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Show r MY By JOSEPH Mc CORD wnu sSSST " THE STORY SO FAR: Larry Cutler tartied pretty Jacqueline (Jack) Anthony, An-thony, public stenographer at the Hotel Raynear, by asking her to marry hlra. Before their marriage, they signed a contract providing that she may con- Larry rose without a word, and Jacqueline did likewise. She remembered remem-bered the order and allowed the flashlight to hang limply In her hand, making a pool of light on the floor in which she and Larry stood. Trapped. "Now then, Miss," directed the voice, "throw that package on the floor . . . over this way. No foolin'. Pitch it!" Before she could comply, she was conscious of a lightning-like move by Larry. The torch was knocked from her hand. She heard Its shattering shat-tering crash on the floor and the room was In darkness. She knew instinctively that Larry had hurled himself In the direction of that voice. There was a red stab of flame. A report that almost stunned her with Its intensity. Too frightened to cry out, she listened. lis-tened. There was the sound of scuffling scuf-fling steps, the writhing of bodies. A vile epithet. Men panting. Then Larry's breathless: "Jack! Run!" Blindly she groped her way to the door, found It, waited. She could not leave Larry. She must do something! some-thing! Before she could collect her wits, she heard a peculiar Impact. The sound of a body falling. She gave a scream of fright when she felt a hand clutch her. Then Larry's reassuring: re-assuring: "All right, dear. Hurry. Got 'that package?" "Oh, yes!" "Fine!" He was almost dragging her. Up the steps, across the clearing, clear-ing, plunging recklessly through the brush, along the fence. "Larry!" she called breathlessly over her shoulder. "Are you all right?" "Sure." Now they were In the car and Larry was backing it slowly into the main road. This time, he did not turn on the lights but drove swiftly through the darkness. At the first turn, he peered through the back curtain. "Look!" he called excitedly. "We didn't have much time to spare!" Jacqueline saw the lights of a car topping the distant hill behind them. "You mean . . .?" she asked fearfully. "That guy had some sort of alarm rigged up. He was watching us all the time from the old vegetable room. That's his boss coming." He broke off with a laugh. "I think he'll have to do some first-aid stuff before he gets a report." Jacqueline's hand came out to find Larry's. She could see it resting on his knee. "Do you know . . . Oh, Larry, darling! You're hurt!" Jacqueline's cry burst out at the touch of Larry's fingers. They were sticky, wet "It's nothing," he assured her quickly. "Just a touch in the shoulder. shoul-der. I think it's almost quit bleeding bleed-ing . . . just messy." "Larry, stop the car! Let me see it!" "I'd rather not, dear. I'm making mak-ing out all right I want you to get home . . . Vince will help me out." "Stop just a minute," she insisted. insist-ed. "Turn 'on that little light. I don't care if they do catch up to us. Nothing matters . . ." She was so insistent that he pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He slipped his coat from his shoulder with Jacqueline's help; then she loosened his tie and opened his shirt "There's a handkerchief in my breast pocket" he told her. "Fold it into a pad and we'll try to tie it in place with my other handkerchief." handker-chief." His fingers were exploring. "Just below the top of my shoulder, shoul-der, as I thought Ploughed the muscle. There. Slip the other handkerchief hand-kerchief through and tie it . . . like that. Any sort of knot." "Are you sure you can drive, Larry? Lar-ry? I can steer, if you'll do the other things." "No, indeed. I'm a famous one-arm one-arm driver. Let's go." "Don't talk, dear. Save all your strength." "Of course I'll talk. I want to tet some things out of my shattered shat-tered system. Don't know when I'll be seeing you . . ." "Everything can wait now, Larry." Lar-ry." "I don't want it to. You've been such a . . . trump. I think you've guessed a good deal about tonight. This will be sketchy. My father spent years in perfecting a manufacturing manu-facturing process . . . rather technical, tech-nical, but it had to do with textiles. Quite revolutionary. Like most inventors, in-ventors, he wasn't much of a business busi-ness man Impractical." "I knew," Jacqueline helped. She was thinking of Vince. "Well, to make a long story short, he took in a partner. A stock company com-pany was formed and a factory starteJ down East. This partner attended at-tended to all the details, but most of the stock was unloaded on Dad's friends. He was well known and well liked. As it always happens, a let of that stock was held by oeople INSTALLMENT SEVENTEEN Unue her present mode of living for six months, after which she could tear up the contract. When her father, Vince Anthony, became 111, Larry invited him Into the country to live. Several months later Jacqueline accompanied Larry to who put most of their savings into it." "I know," Jacqueline said again. This time, she was thinking of Vince's daughter. "I was out of school when the crash came," Larry went on. "Dad had always been rather lavish with money as far as I was concerned, and I never bothered my head where it came from. I was down in South America. Got the idea that I was going to make a big hit on my own, like a Richard Harding Davis hero. "Here's what happened, as nearly as I could piece it together and from what Mother told me after I got back. She didn't live so very long after the old gentleman . . . died." "You told me that Are you all right Larry?" "I'm making out. The process proved a failure. The company went up. The stockholders . . . some of them . . . thought Dad had fleeced them. They brought suit against him Jit ::m She gave a scream of fright. and ... I guess he couldn't stand that Sensitive ..." "I understand." "Later, I found out through a friend of my father's in the textile business that another concern was using a process similar to Dad's. For some unknown reason, he never had patented it. Somebody else did. I didn't have the money to do any investigating, but I did find out that his former partner was the principal princi-pal stockholder in the new firm. And that they were making money hand over fist." "What a shame! It was