Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

642 were to be the time; if there would be a special virtue in this barrel of beer which would push him up to the bar at closing time, bend him over it, and plant his lips on Kate’s. It was a picture which never failed to bring the blood into his forehead, but he had come to the conclusion that it must be when he was drinking spirits; bitter beer couldn’t do it. Beyond his “ ’Alf pint of bitter, please, miss,” he had never spoken to Kate. The drop of dark blood in him may have made him different. The batman was one of those curious Soho hybrids; although he had never been outside London there flowed in his veins blood that had its source far south and far east. As he remembered him, his father was not only white, but very fair, but his mother was always a sable shadow by the foggy window, where she sat all day long eating strange sweets. She always said “ Yess ” to any comment, and called his father “ Sair.” The batman had her thin, hawk face, mottled brown eye, and while his skin was fair there were dark shadows in it, as if it had been powdered with steel dust, some of which had settled in faint lines and patches. In his instincts he was four-fifths cockney, but there was another part of him that hated sports, revelled in visions of Solomon- like luxury, and, when he had been checked by his officer for dirty spurs or leather, burst into a cold flame of resentment. For many nights after such a time the batman would lie awake gripping the sides of his iron cot, thinking of what he could do with a small, keen knife. There was a sort of lair behind the bar among the beer pumps where sat Bill, the keeper of the pub. His close-cropped bullet head protruded above the brasses like a small beehive. For three nights running the batman had noticed a stranger sitting in there with Bill —a keen, close-shaven man wearing a gray bowler hat, horsey plaid overcoat, and yel- low gloves. He might be a bookie, or a bagman, come out from London with a sup- ply of cheap jewelry. He was a mark, for the Red Lion was a soldier’s pub, and a civilian was rarely seen. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. The batman thought they had been speaking of him each of the times the stranger had been there, for at his entrance Bill had growled some word and the big, bold eyes of the stranger had begun to go over him, like a doctor’s stethoscope. He was beginning to be uneasy, for there were passages in the batman’s life which he had taken some pains to conceal, and it might be that this stranger, in spite of the air of Brighton about him, might be a detective, civil or military. Either would be embar- rassing. On the third night of his presence, just after the batman had shaken the fog from his overcoat and was taking his first sips of beer, the stranger arose with a sudden air of decision, came from behind the bar, and set his glass of whisky and soda on the mantel at the batman’s side. He nodded, spread out his hands to the blaze and spoke. “They tell me you’re a live one,” he said in a voice which, while clear, did not carry a foot beyond the soldier’s. ear. “ Scutt, I think you and I could do business together. That’s a good graft you play with the boots. But it’s small—it’s petty.” A cold chill crept up Scutt’s spine. The stranger, then, was an inspector from Whitehall. The blood left his narrow, long- chinned face. “Don’t worry,” said the stranger with a chuckle. “I’m no dick. But it’s wrong for you to be playing with small stuff like that, especially since the man in the Q. M. gets most of it. I'll bet it began inside your bean, though, and a man who could work up a thing like that has possibilities.” © The stranger picked up his glass and drank suddenly, as if he hated it, as hard men drink. That boot scheme had origi- nated in the batman’s head, and he was al- ready some fifteen pounds richer for it. It was very simple. Every man who en- tered the garrison was issued two pairs of boots, which he surrendered upon leaving for India or Egypt, or any other overseas service. He was then given a single new pair, his kit to be filled out on his arrival in his new unit. The batman had conceived the idea of crediting the outgoing soldier with only one pair of boots, the other pair to be hidden, EOLMIC OOO) KS5EO)