[Indexed as: Roeder, Ralph, “Sleath’s Common Sense” (fiction), The Post Magazine (The Washington Post) (D.C.), Nov. 21, 1921]
Down the long corridor office doors I hurried until I reached the one which bears the name “David Sleath.” I entered abruptly, dragging behind me a rosy-cheeked boy of 3 in velvet knickerbockers. Closely behind us came a well-dressed and remarkably pretty woman.
In the office an old-fashioned walnut desk with high bookshelves was flanked by black-framed, oval portraits of Daniel Webster and Abraham Lincoln, and at the desk sat a man who was not un-Lincolnlike in the rugged lines of mouth and the shrewdly humorous eyes; moreover, he was ungainly, his hair disarrayed, and his black suit uncreased.
Shutting the door carefully, I placed the boy in a chair, motioned the woman into another, and faced about.
“Mr. Sleath,” I announced, “I’ve got him!”
The Lincoln-eyes turned to me quietly. “Well?”
I proceeded as calmly as possible.
“It’s the habeas corpus case, you know, for Mrs. Baylord here, who separated from her husband in Chicago last week. The husband took the only child and disappeared. Mrs. Baylord traced them here and engaged us to get legal possession of the boy; but after filing the suit we could not get service upon Mr. Baylord; he lives in a flat on Watson avenue, but he either stays inside or comes and goes only at night.
“The boy we have seen once or twice, closely guarded by a nurse. Today — “
“Today,” Mrs. Baylord broke in eagerly, “Donald ran out of the house, the first time he’s gotten 3 feet away from that terrible nurse. I rushed over and took him in my arms; what else could I do? He is my son!”
She paused, and her big, lustrous eyes turned upon me.
“Mr. Shelby did not want to let me, but I did it anyway; and then he was very kind and got a taxicab while Donald and I went into a drug store and waited. And now I must go directly to the station; we haven’t a moment to lose.”
She took a very handsome silver mesh purse out of an equally handsome silver mesh bag. “What is your fee?”
“Sit down, madam,” drawled Sleath. “I’ll have to think a little a little about that fee.”
His glance turned to me, severely.
“Shelby, your parents are estimable people, who have just spent $3,000 to send you through law school. Why, upon the first case I turn over you, do you throw all the law to the winds and take to kidnaping?”
I flushed. “I thought that all out, Mr. Sleath. The law gives to husband and wife equal rights in the possession of their children. There is no division of authority, and where there has been no agreement nor decree of custody whoever gets them – well, has them. Mr. Baylord had the boy; now Mrs. Baylord has him. Certainly she could not be guilty of kidnaping her own son.”
“Are you the boy’s mother, too?”
“I was coming to that point. It was Baylord who took the boy. I could be guilty only as an accessory, and there can be no accessory where there is no principal.”
Sleath answered drily: “No, but there can be two principals.”
Mrs. Baylord started to leave the office. Sleath blocked her way.
“One moment, madam.”
“I must go.” The woman’s pretty lips trembled. “I am not breaking the law any more than Mrs. Baylord. He was on his way to Japan with Donald. What good would American law do me there? I am trying to do the same thing as he did. I have a brother in Cuba, and I am going to take Donald there.”
“And if everything is all right, I hope you get there,” Sleath nodded. “I am with the ladies every time. But the chief point is, we are very old-fashioned in his office. We practice law here; we do not break it.”
“But I cannot wait. Donald’s loss has been discovered at the flat before this. I must go while the way is clear.”
One of her smoothly-gloved hands rested on the boy’s velvet shoulder, a hold which she had stubbornly maintained since we first entered the office, and she began pushing him toward her.
Sleath was firm.
“Madam, this is my office. I will give you my word that nobody will get into it and take the boy, and likewise that the boy, and likewise that the boy is not going to get out of it util I dig up a little deeper into this kidnaping liability.”
Like a flash the woman was on her feet and darting for the door. She moved with a surprising and deceptive abruptness that took her there before I fully awoke.
