Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

“MARKED DOWN. doctor was a painstaking as well as a bril- liant physician and surgeon. So he had very methodically marked in white chalk the exact position where Cavendish had lai on the wooden floor. ~ Now the gas jet lighted up the ghostly and ghastly white line which crudely sug- gested a human figure distorted and pros- trate. Nancy fancied that, had she not seen what had lain there before it had been removed, the simple lines remaining to mark - the presence of death would have told her all. Quickly her eyes estimated the exact placement of those indicative white lines. She started suddeniy. Why had the fact escaped her before? Were its many threads drawing cobwebs across her observation? For beyond doubt Hugh Cavendish’s. body had lain at a spot equidistant from four doors. Mentally she branded the position _ of these doors on her memory. How extraordinary that the man had died approximately ten feet from these four doors! First came Mlle. Mignonne’s to the room where she was in consultation with her unknown client; next Miss Ivy Green- wood had sat by her own testimony in a chair by the door of the Kent & Fulton reception room nearest to the body on that diagonal; next was the door of Mr. Win- ters’s private office; and ey the door from Z which she was now peering. -~ This fourth door, completing those near- had sat in grief and horror. ly shut the door behind her. -_ eapable reminder. approached the girl’s bent, ay est the fatal white-lined spot, was the one behind which Dorothy Cavendish herself And the sole entrance to the building, where had stood the suspicious acting Graham, also known as Slippy Gates, with a prison record, was more than twice that distance or about . twenty-five feet. Black doubt assailed the girl as she quiet- The telltale pin hole still stood out a mute and ines- Quite casually Nancy tear-stained _“ Haven’t you dropped one of your hat pins?” she suggested, with nothing but the — most commonplace expression in her voice. Dully- Dorothy Cavendish’s right hand rose. emai to. her hat, fumbled blind- ‘business it all was! ly, and came to a stop on the single re- ee maining pinhead. She raised her swollen eyes in sur- prise at the question. Then the hand went back dazedly to the rear of the hat. It groped about, but found nothing. “Yes,” she replied mechanically, as her hand fell back limply to her lap. “It seems to be gone.” Nancy stooped over and pretended to search the floor in the vicinity of the girl, although the lost hatpin was carehillg- se- creted in a legal envelope inside her own ee 2 gray leather case. Somewhat wonderingly, Dorothy Caven- a dispassionately she, too, glanced about on dish’s eyes followed her movements. the floor. : “* Oh—oh, it doesn’t matter.” Her voice — broke. “ ‘ Nothing matters very much now.” do search. acting, she displayed a histrionic art un- equalled by many world-renowned artists. Furthermore, had been lost? It might be that. 863 Taceantly N ancy desisted from her- ‘pseu- = : = If Dorothy Cavendish were instinctively the girl had = reached for the front pin first. Didn’t this show that she had no knowledge which pin —— On the other hand, were the girl PES 7 lating, wouldn’t her hand have gone direct- ly to the empty hole where she knew it Wouldn’t she then simulate an admirable surprise? Or would she have followed the course of procedure would find nothing? groped out by her trembling hand? Again thick doubt assailed Nancy. What a blind = = And how inexorably — eS were Several persons already enmeshed in the tightening net. “Why,” she asked directly, “ dices you = = bring your aunt here?” “T wanted her to be in Mr. Kent’s re- ception room should he ask for me before I happened to get back. She could then tell him that I was really here, that there - need be no halt.” “Did your aunt know why you had ak ee denly decided to come to this room?” Ves.” ‘Instantly that reply brought. back = doctrine of a certain famous French psy- cho analyst. His renowned postulate in~ cS —Comicboo