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Show VSvv je, "fcv-:- "s. -V-t' ing basket in her hands, "it was an orderly, well-conducted household. You can ask any of the neighbors. Meals were cooked and, what's more, they were eaten; there was none of this 'here one day and gone the next' business."' busi-ness."' "Nonsense," I observed. "You're tired, that's all, Mrs. Klopton. And I wish you would go out; I want to bathe." "That's not all," she said with dignity, dig-nity, from the doorway. "Women coming and going here, women whose shoes I am not fit I mean, women who are not fit to touch my shoes coming here as insolent as you please, and asking for you." "Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What did you tell them her, whichever it was?" "Told her you were sick in a hospital hos-pital and wouldn't be out for a year!" she said triumphantly. "And when she said she thought she'd come in and wait for you, I slammed the dooi on her." "What time was she here?" "Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. If she thought I didn't see him she ion't know me." Then she closed the door and left me to my bath and my reflections. re-flections. At five minutes before eight I waa at the Incubator, where I found Hotch-kiss Hotch-kiss and McKnight. They were bending bend-ing over a table, on which lay Mc-Knight's Mc-Knight's total armament a pair of pistols, an elephant gun and an old cavalry saber. "Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie," he said, pointing to the arsenal. "This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, who says he is small and fond of life." Hotchkiss, who had been trying ta get the wrong end of a cartridge into the barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and mopped his face. "We have desperate people to handle," han-dle," he said pompously, "and we may need desperate means." "Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have people peo-ple grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name," McKnight jibed. But they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had told me what they planned, I waa serious, too. "Y'ou're compounding a felony," I remonstrated, when they had explained. explain-ed. "I'm not eager to be locked away, but, by -Jove, to offer her the stolen notes in exchange for Sullivan Sulli-van ! " "We haven't got either of them, you know," McKnight remonstrated, "and we won't have, if we don't start: Come along, Fido," to Hotchkiss. The plan was simplicity itself. According Ac-cording to Hotchkiss, Sullivan was to meet Bronson at Mrs. Conway's apartment apart-ment at S:30 that night with the notes. He was to be paid there and the papers pa-pers destroyed. But just before that interesting finale," McKnight ended, "we will walk in, take me notes, grab Sullivan, and give the police a jolt that will put them out of the count." I suppose not dne ot us, slewing around corners in the machine that night, had the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or that Fate, scurvy enough before, was playing into our hands at last. Little Hotchkiss Hotch-kiss was in a state of fever; he alternately al-ternately twitched and examined the revolver, and a fear that the two moments mo-ments might be synchronous kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on the scrap of pillow slip from the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, I with its point in cotton batting for safekeeping. And in the intervals lie implored Richey not to make such line calculations at the corners-. We were ail grave enough and very quitt, however, when we reached the large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the power on, in case we might want to make a quick get-away, and Hntch-I Hntch-I kiss gave a final look at the revolver, i I had no weapon. Somehow it a.! I seemed melodramatic to the verge I of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss ' was a half dozen fett ahead; Richey I fell back beside int. He dropped hij i ah'i etation of gayety, and I thought he ' looked tired. "Same old Sam, I s'.ip-I s'.ip-I j.o.:e?" he asked. , "Panic, only i -ere of him." "I s,'pjo.-;e A'ison was there? How is she?" r.e inquired irrelevantly. "Very well. I did not see lier thl3 morning." Ilotclikirs was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand cn my arm. "Now, look here, uid man," he said, "I've got two arms and a revolver, re-volver, and you've got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is right, and tlx re is a row, you crawl tinder a table." "The deuce I will!" I declared scornfully. scorn-fully. (TO JIT. CONTINUEDJ |