The Argosy, Vol. 83 No. 1 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAN IN 419. his fingers were so stiff with the cold he couldn’t steer the pen right.” The man in the brown derby carefully examined the wrapper of his cigar. “What did he look like?” I chuckled again. “Well, that’s where you can still search me!” I replied. “I didn’t get a look at his face. He had it bundled up in a silk muffler, between his pulled-down hatbrim and the turned-up collar of his overcoat. He had a toothache, he claimed, that he was trying to keep the cold out of as much as possible.” “Um!” grunted the inquisitive stran- ger. That was all he said; but somehow, from the way he said it, I gathered that he doubted that toothache story. ‘How about his size?” he went on. “At least, you ought to be able to help me out there.” “Yes,” I agreed, “I can. I’ve got a pretty good picture of him in my mind, so far as that goes. He’s a thick-set indi- vidual. Must weigh every bit of two hun- dred and ten, and all of it good solid bone and muscle, too.” “Talle” “Well—no. height.” The sharp-nosed man put the cigar back in the corner of his mouth, with a satis- fied nod. “T thought so,” said he. “It’s Sheldon, all right.” “Friend of yours?’ I asked, drawing the book back and closing it. There wouldn’t be any more guests ar- riving that night. The five-eleven is the last train, in either direction, that stops at Claysville. I looked up at the man, finding he hadn’t answered my question—and saw him looking at me. “No,” he said, and as he did so he slow- ly drew back his coat, showing me his vest, and ran his hands into his trousers pockets and stood there jingling his change. “I don’t believe, if you were to tell him about me, that he’d consider I was a friend of his.” Just about your own 141 Pinned on his vest was a detective’s badge! : “Ym after him,” the sharp-nosed man went on. “Here,” and he pulled a news- paper out of his overcoat pocket, ‘“‘you can read the charge in this. That’s it, where my thumb’s touching. Robert J. Sheldon is your man with the toothache up-stairs.” I read the brief item, that contained only the statement of the fact that a man by the name of Robert J. Sheldon, for fourteen years the trusted head book- keeper for the wholesale house of Miller & Sons, had skipped out with eight thousand dollars of the firm’s cash, and that a re- ward of five hundred dollars was offered for his apprehension. I looked up with envy at the man before me. Five hundred dollars was all I needed to make up the sum that would turn me from clerk to proprietor of that very hotel. You see, my boss had a bad case of asthma which the doctors had told him only a warmer climate could cure, so he offered to sell me the hotel at a bargain. And here was this man coming in to take the money I wanted right out from under my nose— the little fortune that might have been mine, if I’d had any idea beforehand of who the man was that I’d sent up to 410. “Now, Ill tell you what to do,” said the lean individual who’d shown me that badge of authority on his vest, as he rested one arm easily on the desk once more. ‘‘Just send somebody up to ask him to step down here in the lobby for a minute,” he instructed me. ‘“‘Then I’ll make the ar- rest, and I promise you it’ll be done quiet- ly, and probably without any of your other guests in the house being any the wiser.” I rang for George. I told him to go up and ask 419 to come down. In three or four minutes George came back. “T couldn’t get any answer to my knock on the door,” he reported. I looked inquiringly at the man in the brown derby. “He hasn’t gone out,” he snapped. “If he came down-stairs and went across the lobby without your seeing him, while you — COMMICLOOOKS (C@)