Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

74 ‘“As I was saying, if Hurgronje hadn’t had me out here to line up that Chink— And by the way, Zora, I’m not enthusiastic over that play. Widows and senile millionaires are one sort of people, and Mr. Sin Chang is somebody else, as you know, beautiful nun. Don’t you?” “Oh, your story! thing.” “Tm always at your service. And if I had been in New York that infernal tin- horn— A regular card-stealer, Zora. Chuck full of dope when he made that play. No doubt of it, as I told Hurgronje. A man doesn’t do stunts like that unless he is full of ‘coke.’ : ‘Well, cocain or no cocain, if I had been there, Mr. Self-Styled Everhard would have gone to bed on a marble slab inside of twenty hours.” “It’s all over now, isn’t it?” “Ts* it?” he demanded. ‘That’s the point. Somebody is dead and buried in Pittsburg; but was it Everhard? MHur- gronje’s wishing he could call up a real spirit to tell him. Iam telling him to conjure up that Everhard person and confront those throat-cutters. They’re a couple of super- stitious niggers. He could scare the truth out of ’em.” “But I thought—” she began. “So did we all. But this is what hap- pened—or at least I guess so. There was no chance to‘get into Everhard’s room. He was either in it or had somebody in it day and night, until one afternoon when a fellow called Wally Ford was on watch, and Ford telephoned in that Everhard was suddenly heading for Pittsburg and that he was going along—to keep him in sight. “Hurgronje sent out his two favorite nig- gers. They couldn’t—or say they couldn’t —connect yp with Ford, but they found Everhard—and you know the rest. They didn’t know Ford by sight—that’s the trouble with having too big an organization. ‘““And, Zora, this is good! The niggers got in tonight from Pittsburg. All swelled up— chests out two feet. They planked down the suitcase on the table. ‘““Aw’ dem gol’ an’ jims is dere,’ they said. ‘“‘Hurgronje’s face looked like a rising sun —till he opened it. Rings and things were there, all right, but every stone of value had been plucked out. Hurgronje just about died. , I'll scream or some- Adventure “What happened? Nobody knows. Hurgronje doesn’t think the niggers would have come back with that stuff if they were in on the theft of the gems; but I tell him that is just what they might have counted on him thinking. Wally Ford could have put them up to do that. ‘‘And Ford—where is he? He’s got his share and is on his way to parts unknown. ‘‘Else this so-called Everhard’s put some- thing over on us all. I don’t believe that. He’s dead and buried.” The surprizing thing was that Zoronna, ° who had stood motionlessly, seemed unim- pressed by what he had said. When he paused, in a rather mechanical voice she asked— ‘So Hurgronje isn’t coming—tonight—at all?” “I know you said it was important, Zora, but : Swiftly she clutched him and stopped his sentence with something frantically spoken about the gems. He appeared puzzled, but kept to the first subject. “You insisted that he show up, but——” This time she did check hifm and turned the subject back to the disappearance of the gems. But I heard enough to know that she had given me a story somewhat untrue. She had tried to get Hurgronje to come. That was strange. She could scarcely know my identity, I reasoned. Hurgronje seemed still convinced that I was dead. It was indeed strange. The two of them were now talking of me and the missing gems. I listened closely. The man whom I had called Remy was capable of putting his head to some very plausible deductions, but he was wrong in being inclined to believe that the thievish Wally had made away with the choicest gems and Jet the negroes kill Everhard.. He was quite enthusiastic over his suggestion to get the truth out of the negroes by scaring them thoroughly. It was plain enough to me that Wally, having searched my room and found enough to tempt him, had impersonated me and pre- tended to follow me. This had been done, no doubt, to take suspicion off himself; and toward that end, he had left a trail—sup- posed to be my own—which the negroes, un- fortunately not known to him personally, had been cunning or lucky enough to take COmicloo CN Vp) CO