The Wyandotte Herald

Bathhouse Bandit
By ARCHEY C. NEW
(McClure Syndicate—WNU Service.)

The bathing hour was at its peak, the vast bathhouse, now enjoying that somnolent intermission before the return rush of happy, laughing, wet bodies.

In one of the little cubicles or dressing-rooms, in a cross-section corridor distant from the Boardwalk entrance, a bather stood, enshrouded in a huge towel, listening intently. Down the shadowy passage came the shouts of voices. The lone bather opened the door a few inches and peered out. A young man was running this way. At that moment, the bather, perversely it seemed, elected to toss a very wet bathing-suit into the corridor, hitting the runner squarely on his spick-and-span flannel trousers.

"Oh. I beg your pardon," murmured the bather.

"That's all right. Let me in a minute, will you?"

Without waiting for an answer, the young man crowded into the tiny cubicle and hastily closed the door.

"I like your nerve! Get out of here!"

The intruder, dumfounded, wheeled and faced a very pretty, very wrathful towel-clad lady.

"You'll have to excuse me, sistah," he whispered huskily. "but I can't leave right now. Go right ahead with youh toilet. I won't look."

"I will not." she answered hotly. "What do you think this is a nudist camp?"

"I wouldn't know about that. Wheah I come from, we don't sorta like such goin's-on." He fingered a man's coat and trousers hanging on the wall. "How come these heah clo'es? You—you're not one of those movie stars that weah men's clo'es, are you?"

"I'm not." she told him, tartly. "I—they're—my husband's." And she added, quickly, "You'd better get out before he comes back."

"Great Grief, that sho' is tough." He started to open the door, when again the excited voices drew near. He shut the door.

"What's wrong?" the bather demanded, "are you running away from the police?"

"Gosh, no sistah!" he assured her.

"Then what are you afraid of?" she insisted.

"I'm in the darndest jam you evah heard of."

"Tell me about it," she urged.

"I was in bathin' today, too." he explained, "and I checked my valu-ables like they all do. I went back to the hotel, fo'gettin' to claim my things. I came back heah 'and when I stepped up to the window to get them, the girl in cha'ge was lyin' inside, with blood on her head and lookin' kind of dopey. I velled fo' someone to come, and reached in the window so's to open the door, so's I could help her, when along came a man. He looks around quick, yells for help and seein' me with my arm in the window, ac-cuses me. Somethin' tells me I'd have a ha'd time explainin', so I lammed. And heah I am."

"And you expect me to believe that?" she demanded scornfully.

His eyes, flashing flintily, at that moment made out a glittery object on the floor. He pounced on it.

"Must be scads o' gold in this heah bracelet, ma'am; it's pow'ful heavy." He grinned sourly. "An' I can't be a thief, exactly, else I wouldn't be handin' it back to you."

"Help!" she cried out, suddenly. "Help!" The door flew open, and a score of men and women, with a Boardwalk cop in the forefront, stared eagerly into the tiny room.

"What's the trouble, ma'am?" asked a white-coated attendant.

"This man said you were hunt-ing him for a hold-up," she cried. "He forced his way into my room, to hide."

"So-o?" growled the cop. "Seems to me I've seen this bozo before, eh, bub? Let's see." He reflected brief-ly.

"Ain't you the Curly Wolf?"

"Gosh, no," protested the young man. "I'm no criminal. I—I"

"Oh, yeah?" sneered the cop. He turned to the attendant. "See if you can get Miss Jennie back here now."

"And, if you don't mind," spoke up the outraged bather, "I'm going to the beach to find my husband."

"Oh, I say, ma'am—" he started to protest, but the girl vanished.

Another girl, holding a wet towel to her head, and half supported by an attendant, appeared in the group. "Who's he?" she asked listlessly.

"I never seen him before."

"Why, Miss Jennie," sputtered the cop, "ain't he the hold-up guy?"

"That big beef?" sniffed the girl. "He is not!"

"That's funny!" came an inter-ruption from the white-coated at-tendant, emerging from the dress-ing room, holding a man's suit, and scanning his chart with a puzzled air. "How'd this suit get in there? Book says lady took this room—the coat."

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