Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

THE MARK OF time as possible. I know I was gripped with a certain abhorrence for the musty smell of the place. It had been kept closed —windows and doors—since the judge’s death. The room was empty. But there were traces of some one hav- ing been there; at just what time, there was no possibility of telling. The most important point was that the back door of the room, leading to a hall and the back staircase, was unlocked. On the floor of the room we found two coins, silver dollars. Although my sense of hearing in regard to the clinking of coins is not by any means acute, I could be fairly certain that the money I had heard being stacked and counted was money of that denomination, silver dollars. This led us to examine the room more carefully for any possible evidence of the mozo or Pythagoras Awls having been there. We found nothing; that is to say, nothing that belonged to either of those curious old men. I did happen to pick up a cuff- link, gold with a setting of topaz. Upon showing it to Miss Shirley, I no- ticed she paled, and then explained that it was one of a pair which the judge had worn. He had, she said, been buried with them. My search of the floor—a second care- ful scrutiny—brought out another discov- ery. The room had not been swept for three weeks, and there was a coating of dust on the mats and the hardwood floor. Near the bed I noticed tracks, little semi- circular rifts in the dust. I called the attention of Dr. Zobel to these, and he held the lamp above them for a long time, scrutinizing them care- fully. “ They’ re tracks of a snake,” he said. “J believe that it may be a moccasin.” Before I stop writing for this night, I wish to put in one more note. This morn- ing I again visited Judge Scudder’s tomb. I found that he was not lying in the same paitet te alates Geebin dete et Oe last visit. I the position very well. | Bure detail was ie: art sual * ee Jae a. he THE MOCCASIN. 101 I noticed also this morning that he wore @ gold cuff-link set with topaz. It was a mate to the one we found in the big bed- chamber of the manse. CHAPTER XV. FOUR OUT OF NINE. TAKE up my pen again to-night. Counting Judge Scudder, there are nine people who have been intimately connected with this case. I include Cronk and myself, although we were unimportant actors drawn in to play our humble parts, which bit by bit have grown more import- ant. Let me enumerate the nine: The judge, his step-daughter, Dr. Zobel, the octoroon woman, the Mexican Pasqual, the “ snake doctor,” Pythagoras Awls, Deputy Mar- teau, and lastly Cronk, and myself. Of these nine, four have died with that curse marked upon them—the black points. i am of the opinion that those black points were caused by the teeth of a moc- casin. Cronk believes it, too; only his be- lief steps beyond inte an unshakable faith in the supernatural. Together with the mozo, he holds steadfastly to the bizarre notion that the devil comes among us in the form of a serpent. I also believe that the judge was in that bedchamber last night. In what form, it is not for my materialistic mind to guess. The doctor has taken a step somewhat in the direction of skepticism. He has learned something, I believe, from Shirley, or else from the autopsy which he had per- formed upon the body of Deputy Mar- teau. As a result, he said he had made an im- portant discovery. It was so important that he had very definite hopes of telling Miss Shirley, and me, and Cronk just what the key to this whole mystery was. Meanwhile he begged us not to press him for any in- formation until he had taken one more step. “1 may—with my present knowledge— accuse the wrong person,” he said. “ ‘The one whom I suspect at present would sur- ae we. aot it oleate I can- SE amichookecom