Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

726 _ is trying to hook suckers, and you’re trying to steal Olney’s plans. You hired me only because you thought I might be able to go out and get those plans for you.” “You didn’t hesitate to take my money,” Radcliffe said. Seagrave drew a pocketbook from an in- side pocket. He cast it into Radcliffe’s face. - “There’s the most of your filthy mon- ey!” he shouted. ‘ Ill pay you the rest in the morning.” Radcliffe had fallen back against the blow. His face had turned yellow from the rage of a man whose soul is mean. His - hands were clenched at his sides. He only awaited an opening to smash his fist into Seagrave’s face. “You'll pay the rest of it now,” he said. ** Righto,” said Holmes cheerfully. ‘“‘ No time like the present. How much are you shy, Seagrave?” ** About a hundred and ten dollars,” Sea- grave said. “‘ But you don’t need to make it up, Holmes. Ill get it. somehow in the morning.” “* It’s a privilege and a pleasure,”’ Holmes said. “It’s one of these rare privileges that a little man gets.” “ What do you mean by that?” Radcliffe asked, seeking to divert Seagrave’s atten- tion so that he might get in that blow. “I mean that if I were set up on my feet comparably to you and Allison, I’d _ knock both your blocks off,” Holmes re- torted. Seagrave turned to him with a smile on his lips. His rage was cooling. He saw that a cool man could get even quite as satisfactorily as one whom anger heated. He wanted to grin at Holmes in apprecia- tion of Holmes’s sanity. Radcliffe thought his moment had come. Seagrave’s face was half turned. He flashed his fist in the direction of Seagrave’s chin. But Seagrave had been watching him out of the corner of his eye. He ducked the blow, and caught Radcliffe’s descending arm and shoved Radcliffe back against the car. Radcliffe caught himself and straightened up quickly. Seagrave’s fist caught him on the point of the jaw. He clutched at the curtains, missed them, and fell on the step ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. and from there to the ground. He rolled off the curb. : “ In the gutter,” said Holmes sardonical- ly. “ Behold the rise of one man and the corresponding fall of another.” Seagrave turned around to Miller. “ ‘You’d better get your friends into the car and drive away,” he said. “ And you’d better move as if you haid a certain place to go in a limited time,” Holmes added. “TI see a bright gleam of brass buttons right up there on the stoop of the police station.” Miller cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder. The policeman was slowly descending the steps. Miller got Allison and Radcliffe into the rear seat of the car as he would have loaded two sacks of grain in. Then he climbed to the front seat, slammed the door, and stepped on the throttle. The car sped away. Holmes and Seagrave walked over to Holmes’s car. “You might have been pinched, Sea- grave,” Holmes said, opening the door. “The punch would have been worth it,” Seagrave said. “Td take a year myself, if I could turn that trick,” Holmes sighed. “ By George, I didn’t give Radcliffe that hundred and ten, and your pocketbook is lying over there somewhere. We better get it.” They went back to where the pocket- book had fallen to the pavement. Sea- grave picked it up. As they returned to Holmes’s car the policeman came out on the sidewalk. His hand went to his cap in a dignified salute. “Fine evening, gentlemen,” he said, and passed on. Seagrave stared after him. Gentlemen? Well! CHAPTER X. = “A LONG WAY BACK,” HE next evening—Sunday—Seagrave set out from his hotel for a stroll. At least he had said to himself that he was going for a stroll, but doubtless he knew, subconsciously at any rate, that he was going to see his wife. Comicbooks com Pee