All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

A THIEVES’ COMEDY. Still shuffling toward the door, re- garding Campbell’s attire, Beans’s ex- pression changed. Halting and hesi- tating a moment or two, his pallid lips parted in a grin that vanished even more quickly than it had come, and, turning, he slipped out and away like a shadow just as Parks, within a yard or two of Campbell and the captain, swerved to one side. Mrs. Varelli, startled a little, looked up and stopped as she so suddenly caught sight of a man who looked like the Gregarach, yet was so different. Campbell gave no sign that he knew she was there, even though the captain broke off in the middle of something he was saying to glance in her di- rection. Disheveled and tattered, her cheeks streaked with tears, she hated all the world just then, but Parks, swinging about to watch, only saw her eyes brighten and the sullenness die out of her face. She almost smiled. ‘The lady seems to think she knows you, Mr. Campbell?” Parks suggested pleasantly, and the policeman, who ap- parently understood his part, did not move on. “ Er—what lady? Oh!” Campbell appeared to notice Mrs. Varelli of a sudden. “Tm afraid she has the advantage of me,” he said smoothly, after a mo- ment’s study. Mrs. Varelli shot a swift glance to- ward Parks, and her face became as expressionless as a blank wall. “No understan’.” “You've seen him before?” Parks assisted, as if out of sheer kindness he was humoring the poor girl. She looked at him, then at Campbell, then at the captain, and back to Parks again. And shook her head. “TI know de cap’n w’en Tony steals da mon’ las’ year.” “Yes, yes—but the other gentle- man?” Mrs. Varelli looked straight up into 799 Campbell's face and found him smiling. * How I know bigga man lika dat? Me—I'm poora gal!”’ CHAPTER XXVIL. BY THE WAY. THE sigh of relief I drew was quite audible. I am sure the lieutenant heard it. But all he said was, “ Sign this;’’ and, tingling from head to foot as a result of the reaction, | grabbed the pen he held out to me and shakily signed a paper of some sort that might have been my own death-warrant for all I knew. “All ready, Mason? ’”’: Campbell's deep-toned query helped to dispel the numbness that had taken possession of my mind and limbs, and, glancing upward, I saw him looking past the chagrined Parks, over Mrs. Varelli’s head, with a suggestion that they both bored him a little. Parks glanced toward the policeman in charge of the prisoner, whose eyes were studiously bent upon the floor, and they moved on toward the police- wagon. Campbell shook hands with the cap- tain, who nodded to me and passed into his office. Then the Gregarach held out his hand to Parks. The detective’s cheeks grew scarlet, and his eyes looked everywhere in a second—at me—at the men hanging about the reserves’ room—out toward the street, where a simail crowd stared at the poor little Italian woman being driven—Heaven knows where! “ Good-by, Mr. Parks.”’ “ Good day, sir.” There was all the difference in the world in a word. Parks meant az revoir as he accepted the hand of the man he had been “ tryin’ to get some- thin’ on for a year.” In half a minute more we were out in the.street and into the waiting car. Every throb of the machine spelled comiclooolks.com