Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL. 555 Where was Radwick going? He must be - assured that he was free from espionage now. Who could be waiting in some up- State town for news of Richard Monckton and the long chase overseas? George hurried through the car and peered cautiously into the next one, Radwick was seated three rows within on the aisle, and his follower heaved a sigh of relief as he turned to his own coach and took an aisle seat in the fourth row, bless- ing the warmth of the night which caused the two end doors to have been left open so that he had an unobstructed view of the back of Radwick’s head. He kept his eyes upon it steadily as the train halted at one close-lying station after another, but it did not once turn around. ‘Evidently, Radwick was indeed certain of his freedom, for he produced a newspaper and buried himself in its folds. George was beginning to think they were in for a prolonged run when the train halted once - more and the quarry sprang up and made ‘for the door. George had paid the conductor for an Albany ticket to be prepared for an inter- “mediate stop. As he dropped from the mov- ing train and hurried after Radwick he ‘glanced up at the sign above the station entrance. His heart gave a sudden leap. Pocantico Hills! Radwick was going to the country place of the murdered man, the father of the young broker whom he had trailed over Europe! With a thousand questions thronging his brain George walked softly and watched his step, for the village lay wrapped in slumber and the slightest footfall echoed alarmingly in the silence. Up the street, around the base of a steep little hill, and off along a broad thorough- fare that merged into a winding highway, past cluttered cottages and open fields to the lines of hedges and fences marking the boundaries of opulent estates, he trailed noiselessly after the figure ahead. Radwick walked rapidly, with the assurance of one familiar with the way. They came at length to a high stone wall, thatched with a luxuriant vine, and con- tinued along beside it for a quarter of a mile or more past huge grilled gates inhos- pitably closed, to a gap in the masonry par- tially protected by stout wiring. Here Radwick halted, skirmished about for a brief period, and at length wriggled through and disappeared. Without a moment’s hesitation George followed, and was creeping after him in the direction of his vanishing footfalls on gravel when a third figure stepped suddenly from behind a tall bush and the starlight glinted on the blue barrel of a most busi- nesslike looking pistol. “Hands up!” a voice ordered in a low but peremptory tone. “I want you!” George chuckled to himself as he obeyed. The stick-up artist was Phil! CHAPTER XV. THE TRUTH ABOUT RADWICK. N Saturday morning when Phil awakened in the little commercial hotel in Pocantico Hills he whistled softly as he dressed. You couldn’t beat these French girls! They had style, even ‘in a slinky cape, and a way with them that no American could begin to have. And that Lucie was pretty and spirited, too! The Lord only knew how she had stood this dead-alive place all through last sum- mer, with nothing but a movie and an ice cream parlor to offer diversion. Still, a eirl like that would get attention paid her in a desert, and there must be a lot of nifty chauffeurs and butlers, foreign ones, . too, employed at the big estates in the neighbor- “hood. Phil’s impressionable fancy had been caught by that momentary streak of light from his electric torch, and he concluded that after all it wouldn’t do to return to the office of the Shadowers with an incom- plete report. Cliff had told him to get in with the servants and find out all he could about the old guy and his friends, and had ‘himself suggested his making the acquaint- ance of some pretty maid on the staff. He was only obeying instructions to the letter. Pleasantly thrilled by his own virtue, Phil descended to the dining room and had ‘partially demolished a generous order of bacon and eggs, when the traveling man CORNIC OOO KS. COM SN Aree