Adventure Magazine Cover — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

The Fox’s Earth that beast Ostermann, the man of mystery, the man he had come north to hound down, the man the War Office wanted, had been staying for months past at Carter Fell Castle! The proximity of that waste of moor and fen to the castle—did it mean anything? The proximity of the sea—the coast—the towering cliffs—did that mean aught? The fact that Alsopp Ostermann was living in penurious discomfort with the master of the castle—did that mean aught? The mysterious paper tracing which the secretary, Phelps, had been to some pains to cover lest it should tell its secret to inquisi- tive eyes—the paper Algy Brett had stolen but could make nothing of—was that paper the outcome, one of the results of Alsopp Ostermann’s residence at Carter Fell? Was Stephen Brett in collusion, in con- spiracy with Ostermann? Could he divulge the secret traced so finely, with such exacti- tude, with such simple lines and yet such complicated results upon that paper which now reposed in Algy’s pocketbook? Surely where Ostermann had lived for months, was still living, there also was his secret! IIil ALGY BRETT could not have been asleep for more than an hour when he was awakened by a hand shaking him gently and cautiously, and was aware at the same moment of a second hand placed over his mouth. He struggled up in bed in quick alarm and amazement, staring into the dim gloom to see the face of the man who thus awakened him. “Jacobs!” he ejaculated under the smoth- ering hand. ‘‘ Jacobs!” “Yes, Mr. Algy, it’s Jacobs!”’ Algy threw off the hand from over his mouth and sat up straight, wide awake and ready for the adventure that seemed promised. ““What’s the matter, Jacobs, and how on earth did you know I was here?”’ “Tt is my habit, since the master took the freak into his head that I should not sleep in the house, to take a last look round every night before going to bed. Leastways, some- times I go to bed and then gets up in the small hours and prowls round the castle. I happened to be on the veranda under the Chaps I never set eyes on. 921 library window and heard you talking to your uncle. Lad, I was glad to know you’d come! Did my letter surprise you?” “Letter? I got no letter from you, Jacobs. What did you write for?”’ “The old master worries me—and that sneaking foreign gentleman he has here. They—he worries me, Master Algy! He’s up to no good, though I can’t find out what itis. It’s allso mysterious! Everything all so open and aboveboard in the daytime, and Mr. Ostermann so polite and affable. But when it gets dark—then the mystery begins, and it’s so great a mystery that I sometimes feel like I was mad! So I wrote for you tocome. I wrote two days ago, and addressed the letter to your club,” ‘“‘T never got it—probably waiting for me now. Anyway, I’m here now, so that’s good! Asa matter of fact I came to make inquiries regarding this same Mr. Oster- mann of whom you speak, but I was never more surprised in my life than when I discovered he was staying with my uncle. Do you think ss ‘Master Algy, I’ll speak to you as plainly as if you were a youngster once again and myself your humble friend and ally, as I used to be when you spent your holidays here. But it’ll be plain speaking, and I want you to give me your word you won’t be offended with anything I say.” “Fire away, Jacobs! I promise you I won’t get angry even though you tell me my uncle is an unmitigated blackguard and miser and ‘““And that he and this fellow Ostermann, as they call him, are brother-conspirators in some horrible plot!” finished the servant quickly. ‘TI felt a strong dislike against Mr. Ostermann the first day he came here, and the dislike grew every day. Then I got suspicious, somehow. He and the master were forever hiding things and prowling about at night, and they had at one time a lot of strange workmen here—all foreigners they were, and not a word of English among them.” ““Workmen?”’ interrupted Algy eee ‘“What did they do?” “That’s what I couldn’t make out for the life of me. They made an alteration in the chapel wing—put in a colored window and repaired the fireplace—but that was all I could ever see they’d done. They were here six months on and off, and a lazier set of Six months in COmiclbook CO