The Argosy, March 1907 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

his curiosity as to Hal’s whereabouts, and had set himself to find out upon his own hook what had become of the missing chum, By making a few inquiries about the hotel he learned that Francis’s trunk had been sent out late the night before; but, strangely enough, the young man had not been seen himself to leave the Wal- dree, nor, as was disclosed by use of the telephone, had he appeared at the other hostelry to which his luggage had been directed. In the course of his investigation, moreover, Ted discovered that the sounds of a vigorous quarrel had been heard by a number of people issuing from the apartment occupied by Francis and Mar- tin; and it also was brought to his ears that Molly, the chambermaid, had com- mented rather wonderingly upon the fact that Dave had made his own bed that day. “Faith,” she had said to some of the other maids, ‘an’ that was not th’ only strange thing about it, aither. Shure, whin I touched it in passin’ I felt some- thing hard an’ stiff down undher th’ covers, an’ [| was jist about to slip me hand in an’ see what it was whin Mis- ther Martin come back an’ tould me to stand away from there. Th’ bed was made up, he says, an’ there was no use of any furdher foolin’ wid it.” Well, of course, that settled matters with Ted, and he waxed so vehement and persuasive in his representations to the hotel management that he finally got them up in the air also, and induced them to allow a search of Dave’s apartment to be made during the latter’s absence. And then the first thing which caught the eye of the investigating party when the door was swung open furnished full confirmation to all of young Green’s sus- picions ; for there, exactly as it had been left by himself and McNamara when - they took their departure that afternoon, stood the piano-player which Dave him- self had declared he had shipped off to Riverhead, Massachusetts. | “If the piano-player was not in that big box which went away by express, what was?” questioned Ted with a cer- tain ghastly significance. Then, too, there was the bed which Molly, the chambermaid, averred had 2S | IN THE MOUTH OF THE GIFT-HORSE. 669 been neatly made up that afternoon, now all tumbled and awry; and when they came to turn down the covers the entire group fell back with a sense of sick hor- ror, for the sheets were stained and dis- colored with great splatches of a dark, viscous fluid. Dave was taken aback for a moment, and could not explain it even to himself, when this latter gruesome phenomenon was detailed to him, until he finally re- called that some parts of the machine had been covered with a reddish oil which he had found some difficulty in removing from his hands. In fact, as he saw, there was not a single point in the case built up against him which he could not easily refute and explain; and he was consequently about to protest vehemently against being held any longer upon such a farrago of mis- conceptions, when it suddenly occurred to him that to do so would open him up to serious suspicion in another direc- tion. Were he, in short, to attempt an ex- planation of all the circumstances which Ted Green and the police deemed so convincing, he must reveal the whole story of his experiences with Mrs. Knipes’s piano-player; must renew in the minds of every one the doubts now effectually laid to rest, that his prospec- tive mother-in-law might have had any connection with the theft of the diamond necklace, and must, by confessing that he had purposely cheated the detectives and forestalled them in an exploration of the instrument, place himself in any- thing but an enviable light. He was between Scylla and Charybdis, so to speak; and either way he looked, he saw breakers ahead. | On the whole, though, he decided that it was wiser to hold his peace, and there- fore choked back the eager words of defense which had been surging to his lips. He could disprove this ridiculous mur- der charge at any time; but there were certain things in connection with the diamond robbery which would be hard to account for until Mr. Knipes either turned up or it was definitely shown just how the missing necklace had dis- appeared. If he waited, moreover, and kept his GEomichbooks co Woe Teel ae Ae Pe NG er fet