Adventure Magazine Cover, December 18, 1919 — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

¥ Bogus Gems S me. The man who has lived as I have lived is likely to be made a target at any time and without being so very fearless he may get more or less used to the danger, as soldiers in a way get used to snipers. I did not like Blackstone and he was aware of it, so he took that compara- tively safe means of getting-a little re- venge and was comfortable in the belief that I knew nothing of how he some- times talked. To my face he was always friendly. nothing quarrelsome about me. If he wanted to seem to be friendly when an icicle would have been more attentive to him, I could afford to watch him an wait. {I came back to San Francisco and would have forgotten him had he not, about a year afterward, dropped in on me with a casket full of gems. I shall make the incident brief: He wanted me to give him several thousand dollars for the lot. I was not interested. His offer dropped and dropped until it came down to a price I really could have afforded to pay. But I do not buy stolen gems—or any other kind. I never bought a piece of ornamental jewelry in my life. He said that he was a stranger and did not know how to go about dis- posing of the gems, and all that sort of thing, but I was a friend and he would give me a good bargain. The casket was slightly larger than an ordinary cigar-box, very heavily made, solid, peculiarly so, but a rather plain- looking box—that is, not ornamented in any way beyond a monogram of ‘letters that [ made out to be M.-C. I knew noth- ing of jewel-caskets, but this one seemed to me thick enough to have served for a kind of strong-box, except that it had the flimsiest of locks. I suppose that I would at once have sent Blackstone coldly on his way, but it happened that a friend of mine dropped in. He was a little nervous dope-fiend who knew a great deal about gems, as every successful pickpocket must. He took a glance at the glittering trinkets and cheerfully called them a fine assort- ment of “glass”; upon being pressed for further information he declared that the stones were really very good paste. At once it became clear that. Black- I waited patiently. There is_ 173 stone had tried to fleece me. Perhaps it had appealed to his sense of vanity to think that he could put something over on me. He knew gems, though if in a hurry he might snatch up a false one by mistake. I was entirely polite, but Mr. Black- stone departed without his casket—or anything to console him for its loss. I thought the incident closed, but a day or so later he telephomed demand- ing the casket. The conversation was brief: I said “good-by” and hung up. He ventured to come to see me and offered a lot of money for the casket. I told him to go to the devil. My room was burglarized, but the burglar neglected to look behind the bath-tub. He wrote me a threatening letter and I began to be interested. Then he tele- phoned to say that I was a tin-horn, a coward and many other things and that I had hid the casket for fear somebody would. take it away from me. Before hanging up I assured him that the casket and the gems would be on my table every night from the time I came into the room and I suggested that he call. I never expected to see him. But somebody was at the door, coming in. III, OME sense, neither sight nor hearing perhaps, but something such as warns a person when somebody stands noise- lessly behind him, told me when the door was opened. The person was using extreme cau- tion, That was wise. True, it might be a random burglar stumbling, so to-speak, against my door and hoping to carry off something besides a bullet or two in his legs, but any one who came knowingly into my room would expect the bullet to reach a more fatal place than legs. ’ A soft, almost noiseless footstep crept on to the carpet. Then another and an- other. I could hear the faint, nervous breathing of the form almost within hand’s touch of me. A pause in move- ment. J waited. I was not excited. I had no reason to be: the cards were all in my favor. True enough, some people do grow agitated when four aces fall to them. I am not one of those people. EOMILE IOOK COL