Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

430 Why was she leaving James? There had always been that inconvenient jealous streak in her, but she had never hinted at anything like this before. And also why— well, all right, then! Perhaps it was so! And if it was, James Cranning decided, as he stood erect, trembling, he’d kill Fred Budlong! Just one second after he had been convinced that- it was all fact, James would take the trail after Mr. Budlong, and he’d never leave it until that large person was stretched before him, dead! Just why? James crumpled into his chair again. What would he gain by wallowing around in Budlong’s gore—what would any of them gain? People quite frequently make mistakes in their matings. Perhaps Budlong and Dorothy had done that—per- haps that ancient and: apparently fleeting attachment of theirs had been real love? Perhaps—and here James’s throat grew tight and his vision misty—Dorothy really didn’t give a hang for her husband. So v ould it be quite the gentlemanly and con- siderate thing for him to slaughter one for whom she appeared to give a number of hangs? As had happened so many times before in so many similar cases, James Cranning really did desire Dorothy’s hap- piness above all other things Bowed over his desk, James sighed with surpassing grimness. Happiness— well, sometimes one bought happiness. Maybe that had something to do with the disaster, too. Quite deliberately he had steered his dark meditations away from the money angle, but now that phase rose again and loomed mockingly before him. Up to date, Mr. Cranning had been dis- tinctly the struggling young business man. Not that he and Dorothy had lacked food, or clothes, or a roof to cover them, to be sure: but on the other hand, they certainly maintained no box at the opera, and Dor- othy had never been seen driving about the park on sunny afternoons with her footman and chauffeur up ahead. A little later, he had believed implicitly, he would have passed from the struggling class and into the comfortable class, and considerably later perhaps even into the opulent class. But that wasn’t now—and > ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ladies have a great way of giving too much value to the living present. Fred Budlong—the bulky ass!—had never known the meaning of struggle. Money in moderation had been a matter of course to him all his life; right now he - had a substantial patrimony and a pros- perous business. So perhaps it was the things that he could buy her, after all, which appealed to Dorothy? Perhaps she Was just the same as so many other women, and—no, she wasn’t! She was above all that! Young Mr. Cranning, suddenly whining, suddenly shaking his fists at the unrespon- sive ceiling, even whimpered aloud that Dorothy was above all that—although, ap- parently, she wasn’t above writing letters to the great clod and calling herself his first love and advising him that it was high He time they did—something or other. didn’t know what, and he didn’t want to know what. But his Dot wasn’t above that! : Another interval, and James Cranning sat up, hard-mouthed and with no mistiness of vision. At least, he wasn’t absolutely certain that the awfulness was real; when that final blow should come was altogether in the hands of Fate. But he was utterly certain of one thing: Fred Budlong would get his damned car to- night! As to the exact manner in which the car was to be secured— Out in the corridor a porter paused in passing James’s door, listened to the great burst of strange laugh- ter,.and shook his head in sorrow and amazement. He knew Mr. Cranning’s voice and his laugh quite well, but up to this moment he had never suspected that Mr. Cranning was a drinking man. No more remarkable laugh than this one had ever left the throat of James. It dwindled presently to a rumble, but still he sat and stared at the safe, and shook with his ghastly merriment. For the means was at hand! To-morrow or. next day, since he seemed likely now to have little use for a house and a home, he would go about raising another two thousand dol- lars on his Sunnyvale property, and. so would repair the slight indiscretion he was EOPMNICLOOKS {Eo