Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 1, 1922 — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

THE FUR CLOAK. vague, rather handsome “ Doc” who dined with the wealthy Westford person. Not that he was very attractive at the moment, to be sure. His thick hair was rumpled, his eyes were wild, and there was nothing modish in the long, quilted silk gown knot- ted about him. He advanced uncertainly, lips moving, and stared down at the well- trussed Myra Carson — and with a most dramatic gasp he threw up his hands and backed away a pace, the while he cried: “That’s not the girl! You're not the girl!” “ Hoh!”? came unexpectedly from the elder lady. ‘“ So you was expecting a young woman, doctor?” ‘““T— what? No, emphatically not! Nothing of the kind, Mrs. Hodge! I—’”’ He flushed and glared at her. He turned back to Myra, considering her bonds. He reached toward her feet and then, obviously a delicate soul, reached toward her hands, fumbling quite crazily at the knots. “ {just a minute, you know—have to apologize for all this, of course. Not my doing, but have to apologize!” he muttered irresponsibly. “I recognize you, of course. You're the young woman who makes change at the Aldean. None of my doing, I assure you! I—however, is this thing tied? I—what, Mrs. Hodge?” “It’s the telephone, doctor,” the lady said from the doorway. ‘‘ There’s a man wants to talk to you.” The doctor started up. “Oh, is there?” he snapped. “ Well, * think I want to talk to that man!” He strode out more or less impressively, his wide silk pyjamas flapping about his - rather lean legs. Somewhere in the corri- dor Myra heard him thump into a chair and bark, more energetically than she would have fancied him capable of barking: “ Hello! Is this—” He stopped there. The diaphragm of the receiver was clicking and clattering; so it clicked and clattered before: “Yes, but—” The clattering went on furiously for all of two minutes this time. “Yes, I understand all that. I—” Again his speech was stayed. Again he listened. 859 ““T know all that. That’s your business, sir!”’ Dr. Warner managed to force in pres- ently. “I refuse to be involved in any way with such a mad—” The receiver emitted fifteen seconds of machine-gun fire. “Yes, I—TI said ‘ refuse!’” the master of the house stated, much less forcefully. “That was the—er— the word I used, and—”’ The gunner went to work again, never pausing for breath for another minute. ““Oh! God bless my soul, Mr. West- ford!” cried the doctor, and there was gen- uine pain and fear in this new tone. ‘“You’d never do a thing like that when—”’ Somebody laughed at the other end of the telephone line and spoke further. The gentleman at this end groaned aloud and said nothing for another stretch. Then: “Well, I—yes, I understand that! I couldn’t quite have — have believed that you—but I understand. Be sure of that. Only I wish that you’d called up before they came. What’s that, sir? Yes, you’re quite right; there’d have been nobody at home. But what I’ve been trying to say all this time: it’s not the right girl!” A single tremendous roar of inquiry floated over the wire. “No! Most decidedly not! It’s the ‘cashier girl from the Aldean Hotel, I tell you! Well, I haven’t the slightest idea how it happened, but that’s the girl they brought! No, I’m not mistaken. I no- ticed her particularly, you recall, and said what a very pretty girl she was, and—”’ “Hoh!” said Mrs. Hodge, looking fixed- ly at Myra Carson. The telephone wire had gone quite mad! There was a prolonged howl of fury upon it now which should have shaken it from. its insulators! Dr. Warner apparently was waiting for the storm to pass—and it passed suddenly, with the loud bang of the re- ceiver at the far end. ‘“‘Look here, sir! I won’t be called a damned fool like that, and I~can’t possi- bly—” the doctor exploded. ‘I say, you haven’t cut off, -have you? I—heref There’s more I want to say and—oh, the devil!’’ gasped the gentleman, and hung up his own instrument with a crash. “Oho!” said Mrs. Hodge, altogether to DOOK C©