Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

we aces ee eee ee “pot 50 GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD a des ae. That ¢ flash of red and silver under the hard white light hypno- _____ tized everyone into silence for a second or two. Rosalinda was 4 ____ already behind her brother—though I don’t quite know how she 4 got there. It was the only safe place in the whole world for her. She knew that instinctively. a ie No one—except Rosalinda—had moved yet, but Hilario had not a hope of reaching the front door. He backed towards the i . kitchen entrance alongside the bar. Out to his right flank the | barman reached for a gun. i We didn’t normally use such things in Posadas. It was the bar 4 __ revolver—kept under the counter for emergencies alongside the ye lemons and the dishwater. I don’t believe in getting mixed up | in foreign rows like a drunken tourist. 4 Still, what was I to do? Hilario was the only chap who could a produce a satisfactory solution for Rosalinda. Se The barman was half turned away from me, and the-soda- water siphon took him over the right ear. It was far too forcible a a way of expressing my sympathies with a murderer’s sister, but tal I had nothing else handy. Disastrous! I tell you, I knew while ~ that siphon was still in the air that the only future for me in Argentina was a long gaol sentence. aa ‘hat broke the spell. A woman screeched. The room rose at us. The customers might have shrugged their shoulders and ___ attended to their business, such as it was, if this affair had merely been a difference of opinion between two of them about an Estrella girl. But Don Luis was a prominent citizen, and he had been so very thoroughly killed. a If I’d had half a chance I would have slipped through the kit- ie chen door and bolted. But Hilario and Rosalinda were blocking A ap it. +I caught a glimpse of the cook—he was a Syrian and a sensible -- -man—-sailing out through the window, and then I found myself i ___ cast for the part of Horatius on the Bridge while Hilario shoved: a ~ Rosalinda out at the back and told her to run. Be I wasn’t alone long enough for any heroism. I remember smashing a bottle on somebody, and getting in a right hook which hurt me quite as much as the other fellow. Then a chair broke a on my head. I suppose the leg was rotten. Fortunately for me, ~ Don Luis had never succeeded in keeping termites out of the by furniture. 1 went down and, for an instant, out. The next thing I knew was Hilario dragging me out of the kitchen into the open. = That appalling knife of his seemed a bit wetter round the point, and he had managed to slam and lock the door behind us. The pursuit—this was all a matter of seconds—had not yet had time . to disengage and run round the block to the back of the Estrella. wae —— comiclooks.comn) ~