Adventure Magazine Cover, October 1911 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

The Detective for the Defense this sapling Vokes brought around so that it almost touched the butt of the pistol. Then, gaging the distance with his eye and holding the broken end with one hand, he removed the weapon and handed it to me. Next, bringing the prong a little closer to the tree, he passed the lengthened cord around the two and knotted it firmly. With a horror creeping on me, I looked at the General, whose eyes were almost start- ing from his ruddy countenance. ‘Oh, the villain!” I heard him mutter. With a slight blow on the cord, which twanged like a harp-string, Vokes cocked and replaced the revolver in the crotch. The prong of the sapling projected about half an inch in front of the trigger. “Now, gentlemen,” said Vokes, and im- passive as he always was, I could detect a note of triumph in his voice, ‘‘I think it will be clear to you who was responsible for the death of Mr. Almaric Variole!”’ ‘The villain!’’ muttered the Gen- eral again. Vokes drew a knife from his pocket and ran his finger along the blade. “This is not quite as sharp as that hunt- ing-knife,”’ he said, ‘‘but I think it will an- swer the purpose. Masten,” he added, handing it to the valet, who had stood look- ing on with a face almost as expressionless as that of Vokes himself, ‘‘stand beside that cord and when I give the word draw the knife sharply across it. Are you ready— Now!” With a quick movement of the wrist Masten complied. There was a sharp re- port and as the bullet went whistling among the trees the revolver, caught by the back- ward spring of the sapling, was sent hurtling in the direction of the swamp. The severed cord leaped like a snake among the bushes, and all was as it stood before. ‘““Gentlemen,”’ said Vokes, “‘if we follow the direction taken by that pistol, I think we shall find yet another impression in the mud.”’. IV THE General was the first to speak. “What an infernal scoundrel!’’ he cried. ‘“‘T see it all now. How he must have hated the boy to contrive such a diabolical plot! His suicide I can under- stand, for life under such circumstances must have been almost insupportable, but 1053 that he should try to hang his own nephew for murder is almost incredible. But for you, Mr. Vokes, there is little doubt that he would have succeeded. How the deuce did you unravel such a skein?”’ “It was a very unusual case,’’ replied Vokes. ‘Unlike anything I had ever handled before, but the solution was not so difficult as you imagine. In the first place, as I mentioned to you when you told me the story, it was very unlikely that Geoffrey Variole would have run the risk of almost certain detection, when he could have at- tained his end, an apparently objectless murder, by the way, by waiting. Nor would he be likely to throw away the weapon so near the scene of the crime, when it could be so easily identified. “‘Had the pistol been found close to the body, there would have been little question that it was a case of suicide, particularly in view of the fact that the man had but a few weeks, at the most, to live, and probably in great suffering. The fact, however, that the weapon was found a considerable dis- tance away seemed to put this theory out of the question. It was not until I visited the spot that I was able to dispose of this difficulty. “The first thing I noticed was that the bark on the inside of that fork in the oak tree had been very recently abraded. Then that sapling caught my eye and I noticed also that the break in the top was not many days old. Also that, if it were bent around, ) that prong would about reach the tree. At once I saw a possible solution of the mys- tery. When we went to the swamp I may say that I fully expected to find a second if not several more impressions of a pistol, as, if my surmise were correct, it was highly probable that the man who contrived the plot would make sure, by experiment, that his crude machinery would work. My only fear was that some footmark might have obliterated it. Fortunately it escaped. “The discovery of that second impres- sion, which my friend here so ingeniously accounted for, confirmed my theory, and when I told you that I expected to find the one missing link I was not exaggerating. The open hunting-knife, ground to a razor edge, fitted in perfectly with my theory. It had evidently been used to sever the cord, rope or thong which held the sapling in place, and the cord when cut would natur- ally be jerked away, but, being lighter than (© CloOOOLKS C©