Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. The old house hidden away in its clump of trees loomed gloomy and foreboding in the early spring dusk as again he turned in at the gate and proceeded up the drive. The burly Cerberus of the morning was still on guard at the entrance door and greeted him with a grinning nod. ‘‘ Back again?” he asked. ‘‘ Got some fresh dope on that burglar of yours?”’ “You boys will find out when you try to indict my client!” Cliff laughed, returning the other’s manner. “Is the Miller woman here yet?” “Upstairs, somewhere. That old guy who: came with her, Monckton’s valet, had a kind of a fit and they took him to the hospital; she says nothing’s missing from the house as far as she can see. Uppish old dame, but.she must have been some looker as a girl!” Leaving the plainclothes man to his grudging admiration, Cliff mounted the front stairs, but went softly along the hall and descended the rear ones without meet- ing anyone. Here sounds of wordy strife reached him from the tradesmen’s door, where a police official was evidently har- anguing a ubiquitous reporter. Cliff made his way hastily through the storerooms and pantries to the one among the latter where a pane of glass in the upper sash had been removed. There were smudges of dirt, as Phil had reported, still lying on the floor and soiling the sill, but the most sanguine seeker for clews could not have declared positively that they were footprints. They had been scuffed about by the numerous police and detectives and the ground outside was torn and trampled. It looked unpromising for any neglected clew, but Cliff raised the sash and. climbed cautiously out, dropping to the soft turf a few feet below. The springing grass of the newly-grown lawn would have held no traces of a single prowler underlying the print of many feet, but a gravel path wound near, coming from the direction of the stable and garage, and branching off toward the hedge interlacing the bars of the iron fence. Glancing quickly about him Cliff started for the boundary. It was along this path that the thief must 549 have come, probably from the rear, back of the garage. Cliff had noticed that open lots, strewn with bowlders and rank under- growth stretched beyond, and the intruder must have planned his method of approach with the least likelihood of being seen par- amount in his mind. But his exit was not as he must have intended; in a desperate panic, because of the thing he was leaving behind, he would have made for the nearest wall, the most direct way to the subway station, four blocks north. | The previous night had been moonless but clear, and the starlight would have been bright enough te disclose that: path;, surely fear-winged feet would have found and. fol- lowed. it instinctively. Distant lights were springing up now at evenly-spaced intervals beyond the hedge and fence. The street lamps were lighted, but day had not yet gone. Cliff kept as much in the shelter of trees and: tall clumps of bushes as he could to avoid the search- ing eyes of the patrol on the lookout for reporters and morbid sightseers. Within a few yards of the fence the path turned abruptly to double back around a flower bed toward the front of the house. Cliff left it and made straight for the hedge. It was well clipped, but very old, and the brown spaces in the tender green showed where it was dying out as Cliff, bending Jow, moved along beside it, then turned and retraced his steps. Somewhere along here, he was morally certain, the murderer must have crashed through the hedge and scaled the fence, the sharp iron spikes of which were raised several feet above. But the dusk was deep- ening rapidly and there were any number of gaps in the hedge through which the fel- low might have wormed his way. After all, how could he hope in the gathering darkness to come upon anything that eyes far better trained than his to dis- cover a clew would not have found in broad day? Cliff felt discouragement descending again upon him, and straightened to turn once more toward the house when as he raised his eyes they fell upon something that held him transfixed. It was just a limp, dark object caught on one of the spikes of the fence and flutter- CORMIC KOOKS sO “ “stot S