CHAPTER VIII

THE GODDESS CHANCE AND SAM JOHNSON

CARY Desmond stared first at the crisp bank note held in Carson’s outstretched fingers, then into his foster-brother’s face. Amazement, incredulity, were written on his own finely chiselled features. Gingerly he took the bill; he scanned it with the practised eye of the bank teller. Again he turned his gaze on the other.

“Cliff — surely — surely you don’t mean that this came from Father? How could — ” He stopped, at a loss for words.

Carson inclined his head toward a chair. He drew up one for himself, close to the one which Cary took.

“Cary, your father was a printer when he was a young man in Liverpool, was he not?”

Cary nodded dazedly. “So — so Grandfather has told Marcia and me. He ran away from home when he was a boy and learned the printing trade. From that he developed into a mechanician for printing machinery, and in time became a mechanical engineer.”

Carson nodded slowly. Then, taking the glazed message from his pocket, he outlined to Cary Desmond the happenings of that afternoon. Cary inspected the curly layer of the blotter carefully, nodding.

“You are right,” he said incredulously. “It is Father’s cryptic way of conveying a message to us without using handwriting — making the big van Twillingham divorce suit serve as the key to his meaning. Your interpretation is right, Cliff. The spacing at top and bottom can mean nothing else than: ‘Be ready to see me — can’t see you yet — watch for next communication.’ Lord, Cliff, what a mystery for Father to be involved in. Do you think that he could be held prisoner in some way?”

“I did think something like that might be the case,” admitted Carson, “but I would hesitate to accept that as the only solution. One thing we know. His message contained a United States bill worth twenty thousand dollars. That is a factor which can be interpreted in several ways. It may mean that he is wealthy and that it is but part of what he has today — or it might mean that it is a stake he has made and that it is his sole pile. One thing is certain: He knew full well that I was ensconced in my own office here in Chicago, which shows that he has seen the papers describing the new bureau of investigation. I cannot but believe that he knows more than we give him credit for — for instance, that Marcia and I are to be married, and that instead of being merely his foster-son I am soon to be something more close. That could be deduced from the way in which he has trusted me.”

“But thirty days!” interpolated Cary. “He tells you to use the money for thirty days. How — ”

Carson shook his head. “I don’t know the why nor wherefore of that. If it were from anybody but your father, that thirty-day business would worry me a bit. As it is, I interpret it to mean somehow that he is due to arrive back on the scene in that length of time. But I don’t know exactly what it indicates. All I do know is that your father would give his last penny on earth to spare you what he has suffered — I could show you letters from him in prison which tell that only too strongly. It would almost seem that he knows of your embezzlement, and that you have in turn involved Marcia’s happiness through dragging my office here into the smash, the way in which he has come to the rescue. But there is one thing he doesn’t know — and I believe he has become mixed up in his dates: He does not appear to be cognizant of the fact that a week ago he had been missing and unheard-of for seven years. If he knows that his share of the old Rocky Ridge tract is worth fifty thousand dollars today, he fatuously believes that it is still safe. And this is the vital information that must be gotten to him quickly now — that already the seven years of his absence are up and that next Friday he will be legally dead. It is not enough for us to know that we will hear from him again — we must locate him before that time. And in the meantime, it seems to me, we can use this twenty thousand dollars with perfect assurance, for if we locate your father, even if this were all he had in the world, he will be worth several times this by the rise in that old Rocky Ridge tract.”

“And you think, Cliff, that this Bill Wiswell, the investigator you hired, may be able to find a clue to Father by means of examining the type, or possibly also type matrixes, in all the printshops in Hammond, Indiana?”

“I dare not hypothesize,” responded the other. “There are other printing presses in existence than open ones, you know — presses concealed in dark basements and boarded-up attics, used by bands of counterfeiters, bootleggers printing imitation whiskey labels and revenue stamps, and so forth. There’s no telling what the circumstances were which gave your father access to a press. Again, this letter bearing only my name and office address in typewriting might conceivably have been only mailed at Hammond, Indiana. If your father is playing some sort of a quiet game of his own against some enemy, it has not been given us to have a peep into it.”

Till late in the night the two sat there and discussed the strange revelation with its material help that had literally come out of the sky in the nick of time. At last, when the hands of Carson’s clock pointed nearly to midnight, Cary Desmond arose.

“Cliff, I feel like a condemned murderer who has had his sentence commuted. I’m going to stop off here in a taxicab, if it’s all right with you, promptly at a quarter to nine in the morning and with my cab waiting downstairs, I’m going to get this bill. Then I’m going to be on hand promptly at the opening of bank hours — 9 A.M. — at the Continental Trust — isn’t that the bank where you keep your money on check?” Carson nodded. “Anyway, I know several of the tellers there. I’m going to crack this bill into two ten-thousand dollar bills. I’m going to deposit one in your checking account, and then hop it in the same taxicab to the Mid-West Trust. I can get there by a quarter after nine. The examiner can’t have gotten anywhere by that time. On the plea of fixing up an account before I go on my vacation, I’m going to insert this bill somehow among my cash on hand — maybe call their attention to a blank envelope in which I have filed it. I’ll handle it somehow. Then I’ll go away with a free heart. I’m going to spend the balance of the week clearing up my engagements here in town, get the benefit of the paid-up rent of my apartment, and next Monday, Cliff, I’m going to pack up and go back to the little house on St. Giles Lane and stay where I belong.”

