The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-03-13

hasn't, he'll stop and get 1t half way
down the ramp. If he has he'll go all
the way down to the lower level"
Evidently Max hadn't his ticket, for
his taxi stopped half way down, pull
ing up little beyond the entrance to
the concourse. But the person who
left Che cab to buy the ticket was the
chauffeur. Max apparently didn't
want to leave his precious trunk until
1t was safelygchecked.
Martin slipped out Of his cab and
followed the chauffeur boldly up to the
ticket window and stood at his elbow
while the man bought ticket and
lower berth, the number Of which Mar
tin noted, to New York on the Penn
sylvania limited that afternoon. He
returned as inconspicuously as he.
could to his own taxi. The other cab
had already started down the ramp.
At a safe distance Martin followed
and saw. Rhoda's little hat trunk
checked, saw Max drive away-un-
checked, d-n him with, no doubt,
what was left of her three hundred
dollars in his pocket. Those identical
twenty-dollar bills that Martin had
seen paid for the ticket had been very
likely part Of the hoard in her bu-
reau drawer. And he had stood look
ing on and not done a mortal thing
Well, what could he have done? What
could he do now?
One thing he'd better do, without
loss of time, was to pay off his taxi
while he could. He'd left the paper,
in his haste this noon, without stopping
to get some money that he needed.
After he'd paid the sum the meter had
been adding up so industriously, and
tipped the driver he had just sixty
cents left--and you could have bought
him, as he stood at the curb watching
the cab drive away, for just about
that.
The obvious duty before him was
to telephone Rhoda at the studio and
tell her what he had seen happen.
The only plan in his mind was that he
and Rhoda go around together to the
city hall and swear out warrant for
Lewis arrest, along with writ Of re-
plevin for the trunk, and then be on
hand with plain-clothes man when
Lewis came to the station to take the
train. There was time enough for that
and it would be easy enough-except
for the one fact that Rhoda herself
would veto the plan.
He hadn't the faintest doubt of that.
He remembered how she'd looked last
night when he had been telling her
about the "morgue"; they dug into
that only, he had said, when some
thing in the current news called for
reference to it. He didn't know-he'd
deliberately avoided trying to find out
what file it was she was afraid
might be looked into nor, exactly, what
sort of. secret 1t contained, but he re-
membered the deep earnestness in her
voice when she'd begged him not to
try to find out any more than she had
told him and not to do anything that
might change the life she'd been so
happy in during the past two years.
He had been drifting aimlessly
along the street in the general direc-
ton of his newspaper Office, though he
had no conscious reason for going
back there, and presently he found
himself standing outside little movie
theater, staring in a sort of trance at
the lurid poster on it's billboard. It
represented the so-called eternal tri-
angle, guilty pair surprised by the
mans virtuous wife. She was defend
ing the sanctity Of the hearth with a
small revolver and you could see from
the way they cowed before her that
they recognized the cogency of her
argument. She had the same colored
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