Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

524 surd to do that. This was only another indication of his father’s mental state. He had suffered a revulsion, and from hatred ~ had gone to the other extreme, sympathy and charity. Very well. Rex was content. Now he could tell his father of his friendship with Dorothy, which had continued, but of which he never had dared speak. If his father had changed so that he could offer kindness to a man of the breed he had most detested, surely he no longer could harbor feeling against Jacqueline’s dearest friend—Doro- thy, who had been willing to sacrifice her life with Jacqueline. Such was the process of the boy’s thought as he waited for his father to reappear. He did not speak to the tramp, who watched him with a degree of nervousness, apparently sensing the uncertain atmos- phere. They were eying each other when Serviss glanced cautiously from a door. The tramp was looking away from him. Rex observed the movement of his father, however, and his eyes switched that way. ~While the cry of alarm and of warning rose in his throat, his father raised a shot- gun and pulled the trigger. The charge, at pointblank range, took half the tramp’s head off. Serviss was about to fire the other barrel into the body when Rex rushed upon him and knocked the gun up. The shot thudded into the ceiling. Thrusting his son aside, Serviss ran and flung the cuter door wide open. From back in the house came a scream and a scuffling as the two women servants trembled over the meaning of the shots. Rex gaped at the bloody corpse. Now that the power to do further danger was out of his father’s hands, the gun empty, the youth was frozen with horror. His father shook him. ‘“We found that man breaking into the house,” he whispered. His eyes dilated, and he clucked. “Go tell the servants it’s all right—all right!” His shoulders quivered with low, insane laughter. ‘‘ And telephone for the officer. Tell him I’ve killed a burglar in self-defense.” Rex did not move. It had been so de- THE ARGOSY. liberate, this, killing. He shuddered to think what might happen if he told his father of his association and intimacy with Dor- othy Lonsdale! “Go!” The command grated in his ear. ‘We've got to have the officer here be- fore we can have this dirty mess cleaned The utter callousness staggered the boy. But still he did not grasp the whole signifi- cance of the slaughter—not until Serviss gurgled triumphantly: “For every finger on her hands! That’s five! Five—thank God!” | Then did the full shock of knowledge strike Rex Serviss like a blow between the eyes. The riddle of the numbers on the Rock was cleared for him with the recollection that none had been set down except after his father had been on a journey. He grew sick as his imagination ran wild on what had occurred on these journeys.. If his father could commit a cold-blooded act like this, Heaven alone knew what else he had done! He steadied his dazed brain to listen: ‘The five others, Rex—Jack’s other hand—we, you and I, will get together!” The cackling laughter sounded again. “You're big enough now, Rex, to lend a_ hand. Together we’ll fill the panel quick- er! And, Rex’—the boy shuddered at the touch on his shoulder—‘ maybe we'll fill another. Ten for Jack’s fingers—ten for your mother’s!”’ But the boy could stand no more. With a cry he ran from the twin-horror of his father and that half-headed mine in the middle of the floor. It was Serviss himself who notified the authorities. He was calm with that subtle, disarming calmness of the insane, when he told his story to the constable, and later to the coroner. The tramp, he declared, had refused to retreat under threat with the gun. “He had overcome my boy, here,” said Serviss, “‘ and Rex is far stronger than I am.’ He shook his head mournfully. “I had no other course than to shoot. Isn’t that night; Rex?” NOO (Cl Q) mM S (C(C)