“That is what I hoped you’d say, Cary. This gay, feverish life you’ve been leading is no life for a man who handles money. Everything has broken well for us today — and everything will end even better. Now that I can square myself with Mrs. Galioto, I feel like a reprieved man myself. I’ll delay my own departure in the morning so as to be waiting for you with the bill. In fact, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if you get up at dawn tomorrow, ride out to St. Giles Lane, meet Marcia when she comes off her night trick and tell her the good news. But that’s up to you. Now be off. I’m worn out. And so are you.”

When Cary Desmond left, Carson undressed with a feeling of extreme light-heartedness, tempered only by the mystery that attended Henry Desmond’s message and its valuable enclosure. But he was tired out, and soon after his head struck the pillow he was asleep. Indeed he did not awaken until a knocking on the door, and the sun pouring in his window, apprised him of the fact that Cary Desmond was now on hand to play an extremely rapid game of commercial chess with opening banks and taxicabs! True enough, it was that young man, and downstairs a yellow cab stood ticking away. So Carson passed over the precious bill, and watched the cab draw away. Several times in the next few hours he wondered uneasily whether Cary was succeeding in the most difficult part of his undertaking — the changing of his cash on hand at the Mid-West Trust. And finally the welcome message for which he was waiting came to him, for when he had been back in his office by some hour and a half, opening up his eleven o’clock mail, his telephone bell rang and he recognized the voice of Marcia on the wire — the tired, worried tones entirely gone from it.

“Cary was just here, Cliff,” she said delightedly, “and he told me all. Everything! He said to tell you that everything went on smooth wheels — he got the ten thousand dollars deposited in your checking account at the Continental Trust, and I’ve got the deposit receipt right here, Cliff, waiting for you. And he said also to tell you he managed to get the other ten thousand dollars inserted back into his cash at the Mid-West Trust which makes him four hundred dollars over. Oh, Cliff — wasn’t it terrible? — and yet wasn’t it wonderful that everything came right? And, Cliff, to know that Daddy is alive has been like a powerful tonic to me. Do you think we will locate him soon, Cliff?”

“I am sure of it,” Carson assured her. “Just how soon depends upon what report this Wiswell makes Thursday.”

“I will be eagerly waiting that report,” she said. “Now another thing, Cliff. Those advertisements in last night’s and this morning’s Chicago papers have been bringing results.”

“Advertisements?” queried Carson perplexedly. “Oh — the Zuri snake ads!” In the excitement of bigger things he had almost forgotten the matter of the $250 fee which he and Marcia, by the use of Grandfather Desmond’s name, were attempting to earn.

“Yes, Cliff. Four people called up between eight and nine this morning. Each one of them quite disregarded the stipulation in the advertisement saying that they should ring this number only between 3 and 6 P.M. At any rate, each one believed he might have the snake which was advertised for. Each one, too, Cliff, wanted to come out at once, but I was so wearied from my short day’s sleep yesterday that I had to enjoin them to call between four and five this afternoon.”

“Well you did quite right, honey-girl. Jennings’ petty two hundred and fifty dollar fee doesn’t mean so much to us now, does it? But we’ll have to see it through so long as we’ve embarked on the job. Well, sweetheart, suppose you look for me today around four or slightly before, and I’ll interview these people. And get to bed now and get a good sleep.”

And receiving her promise that she would go to bed at once to recuperate from her night’s work, he told her goodbye and they both hung up.

So now everything was all right!

His bank account held in it ten thousand dollars — which it had not held at this time yesterday, and Marcia even had the deposit receipt. And Cary’s note, therefore, for the misapplied stock, was paid. All had ended well, it seemed. And as he took out that young man’s printed and written evidence of what was yesterday a hopeless indebtedness and marked it across its face in red ink, “Paid in full, Clifford Carson,” inscribing at the same time a stamped envelope with Cary’s Oak Street address, he fell to musing on his forthcoming transaction with Mrs. Galioto. Indeed, he wondered now, as he sealed up this missive of good cheer and placed it in the wire basket which contained his other outgoing mail, whether he ought to give Mrs. Galioto some explanation of having mislaid her stock certificate, and pay her off — and the ten thousand dollars was what she had originally wanted, or of offering her a stock certificate in Texas Helium Inc. of like denomination with the one she had owned. It might even be at that, he mused, that he could unearth the location of the very stock and buy it in at the market quotation. And so that he might know just what he could do in the matter, he drew over his telephone, and looking up the house number of one, Mr. Abe Licky, dialed it. As might be partly expected under the circumstances, Mr. Licky himself appeared to be sojourning today in his own home, for he came on the phone a second later, speaking in a high, nasal, oily voice, the typical bucketeer, or better now, ex-bucketeer!

“Mr. Licky,” Carson said peremptorily, “did you sell a one hundred share stock certificate of Tex Helium Gas preferred the other day on the curb?”

