The Argosy — page 282: what you’re looking at

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

In the Dead of Night. 265 * The footsteps came nearer and nearer, and then some one entered the room. ‘The sleeping man still breathed heavily. Now and then he moaned in his sleep. All my fear of being found out could not keep me from peeping out of my hiding-place. What I saw was my master, Mr. Kester St. George, standing over the sleeping man, with a look on his face that I had never seen there before. He stood thus for a full minute, and then he came round to the near side of the bed, and seemed to be looking for Mr. Osmond’s keys. In a little while he saw them in the dressing-bag where I had left them. Then he crossed to the other side of the room and proceeded to try them one by one, till he had found the right one, in the lock of Mr. Osmond’s writing- case. He opened the case, took out of it Mr. Osmond’s cheque book, and from that he tore either one or two blank cheques. He had Just relocked the writing-case when Mr. Osmond suddenly awoke and started up in bed. ‘ Villain! what are you doing there ?’ he cried, as he flung back the bedclothes. But before he could set foot to the floor, Mr. St. George sprang at his throat, and pinned him down almost as easily as if he had been a boy. What happened during the next minute I hardly know how to describe. It would seem that Mr. Osmond was in the habit of sleeping with a dagger under his pillow. At all events there was one there on this particular night. As soon ashe found himself pinned down in bed, his hand sought for and found this dagger, and next moment he made a sudden stab with it at the breast of Mr. St. George. But my master was too quick for him. ‘There was an instant’s struggle—a flash—a cry—and—you may guess the rest.. “A murmur of horror escaped my lips. In another instant my mas- ter had sprung across the room and had torn away the curtains from before me. ‘You here!’ he said. And fora few seconds I thought my fate would be the same as that of Mr. Osmond. But at last his hand dropped. ‘ Janvard, you and I must be friends,’ he said. ‘ From this night your interests are mine, and my interests are yours.’ ‘Then we left the room together. A terrible night, monsieur, as you may well believe ! ” “You have accounted clearly enough for the murder, but you have not yet told us how it happened that Lionel Dering came to be accused of the crime.” ) “That is the worst part of the story, sir. Whose thought it was first, whether Mr. St. George’s or mine, to lay the murder at the door of Mr. Dering, I could not now tell you. It was a thought that seemed to come into the heads of both of us at the same moment. As monsieur knows, my master had no cause to love his cousin. He-had every reason to hate him. Mr. Dering had got all the estates and property that ought to have been Mr. St. George’s. But if Mr. Dering were to die without children, the estate would all come back to his cousin. Reason enough for wishing Mr. Dering dead. COnniiclooolxs (SO)