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Show fly ARTHUR, R R.EEVE 1 , (Continued From Our Last l6ue) CHAPTER MI INTERFERENCE. For an hour or more Dick waited patiently at his wireless dicUtgniph in' Garrlelt'r room. In the silence, broken now and then by some amateur he had plenty of time to think of Ruth In spite of him-' him-' self his suspicions carried him on to i the Parr robbery, now known to have j included the taking of valuable Jewels; J an well as the looting of the Parr eel-, i lav of some of Its choicest Wntages. I His thoughts ran beyond that, to the' I radio dance and the suspicious signal-i signal-i ing from the tower of (he Gerard t I house. j Who was the ringleader of this mis i erable affair? He thought of Brock, ! J of Georges -and of Jack Tunis. He j gritted his teeth He hated the very; I name ol the debonair adventurer j Dick started from his reverie. Tho dictagraph was working. Through ihe high resistance head- pieces ho heard voices, almost as if from one of the old phonograph- Ho strained his ears to recognize Ihej voices. It was Vlra speaking To' Ruth" "Well, here we are again For a j second last night I thought we were never going to get to the old inner ( in In analn You're .onm driver. Anybody Any-body else at the wheel and well, dead girlR toll no tales " As Dick's keen oars focused attention atten-tion he could recognize Ruth -; laugh. "Vlra, that sounds good because I know you mean it. After what we went through last night we're pals J forever. I feel a little shaky yet I think I'll lie down for a while on this chaise longue. Some more ol your massaging would do ray poor back a lot of good If you ever go broke and have to open a beauty shop or some thing, count on me as your best patron." pa-tron." There was silence for o few minutes min-utes Tlun Ruth -poke again. I wonder when Jack is coming He's becoming such a rushing lover. I felt I had to do something to rise to the same standard of energy he shows These hoys aren't going to get ahead of little Ruth " Vlra chuckled. "Well. It wouldn't take much to get ahead of Glenn these days. He looks worried and that makes mo worried. Have you noticed It. Ruth"" "Not through your ees of love, dear." kidded Ruth. Dick, at the other end. had been a bit worried about the ethics of what I Garrlck's detective proclivities had j got him Into. He told himself that he i would slop if it were not for what Guy would say If he had stopped, long enough he might have admitted that he was Just like the other millions mil-lions in similar circumstances who would have liked an earful on the other fellow. The fact was that Dick was almost beside himself with Jealousy as he. beard Ruth discussing Jack. The only consola'ion to which he could treal hfmsi u was the dbnchalant and rather flippant way Bhe Bpoke ol him. He wondered. Did he Imagine that, because be-cause he wished her? Then he heard another voice over, the wireless He recognized it as Brock's voice and Brock did not seem in the best of tempers with the girls "You oughtn't to butt in and try '.o ' Itop anything. Ruth not when it has gone as far as that thing did last light You'll get somebody caught J one of these days and " There was a ihiniy veiled threat. I in the grutf breaking oft of Brock'.-i remark. Just because it was the Fairs ?ome friends of " "I know," interrupted Ruth "But When you all picked us up after the smash-up and took us to Vira's why did you leave the bulky stuff at her I house ' Suppose someone comes in there and finds it A pretty little front-page scandal." Ruth had been characteristic. Without With-out entering a defense she had shifted the subject until the other man was on the defense "Don't worry. No one will find anything any-thing Jack will take care of that." Vira made a little suppressed exclamation ex-clamation 'I can imagine my mater If I was caught in a bootlegging clean out That'd be the last straw on tlm dromedary She'd be looking for some new sheik for me in the shape of a grand old octogenarian husband. I was straight on the road to perdition when I went into pictures pic-tures I shock the folks a dozen times a day. But a ruto -running scandal Go, get ihee to a nunnery". Vira." "Speaking of mothers.. " Rufh ! paused, nothing flippant in word or i tone. Dick at the other end was aghast It was all surprising news, this clue to where Ruth had been the night before. Also, It