Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

') 908 block. and—”’ “Say! That letter’s written on Prue’s stationery and that’s conclusive proof to me that every word of it’s a damned lie!” Bartley said, viciously. ‘‘ I saw her scrib- bling letters on this same stuff yesterday and wondered why she didn’t use cardboard and be done with it. It’s probably Arms- truther’s writing, but it’s Prue’s paper and that lying little fiend ’d never permit it to be soiled with a word of truth!” “Even so, you may be wrong,” Richard “The letter may be on the level urged earnestly, as they hurried along. “ Bart, I think you misjudge that little girl. T think you misjudge all women, if it comes to that. I think—” ‘“No you don’t; you just rave!” Bartley interrupted, bitterly and wearily. ‘“ The whole works is shot to pieces again, fast enough! I—TI can’t get it! Nothing just like this ever happened to me before, Dick. It makes no difference whether I plant a thing or she plants it—I’m the goat just the same in either case. We've been setting there—and across the street that little snipe was waiting to stall us off another half hour.” “ But why should Prue—” “ Because she’s marrying him, of course!” Bartley raged. “ She’s marrying him at this minute!” One commanding hand went up to stay the course of a rocking taxicab. Richard Flynn looked up strangely, his lips pursed, hope struggling in his eye with a certain private fury of his own. “T don’t believe it,” said he, “ but if it’s so I’ll work a month to buy ’em a nice present! I’ll—hey!” The last word came as Bartley hurled him bodily into the cab and snarled the address of his temporary home at the driver. After this, Bartley folded his arms and set his jaw and rode, chest heaving, for several blocks in silence. Then: “ That’s the end of even relatively gentle measures!” he barked. “ Of—of—”? Richard asked vaguely, emerging reluctantly from a new dream. “That’s what I said!” pursued Mr. Greer, and gripped his friend’s knee so violently that he winced. “I was willing ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. to lock up Armstruther and work along:on the idea that Prudence is, after all, a girl. She’s not! ‘““So far as I’m concerned, she’s a sex- less devil!” he continued, and it was plain that more recent events had done nothing at all toward softening him or calming him. “Pll deal with her accordingly!” ~ “How do you—deal with a sexless devil?” | “Well, I was hired to watch this one, and now I'll do that! If she happens still to be in that flat, she’ll stay there and [ll stay there too! Permanently! I’m going to eat and sleep there, live there, with the door locked and the key in my pocket! ‘“’m going to stay until she’s ready to go home!” ‘“She’s not sexless enough to stand for all that!” Mr. Flynn said, emphatically. ‘““ And anyhow, whatever she is, she’s not the main thing in that flat, Bart. She’s only a guest of Wayne’s and you've got to consider Wayne. The proprieties—” “We're past all those now. First I’m going to knock Armstruther cold!” * 'That’s not a bad idea, but—” “And you'll have to see to getting him to a hospital and scaring him into keeping his mouth shut. Tell him I’ve killed a dozen men so far and there’s no doubt Ill get him if he bleats about his beating. Then I—let’s see.” A dreadful sanity was upon Richard Flynn this evening—upon Richard who usually leaped into the maddest adventures with a gay laugh. ‘““You’re talking wild, boy!” he sighed. Bartley turned and grinned at him, and the grin was a trifle more optimistic and less savage. | “J know it, and it’s a darned good thing!’’ he observed. “ All our best stunts have been put over when we went clean wild, Dick!” The taxi stopped. With a bound Mr. Greer was out of it, with Richard at his heels. The driver, just then consulting the meter and preparing to speak, stared after them and then shrugged and sat back. The familiar stairs they negotiated more rapidly than usual, and Mr. Greer at least had made several rapid trips up those oO COMCELOO© SS CO