THE INFALLIBLE GODAHL Frederick Irving Anderson Oliver Armiston never was much of a sportsman with a rod or gun - though he could do fancy work with a pistol in a shooting gallery. He had, however, one game from which he derived the utmost satisfaction. Whenever he went travelling, which was often, he invariably caught his train by the tip of the tail, so to speak, and hung on till he could climb aboard. In other words he believed in close connections. He had a theory that more valuable dollars - and - cents time and good animal heat are wasted warming seats in stations waiting for trains than by missing them. The sum of joy to his methodical mind was to halt the slamming gates at the last fraction of the last second with majestic upraised hand, and to stroll aboard his parlour car with studied deliberation, while the train crew were gnashing their teeth in rage and swearing to get even with the gateman for letting him through. Yet Mr Armiston never missed a train. A good many of them tried to miss him, but none ever succeeded. He reckoned time and distance so nicely that it really seemed as if his trains had nothing else half so important as waiting until Mr Oliver Armiston got aboard. On this particular June day he was due in New Haven at two. If he failed to get there at two o?clock he could very easily arrive at three. But an hour is sixty minutes, and a minute is sixty seconds; and, further, Mr Armiston having passed his word that he would be there at two o?clock, surely would be. On this particular day, by the time Armiston finally got to the Grand Central the train looked like an odds - on favourite. In the first place he was still in his bed at an hour when another and less experienced traveller would have been watching the clock in the station waiting room. In the second place, after kissing his wife in that absent - minded manner characteristic of true love, he became tangled in a Broadway traffic crush at the first corner. Scarcely was he extricated from this when he ran into a Socialist mass meeting at Union Square. It was due only to the wits of his chauffeur that the taxicab was extricated with very little damage to the surrounding human scenery. But our man of method did not fret. Instead he buried himself in his book, a treatise on Cause and Effect, which at that moment was lulling him with soothing sentiment: ?There is no such thing as accident. The so - called accidents of everyday life are due to the preordained action of correlated causes, which is inevitable and over which man has no control.? This was comforting, but not much to the point, when Oliver Armiston looked up and discovered he had reached 23rd Street and had come to a halt. A sixty - foot truck, with an underslung burden consisting of a sixty - ton steel girder, had at this point suddenly developed weakness in its off hind - wheel and settled down on the pavement across the right of way like a tired elephant. This, of course, was not an accident. It was due to a weakness in the construction of that wheel - a weakness that had from the beginning been destined to block street cars and taxicabs at this particular spot at this particular hour. Mr Armiston dismounted and walked a block. Here he hailed a second taxicab and soon was spinning north again at a fair speed, albeit the extensive building operations in Fourth Avenue had made the street well - nigh impassable. The roughness of the pavement merely shook up his digestive apparatus and gave it zest for the fine luncheon he was promising himself the minute he stepped aboard his train. His new chauffeur got lost three times in the maze of traffic about the Grand Central Station. This, however, was only human, seeing that the railroad company changed the map of 42nd Street every twenty - four hours during the course of the building of its new terminal. Mr Armiston at length stepped from his taxicab, gave his grip to a porter and paid the driver from a huge roll of bills. This same roll was no sooner transferred back to his pocket than a nimble - fingered pickpocket removed it. This again was not an accident. That pickpocket had been waiting there for the last hour for that roll of bills. It was preordained, inevitable. And Oliver Armiston had just thirty seconds to catch his train by the tail and climb aboard. He smiled contentedly to himself. It was not until he called for his ticket that he discovered his loss. For a full precious second he gazed at the hand that came away empty from his money pocket, and then: ?I find I left my purse at home,? he said with a grand air he knew how to assume on occasions. ?My name is Mr Oliver Armiston.? Now Oliver Armiston was a name to conjure with. ?I don?t doubt it,? said the ticket agent dryly. ?Mr Andrew Carnegie was here yesterday begging car fare to 125th Street, and Mr John D. Rockefeller quite frequently drops in and leaves his dollar watch in hock. Next!? And