Anderson Crow, Detective

George Barr Mccutcheon

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• Publié par: ulle
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 24
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's Anderson Crow, Detective, by George Barr McCutcheon This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Anderson Crow, Detective Author: George Barr McCutcheon Release Date: March 1, 2009 [EBook #28229] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANDERSON CROW, DETECTIVE *** Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) ANDERSON CROW DETECTIVE BY GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON Author of "Brewster's Millions," "Truxton King," "Sherry," etc. ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN T. McCUTCHEON NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1920 C OPYRIGHT, 1918, 1919, 1920 B Y DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. B Y DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK Three seconds later the two youngsters had the ear of Anderson Crow CONTENTS A NIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED "YOU ARE INVITED TO BE PRESENT" THE PERFECT END OF A DAY THE BEST MAN WINS! VICIOUS LUCIUS THE VEILED LADY AND THE SHADOW THE ASTONISHING ACTS OF ANNA NO QUESTIONS ANSWERED SHADES OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN! "JAKE MILLER HANGS HIMSELF" ILLUSTRATIONS Three seconds later the two youngsters had the ear of Anderson Crow "Wha—what was that you said?" gasped her husband, flopping back in the seat Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless, abandoned flivver Words failed Mr. Crow The Rev. Mr. Maltby, pastor of the Congregational Church, happened to be passing the town hall Several heartbroken gentlemen threatened to shoot themselves "The celebrated Anderson Crow?" asked the man with the glasses The Marshal started off in the direction of the "shanty" "I—I surrender! I give in!" he yelled Something terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow wouldn't be summoned in any such imperative manner as this In the centre of this group was the new candidate for town marshal Harry Squires stepped to the front of the platform When they appeared on the street together He altered his course, and as she passed him, the flat of the spade landed with impelling force Eight or ten people were congregated in front of the Fry house The veiled lady made her daily excursions in the big high-powered car Yanking open the screen-door, he plunged headlong into the softly lighted veranda He was surrounded by conquerors Over him stood two men with pistols levelled at the white, terrified face "Hold on, Mort!" called out Mr. Crow. "Don't monkey with that trunk" His wife was now standing guard over it on the porch of the Grand View Hotel These smiling, complacent women formed the Death Watch that was to witness the swift, inevitable finish of the Sunlight Bar At the trial he was shamelessly complimentary about Mrs. Nixon's pie "I am going to reveal to you the true facts in the case of our late lamented friend, Jake Miller" ANDERSON CROW, DETECTIVE A NIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED Two events of great importance took place in Tinkletown on the night of May 6, 1918. The first, occurring at half-past ten o'clock, was of sufficient consequence to rouse the entire population out of bed—thereby creating a situation, almost unique, which allowed every one in town to participate in all the thrills of the second. When the history of Tinkletown is written,—and it is said to be well under way at the hands of that estimable authoress, Miss Sue Becker, some fifty years a resident of the town and the great-granddaughter of one of its founders,—when this history is written, the night of May 6, 1918, will assert itself with something of the same insistence that causes the world to refresh its memory occasionally by looking into the encyclopedia to determine the exact date of the Fall of the Bastile. The fire-bell atop the town hall heralded the first event, and two small boys gave notice of the second. Smock's grain-elevator, on the outskirts of the town, was in flames, and with a high wind blowing from the west, the Congregational and Baptist churches, the high school, Pratt's photograph gallery and the two motion-picture houses were threatened with destruction. As Anderson Crow, now deputy marshal of the town, declared the instant he arrived at the scene of the conflagration, nothing but the most heroic and indefatigable efforts on the part of the volunteer firedepartment could save the town—only he put it in this way: "We'll have another Chicago fire here, sure as you're born, unless it rains or the wind changes mighty all-fired sudden; so we got to fight hard, boys." Mr. Crow, also deputy superintendent of the fire-department, was late in getting to the engine-house back of the town hall—so late that the hand-engine and hose-reel, manned by volunteers who had waited as