Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

MARKED DOWN. 807 fastidiously dressed in smartly cut clothes. He still wore his overcoat. Tortoise-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his beak- like nose. A long silk cord ran to his ear and down to a buttonhole. His glistening bald head shone like a billiard ball. He was smooth-shaven, and his features were strongly marked. The sudden coming of the girl made him squint. Again Nancy had a baffled sense that the face opposite was vaguely familiar, But she wasted no time on blurred memory. ‘May I act,” she demanded sarcastical- ly, ‘““ who you are?” He watched her carefully. In the look recognition flooded his face. She knew that he had been more successful in his identi- fication of her. ‘““T see that I need not warn you that your skulking, suspicious presence here places you in a highly equivocal light. You doubtless are aware also that I, in the pur- suance of justice, cannot hold inviolate whatever you may say.” He nodded brusquely. ‘“ I know—let me introduced myself. I am an old client of Mr. Kent here on business of a most pri- vate nature.” “ Evidently.” He flinched before the scorn in her voice. “Your name?” she went on. The tortoise-rimmed glasses fell from his nose with the sharp spasm which contorted his face. ‘“ Amos Shoreham,” he announced prag- matically. “President of the Second National Bank,” Nancy thought, ‘“‘ and—more extra- ordinary than all—the executor whom the dead Cavendish had named in his last will which now lay hardly dry in Mr. Cunning- ham’s safe, even as its testator lay hardly cold in the office upstairs.” ‘Vou doubtless realize the unpleasant- ness of your position, Mr. Shoreham,” she observed aloud. “Indeed, I do,” exploded the man irasci- bly. ‘I have been penned in here for hours—”’ Nancy looked at her wrist watch. “ It is now one thirty. Only an hour and a half has elapsed since vou elected to wait here. We might as well begin at the out- set and be very exact in our statements— Mr. Shoreham.” ‘Well, it seems a month. And I’ve got a mighty important engagement. Now that you’ve found me, may I go?” “Not at all.” “Why not?” he snapped truculently. “ You have no intimation of what has occurred ?”’ “No. Kent went out in a hurry when he heard some one calling, and he has not come back yet.” ‘If your time is so highly precious, why didn’t you hasten out after him, when he had been gone overlong? If your impa- tience is as great as you say, why hasn’t it manifested itself in some way other than your waiting here?” “*“hunderation, miss! Didn’t I tell you that Kent is putting through something mighty important, that he broke off in the midst of it, and I can’t go until he has finished the business?” ‘* And you had no curiosity?” * Of course not,” he blustered. ‘“ Why should some commotion in the hall interest me when my mind is full of weighty affairs?” “Did you hear the nature of the cry which took Mr. Kent from this room?” cc No.” “How did it happen that you could not translate the words which Mr. Kent so ob- viously did? You were both closeted here together with an equal opportunity to hear.” The pompous bank president flushed. ‘“* That is not so. I am slightly deaf. I was seated with my worst ear toward the corri- dor. I made nothing out of the noise.” “Then you know nothing of what has happened?” “ Certainly not. And I'm ina pretty ket- tle of fish, too, waiting here like a caged rat trying to make up my mind whether I should go or stay. Where is Kent, any- way? His conduct is infamous.”’ “Mr. Kent is retained.” “* Detained?”’ thundered the man. Nancy looked down quickly. Her ruse had worked. She kad purposely dropped her voice on the first syllable of ‘ retained ’ to test the truth of Mr. Shoreham’s slightly deaf plea. He had spoken the truth. COMiclooe (©