The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

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СКАЧАТЬ in. “You haven’t found anything, yet? No sign, no indication?”

      “Nothin’, so fur. Not yet.”

      “But you will? You’re going down again, right away?”

      “Yeah, pretty soon. Quick as I rest up, a little, and get this cold out o’ my bones.”

      “And you’ll find my son?” asked the mother. “You will, won’t you?”

      “Well, gee, I’ll try.”

      “No, no! Promise you’ll find him. Oh, don’t you see, you’ve got to?”

      Tim Spurling began to feel very queer and sick again. Something seemed to have hold of his guts and to be twisting them. He blinked as he looked that woman fair in the eyes. Between the float and the motor launch extended a distance of not more than four feet. Between Tim Spurling, workman, and those two millionaires, stretched infinity. But something strove to bridge that infinity.

      Under the compulsion of this something, under the fever of that stricken woman’s look—that appealing, agonized, crucified look—Spurling felt his plans all riven, cast awry and wrecked.

      “Hell!” he tried to rally himself. “Don’t be a quitter and a fool!”

      But it was no good. For the woman was speaking again.

      “Your own boy—you say he’s very ill?”

      “Yes. T.B.”

      “What’s his name?”

      “William. But o’ course we call him just Bill.”

      “And how old?”

      “Sixteen, ma’am. Your boy—same age?”

      She nodded. He saw tears gleaming in her faded eyes.

      “Please get away from here,” he begged. “I’m goin’ down again right away, and when I come up mebbe you better not be here.” He appealed to the millionaire. “See here, Mr. Eccles. Get her out o’ here. Won’t you take her away, please?”

      “He’s right, Valerie,” the magnate assented. “We really ought to go.” He gave a word of command to the mechanic at the engine. Then, to Spurling: “You’re going down again, right now?”

      “Yeah. Just as quick’s I have a smoke and a bit of a rest. And you can count on me. I’ll do the best I can!”

      As the powerful engine started, and the motorboat purred away with those two lonely, sorrowful, rich, death-stricken figures, Tim Spurling gazed after them with tragic eyes.

      “The best I can, for you,” he thought. “That means the worst for us!” Aloud: “You there, Mac—light me a tack, can’t you? Gee, that water’s awful cold, down there. I sure need a smoke. I sure need it worse’n I ever needed one in all my life!”

      *****

      Tim Spurling, that same evening, stood on the platform of the Crystal Lake station with McTaggart, his helper. Their diving gear, all boxed up again, was waiting to be lifted aboard the baggage car of the 7:17, that had already whistled far up Swiftwater Valley.

      “Damn short job, Tim,” Mac was complaining. “Seems like we ain’t got no luck at all.”

      “Mebbe yes, mebbe no. What’s good for one, is bad for another. Everybody can’t have all they want.”

      “Sure, I know. But—”

      Down the road swept a long gray car. It slowed, stopped at the station. A chauffeur opened its door. Out stepped Eccles.

      The last fading of sunset over the mountains showed his face, which though still grief-ravaged was more at peace. He even managed a wan bit of a smile as he came toward the diver.

      “I wanted to thank you again, before you left,” he said, quite simply. “We’ll never forget it, my wife and I. Never forget what you’ve done for us.”

      “Oh, that? Well, it’s just my job, I reckon.”

      “Perhaps. But at any rate, we want to send your boy something. You’ll take it to him, won’t you?”

      “Send my boy somethin’?” And Spurling’s eyes widened. Mc­Tag­gart was all curiosity. “Why—what could—”

      “It’s a memorial. Something in memory of our own lad.”

      The envelope from Eccles’s pocket passed to Tim Spurling’s hand. Amazed, the diver stared at it.

      “This here; it’s—”

      “Call it life, if you will,” smiled Eccles. “It’s a check made out to William Spurling. I’ve signed it. Your boy can fill in the amount. Be sure he makes it enough to get him well and strong. To keep his hold on life—life that, once gone, can never be brought back by all the millions in this world!”

      More loudly echoed the train whistle. A glimmering headlight sparkled into view.

      “Why, my gosh, I—I been paid, already,” stammered the diver. “I can’t take this and—”

      “You’re not taking it. It’s your boy’s. Goodbye, Spurling, good luck to you and yours!”

      A handclasp. A silent look that passed, not now between work­man and millionaire, but from man to man, father to father. Then Eccles, turning, was gone.

      The headlight glare strengthened. Brakes began to grind. The train slowed at the station.

      “Gee whiz, Tim!” cried McTaggart, as his chief’s face was for a moment brilliantly illuminated. “What the devil? Why, you’re cry­in’!”

      “The hell I am!” Spurling indignantly retorted. “It’s just a cinder in my eye. This damn soft coal, and all! If you don’t know when a feller’s got a cinder in his eye— Say, gimme a drag, can’t you? I sure need it!”

THE LONGEST SIDE

      Originally published in People’s Favorite Magazine November 10, 1921.

      I.

      “Now see here, Bogan,” said Cozzens, when his touring car had struck into the long, smooth, beach boulevard. “You’re my confiden­tial right-hand man, and I can talk plainer, perhaps, than I ever have be­fore.”

      “You can,” answered Bogan—“Best-policy” Bogan, by nickname. “Must be somethin’ mighty important, or you wouldn’t be drivin’ yourself, an’ you wouldn’t of took me out, this way.”

      “It is important,” admitted the poli­tician. “And in an important deal, there’s no place like an auto. No key­holes for people to listen at in an auto. No chance for dictaphones. Give me an auto for absolute privacy, every time.”

      “Correct. What’s on your mind?”

      “You’ve got to find me a ‘fall guy’ СКАЧАТЬ