From Place to Place

s in the packed and steaming tenements, lie there and curse the day they were born-then comes the annual "crime wave," as the papers love to name it. In truth the papers make it first and then they name it. Misdeeds of great and small degree are ranged together and displayed in parallel columns as common symptoms of a high tide of violence, a perf

less. So maybe there was a real "crime wave," making men bloody-minded and homicidal. Be that as it may, the thing reached its apogee in the murder

hirty-ninth Street, where by the current rumour of the neighbourhood, he kept large sums in cash. S

latives and presumptive heirs of the dead man came forward promptly, offering a lump sum in cash for his capture, living; but all this labou

young man of some wealth and more leisure. Also he was a young man of theories. For example, he had a theory that around every corner of every great city romance lurked, ready for some o

hallenged promptly by one of those argumentative persons who invariably disagree

that comes and finds you-once in a life-time. I'll bet that in three months of trying you couldn't, to save your life, h

you bet?" ask

he other man, whose

udson Green beckoned a waiter with the other a

he contentious Wainwright; diligently had he ranged from one end of New York to the other, seeking queer people and queer things-seeking anything that might properly be said to constitute adventure. Sometimes a mildly interested and mildly satirical frie

he trick of bestowing a thousand-dollar bill upon a chance vagrant and then trailing after the recipient to note what happened to him, in his efforts to change

olled back and forth, looking for one of an aspect suitable for this experiment. Mountain gorges of painted canvas and sheet-tin towered above him; palace pinnacles of lath and plaster speared the sky; the moist salt air, blowing in from the adjacent sea, was enriched with dust and with smells of hot sausages and fried crabs, and was shattered

n rather than by any visible attachments; it might have been years since he had a hat that had a brim. It was in the faint and hungered whine of the professio

one-thousand-dollar bill. He was told that he must undertake to change the bill and spend small fractional parts of it. Succeeding here, he should have five per cent of it for hi

people who are made financially embarrassed by having no money at all, but more who are made so by having too much. Our most expensive hotels are full of whole families who, having become unexpectedly and abruptly wealthy, are now suffering from this painful form of financial embarrassment; they wish to disb

this here bill cha

nd change it-and I will trail behind you to see what happens. I'm merel

inquired the raggedy one. "This

Green. The pimpled expanse of face lost some of its d

decided. "Where'

ld him. "You said you were hungry-that

confessed frankly. "Right now I'm that full

long, cool glass of beer,

dollar bill mentally considered this pleasin

ards a near-by amusement enterprise. This institution had opened years before as "The Galveston Flood." Then, with some small scenic changes, it had become "The Mount Pelee Disaster," wa

ming the choice with a nod. "And remembe

ags fluttered freely in the evening air and his sole-less shoes flopped up and dow

nd therefore one steeled against surprise and armed mentally against trick and device. Even before she spoke you felt sure s

ct garbing of a Sicilian peasant maid, including a brilliant bodice that laced in front and buttoned b

the wicket his precious bill-it was now wadded into a greenis

front of her. She considered, with widening gaze, the numeral 1 and the three naughts following it. Then thro

d type the manner in which this young woman uttered the word minu

ng the bill down flat with one hand she t

would be made welcome by a gratified proprietor and would be given the liberty of the entire island and would have columns written about him by a hundred gratified press-agents, or else

behind her free hand the young woman whispered in his ear. He nodded understandingly, cast a sharp look at the opulent individual in the brimless hat, and then hurried away toward the inner recesses of the entrance

hand into the jingling bag. Briskly she counted down

one quarter, two dimes and one nickel. Lifting one of the dimes off the top of this pleasing structure, she dropped it in a drawer; then she shoved the remaining mound of mo

change, endowed him liberally with cash for his trouble, and making his way to where his car waited, departed in haste and silence

I

ts of the Farther Bronx to the sandy beaches of Ultimate Staten Island, which is in the city, and yet not of it. He roamed through

d over with intertwined Oriental signs and characters. Transferring this ornament from the pawnshop window to the lapel of his coat, he went walking first through the Syrian quarter, where the laces and the

r and welcomed to the inner councils of some secret Bund, cabal, council or propaganda, as one coming from afar, bearing important mess

lack suit stood at the curbing, apparently waiting for a car. He carried an umbrella under one arm and at his feet rested a brown wicker suit-case with the initials "G. W. T." and the address, "Enid, Oklahoma," stencilled on its side in

umbrella from the right hand to the left, he gave three successive and careful tugs at his right coat lapel, all the while facing Judson Green. Following this he made a military salute and then, steppin

d brother from Enid was threatening him with arrest and prosecution as a rank impostor-for wearing, without authority, the sacred insignia of an Imperial Past Potentate of the Supreme Order of Knightly Something

