CHAPTER VI.

OFFICER 666 ON PATROL.

Michael Phelan had been two years on the force and considered himself

a very fly young man. He had lost something of his romantic outline

during the six months he pounded the Third avenue pave past two

breweries and four saloons to a block, and it was at his own request,

made through his mother's second cousin, District Leader McNaught,

that he had been provided with a saloonless beat on Fifth avenue.

A certain blue-eyed, raven-haired nursemaid, who fed a tiny

millionaire with a solid gold spoon and trundled an imported

perambulator along the east walk of Central Park, may have had

something to do with Patrolman Phelan's choice of beat, but he failed

to mention the fact to his mother. He laid it all on the breweries and

the temptations they offered.

Humble as was Michael Phelan's station on the force, he was already

famous from the wooded wastes of Staten Island to the wilds of the

Bronx. Even the graven-featured chief inspector permitted himself to

smile when the name of Michael Phelan was mentioned.

He was a fresh, rosy-cheeked, greener-than-grass probationary cop when

fame came to him all in one clap and awoke a thunderous roll of

laughter throughout the city.

It was his first detail on the lower east side in the precinct

commanded from the Eldridge street station. The time was July and the

day was a broiler. He was sitting in the reserve room playing dominoes

with the doorman and mopping his forehead with a green bandana when

the captain sent for him.

"Phelan," said the captain shortly, "there's a lady dead without a

doctor at 311 Essex street, three flights up, rear. They've told the

Coroner's Office, but all the Coroners are busy. The corpse is a lone

widow lady with no kin, so you go up and take charge and wait for the

Coroner."

Officer 666 tipped his cap with military salute and set out. Turning

the corner into Essex street, he met plain-clothes man Tim Feeney, who

stopped him and asked him where he was bound. Michael Phelan explained

and then said:

"Tim, if you don't mind, will you give me a tip? What do I do when I

get up to that flat, and how long will I have to wait?"

"You'll have to wait, Mike," replied Tim Feeney, "till the Coroner

gets good and ready to come. When you get to the flat don't knock;

walk right in. Then sit down by the bed and wait. Be sure you keep the

door shut and let no soul in till the Coroner arrives."

"It'll be powerful hot and I'm perishing o' thirst now," said Mike.

"Take off your coat," said Tim, "and send a kid for a can of beer.

When you hear the Coroner comin' slip the can under the bed."

Tim Feeney went on his way with his hand over his mouth.

Patrolman Phelan had missed the twinkle in Tim Feeney's eye and a few

minutes later found him sitting beside a bed with his coat off and a

foaming can on the floor by his chair. On his way up the steep, narrow

staircases he had met a boy and sent him for the liquid refreshment.

He had instructed the lad where to deliver the beer and had gone

quietly in to his unpleasant vigil.

The door he opened led directly into the bedroom. He had glanced once

at the bed and then looked away with a shudder. Perspiration fairly

cascaded down his flaming cheeks as he tiptoed to a chair and placed

it beside the bed. He placed his chair at a slight angle away from the

bed and then fixed his eyes on the opposite wall. When he heard the

tread of the boy in the hall he made a pussy-footed dash for the door,

took in the growler, shut the boy out and buried his face in the

froth. He was in better heart, but still mighty uneasy when he wiped

his mouth on the back of his fist.

Somewhere in the flat a clock ticked dismally. Through two small open

windows puffed superheated gusts of air. The muffled clamor of many

voices in strange tongues sifted through the windows and walls, but

served only to increase the awful stillness in the room. Despite his

efforts to the contrary, Phelan stole a glance at the bed, then looked

away while his heart stopped beating. There was a naked foot where he

had seen only a sheet before.

"Mebbe the wind blew it off," he tried to tell himself, but something

inside him rejected the explanation and he felt an icy finger drawn up

and down his spine. Again he plunged his head into the capacious can

and succeeded in reviving his heart action.

More minutes of dreadful suspense passed. A leaden silence had filled

the sweltering room. Even the voices of the tenements had died away to

a funereal murmur. Battle as he did with all his will, Phelan's eyes

were again drawn from their fixed gaze upon the wall, and what he saw

this time induced a strangling sensation.

Three toes had distinctly wiggled.

He withdrew his eyes on the instant and his shaking hand reached down

for the can. His fingers had barely touched it when an awful shriek

rent the air. The shriek came from the bed, and it was followed by a

second yell and then by a third.

Michael Phelan did not open the door as he passed out. It was not a

very strong door and it went down like cardboard before the impact.

The third shriek awoke the echoes just as Officer 666 was coasting

down the stairs on the seat of his departmental trousers. His

departmental coat and his departmental hat were in no way connected

with his precipitate transit. A raging Polish woman brought these

details of Michael's uniform to the Eldridge street station a little

later. Likewise she prefered charges against Phelan that come under

the heading of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman."

It was a tremendous trial, in the course of which the Deputy Police

Commissioner who sat in judgment barely missed having a serious

stroke. It was adduced in evidence that Officer 666 had entered the

wrong flat, the Coroner's case being one flight up.

But while the whole town rocked with laughter Michael Phelan failed to

see the joke, and his hatred of Precinct Detective Tim Feeney never

cooled. That he got off with a light sentence of one day's fine did

not in the least improve his humor. He knew he was a marked man from

that day, and it was all his mother could do to urge him to stay on

the force.

In the course of time, however, the sting had worn off and the young

patrolman learned to smile again. His hollow cheeks had filled out

amazingly during the period of the brewery beat and on that late

autumn day when he stepped into the pages of this narrative he looked

mighty good, not only to the raven-haired Rosalind O'Neill but to a

host of other pretty nursemaids who were wheeling their aristocratic

little charges up and down The Avenue.

Nor was Michael Phelan at all unconscious of this as he sauntered

along the broad pavement and gracefully twirled his baton. His chest

jutted out like the breast of a pouter pigeon and he wore the solemnly

self-conscious expression of a peacock on parade.

When he came to the great white square mansion of Travers Gladwin, he

paused and studied it shrewdly with his eye. It was one of the most

important functions of his patrol to study the fronts of all

unoccupied dwellings and see that every window was down and every door

was closed. First he looked into the areaway of the Gladwin home and

then his eye travelled up the wide balustraded stoop to the ornamental

bronze doors.

"What's this!" he gasped in astonishment. "Sure, I read in the papers

on'y this morning that Travers Gladwin was in Agypt. 'Tis a bold thafe

who'll go in the front door in broad day, so here's where Mary

Phelan's son makes the grand pinch he's been dreamin' on this six

months back and gets his picture in the papers."