Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

258 Pine road house, and the young wom- an booked as “‘ Hannah Doe,” who had Spent one night in jail and paid a fine in the morning, had been none other than Dorothy Croucher, on the very next block! : And the nice young man who had taken her there—and incidentally had gone free by jumping through a closed window—had been young Steve Gil- den, Gerald Burtis’s bosom friend. The fact that the Crouchers had sud- denly sent Dorothy abroad for a year seemed pretty good corroborative evi- dence. There was also the painful matter of little Sally Blyn, in Margey’s own high school class—and the less said of that the better! But it showed the chances these flighty female kids were running, didn’t it? “T think,” Henry said presently, “that I'll get a taxi and make the round of a few places I’d like to in- vestigate!” “ T think you'll stay where you are!” Laura said. “Vou bet he will!’ Brantree assured’ her. “I'll sit on him!” “What's going to happen,” Henry smiled dangerously, “ might better hap- pen somewhere else than here. When that boy turns up ll give him just five minutes to clean his whole slate and convince me that he isn’t lying about it—and if he can’t, I'll kill him!” Laura glanced quickly at her brother. “And you needn’t go upstairs and take the cartridges out of my revolver,” Henry added. “A job like this P’ll do with my hands!” One o'clock struck. Henry glanced his astonishment at the clock. At a time like this one might have thought the minutes would drag. They were doing anything but that! The long hand on that face was fairly whizzing around. Queer how things worked out, eh? A couple of weeks ago he’d been going ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. back and forth, office and house, bed and desk, humdrum as sin. Now, in a few more hours, he stood a wonder- ful chance of sitting behind steel bars and looking at his picture in the papers. Well, it would be amply worth it! Margey had been his particular baby ; her very first laugh had been for her father, and when she was restless and even Laura couldn’t soothe her, she’d always quiet down as soon as Henry took her. Once he got his hands on that neck and his thumbs into the windpipe, the devil himself couldn’t drag Henry Morrow away! “ There!’ Laura shrilled suddenly, and leaped from her chair. ‘ Jimmy, telephone for Mr. Burtis, quickly, please! The number is two-eight-four. The car’s outside now. Harry!” “Let go of me!” Henry said impa- tiently. “I’m not going out to grab him there. I’m going to get him in here and give him a chance to ex- plain.” “Will you please, please wait here?” Laura pleaded, and threw her arms about him. ‘ Harry, please! Let me go out. I'll have him come in—I prom- ise,” se But—” A cold chill ran through Morrow. There was Margey’s key, scraping in the lock as Brantree mumbled at the telephone. And now Margey was en- tering and Henry’s throat closed as he looked at her—just a little child, laugh- ing. Margey smiled brightly. “Oh, you’re all up?” she observed. “ That’s good.” “Why—why—” Henry mouthed. Margey looked at him in brief per- plexity. Margey then looked from left to right, as if seeking an avenue of escape—and again she was facing her father, squarely enough. * Well, because—er—because I want you to meet my husband!” she said. “ He'll be in in a minute!” TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK VOO]KS (ECOXAAIIC (E@)