Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 138: what you’re looking at

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

V12 evidence would crop up, and right until he was convicted and his appeal denied I didn’t dare breathe. King was cool all the way through, nothing fazed him.” Mary choked with contempt for the craven young scoundrel before her who had no thought for the innocent man condemned to a living death and undying disgrace, but the very frankness of his confession showed that he was unconscious of its enormity and she held her resentment carefully in leash. ‘* Tell me about those notes and receipts. But first, how long had you and Wesley King been friendly? Did you ever open a bank account for him or with him?” | Dick Hill stared. “Me? I never had a bank account in my life except a tin one and then I used to slide the coins out with a knife-blade! King always seemed to me like a super- cilious kind of a duck till one day about eight or nine months before that Lorrin check came up. Lorrin was all right, used to come into the office with his reports and seemed like a good fellow enough; I never had anything against him and I wouldn't have framed him, ever—it was King. ‘One day we met going down in the ele- vator at noon and King asked me out to lunch. He was a swell and I was tickled to death, and after that he began to take an interest in me—not around the office, you understand, but outside, taking me to burlesque shows and suppers and never let- ting me foot the bills. Great guy to talk to, too; knew a lot about reading character from handwriting and other stuff that I’d thought was all bunk before.” ‘“* Character from handwriting?’ ” Mary repeated sharply. “Sure. That’s the way the whole thing came about, Miss Greenough. [I fell for that stuff hard and when he asked me to get specimens of handwriting of everybody connected with the office, I did it, like a simp. He was a shark at it, I'll say that for him; read Lamprey and old Norcross and the rest like a book. Lorrin was the only one he couldn’t seem to get, and that’s why he wanted so many of his signatures on the reports.” He was talking rapidly, eagerly but with a certain monotony as though he had com- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. mitted his story to memory, and Mary saw that he was lying but she merely nodded and said: “Go on.” ** Well, it was like this.” There was a trace of confusion in Hill’s tone now as though something in her gravely judicial manner disconcerted him, and he twirled his hat between nervous fingers. ‘‘ About seven months before Lorrin was pinched I got in a little trouble over a debt I owed and King advanced the money to get me out of it. ’Course, that cinched him with me and I thought he was the whitest guy I’d ever met. Later, came the showdown about the forged check.’ He paused, swallowing hard, and Mary remembered a phase of her conversation with Mr. Wharton on the previous day. “Mr. Hill!” She sat forward in her chair and fixed his furtively moving eyes with her own steady, clear ones. “I told you I couldn’t help you unless you told me every- thing. Something else occurred in that office about six months before Mr. Lorrin’s arrest. What was it?” ““¢ Something else?’”’ he echoed, his hands suddenly tightening on his hat brim. * I don’t know—” “T think you can remember,” Mary urged. ‘‘ You must have heard Mr. Whar- ton telling me about it yesterday when you were watching me through the glass panel of his office. It was something about a checkbook he’d left open on his desk.” Dick Hill’s lips had become stiffened and dry and now he moistened them and nodded jerkily. “Oh, yes! He’d left a checkbook there when Lorrin was alone in the office. I heard Lorrin say something about it to old Norcross when he left and they both laughed, but I didn’t catch what it was. I don’t know anything more—” “Mr. Hill, you’re wasting my time and yours,’ Mary interrupted him with sudden decision. ‘“* You do know that a check from that book issued by an obscure bank in which Mr. Wharton kept a minor account was the one used in that forgery later. You know it was missing that day, for it was you who drew Mr. Wharton’s attention to the blank stub, and you did it because Wesley Eomichooks (S@)