Books › Blue Book v026 n04 [1918-02], 1918 › scan 6
Scan 6
Blue Book v026 n04 [1918-02], 1918
40 lines. Read by computer on 17 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1light and thick-set. I'll get away. Now!"
3He lifted out the top drawer of the chiffonier and set it noiselessly on the floor. He took a handful of things out of it and scattered them. Then he turned to Mrs. Dassler. "Scream!" he whispered.
5Fear paralyzed her throat. "You've got to, or he'll wonder why you didn't!" he told her fiercely. He seized her and shook her roughly. She screamed.
7Turning, he let himself quickly through the window and dropped to the ground. It was sloping and muddy. He fell, and his ankle turned under him. He scrambled up, intent only on covering a hundred yards in the shortest possible time and getting over to the next street—whence he could saunter to his friend's house, confident that neither police nor anyone else would confuse a tall, dark army officer with a short, light, thick-set crook. But instantly he sank back again with a moan of pain, while black spots danced before his eyes.
9Again he struggled up. He heard sounds of confusion behind him, a door bang open close at hand, and feet coming down long stairs.
11With sickening force there came to him the true appreciation of his predicament—and hers.
13He groaned, rolled over on his face, and daubed himself with mud. He grimed his clothes, his face, his hands. He even put mud in his hair.
15He sat up then, to face an aggressive, wide-shouldered man, who held a large pistol competently pointing in his direction, and who leaned over and searched him quickly for a concealed weapon. At the top of the outdoor steps, white-faced and wide-eyed, he had a glimpse of Mrs. Dassler staring down at them.
17"I've got him, Lora!" Dassler called. "Go to the telephone and call police headquarters."
19"I—I can't, Walter," she faltered. "I know I couldn't talk over the phone."
21Her husband's reply was prompt. "One of us has to. Can you guard him while I go? Come down here. Take this pistol. Don't get too near him. If he tries to get away, shoot him in the leg." He spoke to Brice. "I wouldn't advise you to try it," he said. "My wife knows how to shoot."
23SLOWLY Mrs. Dassler came down the steps and took the weapon. Her husband ran up and into the house, calling over his shoulder that he would be back in three minutes. The moment he was out of sight she bent over the lieutenant.
25"Hurry!" she exclaimed. "I'll drop the pistol in the mud, and when you are halfway across the street, I'll fire a shot into the ground and say I got too close to you and that you knocked the gun out of my hand and ran, and that when I picked it up you were so far away I missed you."
27"No use!" he groaned. "I've sprained my ankle. I couldn't get across this lot in half an hour. We've got to let it go as it lies. The police will take me, and you must act as though I were really a burglar. I'll get out of it some way."
29"How?"
31Brice, for the life of him couldn't see. Things were now worse than ever. No good construction could possibly be put on his effort to escape. Even if Walter Dassler were not a jealous, violent man, it would strain his credulity to ask him to believe the truth. No one would believe it. With sinking heart, Brice realized he himself probably would not believe it, if it were told about some one else, even though that some one were his best friend. He could not see any light. Yet he realized any attempt on the woman's part to solve their problem would ruin her.
33"You must let things take their course," he said. "Never mind what happens—stick to the burglar story. Forget you ever knew me."
35"But everybody else does. Who will believe you are a burglar?"
37"The police don't know me. I don't know how I am going at this, yet, but I am not going to tell them who I am. Unless some army officer happens to see me at the station—You wont try to straighten it out, will you? It wouldn't do either of us any good."
39"Oh, it is terrible!" Mrs. Dassler
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