Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. before them. The wurst was a series of large, typewritten sheets of paper fastened together with a clip, the second a certified check and the third a square flat jeweler’s box of sizable dimensions. “What do you suppose has been the matter with Ethel?” Henry Corliss asked anxiously. ‘ Never knew her to be sick a day since she first came to us, and she hasn’t shown up since the case ended. You’re sure she is actually home, Rex? Mrs. Gordon isn’t stalling for her? She told you Ethel was really ill, but that it wasn’t serious? Why the devil wouldn’t she say what it was, then?” “JT don’t know,” Rex Powell replied. ‘I’m convinced she is telling the truth when she says that Ethel is at home, but she may have some reason of her own for denying -herself to us all this time. However, Mrs. Gordon assured me over the phone this morning that my secretary would be able to resume her duties today.” “I’ve prided myself on my ability to read character!”? George shook his head. “It’s stood me in good stead in every con game I’ve worked for nearly forty years, but I’m ready to put Ethel down as one of my permanent failures. To tell you the truth, I thought she had been unduly smit- ten with the charms of our client, and I won- der how she’ll take the news of his renewed engagement to Barbara Norcross, that was published yesterday in all the papers? Still, there is the young man of the daily flowers and the donor of the Pekingese. We must still take him into consideration.” “ That’s tommyrot about Monckton— Ethel stuck up for him because she believed in him, and that’s where she showed com- mon sense.” Phil Howe tilted his chair back and thrust both hands into his pockets. ‘She and Cliff were the only wise ones in the bunch, and it’s lucky for young Monck- ton that we gave Cliff the case to handle! Lucky for the reputation of the Shadowers, too, but the rest of us were prize boobs! Why, even when I found out that Lucy was in with the gang I couldn’t convince myself that there’d really been a thief there in the Monckton house and that she’d tipped him off to the lay!” “But you saved the day in the end, 923 Phil!” Cliff Nichols exclaimed. “I suppose I ought to have taken you all into my con- fidence but I couldn’t change your opinion and I meant to work it out alone. I know we agreed to wait till Ethel came back for our final reports on the case, but it’s all wound up now that Monckton’s check has come and I want to know how you got on the Regnier woman’s trail again and why it led to that cellar just when Joe Geiger had opened fire on me.” “IT found an old friend who’d worked in with the Dobson gang and he told me where she was staying since Sunday when she and the roughstuff guy got rid of me so neatly—she was with the mother of one of the boys who’s doing time now,” Phil explained. “IT watched from Monday, when I was tipped off, till Wednesday morning when Joe Geiger came to her. She must have turned him down, but she didn’t dare give him the go-by entirely, for when that Charlie Curran showed up at her joint that night she went with him down to the old fence, Lazarus, on Hester Street. I did business with him myself in the old days and I knew about that cellar, but of course I wasn’t wise that it was Joe who’d croaked the old man and they wanted to hide him there that night. “‘ Charlie must have got cold feet, for it was her who went to Al’s speakeasy, got Joe and took him back down there. She came out alone and waited in the alley and me with her, although she wasn’t wise to that. After a bit she beat it into the cellar of the empty saloon next door to Lazarus’ and listened. With the first shot she was through that connecting door and me after her! I switched on the lights and grabbed her when she tried to hold me back from reaching Joe, and then all at once Ethel was there, knocking the gun from his hand but Cliff was‘down! “When I saw that I forgot all about the she-devil and sailed into Joe, but the fight was all gone out of him and he was blubber- ing like a kid. The police whistles were blowing like hell outside and I knew Cliff would be taken care of; we didn’t want our game gummed up at the very last, for I’d twigged what was up and that the bulls comniiclooo! S (©