Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

382 another automobile drove up beside the one in which Mrs. Barton sat, gentlemen. Everything must have been prearranged, for she says that three men stepped out at once and into the Halliday car. They threw a blanket or something of the sort over Mrs. Barton and lifted her bodily into their own machine—and it was speeding away before any one could raise a hand!” The retired secretary looked at his friend. Barton gazed wildly from one to the other. ‘What shall I do, gentlemen?” he cried. ‘‘ Don’t stand there like that! My wife! Don’t you understand, my wife—” “We understand perfectly, Barton,” Hemmett said quietly. “ My boy all but got same dose. I was lucky enough to shoot the fellow who had him. Has anything of the sort been threatened?”’ ‘“No, nor dreamed of!” “Have you been having trouble with any one, Barton?”’ ‘““Mr. Hemmett, I am positive that I haven’t made an enemy since I came to this hell-hole!” ‘“Nor Mrs. Barton?” “Why, Martha’s positively afraid of the native element!’’ Barton cried. ‘We'll have to charge it up to Jones, I think.” “You believe that the man is so ut- terly abandoned as to attack women and children?” Barton gasped, and it was noteworthy that his faith in Hemmett’s estimate of the Jones character seemed to have increased since their last meeting. “Tm not quite sure what I think,” Hemmett confessed. ‘‘ They’re coming a little too fast for me, but—here! Give me that telephone! Police headquarters again!” He waited impatiently until the click came from the other end of the line; then: ‘Domez? Yes, it’s Hemmett again! Domez, have you found Jones yet?” ‘“‘ Senior, in all Puerto Carlo there is no trace of the Senor Jones,” the chief of detectives informed him smoothly. THE ARGOSY. ‘““That’s a lie, and I think you know it. Listen, Domez. The wife of the American minister has been kidnaped. Yes, you may well gasp! What? Well, I don’t know how you’re going to find her, but I do know that if you don’t find her you’ll have an American fleet shelling Puerto Carlo inside of a week! What? Well, Domez, we’ll put it in another way, then! If you haven’t returned that lady to her home before midnight, you'll reckon with me and the same gun that killed the fellow who tried to get my boy. Think it over!” This time it was Mr. Hemmett who hung up the receiver unexpectedly, but there was no anger in his face as he turned back to them. Instead, the slight pallor had returned and Hemmett’s eyes were undeniably round. “T° can’t make it out!” he said. ‘Unless Domez himself is in the very thick of the thing, I can’t make it out! By all precedents he ought to have howled and protested when I talked to him that way—and instead he had the cold nerve to tell me that if the American fleet turned up looking for trouble it was likely to get all it came after!” ‘“‘ Fact?” cried Girton. ‘““ Almost word for word!” ‘“‘ But my wife, gentlemen!” gasped the agonized Barton. ‘‘ What of her? What did he say? What shall we do?” Hemmett’s shoulders squared as he considered the unfortunate gentleman, his round face fish-white and wet with perspiration, his collar wilted, and his hands twitching incessantly. “He said that he would start men out at once, of course,” he replied quietly. ‘That may mean everything or nothing. As to what we’ll do, Barton, we'll get out and start the grand hunt for Mrs. Barton ourselves. ‘And I want to tell you that, so far, this country hasn’t succeeded in putting over anything on Girton and me! When we start for Mrs. Barton, we'll bring her back in good shape or we'll have half this town shot to flinders. comicloool C©