Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

134 He had stuck his head out of the window and the youth grinned back. over his shoulder. ‘“ T’ll get you there just as quick, mister, make it up in the open country, but I got plenty of summonses around here and they’d lay for me if I was only hittin’ it ten miles an hour!” “Another case of giving a dog a bad name!’’ Lucy murmured. ‘I had to go to the drugstore Friday night for a headache, and I thought I’d call up from there at the same time, because Mrs. Miller is always trying to listen in and it makes it uncom- fortable to know there’s somebody at your shoulder. I told Mrs. Wilson that I’d get down to see her to-day if I could.” Phil reflected. The traveling man had said he could tell by her voice that she was talking to a ‘ john,’ but he might have been kidding. Still, there was the difference in the last figure of the number; it wasn’t what was written on the wall. “Vou’re sure you didn’t call up 6099?” he asked. Lucy stared at him and then burst into laughter, with an hysterical note in it that she must have been conscious of herself for she choked it back swiftly. “Of course I am! Didn’t I get Mrs. Wilson herself?” she retorted, then sighed again. ‘“ When you came yesterday after- noon and I knew you’d been spying on me, I thought you were going to take me down to headquarters and rake up all the past, - and I’d be questioned and warned and all, over again! I’ve been trying so hard to forget and after this last year I hoped P’d be left in peace!” Their horn sounded twice as she stopped speaking and Phil glanced out but nothing was ahead in the road and their pace was slackened. They were in the open country once more with wide meadows on one side stretching away to a distant orchard, and on the other the spreading golf course of a country club which flaunted its flag and gay awnings far on the top of a hill. No one appeared on the links and he could make out the lines of but a single touring car drawn up before the club veranda. o “ Pretty early in the season for that kind ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, of joint to doll up on Sunday,” Phil re- marked, and turned again to his companion. ‘“ No one’s going to bother you, Lucy—”’ He halted with his jaw dropped, for he was staring straight into the muzzle of a small pistol as businesslike in appearance as the one he had flourished on the night before and which now reposed ineffectually in his hip pocket. He made an instinctive reach toward it, however, but stopped at the cold menace of the woman’s tone. “None of that!” she cried sharply. “Stick ’em up, and keep ’em up! I’m going to make sure nobody bothers me, least of all a bum amateur dick! Come on, Bert, I’ve got him covered, and if I have to shoot they'll think it’s a punctured tire! Make it snappy!” The youth, still grinning, had climbed down and opened the door. In a flash he produced a gag and several short lengths of trolley wire. “Get down on the floor, quick!” he ordered while Phil glanced desperately down the deserted road and calculated his chances of being heard if he lifted his voice. Lucy had belonged to the Dobson gang and she’d stick at nothing now that it was a question of being involved in one murder! He knew the implacable killer’s look, and it was in her eyes now. He shrugged and dropped ignominiously to the floor of the car while the young gunman expertly frisked, and then bound and gagged him. “ Car’s coming!” Lucy Regnier warned suddenly in a low, tense tone. ‘‘ Look at your rear wheel, Bert, V’ll keep him down below the window!” The sound of an approaching car was in- deed borne nearer and nearer to them as Bert closed the door and bent leisurely over the wheel. That threatening gun was pressing close against Phil’s ear now and he was helpless, anyway, with that confounded gag tearing his mouth apart and the wires cutting into his wrists and ankles! He uttered a strangled oath that was some relief'‘to: his feelings as the other car passed and its humming was lost in the distance. Lucy laughed again. “Don’t waste any time when you get loose trying to locate my friend Mrs. Commicoooks (E@)