“I did.”

“I understand that you don’t know the identity of the trader who bought it in. Have you since then gotten any more information as to who he was?”

Mr. Licky, being in a state of involuntary bankruptcy, appeared to be quite willing to answer any and all questions concerning his past activities.

“I have. His name is Max Hieronymus. He has been doing some trading on the New York Curb and just started in here a few days ago under the name of the A. B. C. Trading Company. My trader had some subsequent dealings with him, requiring his signature. He’s located in a little office in the Westminster Building. And his phone” — Mr. Licky evidently collected all information dealing with his own line of business — ”his phone number is Wabash 0396.”

“Thanks,” said Carson brusquely. With which he closed the distasteful conversation.

A moment later he was ringing, with considerable curiosity, Wabash 0396. If he couldn’t find his man in, he knew he could go over to the curb market and locate him by the monocle and short yellow beard by which Licky had first described him to Cary Desmond. But Mr. Hieronymus, for some reason, was not on ‘change today, for the thick German voice that answered the wire acknowledged to that name itself.

“Hieronymus speaking. Max Hieronymus.”

“The A. B. C. Trading Company?” asked Carson cautiously, so as not to waste time talking with an underling.

“Dissolved,” said Mr. Hieronymus succinctly. “Oud of business. Not running any longer. Me, I vas der ?. ?. C. Company. I am today leaving for Germany. Vot can I do for you?”

“Oh — ” Carson wrinkled up his brows. Then he spoke. “Well, Mr. Hieronymus, do you care to sell that Tex Helium Gas stock certificate you bought the other day? Carson is my name.”

Mr. Hieronymus laughed scornfully. “My goot sir, I haf been buying up Tex Helium certificates now for vun mont’. You vill haf to been more specivic.”

“This was a one hundred share, preferred, offered on the curb Friday morning by Licky and Greenburg.”

“Oh, yes. Der vun hundred share. Shure. I remember dot vun. Sorry I can’t obliged. Der certifficate iss on his vay to Chermany by Kronzprinz Wilhelm steamer. I ship him Friday via air mail.”

“Oh — sent to Germany, eh? Somebody over there trying to corner Tex Helium?” Carson paused. This was no way to elicit any information of that sort from a trader. There was a shorter and surer method. “Care to buy fifty shares of Tex Helium, Mr. Hieronymus?”

“Nein.” The speaker was frankly bored like a man who had been cabled to make no further purchases in such stock. “I am nod by der market, not for even ten share.”

“I see. That means that your superiors have now acquired control. Mr. Hieronymus, do you object to saying for whom you have been buying?”

“Nod at all, sir. He iss no secret — nod now, particularly as I haf hat my New York confrere change der recort of ownership of der certificate on der stock pooks of der company Saddurday morning before mailing it to Chermany on der afternoon boat.”

“Oh yes — I understand. The Texas Helium company is incorporated in New York. I remember now. Well then — May I ask in whose name is the certificate now recorded, or the new certificate 347?”

“Der Gesellschaft Zep uff Berlin.”

“I see. Trying to control the costs of helium gas for their proposed fleet of transatlantic airships. All right. Fair enough, I guess.” Carson paused undecidedly. “Then that particular stock certificate is in the middle of the Atlantic ocean now, and re-recorded in the bargain. Well, I would have liked to buy it in if you’d have sold it for par or close to par.”

Mr. Hieronymus, even on the very eve of departure, was not averse to pocketing a few dollars that could be changed into marks when he got back home. “I can pick you up quick plenty uff ten shares preffered — and lots von common — der common hass no woting power — and — and ten tens equal von hundert, you know.”

“Well — I guess that would hardly do. At least in this case. I’ll think it over. When will you be leaving, Mr. Hieronymus — in case I would call you back?”

“I am leafing in vun hour. I am all packed. I sail home on der Deutschland day after tomorrow. Call Himmel und Blaufuss if you vant quick action on stocks in airships, auxiliaries und supplies.”

“All right. Thanks. Bon voyage, Mr. Hieronymus.” And Carson hung up.

Well, that settled it very definitely so far as Mrs. Galioto and certificate No. 347 went. The big German air-transportation company had probably for a long time been quietly buying in shares on the Texas Helium supply, and it was more than possible that that final one hundred shares had thrown them nicely over the required fifty-one percent majority ownership. He drew over the morning newspaper. Tex Helium was still quoted at a tenth of a point under par in the preferred shares. The common, though, he saw was well up compared with last week. But such as it was, with certificate No. 347 bouncing on the blue waves, he would have to tell Mrs. Galioto that her money was waiting for her — or a preferred stock certificate of the same denomination — but not the precise one she had brought in. Which was all right, anyway. Except that it meant for explanations, dubious and trying. And thinking about the lady in question whose single visit to that office had caused him enough anxiety to cover his next year’s salary, there came nobody but her lawyer himself, five minutes later, for the card brought in by Carson’s stenographer read:

Mr. Joe Allenuza was a shrewd-faced fellow of about forty-five. Very sallow in face, with glistening black hair parted in the middle, he bulged like a sausage in a very tight-fitting and tightly buttoned grey suit. Liver spots a-plenty there were on his face, but that face bore an ingratiating smile. He was unfolding, even as he sat down in the visitor’s chair, a printed receipt which Carson recognized as the one he had issued, and on its reverse side he saw that some sort of an order had been typed out which had evidently been signed by Mrs. Galioto herself. He frowned uneasily; yet his frown faded, for he felt peculiarly glad, now at this moment, in the presence of Mr. Joe Allenuza, that in his checking account reposed ten thousand round dollars to square up the Galioto family.

