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.

starting a round-up, it’s the first place I look for my man, as he will go there sooner or later.” : “-'Thev’ll nest there as long as the place 1s open, but scatter when it’s closed—is that the idea?” “ Yes, sir.” “ Well, if we can keep a bit of wholesome fear in this man Connors it will serve our purpose better to let him remain open, for a while at least, but at the same time we have got to make some concession to the wave of reform that is now sweeping the city. The whole town has jumped into this uplift game, and it is growing by the hour. My friends uptown telephoned again right after you left. They wanted to know if I had found a place for them. This was what I had in mind in sending for Con- nors. Some of the best people in New York are behind the movement, and I want them to feel that the department indorses their action.” Here the telephone rang and the captain picked up the receiver and listened atten- tively. “ Not yet,” he said, evidently responding to some question. ‘Call me up in five minutes. Yes, I will be ready in that time.” Again he turned to the plainclothesman. “ The past record of this man. Can we play it up?” ‘That’s the strange end of it. He's clean. I'll tell you what you can do, though. Rake up the reputation of the place before he took it over.” “ Fine—bring him in.” Connors entered with the evident inten- tion of sustaining his jocose mood. His mouth was set with a stage-property smile that congealed into an expression of inde- cision the moment he caught sight of Cap- tain Wallers’s stern countenance. The officer who had ushered him into the chamber of torture was an adept in the art of administering all those chilling injections which are. supposed to benumb the human ego upon such an occasion. ‘‘ Stand here,” he commanded. << little farther over—there. Give me that hat. ae the dribble of tobacco from your chin.” In the meantime the captain had not it was to plunge» - I’m getting some ba Connors, and I’m think up.” " The perspiration could be se¢ across Connors’s brow. me jumping in me sleep with nervous keep that place right. Honest, the been no gents robbed, or suicides, or | ing. Just ask the boys, captain. 11 ain’t a scratch on the blotter against me.” ‘“What’s that?” thundered the captain. ‘“¢ That place has given us more trouble than any other resort in the precinct.” - “ Sure, but, captain, I asks you, please. Give me a chance. That was before my time—honest!”’ Connors again turned to the officer. “Did you see Joie—the fellow I spoke to? He’s an example of that place before I came—lost all he had, and now I’m trying to make a man of him.” ‘Who ran that den before this man came along?’’ asked the captain. ‘It was a gambling house,” answered the officer, ‘and must be crooked from the foundation up, because we made four raids the year before you came to this precinct and always found it empty by the time we broke in.” “Order out a detail of men—lI shall in- vestigate that place myself.” If Connors had turned white before he was ghastly now. The mere thought of such a thing paralyzed him. At any other time it might have been turned to his ulti- mate advantage, but now! What sort of an explanation could he make concerning the revelations that would surely follow the moment the captain entered the cellar under the dance hall? Was ever a man in so much trouble, he thought? What a horrible mess! The minutes went by. Connors could hear the preparations that were going for- ward in the next room. This was the end, SO far as he was concerned. Again the telephone on the captain’s desk rang. “ Hello—no—not yet,” said the captain, — “but an idea has just come to me. Hole the line a moment.” cComicboo