OCR Text |
Show i3 jsk in By Courtney Ryley Cooper jjj CopyrlEHt by Courtney Ryley Cooper (WNTJ 3ervlce ) S( H 1L. II b PRECEDING EVENTS Joe Barry, country youth tn ! New York, ekes out a living as j caretaker in a poor rooming house and accordion player In Louie Bertolini's restaurant Lured by the open country, he spends a nifrht tn the fields, neglecting neg-lecting his duties. Next day Sertoli Ser-toli n I discharges him. A frequent fre-quent visitor to Bertolini's offers of-fers him $10,000 to impersonate a "bootlegger" In trouble. It means a penitentiary sentence for .foe. and he hesitates. The man, "Martin," gives him $1,000 "on account." Next day Joe deposits de-posits $800 In country banks, giving his name as Joseph Bradley. Brad-ley. A circus attracts him. Outside Out-side a tent he sees an accordion end is tempted to play it. A girl Sue Dayton, niece of the owner, who admires the music, urges him to take a position with the : circus. Joe says he must flrsl return to New York "on business." busi-ness." He has decided to refuse re-fuse "Martin's" offer. In hie room four men accost him. Bewildered. Be-wildered. Joe sees the men. who are detectives, find large amounts of money, a machine gun, and two revolvers. CHAPTER III Continued 8 Joe remembered little but the crowding crowd-ing and clattering noise as they went down the stairs. Once on the sidewalk, side-walk, he looked for a patrol wagon. There was none; only a sleek-appearing car, with drawn side curtains and a glow from crimson headlights. A jangling bell began to sound after the machine had started, drowning out other noises. Soon the machine stopped, and he was led inside a building, build-ing, to a desk where a white-haired, disinterested man in shirtsleeves asked him questions and wrote the answers down in a book. Then the locks of I the handcuffs clicked raspingly. as a j barred door closed behind him, and another man in shirtsleeves, fat. dis-I dis-I interested, impersonal, took him by ; the arm. Joe saw rows and rows of ! barred places to his right and faces ! peering out at him. The turnkey i swung back a door and gave Joe Carry a gentle push. The prisoner's muscles i galvanized. j "You're not going to put me In ! there!" he begged. "I didn't do any-. any-. thing, 1 swear I didn't do anything!" I "I'm just the turnkey; I don't even ) know what you're in for." "But, please, can't I talk to somebody? some-body? You could do that for me." "Park yourself on that bunk in there," answered the turnkey. "You'll get a chance to do all the talking you want in a little while." Then his big key turned the lock and be was gone. Somehow, like blurred clouds before the dawn, the j minutes dragged by. Then the turn-: turn-: key came, as disinterestedly as before, ! and unlocked the ceil. "Captain wants to see you." This time, it was into a room that they took him, where a big man with much gold on his uniform, rolled in a loose-pivoted chair. Pete Maxwell was there, too. and Ed and Jerry and Jake. Three packages, wrapped in brown paper, were on the table, and an envelope from which currency protruded. pro-truded. The captain brushed that j aside, and with thick lingers broke the strings of the larger packages. From behind Joe Barry's eyes, a sudden pressure began to make itself felt, as if thumbs were pushing them outward. The rattling paper had revealed two j heaters or automatic pistols and the ugly outlines of a Tommy or Thompson Thomp-son machine gun. "Well, sport." said the captain monotonously, "what about this hardware?" hard-ware?" "I don't know anything about it. I never saw the stuff before. It was put in my roifcn today while I was away." I "So?" the captain looked up. "Away ' where?' i Joe Barry's lower juw shot open, and hung there. If he told that, he also must tell whom he saw and where he went. Involuntarily he winced, as Sue Dayton might wince i If she knew that the young fellow ; whom she had wanted for her ring mate w-as tainied by accusations. "I jusl went out of town for a day." j "It's a big country. Where?" Joe Carry's eyes took on a des- perate fire. j "I won't tell you !" The captain looked at him blandly. I "Oh, all right." he said, "sit down." They moved a chair to the end of Hie table; Ed and Jerry sat down. too. then