The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

736 THE himself in his muddled financial affairs; but in spite of himself his mind kept reverting to that tragedy in the middle of the crowd- ed down-town street. Leaning back from his flat-topped desk, he sat with his eyes fixedly gazing into va- cancy, and every once in a while he would mutter defensively: “T had nothing to do with it; I was not driving the car.” So an- hour, or two, or three slipped by. The clerks outside had gone home, the of- fices were deserted. He rose and took a turn out through the place which he had ruled so autocratically. How would it feel, he wondered, to go out >f there™ stripped, and bare, and humiliated? He retreated to his private room once more and locked himself in. Here the shadows were deepening with the falling of dusk, and suddenly it seemed to him as if they eddied and drifted into shape— into an effigy of Moses Blair which stood and pointed an accusing finger at him. ~“T had nothing to do with it, I tell you!” he recoiled. ‘“I was not driving the car.” “Ah!” Did a voice speak, or was it sim- ply his own conscience? “But you could have halted the chauffeur. For a second there you had the choice of action, and you deliberately withheld your hand. You are guilty of malicious and premeditated mur- der.” The shadowy figure seemed slowly to advance upon him and as it came on he gave way shrinkingly before it. Clear around the desk he retreated; then with a sudden sharp cry and an impulsive movement jerked open a drawer, and snatching out a loaded revolver shot him- self through the heart. CHAPTER XV, A NEW AMBITION. ‘THE first sensation caused by the news of Captain Bradley’s suicide had hardly died down before another arose in the question as to who would inherit the great Bradley estate. No will could be found, and no one could be discovered who knew of the dead mil- lionaire ever having executed one. As a matter of fact, it was something that he had put off attending to, like many another man who has no immediate family claims upon him, and some who have. £ ARGOSY. When it became definitely settled that no will was left, there was weeping and gnash< ing of teeth in the offices of various chari- table and philanthropic associations, art museums, and the like, all of which had been promised large bequests. In the absence of direct heirs, the for- tune would have to pass to the nearest. of kin, and in this case to a cousin, one Thomas G. Bradley, whom people with a shake of the head recalled was a notorious spendthrift. And then the third sensation began to leak out. ‘Tom was not the only spend- thrift in the family, it was revealed; and the charitable and philanthropic associa- tions began to chirk up with the realization that there was nothing much left to gnash their teeth over. The Bradley estate was in short a shell. Captain Harry had for years been wasting the solid substance of his patrimony in al- most every kind of reckless venture. Still even the sheil to such a magnificent structure was not to be sneezed at, and presently people began to question and to wonder why the heir at law did not put in his appearance. What on earth has be- come of Tom Bradley? The _ inquiry started to go around, and no one seemed able to answer. Then from various quarters the sugges- tion began to come that he had been on the ill-fated Essbee, and since he had not been saved, the natural conclusion was that he must have been lost. Again surmise and inquiry broke out with redoubled interest. If Tom Bradley was dead, to whom, then would go the Bradley estate, or rather, that remnant of it left after Captain Harry’s wild plunging? Genealogies began to be searched over, -and possible claimants pricked up their ears. Not in years had the family Bible been in such general demand. And then the police court clerk ended the discussion and squashed the hopes of a growing army of Bradleys—spelled all the way from ‘“Bradlie” to “‘Bradleigh”— by confiding to a reporter friend that Tom Bradley had left a will bequeathing all of which he died possessed to his fiancee, Miss Muriel Stockton, The old skipper might not have been able to locate Muriel; but it was a different thing when a pack of alert young newspa- per men with a romantic story like that in sight started on her trail. OO) (C@) A) <S) (©)