Adventure Magazine Cover — page 140: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

704. own peculiar methods of finance, a roll of bills or a diamond stud, whether he were having a good time. His companion seemed to understand Blondie’s point of view, for he laughed and continued: “It isn’t that I give a continental about you as an individual,” he explained coolly. “Td have broken your neck and thought nothing of it if I hadn’t needed you—but we'll talk this over in my quarters. Just lie still a bit, will you?” He got up and stood looking at Blondie, then stooped quickly and lifted him in his arms, quite easily, in spite of the strangler’s one hundred and eighty-odd pounds of brawn. “Tl just leave you in this cellar entrance while I attend to a little business,”’ he said, speaking more to himself than to Blondie. “Tl be back directly.” This was gratifying news to the garroter, who had the pleasure of being deposited in the areaway he had chosen for his victim. For a moment he could see the lithe figure of his mysterious captor framed in the murky light of the upper alley. Then he was alone. mya IN SPITE of the fact that Blondie (ge had reasons for not caring to await his captor’s return, he was unable to budge the knots that bound him. He writhed about and strained and twisted, cursing in the meantime with all the ear- nestness of a devout Brahman singing incan- tations. He was still fighting a useless battle, some twenty minutes later, when he heard a sound that made him pause in puff- ing, blasphemous wonder. It was the hum of a motor-car, which evidently was feeling its way toward him through the gloom of the midnight. Pres- ently it stopped, and a moment later the same lithe figure which had disappeared up the stairs came bounding down them, and again Blondie was gathered into a pair of terrible arms—arms such as he had never dreamed of, scrapper and ex-ringman though he was. ‘““Easy’s the word, my boy,” the young man laughed as he clambered back to the street level. A taxicab, with its red and green guard- lights casting weird daubs of color into the strange corners of the neighborhood, stood beside the strip of rotting, soggy boards that Adventure represented a sidewalk. The driver jumped down and opened the door as the strange pair approached. ‘You can follow the main streets; if he makes a rumpus I'll quiet him,” the man who carried Blondie commented. ‘Throw up my grip, will you, Larry?” The garroter would have liked to nudge himself, just to be sure he was awake. He saw the chauffeur stagger toward the door, carrying the Gladstone bag that had baited him, Blondie Doyle, into this trap. The thing was deposited on the floor of the cab, the driver fastened the door, whose curtain was pulled low, and next instant there was the whir and grind of machinery thrown into gear, and he felt himself being borne swiftly through the darkness toward his unknown destination. II meee FOR a while the cab lurched as it ( F crept forward, but gradually it gained speed, and Blondie decided the chauffeur had made his way into better- lighted streets and that the underworld had been left behind. He felt a decided reluctance toward anything in the way of an outcry or alarm; for even if he had for- gotten the sinister comment of his compan- ion to the driver, he realized that he was not exactly in a strategic position for any such move. ‘Truly, the police might succeed in stopping the cab and making an investiga- tion, but Blondie felt not the slightest desire to be investigated. So he leaned stolidly back against the cushions, glancing from time to time at the blotch of white that stood for the face of his captor. After what he estimated as half an hour’s ride, the machine swerved beneath him, slowed down and stopped. The door was opened and the young man beside Blondie jumped out. “Keep your eye on my friend for a mo- ment,” he requested the driver, as he grasped the heavy bag and stepped upon the walk with it. Blondie saw that the cab had stopped outside an old-fashioned stone house, one of a row of similar buildings. Under the nar- row porch a light glimmered, casting feeble rays upon wide stone steps. He saw the man with the grip pass rapidly up these steps, admit himself with a key and disap- pear. COMMICLOOCKKS. EGO