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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1918-11-08, Page 7• • N ' MB R Ss 1918 THE e Opal Pin BY GILLMORE TTFUS :TAO The tall, reserved looking English- man hi evening dress, Inverness on arm, stick in hand, consulted his watch then sauntered quietly out of the foyer of the Waldorf. Interested apparent- ly only in the shop -windows and pass- ing women, he walked slowly along Thirty-fourth street. On Broadway he stopped to mail a letter. A few steps further he drew another letter from his .pocket, tore it and dropped the pieces carelessly into the gutter. Without change of gait or look behind he then entered the bar of the Mar- tinique. Once inside, he glanced back guardedly through the door. The short, athletic but slightly corpulent man whom he had seen approach one of the Waldorf house -detectives, was picking up the pieces. Smiling, the tall, reserved -looking Englishxnan moved to the. bar, bought a high -ball, drank it. After that he wandered out into the foyer and re- served two seats for the following night at the Little Theater. He gave the name of Howe. Then he descend- ed to the grill room, ordered food and 1 drink, and sat there placidly enduring the music of the negro -minstrels un- til one o'clock came and the room closed. Now he took the elevator to the of- fice floor and started with a direct, swinging gait toward the thirty-third Street exit of the hotel. Half way through the long vestibule he stopped suddenly, as if recalling something, retraced his steps and left the hotel by its Thirty-second Street exit. A- long this street to Fifth Avenue, down -the avenue to Thirty-first, along Thir- ty-first street he sauntered. Not un- til he neared the corner of '.Madison avenue did he venture his first look behind. Then he dropped his stick and turned in picking it up. The short, athletic but slightly corpulent man was far behind, on the other side of Thirty-first Street. The Englishman turned up Madison. Avenue. Around the corner he drew a master -key from his pocket and quickened his gait. The outer of the two doors of the house he was ap- proaching someone had left ajar. After a hurried look back he entered ,the vestibule and noiselessly closed the outer door. With the master -key he opened the inner door. It was a boarding house. Carpets, furniture, the absence of anything per- sonal lying about, said so. Screened by the heavy hangings at the windows of the front parlor -,he watched stealth- ily. He say the man who had follow- ed hien stop at the career of Thirty- second Street, look idecisively west, north, east, and then hurray ,away toward Fourth Avenue. The tall, reserved -looking 3nglishy man waited in the dark shadows . of the parlor for nearly an hour, - No one enSerecl the boarding house, no one left it. At the end of this time he drew over his shoes a pair of thick rh :mien Cry ,iiaud:.�. . ars moist T O GIRLS! WHITEN YOUR SKIN WITH LEMON JUICE Make a beauty lotion for a few cents to remove tan, freckles, sallowness. Your grocer has the lemons and any drug store or toilet counter will supply you with three ounces of orchard white ' for a few cents.- Squeeze the juice of two fresh lemons into a bottle, then put in the orchard white and shake well. This makes a quarter pint of the very- best erybest lemon skin whitener and complexion beautifier known. Massage this fra- grant, creamy Iotion daily into the face, neck, arms and hands and just see how freckles, tan, sallowness, redness and roughness disappear and how smooth, soft and clear the skin becomes. Yes! It is harmless, and the beautiful results will surprise you. $200.000. to lend on Farms, First, Second Mortgages. Call or writs me at Duca and get your loan arranged by return mail. No advance charges. B. R. RBYNO SDS, 77 Victoria St., Toronto. -05 e- ` Y_ Orr T" . black woolen hose. lids tread thus muffled, he went upstairs. We walked as . one who knew defin- itely where he 'was going. On the fourth floor he proceeded to the front room on the left. He tried the door. It was locked. He bent down and with a pair .of nippers deftly turned the key- in the lock. Then he ex- tinguished the dimly burning hall light and entered.the room. The refrdcted light from the street made everything clear; Ike° went straight to the bureau oat the front of the room and surveyed the things scattered over its top. The photograph of an actor matinee -idol seemed to cause him doubt. and the sight of a piquant tri -cornered hat to incsrease it He turned, looked sharped , at the ink- black hair of the young woman asleep Oil the couch and s ook his head. His gaze return with annoyance- to nnoyance-to the bureau and, fell upon a few -rings, pins and trinkets in a glass dish. Sneeringly he emptied them into his pocket. Immediately something happened, "The opal pin! Had that anything to do with it? Carl! Carl! Tell me!" The young woman was talking in her sleep. He bent down into the shadow beneath the sill of the window and waited to make sure that he had not roused her. Then he crossed the room and went out, In the hall he listened an instant, then crept carefully down one flight. Again he used his nippers on the key in the door, put out thedim hall light and entered _the Boom' immediately under the one he had just left, sign.' The door opened. .The little dark man who admitted him wore a badge of qne of the city inspection department. He had shoe. button eyes, one a glittering black, the other the color .of a deep purple. He followed his visitor 'silently into the inner room.Here double curtains t were drawn tightly over the windows, the lamp was so shaded as to cast little light save upon the table, and i the opening for heating pipes were snugly sealed with felt. 