Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

44 definite, foglike vagueness. Val silenced his conscience by giving the description of a young girl as she should have appeared to the usual, disinterested observer in a public book store who had no business to notice her, anyway, and who—if he did notice her, did so in a casual manner that took in noth- ing of her looks or her appearance and con- tented itself by noticing merely that she was a person of the opposite sex and that she was young—or of an indeterminate age, as Val testified. Indeterminate was correct, he admitted to himself. He was undeter- mined as to whether her age was twenty- one or twenty-two—wasn’t that indeter- minate? ‘T’'ll tell the astigmatic universe that’s in- determinate,” he told himself, and having once more won a Strategic victory over the still voice of conscience, he smiled biandly at the police and hoped he would be able to assist them still further. He intended, let it be said, to bring the murderer of his friend to earth, to hand him over to justice, but he did not intend to do it until matters were so arranged that it could be done without bringing a certain woman into the case. Unhampered by the police, he was sure he would be able to work swiftly and surely, considering the strands of circumstance he held in his hands —but he would not be unhampered by the police if they knew. It was simplest and best to conceal what he knew from them. Val spoke to Sam Peters in the hall after the inquiry was concluded. —Mat’s out-of- town sister was there, too, and Sam iiitres- diced him to her. Val spoke briefly to her, and an arrangement was made whereby Sam was to continue the business until the settlement of the estate, thereafter to buy the business at the price set at an ap- praisal by an expert, On the street Eddie Hughes waited for him with the limousine, impassively, deaf to his surroundings seemingly, yet seeing everything that might affect him or his mas- ter in any way. The afternoon had drawn to a close with the ending of the inquiry and the streets were rapidly filling with homeward-bound workers. ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Morley,” said a voice at his elbow, ingratiatingly close. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, Val whirled. He disliked that voice even before he saw the speaker, even before he recognized him. Tt was the heavy, sinister appearing, handless man of unpleasant memory. He lounged, as Val had seen him before, his hands in his pockets, bulking huge over everybody in the neighborhood but Val, who was rather something of a human tower himself. He must have weighed much more than two hundred pounds, yet he was not stocky—he was built in proportion to his height, and he carried his weight with the litheness of a mountain cat, swinging easily on his toes. On the left side of his face, extending across his forehead and to the roots of his hair was an ugly scar, slightly red, looking a little like a jagged streak of lightning. He was dressed well. His voice, if unpleas- ant, was soft and well bred. The pupils of his eyes were little more than pin points, and the small lines around the corners of his mouth indicated a hard, determined, un- scrupulous disposition, a will that would stop at nothing, that would consider no means too terrible for a desired end. All this Val noticed in an instant, before replying as he halted, one foot on the step of his car. A dangerous man, he thought. Yet how could a man with no hands be dangerous physically? Val did not know, but he felt that it was possible. He was not squeamish, yet there was a physical re- pulsion vaguely produced in him by this man—the same sort of electric repulsion that cats produced in Val—a feeling of potential Ttachery Val decided that his age Was somewhere between forty and forty-five or six, yet he had the bearing of a younger man, the pow- erful shoulders and sleeping strength of an athlete in condition—or a jaguar, lazy with sleep, in the daytime. That was it—the cat family. Val definitely placed him now; the suggestion of the cat was in him, with all the cruel latent strength and all the treachery of the cat. “tT beg your pardon,” he said coldly, a note of inquiry in his modulated voice. “TI haven’t the honor—” ‘““{ know you haven’t, my young friend,” broke in the older man, a little patronizing- Ccommicooolkks (S@