The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 296: what you’re looking at

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

THE COIL OF CIRCUMSTANCE. BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE. Being the record of certain astounding experiences that befell an artist in the process of getting married. SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED. THOMAS PLYMPTON, who tells the story, has just eloped in an automobile with Anita Suarez, the ward of old Mr. Morrison, a friend of his father. He knows httle of Anita, beyond the fact that they love each other. She knows little of herself, but Morrison has told him it would be quite impossible for him to marry her. The result is the elopement from the Morrison residence near Larchmont. The affair takes place late at night, after a party, and on the way to New York in Plympton’s electric runabout they meet with various exciting adventures, which finally leave them with a Panhard instead of their runabout, and with an elderly wounded Spaniard on their hands. He is much concerned about a small satchel which Plympton finds under another man who has evidently attacked the stranger. Him they leave stunned in the roadway, while they hurry to town with the injured man, reaching Plympton’s bachelor quarters about daybreak. Plympton sends for Stringer, a young doctor friend of his, who, after fixing up the Spaniard, serves as witness along with Nolan, Plympton’s valet, to the marriage that is performed by a priest Nolan brings in. They are just drinking to the health of the bride when Plympton receives a telegram from Grace Morrison. Her father has been murdered and she begs him to come at once. He starts for Larchmont immediately, and on arriving there is arrested by a would-be clever detective, Polhemus, on suspicion of being the murderer himself. Plympton has barely succeeded in freeing himself from this coil, when he is called up by telephone from New York by Stringer, who informs him that Anita has disappeared and that the old tpaniard lies dead in his bed, with finger marks on his throat. So stunned is Plympton by the news that he faints, and in falling drags the telephone from the wall, cutting off communication with New York. CHAPTER AL. THE DUKE AND THE MINIATURE. HE first train to leave Larchmont that morning was the 5.33. I caught it, and was at the Grand Central terminus by a quarter past six. I had managed to nap a bit during my two hour wait in the station (for vou may be sure I could not rest at Greyfriars, but must needs go imme- diately to the railway, the better to run no risk of losing my train), and part of the run in I passed in an uneasy slum- ber. Nevertheless, it refreshed me some- what, and strengthened my heart to go forth and meet the issues of the day, whatever they might turn out to be. Crisis was piling upon crisis with such regularity that I felt, in some strange wav, quite assured that this day was to be the last of the mystery; itx twilight would find the affair ex- *This story began in the November issue of THE ARGOSY. plained, Anita in my arms once more; or I did not like to think of that “ or” and what was behind it in my mind. But Morrison was foully murdered, De Soria strangled, Anita gone—who could tell whither? And the author of this series of out- rages yet at large, and, worse still, it seemed, in no danger of being apprc- hended. Was he, or she, or it—whatever might be the power behind the scenes —satisfied? Or was another life de- manded? And—whose? At this stage of the game Tom Plympton was a mere bundle of palpita- ting nerves. Imagine him, who thought himself a strong man, > keeling over ina dead faint, like an aged spinster rudely attacked by al terrified mouse! Indeed, the strain was telling upon me to such an extent that I do not be- lieve IT was able to think or act with en- tire coherence. The two back numbers will s matled io any address on receipt of 20 cents. rere gle ElOOO CO