'Get 'em, Brit?" The little .dark man slumped confidently into the on- ly comfortable chair. British remained standing meditat- ing, one hand resting on the table. The question had to be repeated before it gained his attention, "You told me third floor front. " I made a °mistake, went up three flights, and got into the wrong room." "Getting careless. Well?" British made a gesture of impat- ience at the interruption to his thoughts. "This is . all 1 got. I don't know why I bothered to take them." He threw upon the table the contents of his pocket. "Chicken feed!"' The little -dark man eyed .the loot contemptuously. But, his fruther questions remaining un- answered, ,he was soon at the table greedily overhauling the booty. Sud- denly his attention bcme centred on a single piece. It was a scarf -pin, its • large blue stone carved in the form of a devil'hi head. The leering, ;sinister face seemed to fascinate him. His small eyes glittered until they both seemed black. He picked ups the pin. and examined clo+tely the grinning head; even after he put it down he continued to poke it about upon the table, in order to bring out the won- derfully translucent,lifelike glints in the blue. "Say, haven't you pulled an opal here ?" he exclaimed suddenly. British gave it but a glance. "Mink, you are a greedy Iittle bounder! Blind to everything except the spoil are'nt you ?" "Well, droppin' to earth, 'what else The lights_ in the street made this is' there to it?" Mink's shoebutton even brighter than the room above. eyes deserted the opal pin and rested His eyes gleamed as they .fell on the for a moment on pis frowning com- panion. One corner of his mouth curl- ed sarcastically with the small cer- tainty that he had asked an unans- werable question. "There's the game, though I can't seem to make you see it." "The game! Guff!" .Mink sneered. "If I was going round mixing in with the silk-stocking and lobster palace ginks and ginkesses like you, but me —all I'in trusted with is the bell -hop, messenger boy work. All I care about is the stuff.,Don't try to put over any more of that gentleman-preachdr dope on me. The game! 0 mummer!" His voice ascended mocking ,. to the pitch of .a woman's. " `iVliSymansky— Mrs. Sy -man -sky!' " he called, " 'can your Arthur come over and play with my little Willie?' " - Brit smiled. "No respect for me at all, have you?" he commented care- lessly. z"Not when you hand over that line of talk." "It's strange," Brit considered MITI smilingly, "vulgar, sordid little beggar that you are, I can't help wanting to convince you. Doesn't it mean any thing to you to have a bid in a game no one else has ever though!, of, play ing? A lone game,' and so splendidly protected! You'ye been wondering late • ly why nothing gets into the news- papers about our little operations. Do you know why ?Because I mapped out a game in advance that would remove both the police and the news- papers from our track." • "Gee! Some swelled -up, as well as swell guy, ain't you?" Brit went on, untouched. "We've taken nothing except the jewelry and unset stories smuggled in here from the Continent, Do you' remember that, after the first few hauls, I stopped, laid low, waited, and you couldn't un- derstand why ? That was headwork, .Mink, and a part of my plan. Those first few losers made a great noise about their losses to the police and newspapers. Then your _conscientious Collector of Customs did just what I had planned he should. He made those careless smugglers pay the tar- iff. After they had lost their jew- els theyhad to pay the duty on them; delayed advices from the Continent told their value. They were robbed twice, once by us and afterward by your absurb Customs tariff. Do you understand now why later losers shut their mouths tight; never went near the police or reporters, and put only private detectives on our track?' Mink evaded the issue. "Private de- tectives!' Say, Brit, ain't they a cinch ?" "Yes." Brit waited hopefully. "Is that all you have to say ?" "Sure." Mink grinned. "I might be more enthusiastic if I got a fairer share of the stuff." "Not even satisfied, with the spoils! On my word, you're a low-down, un- grateful gnome!" Brit turned intoler- antly away. "But it doesn't matter now, thanks be!" "Why not?" i "Well, I was shadowed for the first time to -night." "Hell, that's