Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

GRAFT. in alarm, for her last words were uttered in a breathless gasp, and her eyes, round as though with terror, were fixed, as they had been fixed when first she entered the room, upon the windows at its other end. Fora moment she remained motionless, without answering him. ‘““What’s wrong?” he demanded again. “Are you ill, Peggy—or do you see some- thing?” “Do I see?” she cried. “ Yes!” As she turned toward him he saw that her eyes were sparkling, and that her whole face shone, as it seemed to him, as though from a light shining outward from within. “| said there were ghosts in here—ghosts of things that have happened,” she went on. “IT see one of those ghosts now—in my mind, of course, but as clearly as when I stood here in Edith’s frock, watching that man whom I saw there at the window, look- ing for some one outside. Couldn’t it be Jimmy Wilson that he was looking for? Isn’t it likely that he was—or some confed- erate of his? And if we could find the man who stood there by the window, isn’t it like- ly that we could find Jimmy, as well?” She jumped up and down, clapping her hands, as she always had done when ex- cited and pleased. “But when you saw this man you didn’t recognize him,” objected Jack. “So far as you’re aware, you never laid eyes on him except for that one occasion. How can we find him, then? We’ve been trying all along to do that, but we got nowhere.” ‘“ But that was because we didn’t stop to think,” cried Peggy. ‘‘ Look!” She ran lightly along the length of the dining room and stopped at one of the win- dows. ‘“ He—the man I saw that night—was standing here, like this,” said she, turning her back upon Jack and speaking over her shoulder. ‘‘ He had a napkin over one arm, like a waiter, as I said, and both his hands were resting one on each side of the window casing. I’m sure that no one can have touched those casings since—hardly any one has been here—but even if they have, there ought to be some of the finger-prints left. And look, Jack—look! There are! —you can see them!”’ 777 She had raised the shades while speaking, allowing the sun to stream in. Now she stood to one side in order to see the places where she said that the man’s fingers had rested from a direction that made an acute angle with that of the sun’s rays. Jack also looked. The finger-prints were plain for any one to see; tiny streaks of convolute iridescence, serried in small patches on the dark mahogany of the casing. “By Jove, I believe you’ve struck it!” cried Jack, now almost as excited as Peggy herself. ‘‘ At worst you’ve come closer to a clew than any one else has succeeded in doing. What on earth ever put such ideas into your head?” “Wait!” she commanded, without an- swering him. ‘“‘ I'll be back in a minute.” She ran away, and not in a minute to be sure, but within the space of a few minutes, returned, bringing in one hand a little cam- era of hers, while her other hand bore a sheet of note paper and a can of talcum powder. ‘“‘T know all about finger-prints,” she re- marked, setting down the camera. “I read it all in a magazine.” Jack chuckled at her air of importance. Jack stood aside and watched her, but did not interfere. Shaking some powder from the can into the sheet of paper, with a quick puff of her breath Peggy blew it in a cloud against the finger-prints on one side of the window. Some of it stuck, defining in white the lines of what had been iridescence and allowing the rest of the powder to drift downward like a tiny snowstorm. How to set the camera for a little puzzled her; no ordinary tripod would hold it high enough. Three chairs, one under each leg, solved that problem, however. The expo- sures were made, several of them for each set of finger-prints. ‘““Never mind trying to develop these things,” said Jack. “I'll get a car out. We'll rush ’em right down to the Courier office, where they can be developed, en- larged and printed in jig time and all at once.” “But after that!” cried Peggy, in. dis- may. “ What’ll we do with them then? I never thought of that—and we can’t go around stopping people on the streets, and Gomichbooks (C@