The Argosy, March 1907 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

668 sina eee - ” “Diamonds?” repeated Detective Price. “I don’t know anything about any diamonds. What we want you for is murder! ” CHAPTER VIII. “ TAKE HIM TO HIS CELL.” For a space the universe seemed to Dave to reel upon its foundations and all the air to be filled with a chaos of shooting stars. He closed his eyes dizzily and clutched at the railing of the desk in front of him for support. Then it occurred to him that he must be asleep, and this a hideous nightmare; — so he opened his eyes again to dispel the illusion. But his staring vision failed to meet the shadowy outlines of his familiar bed- room faintly lighted from the reflection of the street-lamps outside. He was still ‘standing in the broad illumination of the office, and beside him, with the detaining hand upon his shoulder, was this police- man who showed himself all too plainly to be a creature of flesh and blood. “ Murder!” repeated Dave, his pale lips scarcely able to speak the word above a whisper; then, as the first effect of the shock began to wear off and reason to reassert itself: ‘Oh, but, sergeant,” he added, ‘there must be some horrible mistake about this.’ ‘No mistake, I guess, detective indifferently. ‘“ You’re David Martin all right, ain’t you? <A real- estate broker with apartments here at the Waldree? ” . “Well, then, whom air I accused of murdering?” demanded Dave desper- ately, seeing that it was no case of mis- taken identity. The man gave a perfunctory glance at his papers,- although it was evident from the readiness of his reply that it was unnecessary for him to refresh his recollection. ‘Harold Francis,’ he announced glibly. “Electrical engineer, aged twenty-seven. Said to have been a co- tenant in your apartment.” Dave shrank back, appalled and in- credulous, before the unexpectedness of the answer. Indeed, his natural alarm and disquietude at his own predicament ” responded the oat —> A es, Ee — w= * oa . AM om = _ THE ARGOSY. was for the moment swallowed up in the grief and horror which overcame him at such news concerning his friend. “Hal dead?” he questioned shudder- ingly. ‘“ Hal murdered? Oh, it cannot, cannot be true!” ‘The detective glanced at him with cynical contempt. “Don’t you think you're playing it just a mite too strong?” he remarked. “T’ve been admiring your abilities as an actor up to this, and half believing your bluff was on the square; but that last settles me. ‘Hal dead,’ indeed. How could you help knowing it, when every paper in town has been bristling with the news for the last three hours? ” Dave did recall now that his ears had been assailed with shouts of ‘ Wuxtray!” all the way home, and that leather- lunged “ newsies ”” had poked their wares at him with some sort of pol yg glot jargon ending in the word “ murder ’’; but, lost in his dreams of love, he had paid small ‘heed to these interruptions, and so had remained ignorant of what practically all the rest of the town was discussing with bated breath. This was a matter that he could not very well explain to Detective Price, however, so he made no attempt to regain the position he had forfeited in that gen- tleman’s good opinion, but turned, in- stead, to a consideration of ;his own plight. ‘How am I supposed to have mur- dered Francis?” he queried. “ Let me have the details, please, upon which this egregious charge is based?” But the detective, having been dis- appointed in his first estimate, was now disposed to show his prisoner very little consideration. “The place to find out all those things,” he observed grufily, “is over at the station-house; and as you’ve been due there for some little time back, if you don’t mind I guess we’d better be moving along.” Over at the station Dave did finally glean some information concerning the evidence upon which he had been taken into custody, and to his intense disgust he learned that his present trouble was also largely due to his ubiquitous friend —Ted Green. The latter, it seems, had been some- what piqued by Dave’s refusal to gratify Gomichookszecom