Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

718 affair of business, but when I tell her their -sale here in my book.” value she flies into a rage! She had thought them worth much more and she accuses me of trying to cheat her! I refuse then to sell them for her, I show her to the door, but she makes the apology and in the end leaves them for what they may bring. ‘“* Not two days later M. Creveling comes; he desires to know if I have found for him a vase to match one which he has, and when my back is turned he sees the fans in the case! He asks how it is that they are there and me, what can I say? I cannot make of myself in his eyes a receiver of stolen goods! He buys them, giving me twice what I asked, twice what he paid be- fore, and takes them away, but his smile, it is not pleasant! ‘“‘T send the money to Mme. Kip, saying only that it is the price which I have re- ceived for her fans, but the next day she is "here once more and this time her anger, it is affreuse! She says that I have ‘ sold her out,’ but I dg not comprehend; it is only her fans that I have sold! Alors, M. Crev- eling sends no more bijouterie to madame from my shop! It is droll, is it not?” “Tt is that!” McCarty laughed, but his quick brain was piecing together the story, fitting it into the mosaic of fact and theory which he had formed. “ Girard, you old devil, P'll bet you did it on purpose! But she’s still a customer of yours, isn’t she? Didn't I see her in here after closing hours one night not 4 month ago? She had on an evening-dress with a motoring-cloak thrown over it and she came in an open car with a man in a fur coat.” .M. Girard nodded. “Tt was she. Another friend of hers who is an occasiorial customer told her of a snuff-box which had just reached me from France. It was of gold set with amethysts of rare color and said to be of the time of Louis the Just, and since there could be no doubt of its value, madame must have it! It was purchased for her that night, monsteur, by the man in the fur coat.” ‘And who was he?” McCarty asked. “Didn't you know him, too? Didn’t you get his name?” ‘“ But, yes. He gave me a check and it was under his name that I recorded ‘the @ ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. He turned again to the fiat volume and ran through its pages rapidly. ‘“ Here, M. McCarty! Come, you shall see it for yourself.” McCarty rose with alacrity and, crossing to his host, bent over the ledger and read the name written there in M. Girard’s small, fpe hand. The next minute he started back i amazement. “For the love of the saints!” he ejacu- lated. ‘And ‘twas not a month ago! Think of your putting it down in your little book, so neat and certain! Many’s the time I’ve thought to myself that it was the poor business man you were, with everything higgledy-piggledy in your shop, and dust that you could scrape off with a knife, but Ti take it all back! Keep that little book safe, Girard, for it may be or more use than you know!” CHAPTER XXXIII. AN IRISH INQUISITOR. CCARTY’S long years of training on the force had enable him as a matter of habit to put aside whatever cases he was engaged upon and mechanical- ly compose himself for slumber when the time for needed rest came, but that Sunday night was an exception and he lay wide- eyed until dawn. As he tossed and turned and thumped «his pillow in exasperation he seemed to be wrestling with some almost personal problem’ which® confronted him, and no small phase of it was his promise» to Hill to help clear his wife of the charge against her. * The first light of morning revealed him haggard and with a grayish pallor over- spreading his usually ruddy, cheerful coun- tenance, but the firm set of his square jaw betokened that he had arrived at some de- cision and characteristically he rose to act upon it at once. At headquarters he found that Inspector Druet had already preceded him and the latter’s morose greeting attested to taut nerves and the bitterness of acknowledged failure. “You saw the papers, Mac?” he de manded. ‘ The Bulletin is the loudest of VOC (C(O) in S (C(O) nn