“You have come, I presume,” Carson said genially, “concerning Mrs. Galioto’s Texas Helium Gas stock?”

Mr. Allenuza nodded. He spoke very good English with only the trace of an accent. “Yessir. I have. Mrs. Galioto’s son talked to her by long-distance phone to Milwaukee last night — and she in turn called me on the phone and gave me certain instructions.” He pointed to the typewritten words on the back of the receipt. “I dictated to her Milwaukee notary what to write out and have her sign, and she sent this down to me by the night train.”

“Very well. The value of that one hundred share certificate is quoted at just a 10th of a point under par. That makes it worth nine thousand nine hundred and ninety dollars. I suppose an even $10,000 will square it. I have decided to buy it, according to Mrs. Galioto’s original wishes.”

Joe Allenuza raised an arresting hand as Carson reached for his checkbook. “Mrs. Galioto,” he said quietly, “would not sell that stock certificate for anything on earth, Mr. Carson. And she weesh that you return it to me now, at once. Look — I have legal order on you here.”

“Not sell it?” exclaimed Carson, his face frowning. “But, my dear fellow, she brought it in here originally under the misapprehension that we were brokers — and she wanted to sell. May I ask why she does not now wish to sell it?”

“Because.” said Mr. Allenuza, with not even the trace of a smile on his swarthy features, “Mrs. Galioto had a dream night before last in which Mr. Galioto came to her holding a staff, and cautioning her not to sell, under any conditions, for five years, something on which were the numbers four and three and seven, and which was green in color: that in time to come it would be worth — oh, worth a great deal more. And he commanded her to keep it. And, Mr. Carson, those are the three digits on that stock certificate — No. 347 it was, I believe — and it was green, if you’ll remember. Mrs. Galioto was very worried by her dream. She went immediately to a — ”

“To a spiritualist, I presume?” said Carson wearily.

Mr. Allenuza shook his head firmly. “No. A fortune teller. A mystic who has had very remarkable results in Milwaukee in forecasting the fortunes of Mrs. Galioto’s Milwaukee relatives. The fortune teller fully corroborated what Mr. Galioto told her in her dream — that her birthday and type made the number 347, or any combination of those digits, very lucky for her — and that the green color particularly intensified their luck because the letter ‘g’ in ‘green,’ combined with the double ‘ee,’ tallied numeralogically with the sum of those digits, which equals 14. So Mrs. Galioto, having had her dream perfectly corroborated, would not now part, with that certificate for anything on earth.”

Carson sighed deeply, a sigh that emanated from the depths of his very soul. Of all the beastly complications — after everything had been perfectly ironed out. He spoke, wearily. “Doesn’t all this seem like a lot of rank foolishness to you, Mr. Allenuza?”

Mr. Allenuza made an airy gesture with his hands. “It is not for me to say, Mr. Carson. I did all of Mr. Galioto’s legal business — as I now do all of Mrs. Galioto’s — and that of all of her relatives. However, I am not so certain as you that her views are foolish. I believe that in our dreams we are given disteenct glimpses into the unknown, even into the future. I believe the advice we receive in our dreams, from those who are dead, is advice to be heeded.”

Carson tapped the toe of his foot gently on the floor. He was facing foreign ignorance — superstition — and that one stock certificate of all stock certificates was riding toward Berlin on the mid-ocean, already legally transferred to a German company. He had about as much chance of ever securing title, recorded or unrecorded, of Certificate No. 347 as a white man, attending a negro race grievance meeting in Chicago’s Black Belt, would have of escaping intact with all his clothes still on his back.

“Mr. Allenuza,” he began, “this is all nonsense. This — ”

Mr. Allenuza leaned forward. He was no longer the suave Sicilian lawyer. His tones took on a snarl. He pounded on Carson’s desk with his clenched fist as he spoke.

“Have you or have you not got that certeeficate? Weel you or weel you not return it to me in exchange for this receipt and this order?”

“Suppose I don’t answer either question,” said Carson, his own voice belligerent, “considering that I don’t know who you are. Does your white card make you Mr. Joe Allenuza? Remember, Mrs. Galioto and her son are the only people in this affair with whom I have dealt, or whom I know. That order on the back of my receipt might be a forgery for all I know.”

“But I weell answer you,” the Sicilian lawyer shot back viciously. He pointed a forefinger at Carson. “Onless you reply to both questions satisfactorily to me, I shall at once wire the Committee of Mining Stock Investigation at Washington that you, as agent for this department, are stealing goods weech belong to my client.”