But Sleath’s lank length had reached the door and locked it. When he came back he slip open the top drawer of his desk, and taking a blue-steel automatic pistol, quietly put it in his pocket.
The woman broke into tears, and Sleath spoke very quietly put it in his pocket.
The woman broke into tears, and Sleath spoke very quietly and gently:
“I will keep you here but a little while. I am going into the other room to look up a little kidnaping law.”
He unlocked one of the doors and disappeared, and a moment later the telephone on the desk tinkled. I picked it up and Sleath’s voice answered:
“That you, Shelby? Keep the receiver close to your ear; I am in the outer office. You can answer by yes or no. First, did this woman present any indentifying letters when she brought this case?”
“No.”
“Just walked in, told her story, and paid our retainer.”
“Yes.”
“Have you any absolute knowledge that she is Mrs. Mrs. Baylord, of Chicago?”
“N-no.”
“Then you hold her. Give me the number of the flat on Walton avenue, backward, in money.”
“Nine dollars and eighty-two cents.”
“That’s all. You stay and hold the court,” and Sleath’s receiver clicked down.
Left alone, I attempted to while the time by expounding rambling phrases of the law of habeas corpus. Mrs. Baylord listened very nervously; she was beginning to see that Sleath suspected her.
Her agitation, while visible, was of a quiet, contained coolness which revealed a surprising resourcefulness and strength behind that soft experior.
“I was in a rising state of suspicion. How did I know that Mrs. Baylord was Mr. Baylord?
She had been a fascinating client and, after the manner of most striplings, I had rushed pleasantly forward from point to point without ever substantiating my place of beginning. She had always displayed a certain reticence concerning her husband and child and their life in Chicago, which I had attributed to the delicacy of her feeling, but which I now saw could serve a double purpose.
Why could not a clever, pretty woman kidnaper enlist as her unsuspecting conferderate a well known lawyer like Sleath, some one who would enable her to work leisurely, in the pleasant sun of respectability? The scheme was advanced, ingenious, feasible!
The boy, the key-note to the situation, was too young to give any definite information, and at present too excited and abashed to talk at all. He clung to her with a sort of frightened dependency which, I reflected, the poor little fellow might have displayed to any woman, under the circumstances.
That he really knew her as his mother was open to question. I remembered that when she had rushed up in front of the lat on Walton avenue, and seized the boy, I did not her him call her anything; but after I had come back with the taxicab and they had walked out of the drug store to enter it, the boy was eating a cake of milk chocolate, and calling her “Mummie.”
The very fact that the boy had always had always been so closely guarded fitted in cleverly with her story, but went equally far to prove that in reality he was the child of wealthy parents, left, perhaps, in the care of a nurse while they were traveling.
A dozen other small things arose to swell the tide of suspicion. I began to have a sense of emptiness within which suggested not only an oozing out all my physical power, but likewise of my legal knowledge and general usefulness in life.
Meanwhile, my tongue jabbered on, waiting for Sleath to come back.
When at last the door opened and he came in, his solemn face told me nothing. He resumed his seat, leaned back, and pursed his lips reflectively.
“Madam,” he began, “this is a most unusual case, and I went out to get a little information. Possibly you guessed that much. Well, I called over the long distance telephone to Chicago and learned that there was a Mr. Duncan Baylor known there, a broker, and that he separated from his wife last week, just as you said. But you could have learned that from the newspapers. He is a man of 36; tall, slight and of distinguished appearance. His wife somewhat follows your description. Have you any means of identification?”
“I have not; I left Chicago in great haste.”
Sleath paused, and his glance went calmly to the woman, now tensely alert, and then to the boy – beautiful, innocent and unconcerned.
He went on: “I asked for descriptions of the wife and child. I got an accurate description of one feature – the eyes. Had it been the hair, the skin, or even the nose I would have been uncertain, for all those features can be altered. But the eyes are constant!”
