The Money Tree

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Chuck Doyle, loaded with his earner a equipment, was walking along the high brick wall which sheltered the town house of J. Howard Metcalfe from vulgar public contact when he saw the twenty-dollar bill blow across the wall.

Now, Doyle was well dried behind the ears-he had cut his eyeteeth on the crudities of the world and while no one could ever charge him with being a sophisticate, neither was he anybody's fool. And yet there was no question, either, about his quick, positive action when there was money to be picked up off the street.

He looked around to see if anyone might be watching — someone, for example, who might be playing a dirty joke on him, or, worse yet, someone who might appear to claim the bill once he had retrieved it.

There was small chance there would be anyone, for this was the snooty part of town, where everyone minded his own business and made sure that any uncouth intruders would mind theirs as well-an effect achieved in most cases by high walls or dense hedges or sturdy ornamental fences. And the street on which Doyle now prepared to stalk a piece of currency was by rights no proper street at all. It was an alley that ran between the brick walls of the Metcalfe residence and the dense hedge of Banker J. S. Gregg-Doyle had parked his car in there because it was against traffic regulations to park on the boulevard upon which the houses fronted.

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