Love stories; Mystery fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Ranchers -- Fiction
In the interval Pape had made efforts other than over the Sturgis
telephone to locate geographically the rural resting-place mentioned all
too vaguely by Jasper. His first visit to that mountainous district
known to the Metropolitan Police as “below the dead-line” was not in the
squaring of certain overdue accounts of his own which had been the basic
impulse of his Eastern exile, but in the hope of locating the other
members of that Zaza box-party.
In a cloud-piercer near the corner of William and Wall Streets he found
the office suite occupied by ex-Judge Samuel Allen and associated
attorneys, evidently an affiliation of standing “at the bar”—a phrase
which, since Volstead, is no longer misunderstood as meaning anything
but “in the Law.” He gained admittance into the reception room, but, so
far as achieving audience with the head of the firm, the legal lair
proved more impregnable than the ranger-guarded Yellowstone to a
tusk-hunter.
The “line-fence” was ridden by thick-rouged, thin-bloused office girls
who doubtless had been instructed that all unexpected callers were
suspicious characters and to be treated accordingly. Once the judge was
in court, which court no one seemed to know. Pape left his name. On a
second visit he was allowed to “dig his spurs” into chair rungs most of
an afternoon under the hopeful glances of the “dolls,” while awaiting
the end of an alleged conference, only to be told with
none-too-regretful apologies that Mr. Allen, having been called to
attend the directors of the Hardened Steel Corporation, had departed
without knowing that Mr. Pape awaited him. A third time——
But it is enough—was more than enough for him—that he never broke
through the barrier of too-red lips with their too-patent, stock lies;
never caught even a long-distance glimpse of the jurist of small person
and large personality.
Failure to find the likeable Mills Harford came more quickly and saved a
deal of time. “Harfy’s” trail showed plainly in the City Directory and
his “ranch” proved to be another of those “places of business” where
everything but business was attended, a real-estate office in one of the
block-square structures that surround the Grand Central Terminal. Mr.
Harford had departed on a yachting trip around Long Island, Pape was
told—a statement which he had no cause to doubt.
Although Peter Pape had signaled Broadway in general with what he liked
to call the “high sign,” his desire for adventure had particularized. He
could not be satisfied to go on to a next, with the first only begun. He
finished what he started, unless for some reason stronger than his will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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