the ticket agent glared at the man blocking the impatient line and told him to move on. Armiston flushed crimson. He glanced at the clock. For once in his life he was about to experience that awful feeling of missing his train. For once in his life he was about to be robbed of that delicious sensation of hypnotizing the gate - keeper and walking majestically down that train platform that extends northwards under the train shed a considerable part of the distance towards Yonkers. Twenty seconds. Armiston turned round, still holding his ground, and glared concentrated malice at the man next in line. That man was in a hurry. In his hand he held a bundle of bills. For a second, the thief - instinct that is latent in us all suggested itself to Armiston. There within reach of his hand was the money, the precious paltry dollar bills that stood between him and his train. It scared him to discover that he, an upright and honoured citizen, was almost in the act of grabbing them like a common pickpocket. Then a truly remarkable thing happened. The man thrust his handful of bills at Armiston. ?The only way I can raise this blockade is to bribe you,? he said, returning Armiston?s glare. ?Here - take what you want - and give the rest of us a chance.? With the alacrity of a blind beggar miraculously cured by the sight of much money, Armiston grabbed the handful, extracted what he needed for his ticket, and thrust the rest back into the waiting hand of his unknown benefactor. He caught the gate by a hair. So did his unknown friend. Together they walked down the platform, each matching the other?s leisurely pace with his own. They might have been two potentates, so deliberately did they catch this train. Armiston would have liked very much to thank this person, but the other presented so forbidding an exterior that it was hard to find a point of attack. By force of habit Armiston boarded the parlour car, quite forgetting he did not have money for a seat. So did the other. The unknown thrust a bill at the porter. ?Get me two chairs,? he said. ?One is for this gentleman.? Once inside and settled, Armiston renewed his efforts to thank this strange person. That person took a card from his pocket and handed it to Armiston. ?Don?t run away with the foolish idea,? he said tartly, ?that I have done you a service willingly. You were making me miss my train, and I took this means of bribing you to get you out of my way. That is all, sir. At your leisure you may send me your cheque for the trifle.? ?A most extraordinary person!? said Armiston to himself. ?Let me give you my card,? he said to the other. ?As to the service rendered, you are welcome to your own ideas on that. For my part I am very grateful.? The unknown took the proffered card and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket without glancing at it. He swung his chair round and opened a magazine, displaying a pair of broad unneighbourly shoulders. This was rather disconcerting to Armiston, who was accustomed to have his card act as an Open Sesame! ?Damn his impudence!? he said to himself. ?He takes me for a mendicant. I?ll make copy of him!? This was the popular author?s way of getting even with those who offended his tender sensibilities. Two things worried Armiston: One was his luncheon - or rather the absence of it; and the other was his neighbour. This neighbour, now that Armiston had a chance to study him, was a young man, well set up. He had a fine bronzed face that was not half so surly as his manner. He was now buried up to his ears in a magazine, oblivious of everything about him, even the dining - car porter, who strode down the aisle and announced the first call to lunch in the dining car. ?I wonder what the fellow is reading,? said Armiston to himself. He peeped over the man?s shoulder and was interested at once, for the stranger was reading a copy of a magazine called by the vulgar ?The White Sepulchre?. It was the pride of this magazine that no man on earth could read it without the aid of a dictionary. Yet this person seemed to be enthralled. And what was more to the point, and vastly pleasing to Armiston, the man was at that moment engrossed in one of Armiston?s own effusions. It was one of his crime stories that had won him praise and lucre. It concerned the Infallible Godahl. These stories were pure reason incarnate in the person of a scientific thief. The plot was invariably so logical that it seemed more like the output of some machine than of a human mind. Of course the plots were impossible, because the fiction thief had to be an incredible genius to carry out the details. But nevertheless they were highly entertaining, fascinating and dramatic at one and the same time. And this individual read the story through without winking an eyelash - as though the mental effort cost him nothing - and then, to Arm...
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