nothing," But Mink watched him anxiously. "No; nothing. Quite right, Mink —because I know precisely what it means. Shall I explain? I don't know why your low .order of intelli- gence makes the attempt to fascinat- ing." He smiled when Mink this time trusted his head rather than his ton- gue to reply. "Well", he went on, "I was/shadowed tonight, not by a mere private detective, but by one of ='? your Secret Service men. This means that your Government had waked up to the news we `are getting from its social spies abroad about jewels to be smuggled. Your Government has gone over its secret files, found that 1, up to last Summer one of its paid agents in Paris, have not only withdrawn from the work, but have fled—vanish- ed without leaving address or ripple. Hence, it follows that your Secret Service men are on the track of me and everyone who even remotely re- sembles me in appearance." "Moonshine, Brit; nothing but moonshine! Probably he was nothing but a private bull." "July to March! Nearly nine months. • Quite a little longer than I had ex- pected!" Brit passed a careless hand over his 'brow. bonnet of an older woman on the bur- eau; they glistened as they stopped on the pistol beside it. In the chambers and barrel of that pistol were the un- set diamond and pearls he sought. They were just across the room, his in one moment. Ile stood quietly ob- serving, weighing, relishing before taking them. It was so easy now! All the rest ,after what he had been through! Suddenly he started and cocked his hears. The young woman in the room above had risen, was walking across her room, and her fotsteps made what in the quiet night seemed like a vast noise. All the inaction went out of his manner; he stepped briskly toward his prize. "Here, Here! What are you doing in any r000m ?" He stopped half way to the bureau. The woman had raised herself on her arms in the bedand was peering at hien. Quickly he lifted an arm shield- ing his face from view. "I—I beg your pardon, madam," he stammered. "I—I must have got into the wrong room." "Well, make yourself scarce!" The. 'woman seemed not a whit alarmed. "I'm very sorry, madam---" he paus- ed, gazing eagerly at the pistol con- taining the treasure and evidently rec- koning his chances—"I'm very sorry to have made such a mistake and dis- turbed you." After a quick glance at her wader his arm, he turned and pre- tended to stagger out of the room. He had been none too quick at art riving at his decision. As he ran down the stairs he heard her calling out of the front window: "Help! Murder! Thieves! Help!" Her cries were arousing the people in the house and the whole street in front. He stopped to open the front door and to shut it wit ha slam that would mislead. Then he crept craftily downstairs ,opened 'a window, stepped through into the back yard, and .coolly closed the window behind him. Hastily but noiselessly he scaled the fence into the yard beyond, scaled the fence of that into the next. Here, he paused to remove the mufflers from his shoes and to bury them deeply under the rubbish in a garbage barrel; then he passed through the gate of that yard into the adjacent alley and re- connoitered. The outcries had as yet attracted attention only to the front of 'the house. He walked slowly, very slowly, along Thirty-first Street to - Fifth Avenue, made sure that no one saw him turn south, and a few minutes later crossed Maidson Avenue to the east at Twenty -Eighth street. He must have calculated that the alarm further up the avenue woudi draw a- way the fixed policeman. at this post. Ten minutes later he was giving the railroad signal ---two long and then two short rings—on one of the bells at a tenement house on the East Side. As soon as the .door clicked he enter- ed and ascended noiselessly,to the back apartment on the second floor. On the door of this he knocked, repeating his forirer,signal. Without waiting for answer he knocked the signal ' again; then again, this time stopping after the first two slow knocks. "Is that you, Brit?" some one call- ed softly through the closed door. "kV`o," he answered. Apparently this was the counter- I. I Grah One satisfied customer said: I never knew Graham Wafers could be sogood until I tried Telfei.s. They are perfectly de- licious", She 5 l o YOt- try them, Packed in air tight package. :For sale at all grocers. Teliers "The Buy I'ard ,fog~ .acust, Canada Food Board -. License No.1 I'' • Mink's jaw dropped. "Brit, you ain't going to run?" he demanded ner- vously. "I come of excellent family. I'm the only bad egg of the lot. This is the first time the bobbies have ever had a chance at asr.e, It wo id be r. - MOWN EXPOSI 1,1.- DON'T COMPLAIN -_ USE 1 TheyTive immediate relief trona Backache, . Muceuup, Brick Dust de- posits. . find Bladder troubles caused by congested kidneys. Bold' for • 60b. a box abort everywhere.. • 3N ......