Jake. The captain picked up the evil-looking machine gun and eyed it : carefully. "So somebody sneaked this Into ' your room. Who. for instance?" Carry straightened with hope. "His name is Martin He's a lawyer. law-yer. I cot fired Inst night down at l.ouie Certolini's place and this lawyer said he had a job for me. He gave me some moni'v and told nie to go out into .'he counir.v and lake a day oil Then ! co.il.l come back tonight and tell him whether I warned to go through will: this deal or not. He said ht-had ht-had a friend who'd goneri into some trouble oier some liquor and he want ed me to take his place. So I-' "Don't make a speech aoou! It. ' said the captain (iiietly. "We'll gel ni : things rait at a time. Martin, jo.i said t!:e name was?" "Yes, sir." "The town's full of Martins. Whick one?" "His name is, John B. Martin." came tonelessly. "He's an attorney and his ofiices are down at GO Wall street." "Sure of that, are you?" The name evident Ij had made' no impression upon the captain. He raised his eyes and gave a slight jerk of his head. "Take hin back," he commanded. Carry clung to the table. "Cut there's a lot more to tell!" he begged. "1 haven't got anything to hide. I want to tell you jusl how I happened to get into this mess." "Don't tear your shirt." admonished the captain quietly. Then to Pete: "Take him back." Again the metallic clatter of his heels; again the faces and bars, and the sight of a frowsy woman peering nut trim, under her hair. Then he was alone, sitting on his slatted Iron cot, hands sweating one moment between be-tween his knees, the next instant rubbing rub-bing at his hot cheeks or across his burning eyes. He rose and paced, three step.' one way. three steps back, bumping against the steel plates at one end. the rough bars at the other. Suddenly he settled, with fearful determination; de-termination; They hadn't believed him when he told about Mr. Martin. Maybe they'd question him again. That's it, they'd bring him out and question him for a while, then send him back to forget what he'd said. But he must not forget for-get one tiling; they could burn him in oil if they wanted to, but he mustn't forget onf thing. He'd make up a story about where he'd been today, and he'd stick to it. Other things faded just that a girl should not know ; this seemed to be all that counted count-ed now. Minutes dragged by. He mustn't forget to keep quiet about where he'd been today. An hour passed. The turnkey cam and unlocked un-locked his cell. They went back to the captain's office. "Sit down," said the captain. Then everybody seemed to forget him, except ex-cept a fifth person who was now in the room, a tall, gray-haired man with some distinguishing characteristics, who came to the other end of the table and looked intently at him. "No," he said after a long time. "Sure?" asked the captain. "Absolutely." Pete Maxwell lit a cigarette. Ed slumped in his chair and began the reading of an early edition aewspaper. Jake and Jerry just sat. The captain looked over some papers from his desk. From the other end of the table, the gray-haired man stared at Joe and Joe returned the look. "Absolutely," said the gray-haired man fo: i. second time. The captain seemingly ignored the remark. "Sport," he began, leaning toward Joe Barry, "Forgot to ask you before. Suppose you give me an accurate description de-scription of this John B. Martin?" Joe Carry licked his lips. "Well, I don't know how accurate 1 can be. I didn't pay much attention, except that he was about medium height, and had dark hair and eyes." "Weight?" "He wasn't very heavy." "And just medium height?" "Yes, sir." "Not tall, like Detective Maxwell there, or this gentleman?" "No, sir." The captain leaned back in his chair. "Sport," he said, "suppose you cut the comedy and save us a lot of trouble. This gentleman uere, whom we had to disturb out of a night's sleep, happens to have his offices at GO Wall street. And he's the only John B. Martin in that building." Joe Carry's lips quivered; he was reaching the point where a nerve-burned nerve-burned body refused to give more emphatic signals of his distress. "Well." came tonelessly, "I don't know what we can do about it." The captain seemed to disregard that, too. (TO BE CONTINUED.) I |