Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 2 — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

012 He did so, but it nearly broke him down. So far he hadn’t been called in, as had other friends, to tell what he knew of the old man. That thought alarmed him. Two sleepless nights had driven him to nervous exhaustion—and yet he kept on working. Time and again he was near flight, but quickly pulled himself back, for . flight would, at this time, be an admission of guilt. He clubbed himself into a natu- ral, confident demeanor, but on the third day he knew that something would have to be done. The morning paper shed no fur- ther light on the investigation, the nature of the suspicions of the authorities, or when the body would be returned to the earth. And then the big idea came to him! The thing that worried him most was the constant vision of the face as he last had seen it in the hut.. Why not go to the body. and gaze upon the face as it was now? Why not see it peaceful and in repose? Why not stamp upon his brain another im- age of the face—one far different than the sagging jaw and staring eyes? Would not the peaceful face at the morgue efface the terrible face of the hut? He would have another image as a last memory. Yes, it was a very clever plan to cheat his fancy. So that evening he went to the Corbett undertaking rooms. The morgue was a small stone building across the alley from the rear of the main establishment. He sauntered into the offices and asked if he might view Peter Murcell’s body. This was in charge of Coroner Fitzman, he was told, and only a permit from him - would gain Maxon his wish. He said he wasn’t anxious enough to see it to go to all that trouble—and departed; departed for another sleepless night. Next day he laid off work at noon. In the afternoon he sought from Coroner Fitz- man a permit to view Peter Murcell’s body. The coroner refused the request—and Max- on dragged himself to his room. And then another idea came to him. He would view that face despite the coroner and the attendants at the undertaking room! Thus, very late that night, he crept up the alley leading to the morgue back of Corbett’s undertaking establishment. He THE ARGOSY. had a sudden fear that looking upon the face under the gruesome conditions which now confronted him—the ghastly morgue_ and slabs, spectral in the pale moonlight— might be even worse than the thing which yet gripped his fancy. He almost lost heart. But no, nothing could be worse than the face now imprinted on his Geos brain. So he kept on. The task of getting into the morgue was not a hard one for a strong man armed with tools from the shop. He lifted a side window and soon stood within the ghastly interior. There was but the one body there. It was very near at hand. Gazing about, he saw it almost instantly. He saw the sheet which overspread the figure on the slab. He saw, indistinctly -yet surely, the convolutions in the sheet marking the vari- ous parts of the body. He stepped toward it, stopped—and then, with quick decision, drew to its side. Suddenly the morgue was flooded with light. Coroner Fitzman and Sheriff Wool- ley stepped from a little room into the full glare. Hugo Maxon, sobbing hysterically, sank to the floor. In less than two hours Maxon was in jail and the authorities had his full con- fession. IV. ‘ Or course,” Coroner Fitzman explained next day, “the body never was exhumed. The thing on the slab was nothing more than a couple of pillows arranged Sider a sheet. ‘The young man who was visiting me, George Wellins, led me into my frst sus- picion. He noticed that the body in the hut was lying straight, with the bedcloth- ing carefully smoothed out. He saw that the legs were pulled out carefully, and, the arms stretched down at the sides. That was, he thought, strange—if the old man had died alone. T he body looked as though some one had laid it out after death. George mentioned all these things to me, and sug- gested a little plan. ‘It was very hard for any of us to be- -Heve that murder had been committed. There was such a total absence of motive. No one, until Maxon confessed, had the Gomichboo (c cS (E@)