
He was stunned for an instant, as his head met the pavement, only for an instant, then he was scrambling to his feet, as the policeman and a half dozen men closed on him to give assistance. He would have run, but he was too dizzy.
“Hurt?” inquired the officer. Davis shook his head.
The chauffeur of the car that had struck him was escorting him to the sidewalk, talking all the while. “It was your fault. I blew my horn, and the cop had signed to me to go ahead!”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Davis. He brushed himself automatically, surrounded by a ring of interested and sympathetic faces. Then he screamed: “My dog—my dog!”
Nobody had seen a dog. The offending car had drawn up to the curb. The tide of traffic was going north and south in a steady stream.
“In a dog basket,” he wailed. “A basket that looked like a black traveling bag.”
There was no sign of such an object. Certainly it had not been crushed by the countless grinding wheels, that much could be seen. What then? Funeral Frank stared about him wildly. Some one had seized the bag, thinking it a traveling kit and had made away with it. What would happen when they discovered that it contained only a sick and terrified little dog. He wrung his hands, as his mind canvassed the possibilities. The would-be thief would throw bag and contents in some areaway. If nothing worse happened Vicky would find his way to the pound. Instinctively he looked toward the policeman and just as instinctively looked away.
The chauffeur, who evidently considered it the part of policy to conciliate, was still brushing him off and advising him: “I'd go over to the police station and leave a description of the dog and call up the pound.” He was aghast, he could do neither. “And advertise.” The chauffeur was trying to thrust a bill into his hand. “I'll pay for it.”
Automatically his hand closed on the bill. Just then a movement in the crowd revealed another policeman making his way forward, already he was fumbling for his notebook. The chauffeur groaned, he foresaw endless procedures and appearances and a possible suit for damages; but he might have spared himself. The little old man ceased his lamentations abruptly and dove headlong into the press that swung onward toward the railroad station.
It was not until Funeral Frank was seated in the general waiting room and well hidden behind an unfolded newspaper that he was able to draw a breath that was not painful and constricted with fright. With difficulty he held the sheets before his face, for his hands were still quivering. Scalding, helpless tears started to his eyes and burned their slow course down his cheeks. Vicky, Vicky! He sat on the hard wooden bench for more than an hour, trying to think out some means to find his pet and not expose himself to arrest.
There seemed no way, Vicky was a sure clew to his identity, and Vicky's size, appearance, and manners were exceedingly individual. On the other hand the dog was sick, perhaps he might die, alone and uncomforted, thrown out on some reeking pavement. His tears started anew, his imagination had been in a grip as of red-hot pincers. He rose and made a careful tour of all the adjoining cross streets, looking in every areaway, glancing in at open vestibules, any and everywhere, where either bag or dog might have been disgustedly thrown—nothing.
IV.
Then he had an idea. Wellington, his friend, could make the necessary inquiries and advertise at his address. Dogs were in no way clews to his identity. Filled with new hope he hurried uptown and went directly to Frothy's lodgings. He was home and in bed, somewhat exhausted after a particularly exacting impersonation. But from him Funeral Frank got no comfort.
“Are you crazy?” demanded Frothy. “Leave the mutt be! What, me advertise and trot around to the pound? Not on your life! Don't you suppose, after all the talk there's been, the police will recognize that dog if they ever lamp him? And they'll hold him as bait to draw you in, see if they don't? And, if they don't find him, then the mutt's dead, see? 'Tain't as if he was some sort of a real dog that any one would want to keep, but he's got a pedigree like a cocktail and looks it. And, besides, you said yourself he's sick. Who's goin's to want to keep him, huh? For another thing, you two together is a lot too conspicuous just now. You let well enough alone and count me out. Get me?”
Funeral Frank cursed ferociously and departed. There was unescapable truth in what Frothy had said. But some way must be devised, something must be done, or he would go to pieces. Mrs. Wales, his landlady, met him in the hallway. Mrs. Wales would be the solution of the difficulty. Stuttering with hope, his words tumbling over each other, he made his request.
She looked at him strangely. “And why don't ye do it yerself?” she demanded suspiciously.
He hesitated and felt himself grow pale. He had been very careful never to allow her the least cause for suspicion of his real activities. To her he was a book agent, but it flashed through his mind, suppose she had read the newspapers, and had connected the descriptions of the “Meanest Crook in Christendom” and his dumb confederate with the star boarder of the first floor? His tongue withered, his heart sickened. He managed to stammer out a weak excuse that he might have a great deal of business to keep him away in the next few days.
She continued to stare at him with hostile eyes. “I'll be telling yer, Mr. Davis,” she said sharply, “I never did like dogs in my house, and there's them that complain that I do be lettin' you have one, when I won't let thim. Now the dog's out, let him stay out, and ye'll kindly bring no more in, either.”
