Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

66 man who, using Osborne as agent, had attempted to befool me to his own place under the Damoclean sword, IV S79 LOOKING back, I’ve always felt wey the day that followed was one of the most remarkable of my life— and I speak of the day, not of the night with its element of tragedy, The day was remarkable for its very lack of that element —-for its very unremarkableness. I hold that, with such a night as had passed fresh in our memories, with Hardridge impris- oned, with the arrival of the man whom Hardridge had vowed to kill presumably impending and with the girl’s fortune and possibly more than one life depending upon the denouement, it was no commonplace thing that the day slipped by, to Miss Maxon and me, much like a pleasant holi- day outing. For I finally persuaded her to stay until the working out of my plan. Concerning which, by the way, I told her as little as possible. It’s always much easier to agree on an end than on the means, and it doesn’t always pay to tell everything even to the people in whose interest one may be working. ‘ We talked about a great many things, mainly impersonal, and even took several short walks. One of those walks took us to the place that was then called Land’s End. It was Miss Maxon who suggested it; I knew nothing until then of the trap-like cafion at the rear of the house, with its wide mouth and narrow exit upon the:sea. But we had no sooner arrived at the railing that guarded that exit, where we could look down some hundred feet into white surf, than Miss Maxon was seized with a violent fit of trembling and suggested that we return. It was the only sign of real agitation I saw in her that day. That was late in the afternoon and the last time we left the house, Breakfast and lunch had been largely makeshifts, but dinner that evening was a triumph, Osborne having supplied the house for my residence fairly well and Miss Maxon proving herself a miraculous cook. After we'd eaten, I took his share of the meal in to Hardridge, whom I found in a state of eager expectancy. He evidently remembered my promise that he'd be un- Adventure staring out of his overbright o through the closing door, “You get out, and you don’t want to get out, and you don’t want to make a noise. Be quiet, and you'll be —— glad of it later.” And I bolted the door without locking it and then pressed a button that projected from the wall near the door jamb. I heard a pleased exclamation from Hardridge as the electric light came on within his cell, Thereafter he was silent, but, whether because of my advice or because Miss Maxon and I remained so close to the closet that he could hear our occasional move- ments, I do not know. For by then it was quite dark, and, after another little preparation for what was to come, I joined Miss Maxon in the dining- room. The partition between this room and the reception-room split the inner wall of the closet, and the house was so quiet that we could sometimes hear Hardridge breathe. - We had turned on no lights save that within the closet; so from without the place no doubt appeared absolutely deserted. Everything was silent and dark. In the two hours that we sat there, I found time to go over several times every incident connected with my peculiar visit to Crag- castle. My interest—desultory at first but rapidly quickening—in the Chronicle want ad.; my carefully worded letter in answer and Osborne’s skilfully alluring and yet noncommittal reply; our meeting—I sup- pose I was one of some hundreds of appli- cants, most of whom were disposed of by the office boy; Osborne's quick inspection, his clever cross-examination, his devious approach to the subject of the missing heir. Our agreement, and my arrival in mas- querade at Cragcastle. My interview with Hardridge, not wholly unexpected, yet a very curious one, filled with much that needed explanation. My — discoy- ery of the presence of the girl, and her still and partial working out of my plan, the ia i —_- comicbooks.com