He looked at her very quietly.
“They told me that Mr. Baylord and her son both had fine, dark eyes . – Now, this boy has unusually fine eyes, and you have also, permit me to say.
“But while the boy’s are dark yours are as blue as that patch of sky out yonder.
“Madam, I regret to say it, but I will have you to hold you right here until you choose to tell me just who you are.”
The woman suddenly turned ghastly pale. She looked quickly about – as if again measuring the chances of escape – a flood of tears brimmed imminently in her big eyes, but she forced them back.
She balanced, in every outward indication, puzzingly between a brave, anguish-wrought mother and a desperate, resourceful adventuress.
Then she quieted herself and spoke slowly and tensely.
“I do not know the source of your information in Chicago, but the boy here may possibly know his mother better even than any Chicago agency.” Her face lost its strained look, lightened, and turned prettily to the child: “Donald, who is this?”
There was a fraction of hesitation, which may have been real and may have been due to the child’s strange surroundings. Then the boy’s arms reached up and clasped the woman around the neck.
“Mummie!” he said.
I looked at Sleath and Sleath looked at me and the woman looked at us both triumphiantly.
“You could have taught him that while you were in the drug store,” declared bluntly. “Madam there is the point against you: if he is your son why are you not willing to let the law decree him to you rightfully?”
“Because I cannot bear even the thought of losing them.”
Sleath’s somber eyes sought her own searchingly.
“Have you thought also of Mr. Baylord’s feelings? According to your statement he seems to fear losing Donald suffiently to make him give up his friends and business and prepare to spend the rest of his life in Japan.”
A sound came from the office beyond and Sleath unlocked the connecting the door and peered through.
“There is a man in there, Shelby, he announced. “Go in and talk to him until I can see him.”
I went in, carefully closing the door behind me. A well-dressed, pleasant-faced man was pacing the floor with extremely anxiety.
“In this room 1720, Mongol building?” he asked. Then scarcely waiting my confirmatory nod, “I am Mr. Baylord. Some one telephoned me to come to this office. I can be here only a minute. I received almost at the same time word from Mrs. Baylord that my little son was lost – he strayed from the house and can not be found. I came here only because I thought the matter might concern him. Mrs. Baylord is almost frantic. Has any one here found him?”
“I will inquire,” I answered.
Stepping to the door I summoned Sleath. He came in, turning the lock in the door behind him.
Facing our visitor and without any hesitation he held out his hand. “How do you do?” he said. “My name is Sleath.” He turned to me. “Shelby attended to the case in the other room.”
Going back, I surprised the woman in the act of trying a key in the outer door that gave access directly onto the corridor and which was always kept double-locked.
The woman’s face had undergone a remarkable transformation; the blithe, fresh, vital charm had dropped from it had never been present. She was still pretty in an indeterminate way, but her confident triumph was all gone.
Whatever she was now, she had at some time been a gentlewoman, and the shock of defeat left its bruise.
Yet, as I looked at her, creeping back to her chair after the unsuccessful attempt upon the boy’s shoulder, I felt a sense of great revulsion; for without David Sleath’s cautious shrewdness I might have been under equal guilt with her when the grave-faced, anxious father in the next room let the wrath of his prosecution.
I made no attempt to converse, but after a few minutes she spoke:
“Have you no influence with Mr. Sleath – to say a few words for a helpless woman?”
She was dying game. Knowing as I did that the real father of the boy stood six feet away in the other discussing with Sleath, doubtless, the best method of arresting the quietly, and that the click of the telephone that I had detected was undoubtedly his message of comfort to Mrs. Baylord, of whose anxiety he had spoken with such tenderness, I found it difficult to answer her fittingly.
“This case is now in the hands of Mr. Sleath alone,” I said finally.”
As I spoke Sleath entered. His face was slightly perplexed.