• ly witty of me, wouldn't it, to wait for them to catch up with me?" "Brit, y u're joking!" "Can it be that you're beginning innin to appreciate me?" "It's such a perfect game. A won- der ? No man • ever thought up a better one.", "What? The game too! My soul leaps up!" British laughed with a sort of good-naured disdain. "But a trifle too late on your part. While you were fondlingthe opal pin I was thinking higher thoughts—planning how to cover and begin all over again." Mink swallowed. "How?" he ask- ed with sudden meekness. "Well, I have no objection to tell- ing you. I remain here tonight. To- morrow or the next day I slip into my rooms for a few trifles whose ab- Reneewill not be. noticed. - e '.polite inherit all clothes, furnishings, et cet- era, with my compliments. Th t night the clothes I now wear will :be found over by the river, traced bak to my rooms where .a note will be d, covered statingthat I have 4rowne myself rather than bring disgrace o my family, and that is the last that will ever be "seen: oh heard of this man named Howe, Afterward I remain in hiding here 'until I : can get is new outfit, or as long as we can staid each other, and then, like all th' rest lose me for good and ever.° "Then this ain't . no . con, ame? You're really going to cut me out ?) "Yes." "Gimme the clothes and furnishings in ? your Fifth ' Avenue rooms ;!and I won't say a word." "No." "You'd better." "You don't know now and you never shall know where my rooms on the Avenue are located." Atink was temporarily silenced. "How do_ I know but you're just drop- ping me for somebodyelse?" he com- plained at last. "You don't know." Mink's face grew white and his eyes vindictive. "Where are you going?" he demanded. "Another thing you're not to know." "Yes," he sneered, "and, after your getaway, I suppose you'll arrange to have all those foreign letters about the tones sent to you, instead of me.' "No." British smiled. "Burn them. rite that I'm dad and the game is p. Mention my suicide. Enclose a newspaper cutting to make sure." Heof the shoebutton eyes;, one black and the either purple, attempted to Stare down his confederate, but fail- ed. "Fine;, but you come off your high-and-mighty or I'll squeal on you to the cops," he threatened. ' RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS Buy all the Victory Bonds you can. • Deposit them in your Bank and add the regular 11 interest coupons., • At the ,end of a short 14 years, draw DOUBLE our °o `- inal investment. NOTHING YOU CAN DO WILL .GIVE .YOU A, GREATER SENSE OF SATISFACTION. ,. Donated to the Winning.of the War by THE SALADA TEA CO. TORONTO, • • "Very well." "You don't think I dare to'P' "No; and you're too greedy. You know very well that I would see that you were plucked of everything your have set aside from our short but un- happy partnership in crime." Mink was extinguished: He sink back in his chair and relapsed into' abject silence, his eyes on the -floor. Ain't you going. to tell me nothing'?'' he whined, after a long silence. British looked at him, appeared to relent as his complete triumph. Cone Mink, buck up, and I'll tell you some- thing about nay new scheme," he said with sudden kindness. "It's better even than the old one. Ah, I thought that would gain your attention. Now listen carefully. Don't miss a word. Before it's too late 1 intend to bees al.over and learn what 1 -can accomp- lish as a gentleman. I'm thinking of -prescribing a little remarriage for my- self. yself. Has it ever occurred to you? Why should I run all these risks for money in small sums when I can prob- ably carry an American heiress off her feet and marry a lump sum ? I've de- termined to try it. I'm going to a new. eity, reform any late wicked ways . and try to marry back into the station in life I was born in, bred in, and be- long in. Many a worse man has done that. Why shouldn't I?" "And you're going to let thein silk- stocking smugglers off with stuff that belongs to us as much as anyone?" (Continued on Page Six) e ridde to the ritish Market' .- The Victory,*Loan is - a bridge over. which the farmers of Can- ada. d.ris're their hogs, their cattle, theirgrain and all their surplus craps to the profitable British market. For, the money raised bit the Victory Loan enables Canada to give credit to Great, Britain. And only by means of thatcred- it can Great Britain buy the products of Canada's farms. Thereforte, when you cone for- ward r?+a ward at your Country's call and loyally lend, your money that Canada may continue her vig- orous 'prosecution of the war, ' you are also benefitting your- self and the . whore farming community. It is the duty ofevery earnest ,Canadian not only to invest heavily in Victory Bonds 1918, but to work among his neigh- bors to make the loan a success. Before the subscription lists close, every man should realize the sterling character of the investment; the good interest return of 51%; the undoubted security offered in the Bonds of this wealthy nation; and the vital importance to all classes of people, particularly to the farm- ers, of the Victory Loan 1918. • • 3t • ssued by Canada's Victory Loan Comniittee in • co-operation with the Minister of Finance of File Dominick of Canada. 112 •i