Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

162 eaves of a gable that rose above the porch roof. Raising the sash quietly he let himself into a dark room beyond and closed the window behind him. This little house, under the very wall of the home of one of America’s rich- est men, was an anomaly in this ex- clusive neighborhood. Old John Mo- ran, a day laborer, had built it half a century before the city’s rich men had sought homes in this region. He had resisted all offers to sell, and had died there recently. His widow was living with her son in a distant city, but still refused to sell the little house. To-night it stood dark and silent, to all outside appear- ance deserted in its little hedge-inclosed yard, excepting for this strange in- truder in a police uniform. But the fellow felt his way across the bedroom to which the window had admitted him, moving with the assur- ance of one who was used to feeling his way about that apartment in the dark. At the far side of the room a steep pair of stairs led to the lower floor. The man descended and stepped out into a low-ceilinged, dimly lighted room, an old-fashioned sitting room and dining room combined, with a big unlighted fireplace at one end. Heavy curtains at the windows kept such light as there was from betraying the house’s occupancy to the outside world. Some twenty men, all in police uni- form like the newcomer, stood about the room. ‘There was an air of alert expectancy on their faces, countenances as incongruous in connection with the police uniforms as that of the man who had just arrived. One of them, a tall, commanding figure, stood a little apart from the others. He was posing in a grandilo- quent attitude, one hand outstretched. “The king of publicity is dead,” he was explaining. ‘“ There is the hand that slew him. Now we're ready to destroy his secret. Is everybody all set for the break as soon as we hear ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, Ivan’s whistle? Remember, work fast, and don’t make any false moves. Our success depends on getting in and away before the servants discover we’re not real cops, and before the real cops ar- rive. I’m hoping the house will be such a wreck that we won’t have to bother with the front door, and that our dead friend’s wall safe, with his little secret in it, will have been kicked right out in the open by the explosion, so that we won’t have to waste any time hunting for it.” “But here’s Ivan now!” somebody in the back of the group exclaimed, as the newcomer entered the room from the stairway. The one who had been haranguing the pseudo officers stopped abruptly and stared at the man called Ivan, his expression a mixture of surprise and rage. “What the devil’s the matter?” he demanded. “ We've been waiting for your whistle for a good five minutes. We ought to be in there and halfway out again. Probably the reserves are almost there by now. Don’t tell me you've bungled something.” “It wasn’t I that bungled things, Redfern,” Ivan replied, a little defiant- ly, looking his leader squarely in the eye. ‘In the first place, the grounds were alive with plainclothes men be- fore the bomb went off. At least three of them gave me a run, and I beat it out just in time. Looks as though there might ’a’ been a leak. And your bomb must ’a’ been a dud. Never even shook the old house after your tellin’ us it would blow the walls out so that we could walk right in and pick up the safe.” There were murmurs of surprise and disbelief around the group. “ Dud, hell!!” “ Dud, like a twelve-inch gun!” “Didn’t we get it off the radio, and hear Ward croak?” These and other skeptical comments. “Oh, I heard an explosion like a small firecracker,” Ivan sneered. COPNICLOOOKS (C@)