There is no matter so difficult to handle adroitly as a kidnaping. It is pet copy with all newspaperman, and anything short of dumb secrecy speards it over front pages and scare heads, usually a child upon whom one attempt has been made is so well advertised that it is not out of danger for years afterward.
Sleath spoke slowly – he was evidently trying to kill time to allow the detectives to arrive.
“Madam, I will have to ask you to wait a short time. While we are doing it would you mind me asking a question – one which, I am sure, is inevitable in the mind of any spectator. Why should there have been a separation when the wife is pretty, the husband successful and the child so lovely?”
As he asked the question he put his hand lightly upon the boy’s shoulder and drew him imperceptibly toward him.
The woman flushed, stammered, and with confusion which, to some one not acquainted to the intimacy of the question, rather than the quick inventiveness necessary to answer it, replied hesitatingly:
“Work – that is, I mean, of course, Mr. Baylord’s love of work, his business. He neglected me – us – gradually, and was always at his business – and –“
She ran out of either composure or invention, Sleath put his right hand – his left was on the boy’s shoulder – into his pocket and, pursuing his lips humorously, swayed his long body back and fort.
“Shelby, while we are waiting ask my client to come in for a moment.”
Wondering, I opened the door into the outer office and summoned Mr. Baylord. He came in eagerly, evidently expecting some information of his missing boy.
At the sight of the woman and Sleath, and lastly the child, he stopped short. The blood emptied from his face and came rushing back in a great, dark wave.
“Donald!” He sprang for the boy.
“Just a moment!” Sleath’s idle hand had risen from his pocket and held his automatic pistol. With the other hand he tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder and began pushing the child behind him gently backward.
At the threshold of the outer office he beckoned me to follow. When I was within also he turned to the boy: “Go play in the corner, son.”
Then he closed the connecting door until there was only space for him to thrust his long, solemn face. I heard him speaking to the man and woman and woman shut in his private office.
“I will lock the door; in fifteen minutes it will be unlocked. If by that time you have not reached any agreement, I will hold you here while my young man takes Donald to the juvenile court. You will both lose him. He will be in the care of the law for a couple of months or years while the tender question of his custody is battled back and forth by overlearned judges and underlearned judges; who are, of course, the proper parties to settle questions between a husband and a wife.”
Sleath stared through the half-open door at them with chiding sternness. But just before he left he struck his long face at an odd angle between the crack and bestowed upon them a grin – a good-natures, tension-easing grin – filled with the essence of common sense.
As the door closed I caught a glimpse through and saw upon the faces of the husband and wife a reflection of Sleath’s good nature.
As Sleath turned to me in the outer office he sighed.
“Gish, but I had to lie! My information from Chicago was a myth. I had determined before then that that woman was the boy’s mother. Have you noticed their ears – very small, curved distinctly inward and drooping at the lobes? Most unusual and identical in both of them.
“Moreover, Shelby, I knew that woman was honest the first time tears showed in her eyes, and she checked them. When you have a woman client or witness of whom you are doubtful watch her tear-glands. The real woman holds them back to the last notch – the imposter lets them flood to the full mark of their sympathy-winning play.”
Sleath paused to watch young David Baylord playing cheerfully with the meager toys afforded by two empty inkwells and a pen holder.
“I got Mr. Baylord through the telephone chief operator by obtaining the telephone number of No. 289 Walnut avenue. Had I found, when he got here, that he was not the right kind of fellow, I would have let Donald flee fatherless to Cuba than for him to go motherless in Japan. He’s best in Chicago, plus mother and father. Wonder how they’re getting along.”
Stooping he peered through the keyhole. He arose grinning.
“I guess we needn’t wait fifteen minutes. They are actually spooning now!”
He beckoned Donald from the corner and opening the door, pushed him quietly into the other room.
“Mr. and Mrs. Baylord, here is the result of common sense!”
Then he closed the door and came out again.
“Those three might want to be alone for a few minutes.” He shrugged his ungainly shoulders discourgedly. “They are so durn happy that I bet they will forget all about my fee!”
