The Argosy, Vol. 61, No. 4 — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

HIS TEMPTATION. He couldn't forget it—not for a minute. And his principal thought this morn- ing was how to get rid of the money. The picture which his anxiety had shown him overnight, of Marjorie Alger suffer- ing because of Ais defection from the path of strict virtue, was enough for Dexter. He w.s determined now to leave no stone unturned to find the real owner of the money that had so strangely come into his possession. He had no idea yet of giving it up to the railroad company. Indeed, as he had gone so far, it would probably have cost him his position to do so. He must begin the quest himself, and do everything in his power to trace the true ownership of that bank-note. ; There were just two safe ways he could see by which to accomplish this. He could not go to the police without being questioned, and questioning would bring out facts of which Dexter was al- ready ashamed. The police would look up his record, would find out all about his getting the bill, and would learn that he had intentionally deceived Harry Con- nors. These facts would at once make him an object of police suspicion. The whole affair might be published in the news- papers, and if it came to the ears of his employers he would surely get called on the carpet. No, he didn’t want anything to do with the police if he could help it. Such inquiries as could be made he proposed to open himself. There was the way of advertising in the personal columns of the newspapers, and the sec- ond way of writing the people who had been lately robbed of large sums of money. Most likely whoever had owned the thousand-dollar bill before the fat man got his clutches on it had kept the num- ber of it, and would be able to prove property. Dexter had two hours to himself in Selsburg. He had collected several morning papers in his car coming over from the junction, and he read them through religiously to see if he could find any hint that might help him in his search. Something might have happened in Selsburg itself that would put him on the track. The haste in which the fat stranger 667 boarded the train the previous afternoon might point to some recent trouble in which he had been entangled, and Dex- ter read sharply the Selsburg news items. There was nothing to warrant further examination, nor did he see mentioned ‘anywhere in the day’s papers a robbery that fitted the case in hand. Every sec- ond-story thief, or petty highwayman, didn’t have the luck to get thousand- dollar bills from his victims. But Dexter knew that a good deal more so-called “news” than was in the papers never appears in print. A wealthy and influential man is robbed under circumstances that he is not anxious to have publicly known. Either the facts are garbled for publi- cation, or are suppressed altogether. So, with the idea still in his mind that the robbery, or whatever it was the fat man had been engaged in, had happened just before the afternoon limited left the sta- tion the day previous, he made certain inquiries. He found a couple of the railroad men who had been at the gate when the stranger burst through and ran after the moving train. They remembered the in- cident very well—they remembered the man himself—but they had never seen him before, nor did they know anything about him. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the station the day be- fore; and, in fact, there wasn’t a clue that Dexter could get hold of. But he had some time still at his dis- posal, and the Selsburg Public Library was near the station. He went there, found what daily papers they had on fite, selected one, and began to read _ back, from day to day, for the month previous. Before it was time for him to report for the afternoon run he had taken notes of several robberies which might fit the crime that he felt sure the fat man had committed. There were two banks—both some dis- tance away—and a big business house in Cincinnati that had had its safe cracked when there was a good deal of cash in it. That evening he spent in his room con- cocting letters to be sent to the three concerns mentioned in the news items. He wrote them that he was so situ- ated that he did not wish to appear pub- licly in the matter, but he had obtained EO NOOO (©