Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

© THE COME-BACK. morning’s paper and reread the item about Duggan. Reread it, in fact, several times. ‘“Hmmm!” he grunted, and scratched his head in a manner less dignified than human, as he sat there rather too fat and red in the wattles, beside his den desk, in the enor- mous easy chair that had so well molded itself to his contours. For the first time he was fully realizing just how comfortable that chair really was, like the house, the profession of law, the whole world—how amazingly disagreeable it would be to say good-by forever to, all these things and to fare forth into either oblivion or else some sphere where he might find many a man he had already dispatched thither. “ Brrr!” shuddered the judge, and flung the paper away. Then he went upstairs, rummaged a bit and found Duggan’s pistol; that very one that had been “ frisked ” from the yegg, and that the judge had kept as a memento, all this long time. He fetched it down to his library, and there with some curiosity—albeit nervously—examined it. Not in many a soft year had the judge fired a gun of any kind, or witnessed vio- lence. Super-civilized he was, like millions more; lax of fiber, flabby of nerve. Over- feeding. and too much easy-chair had made of him a creature fundamentally unsound, beginning inwardly to rot. Now this heavy, rather blunt weapon of destruction filled him with something like awed repulsion. How crude a thing, and yet how perfect! Never had Van Blount seen life taken, yet this gun had taken lives; many, perhaps. As the judge handled it, turned the chamber, examined the mech- anism, he experienced a certain shrinking. Yes, of a surety this man was as soft of courage as he was hard of pity. Ruthless toward a poor debtor, implacable in collec- tions, glorying in convictions and in rough- shod riding down of society’s unfortunates, his soul quivered in presence of an instru- ment which, breaking through all webs of law, dealt direct and summary justice. None the less he now carefully loaded the gun, wondering as he did so how many human lives it had snuffed out. The butt was heavily scored with six deep marks, cut or filed into the hard rubber—records of kills, surely? 699 “Lord, but that’s an ugly affair!” thought the judge. “I positively hate to touch it. Still, under the circumstances—”’ He pretended to take quick aim at various objects—the door, the window, a bookcase, a chair. He practiced bringing the gun up, or jerking it down, to cover different marks, flexing the sinews of what little imagination he possessed, rehearsing for contingencies. “IT fancy I could shoot pretty quick and straight,” he flattered himself,‘ if put to it.” This comforted him. He shoved the loaded gun far back in his desk-drawer, where Mrs. Van Blount or Marie would be unlikely to find it. ‘“ If worse comes to worst, I imagine I could give a good ac- count of myself!”? The thought was ac- companied by something like a mental swagger. ‘‘I’d like to see a ruffian of that type get the better of me!” Which, by the way, was exactly what the judge did not want to see— And now he relaxed, to read his current Law Review. But his attention wandered. Every sound distracted him. The growl of a motor along the avenue, the whistling of a boy, even the jarring-to of a door somewhere at the back of the house, set him on edge. With reins thrown over the neck of imagination, he could almost believe the motor was bearing an assassin to attack him; the whistle a signal; the door closing behind Duggan. A fine prickle of sweat pearled the judge's lofty, super-intellectual brow. ‘““ Nonsense!” he impatiently reassured himself. ‘‘ He was paroled only yesterday. How could he get here as soon as this— even if he knew where to find me? This is sheer folly!” And for a while he settled himself to read, with a vast effort; but ever and ever, across the printed page, ominous words kept forming: ‘“‘ T’ll get you right, if it takes me all the rest 0’ my life, an’ I go to the chair for it!” That evening in his peaceful den was a long one and a hard, for Judge Van Blount. V. Harp and long, too, were other days and nights that followed; for a blind terror came CoMmicloooks (S@) |