The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 227: what you’re looking at

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

WIZARD OR CROOK. to laugh at the very absurdity of the situation. | “Why, you big slob,” he cried, “ do you know what was in that automobile you prevented me from. overtaking? No, of course you don’t, and you never could guess; so I shall have to tell you. It was Darius Poe’s seventy- five-thousand-dollar Bible! ” CHAPTER X. THE CROWNING TRAGEDY, Or course the mere satisfaction of expressing his sentiments was all that Ramsdell got out of vituperating the detective. He had to go down to head- quarters with Brady just the same, and on his arrival there he was put through one of McConnell’s most grilling ex- aminations. The upshot of the whole matter was that he was accorded two more days of grace in which to make good. If he didn’t turn in some information by that time which pointed to a solution of the Bible case, both he and the suppositi- tious Miss Felix were to be arrested. “But you haven't got anything against either of us,” protested Rams- dell. “Oh, yes, I have,” grimly replied McConnell, that shrewd reader of men. “I can see that you’re very anxious not to have this girl pinched, and it isn’t altogether chivalry that’s prompting you in the matter. There’s something in the background there that you don’t want to come out; so I have a very strong suspicion that if I get her down here and put her over the hurdles I shall have all I need against both of you. ‘“* Nevertheless,” he went on, “ just to be a good sport, and because you've shown yourself such a nervy cuss, I am going to give you a chance to prove yourself on the level. Mind you, I don’t think you are for a single minute, and I’m not going to loosen up the clamps too far; but it'll be a chance just the same. 213 “You shall have two days to clear up this case you were so eager to take on; but naturally I intend to have you watched all the time, and if you try to make a sneak you will be nabbed at once. Then, when the two days are up, 1f you can’t bring forward the guilty party, or give me a straight line on him, it’s behind the bars for both you and the dame. Now, go to it.” Ramsdell nodded blithely and went out. “Two days!” he thought to him- self. Why, all he needed was two hours. He already had all the threads for a solution of the mystery in his hands. The only thing required was to draw them in. And first, with Ethel Vorhees’s dif- ficulties more in mind than his own, he decided to look up Mr. Glenn Mc- Keon. The architect, he learned without much trouble, had an office on T'wen- ty-Third Street, and bachelor-apart- ments in a Broadway hotel; but to his chagrin he discovered, on inquiry, that McKeon was not to.be found at either place; and at the hotel the pleasing information was added that the young man had left town and expected to be gone for a week or ten days. ‘This seemed to put a pretty effectual check on the promise Ramsdell had made to Ethel, that she should return home within forty-eight hours; and he began to wonder if all his plans were to meet the same adverse fate. Certainly it shortly appeared as though such would be the case. With infinite pains he tracked up the tour- ing-car which had escaped him through Brady’s interference; for he had been quick-witted enough to memorize its number as it whirled away from him. Finally he located it in a garage on Columbus Avenue, and wheedling the proprietor of the place into giving him a job, worked like a nailer for two solid hours cleaning the mud-spat- tered and dust-begrimed cars which came in. At last, though, he got the chance oO cComicbooks CO