The Black Mask — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

. man; Dr. T was seven o’clock in the morning and Marshal John McAlpin, of -Georgetown, was frenziedly ringing a wall telephone at Herman Mat- thews’ store. : “Gimme Rockland, quick!” he shout- ed into the transmitter when he at last had the operator on the wire. “I’m in a hurry, Lou; git a move on. I ain’t got no time to be wastin’ on you. Gimme Rockland at once,” In a few seconds there was a noise in the distance. “Rockland? ’At you, Rockland? - This is Marshal McAlpin at George- town. Gimme Prosecutor Thornton or the sheriff right away. MHell’s a-pop- pin’ down here. They’s bin a murder committed, mebbe two. Hurry up, now.” Soon the marshal had the prosecutor on the wire, and hastily, disjointedly chopped out the facts as he knew them. “Tl be right down,” Thornton told him, somewhat excited himself. “T’ll bring the sheriff and the coroner with ~ ney An hour and a half later a machine bearing four men came whirling into Georgetown, a great cloud of August dust eddying behind it. The machine stopped and Thornton alighted before the store and soft drink parlor con- ducted by Herman Matthews. “Where’s Marshal McAlpin?” he in- quired of Herman. “Over on the commons. A _ block down and a block toward the right.” The prosecutor, himself a young Carter, the coroner; “‘Bull- _ dog” Dorgan, a friend of Thornton in _ The Georgetown Mystery By William Wallace Major years gone by, now a Chicago de- tective, who was visiting his people at Rockland, and Sheriff Perry con- tinued on till they found a cluster of men. Marshal McAlpin saw them coming and with his best official decorum or- dered the crowd back. The county au- thorities stepped into the circle and saw the body of a man about thirty lying on the ground. “Who is he, cutor asked. “Harley, Mr, Thornton ; George Har- ley,” the marshal told him. “Clerk of the Lewis Commercial Bank.’ The marshal seemed to place emphasis upon “the Lewis Commercial Bank,” as though it was an institution of which he and all Georgetown were proud. “Examine him, please, Dr. Carter,”’ the prosecutor instructed. “Now, Mar- shal McAlIpin, tell what you know about it. And who is the other person that might have been murdered?” The marshal told them that Harrison J. Lewis, president of the bank, was the other supposed victim. His body was at his home. But Marshal McAI- pin could give them little information as to either case. All he knew was that Harley’s body had been discovered on the common at dawn, just as they now saw it. No one had seen it placed there, and there had not been a shot or a cry Or an unusual sound during the night, so far as he could learn. No one had thought to look for tracks, and the dust was now disturbed. And Mr. Lewis’ body had been found in his automobile at his home, Marshal?” the prose-