Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

294 woman must always seem to the undisillu- sioned mind of man. So, no matter what Marvin was going to make plain at the sta- tion, no matter what new kink in the course of the whole affair was going to be straight- ened out, it didn’t really matter. He sighed. A sudden contentment stole down upon him. He was content to be here, with Mildred close beside him. His head was throbbing dully, but—yes, he, too, was satisfied. “I won’t misuse anything you care to tell me, Marvin,” he replied, because he felt he should say something. ‘‘ And—see here. I was glad when they were hazing me this evening that I didn’t know what they were after. You know things looked pretty squally up there for a time before Blumefeldt appeared. I suppose you knew he was there if you were watching.” “Yes,”’ Marvin said, “‘ we knew he was there.” “And yet you didn’t get him?” Eddie chuckled. ‘‘ He’s a rather peculiar chap.” Marvin did not reply to the comment. ‘““ We were hoping he would act about as he did,” he said instead. ‘‘ So we waited until Irak came back with the man he went after, and pulled the raid ds soon as they were inside.” The backer. There he was again. They had him. Well, there was reason there, of course, for Marvin’s satisfaction, even if Blumefeldt had escaped. At least he had served as the means for getting the un- known man they had been after. ‘‘ But can you convict him?” he queried. “How are you going to prove he’s the man who has been floating the counterfeits in the last three years?”’ For a time Marvin made no answer, and then, “Through Irak,” he said at last. “You remember I told you this evening that he had driven a bargain with us be- fore, and he’s at it already again. Irak’s a good deal of a rat. When he’s cornered he’s the sort that squeals.”’ So that was it. Once more Irak was going to get off with the minimum penalty for his misdeeds, because what he knew was needed. The man was worse than Marvin had called him. He wasn’t a rat; he was a snake. And—well—Marvin had ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. offered to bargain with him himself the past afternoon, and he would bargain with Irak in order to put the man who had con- spired with him against the integrity of the nation’s currency behind the bars. “Is he a man of any prominence?” he asked. “ He’s just about what we thought, Mr. Harmon,” Marvin replied. ‘He was a man who for years had been connected with the bank where Murgson used to work. He put up the first twenty thou’, and Welter used it to open his account; and, as Miss EI- ton suggested this afternoon, he’s been grad- ually putting out counterfeit notes in an effort to recoup himself during the last three years. It was that very thing that main- tained our interest in the case.”’ Eddie nodded. It was all a very sordid affair; just a jumbled mass of treachery, and betrayed trust. All along all the actors had been more or less handing each other the double-cross. It was nothing more than a vivid side light on the worst phase of human nature—this thing in which he had been involved and out of which he had drawn the greatest adventure of his life, and the sweetest discovery, incarnated now in the form of the girl at his side. He lay back against the seat and sensed her nearness while the cab rattled over the pavements. Once she swayed against him. He felt the silken caress of a strand of her hair. Salt tanged air drifted in through the open window and he sniffed it. The thing was ending, ending now so far as Mar- vin and the crooks he was after and him- self were concerned. But it was just be- ginning with himself and her. Back there in the room where they had waited Marvin’s coming, without knowing it was the thing they waited, fearing any- thing else in all the world save that he had told her that he loved her, had held her a moment in his arms, and—she did not resist. She had lain against him, clung to him. Her lips had not shrunk from the swift pressure of his kiss. What a night! What a night! Once more he found himself thinking the words with a vastly different meaning from what had inspired them first. What a night— in which minutes had been as hours, as days CORMICLOO S (C@