the same as stealing it!" "You telling me? I didn't mind the money, but I swore, if I ever had a chance, I'd see to it that my father's name was cleared. If the package we got tonight is what I think it is . . . it's all we need." "Do you want to tell me what it is?" "Of course. My father had a precise pre-cise way of recording all his experiments. experi-ments. He never destroyed any calculations cal-culations or results . . . put them all in a memorandum book, or books. Written so fine that you could hardly read them. Mother told me that he always kept the practice prac-tice up and cached them where they were safe from fire. I knew where that was, or thought I did." "Under the hearth." "Exactly. And I grew more suspicious sus-picious when I learned that this other oth-er fellow had bought our old place and was camping close by. The fact that our house was empty . . ? Well, it gave me a hunch. Maybe this guy knew of those records. He couldn't find them, but he wasn't going go-ing to take a chance of some tenant fixing up the place and stumbling on them. If he were playing such a game, the stakes were so high that he wouldn't stop at anything to win. Guess that sounds rather fantastic. It took me a long time to figure it out." "I'm surprised you didn't try to get them sooner." "There was a catch there. If anything went wrong, I wanted to be in a position to fight The other fellow had influence and money." "But, Larry . . . there's one thing I can't understand. If your father had those records, couldn't he have cleared himself and not . . ." She couldn't quite bring herself to say the words. "That's something that probably will never be explained. He may have been so crushed that it drove him to kill himself rather than be humiliated in court. On the other hand, I'm suspicious that he never had the chance." "You don't mean . . . ?" "Yes, I do," was the grim response. re-sponse. "I don't suppose I could ever prove that. But I can't get away from it. The whole thing was hushed up too quickly. I hope it's his former home after confessing she loved him. Larry hoped to clear his father who had died accused of fraud. He had Just found what he wanted when they were discovered. Now continue with the story. t 4i -a. coming out now. Rannie Hicks and his father are going to handle it If it takes everything we have ..." Larry ended his sentence abruptly and leaned back wearily. "Oh, what is it!" Jacqueline clutched at his arm. "You've tried to talk too much. Are you faint, dear?" "Just a bit woozy." "Can you make it?" "Of course. I'll get you home . . . get Vince. Must get that book to Rannie . . . he's waiting." "Don't talk, dear. Just drive." It seemed hours to Jacqueline before be-fore the roadster came to a stop in Courtland street. She flew Into the house where she found Vince, wild-eyed wild-eyed and pacing restlessly up and down her living room. "Skipper!" he cried anxiously. "Where in the world . . ." "Don't wait to talk, Vince," she panted. "Larry is out in the car. He's hurt. Help me bring him in!" "I've got to get that book to Rannie," Ran-nie," Larry groaned. "He's waiting up for me." "Vince can take it to him. Come now. I'll help, too." And in spite of himself, Larry was escorted into the apartment. "Cut that package open and let me see those books," he ordered. "All right," was his comment, after aft-er he had leafed through a few pages. "Vince. You know where Hicks lives?" "Sure." "Take those books to Rannie. Don't let anything stop you. Then wait there for me. You won't fail me, will you, old man?" "No chance. Shall I take the car?" "Leave it? for me. I don't want to call a cab here. It's pretty dark yet and I don't think anybody'll spot the bus out front Just as soon as Jack ties me up . . ." He mustered mus-tered one of his old-time grins. "Pardon me. Vince, this is my wife . . . Mrs. Cutter." "Gimme those books," Vince said gruffly. "You're both of you crazy." By the time Larry had eased himself him-self painfully out of his coat, Jacqueline Jac-queline was at his side with a basin of hot water and clean clothes. "Cut the shirt, while I take it easy a minute," Larry suggested. He leaned back with his eyes closed. "It's a load off my mind to get those books away. They've got dates and everything in them. It ought to be clear sailing for us now." "Don't talk." "I like to talk to you. Then I'm sure you're here and I'm not dreaming. dream-ing. Don't happen to have a drink, do you?" "No. I'm sorry. I'll make you some black coffee in a minute. Does that feel more comfortable now?" "I'll say. You're a regular little lit-tle campaigner, Jack. You must be dead for sleep." "If you weren't hurt, I'd say it was the nicest and most exciting time I ever had," she told him lightly. "Now for coffee." How strange to be tending Larry this way, and how wonderful! After sipping his coffee, Larry relaxed re-laxed again and Jacqueline insisted he must rest a few moments longer. long-er. She promised to sit close beside be-side him. And he might hold her hand, too. CHAPTER XIV The next thing Jacqueline remembered remem-bered was hearing a sharp rapping on the apartment door. She sat up with a start, to find Larry on one elbow el-bow and staring about in a confused fashion. "It's only somebody in the house," she whispered. "Why, Jack, you've let me sleep," Larry was beginning uneasily, when his words were cut short by another an-other rap. "Open up," said a quiet voice. Larry motioned to his wife to go to the door. She opened it, stepped back with a faint exclamation of dismay. Standing there was Lieutenant Frank Staples. And peering sharply sharp-ly over his shoulder ..." Old Martin Jacobs, who sold her the Southern Furnace stock. "Good morning, Miss Anthony," was Staples' bland greeting. "Sorry to bother you so early, but we'd like to talk a minute . . . Oh, you have company! How are you, Mr. Cutter?" Cut-ter?" He entered the room with Jacobs at his heels. Larry lay back on his pillow and stared belligerently at Jacobs, who was eyeing him with cold interest Jacqueline felt suddenly faint. All this was her fault. She must have slept! She glanced at her clock mechanically. After eight! Jacobs was the first to break the silence. He pointed at Larry with his stick. "There's your man. Lieutenant Take him into custody. I will appear ap-pear against him." (TO BE CONTINUED) |