The Argosy, Vol. 90 No. 1 — page 131: what you’re looking at

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

Author of “The Events Man,” “ The Bauble,” ete. CHAPTER XXV. THE REVELATION. HEN Una had asked him to leave the room so that she might talk alone with his prisoner, Welling had granted the request for a more im- portant reason than merely to appear oblig- ing. Rather, he welcomed the opportunity to go somewhere and communicate with the police department. When he had first arrested his man in the living-room he had expected to call from the Harlingood house for help, and accordingly had inquired about the location of the telephone. This, being in the library, had led him to the second door, but he had made his faux pas with the diamond in an effort to shine before Mrs. Harlingood. That had succeeded only in entangling him in a skein of explanations he would have to make both to Fane and her mother, neither of whom he was anxious to face at that moment. For the same reason he was not desirous that they should hear his communication to the station. It was his first arrest, and it might be accompanied with embarrass- ments which he felt more capable of endur- ing alone than under the scrutiny of any one, especially that of his intended mother- in-law. Therefore he skipped down the front stairs quickly and tried to get out the front door, but it was locked, and this turned him back into the house. He tried his usual entrance through the rear basement, but, to his extreme annoyance, found this also guarded with a slip latch which he could not unfasten. Fane usually did this for him and he had never bothered to observe its manner of working. He returned, baf- fled, to the living-room. He saw that he must actually do now what he had so glibly claimed to have done before—go through the bow-window and scale the fence. He quickly estimated the distance from the window-ledge to the cellar projection below, and leaped. | Horrors! His coat caught on the hook - that held the awnings and was ripped right up the back to the collar. Otherwise he was all right. He quickly gained the street, but the tearing of the coat placed him in a peculiar pregiggment. If he returned with it torn he would be obliged to explain the accident. He was supersensitive about his previous untruth. Having already been detected in one, he feared to chance another, although it might be more plausible than either of the others. There was nothing to do, then, but have his coat mended. Fortunately there was a tailor across the This story began in The Argosy for December 1. 125 comicbool< CO