Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

576 “Told you I’d done more lyin’ than I could live down in a month o’ Sundays! Sure ‘nough, for the last two years or so Benkard’s name had. been connected with a lady’s who wasn’t in society, and the way the old gentleman said it was a plenty! There hadn’t been no talk o’ it, though, for some months back, which looked like a fallin’ out. When I could git him to tell me the lady’s name he said it like it was some kind o’ epidemic—Zoey Dawn. “T hadn’t heard o’ her, but all the way back in the train I kept workin’ it out in my own mind. Benkard was strong, and ten to one he was gittin’ in too deep in whatever affair was between ’em, and had broke it off himself afore he let it master him. That meant bad blood and mebbe real hate on the woman’s. part, and a good notion to git even if she ever had the chance. Lane bein’ so thick with him this past year would know it, and when he found he’d been used by Benkard and played for a sucker himself and wanted to ruin him, who’d be the first one he’d think 0’ to help him but the woman who’d been throwed down?” “ Geoff, how did you ever learn all that?” demanded the doctor. “I mind my business as much as I kin, but when you’ve been workin’ ’round folkses homes, inside and out, for high onto fifteen year, you git to knowin’ things you’d never suspicion when your neighbors has their company manners on,” Geoff responded modestly. “ Human nater’s the same whether you’re a city millionaire or a truck farmer, I reck- on. A pretty woman might ketch the eye ©’ a feller like Benkard, but she’d have to be mighty smart and clever to make him keep on lookin’. If she was she’d soon find out his weak point and play on it. In his case ’twas ambition, and she’d prob’ly git him to believe she thought he was the greatest maf in the world. That ‘d flatter him so’s he’d spread himself same’s a turkey cock, ’specially in the beginnin’ when he was real crazy over her, and to show her how wonderful he was there’s no tellin’ but he’d brag "bout how he had worked some 0’ his biggest grabs and beat the other fellers, in the Lord knows what shady sort 0’ way. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘“Wouldn’t Lane think o’ that, too? Rushin’ away after the row that was the finish between ’em and vowin’ to git Ben- kard afore he was crushed himself like so many other poor devils, wouldn’t he recol- lect ‘bout this Zoey woman on the way home and figger that if he could git her on his side she might tell him things which even them other Wall Street sharps didn’t dream had been done to ’em?” “You doped it owt right again, Peters,”’ remarked Lyons soberly. ‘“ The secret service has been keeping its eye on Zoe Dawn, as I told you they would. Benkard saw her at the races about three years ago, and got an introduction. He called at her apartments pretty regular for the next six months or so, and then all of a sudden she gave up her lease and bought a small house in a quiet neighborhood not half a mile from the Cavendish Garage. It was in front of her door that a car with Lane’s license plate on it stood from before one o’clock until after three in the morning!” CHAPTER XIV. A NEW WITNESS. %: HEN we’ve been barking up the wrong tree, after all!” Dr. Hood exclaimed. ‘It’s mighty interest- ing about this woman, but it shows that Lane didn’t kill Benkard, and my job-is to find out who did. I wish you had told me when you first thought of this, Geoff; every day counts.” “There wasn’t nothin’ to tell,’ Geoff re- torted. ‘“ Lane didn’t kill Benkard, but mebbe the woman knows who did.” “ She'll come across if she does,” ob- served the detective grimly. ‘‘ Her phone wires are tapped; every tradesman or mes- senger who goes to her door passes through the hands of a couple of our men first, and the house is being watched. It didn’t take her long from past experience to get on to the fact that the authorities w-re interest- ing themselves im her once more, nor to guess the reason, and when I called she was all ready for me. ‘““ Mr. Benkard, she said, had been a very good friend of hers and had advised her © 6A COLA IGbooksSneom