Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 2 — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

00 “Thanks,” McCarty said dryly. He was accustomed to encountering effrontery, insolence, and servility from the domestic staff in the homes of the rich, but the for- mal dignity of this ancient retainer was new to his experience. - When the latter had disappeared the ex- roundsman glanced wonderingly about him. The entrance hall had been so dark that coming in from the glare of the street he had been able to make out only vaguely the outlines of enormous, oddly shaped chairs and settles and chests, the great fire- place and curving staircase with a heavily _ carved balustrade; but somber as it was he had gained an impression of space and grouping, of unostentatious elegance beside which -the costly luxuriousness of the Crev- eling house seemed tawdry and blatant in comparison. As a boy in the old country he had once been invited together with other village children to a memorable “ treat” at the castle which dominated the county and had strayed unbidden into the great hall; the one through which he had just passed would have filled barely a corner of it, and yet something in its atmosphere recalled that glimpse of the splendor of long-past feudal days as nothing else in America had ever done, and a sensation of awed admi- ration stole over him. The little reception-room into which he had been ushered seemed on the cpntrary to be almost bare, with its delicately curved chairs and tables, its grotesque lamps, and the curiously lacquered cabinet upon the broad top of which a lone vase of washed- out looking blue stood in solitary state. Dennis Riordan’s comfortably married sis- ter, Molly, was the only woman whom McCarty admitted to his friendship, and her cluttered “ parlor ’’ was to him the epi- tome of cheerful good taste; give her a few dollars and she would have had that room looking like something that was meant to be lived in, yet it had an air about it, at that, although he could not have told wherein Jay the distinction. Had he known that each article it contained was well-nigh: priceless; that some of them—like the washed-out looking vase—had graced the palaces of emperors long dead, and that Carty! ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. each had a history which would have ri- valed an Arabian Nights of the antiquar- ians, he would have been duly impressed, but it would have made no difference in his personal opinion. The old man servant had closed the door upon him with a certain definiteness of ges- ture which made him hesitate to reopen it and listen, but he had not long to wait. Al- most immediately the former reappeared, and this time he beamed upon the visitor. “Mr. Cutter has been expecting you, sir. Come this way.” McCarty followed dumb with astonish- ment as the other led him across the hall and ceremoniously opened another door. How could the man Cutter have anticipat- ed his coming? Was.it sheer bravado, or was-Cutter mnformed by the papérs of the investigation and the names of those in charge of it, prepared to give him some facts which would help im the solution of the mystery? As he passed over the threshold he was aware at first only of a rich, ruby glow falling on rows upon rows of exquisitely tooled books which lined the walls, tipping with gold the magnificent bronze groups that stood here and there in the vast re- cesses of the room, and gleaming softly on warm-hued silken tapestries and mellow, deep-piled rugs into which his own heavy- soled boots sank with what seemed to him an almost profane pressure. He started when the butler touched his arm and murmured deprecatingly: “ Your hat, sir,” and relinquished it with the same feeling with which he would have handed over his favorite blackthorn at the entrance to some museum. > Then all at once he was conscious of a tall, distinguished figure advancing toward him with erect, soldierly bearing and a rich, musical, hearty voice with just a hint of amused tolerance running through it, ex- claimed: “I have been awaiting you, Mr. Mc- Take this chair and have a Cigar; I think you'll find these to your taste.” As though in a daze, McCarty felt the srip of a soft but vigorous hand, and found himself in the depths of a great chair with the best cigar he had ever smoked between ECOMNIC HOG Ss “A COlini