Prepared by Don Lainson

THE AMATEUR





I


It was February off the Banks, and so thick was the weather that,
on the upper decks, one could have driven a sleigh. Inside the
smoking-room Austin Ford, as securely sheltered from the blizzard
as though he had been sitting in front of a wood fire at his club,
ordered hot gin for himself and the ship's doctor. The ship's
doctor had gone below on another "hurry call" from the widow. At
the first luncheon on board the widow had sat on the right of
Doctor Sparrow, with Austin Ford facing her. But since then,
except to the doctor, she had been invisible. So, at frequent
intervals, the ill health of the widow had deprived Ford of the
society of the doctor. That it deprived him, also, of the society
of the widow did not concern him. HER life had not been spent upon
ocean liners; she could not remember when state-rooms were named
after the States of the Union. She could not tell him of
shipwrecks and salvage, of smugglers and of the modern pirates who
found their victims in the smoking-room.

Ford was on his way to England to act as the London correspondent
of the New York Republic. For three years on that most sensational
of the New York dailies he had been the star man, the chief
muckraker, the chief sleuth. His interest was in crime. Not in
crimes committed in passion or inspired by drink, but in such
offences against law and society as are perpetrated with nice
intelligence. The murderer, the burglar, the strong-arm men who,
in side streets, waylay respectable citizens did not appeal to him.
The man he studied, pursued, and exposed was the cashier who
evolved a new method of covering up his peculations, the dishonest
president of an insurance company, the confidence man who used no
concealed weapon other than his wit. Toward the criminals he
pursued young Ford felt no personal animosity. He harassed them as
he would have shot a hawk killing chickens. Not because he
disliked the hawk, but because the battle was unequal, and because
he felt sorry for the chickens.

Had you called Austin Ford an amateur detective he would have been
greatly annoyed. He argued that his position was similar to that
of the dramatic critic. The dramatic critic warned the public
against bad plays; Ford warned it against bad men. Having done
that, he left it to the public to determine whether the bad man
should thrive or perish.

When the managing editor told him of his appointment to London,
Ford had protested that his work lay in New York; that of London
and the English, except as a tourist and sight-seer, he knew
nothing.

"That's just why we are sending you," explained the managing
editor. "Our readers are ignorant. To make them read about London
you've got to tell them about themselves in London. They like to
know who's been presented at court, about the American girls who
have married dukes; and which ones opened a bazaar, and which one
opened a hat shop, and which is getting a divorce. Don't send us
anything concerning suffragettes and Dreadnaughts. Just send us
stuff about Americans. If you take your meals in the Carlton
grill-room and drink at the Cecil you can pick up more good stories
than we can print. You will find lots of your friends over there.
Some of those girls who married dukes," he suggested, "know you,
don't they?"

"Not since they married dukes," said Ford.

"Well, anyway, all your other friends will be there," continued the
managing editor encouragingly. "Now that they have shut up the
tracks here all the con men have gone to London. They say an
American can't take a drink at the Salisbury without his fellow-
countrymen having a fight as to which one will sell him a gold
brick."