“You must be crazy! Suppose either of us was suspected; that check would link us up fine. It would be as bad for you as for me. Nothing doing! I’ll get the cash when the bank opens on Monday. That’s the very best I can do. If you’d written and let me know you were coming, I could have had it for you.”
Allen eyed him for a long minute.
“Very well,” he said, at last. “I’ll wait till noon Monday.”
Crumb breathed an inward sigh of profound relief.
“If you’re at the bank Monday morning, at half past ten, you’ll get the money,” he said. “How’s the other stuff going? Sorry I couldn’t handle that, but it’s too bulky.”
“The hootch? It’s goin’ fine,” replied Allen. “Got a young high-blood at the edge of the valley handlin’ it—fellow by the name of Evans. He moves thirty-six cases a week. The kid’s got a good head on him—worked the whole scheme out himself. Sells the whole batch every week, for cash, to a guy with a big truck. They cover it with hay, and this guy hauls it right into the city in broad daylight, unloads it in a warehouse he’s rented, slips each case into a carton labeled somebody or other’s soap, and delivers it a case at a time to a bunch of drug stores. This second guy used to be a drug salesman, and he’s personally acquainted with every grafter in the business.”
As he talked, Allen had been studying the girl’s face. She had noticed it before; but she was used to having men stare at her, and thought little of it. Finally he addressed her.
“Do you know, Miss de Lure,” he said, “there’s something mighty familiar about your face? I noticed it the first time I came here, and I been studyin’ over it since. It seems like I’d known you somewhere else, or some one you look a lot like; but I can’t quite get it straight in my head. I can’t make out where it was, or when, or if it was you or some one else. I’ll get it some day, though.”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m sure I never saw you before you came here with Mr. Crumb the first time.”
“Well, I don’t know, either,” replied Allen, scratching his head; “but it’s mighty funny.” He rose. “I’ll be goin’,” he said. “See you Monday at the bank—ten thirty sharp, Crumb!”