Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

686 that their drivers are never surprised at any- thing except a big tip, And it was under- stood that madame, waiting discreetly around the corner in this conveyance, should if neither George nor Ugichi ap- peared within half an hour, call in the po- lice. It would, in such case, unquestionably have become a police affair. They rattled cheerfully across the Seine, along aged cobbled streets where proof etchings and onions and fresh tripe and antique rings were being hawked; an in- congruous pair, the brilliant, glowing little woman in her modish gown, the impassive descendant of twenty centuries of close bred culture and quartz-hard inhibitions. Pres- ently, at a signal, the cocher drew up be- side a little fountain beneath a plane tree. Here they bade him wait, and Ugichi led madame to the corner of the street, from which she could watch him and identify the house he entered. | He was an inconspicuous figure as he jogged along, bearing his great box, his messenger’s cap pulled low over his beady black eyes, his lips almost soundlessly whis- tling a tuneless air. No one of the few who passed favored him with a second glance, or an afterthought. At the stoop of the thin, four story brick house, he knocked, after vainly looking for a bell. For a considerable time nobody an- swered. At long length, a pair of bolts were drawn rustily back from within, and the door swung open a bare six inches. A man with the face of a Barbary ape looked forth. Ugichi noted that a heavy chain held the door to its prescribed interstice. He smiled blandly. “ Box, for No. 76, bis,” he hissed. The servant hesitated, glanced up and down the street. “ Bien,” he growled. ‘ Give yourself the trouble to set it down, and I will get it ina moment or so.” Ugichi smiled again, and shook his head. “No can do,” he said, speaking in ex- ecrable French, but yet making himself un- derstood. ‘‘ Muss give, get receipt.” ‘The man grunted, and then threw the chain wide enough for the parcel to pass. _ Ugichi, instead of handing it to him, stepped swiftly inside, An instant later, ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, and the door slammed. Mme. Volontiers, peeping around the corner two blocks be- low, returned draggingly to her fiacre, and entered it to await what might befall. VITTI. THE genial George awakened when the sun struck over a tangle of crooked roofs and tiled gables, and touched his swollen face. He lay on his back and fully clad even to his shoes in a bed of a room rather better furnished than one might have been led to expect from the building’s exterior. But of the outside appearance, George had no rec- ollection. It took him some little time to work back to the last thing he did clearly remember; the fine uppercut he had de- livered to the little man, in the fight in Mme. Volontiers’s studio. With the thought came a deadly fear as to her fate. Was she a prisoner, or worse, dead? He groaned, and started to feel of his aching temple, where the coup de pied of the man who had stolen up behind him had terminated the affair, so far as George was concerned. But his hand refused to obey Something held it, and its fellow. Kicking the bed covering off, and squint- ing down, he perceived that he was fettered in a manner familiar to madhouses and penal institutions. A stout and thick leather belt encircled his waist, buckled be- hind. Smaller, but equally strong straps fastened to each side, held his wrists. They were also buckled behind, so that one could not work them loose in any way, as for in- stance with the teeth. _ While he was speculating upon this in- convenience, the single door to his chamber rattled, a key turned, and there entered a man of somewhat better presence than the three he had met the night bfore. He bore a tray of food, which he deposited on a little stand at the head of the bed. “ Bon jour, monsieur,” he saluted as cas- ually as if he had served George thus for years. “‘ Say—what’s the big idea?” demanded the prisoner in English. The man shrugged, and regretted that he was not a linguist. George tried again, in his best French. Why was he held in bonds? And where? = comicbooks. _ — —— . ee gee, com)