Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

76 after she had fitted her key and opened the door—James turned to cold stone for a few seconds. Some few seconds more and the stone was shaking with new fury. For, trying as he might toe deceive himself, he knew. He knew that he—James Whit- more—who had started this day as a fairly happy young accountant, was to end it in a cell, with the stain of human blood upon his hands! They had never reached any railroad sta- tion; nothing of that sort ever had been in Dixon’s plans. Dixon assumed the young woman to be living at home with a family of aunts, it was equally possible that they had never reached the flat, either. thought and somewhat staggering; it caused James’s breath to come in noisier, more diffi- cult wheezes. James’s hands clenched hard together and he cursed aloud the driver who could make no more than thirty miles an hour through city traffic; and almost im- mediately the curses died upon his lips and a new cold chill ran through him. For they were stopping now, before his coor, An instant James hesitated; a small, in- sane smile came to his poker countenance. Before this one bedeviled day of his life, how many, many times he had hurried up to this same door, all contentment and happiness and anticipation, with gay little Betty waiting upstairs to greet him with a strangling hug and a rain of kisses! And, once to-day, he had raced to it vibrating with horror, very fully expecting to find the same little Betty self-slain; and now— now— “You wait here!” James said hoarsely, to his driver, “Ill probably need you again.’” For there might be a chance to escape— aiterward. If they were there, there might be a chance to snatch up Betty and what little money was in the house and make their way to a railroad station somewhere and then out of it, before the tragedy was dis- covered. If so, James meant to take the chance. He passed through the empty foyer and up the stairs. At the door he paused again and gripped himself; when these in- credible things have to be done, one does For that matter, since This was a new . ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, them with a certain dignity and dispatch and without hysteria. And the key turned and—there was only blackness in the apartment. “Betty!” called James’s wonderfully quiet voice, There was no answer. They had never reached this point; his latest horrible thought had been the correct one after all. He hesitated; it would be about as well to waste no time looking through the dese- crated home; and yet—weil, he’d make sure they had not been here, if possible. James closed the door behind him, pushed in the wall switch and marched into the lighted living room. It was very still—more ominously still than it had been that afternoon when, James recalled with a bitter pang, he had considered it far too still. He had been quite fretful then about Betty’s absence; what would he not have given at this mo- ment to—to—oh, just to collide sharply with something and wake up with a scream and find that it had all been a nightmare! But every dear, familiar object remained quite substantial and undreamlike, and young Mr. Whitmore, muttering brokenly in the midst of his ruined home, passed to its bedroom. He’d take one perfunctory glance in there and then start the hunt that would end in the electric chair! He ——he stopped. Very evidently, they sad reached this point and moved on else- where! The closet stood wide open. There was a small, rumpled spot on the bed, as if some one had sat down hurriedly. And over there, tossed aside with a lack of tidiness that was far from characteristic of the nor- mal Betty, two small patent leather shoes lay on the floor, and in the closet there was another little gap, lately occupied by Bet- ty’s heavier tan pair. James Whitmore, swaying against the casing, peered at the upper shelf, where should have reposed shat expensive little black grip he had given Betty on her last birthday. It did not re- pose there now! In a situation such as this one is really unlikely to change shoes or pack bags at the compulsion of brute force; seek to deny it as he might, stare doggedly as he might CoOmmicooo KS (©)