Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

THE STRANGER AT THE GATE, her hands. She found herself standing be- fore the unmistakable long outlines of John Hodge. “ Ah!” cried Olivetta. dared—”’ ‘““Dared what?” he asked her. But she had already paused.. Of what, definitely, could she accuse him? “How have you “How did you know that I was here?” she asked. “T thought I saw this door open as I came in from the garden. Good gad, what’s it all about? What the deuce is happening in this house?” “And you haven’t the slightest idea?”’ said Olivetta, straining her eyes at him through the darkness. “What are we waiting for?” asked John Hodge. ‘‘ Why don’t we rouse the house and—” ‘“‘ Because there’s no one in the house to rouse,” said Olivetta, “except some girls and a few old men who’d die of fright if they saw danger.” “This isn’t a practical joke, then?” She was amazed by her own calm, her easy self-assurance. She felt, in the dark- ness, how completely she dominated him. It was not that she no longer suspected him. But suspecting him as she did, she no longer feared him. ‘‘ Will you go to the telephone and ring the police?” “Certainly. You think that raising the house—” “Would simply confuse everything and every one.”’ “What a gamester you are!” breathed John Hodge. And he hurried down the hall and stepped into the little telephone booth. He came out again almost at once. She had switched on a light, in the meantime, and now she saw that he was fully dressed. His step on the floor was made utterly noiseless by some sort of rubber soles and heels. And she noted swiftly that his shoul- ders were indeed broad and lean, and there was a suggestion of an ample power in his long body. He very easily could have swung her up and carried her. The proba- bility that he had done so was made greater because he had known that she was in the 7105 closet. At least a full ten minutes had elapsed since she was put in it and how could he have seen the closing of the door upon her? “The telephone wires are cut,” he an- nounced, with no excitement showing in his voice. He stood anxiously before her. “Do you know more than you are let- ting me understand?” he asked. “ Is there some secret reason why all this makes so little difference to you?” “What makes you think it makes little difference to me?” “You’re cool as steel.” ‘““Tt would do no good to raise the house about it. There’s no one here who could help.” | All the time that she talked she was won- dering to herself if he had told the truth about the wires being cut. But it seemed that to discover him in such a lie would be too simple a matter. No, he would not have risked that. ‘There you are!” he was saying. “ How many girls would have paused to think that out? Mighty few!” There was such a ring of honest enthusi- asm in his voice that again she felt half convinced that she should believe him. ‘“‘But there’s some sort of a shadow on me in your eyes,” he was saying. ‘ Will you tell me what’s wrong? What is it you blame me for—or is it just that wretched blunder I made in the garden this evening? I admit that was bad enough, but surely—” “I only wonder,” she said frankly, skip- ping his reference, “I only wonder how it is that you could have known that I was thrown into this closet without coming sooner—”’ ‘But I didn’t know. Mind you, I was looking in from the moonlight in front of the house, into this dark hall. And it seemed to me that I saw a door fly open and something passed through the door. But on my honor it was only a half guess, looking down among the shadows as I was then. I came in a minute later and went up to my room. | “Tt was not until after I was there that I began to see that things were a little sus- picious—it was not until I sat in my room