Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

«862 j = edge had just ses brought home to ae with the force of a stunning blow. RIA gS ot i Sadi td eR ki i Ay iy if Ah hat = CHAPTER XIX. = : A LIVID FOREHEAD. | = OR three full minutes, I was later in- SS formed, my nephew sat perfectly still pe ae stared at the envelope from Micah <= ee And as each minute passed, = what had at first a the wildest of ae © Grin certainty. : — Working with mee ee = ee: his camera upon the table and took flash | light photographs of his collection of fin- setting sail. Wie VR ND eWay ii f { : CORROSION ie Mae MERC WIG sr ah NMI SGBR MAAS ee RRS TUaM cy Ch fy : i) P vit, ¢ Lt ’ } ‘ ‘the processes he used, but I know they were of the latest—also, judging from the bills that his apparatus cost me, the most expensive. He arranged the entire ecieciion in- z feature that hovered. just beyond his grasp. ~ He then went one step further. He fastened, by means of. clamps of his own devising, a microscope to the table top. | the slide into its ing done so, he slippe = me ‘grooves. and examined i it Srrough the Seas 2 microscopic lens. - se = -He then realized that ape was not glone.. _ Some one else was i in a cabin with him. - Behind him. = of harmony with the gentle ‘sighing ger-prints—the ones he had gathered shee He developed | his plates, dried them, and = = close to the 2 the Be: ae aoe oe minutes. I am not familiar Se | he ae “His = were tucked wal = ‘neath it. | chiding. the set given me by Commissioner Halsing, on the table and made a minute in- — spection — with the aid of his ane glass. He found, at last, what he wanted. — The solution of the mystery was ; his—with - the exception of one puzzling feature—one _ him. So he did the opposite. quick lunge, he threw his body sideways, He took from his pocket the envelope con- taining the clean sheet of paper in which he had wrapped the speck ” he had wiped — _ from the tip of the paper file in. the wireless — room. He lightly coated a glass slide with some adhesive stuff, folded, with an ex- = tremely steady hand, the sheet “of paper = once, and then tapped its all but imper-— = ceptible contents onto the glass slide. Hav- _ day = Some one 1e who had crept like a shade _ARGOSY- ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “through the door which, after: I fad left | him, he had been too “engrossed in his sud- den discovery to remember to bolt it again. _ Some. one whom he sensed standing very — near him— —staring at him—staring at him with a "peculiar malignancy and hate— “some one whom he knew, as surely as he knew the sun would shine at t dawning, v was Micah Thrumm. : There had been no sound; no. creak ut Se noises of the vessel and the ever-restless sea: no sound of breathing « or of feet slipping soft- =e across the floor. the man was there. And yet he knew that It was a ‘wretched. predicament to eo in, and the slightest false move on his part would but hasten the swift rush—the swift Plunge | of a knife—instant death— _ His head was bent low. ‘His: eye ‘was It would take a full second for him to spring upright—to whirl around and grapple with the figure Seung creepingly toward his bowed back, _ And a second was- too lone : Whatever he did must be done in a fash a flash so swift that the upraised hand of the assassin would find no time to strike. The man would expect him, if he did any- thing, to ‘spring up—to hurl himself. -upon With a fell flat on the floor, rolled under the table, and at once tugged at his gun until he got it out of his pocket. Then he looked from — beneath the table—and saw nothing. — There -was nothing there but the chair which he had ‘overturned, and which now flat on its side. He called himself seven. kinds of a fool, and decided that he was in for a fine spell of nerves. He had imagined the whole thing. There was no one there. There could be no one there, = fr from his ‘position beneath the table he E = commanded a clear view of all the floor 3 ‘Space of the cabin. : Then he heard a sound. It was a gentle, almost imperceptible ; ogee as of something moving on. the = table 8 above him. —— : consol S