The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

44 the avenue. I didn’t know that it was you, but I knew her instantly, of course. 1 pulled in and let you pass and—gad, it’s pretty daring and brazen stuff, doc! Walking into another man’s house with his wife at this hour, with the servants all gone and—”’ “ Wait!” said Dr. Jim thickly, for while there were a dozen side mysteries here beyond any present guessing, one element- al fact was boring into him and sending the color from his face. The tall man, however, was smiling grimly at the dark window. “See here, doctor,” he went on quickly and quietly, as he turned back, “ I'll tell you something else you don’t know, and then T’ll make you as friendly an offer as one sinner ever heard from another. Dal- bane left Boston on the midnight train, and he’ll be here for breakfast! Don’t wheeze; there’s still a margin of hours to make your getaway. Hop into my car and Ill run you out on the island and drop you at the—” “Wait! said Dr. Bowen. “Dear me!” cried the stranger, and his eyes opened at the sight of the white face so near his own. “ Are you so thor- oughly infatuated fhat—” “JT don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Jim went on. gone crazy or I have, but that doesn’t alter the one thing I can make out of what you’re saying. I came in here with a young lady who is no Mrs. Dalbane and—”’ “Doc,” the stranger said ever so gent- ly, “ I’ve known Mrs. Dalbane since she was five!” He smiled again at Dr. Bowen, and for “some seconds the physician was unable to speak. When his voice did come, how- ever, it held the cold of a steel blade. “Let the rest of it go,” he said. “ Do I understand you to hint that the young lady with whom I entered this house is not quite—er—all right?” “Oh! Very much all right,” the tall one laughed. ‘“ She’s a general favorite, in fact. Doctor, you’re not the first—”’ “Either you’ve — THE ARGOSY. The laugh had done it! Dr. Bowen’s fist, the holding back of which had been literal torture this last minute, had passed beyond control. Through the quiet house the doctor’s snarl must have echoed—and then his own wild little laugh, because the fist had landed fairly between the tall man’s eyes and he was pitching backward over his chair! And after that, for several minutes, Dr. Jim found his personal concerns enveleped in a bewildering haze of red! Things hap- pened so swiftly that he could not grasp them as they came—the first of them being the rise of the tall man. He was athletic of build, and, as *be- came gloriously apparent, pugnacious of nature! He had made his feet again be- fore the shock of the blow passed, but hav- ing reeled for an instant, he was coming directly at Dr. Jim, himself dazed and un- reasoning, but out for blood! Yes, and he had landed on Dr. Jim’s shoulder a blow that would have finished him, had it but found the chin for which it started! His other fist was coming up now, and—so were Dr. Bowen’s, because the stranger had seen fit to slur the young woman to whose cure, before this, Dr. Bowen had virtually decided to conse- crate his life! Ah, and he had collided with both the Bowen fists at once, too, for he screamed hoarsely and tottered away again—and recovered himself, too. Other things were happening in the few dizzy seconds of that pause. It was Dr. Bowen’s indefinite impression that Helen Catterson herself had sped into the room, . cheeks blazing, eyes full of perfectly sane anger! He even thought he heard: ‘““T never bargained for anything like that! Doctor, I—” Then, coming from nowhere in particu- lar, a shirt-sleeved arm reached from the gloom of the dining-room and dragged her back—and the tall man was upon him once more. It was to be close infighting this time, evidently. The stinging scrape along Dr. Bowen’s jawbone drew his whole atten- CORMICLOOKS (E@)