Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 23, 1924 — page 160: what you’re looking at

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

te = > ‘eo ae a= ~ Washi bel aR ae ina fh - Mb ih he Oe lee 40 ey —_ —_ ting 2 5 a ills ess ee ee me le tw ae 318 all coming out in court, so you’d better be frank with me.” “ Yes,” Pen admitted reluctantly. ‘“‘ I’ve had trouble with Frank Long ever since the Princeton-Yale football game at Princeton last fall. That’s when I began going with Mary Harwood. She went out with Long in his car. I took George Varnum with me. Long got drunk, and Mary refused to ride back with him. So I brought her back, and Long had it in for me.” Pen recalled bitterly that Mary had been almost as reluctant to ride with him sober as with Long drunk, on account of Pen’s reputation as a reckless driver. He had only got her promise to ride with him a second time on condition that he go for a month without an accident or an arrest. And now this, just when he was beginning to have hope of winning her for life! “The fight in the park,” he admitted to the lawyer, “‘ was directly over Mary. She and Long and I were out walking together. Long was a little drunk again and was offensive to Mary. I reproved him, and he hit me. Mary made us leave her and go in opposite directions, and made us promise not to fight. But Long cut across the lawn after she’d gone, and attacked me. When Doane separated us, Long said I’d attacked him. Doane had caught me speeding in the park once or twice, and had it in for me, anyhow, so he believed Long and threatened to arrest me. I dared him to, and he gave up the idea, but he was pretty sore. I admit I fold Long I’d get him yet.” “That’s bad,” mourned the lawyer sol- emnly. “ But cheer up. I’m sure we can fix it up in the morning.” Pen’s thoughts the rest of that night in his cell were more of what the effect of this would be on Mary than of his danger of prison. When, a month ago, Mary had departed with her father for unknown regions, Mr. Harwood had made her promise not to tell any of her admirers their destination, nor to write to them during her absence. “JT think father ‘ll get over his grouch against you if you keep up the good record you’ve been making lately for another six months or so,” she had conceded. What ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. her own sentiments were she had refused to reveal. Pen had played poker with experts, but he had never seen a face more com- pletely illegible than was. Mary’s when she said good-by. And now, thought Pen in his lonely cell, Mary might be back any day and find him in this mess. Would she believe him, he wondered? Did she care? “T hope to the Lord old Manley can quash it in the morning as easy as he thinks he can!” he groaned. “ Maybe it ‘Il blow over before she gets back.” But the case against Pen Wimbleton was not quashed in the morning. Amos Manley tried in vain to shake the testimony of his two accusers. Other witnesses es- tablished the fact of bad blood between Pen and the dead man. The magistrate was relentless in his determination to push this old offender to the limit. The upshot was that Pen was held for the grand jury, indicted the following month, and settled in jail to wait indefinite- ly for his turn on the crowded calendar. And all this time he had heard nothing from Mary Harwood. He wondered if the papers with the sensational account of his case had reached her and if she believed their misleading statements. All these thoughts were despairing ones. For. he began to fear now that the false web of evidence was closing around him relent- lessly. Old Barney, sitting with his friend Tim in the Primo Garage, the night after -the indictment, was equally hopeless. He had been called as a minor witness to testify as to the time of Pen’s departure and return on the night of the killing. ‘““ All the little they’d let»me tell was no matter at all,” he declared. ‘“ They wouldn’t let me give me real evidence, and they made me admit he’d asked me not to mention when he came in that night.” ~ “Ve mean ye had other evidence?” “ Sure! Couldn’t I prove the boy hadn’t been speedin’ at all that evenin’ when I’d been keepin’ track of his speedom- eter right along for that purpose? Didn’t I know how long he’d been out and how far he’d gone? “Tis simple arithmetic! Be- sides, his car ’d just been washed an’ there Gomichbooks Pe be ' : Soo disks I > i a) ley ee ee: