Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

HOW MANY CARDS? are saying a lot of rotten things about me this morning; that I played my customers for suckers and God knows what else, but if I was as white-livered as he I’d go and jump off the nearest dock!”’ } ‘“‘ ve heard that intimated by more than you, Mr. Ford. We never had the least thought of you being guilty, but we think there’s some information it’s in your power to give us that ’ll maybe help a lot.” ‘Mc- Carty paused. ' “ Of course, if you don’t care to give it we can’t compel you now—”’ “Oh, I'll give it, fast enough!” Ford’s harsh, dry laughter rang out and then .was as quickly suppressed. “I don’t know whether it will help yeu or not, for I haven’t the slightest idea who killed Creveling, but I'll give you all the information you want about the whole retten bunch of them! I kept my mouth shut yesterday because I had a sort of forlorn hope that they’d be white enough to tide me over even after Creveling himself had welched, but when Cutter threw me down celd I made up my mind that I’d shew them all up and I will! They got the money—my own, not my customers’, but if I’d had it, I could have weathered the storm. I wouldn’t kick - if the game had been straight; I’m not a poor loser, but I’m convinced it was crooked and I’ve been made the sucker. God! Even a tin-horn card-sharp will stake you to cigarette money after he’s stripped you of your roll!”’ -“ Game?” McCarty repeated, a light be- ginning to glimmer through his conscious- Ne€ss. | | ‘Of course. I was on my way to being a rich man even in these skyrocketing days, but it’s all gone over that green table of. Cutter’s, damn him!’ Ferd _ stopped abruptly and the rage in his face gave way to a look of sly derision. “ You fellows at headquarters are mighty smart, but you didn’t know that the hjiggest games in the city are pulled off and have been for years in that respectable-looking house of his down on the avenue! He is nothing more nor less than a professienal gambler, only he does things on a scale that’s never been known before even in the big town.” A gambler! The connecting link at last! It was the gambling fever, the lure of chance which held this strangely assorted group of people together. More potent than drink or drugs, it had bound them in an association of silence for mutual pro- tection, and drawn gentleman and cad, aristocrat and upstart into a degenerating democracy! But why hadn’t he guessed? Then the memory of a chance remark of Dennis’s oh the previous evening re- turned to make his chagrin complete. When he told his friend what he had learned from Miss Frost about the Kip woman and how she had been broke one day and flush the next Dennis remarked: “ Like a gam- bler!”” Even then he had not tumbled ta the truth! It all seemed so obvious now in the light of this revelation! Those two dissi- pated rounders, Waverley and Creveling. seeking to stimulate their jaded senses with the excitement of the game; this money- mad Ford, to whom all of life had heen a gamble; Jehn Cavanaugh O’Rourke, with the hot, reckless, sport-leving blood of his forebears in his veins, and Cutter sitting cold and inscrutable in the midst of them! But what of the women? Where did they figure in this scheme of things? “Tm not yellow!” Ford went on. “I wouldn’t cry ‘crooked!’ just because I’d been stung, but looking back now I can see _how I was played, like a trout in a stream, and they’re doing the same thing to O’Rourke. They'll clean him and his wife, too, before they’re through—Cutter and 527 Waverley and Creveling was helping it ~ along when he got his! He stood in, and I was just beginning to see it; that’s why I went to him first when I saw what was coming. I wasn’t a beggar, I only wanted a loan of some of my own back and Crev- eling had got most of it. He understood, he knew I was on to the game and he told me he’d see me through; made an appoint- ment with me for Thursday and then at the last minute took back his word, welched! He thought he could bluff me, but I’d have. gene back yesterday and got it from him anyhew but for his being shot!” McCarty was scarcely listening. ‘‘ They'll clean him and his wife, toe!’’ were the last words which had pounded themselves into his brain. COM ElOO® Colin