Police!!! - free ebook by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY HUTT NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1915

TO LOUISE JOCELYN R.W.C. Christmas, 1915....

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FOREWORD

[1] Central Park, filthiest, cruellest and most outrageous of zoological exhibitions....

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PREFACE

On a beautiful day in spring as I was running as hard as I could run pursued by the New York police and a number of excited citizens, my mind, which becomes brilliantly active under physical exhilaration, began to work busily. I thought about all sorts of things: I thought about hard times and financial depression and about our great President who is in a class all alone with himself and soon to become extinct; I thought about art and why there isn't any when it's talked about; I thought of macr

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POLICE!!!

Being a few deathless truths concerning several mysteries recently and scientifically unravelled by a modest servant of Science. Quo quisque stultior, eo magis insolescit. Although the man's back was turned toward me, I was uncomfortably conscious that he was watching me. How he could possibly be watching me while I stood directly behind him, I did not ask myself; yet, nevertheless, instinct warned me that I was being inspected; that somehow or other the man was staring at me as steadily as thou

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"Climbing about among the mangroves above the water"

"What!" The girl nodded. "By the neck," she repeated, "and down they went into the water. And what do you suppose happened?" "I can't imagine," said I with a grimace. "Well, Grue went under, still clutching the squirming, flapping bird; and he stayed under." "Stayed under the water ?" "Yes, longer than any sponge diver I ever heard of. And I was becoming frightened when the bloody bubbles and feathers began to come up—" " What was he doing under water?" "He must have been tearing the bird to pie

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"To see him feed made me sick."

Somehow or other there seemed to me a certain levity about that performance, and it made me uncomfortable; but I managed to smile a rather sickly smile when they offered me a draught, and I took a pull at the milk—I don't exactly know why, because I don't like it. But the moon was up over the sea, now, and the dusk was languorously balmy, and I didn't care to leave those two drinking milk out of the same cocoanut under a tropic moon. Not that my interest in Evelyn Grey was other than scientific.

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"'Kemper!' I shouted.... 'He is one of them! Knock him flat with your riflestock!'"

But the glassy eye in the back of his head was watching me between the clotted strands of hair, and he dodged both Kemper and me, swinging his heavy knife in circles and glaring at us both out of the front and back of his head. Kemper seized him by his arm, but Grue's shirt came off, and I saw his entire body was as furry as an ape's. And all the while he was snapping at us and leaping hither and thither to avoid our blows; and from the corners of his puffed cheeks he whined and whimpered and me

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THE IMMORTAL

As everybody knows, the great majority of Americans, upon reaching the age of natural selection, are elected to the American Institute of Arts and Ethics, which is, so to speak, the Ellis Island of the Academy. Occasionally a general mobilization of the Academy is ordered and, from the teeming population of the Institute, a new Immortal is selected for the American Academy of Moral Endeavor by the simple process of blindfolded selection from Who's Which . The motto of this most stately of earthl

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"'Say, listen, Bo—I mean, Prof. I've got the goods.'"

"What is this scientific information?" We had now walked as far as Riverside Drive. There were plenty of unoccupied benches. I sat down and he seated himself beside me. For a few moments I gazed upon the magnificent view. Even he seemed awed by the proportions of the superb iron gas tank dominating the prospect. I gazed at the colossal advertisements across the Hudson, at the freight trains below; I gazed upon the lordly Hudson itself, that majestic sewer which drains the Empire State, bearing w

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"He played on his concertina ... on the chance that the music might lure a cave-girl down the hill."

However this Broadway faun piped in vain: no white-footed dryad came stealing through the ferns to gaze, perhaps to dance to the concertina's plaintive melodies. So after a while he put his concertina into his pocket, cocked his derby hat on one side, gathered his little bandy legs under his person, and squatted there in silence, chewing the wet and bitter end of his extinct cigar. Toward mid-afternoon I unslung my field-glasses again and surveyed the hill. At first I noticed nothing, not even a

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"Moving warily and gracefully amid the great coquina slabs."

She was a slender red-lipped thing, blue-eyed, dainty of hand and foot. The spotted pelt of a wild-cat covered her, or attempted to. I unfolded a large canvas sack as she approached the pool. For a moment or two she stood gazing around her and her close-set ears seemed to be listening. Then, apparently satisfied, she threw back her beautiful young head and sent a sweet wild call floating back to the sunny hillside. "Blub-blub!" rang her silvery voice; "blub-blub! Muck-a-muck!" And from the fern-

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"I collapsed into the arms of the nicest looking one."

