In the end, Paul Pry drifted off to sleep, determined to play cards as they came to his hand without worrying too much in advance about what plans or what cards the other man might hold. Which is, after all, a pretty good way to gamble, or to live.
The 6.13 Cannonball Express rumbled into the Union Depot exactly on time to the minute. The exit lane for passengers was lined with those who came to meet incoming friends, relatives or sweethearts.
Paul Pry was ensconced atop a girder where he was apparently inspecting a chipped place in the marble pillar. He wore white overalls, held a small trowel in his hand, and was utterly ignored by the stream of human traffic which milled beneath him.
The first of the passengers from the 6.13 began to arrive.
An athletic man, his face beaming in anticipation, strode through the gates, looked at the lined faces of those who waited in parallel rows. A young woman thrust her way out into the passageway. He uttered a choked exclamation, and they clinched each other tightly.
About them swirled other passengers. Groups were formed and swept about. Red-capped porters pushed carts loaded with stacked baggage.
Paul Pry kept his eyes upon the athletic-looking young man who had been the first up the exit lane. For the girl who had met him with such wild affection, who had brought that choked exclamation to his eager lips, was none other than Maude Ambrose, from Chicago, known as Maude the Musher.
She was attired in a fur coat which came a trifle below her knees, yet did not interfere with a vision of silken contours which stretched smoothly from ankle to knee.
They were within a few feet of the checking stand where the gangster known as Charley the Checker, a purple welt across his forehead, his eyes a little cloudy with the after-effects of a concussion, solicited travellers to deposit their suitcases.
Directly behind Charley the Checker, within three feet of the brass-topped counter along which suitcases were slid by those desiring to check them, was a shelf upon which some three dozen suitcases were stacked, side by side. They were each placed on end, their handles to the front, and pasteboard tickets dangled from those handles.
Paul Pry noticed that there was one vacant space almost in the centre of those suitcases. He watched and waited.
Two men were shaking hands profusely within a few inches of Maude the Musher and her new-found boyfriend. A slender chap with cautious eyes and a cleft in his chin, pushed his way through the crowd. His right hand held the handle of a suitcase in a grip that was so tight the skin showed a dead white over the clenched knuckles.
Maude the Musher stepped back from the embrace of the young man. He made a playful grab at her, caught the sleeve of her fur coat. Maude the Musher jerked back.
The fur coat slid from her smoothly polished figure, and the crowded passengers and spectators became rooted to the spot.
There have been rumours of young women who, dressing hurriedly or carelessly for the street, have contented themselves with throwing a fur coat over filmy underthings, donning shoes and stockings and going demurely about their business.
But now the spectators had an opportunity to see for themselves that these rumours were not without their foundation.
Maude the Musher stood in such a position that the curves of her figure showed to the best advantage. The fur coat was on the tiled floor before her. Her pink silken undies were the latest mode, and had the most expensive ornamentation.
And, as though to direct all eyes to her, she screamed.
The travelling public have grown accustomed to coloured photographs of beauties in underthings upon the advertising pages of the women’s magazines. They have seen sights in Pullman cars, and, perhaps through hotel windows, that have made the coloured photographs seem rather pale. But the sight of a woman in the flesh, clad as Maude the Musher was clad, was enough to root every one in his tracks for a swift instant.
Maude the Musher, after that scream, doubled forward and reached for the fur coat. A man sprang forward to assist her.
Someone was knocked scrambling in that mad rush, and that someone was the youth who was carrying the suitcase in so tight a grip.
In falling he seemed to hit his head. For he lay still, limp. Only Paul Pry’s watching eyes had seen the hissing slungshot. All other eyes had been fastened upon Maude the Musher and the man who was springing to her assistance.
Only the eyes of Paul Pry, of all those spectators, saw exactly what happened to the suitcase which the young man had been carrying. For that suitcase was juggled with the well-trained coordination of a football squad sending the ball into an intricate play.
The suitcase was handed to one of the men who had been shaking hands. That man handed back a similar suitcase, and that similar suitcase sprawled on the floor so that it skidded directly against the prostrate form of the young man.
The suitcase the young man had been carrying passed through the hands of two people and thudded upon the brass-covered counter of the checking stand. Charley the Checker moved with lightning-like rapidity. He flipped the suitcase into the vacant space on the shelf, turned his back and faded from sight.
After all, being a known gangster has its disadvantages, and Charley the Checker knew that for the police to recognize him as the man in charge of the checking station might be exceedingly embarrassing. But he could trust no other with the delicate problem of handling the stolen bag.
After the hue and cry should die away, those securities would find their way into financial channels through sources which were divers and devious, yet none the less available.
But, the theft accomplished without a hitch, Charley the Checker “ducked out” and his place was taken by a slender man with very pale skin, but with eyes that were as cold as those of a rattlesnake.
Maude the Musher grabbed her fur coat about her and ran. Someone laughed. A travelling man dropped his suitcase to clap his hands in applause, and half a dozen laughing males joined in the applause. A policeman grinned broadly and shouldered his way through the crowd.
“Keep movin’,” he said, good-naturedly, and then saw the sprawled figure of the young man with the cleft chin. Two sympathetic passengers from the train were picking him up.
The officer thought with chain-lightning efficiency. He blew his whistle, raised his voice.
“Stop that woman!” he yelled.
And the crowd, sensing that all was not as it should have been with Maude the Musher, took up the cry. There was a car waiting at the kerb with motor running. The athletic young man unburdened by any baggage, gained this car, jumped behind the wheel. Obviously, it had been left there for that very purpose. Maude the Musher, her running handicapped somewhat by the necessity of keeping the fur about her, was a stride or two later.
But she very wisely rid herself of her impedimenta by tossing the fur coat at the machine, and vaulted into the seat with a flash of well-formed limbs, a glimpse of rounded flesh.
The car was already in motion.
Police whistles shrilled. A traffic officer started tugging at his gun. The automobile violated the traffic rules, saw a hole in the oncoming line of vehicles, and turned to the left with a great screeching of tyres. The rushing lane of automobiles closed up the opening, and the car was gone.
The young man with the cleft chin sat up. His eyes were completely glazed. It seemed impossible that he could know what he was doing, but he grasped for the suitcase on the floor beside him, snapped back the catch.