He begged, he offered to pay her extra for staying in to await answers to the advertisement and proffered a generous fee for her journey to the pound. She remained adamant, and he dared not appear overanxious. As it was, he feared she was putting two and two together. As he felt the tears of despair again assail his eyes, he turned from her quickly and sought the refuge of his cozy rooms.
The first object that met his eyes was the basket with its cushion, dented from the form of its little occupant, drawn up close to the grate, and a tooth-marked rubber ball and a mauled doll lay beside it, Vicky's playthings. Then he wept uncontrollably, hysterically. Everywhere he turned were reminders of his one and only friend and companion—the white enameled blue-bordered bowl that held water was on the floor beside his bed in the alcove; his tiny, bell-adorned harness and its thread of a leash lay on the dresser. On the kitchenette floor were bits of bones and the flowerlike print of his dainty feet and the feeding dish, Vicky's last Christmas present, with “For a Good Dog,” lettered in gold on its incurved border. Funeral Frank was suffering bereavement, bereavement of which he had made a mock, and from which he had filched his undeserved ease. Heart-broken, rebellious at fate, determined somehow to cheat the arithmetic of the inevitable, he suffered the human torture of them that mourn. He was wholly oblivious to the irony of the situation. His sorrow was too real, too great to permit of consecutive thought. He only knew that he grieved and suffered, as he had never dreamed it possible that living man could grieve and suffer. He could not eat, he could not sleep. When night came he sat by the window in the easy-chair, aching with loneliness for the dog that once cuddled in the crook of his arm, protesting with a whimper if he moved, sighing with supreme content if he caressed. He had bragged that he had no heart. Alas, he had! A small heart, a narrow heart, only large enough to hold a little dog. The dog had been the only tenant of the red house of tears, and now the empty heart cried out unrelieved, uncomforted, for the only thing that it had ever loved.
Dawn found him hollow-eyed and spent. He made pot after pot of strong coffee; he must pull up, he must do something. At noon he went down to “The Dump,” a small back room of an apparently evacuated saloon, the rendezvous of the neighborhood crooks. There one could get anything done for money, a guy croaked or a little job of soup. He made known his wants to Julius Kahn, the proprietor, and wondered, as he saw the fat bartender distend with chuckles that broke into laughter and shook his jellylike contours.
“Hey, youse!” he exclaimed raucously to the thin assembly at the round tables before him. “Here iss Funeral Frank wantin' some guys to find his dog! De dog iss gone, and Funeral Frank he hass found oud wat it iss, a funeral. He want someboty should an advertisement make and a reward.” He collapsed over his mahogany in his merriment, waving the dirty bar rag to emphasize the humor of the situation. “Please to redurn de chile's playmate und receive a mudder's blessing. Loog at him, der meanest crook alife, und he got de mourning crepes for dat dawg!” He turned his back on his delighted audience and shook with laughter.
Funeral Frank looked about him at the grinning faces, not one but jeered him with eyes and lips.
“Aw,” said a pallid youth at the far end of the room, as he inhaled a pinch of “snow” on his thumb nail, “who's goin' to get Funeral's dawg fer him—not me! That guy's got a graft that gets my goat. I may croak a guy, but I ain't goin' round to collect offen his grievin' fambly—nothin' doin'!”
“Look at the old geezer cryin' over his dog!' hiccuped the bleary keeper of a fence garage. A cackle of amusement followed.
Again those shameful, dreadful tears were searing Funeral Frank's eyes. He choked and turned away, fighting blindly toward the door to the alley.
Vicky, little sick, lost Vicky, and nobody would help! What must he think of the master whom he had served so long and faithfully? Somewhere he was whimpering his wheedling cry and holding up his pathetic paw, dying, perhaps; abused, neglected, wondering blindly, dumbly why his master did not come.
Davis made his way back to his flat. His face was ghastly, but his lips were firm, and his benign countenance was set in a look of bitter fury and firm resolve. He signed a check for the full amount of his bank balance. He would have to have money, cash money, where he could get it quickly. He cleaned up his rooms, destroyed anything that might be corroborative evidence against him.
All his cherished library of social registers and club memberships and business directories, his scrapbooks filled with clippings and notes, all he buried in a vacant lot. “Funeral Frank” Davis prepared for his own long departure. Suddenly he thought of Elsie Manning, her self-contained quietness, her strong young face, her kindly eyes. He recalled her look as she touched the hypocritically whining dog.
His notes had informed him that the late Gerald Manning had been an office holder in the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Doubtless his daughter would see that the society looked out for Vicky. Well, he had no hope of escape for himself. If Vicky was to be saved, his master would have to take the medicine, bottled between dark stone walls. But she'd help a dog if she wouldn't help a mean hound, That much he knew.
Resolutely Funeral Frank set his feet upon the road of retribution that would pause at the house of mourning and end in the house of law.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1940, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 83 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse