The Argosy — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

Lady Grace. 97 Charles reflected. ‘Joe wouldn’t do it?” he remarked. “Joe!” said Mrs. Tuff, in astonishment. ‘Why, sir, Joe would not dare do such a thing as that. He couldn’t either. Joe haven’t no talent that way. When he was a little one, I’d give him a pencil and piece of paper and tell him to draw the cat, but it would come out more like a pump.” “That just brings us round to my argument, that someone else has been in the room,” said Charles. ‘Now I want to find out who that is.” “Tt must have been done in the day-time yesterday, sir.” ‘The last thing, before dinner, yesterday evening, afier Mr. Clay left, I wrote a note at the table and used this blotting-pad,” returned Mr. Baumgarten ; “and left it as I used it, much marked with ink. “Did Mr. Clay come in last night for any purpose ?” “No, sir. And if he had, he’d not have left them disrespectful things behind him.” That was true enough. But Mr. Clay, joint clerk to Charles and another young barrister, might have let someone in who had so amused himself ; some lawyer's clerk with a hasty brief, who possessed more skill than discretion. However, the woman persisted that no person whatever had entered; and Charles Baumgarten thought it a mystery, which seemed, for the moment, incapable of solution. Sitting down to his desk, he began to look over some papers. A few minutes later, and Charles had occasion to open one of the deep drawers on either side the desk. He took his bunch of keys from his pocket, and fitted one into the lock. But it would not open. The lock had evidently been tampered with—and he had left it in perfect condition the previous evening. Mrs. Tuff was called in again. “Will you believe now that some one has been at mischief in the room?” demanded her master. ‘They have been at the drawers : I cannot unlock them.” She stood, somewhat incredulous; and Mr. Baumgarten, taking another key, tried the opposite drawer. It opened readily, but he gazed at it as if transfixed. ‘‘ Look here!” he sharply uttered. The woman advanced and stood behind his chair. It was full of papers and parchments, all in a mass of inextricable confusion. “ Do you see this?” he cried, sharply. “I see the drawer is in a fine mess,” was her rejoinder. ‘Now, listen, Mrs. Tuff. Yesterday evening, after I had written the note I spoke of, before I sealed it, I opened this drawer to put a parchment in: at that time it was in perfect order, and I locked it and left it so. There is some mystery in all this.” Mrs. Tuff could dispute facts no longer ; she had to give in to the evidence of her eyes. “Sir,” she said, ‘what a good thing it is that I was here last night instead of young Joe! We might have accused him of doing it for mischief.” comicbooks.com