Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

THE FUR CLOAK. There was a little pause, during which Miss Carson drew breath with extreme care. The tenor of the dark gentleman came soft- ly, in a blithe and meditative little song, and Myra breathed again, less carefully. Much, it seemed to her, had been explained, but not nearly enough. If they’d just keep on talking as loudly as that for a little longer, though— ‘“‘ About the doll in there,” said the voice of Nick, the late footman. ‘‘ What?” barked the dark man, his song breaking suddenly. “ Feller, that’s some grand lookin’ little chicken!” the gentleman pursued, too ap- preciatively. ‘(I seen ’em good, but this one—”’ “T thought that was the way your mind was running!” the dark one said with growing anger and with a new, sharp note in his voice. ‘‘ You want to lay off that stuff. Get me? Lay off it and lay off it quick! None o’ that!” ‘“‘ None o’ what?” “ This kid ain’t to be injured in any way, shape, form or manner!” the leader of the interesting little band announced explosive- ly. ‘‘ That’s orders and his orders, and it goes!”’ “ Well, sure, but—” “There ain’t any ‘ buts,’ Nick,” replied the dark man, and his voice softened in a queer, indefinably dangerous way. ‘“ Not about this! That part of it he gimme straighter’n any other part: she ain’t to be hurt!” “Well, y’ might think—” Nick essayed again in a whine. “T ain’t thinking. I know you. And I know him, even if I ain’t known him long. We can throw a scare into her if we have to, but there ain’t to be a bruise on her! There ain’t to be a scratch on her! There ain’t to be one hair of her torn out! Get it? I did, the way he put it!” The dark one laughed very shortly. ‘ Once anything like that was pulled, he said, it starts the whole gang of us doing a stretch! And he’s the boy that can work that from the inside, without ever getting the tip of one of his own fingers mixed up in the mess, I’m tell- ing you!” This statement he concluded with an em- 847 phatic thump on the table. The chauffeur began rather heavily: | “Well, at that—when a guy like that goes nuts and starts stuff like this—he could get in bad, too, if we—” ‘‘ Joey, any time you start putting that guy in bad, you want to kiss your friends good-by first, because you'll be riding north in a smoking car and you won’t see ’em again for some time! Nah! Id cut off a leg before I’d start double-crossin’ that there bird, and it wouldn’t hurt so bad, neither.” “Well, don’t get hot. Nobody—” Nick tried to say. ““ His money’s good and he hands it out free! You're getting yours, but /’m run- ning this show!” concluded the dark gentle- man savagely. ‘ Not either of you—me/! And the first one of you that starts any- thing with that kid—” ‘‘ All right! All right!’’ Nick interrupted quite disgustedly. ‘“ We gotcher, feller! Let it go at that!” Followed another pause, during which Myra Carson’s brain functioned once more with remarkable speed. Information of tremendous interest had filtered through the door these last two min- utes! There seemed to be a potent “ guy ” behind all this—a person who, whatever his other intentions, had laid down flatly the law that she was not to be injured. More, it was a law apparently to be enforced to the letter and—Miss Carson stifled a small, wild little laugh. Not ten minutes ago she had been visited by the flitting impulse to summon them and produce again the old and unreliable smile, perchance thereafter to wheedle her way to freedom. Just now it appeared that if ever in her life a time was to come when sheer unpleasantness promised reward, this was the time! Nor would this involve either effort or acting; Myra Carson’s ancestors had fought in all the wars back to the Revolution. She was very purely a freeborn American citizen; the temper of one of this breed is rarely sweetened by the kidnaping of his person. So Miss Carson, setting her fine little teeth, pondered the matter for some thirty seconds, while out in the larger room the DOOK C©