Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

166 Sparks heaved a sigh of relief. Rutledge was distinctly on the highroad to recovery. “What hit you?” he asked. “One of the Philippine Islands.” “No kiddin’!” Rutledge transfixed Sparks with his eye. “T don’t know what hit me, but there’s a stiff on this boat who ain’t dead.” “‘ Oh—sure.” Sparks grew worried. The blow on the head must have been serious, must have deranged something. Rutledge was patently wandering in his tophamper. “ Here,” Sparks said, “let me wet that there towel on your head again.” “My head is all right.” “Sure. Let me wet it, anyway.” “You think I’m nuts.” “Veh—no. All you need is a nice, com- fortable wet towel; then try to cork off— a good sleep’s the—” “See here, you long drink of water, I’m telling you this thing is serious. There’s a mystery.” Sparks “ shushed ”’ his patient in a man- ner that was intended to be highly soothing. He also murmured sweet promises of hot milk and rum. His patient, however, per- sistently refused to be shushed, wet tow- eled, or posseted. “Now see here, Sparks, cut out this ministering-angel, first-aid-to-the-wounded stuff and listen to me. I say there is a mystery, and one of the prettiest little mys- teries you ever bucked up against at that.” Rutledge began to wax enthusiastic. As for Sparks, he continued to turn his very best hospital look toward the bunk and the balmy gentleman stretched out upon it. ‘“‘ There ain’t no such thing as a mystery, Peter. There ain’t nothin’ that happens in life that can’t be trailed back to some cold, hard fact. You just take it from your Uncle Dudley, ’cause I know.” “T suppose,” Rutledge remarked, with- eringly, “if you suddenly came across a bit of paper floating loose around the deck, and on that there bit of paper you saw written a message—a mangled message— with such peculiar sayings as ‘save me,’ ‘I am not dead,’ ‘mad from this horror,’ ‘man with the scar,’ and the like in it, you wouldn’t call that a mystery?” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. It was a bit of a facer. It bent Sparks, kinked him, but failed to crush him. ‘‘ Are you meanin’ to tell me straight, Pete Rutledge, that you picked up any such stuff as that on the deck of this here boat?” ce l am.”’ “Where is it?” “ Lost.” cc Ha! ) Sparks smiled. It approached a smirk. The matter was just as he had thought. Sad as the fact might be, his side kick was temporarily cracked. ‘Stop standing up there and grinning at me like that! You may think I’m nuts if you want to, but if you’ve got any idea in your head that I’m a cripple—” Rutledge prepared to bounce from his resting place and annihilate the smug grin from his tantalizing nurse’s face on the spot. Sparks promptly leaned over to pre- vent him. Just as Sparks moved a dirk flashed through the open port and struck the wooden bulkhead opposite, hanging there, a slender, menacing thing of quivering steel. All that Rutledge had seen had been the gleam of a hand in the porthole; a hand too white, too delicate, to belong to any sailor, and across the back of which was traced the outline of a livid scar. CHAPTER III. INVESTIGATION. ‘“*a@ LL here, Mr. Harris?” Captain Hen- A driks turned inquiringly to the sec- ond mate. “ All but Mr. MacDonald on the bridge, Victor at the wheel, and Hans on lookout, sir.” “Good. Mr. Hopper, how about you?” Hopper, the chief engineer, nodded. He was a short, compactly built man, black hair, inclined to tousel, a two-days’ growth of wires of assorted shades sprouting on his chin and its immediate environment, mus- cular arms, tattooed to an inch of their lives with sundry subjets d’art such as the lady with the balloon hips, encircled by an elongated snake, and a fine assortment of COMmiclboo SS C©