Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

_ fastidiously dressed in smartly cut clothes. He still wore his overcoat. Tortoise-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his beak- like nose. A long silk cord ran to his ear and down to a buttonhole. His glistening bale head shone like a billiard ball. He was smooth-shaven, and his features were strongly marked. The sudden coming of the girl made him squint. Again Nancy had a baffled sense that the face opposite was vaguely familiar. But she wasted no time on blurred memory. ““ May I ask,” she demanded sarcastical- ly, ‘““ who you are?” : He watched her carefully. In the look recognition flooded his face. She knew that he had been more successful in his identi- fication of her. ‘““T see that I need not warn you that your skulking, suspicious presence here places you in a highly equivocal light. You - doubtless are aware also that I, in the pur- suance of justice, cannot It Sid inviolate whatever you may say.” He nodded brusquely. “ I know—let me introduced myself. I am an old client of _ Mr. Kent here on business of a most pri- : vate nature.” “ Evidently.” He flinched before the scorn in her voice. - “Your name?” she went on. : The tortoise-rimmed glasses fell from his nose with the sharp spasm which contorted his face. ““Amos Shoreham,’ he annomiers prag- matically. “President of the Saad National Bank,’’ Nancy thought, “ and—more extra- ordinary than all—the executor whom the dead Cavendish had named in his last will which now lay hardly dry in Mr. Cunning- ham’s safe, even as its testator lay hardly cold in the office upstairs.” - “Vou doubtless realize the unpleasant- ness of your position, Mr. Shoreham,” she observed aloud. “ Indeed, I do,” exploded the man irasci- bly. ‘‘I have been penned in here for hours—”’ Nancy looked at her wrist watch. is now one thirty. Only an hour and a ‘half has elapsed since you elected to wait We might as well begin at the out- here. ‘which took Mr. Kent from this room?” = ee No. 3 set and be very exact in our statements— = =e Mr. Shoreham.” 7 “Well, it seems a oe And ive got a mighty important engagement. Now that you’ve found me, may I go?” = = “Not at all.” “Why not?” he snapped truculently. ree “You have no intimation of what has = occurred?” g Se “No. Kent went out in a hurry when —— he heard some one calling, and he has not ~~ come back yet.” Sema = “Tf your time is so highly precious, :, why - — didn’t you hasten out after him, when he — = had been gone overlong? If your impa- : = tience is as great as you say, why hasn’t it manifested itself in some way other Se your waiting here?” = = = “Thunderation, miss! Didn’t I tell oe sae = that Kent is putting through something _ es mighty important, that he broke off in the = fe midst of it, and I can’t go until he has = = finished the business?” —- * And you had no curiosity?” —= = “ Of course not,” he blustered. “ Why = should. some commotion in the hall interest en my mind is full of ae y affairs?” “Did you hear the nature af the oy : “ How did it happen that you could eS translate the words which Mr. Kent so ob- viously did? You were both closeted here — = together with an equal opportunity to hear.” = a The pompous bank president flushed. “ That isnot so. I am slightly deaf. I was— — seated with my worst ear toward the corri- dor. I made nothing out of the noise.” Se “Then you know nothing of what has happened?” : “Certainly not. And I’m ina preitrket— tle of fish, too, waiting here like a caged > rat trying to make. up my mind whether = — I should go or stay. Where is Kent, anys — way? His conduct is infamous.” Zo —— “Mr. Kent is retained.” = <= <= “Detained?” thundered the man. == Nancy looked down quickly. Her ruse had worked. She had purposely dropped her voice on the first syllable of ‘ retained’ to test the truth of Mr. Shoreham’s slightly : dex = == had speiecs the sath