was some mitigated relief. She had got back to town ishakon up by the accident and had gone-with Vira to Vira's empty town ' house. More than that, there was something he did not get; but somehow, some-how, her smash-up had been concerned concern-ed with trying to frustrate something, not perpetrate it "I won't go back there tonight, I Vlra," she said at length. "I'm go ling to stay at the Usonia. A nice little lecture is coming to me for be- - ing out two nights and smashing my car. Think of It- her getting out! there and getting It towed In her- i self to the same garage we tele phoned to for u wrecking car only, first. That's some of Garrlck's work, i 1 11 bei . Well . no rum-running nr-resl nr-resl yet . It might dampen the ardor of someone I know whOBo ardor I do not want dampened Brock, you said this would be a lark It s a lark, all right. We wake up the larks " "Ruthle, old sore-bones, how do you Eeel f I heard you talkiug about a lark You look as if you had been on one that took a nose dive. . . if there is my lark, let me In on It " li was Rae who was at least one, or the new arrivals "Lark," this from Ruth, contemp-tuously contemp-tuously "Yes. one thing leads to an-1 fiber, all right First we start thl-,1 place. Then we get In over our heads Then we begin getting our own stuff to save money. Then we begin getting get-ting more than -we can use here io make some money to pay the other expenses. Then oh, Lord " Ruth subsided as another voice be-1 came audibln also io Dick. Glenn had evidently been another ol ihe new arrivals. ar-rivals. "Now, Ruth, watch Glenn desert me for Vira. He was glad enough to come down here with me Never mind. Olennie. I'll get you, ) r-t." Dick could hear Ran laugh teasingly. "Vlra. if you don't put more pep Into Glenn, I'm giritc to take a hand ' ' "i ou'ro taking a lot for granted, Rae," put in Ruth "Rae has a very taking way," said Vira pointedl) "Now. fellows." smoothed out Glenn. "Quit doing your stuff. No good ever comes " "To rouges when rogues fall out," Dm), r;tnV.. t,-;k n 1 r. . . v, .1 claws In the soft voice. "I hear Jack and Georges downstairs," down-stairs," Rae changed the subject dip- j lomatlcally. "Oh, here's Jack, now J Well, Jack, what's the dirt?" Ruth did not wait for any answer. "Did you " ' Yes, I did, Ruth," hastened Jack "Good a good scout to go up there to Vira's place and remove those Parr Dick cast the receiver from him. cases as soon as the coast, is clear say, edeven o'clock ." "What time is it now?" "Must be about that, now . It's after." Again Dick felt his heart throbbing Violently when ihe Hertzian waves were reconverted into sound waves and brought the next conversation to his ears. "Ruth. dear, how do you feel?" Dick was tense. It was Jack speaking. "A little weak. Jack . But ready I to begin again w hen I get home and j quiet mother's fears. I live on excite J ment " "Well, I am coming over to the J house maybe I can help you with an allhl or meet you in some quiet 1 place where we can talk over the fu-; fu-; ture. the exciting future if you get what I mean." Dick frowned. Unconsciously Jack was stealing his stuff "Always ready to try anything once. Jack." "I'm going to do it soon of course, no one has told you how beautiful you are, I'm going to tell you more 'things about yourself than all the psychoanalysts In Greenwich village or Greenwich, Connecticut, of Gretna 1 Green, or some place." "And he's some teller." snapped Rae I pertly. I There was another tilt verging on when Georges' voice interrupted 1 "Telephone, Curtis," Jack went out, apparently, and ! George?, by the sound, must have shut the door. t "Did you get the low-down ? No?' His laugh punctuated the remark. "Ver' good. The steamship, 'Arroyo' has wlrelessc-fl in that she was held up I by a government boat outside the three-mile limit, and searched, and that two hundred and fifty cases were taken off. That's the report. But there was no government boat in that vicinity at the time. Eh? Now what do you make of that?" There was a olloy of laughter from everybody. 