“And if you do such a thing as that, Mr. Allenuza, I’ll sue you for defamation and damages if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Mr. Allenuza laughed raucously. “Sue a lawyer? Ha!”

Which was only too right. Sue a lawyer! Might as well try to stem the flow of water in the Mississippi River with a dime turned flatside against the current. Carson reflected a moment. Confound such things as dreams and fortune tellers! He thought hard. Then he spoke.

“Mr. Allenuza, do you see that vault over there?”

Mr. Allenuza turned his head, and surveyed the vault which, however, had no doors on its hinges.

“I see a vault — weethout any doors,” he said blankly.

“Well then you see one reason, at any rate, why there is no certificate as valuable as that Texas Helium certificate in these offices. That answers your first question. Now for the second question: I will not return it to you, even though you are Mrs. Galioto’s lawyer, because there is something highly vital I must tell Mrs. Galioto — with you present of course — when she returns to Chicago Thursday. And what I shall have to say has nothing to do with either dreams nor fortune tellers. It has — well — bring in Mrs. Galioto. That’s all I’ll say. And,” Carson warned, raising his own forefinger, “if, Mr. Allenuza, you send so much as a single word to Washington against me, I’ll — I’ll — have you disbarred.”

Mr. Allenuza’s face fell. He was evidently not at all afraid of suits, but disbarment — in a land of American lawyers — was something to make him cringe.

“In view of the facts,” he proclaimed sonorously, rising, “I shall take no steps such as I threatened. If those steps become later necessary, I weell instruct my client herself to sign such wires to Washington which will, I think, leave Joe Allenuza quite safe. What I believe” — and again he waved a forefinger — ”is that you are working weeth som’body to make a corner in this stock, and that you are holding this certeeficate trying to buy it from us by force. But I am frank to say that Mrs. Galioto will never sell that certeeficate, considering her dream about Mr. Galioto and the peculiar combination of numbers involved, not to omit her fortune teller in Milwaukee who has told her many wonderful things in the past.”

“Maybe not,” said Carson troubledly, rising. “However, I certainly have a right to talk to her anyway.”

“Quite so, quite so,” intoned Mr. Allenuza with firm graciousness. He looked at his watch, a huge silver thing that ticked audibly. “We, then, will return Thursday, sometime after lunch. Say — about 1 P.M. I will ask you to have the certificate — No. 347 — itself ready for my client — ” he jerked his head quite emphatically, “for I shall have in Mrs. Galioto’s possession a telegram, dictated for her, to the Committee of Mining Stock Investigation at Washington.”

“But see that you don’t send one word of that telegram before then,” warned Carson, “else you may have to forsake the law and go into the produce business. I warn you, Mr. Allenuza. Remember.”

Mr. Allenuza bowed, with true Sicilian graciousness, and smiling a greenish smile of half-defeat and half-victory, melted away from the office.

And Carson, seating himself back in his swivel chair, suddenly realized that he was going to have to face a woman Thursday at 1 P.M., who talked no English, who thought in terms of dreams and fortune tellers, and who, if he failed to swing her from those miscellaneous fatidical guideposts, would in spite of all the extraordinary luck he and Cary had enjoyed, place him pronto in a beautiful jam with Washington. For Washington would ask but the one salient question: “Where is the client’s property?”

“Surely,” he said to himself, shaking his head slowly, “I ought to be able to out-talk and out-reason a Sicilian fortune teller and a set of crazy dreams based on Milwaukee cheese and probably red wine.” But as he gave it up for the present, and fell back to work, partially comfortable at least in the thought that he possessed ten thousand dollars with which to argue, his spirit was troubled.

By 2:30 that afternoon, however, working on his own matters, he had about forgotten the morning’s flurry, for as a bright red passenger station on a railroad line recedes into a mere postage stamp to the passenger on the observation platform, so too did this little passage-at-arms shrink into a mere interchange of words and threats with the passing of a few hours. And when he closed down his desk a few minutes after that hour, and with a few instructions to the stenographer about locking up, took his hat and embarked on the long ride out to St. Giles Lane, he had completely forgotten Mr. Allenuza. Particularly so, when he reached there, nearly an hour and a quarter later, and found a pink and white, rested and budding Marcia, with eyes bright, cheeks glowing with color, clad in a little green silk house dress protected by a bungalow-apron, and busy in the preparation of a fancy salad on the kitchen table and some delectable dessert which she hastily screened from his vision by a silver cover.

“I thought, Cliff,” she told him as he peered curiously in at the preparations on the kitchen table, “that you surely earned your supper by coming ‘way out here just to interview these people with snakes.” She gave a little shiver, and smiled at him reassuringly.

It was a few minutes past four when the first ring at the doorbell came. Carson answered it. A boy of about fifteen stood on the threshold with a newspaper-wrapped package in his hand. He stepped in diffidently at Carson’s friendly invitation, and with his cap in his hand delivered his brief peroration in the inner hall.

