Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

160 and it snapped open splitting the por- tentous police seal squarely in two. There stood revealed the stalwart, pyjama-clad figure of Edison Ward showing no signs whatever of having passed through an explosion the previ- ous evening. “Oh, Whitley—” he began in a mildly irritated voice meant to reach the regions below where he apparently assumed his valet was lolling in un- precedented tardiness. Thén he grasped the fact that not only his valet, but his butler and one of the city’s police stood at awed at- tention before him. “Why!” he exclaimed. “ What does this mean? What the devil's hap- pened?” “We didn’t know you were in, sir,” the valet began, finding voice first. “Didn't know I was in—’’ Ward started and then stopped, something like embarrassment coming over his face. ‘But why the policeman ?”’ “Well, the captain thought I better stick around till you came back, sir,” the officer faltered in his bewilderment. Edison Ward stared at him for a long moment. “Suppose you wait till I dress,” he decided finally. “ I'll talk to you while I’m having breakfast.” He turned back into the suite fol- lowed by the dazed Whitley, and the door closed on the equally bewildered butler and officer of the law. Haskins returned to the servants’ dining room where Mrs. Meanes had revived to a fit of hysterical weeping. He had barely restored her and the two maids to approximate calm when the buzzer from the breakfast room sounded and he went in with his em- ployer’s morning meal. Edison Ward sat in his usual place, reading the paper, while the officer perched awkwardly on the edge of a chair in the corner. As the old serv- ant covertly studied the young man’s face he saw there a look of wonder- ing amazement as the supposed ex- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. plosion victim read the lurid account of what the reporters imagined had happened to him the night before. After he had finished reading, he sat for a long time in silence, staring at his neglected breakfast. “I suppose you are wondering what became of me last night,’’ he remarked to Haskins and the officer at last. “Well, I can’t tell you much yet till I get things straightened out better in my own mind. I’m as much puzzled as you are about just what happened, but I’m on the track of something, and i'd rather not talk till ’'ve run it down a little further. “So, officer, suppose you say noth- ing till I’ve talked to your chief. I believe I can persuade him to let the public think I’m dead for a few days, while I do a little snooping around in my own peculiar fashion. And you, Haskins, and the rest of the servants, will keep my return to life to your- selves strictly till I give the word other- wise.” Then, without further comment, Edison Ward turned to the eating of his breakfast. But, in spite of his studied calm, the butler, watching his face furtively, detected that look of baffled amazement still there. The officer, his countenance red with bottled up protest, started twice to voice it, then gave it up and departed. “Somebody around here’s either drunk or crazy,’ he muttered to him- self, “‘ but it ain’t up to me to contra- dict Mr. Edison Ward.” VI. WHEN Bill, the gardener, reported that all had been quiet on the Ward erounds at the time of the mysterious bombing he had not meant to conceal anything of seeming importance. One minor incident he did not mention un- til he was compelled to in court long afterward, for fear that the other serv- ants might get too much amusement at the expense of himself and Joe, his 1A COMME OIOOLK<S (E@