Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

488 time to time, growing more and more im- patient. The .white hull did not appear until nearly four, however, and it was five o’clock before it turned in between the forts. Beckwith went out in one of the launches to meet it, smiling in anticipation of triumph. He waved gaily to the globe- trotting passengers clustered by the after rail. They would know of Conway’s death, and one of the officers of the ship would undoubtedly point him out as the man who had defied the law. The bundle of newspapers fell into the launch with a heavy thump, and the purser who had dropped them over waved a friendly hand. The little boat backed off from the steamer and sped toward the shore, while Beckwith cut the twine about his package of papers. and began to run rapidly through them, glancing only at the first-page head-lines. The first, no, the second, no, the third. A curious sensation settled upon him. Be- wilderment and wunreasoning suspicion, then poignant disappointment, finally a persistent hope. He could not examine them all thoroughly in the launch. The wind threatened to blow them overboard, but he put them together in a compact package and waited impatiently until he could go over them in detail at his home. _ He hastened to his house, carrying the parcel himself. He hurried into his smok- ing-room and flung them on the table, then went over them again, and again, each time more minutely, each time with grow- ing incredulity. ' Not one newspaper issued on any day of the second week after the murder of Hugh Conway contained one hint of that event. Not one word, line, or paragraph referred to the murder of Hugh Conway by William Beckwith. Not one faintest indi- cation appeared in any issue of any peri- odical during the second week -after that murder of the defiant note written by the murderer to the commissioner of police. There was nothing to make any one sus- pect that any harm had come to one of the feremost figures in American finance. Beckwith rubbed his forehead in amaze-| ment and perplexity. His dislocated thumb was still tender where Conway had ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. struggled to save his life. His memory of the event was lucid and complete. He knew that he had killed Conway. During the following week he ‘brooded almost continuously over his problem. He cabled a confidential message to the Nueva Bolivian consul in New York, who knew his influence with Garrios well enough to heed his requests, asking for information about Conway. The consulate replied with a succinct list of his offices as head of this and that corporation, and added that his present whereabouts were unknown. The message cheered Beckwith immense- ly. He made a resolution to wait one more week. If there was still no public news of Conway’s death, he would write to the New York papers and put them in possession of the facts. He, William Beckwith, had killed Conway with his bare hands, and now resided openly in the city of Bahia del Toro. He would defy the police to punish him, and expose the duplicity of the commissioner of police, who had con-- cealed the crime for no less than two weeks. The steamer date arrived, but Beckwith was no longer impatient. He was calmly confident that there would be no mention of the crime in the newspapers of this week. Wells might prevent the news from ever becoming public. Beckwith had been so long in the Latin countries, where censor- ship is ruthless and complete, that he did not realize the impracticability of such a plan. He watched the steamer arrive and drop the mail-bags over the side without emo- tion other than an abstract interest. When she came back on her way north again, he would have letters to form a part of her cargo; letters which would upset the smug complacency of the city of New York. A sodden, heavy rain was falling when the - steamer made port, and it was barely vis- ible from the house on the hifi because of the sheets of falling water. Beckwith stood for a moment on his veranda and strained | his eyes through the misty, obscurity. The grass was exhaling fresh and fragrant odors in the rainfall. The palm-leaves were dark and glistening with the wet. Outside, the cobblestones of the street were running miniature floods of water to the gutter. GON Gwoolks (CO