All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

A THIEVES’ In less time than I take to write it, he had gone through my pockets, first slapping them in search of a weapon, and came upon my pocketbook, which he tossed over to the lieutenant. “Look through that, Peters.” Peters, without any compunction, looked and found principally—two pawn-tickets ! ‘One pendant, a thousand, at Berg- son’s. Two rings, at seven hundred and fifty, at Nospim’s,’ he read off quietly. ‘“ Hocked the same day. At Nospim's, too! Gee! You're a dandy!” He regarded me in undisguised ad- miration. Parks put up his revolver, took the tickets from the lieutenant, and looked them over. Then he paid me the same compli- ment. “You sure don’t look it,” he said at last slowly, and shook his head. “ But i know you ain’t in with that Rob Roy bunch—yet. They'd never leave them- selyes wide open like that. But I guess you'll sleep in the pen to-night, after all.” And I did. ya ea CHAPTER XXV. THE INTRUDER. I was held as a “ suspicious per- son,” because I would not explain how I, a bachelor, living in a hotel and acquainted with the suspected Mac- Gregor, had come by so feminine a piece of jewelry as a pendant. Parks then took me back to the privacy of the room we had been in, and, after further cross-exanination, his opinion of me developed so far as to rate me as a “classy hotel and steamship crook,’ and he tried to frighten me by guessing at the length of my Scotland Yard record. He telephoned my hotel and appar- ently learned that no one had missed anything. Then he rang up the Rollins apart- COMEDY. 793 ment and learned that my “ friend” had not yet arrived home. It did not seem to excite him a great deal. Hang- ing up the receiver he swung lazily upon me. “Hope nothin’s happened to your friend,” he declared; ‘* because if any- thing has, you’re going to get in worse an’ worse. How did you come to know this saloonkeeper they call the * Gregarack ’?” “That is my affair.” “All right. I ain’t in any hurry. I’ve been after him for a year, and I guess I can wait a week or so longer.” “You don’t mean to say you're going to keep me in one of your cells fora week! You can't. You have no charge—nothing.”’ “ No—but I will have when the guy that owns them sparks you soaked misses them. Don't tell me what I can or can’t do,” “Hang it all—isn’t there such a thing as habeas corpus?” He leaned his elbow upon the flat- top of the desk and looked with pene- trating steadiness up at me. “Sleep on this, Mr. Slick. If I want to you can do a seven-year stretch— just as you stand without nothin’ but them bits o’ paper to say “ Here’s how.’ I say, if I want to. “While you're tryin’ to sleep, re- member that we got the guinea woman, too, an’ that she apparently doesn’t love you nor Gregarack. She’s likely to know a thing or two, and likely to holler. “Your friend Rollins may be down to see me to-morrow, and he may not be such a fool as he looks. If you want to get the benefit of bein’ under the wire before your competitors, don't be bashful. It’s your only chance. I said you'd sweat for that one you handed me, and I ain’t goin’ back on my word.” I regarded him a moment or two, wondering if he really expected me to believe him. “You seem to forget there’s a Brit- ish consul in this city.” comicloooks.com