Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1924)

JUNE 1924 Pictures and Picfvrepver J3 place. It was with no other person than Miss Elizabeth, the pretty little lady against whom the whole majesty of the law could not raka up sufficient evi deuce on the matter of the sixth floor robbery at the Superbe. She glanced at his card laughingly and shook her head " I've got nothing to say," she said, "that I didn't say in court. I'm afraid you're wasting your time." ' 1 hope not," said Templer, looking at her keenly. " Indeed 1 have not come about that business at all." " What—" " 1 will tell you," And briefly he outlined to her his conversation with Judge Westcott on the morning of the trial. " Interesting," she commented when he had finished. " To shut down the drug traffic — yes. But I don't see my connection with it." " I hope you have no connection with it," said Westcott. " But I heard your record in court the other day, and I — I have taken an interest in you. I think you could do worthier work than you have been doing. Judge Westcott thinks so too. He says you've .got a million-dollar mind — if ... if you'd only go straight. I've been wondering if perhaps you've never had a chance. I'm — willing to give you a chance. Come in with me and help me close down this drug traffic. You'll know ropes that I could never guess at, and between us — " " Say, Mr. Templer," began Elizabeth ; and then firmly she shook her head. " Not likely," she said. " I don't want my fingers burning just yet, thank you." " Wait," said Templer. " Will you do one thing — will you come out and pay a call with me, right now? It won't waste ten minutes of your time and you'll never regret it." " Where's this?" " I'd rather not say. But will you come? I've heard you called a sporting girl. Are you sporting enough to do this, to go you know not where, with mer Elizabeth laughed. " If you've heard me called that, I guess it's right," she said. " Come on, then; let's be moving." LJe led her to his car — and together they sped away down the avenue. Three minutes later they stopped outside a great and forbidding-looking building and he took her inside. Another ten minutes and they were back in the car and she was shaking his hand. " Mr. Templer," she said, " I'm with you. Tell me just where you want me to bite, and I bite." " I thought you'd come in with, mc when you'd been — there," he said. She glanced back with a shudder. " It was — horrible," she murmured. For " there " was a hospital for the victims of the grim drug traffic. Elizabeth West was known as a " goer," as one who did not let the grass grow. From the moment she came into the fight on Temp! she was not idle tor a second. Pint, she decided, they wanted a man to Crack the sale cil' ludson Osgood and extract the incriminating document, and as the best safe cracker in the country — Jim Eiartigan was in jail at the moment, the first thing to he done was to get Inn 1 lartigan out of jail. " But," gasped Templer, " that just can't be done." That just can be done," said Elizabeth (irmly, " and I'm going to do it. listen. I shall go down to the jail disguised as Jim's mother and give him our plan. I'm a queen at disguise. The boys call me the Woman with Pour Faces. All right. Next Monday we have an aeroplane, with ladder trailing, pass over the prison yard. I give Jim the word and he's ready. He gets the ladder and we get Jim. And once we get Jim we get this paper of Osgood's. Now don't talk — you'll make me forget things. Pass me that bag over there and sit down and watch me become Jim Hartigan's mother in front of your very eyes." And she acted almost as swiftly as she talked. Jim Hartigan's " mother " armed with a permit, visited her " son " in his cell. She gave him the word and he was ready. The aeroplane with the trailing ladder passed over the prison on the following Monday and a moment later the prison was a prisoner short. The Governor and the Press might storm, but that did not get Jim Hartigan back. That night in a place well known to the pair of them, Jim and Elizabeth met. " Lord ! the feeling it gives a feller to be out again!" he cried as he took he: hand. " Come, Bessie, gimme a kiss." And at her refusal he frowned. "What's the game?" he asked. "If it ain't that ye love me, why do you go to all this trouble to get me out." Give me your police whistle," Elizabeth said. " Love you !'' smiled Elizabeth. Jim, you're making a mistake there, it's business, this tune." And the explained to hun the plan she had made with Templer and the purpose for which I tin had been rescued from t.hc jail. " 1 don't think so," said Jim, when She had finished " No, I do not think so. Why, it was Templer bad me put away, if ye want to know, and sooner than come in this on his side . . . I'll tell you this, Hess, my girl — if thi anything I am do to put a spoke in his wheel I'll do it. (let that? You can tell him so, if you like. No, thanks. No little Jim Hartigan. Good night." And this was the end of that. " As far away as ever," Templer sighed, when she told him the result of the interview. But " Not so," laughed Elizabeth. "For do you know what I've done? I've put on another face and got engaged by Osgood as his confidential secretary ! I told him I was the daughter of an old crook pal of his in 'Frisco, and he stood for it I also told him I'd got to know that you were after his document, and though that's put him wise to some extent it helped us too, for when I told him he cast a scared glance at a certain little part of his study wall and tipped me oft" as to where he keeps the goods. I start to-morrow, and if you'll be in the shrubbery at Osgood's back door to-morrow night at eleven, the game's ours, or I know nothing about it." jWlarvelling at the speed at which this amazing girl worked, Templer set to work and made his arrangements. At a little before eleven on the following night he had his men stationed round Osgood's house with strict orders to watch everyone entering or leaving. Then he took up his place in the shrubbery and waited. On the chiming of the hour, Elizabeth slipped out to his side.