“Mister, it was me that called up this morning. I seen your ad in the paper when I was lookin’ for the colyum on secon’-hand bicycles. An’ I sorta thought I had that yellow snake you was lookin’ for. I caught it yesterday afternoon in Lincoln Park.” He deposited his cap on the post of the banister and unwrapping his package exposed a glass mason jar, screened at the top with a piece of cheesecloth, and containing a tiny threadlike snake with a pronounced yellow-greenish tint. But vestige of black rings running around the body, as described by Mr. Jake Jennings, there was none whatever.

Carson, the mason jar in his hand, surveyed the little grass snake a moment and then shook his head slowly. “I’m very sorry, my boy, but this isn’t the serpent advertised for. The one that is wanted is not only yellow — even more yellow than this — but has circular stripes on its body.” He handed it back to the boy, and the look of disappointment on the youngster’s face was so keen that Carson couldn’t resist digging down into his pocket with his other hand and abstracting a dollar bill which he tucked into the boy’s fingers.

“It’s too bad, sonny, but you just take this to partly pay you for the long trip out here to the prairies.” He laughed. “Pretty long trip, wasn’t it, and worth a dollar at least, don’t you think?”

The boy, like all those blessed with youth, was a philosopher. He grinned. He stuffed the bill in his pocket, and drew his cap on his head. “Thank you, mister. I’m awful sorry I troubled you.” And he allowed Carson to usher him out the same door by which he had come in, and a second later was tramping down the narrow flower-adorned path that led to the sidewalk. And Carson and the girl, peeping at him from behind the curtains of the parlor, saw him liberate the tiny harmless reptile on one of the nearby unsold lots of the district, and then toss the mason jar away into the heavy weeds which grew up close to the cement sidewalk.

He had not been gone from sight long before a middle-aged man with bushy mustaches came trudging along the sidewalk, a covered basket in his hand, his gaze fixed upon the little lone cottage. Carson smiled to Marcia. “Better get back to that little supper you’re fixing, kidlets. A few more of these reptilian exhibits, and you won’t have any appetite left.”

She repaired back to the kitchen, and a second later the doorbell rang for the second time. Again Carson opened it. “I called up this morning,” began the bushy mustached man in the doorway, but Carson cut him off by motioning him inside the inner hallway. “I was the one who called up this morning,” the newcomer repeated, once inside. “Tom Foley was the name.” Carson nodded. “I’m a gardener for Mrs. Hartley Blaine of Oak Park,” the man continued, “and I killed this here rep-tile with a rake early this mornin’. At breakfus’ when I was readin’ the paper, I seen your ad and — well here I am.” He lowered the basket to the floor, removed the cloth from it, and raising it up by the handle showed to Carson what was lying therein on a clean newspaper: the body of a thick short serpent with a bright yellow head, several rows of yellow diamond-shaped patches joined point-to-point along its back from its head to its tail, and a more or less intricately laced pattern of reds, greens and blacks covering all the other portions.

But one look at the squat hideous thing, and Carson shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Foley, very sorry, but while this has a good proportion of yellow in its markings, it isn’t a tiger-snake — or Zuri. The species of serpent which was advertised for is a bright yellow with circular black stripes running around the body.” And with several motions of his finger he described to the heavily mustached Foley the general pattern by which the Zuri identified himself with the bright foliage and sharp shadows of far off India.

Mr. Foley was a bit disappointed, but evidently had been aiming for the prize only as one takes a shot in the dark, for he silently packed the worthless body of his reptile back in his basket as though it were worth a million dollars in gold, and lighting a corncob pipe, pulled his hat over his head. With a tweak at his long mustaches, he raised his basket to his arm and took his departure, aided by two extra good cigars from the person of one Mr. Clifford Carson, who was beginning to feel by this time that Mr. Jake Jennings’ proposition was costing him something personally in the requirements it imposed toward easing the feelings of disappointed applicants.

He was less polite with the next comer, for the reason that that visitor proved very shortly to be nothing else but an astute business man, alive to the opportunity of the hour. The latter was a dark, short individual, obviously a Persian or a Hindoo, whose flamboyantly printed card proved that he dealt in animals of all sorts for circuses, zoos and museums. He brought with him a phlegmatic, even apathetic, little reptile in a glass cylinder screened at each end.

“Nalon Toorah,” he said, bowing deeply. “My name, sair, eez on card in your hand. I see ad — your ad — in paper las’ night. So you wan’ tiger snake — Indian tiger snake, eh? Was ever snake w’at I can no provide? I doubt him much, sair.” And as he rattled off his accomplishments in his special line, he held aloft with much éclat the glass cylinder he had brought. But while the reptile lying therein was yellow indeed, it was mottled with black spots like a leopard — there was no sign of black rings on its body.

“Is that an Indian tiger snake?” asked Carson pointedly.

Nalon Toorah looked a bit sheepish. “Sair, eet eez tigair snake — joos’ like Tigair snake of India — no deefrence much account at all, sair. We call ‘im Crawling Leopard. He eez same snake.”

“But is that snake the one known as the Zuri?”

Nalon Toorah was a crafty dodger. “Sair, zere eez no deefrence. I know w’at you wan’ snake for. You wan’ mak’ experiments weez poison in ‘im. But he is same poison — I assure you, sair. Leopard — tigair — w’at deefrence zat mak’, I ask? You wan’ mak’ venom serum, eh? Sure. Then theez snake joos’ w’at you lookin’ for.”