There is little more to say. Contrary to my fears the release of this outrageous film did not injure my scientific standing. Modern science, accustomed to proprietary testimonials, has become reconciled to such things. My appearance upon the films in the movies in behalf of Sunset Soap, oddly enough, seemed to enhance my scientific reputation. Even such austere purists as Guilford, the Cubist poet, congratulated me upon my fearless independence of ethical tradition. And I had lived to learn a ge

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I

At the suggestion of several hundred thousand ladies desiring to revel and possibly riot in the saturnalia of equal franchise, the unnamed lakes in that vast and little known region in Alaska bounded by the Ylanqui River and the Thunder Mountains were now being inexorably named after women. It was a beautiful thought. Already several exquisite, lonely bits of water, gem-set among the eternal peaks, mirrors for cloud and soaring eagle, a glass for the moon as keystone to the towering arch of star

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"The heavy artillery was evidently frightened."

We went over to them, and when we got nearer they chastely scuttled into their tents and thrust out a row of heads—heads hideous with curl-papers. "What was that awful noise? An earthquake?" shrilled the Reverend Dr. Jones. "I think I'll go home." "Was it an avalanche?" demanded Mrs. Batt, in a deep and shaky voice. "Are we in any immediate danger, young man?" I said that it was probably a flying-star which had happened to strike the lake and explode. "What an awful region!" wailed Miss Dinglehe

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"Somebody had swooned in his arms, too."

He was not noticing me, and as I approached him I heard him say something resembling the word "kitten." In spite of my demoralization, another fear seized me, and I drew nearer and peered closely at what he was holding so nobly in his arms. It was, as I supposed, Angelica White. I don't know whether my arrival occultly revived her, for as I stumbled over a tent-peg she opened her blue eyes, and then disengaged herself from Brown's arms. "Oh, I am so frightened," she murmured. She looked at me si

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"'If you keep me up this tree and starve me to death it will be murder.'"

They now seemed disposed to consider the idea. There was nothing else for them to do. So after an hour or two, Brown and I ventured to descend from our trees, and we went among them to placate them and ingratiate ourselves as best we might. "Think," I argued, "what a matchless opportunity for you to be among the first discoverers of a totally new and undescribed species of giant fish! Think what a legacy it will be to leave such a record to posterity! Think how proud and happy your descendants w

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"Then a horrible thing occurred."

Is it necessary to proceed? Literature nods; Science shakes her head. No, nothing but literature lies beyond the ripples which splashed musically upon the shore, terminating forever the last vibration from that immeasurable catastrophe. Why should I go on? The newspapers of the nation have recorded the last scenes of the tragedy. We know that tons of dynamite are being forwarded to that solitary lake. We know that it is the determination of the Government to rid the world of those gigantic minno

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I

Professor Farrago had remarked to me that morning: "The city of New York always reminds me of a slovenly, fat woman with her dress unbuttoned behind." I nodded. "New York's architecture," said I, "—or what popularly passes for it—is all in front. The minute you get to the rear a pitiable condition is exposed." He said: "Professor Jane Bottomly is all façade; the remainder of her is merely an occiputal backyard full of theoretical tin cans and broken bottles. I think we all had better resign." It

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III

It was given out at the Bronx that our field expedition to Baffin Land was to be undertaken solely for the purpose of bringing back living specimens of the five-spotted Arctic woodcock— Philohela quinquemaculata —in order to add to our onomatology and our glossary of onomatopoeia an ontogenesis of this important but hitherto unstudied sub-species. I trust I make myself clear. Scientific statements should be as clear as the Spuyten Duyvil. Sola in stagno salus! But two things immediately occurred

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"I felt so sorry for her that I kissed her."

"You mustn't," said Dr. Delmour, blushing. The things we mustn't do are so many that I can't always remember all of them. "Daisy," I said, "shall we pledge ourselves to each other for eternity—here in the presence of this immemorial glacier which moves a thousand inches a year—I mean an inch every thousand years—here in these awful solitudes where incalculable calculations could not enlighten us concerning the number of cubic tons of mud in that marsh—here in the presence of these innocent mules

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"Out of the mud rose five or six dozen mammoths."

