The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

the woman was speaking again.

      “Your own boy—you say he’s very ill?”

      “Yes. T.B.”

      “What’s his name?”

      “William. But o’ course we call him just Bill.”

      “And how old?”

      “Sixteen, ma’am. Your boy—same age?”

      She nodded. He saw tears gleaming in her faded eyes.

      “Please get away from here,” he begged. “I’m goin’ down again right away, and when I come up mebbe you better not be here.” He appealed to the millionaire. “See here, Mr. Eccles. Get her out o’ here. Won’t you take her away, please?”

      “He’s right, Valerie,” the magnate assented. “We really ought to go.” He gave a word of command to the mechanic at the engine. Then, to Spurling: “You’re going down again, right now?”

      “Yeah. Just as quick’s I have a smoke and a bit of a rest. And you can count on me. I’ll do the best I can!”

      As the powerful engine started, and the motorboat purred away with those two lonely, sorrowful, rich, death-stricken figures, Tim Spurling gazed after them with tragic eyes.

      “The best I can, for you,” he thought. “That means the worst for us!” Aloud: “You there, Mac—light me a tack, can’t you? Gee, that water’s awful cold, down there. I sure need a smoke. I sure need it worse’n I ever needed one in all my life!”

      *****

      Tim Spurling, that same evening, stood on the platform of the Crystal Lake station with McTaggart, his helper. Their diving gear, all boxed up again, was waiting to be lifted aboard the baggage car of the 7:17, that had already whistled far up Swiftwater Valley.

      “Damn short job, Tim,” Mac was complaining. “Seems like we ain’t got no luck at all.”

      “Mebbe yes, mebbe no. What’s good for one, is bad for another. Everybody can’t have all they want.”

      “Sure, I know. But—”

      Down the road swept a long gray car. It slowed, stopped at the station. A chauffeur opened its door. Out stepped Eccles.

      The last fading of sunset over the mountains showed his face, which though still grief-ravaged was more at peace. He even managed a wan bit of a smile as he came toward the diver.

      “I wanted to thank you again, before you left,” he said, quite simply. “We’ll never forget it, my wife and I. Never forget what you’ve done for us.”

      “Oh, that? Well, it’s just my job, I reckon.”

      “Perhaps. But at any rate, we want to send your boy something. You’ll take it to him, won’t you?”

      “Send my boy somethin’?” And Spurling’s eyes widened. Mc­Tag­gart was all curiosity. “Why—what could—”

      “It’s a memorial. Something in memory of our own lad.”

      The envelope from Eccles’s pocket passed to Tim Spurling’s hand. Amazed, the diver stared at it.

      “This here; it’s—”

      “Call it life, if you will,” smiled Eccles. “It’s a check made out to William Spurling. I’ve signed it. Your boy can fill in the amount. Be sure he makes it enough to get him well and strong. To keep his hold on life—life that, once gone, can never be brought back by all the millions in this world!”

      More loudly echoed the train whistle. A glimmering headlight sparkled into view.

      “Why, my gosh, I—I been paid, already,” stammered the diver. “I can’t take this and—”

      “You’re not taking it. It’s your boy’s. Goodbye, Spurling, good luck to you and yours!”

      A handclasp. A silent look that passed, not now between work­man and millionaire, but from man to man, father to father. Then Eccles, turning, was gone.

      The headlight glare strengthened. Brakes began to grind. The train slowed at the station.

      “Gee whiz, Tim!” cried McTaggart, as his chief’s face was for a moment brilliantly illuminated. “What the devil? Why, you’re cry­in’!”

      “The hell I am!” Spurling indignantly retorted. “It’s just a cinder in my eye. This damn soft coal, and all! If you don’t know when a feller’s got a cinder in his eye— Say, gimme a drag, can’t you? I sure need it!”

THE LONGEST SIDE

      Originally published in People’s Favorite Magazine November 10, 1921.

      I.

      “Now see here, Bogan,” said Cozzens, when his touring car had struck into the long, smooth, beach boulevard. “You’re my confiden­tial right-hand man, and I can talk plainer, perhaps, than I ever have be­fore.”

      “You can,” answered Bogan—“Best-policy” Bogan, by nickname. “Must be somethin’ mighty important, or you wouldn’t be drivin’ yourself, an’ you wouldn’t of took me out, this way.”

      “It is important,” admitted the poli­tician. “And in an important deal, there’s no place like an auto. No key­holes for people to listen at in an auto. No chance for dictaphones. Give me an auto for absolute privacy, every time.”

      “Correct. What’s on your mind?”

      “You’ve got to find me a ‘fall guy’ for that Wheat Exchange Bank forgery and the Hinman murder that grew out of it. A good, high-class fall guy. No roughnecks.”

      “What’s the idea?”

      “I might as well speak right out in meeting. I’ve got to have my daughter Nadine marry Coolidge Brant.”

      “Assistant district attorney, you mean?”

      “Yes,” assented Cozzens. “The way things are shaping now, I’ve just got to have a string on that young man. He’s directly in line for the district attorney-ship, inside of two or three years, and I want—”

      “I see,” smiled Bogan. “Honesty’s the best policy, all right. It’s a case of rip things wide open, after that, an’ get away with it clean, eh?”

      “You put it rather crudely.”

      “Facts is facts. I get you, the first time. An’ the daughter’s balkin’?”

      “I’m afraid she is, a little. She and Brant have been going round together for over a year, but he hasn’t made good. That is, not enough to suit her. She’s got ideas about efficiency, like lots of girls these days. She won’t have him till he’s shown some real pep. The press is slamming him, some. So—”

      “I’m wise. If he can land somebody right, for those stunts—”

      “What I like about you, Bogan,” said the politician, “is the way you grab an idea. Well, now, can you work the law of supply and demand for me again? You’ve done it before. Can you do it once more, and do it strong?”

      “Sure! How much is it worth to a man that’ll stand for the pinch an’ go through?”

      “That depends,” judged Cozzens, opening the throttle a notch. His big blue car hit a livelier pace down the summer-sunlit boulevard. “Naturally I’m not looking to throw money away. I want you to put this through as cheap as you can.”

      “Bargain rates won’t get a guy to stand a roar for scratch work, knockin’ a bank cashier cold, an’ bumpin’ off a business man. Them’s tall, man-size charges to go against.”

      “I know it, Bogan. But, of course, he won’t be running any real risk of anything but a few years in the pen.”

      “You