The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

THE MOTOR-BUS MYSTERY. “So that’s the blackmailing scoun- drel, is it?’ growled Meador. “I’ve been yearning to meet him. [ve a good mind to go over right now and give him the thrashing he richly de- serves.” | “ Stop,” exclaimed Edwards. ‘“ Don’t be rash; Jack. Mrs. Meador must be making a mistake. That cannot pos- sibly be the fellow she saw on Bayside Drive the night of the murder.” “Tt is,” the young woman declared. “T am positive it is. I know Chester Selling too well to be mistaken.” “Chester Selling,’ repeated Ed- wards, greatly astonished. ‘“ That is his name all right—or at least that 1s what he told me his name was. There’s something very queer about this. That man distinctly told me that he has not been in the United States within the past six years, and yet you insist that it was the sight of him pursuing that Bayside Drive omnibus which caused you to leave the bus so hastily the night of the murder.” “Ves,” declared Mrs. Meador. “I am absolutely positive that he was there. He is telling a lie when he says that he has not been in America within. the past six years.” “T wonder what could be his ob- ject?” muttered Edwards thought- fully. “Did I understand you to say that he is Colonel Reynolds’s grandson, and that he is going back to the United States to‘ inherit the old man’s money?” inquired Meador. “Ves, that’s what he told me.” “ Well, you can depend upon it that that is the answer to the problem,” de- clared Meador excitedly. “There’s some crooked work going on, Frank, and we've got to get to the bottom of it.” CHAPTER XVIII. AN INSPIRATION. “Tip very first minute I set eyes on the fellow I mistrusted him,” de- clared Edwards. “ There was some- 179 thing about him which repelled me. I feel sure he’s a swindler.” “TI think he’s more than a swindler,” added Meador, dropping his voice to an impressive whisper. “I believe he’s a murderer.” ‘A murderer! ”’ gasped his wife and Mildred Sudbury in chorus. “Yes. It wouldn’t surprise meat all to find that that fellow 1s the real assassin of old Colonel Reynolds. I suppose you think I’m crazy, Frank, to advance such an idea; but—”’ “Not at all,” interrupted Edwards. “As a matter of fact the same thought was beginning to take shape in my own mind. That would account, of course, for his pretending that he is returning to the United States for the first time in six years. His purpose in telling that lie may be to divert suspicion from himself by an alibi.” “ Sure,” assented Meador. ‘ And if he 1s telling the truth about being the heir to the colonel’s estate, he had a big enough motive for killing the poor old man. No doubt he knew that he was named in the will, and he put the old man out of the way in order to come into his inheritance quickly. There have been lots of murders com- mitted by impecunious heirs who could not wait for their benefactors to die a natural death.” “Probably he sneaked home ex- pressly to kill the poor old man, and then returned to Europe immediately after committing the crime and waited there until-he was notified by his grand- father’s attorneys,’ suggested Ed- wards. “But how could he have committed that murder,” argued Mrs. Meador, “when he wasn’t on that omnibus? We have the conductor’s word for it that that unfortunate old gentleman and myself were the only passengers who rode on top of his bus that night.” “He may have climbed to the top without the conductor seeing him,’ sug- gested Meador. “No,” declared Edwards, “ that isn’t possible. My client is absolutely oO cComicbooks CO