Miserable as we were at such an astonishing spectacle we raised a tragic cheer as Professor Bottomly sprang out of her hammock and, telling Dr. Delmour to get a camera, seized her husband and sped down to where one of the great, hairy frozen beasts lay on the ice in full sunshine. And then we tasted the last drop of gall which our over-slopping cup of bitterness held for us; Professor Bottomly climbed up the sides of the frozen mammoth, dragging her husband with her, and stood there waving a lit

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"Dr. Delmour used up every film in the camera to record the scientific triumph of the ages."

Almost idiotic with the shock of my great grief I reeled and tottered away among the bowlders. Fooss came to find me; and when he found me he kicked me violently for some time. "Esel dumkopf!" he said. When he was tired Lezard came and fell upon me, showering me with kicks and anathema. When he went away I beat my head with my fists for a while. Every little helped. After a time I smelled cooking, and presently Dr. Delmour came to where I sat huddled up miserably in the sun behind the bowlder. "

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"'Everybody has put one over on me!' I shrieked."

And I lifted my plate of soup and reversed it on my head. They told me later that I screamed for half an hour before I swooned. Afterward, my intellect being impaired, instead of being dismissed from my department, I was promoted to the position which I now hold as President Emeritus of the Consolidated Art Museums and Zoölogical Gardens of the City of New York. I have easy hours, little to do, and twenty ornamental stenographers and typewriters engaged upon my memoirs which I dictate when I fee

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"Miss Blythe had carried to her father a large bucket of lettuce leaves."

After Miss Blythe had carried to her father a large bucket of lettuce leaves, she returned to the veranda of the bungalow. A delightful luncheon awaited us; I seated her, then took the chair opposite. A delicious omelette, fresh biscuit, salad, and strawberry preserves, and a tall tumbler of iced tea imbued me with a sort of mild exhilaration. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Blythe down in the garden, munching his lettuce leaves like an ill-tempered rabbit, and daubing away at his pictur

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"'Don't let it bite!' cried the girl. 'Be careful, Mr. Smith!'"

But its jaws were toothless; only soft, cold gums pinched me, and I held it twisting and writhing, while the icy temperature of its body began to benumb my fingers and creep up my wrist, paralyzing my arm; and its incessant and piercing shrieks deafened me. In vain I transferred it to the other hand, and then passed it from one hand to the other, as one shifts a lump of ice or a hot potato, in an attempt to endure the temperature: it shrieked and squirmed and doubled, and finally wriggled out of

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"Kicked over the bucket of salad, and began to dance with rage."

"What's the matter with you, anyway!" he bawled. "Why are you trying to feed me? What do you mean by trying to be attentive to me!" "I—I admire and revere you—" "No you don't!" he shouted. "I don't want you to admire me! I don't desire to be revered! I don't like attention and politeness! Do you hear! It's artificial—out of date—ridiculous! The only thing that recommends a man to me is his bad manners, bad temper, and violent habits. There's some meaning to such a man, none at all to men like yo

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"'It's a worm!' shrieked Blythe."

As in a nightmare we clutched each other, struggling frantically to avoid the fissure; but the soft earth slid and gave way under us, and we fell heavily upon that ghastly, living surface. Instantly a violent convulsion hurled us upward; we fell on it again, rebounding from the rubbery thing, strove to regain our feet and scramble up the edges of the fissure, strove madly while the mammoth worm slid more rapidly through the rocking forests, carrying us forward with a speed increasing. Through th

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"'Which way do you usually go home?' I asked."

She told me. It was a suitably unfrequented path. So presently I strolled thither; and seated myself under the trees in a bosky dell. Now, there is a quality in boskiness not inappropriate to romantic thoughts. Boskiness, cigarettes, a soft afternoon in June, the hum of bees, and the distant barking of the seals, all these were delicately blending to inspire in me a bashful sentiment. A specimen of Papilio turnus , di-morphic form, Glaucus , alighted near me; I marked its flight with scientific

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"'This little caterpillar ... is certain to find those leaves.'"

Overcome with excitement and admiration for this intelligent and unusually beautiful girl, I seized her hands and congratulated her. "Murder," said I to the miserable Quint, "will out! This infant caterpillar shall lead us to that dark and secret spot where you had hoped to conceal the horrid evidence of your guilt. Three things have undone you—a caterpillar replete with mysterious instinct, a humble bunch of Bimba leaves, and the marvellous intelligence of this young and lovely girl. Madman, yo

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