Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

FINDINGS IS seems there was some hokus-pokus about the old man’s will. The girl had expec- tations, anyway. But they’ve been dished.” He proceeded to retail clearly and briefly the mystery of Colonel Maywell’s three wills. It made his nephew:so thoughtful that he was inattentive to his supper, and it was not often he was at home for that meal now that he was attached to the Tenth Precinct Station. ‘“She’s a beautiful girl, Allaine Maywell ” the inspector concluded. “¢ Allaine ’?”? murmured Harry. “ Aw, listen to the young calf baw!” cried Uncle Dan scoffingly. ‘‘ He bells the name like it was the most beauchious .in the world. It’s a poet, not a cop the boy ought to be, Mary.” — “And why not both?” rejoined the widow proudly, smiling at her son across the supper-table. “Huh! Poetry won’t get him anywhere in our business,” declared the inspector. “Tis the strong arm la-ad with the quick eye and the schamin’ brain that grows out of the flat-foot class into something better.” “Like yourself, Dan dear,” rejoined his sister. ‘“ Surely Harry possesses some traits of the McKanes.”’ ‘“‘ Maybe,” agreed the inspector, pursing his lips and eying his nephew reflectively. “ But he'll get little chance to exercise his higher talents under old Buffalo Griggs,” and he laughed shortly. ‘ Buffalo sent your name, Harry, with that of Maddock, Gin- ness, and Blake to headquarters with the report on that Maywell crack. And his comment was that the four of you weren’t worth the powder to blow you to—well, I will take some more of that Yorkshire pud- din’, Mary. It goes fine with the dish gravy. : “No, Harry, you are not considered a prodigy by Old Buffalo.” ‘“‘ Suppose I should bring in something about that Maywell case, Uncle Dan?” sug- gested the rookie doubtfully. ‘¢ Humph!”’ “‘ Should I give it to the skipper or pass it up to you?” ‘What is shrewdly. ‘“I’m supposing a case,” replied Vale. it?” asked the. inspector KEEPINGS. 69 “Don’t do it. ‘ Supposin’s ’ won’t get you anywhere. There is too much of that in the detective game now. I try to hammer it into my boys that it don’t go. *Canniff and Moore, who are on this Maywell case, sat down and tried to dope it out. -I tell ‘em that won’t get us anywhere. You've ‘got to get out and dig something up. That is the only way that I ever got a line on- any crime. ‘Take this very case,”’ went on Inspector McKane reflectively. ‘ After all, there really isn’t much to help solve the muddle —not on the surface. No finger-prints on the box door, on the tools, or on the window bars. The tools do suggest the crack being made by an old-timer. But that may bea plant. Can’t tell. Whoever got into that ‘box didn’t need modern tools, anyway. A real smart yegg could have picked the lock with a pair of scissors. “‘'No tracks outside the window. Noth- ing disturbed in the house but just the con- tents of that safe. Nothing left behind by the burglar but the tools. | “T can think of a dozen guns listed at headquarters who might have pulled it off. One who hasn’t turned a trick to our knowl- edge in ten years—squared things and been living straight for all that time—tlives right in the neighborhood of Trevorth Street. Looked him up through Canniff and Moore. The poor chap is in the hospital, taken there the evening the crack was made. So he comes clean. “You see, it really looks,” concluded the inspector, “‘ as though the fellow who turned the trick might have gone there for some- thing beside the money in the safe.” ‘But was anything else taken?” Harry asked. “Not unless the old will was exchanged for the new. That is what is puzzling Mr. George Wilmot. He’s a pretty shrewd old boy. He has a personal interest, too, in those Maywell twins. Known them since they were kids, and is fond of them.” ‘““* Twins ’?” repeated Vale, startled. “That is what they are—Allaine and Allan. To probate either the new will or this first one that has been found would satisfy Mr. Wilmot, I take it. But as the thing stands, the will made in between—the cComiclbooks.com