Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

644 ‘alive. He died in the barracks jail; he was laid out in the hospital, and buried in a little town in Northamptonshire. “Now here’s the point, Scutt,” finished the stranger, drawing closer to the batman and fixing him with his big, shrewd eye, “when that man went into the barracks gate, he had stones on him that might be worth fifty thousand pounds—easily. I know that, and I know that the people who laid him out didn’t get them, and I know that they weren’t buried with him. I’ve taken some trouble to make sure. *“ It’s my theory that he hid them in the barracks jail, and your job is to get your- self shut up in there long enough to find out. My God, I’d enlist myself if they’d take me. But they wouldn’t—flat feet and God knows what not. Can you do it?” The stranger moved toward the fire, leav- ing his message to sink into the soldier’s mind. It took a long time, for Scutt was suspicious, and he had to turn it over and over in his head. The bar was empty for the moment, and Bill waddled out and stoked the crackling fire. By the time the pub keeper had ‘rolled back to his creaking chair by the beer pumps, the batman’s answer was ready. He could see no holes in it that weren’t worth the risk. And there was a sense of solidity about the stranger, of hard purpose. The bat- man guessed him to be an American and he wondered if he were one of those New ‘York gunmen about whom he read in the Sunday newspapers. He put out his hand. “Tm with you.” ‘‘ Good,” answered the other, and ignored the hand. ‘“ Now, then, overstay leave, slug a lance jack, do anything you can to get yourself into the clink for a few days. I leave it to you—only start soon, I can stand anything but delay. Ill be in and ‘out here every evening until I hear from you. “ You can get word through the corporal of the guard, as long as you're lined. I know—God, I look at these big sergeant majors walking the streets here as if they were old Haig and Haig and [ say to my- self: ‘I know how much would buy you— > just one unlucky two-dollar. bill would do ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. it.’ Go to it now. I’ve told you everything I know.” He began to pull on his gloves. “But there’s so much to be arrynged,” objected the batman, who was not used to such direct methods of dealing, “so much that I know nothink about.” “My name for instance. It’s Wales,” said the other, while a grin wrinkled his face, “ Jimmy Wales. Bill doesn’t know what I’m talking to you about. Some- body tipped me off to him in London, and I blew down here and asked him to tip me off to some wise guy inside. I guess he thinks I want to buy boots. “Those stones were all diamonds, and Pearsley carried them in a little roll of flan- nel about as big as my thumb. I don’t know how many there were—nobody does. It’s my hunch he found ’em in some chdteau in France—he and Crill, when they were up ‘in some turret doing their flagtalk. I be- lieve they brought them back to blighty with them and carried them around, waiting until the time should come when they would be discharged. “Then after Crill was drowned, they began to prey on Pearsley’s mind—he was a simple old sod, if what I hear is true. He must have been, to try to get rid of ’em — the way he did. If I had the crown jewels I wouldn’t take ’em into a little Jew shop in Edgeware Road, would I? After he’d shown one, he got the wind up and beat it. “He was followed right up to the bar- racks gate—and he never came out of the garrison alive. If you find the stones, O. K.; if you don’t, there’s fifty quid for your trouble. I'll be going. So-long.” He put a cigar in his mouth and lighted it while the batman stared, for it had taken almost a year to work up the boot game, and here was a deal with a thousand pounds in it for himself, arranged -in fifteen min- utes. There might be more, for there was always a chance in any deal like this that the middleman might somehow or other get the principal’s share. The batman squared his thin shoulders, and walking to the bar set down his glass. “ Bitter?” asked Kate. “No. A spot of whisky.” “ Whisky?” repeated Kate, with a faint- EComicbooks.co