The Dual Personality Of Slick Dick Nickerson
I.
On a certain morning in the spring of the year, the three men who were known as the Three Black Crows called at the office of "The President of the Pacific and Oriental Flotation Company," situated in an obscure street near San Francisco's water-front. They were Strokher, the tall, blond, solemn, silent Englishman; Hardenberg, the American, dry of humour, shrewd, resourceful, who bargained like a Vermonter and sailed a schooner like a Gloucester cod-fisher; and in their company, as ever inseparable from the other two, came the little colonial, nicknamed, for occult reasons, "Ally Bazan," a small, wiry man, excitable, vociferous, who was without fear, without guile and without money.
When Hardenberg, who was always spokesman for the Three Crows, had sent in their names, they were admitted at once to the inner office of the "President." The President was an old man, bearded like a prophet, with a watery blue eye and a forehead wrinkled like an orang's. He spoke to the Three Crows in the manner of one speaking to friends he has not seen in some time.
"Well, Mr. Ryder," began Hardenberg. "We called around to see if you had anything fer us this morning. I don't mind telling you that we're at liberty jus' now. Anything doing?"
Ryder fingered his beard distressfully. "Very little, Joe; very little." "Got any wrecks?"
"Not a wreck."
Hardenberg turned to a great map that hung on the wall by Ryder's desk. It was marked in places by red crosses, against which were written certain numbers and letters. Hardenberg put his finger on a small island south of the Marquesas group and demanded: "What might be H. 33, Mr. President?"
"Pearl Island," answered the President. "Davidson is on that job." "Or H. 125?" Hardenberg indicated a point in the Gilbert group. "Guano deposits. That's promised."
"Hallo! You're up in the Aleutians. I make out. 20 A.--what's that?"
"Old government telegraph wire--line abandoned--finest drawn-copper wire. I've had three boys at that for months."
"What's 301? This here, off the Mexican coast?"
The President, unable to remember, turned to his one clerk: "Hyers, what's 301? Isn't that Peterson?"
The clerk ran his finger down a column: "No, sir; 301 is the Whisky Ship."
"Ah! So it is. I remember. You remember, too, Joe. Little schooner, the Tropic Bird--sixty days out from Callao--five hundred cases of whisky aboard--sunk in squall. It was thirty years ago. Think of five hundred cases of thirty-year-old whisky! There's money in that if I can lay my hands on the schooner. Suppose you try that, you boys--on a twenty per cent. basis. Come now, what do you say?"
"Not for five per cent.," declared Hardenberg. "How'd we raise her? How'd we know how deep she lies? Not for Joe. What's the matter with landing arms down here in Central America for Bocas and his gang?"
"I'm out o' that, Joe. Too much competition."
"What's doing here in Tahiti--No. 88? It ain't lettered." Once more the President consulted his books.
"Ah!--88. Here we are. Cache o' illicit pearls. I had it looked up. Nothing in it."
"Say, Cap'n!"--Hardenberg's eye had traveled to the upper edge of the map--"whatever did you strike up here in Alaska? At Point Barrow, s'elp me Bob! It's 48 B."
The President stirred uneasily in his place. "Well, I ain't quite worked that scheme out, Joe. But I smell the deal. There's a Russian post along there some'eres. Where they catch sea-otters. And the skins o' sea-otters are selling this very day for seventy dollars at any port in China."
"I s'y," piped up Ally Bazan, "I knows a bit about that gyme. They's a bally kind o' Lum- tums among them Chinese as sports those syme skins on their bally clothes--as a mark o' rank, d'ye see."
"Have you figured at all on the proposition, Cap'n?" inquired Hardenberg.
"There's risk in it, Joe; big risk," declared the President nervously. "But I'd only ask fifteen per cent."
"You have worked out the scheme, then."
"Well--ah--y'see, there's the risk, and--ah--" Suddenly Ryder leaned forward, his watery blue eyes glinting: "Boys, it's a jewel. It's just your kind. I'd a-sent for you, to try on this very scheme, if you hadn't shown up. You kin have the Bertha Millner--I've a year's charter o' her from Wilbur--and I'll only ask you fifteen per cent. of the net profits--net, mind you."
"I ain't buyin' no dead horse, Cap'n," returned Hardenberg, "but I'll say this: we pay no fifteen per cent."
"Banks and the Ruggles were daft to try it and give me twenty-five."
"An' where would Banks land the scheme? I know him. You put him on that German cipher-code job down Honolulu way, an' it cost you about a thousand before you could pull out. We'll give you seven an' a half."
"Ten," declared Ryder, "ten, Joe, at the very least. Why, how much do you suppose just the stores would cost me? And Point Barrow--why, Joe, that's right up in the Arctic. I got to run the risk o' you getting the Bertha smashed in the ice."
"What do we risk?" retorted Hardenberg; and it was the monosyllabic Strokher who gave the answer:
"Chokee, by Jove!"
"Ten is fair. It's ten or nothing," answered Hardenberg.
"Gross, then, Joe. Ten on the gross--or I give the job to the Ruggles and Banks." "Who's your bloomin' agent?" put in Ally Bazan.
"Nickerson. I sent him with Peterson on that Mary Archer wreck scheme. An' you know what Peterson says of him--didn't give him no trouble at all. One o' my best men, boys."
"There have been," observed Strokher stolidly, "certain stories told about Nickerson. Not that I wish to seem suspicious, but I put it to you as man to man."
"Ay," exclaimed Ally Bazan. "He was fair nutty once, they tell me. Threw some kind o' bally fit an' come aout all skew-jee'd in his mind. Forgot his nyme an' all. I s'y, how abaout him, anyw'y?"
"Boys," said Ryder, "I'll tell you. Nickerson--yes, I know the yarns about him. It was this way--y'see, I ain't keeping anything from you, boys. Two years ago he was a Methody preacher in Santa Clara. Well, he was what they call a revivalist, and he was holding forth one blazin' hot day out in the sun when all to once he goes down, flat, an'