Mansfield mirror. (Mansfield, Wright County, Mo.) 1908-1957, 1915-09-09

would be I than someone else WHIT
might care even less than do?"
The sleeping man opened ~unseeins
eyes and closed them again heavily
IL found the money. Carlotta mia; you
didn't know that. did your" he NUT
tered; and then the narcotic seized
and held him again.
His clothes were on a chair. and
when she had carried then, to q light
that could be shaded completely from
the bed and its occupant. she searched
the pockets one by one. II vas a little
surprising to find all but two Of them
quite empty; no cards, no letters, no
pen, pencil. pocketknife, or purse;
nothing hut a handkerchief. and in
one pocket OF the waistcoat \ small
roll Of paper money. a few coins and
two small Keys.
She held the coat up to the electric
and examined 1t closely: the workman.
ship, the trimmings. 1t was not tailor
made, she decided. and by all the little
signs and tokens 1t was quite new.
And the same was true of the other
garments. But there was no tag or
trademark on any Of them to show
where they came from.
Failing to find the necessary clue
to the castaway's identity in this pre-
liminary search, she went on resolute-
ly. dragging the two s~uitcases over to
The lighted nnrnnr n md unlnpftnn thDrn
with the keys taken from the pocket
OF the waistcoat.
The first yielded nothing but cloth
ing, all new and evidently unworn.
The second held more clothing, a
mans toilet appliances, also new and
unused, but apparently no scrap of
writing or hint of a name. With a
little sigh Of baffiement she took the
last tightly rolled bundle Of clothing
from the suitcase. While she vas lift
ing it a pistol fell out.
In times past, Jasper Grlerson's
daughter had known weapons and
their faults and excellences. THAT
places him-a little" she unused. put
ting the pistol aside after she had
glanced at 1t: Hes from the East;
he doesn't know a gun from a piece
Of common hardware"
Further search in the tightly rolled
bundle was rewarded by the discovery
Of a typewriter book manuscript, un-
signed, and with it an oblong packet
wrapped in brown paper and tied with
Irvine. She slipped the string ana re-
moved the wrapping. The brick
shaped packet proved to be a thick
block Of bank notes held together by
heavy rubber bands snapped over the
ends.
While the little ormulu clock on the
dressing ase was whirring softly and
Ginning the hour she stared at the
money-block as If the sight of it had
her. Then she sprang up
and flew to the door, not to escape, but
to urn the key noiselessly in the lock.
against interruption. she
the rubber bands from the
The block was built up in
each layer banded with a paper
slip on which was printed in red the
name of the certifying bank and the
amount. Bayou State Security. S5,-
There were twenty Of these lay
ers in all, nineteen Of them unbroken.
But through the printed figures on the
twentieth a pen-stroke had been drawn.
and underneath was written $4,000"
Quite coolly and m%ethodically |
Margery Grierson verified the banks
count Is indicated by the paper
bands. There were one hundred thou
sand dollars. lacking the n thousand
taken from the broken packet. The
counting completed, she replaced the
bands and the brown paper
wrapping. Then she repacked the suit
cases, arranging the contents as nearly
as might be Just as she had found
them, locking the cases and returning
the keys to the waistcoat pocket from
she had taken them.
When all was done. she tiptoed
across to the bed, with the brown pa
per packet under her arm. The sick
man stirred uneasily and began to
again. She bent to catch the
and when she heard, the light
Of understanding leaped swiftly into
the dark eyes. For the mumbled
words were the echo of a fierce threat:
Sign it: sign 1t now. or, by God, I'll
shoot to kill"
The robbery of the Bayou State Sc
curity bank was already an old story
when Mr.. Matthew Broffin, chief of
the New Orleans branch of a notable
detective agency, took over the case
Of the bank robbery a few days after
his return from Central America.
Since two members of his own staff
had fred and missed their mark in st.
Louis, there was a blunder to be re-
After a week of patient cropping.
Broffin was obliged to confess that the
Of Identification was too diff
cult to be solved on conventional lines.
Il presented no point of attack. With
a name nor a pictured face for
reference, inquiry was crippled at the
,ery outset. None of the many board.
ng and rooming houses he visited had
ost a ledger answering the verbal de-
,cription Of the missing man. Very re-
uctantly, for bulldog tenacity was the
ruling characteristic, he
vas forced to the conclusion that the
,nly untried solution lay in Teller
Tohnson's unfortiaed impression that
he chance meeting at his wicket was
lot the first meeting between the rob-
yer and the young woman with the
lraft to be cashed.
1t was the slenderest of threads, and
3rofin realized sweatingly how diff
:ult 1t might be to follow. Assuming
hat there had bean q DreviOua mating