Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 2, 1922 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

578 The detective laughed. ‘‘ That was luck, but to clinch it, he saw Lane himself come out of Zoe Dawn’s house and drive away at a quarter past three. The methodical old cuss stopped under a street lamp and looked at his watch to make sure as the car rounded the corner. So much for Lane’s actual presence there. That’s an alibi that we’ve dug up for him whether he wants it or not, and it lets him out of the case. To-morrow, if you say so, doctor, Ill get Dawn down for a little talk with the old man at headquarters, and find out what really passed between the two of them that night, and all about her affair with Ben- kard. She won’t find any kid-glove diplom- acy about it, either. Want us to put her over the jumps?” Dr. Hood glanced somewhat doubtfully at Geoff, who shook his head but remained silent. “‘¥ don’t know. I don’t believe even your chief could get anything more out of the lady than you have, detective,” the former replied tactfully. ‘“ How about it, Geoff?” “°Tain’t for me to say,” remarked the reluctant consultant. ‘“‘ Reckon there’s a good and sufficient reason why she ain’t tried to git hold o’ Lane, nor him her, but I kinder think if ’twas me runnin’ this here business I’d go to her to-morrer mornin’ and I’d lie considerable.” “What do you mean?” Lyons asked. “Mebbe it ’d be more like takin’ a chance than downright lyin’, at that,” Geoff amended. ‘“ Howsomever, I’d let on that Lane hearin’ tell she’d ’stablished this alibi for him was goin’ back on his bargain with her. I’d have to find out the name o’ some real intimate Wall Street friend o’ his that she’d recognize so’s to make it sound as though it was straight goods when I said this friend had give him away to me; that Lane had told him he was just a goin’ to flimflam her -’long till the murder was cleared up and the will probated, and then let her raise any fuss she’d a mind to. “qd hint kind o’ broad, then, how Lane had laughed at the very idee o’ her tellin’ the truth *bout what they’d settled between ‘em last Wednesday night after she’d been tryin’ so hard to live down them Washing- ton doin’s these last years, ’specially as if ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. it come to a showdown he’d stick to the selfsame story she had give to Detective Lyons, and ’twould be his word ag’in’ hers. When I’d got her to believin’ it and mad- der ’n a wet hen, I’d leave.” ‘““ Leave?” repeated Lyons half incredu- lously. “ Give her time to cool down and think it over and see through the game?” ‘No. Give her time to git all het up over it till she was bound and determined to pay Lane back for trickin’ her, no mat- ter what it cost her; and then I’d give her a free hand to act. Meanin’ that I’d have her followed, o’ course, without her know- in’ it, but I’d let her go wherever she had a mind to.” ‘* But neither she nor Lane had anything to do with the murder itself, and it ‘ll be a week the day after to-morrow since it happened,” the doctor objected. “If we don’t do something soon the city news- papers will begin laughing at our local ability to handle the case, and you know what that will mean to the distiict attor- ney. I don’t see that it matters what hap- pened between her and Lane while Benkard was being murdered out here.” “Except that mebbe Lane suspects who done it, and wild hosses couldn’t git him to talk. But if she once started in, bein’ a woman, she’d tell everythin’ she knew or had heard tell of, *bout Lane and Benkard both, and all that Benkard had let out to her when he was payin’ her ’tentions, be- sides what—-what she opined herself as to the motive and the one who done it. I ain’t got no notion what Sergeant Eliot’s up to, nor that private detective feller, Ma- honey, neither, but it seems to me this Zoe Dawn is your one chance, and then only if she talks willin’ and free.” ‘Peters is right!” declared the detective, rising. ‘I don’t know whether or not he expects her to come openly to headquarters and lay her cards on the table, but, any- way, she’s our one best bet. Ill get her all steamed up, doctor, the way he suggests, and then leave it to her to make the next move.” “All right,” Dr. Hood assented resign- edly, as he followed his visitor to the door. “1 don’t see myself that there’s anything else to be done.” COMMICHOOOKS: COR