All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 105: what you’re looking at

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

A THIEVES’ COMEDY. the nurse and the maid hovering about the hall. Della had dbout ten minutes’ start, and before I had found a taxi she had been given ten more. But I knew she had to find Beans, while I was trayel- ing directly to the rendezvous; that was the only comfort I had, as the cab, doing its best to earn the bribe I offered, pounded on down-town. Seated alone, with nothing to do but watch the lights flash past, I had time to paint pictures that were hideous, revolting, and terrible. The end was inevitable. I felt it in my bones, even though I might pre- vent the coming of the crisis that night, and I shivered when I thought I might be too late. I could not imagine, even though I did arrive in time to warn Campbell of his danger, how he was going to get Rollins safely out of the house if it were being watched by Parks’s men. Yet moved he must be or else the blood-seeking Beans would kill him. Stopping the taxi a square away from the house, I hastened down Ninth Avenue feeling anything but brave. At th Street I hesitated for a minute, searching the shadows, fear- ful of the avenger’s approach; then, with an effort, turned and went swift- ly toward Eighth Avenue. The lamps were not very bright; the atmosphere was heavy and sinister. Yet the place was not so somnolent, after all. I heard a piano, and some one who could not play the cornet was demon- strating the fact. Young people flirted upon the bot- tom steps of the houses; matrons gos- siped under a lamp across the street, and a lady in a kimono, leaning out of a first-floor window, held frivolous conversation with a man anxious, late as it was, that she occupy the vacant seat in the little red car drawn up at the carriage-step. There were two taxicabs further up the street, near Campbell’s place. I 815 walked tremblingly toward them, with my eyes about me, and I concluded that some sort of merrymaking was going on in the house before which they stood. Every room in the place, from the basement to the roof, was ablaze, and a few curious people stood on the side- walk, apparently waiting for some- thing to happen. The house next it, in grim contrast, was devoid of light and life. I felt ashamed and afraid of my connection with it; I dreaded to pass the welcome, homelike place—so fearlessly bespeak- ing its law-abidingness—to dive like a felon into the shadow of Campbell's basement. I hoped the bright lights were not just next door, and I peered at the numbers of the houses I was passing to learn just how far I had to go. “No. 318 ”’—-+the next was not very distinct—but I could trace a six in the one after and presumed it was 316. I stopped there. No. 314 was Campbell’s number, and that was the house with the lights! The number, painted slantwise upon the glass panels of the door, glared at me. Great guns! <A detective standing at the Eighth Avenue corner, half a square away, could easily have picked me out of that glare, particularly if I attempted to climb the stairs to the main door. I could not imagine any one impris- oned there, and as I hesitated, trying to believe that I had not got the num- bers mixed, it occurred to me that Rol- lins had gone. A wave of relief swept over me, and, remembering how different the Clachan had been on my second visit, I plunged into the basement. A light foot sounded within, answer- ing my ring at the door-bell. The door swung open and in the semidark- ness I saw a white shirt-front glisten, then indistinctly the face of a man with a small black mustache. * Well? ™ comiicloooks.com