The Argosy — page 221: what you’re looking at

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

The Mystery of Allan Grale. 163 evening that he left home, or the next evening. You know, Mr. Grale, I told you I was nearly sure I had seen Allan in the Carstow Road that night. And the Carstow Road leads to Sladford.” “What! Did you go cross-questioning everybody about your own son, Richard, while making me, his mother, believe that you knew nothing ?” cried Mrs. Grale, who was in that uneasy frame of mind that makes us cavil at anything. “You see, Mr. Grale thought he knew why Allan had gone, but he did not know when or how he went,” explained the Doctor, gently, apologising for Mr. Grale, who sat aside, dark and dumb.-. “ And, my dear lady, I am not exactly ‘everybody’—Mr. Grale places confidence in me.” “T had a right to his confidence too,” cried Mrs. Grale. ‘“ And so you thought you saw Allan leaving Dering, and told my husband of it,” she went on. ‘“ Why need he have hidden that? It would have been the greatest comfort to me.” “YT believed Dr. Palmer was mistaken,” said Mr. Grale. ‘“ You know you did not feel sure, Doctor: and you said the person you saw wore no overcoat.” ‘“‘ No,” said the Doctor, “he did not wear one.” ‘“‘ Allan had his overcoat with him,” returned Mr. Grale. ‘These people in Sladford, that you speak of, Doctor—did they know him well? Did.they talk with him?” Dr. Palmer answered rather reluctantly: he was not feeling sure himself. ‘‘It was Mark Acland who saw him. At least, saw someone that he thought was Allan. He only spoke to him as an ordinary customer in the shop; he could not think where he had known his face ; it was only afterwards: that he remembered, or fancied he re- membered, whose it was.” “ Not very good evidence,” said Mr. Grale, decisively. “That box at Corrabuin—it has always seemed to me to be our best chance of hearing of him. If only we knew where it came from!” interposed Mrs. Grale. “I do know,” replied her husband, shortly. And Dr. Palmer 1 was almost startled by the abruptness of this declaration. “Do you know what was in it?” asked Mrs. Grale, bewildered. “TI do,” he said again, with equal curtness. “Oh, Richard | ! Do you know where it is now ?—or what — of it 2” she enquired again, her voice rising to a piteous wail. Mr. Grale hesitated a moment. ‘“ I know that Allan has not got it,” he said, slowly. Mrs. Grale fell back on the sofa and buried her face in the pillows. ‘ My boy is dead!” she sobbed. “You must not even think such things,” said Dr. Palmer, “ without better evidence. He may be alive and quite well.” “I am to.be kept in the dark,” she wept. ‘ You may find out this, and you-may find out that, and you may tell each other—but I. GOGO S (SO)