Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. ‘‘T’m waiting here for Kelly. Know him, don’t you? Bring me a small beer and if he comes in the front way tell him Cliff’s here, will you?” ‘“‘T only know Black Kelly, and he’s been and gone, but maybe he’ll come back again if he’s got a date with you,” the bartender answered. “ Dark or light?” “Light.” Cliff settled back in his chair and tried to listen to the conversation going on at the next table. Only snatches of it reached his ears. Once the latest, comer uttered a sharp, smothered ejaculation and brought his fist down on his knee, clenched convulsively. Then he swore under his breath and added: “So I hit it! The damn fool, why did he chance it? I tell you, Charlie, it’s a good thing they’re on the wrong steer, but we'd better make ourselves scarce for awhile!” “Not a chance, Lefty. You can beat it if you want to, but I’ve got to stick around. My sister’s kid—” The rest was lost as Charlie lowered his tones cautiously, but at a further murmured remark he was aware that the man called “ Lefty ” turned with elaborate casualness and stared at him shrewdly. Then there came one word of a phrase which caused Cliff to stiffen in his chair. That word was ‘‘ Shadowers ”! Lefty rose in a few minutes and went out abruptly. Charlie seemed about to follow as Cliff spilled part of the contents of his glass in the cuspidor beside him and sipped with fastidious repugnance at the remainder. The bartender reéntered followed by a. stout, florid-faced man who hurried to Charlie’s side and bent over him. “ Here that night—sure you were, youre all right, but he—told me what he said to you. Yeah, all to pieces, and hitting the snow again. Not on your life I couldn’t take a chance. Sure I wouldn’t go back on him, but I shipped him out to the old wom- an’s—hell of a break, if he don’t pull himself together!” Charlie replied in an indistinguishable undertone and clapping the florid man on his stout shoulder he went out. Cliff finished his beer, paid the bartender, leaving a message for the fictitious “ Kelly,” and T45 followed. Charlie could not after all have been aware of his interest for he went straight across town to the apartment house again without once looking back. Cliff loitered in the vestibule for a good ten minutes, then softly opened the door with his key. He had started up the stairs when the sight of a figure crouched just below the topmost step made him pause. It was that of a woman evidently youth- ful from her petite slenderness, and dressed in a straight gown of some dark, soft ma- terial that made no slightest rustle as she sprang up and started forward after one startled look at him. But Cliff leaped for- ward and caught her by the arm. “IT thought so!” he exclaimed in a low but stern tone. ‘‘ I might have known you’d try something like this, Ethel! What are you doing here?” CHAPTER XX. BESSIE. ¥ HAVE got a room on the next floor with Mrs. Franck,” Ethel explained in a whisper as she hung her head. “‘ I know you said you wouldn’t let me help you here, Mr. Nichols, but that was only because you were afraid maybe I couldn’t take care of myself and they might hurt me. I just couldn’t help disobeying you, and you’d told me to pretend to leave, yourself. Oh, please don’t send me away! I know I can help you in the one way you couldn’t even try. Please!” Her earnestness was compelling and Cliff found his anger dissipated. Well,” he responded in a softened tone, “T guess you’re safe enough for to-night but go straight back to your room and stay there, do you understand? Don’t come out again no matter what you may hear, and meet me at eight o’clock in the morning around the corner in a small restaurant you'll find there. I’ll decide meantime what to do with you—we can’t talk here! What ‘ way ’ do you mean that you can help?” “Through the little girl—Bessie!” Ethel Jepson declared. ‘‘I knew even when we talked to her over the ‘phone the other night that she’d be the one to Comcoooks (S@)