Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

744 but not certain and he was prepared to fly from the city. Clearly neither he, Bill, nor Al had been the one for whose call Charlie had waited vainly on that fateful Thursday night. There was “ Joe,” too; surely among so many Cliff would be able to obtain a clue to the man who had written that num- ber on the wall! At a little after eight that evening he heard footsteps on the stairs and a woman’s high-pitched, rather coarse laughter. He had left the entrance door of the apartment open an inch or two and now he went to it with his hat in his hand as though pre- pared to go out again. : The door at the opposite end of the hall opened, too, and he caught a glimpse of a thin, rather careworn looking woman of perhaps thirty, with hollow, deeply circled eyes in a pale, gaunt face, and behind her for an instant a man appeared. He was younger and in shirt sleeves his shoulders loomed very broad, but that was all Cliff could make out, for he stepped back quickly - as a dumpy, plump little woman in a flaring feathered hat mounted the stairs in com- pany with a sallow-faced youth in a loud- checked suit and bright, squeaky yellow shoes. They were greeted by the thin, weary- eyed hostess and the door closed behind them, but not before Cliff heard a pleased little cry in a childish voice—the same clear treble that had replied to him over the *phone. He watched but no one else came and a little past midnight the visiting couple de- parted taking with them the broad-shoul- dered young man. Could this be indeed Charlie, and was he going to keep that appointment Lefty had made? The letter was gone from the box when Cliff returned after dining, and now he tiptoed from the flat, closing the door noiselessly behind him and followed the trio downstairs. He had provided himself with cheap, ready-made clothes with the creases par- tially removed and dust rubbed into the cloth here and there in keeping with the role of a shipping clerk which he had adopted for the-benefit of his new landlady and now his blue serge suit and rather dilapidated gray felt soft hat were incon- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. spicuous enough to take away much of the distinction of his appearance. His mustache had been clipped, the goatee shaved ruth- lessly away and his hair shortened and plastered down. Looking like a down-at- heel but eminently respectable white-collar man of early middle age, he let himself quietly out and walked several yards behind his quarry to the corner. Here they separated, the couple boarding a suriace car and the young man proceeding on alone across town. Cliff trailed him, keeping just behind his solitary figure on the other side of the street. The man went straight down the steeply sloping hill at a swinging, unhurried pace, but at the bottom he turned and it seemed to Cliff that his gait grew uneven and his bearing furtive. Down one street and up another, sometimes completely circling a block, he moved at a constantly increasing pace. It was borne in upon Cliff that he was suspicious of espionage if not actually sure of it, and was trying to throw a possible pursuer off the track. For more than an hour he dodged about, looking hastily over his shoulder. But if he saw that slim figure loitering aimlessly in his wake he gave no sign of it and at last turned into the side door of an ap- parently empty saloon. A light shone from it for an instant; however. Cliff hesitated momentarily and then opened the door himself and entered a small room fitted with little round tables, at several of which groups of men were seated drinking and talking together in orderly, low tones. Their sharp faces—one or two with the prison pallor which Cliff recognized, and many with the sallow skins and leaden, contracted eyes of the dope fiend—ex- pressed no hilarity but rather stern busi- ness. The broad-shouldered young man sat down alone, but he was almost instantly joined by a hard-featured man about five years his senior who greeted him with an anxious, questioning air and drew a chair up close. | Cliff took his place alone at a table near- by. . The bartender eyed him warily but nodded with a grunt of reassurance when Cliff addressed him confidentially. COMIGHOOKS (S@