'That was a call from the garage," came Jack's voice. "That Garrick guy " there was a laugh, for they were all in a stage where a pun is as high a form of humor as any "has been hanging around. My man left But someone saw Garrick in a taxi." "With Dick?" This quick query' wag from Ruth and a bit anxious "No, alone." "Oh. . " Her voice died off in relief. re-lief. ' I've sent another fellow out. Hope he's in time. "Where0" This was from Vira. "Your place." Jack seemed to pound a table. "They'll give him tho beating of his life, confound him mash his face in put him in the sheets for a week maybe " Blalt! Dick, tinkered and tickled and ad-Justed ad-Justed All he got was some fool amateur on the same wave length. He swore. He tried to swear over the ether, but with ill success. The interference inter-ference was there to stay, as it always al-ways Is when one is listening in on something pretty good. Dick was sore. But he was not surprised When he first became' greatly interested In wireless some I eighteen months before there had j j been perhaps fifty thousand wireless I telephone receiving sets A year later there had been six hundred thousand. Today, he knew, one authority had estimated es-timated a million aud the government! had estimated a million and a half In the papers that week No, Dick was sore, but not surprised In fact ' he would have been pleased at almost j ! anv other time. For, even if his fani-i ily were wealth)-, Dick had visions of ( iiiiiiBeii Bouie ua uuiuk oatier iuiu the biggest of the radio firms which was doing business at the rate of fifty million dollars a year. Thoughts like this had no place in his mind, now. All he knew waa that he was the victim vic-tim of interference. Anr he was sore and orried, too For the use of the ether (begging the pardon of Einstein and his theory) is not limitless It will accommodate' Just so many wireless messages and 1 no more at least until such an In-1 vention as Dick was working on was perfected. When that limit is reached,1 the air becomes a boiler factory' Dick cast the headgear in Useless j vexation on the table. It seemed to him that he had been1 on the point of getting just the im-! portant thing he wanted to hear. H? had been making notes as he went1 along, for somewhere he had heard something about the methods of detectives de-tectives His mind was in a whirl, as If a dozen people were sending in his niental ether at once. Then, suddenly, sudden-ly, as if unconsciously, he had sharpened sharp-ened the thoughts to the exact wave length, one idea seemed to swamp all others. Dick felt that he must get to this place where Ruth had spent the night 1 and where Garrick was running Into: danger, if he had not already fallen ' into It. And he must pet there first, j He tore out of the apartment, grab-' bed the first taxi, rode only a few blocks, dismissed him down ihe street As he sped down the block, he could see a car in front of Gerard's Then A man ran across under the arc light, t Ehck quickened. Ho saw In the shadow two men struggling and a third creep-j lng toward them. Dick could make out Garrick. He j was Just in time. He hurled himself j at the other attacker They were two, against two, now Rut at the moment when it seemed Chat each was getting the upper hand of his man. a couple of others ran on. Evidently they had been trailing 1 him from Garrlck's. where they must1 have been watching. The fight of the four now swung! entirely against. Garrick and Dick. From the avenue whence had come) the new assailants, now czjne a quick BCUR7 of feet. A whistle Someone , rapped as with a hickory stick on the curb, making hollow echoes. The four fled. The newcomers hauled Garrick and Dlok unceremoniously to their feet. "You're under arrest." One of them j flashed a badge. "Saw you come outl of the cellar of the Inner Circle last j night Also you were on that roof tonight." Garrick looked at the badge They were revenue enforcement men HeJ pulled his own card, issued by the 1 run pi roller ( the state Thef t a moment of perplexity, then ez K&t tlons and apologies. : it "Thoupht you were in that i Gang, too." ' The Velvet Gang""' "Yeh that's That we nicknsj t 'hat bunch id .1 rist erratic nil arfci ners." t!ta One of them had picked u key "Ah-ha, we're in luck." So, without the formality of a I JLJ warrants, ihe;, entered (he G ,t j house. -T;T If anything had even been th s)v, the stuff was gone. I A Then whs the fight with jt d I '.ek ,i- lip parted ,5( the chagrined raiders. 'Just to get us out of the 1 3ui grunted Garrick. "Gosh, I ad i4b Humph . . The Velvet Gang . . 1 1 -s know whether l''s a detective, fi. needed 4o iuui h ur .1 p-V'-holoi 'WR or an aliemsi 01 . ;uritual viser." Jll (Continued in Our Next Issue td , |