Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

A STRANGER IN TOWN. He was brought in, examined, tagged and sent down a chute, so to speak. It flicked his already wounded pride. The thing was enough to drive any innocent man to the extreme in sg Sade To be picked up on the streets of a city and booked on a coun- terfeiting charge was much too much. ‘Wait a minute! I tell you it’s all a mistake. I don’t know anything about any roof or any raid. I never jumped on any- body’s neck, nor saw a counterfeit bill to know it in my life, and I’ve told this man I wasn’t the man he wanted, I’m a stran- ger The sergeant winked at Jenkins. ‘“‘ Don’t let that worry you, bo,” he interruupted. ‘Tf what Bill says is right, you'll be tak- in’ a trip. You won’t be with us long.” It was useless. Eddie sensed it with a queer, heretofore unknown, sinking feeling of the futility of words. It wasn’t any use at all to explain. These men didn’t want explanations. They were satisfied with the situation as it was. They were convinced that they had a cuilty man. Al- ready and without a hearing in so far as they were concerned, he was condemned. And—and—the thing to do was to shut his mouth and wait till he could tell his story to some one who had some sense. But it was hard to submit to such a flagrant in- justice. He set his jaws, however, and sub- mitted. In silence he went with Jenkins to another room. And in that room he submitted to a search. He really didn’t mind. He stood passive and still silent through its progress. He knew he had nothing incriminating on him—that there was merely a hundred dol- lars or so in his pockets, together with some odds and ends. He stared moodily at the searchers. He even felt a dull satisfaction, because they seemed more or less disap- pointed at what they found. Then Jenkins produced the counterfeit note and explained how it came into his possession, The officer who had been conducting the search—another sergeant, as it happened— accepted it with a satisfaction manifested in a leering grin. “ Nifty bit of work,” he declared after a brief inspection. ‘Gettin’ this bird like 647 you done, Bill, ought to put you on velvet with Cap Salles for life.” And Jenkins shrugged. ‘‘ Oh, I guess cap knew what he was doin’ when he stuck me in th’ alley, before th’ raid, te copper just the sort of play he pulled. But at that he’s a slick one all right. Took me clean by surprise jumpin’ down on me after I’d spotted him on th’ roof an’ told him to go back. I’d a winged him when he jumped, but he shook up my aim, comin’ down on me feet first.” “Wonder you didn’t lose him altogether,” the sergeant remarked. “Oh, that was just a matter of speed an’ keepin’ him under my eyes—an’, of course, I made better time. Th’ crowd let me through when it saw me runnin’, like it al- ways does.” Jenkins’s tone was casual enough, though he expanded visibly under the sergeant’s praise. “‘ How about th’ rest of the gang; cap get em?” he asked. The sergeant nodded. ‘Oh, yes. He sent ’em in. He said you was after a guy, and you got him with the goods, it would seem.” It was all disgusting to Harmon. Their satisfaction over his capture, their puffing themselves up over what must sometime— when he could get the ear of some one with ordinary reason—hbe proved a mistake, filled him with an exasperated rage demanding some expression. He broke his vow of silence. ‘He got siting he burst out. “I’ve already told him I was a stranger in town, and not the man he wanted. That man was the one who ran up to me on the street and slapped my face.” “Huh!” The sergeant iereod up his head. Almost imperceptibly the others present edged in a trifle closer. ‘‘ What’s that?” Eddie picked up courage. He had gained their attention at least. ‘‘ That’s the whole thing,” he began, went on and described exactly what had happened in so far as he knew anything about it, from first to last. “And I didn’t try to get rid of that bill you’re holding until after I heard it was a counterfeiter had left it on me. After I heard that, I knew it was a counterfeit, of course. And I could see the reason why the oO GOmiciwooks=co