long as advisable, were belabouring the fire with water some time before he reached the engine-house. This irritated Mr. Crow considerably. He was out of breath when he got to the elevator, or some one would have heard from him. Another cause of annoyance was the fact that his rubber coat and helmet went with the hose-reel and were by this time adorning the person of an energetic fire-fighter who had no official right to them. After a diligent search Mr. Crow located his regalia and commanded the wearer, one Patrick Murphy, to hand 'em over at once. What Patrick Murphy, a recent arrival at Tinkletown, said in response to this demand was lost in the roar of the flames; so Anderson put his hand to his ear and shouted: "What say?" Patrick repeated his remark with great vigour, and Mr. Crow, apparently catching no more than the final word in the sentence, moved hastily away, but not before agreeing with Mr. Murphy that it was as hot as the place he mentioned. Ed Higgins, the feed-store man, was in charge of the fire-fighters, who were industriously throwing a single stream of water from the fire-cistern into the vast and towering conflagration. It was like tossing a pint of water into the Atlantic Ocean. "Got her under control?" roared Anderson, bristling up to Ed. "Sure!" shouted Ed. "She's workin' beautiful. Just look at that stream. You—" "I mean the fire," bellowed Anderson. "Oh, I thought you meant the engine. I don't think we'll get the fire under contral till the derned warehouse is burned down. Gee whiz, Chief, where you been? We waited as long as we could for you, and then—" "Don't blame me," was Anderson's answer. "I'd ha' been the first man at the engine-house if I hadn't waited nigh onto half an hour trying to get the chief of the fire-department out of bed and dressed. I argued—" "What's the matter with you? Ain't you chief of the fire-department? Are you crazy or what?" "Ain't you got any brains, Ed Higgins? My wife's been chief ever since she was elected marshal last month, an' you know it. That's what we get fer lettin' the women vote an' have a hand in the affairs of the nation. She just wouldn't get up—so I had to come off without her. Where's my trumpet? We got to get this fire under control, or the whole town will go. Gosh, if it'd only rain! Looked a little like rain this evenin'—an' this wind may be bringin' up a storm or—" "Here's your trumpet, Mr. Crow," screeched a small boy, bursting through the crowd. Half of the inhabitants of Tinkletown stood outside of the rim of heat and watched the fire, while the other half, in all stages of deshabille, remained in their front yards training the garden hose on the roofs and sides of their houses and yelling to every speeding passer-by to telephone to the commissioner of water-works to turn on more pressure. Among his other offices, Mr. Crow was commissioner of water-works, having held over in that office because the board of selectmen forgot to appoint any one else in his place after the last election. And while a great many citizens carried the complaint of the garden-hose handlers to the commissioner, it is doubtful if he heard them above the combined sound of his own voice and the roar of the flames. Possessed of his trumpet, the redoubtable Mr. Crow took his stand beside the old hand-pumping "fire-engine" and gave orders right and left in a valiant but thoroughly cracked voice. "Now, we'll git her out," panted Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, speaking to Father Maloney, the Catholic priest, who was taking a turn with him at the pumping apparatus. "Ed.'s all right, but it takes Anderson to handle a fire as she ought to be handled." Father Maloney, perspiring copiously and breathing with great difficulty, grunted without conviction. "Leetle more elbow-grease there, men!" shouted Anderson, directing his command to the futile pumpers. "We got to get water up to that second-story winder. More steam, boys—more steam!" "Aw, what's the use?" growled Bill Jackson, letting go of the pump to wipe his dripping forehead. "We couldn't put her out with Niagary Falls in flood-time." "Bring your hose over here, men—lively, now!" called out the leader. "Every second counts. Lively! Git out o' the way, Purt Throcker! Consarn you fool boys! Can't you keep back where you belong? Right over here, men! That's the ticket! Now, shoot her into that winder. Hey! One of you boys bust in that winder glass with a rock. All of you! See if you c'n hit her!" A fusillade of stones left the hands of a score of small boys and clattered against the walls of the doomed warehouse, some of them coming as near as ten feet to the objective, two of them being so wide of the mark that simultaneous ejaculations of surprise and pain issued from the lips of Miss Spratt and Professor Smith, both of the high school. The heat was intense, blistering. Reluctantly the crowd, awed and fascinated by the greatest blaze it had ever seen,—not even excepting the burning of Eliphalet Loop's s