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Show I f FIFTY GRAND A YEAR By Frederick Medlin ... the car with the fingering searchlight darting down the road ... his dogged Bight across the field to the momentary haven of the huge oak . . . His fingers trembled convulsively again as they had when he had tumbled the jewels quickly into the leather bag and buried it safely, far back under the upcurled root. He heard again the deep-throated baying of the hounds, growing always closer, as he had heard it that night, hour after hour, twisting and dodging and hoping, hop-ing, knowing in his own heart that he would be caught, and fearing it with hysterical terror. And that capture! The quick shoti . . . the rapid whine of the bullets . . the huge dogs dragging him down. . . . But they had never found the jewels. He had hidden them well, and for that he had been grateful for ten years. He came quite suddenly upon the clump of trees. They seemed in the thick darkness to be the same stand of ten years ago. He moved about quickly with the flashlight until he found the peculiar root that curved outward and looped upward slightly, just as it had so long ago. He dug back through the loose earth under it; his fingers tingled as they THEY still wonder why Johnson went mad so suddenly after he got out of stir. That is, all but Leo, the fence. Johnson remembered It all as he strode feverishly through the hot, I I breathless night, 3Mlnnia The black curtain Minute of darkness that Fiction pressed upon I i every side could not hide those things that had gone before. Even their memory increased in-creased his furious pace, and it was an effort not to cast a furtive glance over his shoulder as he drew neai the spot on which the great oak should stand. He remembered the night of ten years ago that he had stolen the Alsmeyer jewels. It had been a desperate thing to do, and he had half expected to be caught. His mind's-eye saw himself crawling up those precarious tracers of ivy on the high back wall of the Alsmeyer Als-meyer mansion. He recalled how cautiously he had opened the window win-dow with a glass-cutter and a file, how carefully he had placed the charge of explosive against the cleverly-concealed wall safe, how feverishly he had hurried through the acrid smoke to the battered door after the muffled explosion had shaken the room. THEN down that sweep of ivy again to the ground and over the wall and along the hard road as the uproar behind him steadily grew toucned rotten leatner, and there were the jewels spread out. They were dull but they were the Alsmeyer Als-meyer jewels. AN HOUR later they were shim-mering shim-mering on velvet in Leo's back room mat ' ne usea lor Dusiness oi secrecy; and Johnson was trembling trem-bling with excitement. Johnson paced the floor. "Five hundred grand!" he gloated. "That's fifty grand a year in the big house, and still they say crime don't pay. Why, Leo. I know lots of big guys that don't make fifty grand a year. I'm up in the big money now and it feels wonderful." "You know what these are worth?" "Yeah. Sure I do. So do you." Perhaps he only wanted to bargain. bar-gain. Some of the dread died in Johnson's heart. "Ain't you the best fence in the East? That's why I came to you." "You know that I'm honest?" Leo's query was very grave and very earnest. "Sure. You always have been." "The Alsmeyer jewels," said Leo slowly, almost sadly, "are just imitations. imita-tions. They might be worth five hundred hun-dred dollars." They still wonder why Johnson went mad so shortly after he got out of stir, that is, all but Leo, of course. Leo would know, for he Is a very shrewd judge of human psychology and jewels. It is said, by those who know, that Leo made almost half a million dollars out ol i the Alsmeyer jewels. Released bv WNU Feature. |