Marion Marlowe's Cleverness, or, Exposing a Bold Fraud — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

& . MY QUEEN. course, J could expose him, but that does not help her—you understand, Everett, his pun- ishment must be final.” Howard Everett mused for a moment of two, then he suddenly turned to his friend and asked a question. “Where is she—his wife?” The musician shook his head. “She was here,” he said, sadly; “but my de- tectives have lost her.” : There was another silence, during which several gentlemen came in. | “Would he know you if he should see you?’ asked Everett, cautiously. Prof. Arden smiled. “No—it would be impossible,” was his an- swer. “I am stouter—a great deal—and my beard changes me wonderfully.” “And would you know him,” Everett spoke with the same degree of cau- tion. “Anywhere! at any time! No disguise cottld deceive me!” was his friend’s impetu- ous answer. “I could feel his presence with- out even seeing or hearing!” As he spoke another group of gentlemen entered, the majority nodding familiarly to those seated at the tables. Suddenly Arden half rose from his chair and then fell back heavily, his eyes riveted on a slight, graceful form that was sauntering through the room at some distance from where they were sitting. “Do you know him?” he whispered, as he saw that Everett, too, was watching him. Howard Everett took another sharp glance and then nodded his head. “lve seen him once or twice. He is stop- ping with some one at the Norwood, the building I am living at present in bachelor quarters. IT know his uncle, i*red- eric Stanton, fairly well—a big, pompous in- dividual, who imagines himself a leader in society. But what about him, Arden? Do you know any more than that? I have al- ways considered him a mere slip of a boy. He’s been there a month, but | have hardly where noticed him.’ Fdmund Arden had listened to his friend’s words with feverish eagerness. When he had finished the musician half rose and ex- tended his hand across the table. . scowling. 74 “Thanks, Everett,” he whispered, “you have | ; done me a favor already, old fellow! You have told me more in a minute than my de- tective has found out in a week, for the good- ‘for-nothing fellow never mentioned the Nor- wood.”’ : M . said ee “Those fellows are not to be de- » pended on. ‘The best of them are a ot But you certainly don’t mean ey “Been bought off, ieahapae “T mean that yonder dandy is the very man I am looking for!” was the almost breathless © whisper. “That young slip of a boy, as you call him, is the man I am after. He is thirty est rascal on earth—his name is Luigo Car- ~ -bonnel, but he has a dozen aliases—no doubt he is count something or other while he is staying with his uncle.” “It doesn’t seem possible, ‘ did Bigeratt who was trying hard not to stare at the fellow. knew that Frederic Stanton was a ‘bluffer,’ and that his social standing was very inse- cure, but I did not dream that he was uncle to a scamp, and to think, his wife is an aunt of Marion’s!” “What ?” Edmund Arden leaned over with a puz- zled stare. ; “Tt is one of those strange coincidences of — which you sometimes read,” said Everett, | frowning. “This Frederic Stanton came over here from England some years ago, and dur- ing a short tour through the backwoods dis- trict of New England he met and married a farmer’s daughter. Of course he brought her to New York and established her in a home, and then, like many another silly woman, she threw over her family. You see,” he went on, “I had a little of the story from Marion, the rest I have pieced together, bit by bit, from what Stanton has told me; for I confess that I made the ‘big windbag’s’ ac- quaintance for no other reason but to try and get him interested in Miss Marlowe.” Once more Kdmund Arden gave him a questioning look. His enemy had seated him- self, and was glancing over a paper, so that there was nothing to be done but try and not Mr, Everett went on to Gomichbooks attract his attention. years old, if he is a day, and he i is the best . gambler, the poorest fighter and the shrewd- 5 Eom