Carson’s voice was a bit sharp. He did not like to be made the recipient of specious arguments tending to convince him that he should purchase something he had not called for. In other words he was not in the market for reptiles just because they came from India.

“Mr. Toorah, if you’ll go back home and read my advertisement carefully, you’ll find that the reptile asked for is the Zuri, or Indian tiger snake — a yellow-bodied snake with black rings running around its body from head to tail. This is a yellow snake and it’s got plenty of black on it — but it isn’t a Zuri. You know that and I know it. Now if you’ve got a Zuri — well, for instance, have you added such a reptile to your stock during the last twenty-four hours?”

Mr. Toorah scratched his chin. “Zuri is common enough snake,” he replied. “He is use’ in all circuses an’ museums by snak’ charmers w’at wan’ make beeg show — him and coral snake and ze Texas rattler. But I no have exactly Zuri in stock. I can get you Zuri from New York for mooch less zan thousan’ dollars, if you wait — say — a week. If you can wait ninety days, I get you big bunch from India — all kinds Zuri, and cost you less than ten dollars ‘piece. I can — ”

“Have you got a Zuri in stock this minute?” interrupted Carson abruptly.

Mr. Toorah shook his head sadly. “No, not now, sair. Have no had Zuri for long, long time. Can get — can easy get, sair.”

“Then I’m very sorry, Mr. Toorah, but we can do no business together. I am after one certain reptile that is already in Chicago. It can be identified if it is brought here. I am not in the market for tiger snakes in general, nor for so-called leopard snakes. This fellow you’ve got here will not do at all.”

Mr. Toorah attempted to argue further the merits of the Indian leopard snake against the Indian tiger snake, but Carson gave him short shrift. He was thoroughly irritated by the attempt of the man to secure the offered thousand dollars for a specimen worth only around ten dollars, as well as the manner in which the latter had failed to play fair even regarding the species of the creature. And by being more sharp in his tones than he had been at any time this far, Carson had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Toorah literally forced to take his departure, muttering under his breath, his dark face sullen.

It was fully five-twenty by the little mantel clock in the parlor when a fat negro woman bustled up the front steps entirely out of breath, her black roly-poly face the countenance of an innocent child, her surplus avoirdupois bouncing up and down in front of her, her ponderous skirts sweeping a pair of old shoes several sizes too large for her. Carson wondered as he answered the door whether she had come to solicit washing, but he was soon to find that his quest had reached what appeared to be its end. He gave her a seat in the parlor so that she could regain her breath, and as soon as she had gotten a long respiration she poured forth her errand.

“Dat wuthless husban’ o’ mine, Sam Johnson,” her story ran, punctuated by more or less wheezing, “done got dat ah snek you’s lookin’ fo’, sah. Dat man is a wu’ker on de railroad tracks down roun’ de Union Station — he jes’ wu’ks on de roadbed roun’ de railroad yahds, yo’ undahstan’ — he don’ go out wid none ob dem wuthless section gangs. An’ dataway he done cotch dat ah yellah tigah snek yo’ all talked ‘bout in de paper.”

“You believe your husband got the snake we advertised for?” Carson asked, more than interested by her mention of the Union Station.

“Yessah. Ah knows it. But lemme tell you ‘bout dat wuthless man an’ what happen ‘bout dat snek. He done was wu’kin’ Sunday, like he always do, caze he gets Mondays off instid. An’ as he wuz tampin’ down one ob dem railroad ties, he done see a streak o’ yeller skinnin’ along undah de futhest rail. He go aftah it quick and he raise de i’on tampin’ bah and he kill it wid one quick blow. He — ”

“Now just a minute, Mrs. Johnson,” said Carson. “The Union Station yards are where the trains from the West would come in. Did your husband make any comment as to what was the last train in prior to his killing this snake?”

“Yes, he did, sah. Sam say he bet dat snek was brung in on dat train f’um Montana w’at comes in roun’ two o’clock in de aftahnoon. ‘Tannyrate, he think it come in dataway. But as I is tellin’ you he kill dat reptile jes’ like as what I done ‘scribe to you. Den w’at you thinks dat wuthless niggah done? Been alwuz lookin’ fo’ a Jonah fo’ to use in de crap games w’ut he plays in; so he done tek dat snek yistiddy mo’nin’ — Monday mo’nin’ — to one ob dem w’ite man taximdermics ‘count o’getting’ de day off cause o’ wu’kin’ Sunday. An’ he go an’ have de snek skinned w’ile he wait, an’ de skin baked in a little oven, an’ den stuffed wid wool. An’ den he ca’y off dat snek fo’ a Jonah in de crap games. He say a yaller snek mek’ a man rich — his pappy tel’ ‘im dat w’en he was a boy.

