The Case of the Jeweled Ragpicker by Harry Stephen Keeler

Author:Harry Stephen Keeler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, detective, sleuth, murder, classic
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

THE OBLIGING YOUNG MAN NOT ON A FLYING TRAPEZE!

“Bill Chattock?” came the astounded reply. “Bill? What in hell! Why, I just got a postcard from you from Detroit. What on ear—”

“Yes, I was there not long ago, though only for a few days.”

“I see. Well, how are you, Bill?”

“A darned sight healthier than when you saw me last. Brown as a berry, you know, and all that sort of bally rot, old top? Muscles muscles now, instead of streaks of dough. Yes, my life was just about saved by a certain Mr. MacW. But say, Monte, I want you to do something for me. But immediately.”

“Of course, of course,” the other man got in. “Name it. What is it?”

“Just this, Monte. Amongst those papers of mine you’re keeping for me is a pawn ticket for a beautiful diamond engagement ring, worth all of $250. I pawned it for $50 about 13 months ago, just to keep it safe in a fireproof vault. Now I’ve been fatuously thinking all the time that it expired on the 12th of next month, and that it would have to be taken care of only before then. But as I came along here just now, I had a sudden conniption fit like the drummer, in your famous story, who realized, 3 years too late, in the middle of 47th and Broadway, what the farmer’s daughter had really meant! That’s right; and I nearly fell through to the center of the earth. A fact! For Monte, that fool ticket, as I now calculate, expires either the 12th or 13th of this month, not next month. Yes, a mental ball-up somewhere. Now it’s pawned with Sol Nudelman, on White Grape Street.”

“I get you, Bill. You want me to skip over and pay the interest on it? Well, 13 months at the Wine City legal rate of 1 percent per month is $6.50. So consider same done, and—”

“We-ell, I want you to do even more. If you’re not broke, that is! I want you to redeem it, if you can, take it up-street to the express office, have it crated there before your eyes in the usual jewelry box, and ship it to me.”

“Yes? I’m taking this down.”

“Hootens Falls is a good contact point, since it’s well ahead of me. Ahead of the show, that is. Oh yes, I’m back with the outfit. Hootens Falls, say. For they have ‘ice cream sodies,’ according to one of the girl bareback riders in the show who’s been there, and even have incoming express service, though via wagon from a distant railroad. Hootens Falls, in the state of—”

“Oh I know Hootens Falls, from the time, 2 years back, when I covered Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansaw for Cied Brothers, Cutlery, of K.C. No, I never talked much about it. It was painful. Getting up before breakfast every day in order to go gallivanting about in a Ford car, and all that sort of thing. But I made Hootens Falls twice. Well, consider all this done, Bill.

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