Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 71: what you’re looking at

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

DIRTY ing arrived, he hooked the falls, and press- ing a button suspended over the side on a flexible wire was hoisted in the tender which was swung inboard by its davits and onto its cradle. He dumped the constable, who was be- ginning to recover, out upon the deck, and stripped him of a pair of bracelets, a sap, a come-along, and a jack knife. Then tak- ing a firm twist in the back of his collar, he dragged him up the ladder to the bridge, and, wrapping the chain once about a stan- chion, handcuffed the constable’s wrists. And then, one hour and twenty minutes behind his schedule, he got the Princess under way and headed for Coral Isle. He must endeavor to make up the lost time. So far he had not pushed the Princess to the limit of her capacity. He was wary of straining her too hard. She was doing, at the moment, her steady twelve. He pressed a button and sensed with sat- isfaction an increase of two knots. If she held it until morning she would arrive at Coral Isle on schedule time. And only then did he feel that he could afford the time to think. The realization of the enormity of what he had done came upon him in full. Although innocent of murder, he had assaulted an officer of the law in the performance of his duty, resisted arrest, and not alone escaped from the of- ficial making the arrest, but had kidnaped the man as well. He felt that the least he could get for such a list would be twenty years, < The thought was most absorbing. In twenty years, as Sparks viewed the matter from his aspect of twenty-one, he would be a decrepit, senile man in his forties and only fit for the grave. How bitter this chance, he reflected, that threatened to cut him off in the very prime of his life! Supposing that he even could get away with the stunt of keeping the constable a prisoner until his contract were completed and Coral Isle with its precious treasure were legally his, what good. would his wealth do him in the drab of his declining forties? On the other hand there was this much of a silver lining to his cloud: as a poor man, accused of murder, he would stand WORK. 221 less chance of clearing himself of the charge than as the very wealthy owner of valuable Coral Isle. He was frankly skeptical about the equality of justice for the rich and for the poor, and held the rather shocking be- lief that fhe lady with the balanced scales was not as blind as her bandaged eyes tried to lead one to believe. He absolved Mr. Vail from any collusion in the matter, and attributed its source to the group of villains who had assaulted him in the cave and whose representative had committed suicide by accident by tumbling off the bridges That man’s death would, of course, be the technical base for the murder — charge, What dumb-bells the villains must be if they thought they could get him like that! The accident had occurred on the high seas. He was the master of the ship. His word was law. His word was final. Any maritime court in the world would uphold him. But they must realize this fact them- selves. What they probably were after was to get him out of the way, and a trial with all the delays their lawyers could arrange might drag on for months, for years, This appeared the most reasonable solution, and he turned to the constable, who had just let out a groan, and told him so, adding for good measure, *‘ And I’m glad I did what I did to you, my bucko. I don’t like your face.” “ There is nothing left of my face,” in- sisted the constable thickly. “‘So much the better. If you have any sense at all you'll thank me for having done my best to change it.” “T guess you think you’re smart,” mut- tered the constable, removing a tooth that had been loosened beyond any reasonable hope of sticking it back in again. “T’m smart enough, my man—” “T ain’t your man, you young toad, you—”’ “Pipe down or I'll loosen your other tooth. to know this: you’ve been bribed.” ** So help me—” “And you're like all fools who take bribes. How much did they give you?” ‘Two hun—say, see here, you—” COmicloool< I’m smart enough, as I was saying, (@)