Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 139: what you’re looking at

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

~ LIBERATION, King instructed you to. After you heard Lorrin’s remark to Norcross you stole that _ check and gave it to King.” ““ J—I— it’s a lie!” Hill cried harshly as he rose. ‘‘ I never—lI didn’t come here for this.” . “Then go,” Mary shrugged. “ You knew all about that forgery from the beginning; that’s why you first procured those signa- tures from the office. Lorrin was chosen to be the victim and that incident of the neg- lected checkbook and Lorrin’s remark upon it played straight into your hands. You took those signatures and that check; is there anything to show that any one but you was concerned in the forgery?” “God, that’s what I was afraid of,” the miserable young man groaned. ‘ That’s what King’s planning to put over on me. You’ve got me right, but that’s all I did have to do with it. Wesley King wrote the check in old J. W’s. hand, signed his name and then told me how he was going to cash it so that there wouldn’t be any question raised in the cashier’s mind. I’d never seen that sort of stuff pulled and I thought it was wonderful.” “How did he plan to cash the check?” Mary asked. ‘Why, he never forged Lorrin’s name on the back of it as endorsement’ until he got right to the bank, to the cashier’s window. Then he pretended to have forgotten and wrote the name right there before the fel- low’s eyes with his fountain pen. That’s why he practiced Lorrin’s name so much— to be able to copy it quick, offhand. Luck was with him, though, for that cashier died a month later; he was scared stiff till then, but he came to me and said: ‘ Dickie, my boy, we’re safe. Nothing on earth can point to us now.’ Right after that, though, he began to get arrogant, as if I wasn’t his kind and he’d only been using me. Little I cared!” ‘“ But—you never once thought of Mr. Lorrin’s side of the case.” Mary could not keep back the reproach and Hill winced. “Oh, I did, but not till the time of the trial drew near and then I was worried sick for fear I’d be called as a witness for having shown J. W. where that check was missing that day—I never could have faced 773 Lorrin, him a prisoner and me— But I wasn’t called, though, and ever since he went up I’ve had spells thinking about him and wishing I hadn’t done it, even after 1 got married and began to live quiet and— and happy. I never thought of any one getting on to the truth.” He dropped into a chair once more, let- ting his hat fall to bury his face in his hands with his elbows on his knees, and after a moment Mary queried: “How much did you get of the five thousand?” “Only five hundred. King promised me a thousand, but he reneged and there wasn’t anything I could do. When I read Tues- day morning that Lorrin had escaped, I didn’t dare go near King, not until last night, after Mrs. Lorrin had been to my house. Then I went to him and he said the game was up and we’d both have to leave the country; that he’d take a train West to-night and sail for the Orient, and he’d get me a berth on a liner for South America sailing late this afternoon. “He made me promise not to try to reach my wife to-day, but there was some- thing in his manner I didn’t like—didn’t trust. Anyway, I couldn’t have gone with- out saying good-by to her so I sneaked home, and she—she told me about you, and I saw he was going to frame me.” ‘““ Why was he known as ‘ Coyle?’ ” Mary pursued. “Tt was only that once, when I intro- duced him to my wife; she said she’d told you about it. After he left J. W’s. office IT didn’t see much of him; he was coming up in the world and somehow I never felt the same with him after that check busi- ness. When I told him I was going to be married he warned me never to mention him to my wife under his own name, so when I did talk of him I called him ‘ Coyle.’ ““My wife made me give up running away to-day and got me to come up here to you even though I couldn’t tell her every- thing. I have told you, though; how can you keep King from framing me? EI took those signatures and the blank check and gave them to him, and even if it is only his word against mine he could prove a guy guilty of anything, he’s so slick. The little Gomichooks-com