The Argosy for May — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

380 I turned it over to you, and somebody came along after you'd gone, and 1 found you hadn’t—well—”’ ‘IT can tell you everything that’s in it,” cried the other, suddenly struck with the idea. “ Just hold the bag down under the counter, where I can’t see it, and I'll identify everything it contains.” The girl smiled again, this time pity- ingly. ‘““No, ma’am,” she grinned; “ that’s too easy. Suppose the bag belonged to somebody you knew, and you'd seen whatever was in it—you could tell me all right. We girls that need our jobs have got to be awful careful or we'll get fired, you see.” Miss Hutchison’s teeth closed with an angry snap. ‘The situation was intoler- able—and there seemed no way out of it: Why had that young man ever handed her the hateful bag she carried? If he hadn’t troubled to return to her what was not hers, she would not be in her present difficulty. | And why hadn’t she been more ¢are- ful in accepting it? Why hadn’t she kept her wits about her and examined the bag before she took it? Suddenly she sat erect upon the stool. Into her mind had flashed a sudden, hor- rifying thought. It had not occurred to her before, but —had that young man really picked up the bag, as he said he did? Suppose—she shuddered at the possi- bility—suppose he had lied? Suppose the bag was his and he had wished to be rid of it? Why should he wish that? Because he did not want to be seen carrying the case. Perhaps the young man was a shop- lifter! ie She had read stories of the desperate means taken to avoid capture by this order of criminals. jee Eis might be one of those stories hap- - pening in real life. ‘The young man, if he was a shoplifter with a bag full of loot, might have been pursued through the store. The first thing he would do would be to try to get rid of the incriminating evi- dence of his guilt. And what more natural means of doing THE ARGOSY. so could he devise than to hand the bag over to the first woman he saw without a shopping-case, explain tha: he had picked the bag up near her on the floor, trust to luck that she might indeed have dropped hers, and substitute his booty- sack for her property? Had that happened to her? Miss Hutchison felt a cold perspiration break out on her body. She remembered the young man’s man- ner when he had given her the bag she held. She recalled that he had hurried off immediately after she took the case from him. Was he a thief? Had he made her a party to his crime by turning over to her the stolen goods to escape detection ? What was in the bag he had given her? Jf she had looked into it in the first place, she would have avoided the mistake she had made. And if the case contained stolen property when she re- ceived it, that property was still there. There was just one way to find out. With aswift turn of her wrist, she opened the bag she held on her knees as she sat on the low stool before the counter. Dropping her eyes, she shot a swift glance within. Vhen, with-a_ half- smothered cry, she snapped the clasp hastily, shut and looked fearsomely about her. The chatelaine was crammed—literal- ly stuffed to bursting with a disordered mass of expensive laces, gold watches, odd bits of jewelry, an embroidered scarf or two—a jumble which fairly shrieked its identity to be “ loot.” Oh, where was Marion? the little lady thought agonizedly. She needed her; needed some one near her to bolster her ~ waning courage. She cast a second nervous glance around her. At the realization that no one had seen the inside of the case, she drew a deep sigh of relief and sharply caught her breath. Her eyes met those of a amie face at the corner of the aisle, ten yards dis- tant, on her left. The same thickly-mustached man in the brown derby hat who had stared at her after she received the strange bag, was now watching her. His eyes seemed to bore two holes into her head with the intensity of his gaze. CORICGLOO© (Cc <S (C@