All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

A--THIEVES’ COMEDY. of shock, the door-bell rang rather more loudly than was necessary. Della wheeled toward the portieres with the injunction: “ Sit tight. Nobody ain’ gonna bite you.” Some one—the maid, I presumed— answered the ring, and the outer door opened and closed. Footsteps and voices sounded in the hall, and Della went to meet them through the dining- room. “ Hello, Fanny,” I heard her call presently — “come right in! I gotta frien’ 0’ Mac’s here, but he’s harmless.” An empty laugh answered, and then: “Gee! Ain’t you swell? You look like Stiffany's on p’rade. Meet my frien’ Mr, Brown. Mr. Brown—Miss Borrowman.” “ Pleased to meet you,” Della ac- knowledged, and Mr. Brown mumbled something in reply. Followed a strange silence. The portiéres shut it out, and I sat for fully a minute, waiting and wonder- ing what the dickens was wrong. “Come right in,’ Della insisted again, and her voice had become sud- denly subdued. “ You got plen’y time.” ‘““T guess we'd better be on our way.” Fanny protested just as Della threw back the hangings, revealing a rather striking blond, who was eying her hostess suspiciously. “Me an’ my frien's got a date up the river an’— my Gawd!” Fanny’s exclamation died away in a whisper. Her rouged lips parted foolishly, and her eyes spoke more eloquently than her tongue. She gaped at me as if I were a ghost. And I gaped back at her and over her shoulder at her “ swell feller.” He was Ralph Van Huysen! Instantly I felt icy cold, then unpleas- antly warm, and immediately cold again. Ralph, hat in hand, looked stupid, and for a moment I thought he was going to turn and run. What little color 811 he had died out of his cheeks. His jaw sagged, and he shrank behind Fanny as if he thought she ought to protect him. Margaret's maid—and I had no doubt upon the question of Fanny’s identity — seemed undecided about what course to take; whether to stand or fly; and Della, with Margaret’s jewels screaming out all over her, looked from one to the other of us. It was an impossible situation. Ralph was afraid of me because I knew of his engagement to Margaret, and I was afraid of him because of the jewelry Della wore and what Fanny had seen that morning when I had dis- obeyed Campbell’s orders and called on Margaret before coming up to Della’s. Fanny was the enigma—the powder- mine. I could not imagine what she thought or would be likely to do. “\Vhat’s hit ye?” Della demanded in bewilderinent. “ Nuthin’, dearie,” Fanny replied weakly, but drew nearer to her hostess, with her attention fixed upon the tiara in Della’s hair. ‘ You jus’ dazzled us, that’s all. Them sparks—” Her voice trailed away, and her eyes, narrowing to pin-points, shifted to the necklace, then with lightninglike swift- ness to the odd chain bracelet with the diamond-set clasp on Della’s left wrist. “Gee!” she breathed, and her gaze, swinging slowly and heavily upon me, remained. * You—you—” Perhaps the rush of circumstantial evidence choked the rest of it, and for a moment I thought she was going to spring at me. Her eyes said quite plainly what she meant. They seemed to draw the cold beads of perspiration out upon my forehead and make my knees shake as I slid into my chair, to avoid the accusation and the knowledge in her face, and glanced quickly past her toward Ralph. He did not move or speak, but he was studying Della in an oxlike fash- ion. “ Queer!’’ I heard him mutter. “Say! What’s the matter wit’ comiicloooks.com