“He nevah even go back to his job dis mohnin’,” continued the colored woman dolefully, “fo’ he been shootin’ craps evah since yistiddy afta’noon. All night dat niggah been rollin’ dem bones, an’ dis mohnin’ he show up in a ol’ suit wid ol’ shoes an’ no hat — done los’ all his good clothin’ an’ all his money. But he jes’ as cheerful as do’ he had a millyun dollahs, fo’ he say he got a Jonah dat goin’ to mek him an’ me and de chilluns pow’ful rich soons as it th’ows a h’ant ober dem dice. Den he roll up in de bed an’ go to sleep. Ah tells Mistess Alexandah, de w’ite lady on Prairie Av’nue who ah washes fo’, ‘bout it. An’ Mistess Alexandah says: ‘W’y, Em’line, I ‘members ‘stinctly heahin’ Ham an’ Abnah on de radio las’ night talkin’ ‘bout a ad fur jes’ sich a snek. An’ dey talked ‘bout de Union Station, too. We go git de paper wot owns Station WXOY, an’ look fo’ de ad. Dat snek mebbe de pet ob somebody like a snek-chahmah.’ So we stops de washin’, hunts up de las’ ebenin’s papah, and she looks all fru it — and suah ‘nough we see all ‘bout dat snek in dem los’ an’ foun’ ads. Now, Mistah, if dat snek ain’t de one you’s lookin’ fo’, ah suah will be a mighty dis’pinted ‘ooman. It’s a tigah, jes, like you ‘scribes. An’ ah ought to know, seein’ as ah went right home an’ sneaked de snek outen dat niggah’s pocket, him bein’ still snoahin’ an’ dreamin’ ‘bout how he goin’ to go out tonight and win a lot o’ money by bettin’ ouah fun’iture. So heah ah is, and heah is de snek.”

From a capacious bosom she withdrew a white cloth, and unrolling it exposed its contents. Carson, now standing above her so that he could inspect those contents accurately, saw that it was indeed something that tallied exactly with what both Mr. Jennings and the encyclopedia termed the tiger snake. It was about a foot long, perhaps a couple of inches over that, and a fine flexible wire evidently concealed in the stuffing allowed it to be bent into various lifelike positions, as the colored woman demonstrated with her black digits. Its color was a brilliant yellow, broken only by narrow jet-black rings which ran from the very tip of its black tail clear to its nose. The skin, as the colored woman had narrated, had evidently been neatly removed, baked in an oven, stuffed with wool stuffing and sewed up with very fine stitches of silk. It had a somewhat lifelike appearance, however, in spite of its drastic treatment, for two bright blue beads had been sewn in for its eyes. It was, all in all, though, a more or less embarrassed and stiff-looking snake, a snake that looked as though it wasn’t enjoying itself — a snake which suggested a man in a dress suit at a wake!

It was while he was inspecting it that Marcia came into the parlor, and, looking up, Carson related to her the black woman’s story. “It must surely be the one,” she said, her instinctive dislike of the thing evidently partially overcome by its brilliant coloring and its very despoiled and pathetic appearance. She gazed with him at the thing which two days before had been a repugnant reptile, but which now had become merely an ornament — a bizarre ornament of the kind which appeals to savage and primitive minds.

Carson scratched his chin, while the negro woman looked up at him expectantly. At last he spoke. “Mrs. Johnson, I am more than convinced that this is the reptile for which the advertisement was inserted from this house. The party who advertised for it is not here now, and I have two suggestions to offer. You may leave it here with us if you care to trust us, and we will give you a receipt for it. The party who advertised for it has agreed to pay the sum of one thousand dollars providing the snake can be identified by certain markings. If it were the wrong one, it would of course be returned to you. On the other hand, if you will leave me your address I will arrange an appointment between us all. In any event, let me advise that you keep it out of your husband’s hands, for if he gets it again he’s liable to wager everything you and he have in the world on its supposed powers of good luck.”

“How soon, sah, does yo’ think dat you will know f’um de man whut you’s advuhtisin’ fo’?” she asked with the trustfulness of a child.

“Very soon,” Carson answered. “As soon as I can call him up and get him over here. Perhaps tonight — at least tomorrow morning. He has stipulated that it shall be dead or alive — and whether the fact that it has been stuffed by your husband will make a difference or not, I am not in a position to say.”

The negro woman pondered deeply for a moment. Then she spoke. “Well den, sah, Ah thinks ah jes’ leave de snek wid you, fo’ you an’ de lil gal both looks hones’. But — well — ah wuz wonderin’, sah, if yo’ couldn’t ‘vance me five dollahs on de snek, consid’in’ dat wuthless Sam o’ mine go an’ lose so much money.”

Carson hesitated. This was undoubtedly the reptile whose finding was worth two hundred and fifty dollars to Marcia, if not to himself. Then he dipped down in his pocket and drawing up his none too thick roll of money peeled off a five-dollar bill. Stepping to the parlor table, he wrote out a receipt with his fountain pen, giving the description of the serpent, filling in the woman’s name and address on East 31st Street, and signing his own together with his downtown office. Then securing the telephone number of a more affluent colored neighbor of hers, he bowed her out with plenty of assurances that he would ring her on the phone at the earliest possible moment. Once alone with Marcia, he and the girl looked at the snake and then at each other.