Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

The Secret to do. I’m a good deal of a spoiled kid, and I’ve always been allowed to have my own way pretty much, but when I meet a man who won’t let me have it and I know he’s right—well, my hat’s off to him, that’s all. And you’re one. See you later. I'll go aboard the yacht and join Nellie.” Fenton watched him disappear and then shrugged and smiled a trifle ruefully, He had to admit that he still did not know ex- actly where to place Stephen Blaydon. Somehow, he liked the man. There was a certain big-boyness about him, a huge con- tentment with life and living, and now he was squirming uneasily under the lash of his first real trouble and did not-know how to escape. “All right,” Ward muttered to himself. “We'll give the overgrown kid a chance. I'll have John wire to Phil.” He walked out of the tent and almost col- lided with John Drummond, who was apes to enter. “T beg your pardon, sir,” said John. “I was just bringing you the telegram that was at Sea View for you. I didn’t like to give it to you in front of Mr. Blaydon, because —well, sir, you didn’t look like you wanted him to know any more of your business than he has to.” “Quite right, John,” Ward said, taking the telegram. “I’m mighty glad you were so careful.” He took the message to the western side, where the afterglow of sunset still made reading possible. It was only a short tele- gram, but it made him start with a muttered curse and read it again. It said: Greiner makes most amazing discoveries. Be- ware Stephen Blaydon when he comes. CHAPTER IX BLAYDON GOES FISHING #4 ENTON stood looking at the paper in his hand with a smile that was more than half sneer. It was not a sneer at Phil Conway nor at Greiner; it was at the whole atmosphere of falsehood and deception with which he was surrounded. Stephen Blaydon had said that the plans he had already started in New York would look most suspicious if discovered by an outsider. Was that the cause of Phil’s warning? Had Conway and Greiner stum- bled upon some of these carefully placed of Caprice Stephen Blaydon. AI lines and not understood that they were in- tended to trap the men for whom they were all seeking? He shook his head as he considered the possibility. Phil knew the details of the mystery too well to be easily misled. With a skilled man like Richard Greiner to inter- pret each bit of evidence in the light of what Phil could tell him, it was not likely that they would go so entirely wrong as to warn him mistakenly against such a man as There must be some- thing behind it. He squared his shoulders, and his jaws re. ManEe He had drifted long enough this thing. He had passively allowed himself to be used by others to suit their own purposes, but now he determined to take a hand himself. He judged from Phil’s telegram that the New York end would occupy Conway and Greiner for some days, he himself must keep his eyes and ears wide open, then, here where the prime movers in the mystery were gathered. This man, Stephen Blaydon, puzzled him. There was something about the man that was vaguely familiar—some fleeting ex- pression, some little movement, something that he knew he ought to recognize, but which escaped him every time he tried to determine what it was. He was sure that he had never met Stephen Blaydon before. Yet, after their short conversation, im~ pression remained strong with him, that he ought to recognize Blaydon as having in some way entered his life. He walked over to the fireplace where the embers were still smoking and, raking the ashes away, shoved the telegram into them and stood watching it as it burned. There should be no possibility of Stephen Blaydon knowing that he was being suspected. Then Ward called John Drummond from the tent. “John,” he said. ‘‘I’ll have to ask you to run back to Sea View and send an answer to Mr. Conway’s telegram. You will have to stay at the hotel all night—until a reply to my answer comes, in fact.” “Very well, sir,” John said. “T’ll get the car at once.” When he had gone, Ward sat down by the fire, scribbled a message on a piece of note-paper and reread it carefully. Stephen Blaydon here. Says you must positively call Greiner off at once. Says has started plan to get gang and fears you will spoil it. Wants you here GCOMEE cS NiGchboo (€(0)