Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

844 within and the creaking of a hinge; in the blackness a dim square of light appeared, the small, lean figure of a man in the cen- ter. Then Miss Carson had entered the house, willy-nilly, and the door had closed after them. She felt herself swung to the floor. She saw the footman turn the key, and grin at her. The larger chauffeur held her, rather gently, too, by either shoul- der and addressed his words directly into her face. “Chop off that screech, sister—cut it out!” he advised angrily. ‘‘ You wanter get this and. get it right: you keep your face shut and do what you're told, and there ain’t a thing going to happen to you! Get that?” “Open that door and—and let me out of here!” Myra panted. “Don’t be funny, kid. D’ye get me? Then get this, too: start hollerin’, start any- thing rough and—well, it could be your papa and mamma and your friends wouldn’t ever see you again. Y’know what I mean? I don’t want t’ hurt you. These two guys dun’t want t’ hurt you. But at that, if it lies between lettin’ you get us into trouble and chokin’ the breath out o’ you, the bet- tin’s all one way.” There was something very convincing about this man when one came to know him better. Myra Carson, who had been about to scream for help in good earnest, recon- sidered and held her peace, merely staring up at him with eyes which, despite her best efforts, were growing more frightened every moment. <A grudging and rather awful smile flickered about his lips. “You look like a reasonable kid; you look like you understood. You don’t have t’ be told we’re—well, we’re three pretty bad guys and it wouldn’t be no more trouble t’ croak you than nothin’. And, at that, you wouldn’t be the first one we croaked!” he stated with entire calm. Myra could not still the shiver. It came into being without consulting her at all. It shook her quite visibly. She looked around in plain, well-warranted terror—at the chauffeur who, she fancied, must have committed at least two dozen peculiarly horrible murders—at the footman, who was ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. a rather stupid and negative sort of person, extremely muscular and doubtless a mere handy man—at the third of her captors, lean and very dark and plainly more intelli- gent than either of the others. He looked like the brains of the gang! , “What are you—going to do with me now?” she asked him, suddenly and point- edly. The dark man showed his teeth for one smiling, approving instant as he gazed at Myra. “If you don’t make trouble we do noth- ing,” he replied. ‘‘ We just keep you here a little while.” 6¢ Why?” “ That would be telling too much—yes?” ‘*¢ But when—when you’ve kept me here a little while?”” Myra persisted. ‘“* Ah, then we gotter see!” explained the dark one, who seemed simply overflowing with illuminative information. They were still in the hallway of the wretched house. A mere oil lamp, hanging overhead, denoted their tremendous distance from any real civilization. In there, in what must have been the living room, since it was furnished with a table and several chairs and a fragment of rug, another oil lamp burned. Just behind Myra a second door stood open, blackness beyond it; and the chauffeur nodded to the footman, indi- cating this open door, and the footman hurried in, and Myra heard the scratching of matches. A sad little oil lamp pres- ently flickered to life under the footman’s fingers. “Well, anyway, we got the kid—we should worry about what happens next,” said the chauffeur quite jovially. “In this way, girly!” He indicated the second room, which con- sisted of a dubious cot, a shaky chair, the oil lamp and an extremely musty smell. Myra drew back. And at once, having been lifted bodily, Myra moved into the room, and the chauffeur stood her on her feet once more. “One thing, kid, you gotter learn to mind better when you’re spoken to,” he informed her rather gravely. ‘‘ Next time you're gon- na walk or you’re gonna get the flat o’ that alongside your jaw!” he added discourte- comicloool C©