arving in a tenement on Rivington Street, a man who in his day-so the papers said-had made rulers and unmade them, had helped to alter the map of more than

being in great danger. He looked into this too, but stopped looking, when he ran into an affable and accommodating press-agent. The imp

ant aides to dog the footsteps of the disappointed thief and by harrying him forth with threats from wherever he stopped, would speedily have driven him desperate from lack of sleep and lack of food. Green had read somewhere of this very thing having been done successfully. He patterned a

chance brought to Green an adventure-sheer chance and a real adventure. The circumstance of a

ths, when confessing himself beaten, and what was worse, wrong, he must pay over one hundred dollars to the jubilant Wainright. With him it wasn't the money-he had already spe

on Green, being very much out of sorts, found himself very much alone and didn't know what to do with himself. He thought of the beaches, but dismissed the thought. Of a Saturday afternoon in th

, which, lying at the northernmost boundaries of New York City, had come, with succe

ark. Here there are baseball games by the hundred and football games by the score-all the known varieties of football games too, Gaelic, Soccer, Rugby and others; and coal black West Indian negroes in white flannels, with their legs buskined like the legs of comic opera brigands, play at cricket, meanwhile shouting in

is eyes. The players disported themselves with enthusiasm, for there was now a soft coolness in the air. But the scars of a brutal summer sti

heated metals assailed the air, and with a tired wheezing somewhere down in its vital organs, the automobile halted itself. The chauffeur spent some time tinkering among its innermost works before he stood up, hot and sweaty and disgusted, to announce that the breakdown was serious in c

ubway," he said. "You mend the car and b

hanges in the immediate surroundings, and here at this particular spot, the subway was working them, and many of them. Through truck patches and strips of woodland, cross-streets were being cut, and on the hills to the westward, tall apartment houses were going up. On the raw edge of a cut, half of an old wooden mansion stood, showing tattered strips of an ancient flowered wallpaper and a fireplace, clinging like a chimney-swift's nest to a wall, where the rest of the room had been sheared away bodily. Along Br

ntidy fringed effect. So he turned off short and went into the little place and mounted the new tall chair that stood just inside the door. The only other customer in the place was in the act of leaving. This customer got up from the manicure table opposite the shoe-shining stand, slipped a coin into the palm of the

, the head barber, he who presided over th

lar steadies, Sadie. If you was to ask me, I

ddressed shook her head

ed. "There's certainly somethi

ck a stand-by," opined the

Sadie turned toward the well-dressed, alert-looking young man who had just

ugust yonder is all the time trying to guy me about him. I

n to mean almost anything. But the manicure lady was of a temperament ne

truth-he's been back here every day since. And the funniest part of it is I'm certain sure he never had his nails done in his life before then-they was certainly in a untidy state th

in a serious form," said Green, seeing that Miss Sa

she agreed. "He's got other habits too

r pardon-o

thing else hardly, except the moving pictures, he's seen that day or the day before. It's right ridiculous, him being a grown-up man and everything. I actually believe he never misses a new fillum at that new moving picture place three doors above here, or at that other one,

chief auditor to bend forward in absorbed interest. He sat with his eyes on the Greek youth

ervoir of her little mind as dry as a bone. The job required no great amount of pump-work either, for this Miss Sadie dearly loved the sound of her own voice and was gratefully glad to tell him all she knew of the stranger who favoured such painful manicuring processes and who so enjoyed a moving

ung beard, through which his chin and chops still showed. He smoked cigarettes constantly-the thumb and forefinger of his right hand were stained

nd perhaps furtive in his bearing. His teeth, his eyes, his expression, his mode of dress-Mr. Green knew them all before Miss Sadie gav

d what he was seeking. He read a while, and for a while then he took notes. Pocketing his notes, he ate dinner alone and in due season thereafter he went home and to bed. But before this, he sent off a night lettergram to the Byrnes private detective a

f the Byrnes staff he looked the part. He was square-jawed, with an appraising eye and a good pair

ou remember, don't you, what the papers said at the time of the Steinway murder about

memory he quoted: "Medium height, slender, dark-complected, smooth-faced and about thirty-one years old; a good dresser and well edu

about him that was str

Then after a little pause, "No, tha

eing a patron of

he official police circular that all the papers had carried for days: "Formerly addicted to reading cheap and sensational novels, now an invetera

cept that I have found the

Cassidy, and his chair, which had been tilted bac

alf-incredulousl

y. "At least I've found Maxwe

ore, Mr. Cassidy, surnamed Michael J., was almost sitting in his lap. When the

ight dope on this party. But listen, Mr. Green, how do you figure in this here party's

s present passion for moving pictures would both seem to prove that. Now then, you remember that all the accounts of that murder told of the deep marks of finger-nail scratches in the old man's throat. If this man is t

tended his large right hand in a congratulatory c

you oughter be in the business. Say,

ait until we are pretty sure of the correctness of our theory before acting. And of course,

xpert thinking on this here case; I'

at he had been living there for a little more than a fortnight; that his landlady didn't know his business, but thought that he must be an invalid. Among the other lodgers the impression prevailed that he suffered from a nervous trouble.

