The Golden Horseshoe and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

room—a scowling Hook whose freckles had a greenish tinge against the sallowness of his face. He pointed a revolver at me, and spoke to the Quarres:
    â€œHe wants you.”
    They got up and went into the next room, and for a while an indistinguishable buzzing of whispers came from that room.
    Hook, meanwhile, had stepped back to the doorway, still menacing me with his revolver; and pulled loose the plush ropes that were around the heavy curtains. Then he came around behind me, and tied me securely to the high-backed chair; my arms to the chair’s arms, my legs to the chair’s legs, my body to the chair’s back and seat; and he wound up by gagging me with the corner of a cushion that was too well-stuffed for my comfort. The ugly man was unnecessarily rough throughout; but I was a lamb. He wanted an excuse for drilling me, and I wanted above all else that he should have no excuse.
    As he finished lashing me into place, and stepped back to scowl at me, I heard the street door close softly, and then light footsteps ran back and forth overhead.
    Hook looked in the direction of those footsteps, and his little watery blue eyes grew cunning.
    â€œElvira!” he called softly.
    The portières bulged as if someone had touched them, and the musical feminine voice came through.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œCome here.”
    â€œI’d better not. He wouldn’t—”
    â€œDamn him!” Hook flared up. “Come here!”
    She came into the room and into the circle of light from the tall lamp; a girl in her early twenties, slender and lithe, and dressed for the street, except that she carried her hat in one hand. A white face beneath a bobbed mass of flame-colored hair. Smoke-grey eyes that were set too far apart for trustworthiness—though not for beauty—laughed at me; and her red mouth laughed at me, exposing the edges of little sharp animal-teeth. She was beautiful; as beautiful as the devil, and twice as dangerous.
    She laughed at me—a fat man all trussed up with red plush rope, and with the corner of a green cushion in my mouth—and she turned to the ugly man.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    He spoke in an undertone, with a furtive glance at the ceiling, above which soft steps still padded back and forth.
    â€œWhat say we shake him?”
    Her smoke-grey eyes lost their merriment and became hard and calculating.
    â€œThere’s a hundred thousand he’s holding—a third of it’s mine. You don’t think I’m going to take a Mickey Finn on that, do you?”
    â€œCourse not! Supposing we get the hundred-grand?”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œLeave it to me, kid; leave it to me! If I swing it, will you go with me? You know I’ll be good to you.”
    She smiled contemptuously, I thought—but he seemed to like it.
    â€œYou’re whooping right you’ll be good to me,” she said. “But listen, Hook: we couldn’t get away with it—not unless you get him . I know him! I’m not running away with anything that belongs to him unless he is fixed so that he can’t come after it.”
    Hook moistened his lips and looked around the room at nothing. Apparently he didn’t like the thought of tangling with the owner of the British drawl. But his desire for the girl was too strong for his fear of the other man.
    â€œI’ll do it!” he blurted. “I’ll get him! Do you mean it, kid? If I get him, you’ll go with me?”
    She held out her hand.
    â€œIt’s a bet,” she said, and he believed her.
    His ugly face grew warm and red and utterly happy, and he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. In his place, I might have believed her myself—all of us have fallen for that sort of thing at one time or another—but sitting tied up on the side-lines, I knew that he’d have been better off playing with a gallon of nitro than with this baby. She was dangerous! There was a rough