Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

HOW MANY CARDS? from the car. As it started again Dennis atinigatence’ ani hoked Gy om we wer He didn't cross the twacks: he’s head- Ing west,” he observed. “ After coming ail this way are we going to ride on—” But McCarty had risen and sounded the buzzer in his turn and when the car halted again at the next corner they literally flung themselves of. Frank Hill was no where in sight and the avenue itself seemed utier- ly deserted. “There, you see!” exclaimed Dennis dis- gustediy as they burried back to the street at which the valet had alighted. “I tald you we'd lose him! If you’d have listened to me—there’s no ome at all in the side — street either way.” For amswer McCarty stopped abruptly at the corner and pointed through the glass show-window of the all-night drug-store, the lights of which were the only oasis m the desert of darkness about them. Hull in conversation with the weary-eyed clerk, and it was evident that they were old ac- quaintances. Dennis and McCarty had only time to withdraw into a neighbering doorway when Hill reappeared, and rounding the corner, started briskly westward. The others fol- lowed just in time to see him almost collide with a second figure which had been lurk- ing in the deeper shadows of a high stoop. Both sidestepped imstantly, and Hill can- - tinued his way, but thongh he walked fast- er even than before his shoulders bunched forward despondently, almest furtively, and a certain elasticity seemed gone from his stride. “Martin!” McCarty swore beneath his breath as the figure approached them sheepishly. “So ‘twas you pulled that bonehead play! You're a disgrace to the force!” ~ ‘“ However in the world did you get here?” Dennis demanded, adding with sly satisfaction: ‘‘ You've scared off our bird, aH right! Any one could tell a mile off, Martin, that you were on the job!” ‘““T rode down on the same car with yeu, on the fender at the back?’ Martin re sponded, chagrined. “ How was I to know © 341 he’d run into me like that? It’s just the luck of the game. Shall I trail him, Mac? Maybe that clerk in the drug-store is a kind of a go-between in whatever business brought him out, and he’s finished what he came for. He's certainly walking as though he was through in this neighborhood.” _ “ And good reason!’ McCarty comment- ed. “ However, ‘tis no good palavering over. Trail him, Martin, but if he starts up-town on a Car or im a taxi hel be on his way back to the Creveling house with neth- img more doing to-night as far as he is con- cerned, so you come back here, I’m going | to see how much that clerks knows ahout bim.”’ task, and Dennis and McCarty retraced the:r steps to the drug-store, where the lat- ter purchased three of the mast expensive Cigars in the case and remarked casually as he lighted one: “ Thought I saw a fellow in here that I know just now as we were passing; tail, thin fellow, dark, with a smooth face— ‘Qh, you mean Mr. Hildreth?” the clerk interrupted pleasantly. ‘‘ He and his wife live just around the corner and they trade here a lot.” McCarty removed his foot hastily from the agonizing pressure of Dennis’s big bro- “ That’s ny friend, all right, bet be can’t have Irved in the neighborhood leng. They used to have a flat up on the West Side. Mirs. Hildreth is a mighty fine-looking wo- gaan, big and blend—” “She's a fine woman every way!” the clerk interrupted again, his tired face light- ing up with a smile. “ They've only lived aropnd in Lanahan’s apartments a little mere than a month, but it’s easy to tell. She don’t ceme in often herself, bat she's always got a kind word about the chil- “dren,”’ he added irrelevantiy: “I Jost ny own wife a year ago.” “ Tough luck!” McCarty said sympa- thetically. ‘I'll drop in on the Hildreths one of these evenings. Which apartment house is Lanahan’s?”’ “ Fifth from the cerner; got a cracked yellow lamp over the vestibule; you can’t miss it.” ECOMNIC HOG Ss (CO ww