itously furnished most of these valued details, after M

hen he went for a solitary walk through the park, and along toward dusk he returned to the boarding house, ate his supper and went to his room. He had no friends, apparently; certainly he had no callers. He received

he said. "Believe me, I'm perfectly willing to

line of new shops was on one side and the park stretched away on the other. Green was on the i

ent front of the Regal Motion Picture Palace. He contemplated with an apparently unwa

is very minute thought of a plan that ought to make us absolutely sure of our man

ed Mr. Cassidy honestly. "When

oyer seemed no

hospitable portals of the Regal. "I want to have a business

t did most of the talking. As soon as Judson Green had produced a bill-roll of august proportions, the proprietor, doubtful until that moment, sho

ever, there were at least two newcomers present. They sat side by side, next to central aisle, in the rearmost row of chairs-Judson Green and Michael J. Cassidy. Their man was almost directly in front of them, perhaps

ver singing in the trees and the cotton-blossoms bloom practically without cessation. This, mercifully, being soon over, a film entitled "The Sheriff's Sweetheart" was offered, and for a time, in shifting pictures, horse-thieves in leather "chaps," and heroes in open-necked shirts, and dashing cow-girls in divided skirts, played out a thrilling drama of the West, while behind

auldron of snaky, froggy horrors; and then-taking some liberties with the theme as set down by the original author-the operator presented a picture wherei

led with his fears, the phantom of the murdered Duncan, a cloaked, shadowy shape, crossed slowly by him from right to

theatre. In an instant the sheeted form was gone-gone so quickly that perhaps no keen-eyed juvenile in the audience detected the artifice by which, through a skilful scissoring and grafting and doc

centre aisle for the door; and in the daylight which strengthened as he neared the open, it might be seen that he wore the look of one stu

uch of Cassidy's big hand upon his shoulder he spun round, staring at them with wide-open, startled eyes. Above his s

shaken, quick voice. A gold-capped tooth

you," said Cassidy, with a s

ot the question out with a separ

shoulder the least bit more firmly. "But we can call one mighty easy if

ged and somewhat pursy patrolman was shepherding the traffic tha

on it, toward the opposite side of the street; there the park came right up to the sidewalk and ended. They went, and in a minute all three of them were grouped close up to the shrub

a cat often displays, in different form, upon capturing a live mouse. "And we want

n, licking with his ton

d Cassidy, shooting out his

man looked as though he were g

guess, ain't it?" went on the dete

ing time to collect his scattered wits. "Oh,

nd with a bullying, hectoring air pushed his face, with the lower jaw undershot, into the suspect's fa

lated, the other jum

d himself tauter. "Say," he said, and tried to put force into his tones, "what business

" He sank his voice almost to a whisper, speaking deliberately. "Now tell us why

e arm wildly, and flinging up the other across his face as though to

h a desperate and unexpected agility, had given his body a backward nimble fling that carried him sprawling through a gap between the ornamental bushes fringing the park sward. Instantly he was up and, with never a backward glance, was running across the lower, narrower verge of Indi

girth and a tendency toward fallen arches, only took one or two steps upon his flat feet and then halted, being in doubt as to what it was all about. Before he could make up his mind whether or not to join the chase, it was too late to join it. The fugitive, travelling a straight course, had crossed the field at

gs at the start of the race, but now his wind began to fail. Panting and blowing fit to shame porpoises, he slackened his speed, falling back inch by inch, while the slighter and younger man took the lead. Green settled to a steady, space-eating jog-trot

ng half out of his saddle, the mounted man listened, believed-and acted. Leaving Cassidy behind, he spurred his bay to a walloping gallop, aiming for the northern confines of the park, and as he travelled, he spread the

bly under the shouldering ledges of big gray rocks and among tall elms and oaks. Already he had lost his sense of direction, but he ran along the deserted road doggedly, pau

h he had been travelling, and went down upon his hands and knees, almost touching with his head a big licheny boulder, half buried in vines and grass. Glancing back, he saw what had twisted him off his course and thrown him

that which held him petrified in his pose. There, in a huddle among the shrubs, where he would never have seen it except for the

e sought-Maxwell-and there was a revolver in Maxwell's right h

r pursuers. He had won a hundred-dollar bet a