Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 2 — page 99: what you’re looking at

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

THE HOUSE OF THE ECHO. rapidly by her sibilant whisper. As the door shut, Alan and the Echo caught the muffled tread of many, heavy running feet. ‘Play something!” she said hastily, with a nod toward the piano. So that, the fol- lowing instant, the office of the House of the Echo revealed nothing more compro- mising than a young musician drawing a soft, delightful reverie from the keys, while an elderly woman sat back in her chair and calmly listened. CHAPTER XII. THE TRUTH. OT a soul in the restaurant of the House of the Echo but understood what it meant when the squad of police, headed by Inspector Crane, appeared at the door- ways. For a moment, every patron seemed stupefied. The only sounds heard in the entire dining-hall were: the firing of the shot that struck Charles’s hand from the phone receiver, the shouting of the officers, and the rising and falling strain of melody from Grebs’s violin. He alone played on. The Echo gang was caught at last! So every member said in his heart. The bulls had the Echo—and with her, went all hope. And then—as full realization of conse- quences struck home—each member of the notorious gang stood stripped of super- ficialities—tricks of expression; the habit of acquired mannerisms: and his true identity was revealed. Some showed them- selves courageous; others, craven. Some proved stolid or stoically indifferent; still others, madly excited. Wild tears, grim laughs, groans, nervous giggles, oaths, jests —each corresponding to the temperament of its maker—surged and beat like a con- tinuous gale through the room. | None had left his chair. The number of “cops” pouring in had made any at- tempt to escape obviously useless. The fellow of circusy appearance (a noted safe-blower by profession) stared with surly resentment at the police; while the “spirituelle’”’ lass (who might have been a choir singer, but who actually was the most finished “ come-on ”’ and steerer 249 in the “ private’’ gambling-house~ game) changed her expression not at all. Fan, the shy-looking girl—who separated more money from more men, and with _ greater facility, than any other adventuress in Manhattan—smiled ruefully across at the Artist (an unexcelled forger), who was thoughtfully blowing cigarette smoke-rings toward the ceiling. The Count—(none other played the “ titled foreigner ”’ game to such perfection, in all our best hotels) — gloomily scowled and bit his nails. Suddenly the sprightly Madge keeled over in a faint, to the floor. Rather than leap to her assistance—in the face of the cops’ leveled revolvers, the bull-necked Spreckles cowered in his chair. With an angry roar, the mammoth Rattler (other- wise “king of grafters’’) charged the length of the room, tenderly lifted up the girl in his arms, and glared defiance at the officers. Thus the cops of the squad were enter- tained, while a second detachment of the invading force battered its way through the tunnel from Nouffer’s Russian and Rou- manian baths establishment (which, Zelda had explained, was a clearing-house and temporary storage place for ‘“ goods” of the bulkier sort) to the Echo’s cellar; and a third squad, with whom traveled the gray-haired man himself, sprinted up the stairs toward the office and the Echo. The gray-haired man was a sorely-disap- pointed chief when —-having seized the lootless Garford and Hummell —he burst into the office and discovered its proprie- tress in the placid enjoyment of music. “Tis a long time since last we met, madame,’ the gray-haired man observed with ironic politeness; “ and again, I sup- pose, the honors are yours. ‘A search is a waste of time, no doubt, but — for the sake of formality — may I have the privilege?”’ “You have that power, briefly responded the Echo. Imperturbable and wrapped in her own musings, she sat—now a little distance from the desk, while the men almost with a magnifying-glass went through every square inch of the apartment and the office. “You don’t imagine the Carter girl I believe,” COPMICLOOKS (E)