Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

308 and touched his hat, and climbed back to his seat. John Bruce glared ai the man. “Well, I’m damned!” said John Bruce fervently. re CHAPTER ITI. SANCTUARY, HE car started off. It turned the T corner. John Bruce looked around him. He was standing on precisely the same spot from which he had entered the car. He had been driven around the block, that was all! He caught his breath. Was it real? That wondrous face which, almost as though at the touch of some magician’s wand, had risen before him out of the blackness! His blood afire was leaping through his veins again. That face! He ran to the corner and peered down the street. The car was perhaps a hundred yards away—and suddenly: John Bruce started to run again, following the car. Madness! His lips had set grim and hard. Who was she that prowled the night in that bizarre traveling pawn shop? Where did she live? Was it actually the Arabian Nights back again? He laughed at him- self—not mirthfully. But still he ran on. The car was outdistancing him. Fool! For a woman’s face! Even though it were a divine symphony of beauty! Fool? Love-smitten idiot? Not at all! It was his job! Nice sound to that word in con- junction with that haunting memory of loveliness-—job! The traveling pawn shop turned into Fourth Avenue, and headed down town. John Bruce caught the sound of a street- car gong, spurted and swung: breathlessly to the platform of a car traveling in the same direction. Of course, it was his job! The exquisite M. Henri de Lavergne was mixed up in this. “Hell!” The street car conductor stared at him. John Bruce scowled. He swore again— but this time under his breath. It brought a sudden wild, unreasonable rage and re- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. bellion, the thought that there should be anything, even of the remotest nature, be- tween the glorious vision in that car and the mincing, silken-tongued manager of Larmon’s gambling hell. But there was, for all that, wasn’t there? How else had she come there? It was the usual thing, wasn’t it? And—beware of the conductor! The warning now appeared to be very apt! And how well he had profited by it! A fool chasing a siren’s beauty! His face grew very white. “John Bruce,” he whispered to himself, “if I could get at you I’d pound your face to pulp for that!” He leaned out from the platform. The traveling pawn shop had increased its speed and was steadily leaving the street car be- hind. He looked back in the opposite di- rection. The street was almost entirely de- serted as far as traffic went. The only ve- hicle in sight was a taxi bowling along a block in the rear. He laughed out again harshly. The conductor eyed him suspici- ously. John Bruce dropped off the car, and planted himself in the path of the on-com- ing taxi. Call it his job, then, if it pleased him! He owed it to Larmon to get to the bottom of this. How extremely logical he was. The transaction in the traveling pawn shop had been so fair-minded as almost to exonerate M. Henri de Lavergne on the face of it, and if it had not been for a cer- tain vision therein, and a fire in his own veins, and a fury at the thought that even her acquaintance with the gambling man- ager was profanity, he could have heartily applauded M. Henri de Lavergne for a unique and original— The taxi bellowed at him, hoarsely in- dignant. John Bruce stepped neatly to one side— and jumped on the footboard. ‘Here, you! What the hell!” shouted the chauffeur. ‘“‘ You—.”’ ‘Push your foot on it a little,” said John Bruce calmly. “ And don’t lose sight of that closed car ahead.” ‘““Lose sight of nothin’! yelled the chauffeur. ‘‘ I’ve got a fare, an’—”’ ‘I hear him,” said John Bruce compos- edty. He edged in beside the chauffeur, CORDIC OOKS.€O