Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 83: what you’re looking at

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

A HATFUL OF TROUBLE. + ‘The captain mentioned the wad. ‘““ You said he wrote ‘ The world is mine,’ and signed ‘ Monte Cristo’ in that hat he’s still wearing, I believe.” . “ We thought he did,” said Lyons, con- siderably crestfallen. Cassidy nodded. “ We might get the hat and see if he did,” he amended. ‘‘ No,” said the captain. ‘‘ That would be tantamount to admitting a slip up. We'll give him his head. Now, he left Schofield after working steadily for two years, after graduation, and the highest salary he received was twenty dollars a week. The money he has on him I don’t believe he had when he came to New York. lf he got it here, and by some crooked work, there’s no trace of it in the banks—that is, there’s no report of any robbery of that — press further Pe: magnitude and with big bills like that. — “So, we'll just parallel him. I'll take the numbers. and brokers. In the meantime I'll send Atwater to Schofield on the first train. He can take the new high power portable wire- less phone with him in his grip, and rap right back to me with all the speed in the world if he tumbles to anything. Jacobs can go with Atwater and hobble the phones in Schofield. If he phones back there, we’ll outspeed him if he’s up to any crooked work. “Tn that way, boys, he'll go over the brink the same as any lop-eared lobby-gow that ever frisked a poke—that is, 7f he’s a crook.” “Tf heis— For the love of Mike, cap- tain, why the if?” The injured accents of*Detective Lyons at the mere suggestion of possible inno- cence made the captain smile. “ Why, Bill, a young man that knows as much as this boy, knows that he ought to earn a whole lot more by going straight than he ever could by all the crooked work in the world. He wouldn’t get away with it long.” “Tt ain’t scientific,” protested Lyons vehemently. ‘If he wasn’t crooked, why did he blow from McGuire first off and then from us last night—the three of us—and Big Mac himself between him and the door? Why did he, if he’s got so much that was why he come. We'll send to all the banks 55D surplus brains, duck away from a charge of disorderly conduct? -Much brains must have a crooked streak A guy with that in him somewhere, or he wouldn’t duck. With that much brains he oughta know we couldn’t hold him before any magistrate in the city—not with that kind of a working record behind him!” Bill,” said Cassidy, “ You give me a pain sometimes. He said that much when he agreed to come with us to-day, didn’t he? And ain’t he out in the front office right now?” Lyons admitted that Arthur had. “Then, following out your own argu- ment,” said Cassidy, “ he knew enough to know we didn’t have a thing on him, and Remember when he said, ‘ Very well, peteenieh, I will not “Tom,” said Lyons loftily, ‘-you must remember we had fim buffaloed when he made that crack, just as bad or much worse than he had us buffaloed when one minute “we see him writing in the top of his hat and the next we don’t see his wad, his hat or him. _ “ Now, you’re forgetting the wad, too. How would a kid like him, that’s worked, according to everybody’s say so in Scho- field—a punk little burg—for two years on less than twenty-five a week, save enough jack to flash a wad like that within five hours after he strikes New York?” “That’s one of the things we’ll know,” said Cassidy patiently, “ mebbe, if we do what the captain advises. Give him his head.” “I'd like to turn in my shield, right now, and steal his head,” growled Lyons, who was fond of the last word. “ If I had a head like his, and could do what he seemed to do last night, ’'d go right down into Wall Street, cop off a million or so in old bills and smaller ones than them, float out and over into some back room in a low- down gin mill in Brooklyn, and growl at everybody that didn’t give me a buck tip for a nickel of two per cent suds!” “You made one good observation, Bill,” said the captain. ‘“ This bag hasn’t even a night shirt in it. A man don’t sleep in boxing gloves either. There’s something Eomichbooks (E@) Aal=