Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

PROTECTING PRUE. flights in the last two days. Past his own little used room they raced and upward, two steps at a time, and stopped momen- tarily. For Prudence or Wayne had another caller this evening. Leaning on his cane with one hand while with the other he pressed the button of the apartment, he was an extremely well- dressed young man, some years short of thirty. His modish hat set perfectly on his well-shaped head; his expensive clothes might not have left the presser’s iron ten minutes ago; conspicuously, he wore white spats. There was a chilly and aristocratic quality to his eye, too, as he viewed the approaching pair. Young Mr. Greer looked at him just once and laid his own thumb on the button, and the stranger stepped back and assisted him in listening to the faint, distant bzzzz! | Fifteen seconds and Mr. Greer pressed again. There was no sound of steps with- in, no sound of chattering girlish voices. The stranger smiled slightly. “Gone, I fancy!” he observed “Maybe!” said Bartley Greer, and placed his shoulder most informally against the door and shoved! It was a big shoulder, with much muscle in the body behind it, and a light door. Straining wood squeaked its faint protest; there was a little crackling of splinters as the nosing of the lock gave way. A jerk at the knob and Bartley Greer had thrust back the door and was striding inward, with Richard just behind and after Rich- ard coming the immaculate stranger, whose eyes had grown round and who appeared to have been stirred out of a chronic apathy. “ Er—just why did you do that?” he asked amazedly. “ Why—”’ Bartley failed to hear. Bartley was across the studio by this time and looking into the kitchenette. It was empty. The bedroom doors stood slightly ajar and with an extremely perfunctory knock young Mr. Greer stalked into the nearer of them. It was Prue’s. The hat she had worn yesterday lay on the bed, with several other hats. Four gowns of costly and elab- orate make had been thrown, helter- skelter, on the same bed—and there seemed 909 to have been a rain of shoes and a mild sprinkling of gloves and waists. The closet, standing open and empty as the kitchenette, gave the answer. Clothes- hangers tilted at various angles were on the hooks; clothes-hangers lay about the floor of the closet, too, but never a stitch of cloth- ing remained on one of them. Prudence, beyond all question, had left suddenly! A growl, and Bartley had whirled about, all but upsetting the stranger, who was visibly trying to say something, and tramped his rapid way into Miss Leigh’s room and straight to the curtained shelf. No such turmoil had taken place here as in Prudence’s quarters, but the effect was quite the same. An ancient smock, a rather worn little silk gown, were all that remained on Wayne Leigh’s collection of hangers. She, too, was gone! “See here, sir!” the stranger shouted. “What the devil d’ye mean by all this?” “What?” Mr. Greer roared at him. ** Who are you?” The stranger backed three paces with astonishing promptness. “ Well—er—my name is Sneath, of course. Winfred Sneath and—” “The rich one?” escaped Mr. Flynn. “What? I suppose so. I—” “Well; what do you know about that!” mused Richard. “I saw your picture in the paper, once when I was down in Ar- gentine and I wondered how it felt to in- herit fifty million dollars. I mean, you didn’t look as if it had excited you—” “Never mind that now!” the stranger snapped. “ As a friend of Miss Severn’s, I insist upon knowing what you mean by breaking in here!” At least Bartley Greer had learned a little from the distressing events with which his last few days had been crowded. He did not leap on Winfred Sneath and take out upon him some of the hot fury he felt just then. Nay, Bartley forced a smile. Well, if you’re a friend of Miss Severn’s, so are we,” he said, easily enough. ‘“‘ We had an idea that she was in trouble of some sort. That’s really all.” Following this, however great the effort, he beamed—and the effect was most satis- factory. The well-dressed person thrust oO Comiclbooks.€©