Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

THE CONFIDENCE MAN. the big, hard man could not withhold. Wade still felt confident of his power to crush, yet he felt that he was crushing some- thing finer and better than himself. ‘“You’ve been to that auction?” he asked. ¥9 Yes.” ‘“Didn’t meet any old friends there?” Wade grinned like flint. g Ne. But I saw some brand new ene- mies.’ “You thought I was bluffing, huh?” Wade sneered. Corvan searched the other’s face gravely. He nodded. ‘Look here.’”? Wade drew from his in- ner breast pocket two documents, each of which contained several pages of typewrit- ten script. ‘‘ They’re affidavits,’ he said. ‘Welsh and Noylan brought them down. We can get more, too; enough to put the district attorney on the job. When I use these, you're pinched, see?”’ Corvan nodded wearily. ‘“ Ves,” he said. ‘‘ You win, Wade.” Wade grinned. “You mean you'll take Queritt’s check?” ‘““T mean that you’ve got me. You've beaten me. The only ine I can fight you with would be polluted by your touch; and it could never save me from myself. So I’m going to move out of here. I’m going to run up to Brookhampton now, and get that check. Then I'll take the eight ten to the city and you can meet me there. You can take the money—”’ “We'll split,”’ smiled Wade reassuringly. Corvan lashed him with a voice that throbbed with passion. “TI said you will take the neg he cried, and paused to control himself again. “You will take the money—and we're through! Do you understand?” Wade looked at him curiously. ‘““Yeah,” he said; “I guess I under- stand,” ‘And one more thing!” Corvan turned at the doorsill to pursue his thought. “When I go to Brookhampton in the morn- ing, J disappear! Do you understand that? I vanish from this place as completely as if I had never existed. No one in the world must know where I have gone, or what I have been in the past! Is that clear? Is. 603 that firmly impressed on your mind?” He advanced a few steps, coming close to loom over the seated man. “ Because if it is not —if ever a word leaks out that will betray to one person what vile substance she has ‘touched—I’m going to find you out, Wade, wherever you may be, and I’m going to kill you! Do you understand that?” And again Wade said: “ Yeah, I guess I understand.” “Then meet me up at Gasmeier’s to- morrow noon, and we'll see this last graft through.” As he left the house and slammed the door behind him, he felt with a pane of pain and yearning and regret that no door could now shut out from his house the bitter memory of how sweet life might have been. CHAPTER XXXIX, RENUNCIATION. ORVAN paced up and down the sta- tion platform. It would be some time before the up-train drew in, and the agent would not come to give life to the inanimate bulk of the station building untii ten minutes before that time. Therefore, Corvan paced the platform in a far-reaching solitude, for the station was some distance from the town, and there was a canopy of Stars in the skies above him. He thanked God for the solitude, but he awaited the train with impatience. He felt the imperative necessity of seeing this thing through quickly. He could not trust himself to pace for long that even, cindered stretch with the gleaming tracks beside it, and, beyond them, the road which led back to East Harbor. He could not trust himself to gaze upon that road with the starlight above it; for it held the invi- tation of all roads that lead into the open— and Corvan knew what lay at the end of it. An immeasurable happiness. a dream which had been ineffably illumined by a woman’s . love, a high aspiration—these lay at the end of that road, and upon these he had turned his back. He could not long trust himself to pace the cinders of the platform with that thought tearing at his heart and breaking it. oO EOMmIGcdoOo <5) com