Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

. replied, nodding his head. 94 ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. draw conclusions that I wouldn’t want to put in words.” The doctor changed the subject. ‘“ An- other beneficiary is the mozo, Pasqual. I wouldn’t put anything beyond him.” I said that I wouldn’t, either. But the mere fact that these domestics were bene- ficiaries of a will did not in my mind make a very strong case against them. - “How about this Negro, Pythagoras Awls?” I returned again to my main sus- pect. “You may well ask that,” the old doctor “Miss Shirley told me something about him which puts him very much in the limelight of our sus- picions: She said he came to see the judge several times before the latter’s death. “They had long talks. The judge, it seems, was interested in atavism, and the study of primitive savages. “This fellow Awls, quack though he is, seems to be possessed of some pretty inter- esting folklore from the Congo, handed down to him from his grandfather, and more remote ancestors. They talked at ereat length on life after death, and such subjects.” I could not see any very tangible proof that Pythagoras Awls was guilty of mur- der merely because he talked about life and death with Judge Scudder. What I wanted was to bridge the more immediate gap be- tween the old fakir and our present prob- lems. : “T suspect him,” I said. “ But I don’t have to go back to any conversations he had with the judge a month ago. Last night is sufficient. “ Why, just look here: Awls could have murdered that deputy. He could have thrown him over the banister up there, and then made his escape.” “T thought of that,’ the doctor said. “But then, I also thought of the fact that he was manacled and locked in his room.” ‘“Manacled, yes. But as far as the locks are concerned, there isn’t a lock in the whole house that couldn’t be opened by an ordinary pass-key. On the other hand, the deputy himself might have unlocked the room, and at the same moment the Negro ee oul ive ae pers ra eft ‘po ee im. Se ee oe : Y <a} ~—, ~ : pm ws - tie == ng. —T Ses as 3 SEES a Vn re x ee 3 ‘ ‘It was probably pitch dark. The dep- uty, you remember, had announced his intention of giving Awls the third degree some time during the night.” “Quite plausible. But who made away with the deputy’s body?” ‘“ The old faker himself?” “ Rather a stretch of the imagination. He’s a pretty small man, and an old one. I can’t exactly imagine him hurling the big . deputy over the stairs.” “The trick of tripping up a man and tipping him over a balustrade would take more agility than strength. A strong man might have tussled. We would have heard it. The deputy probably just went over the banister, caught unawares, tackled by his legs, in the pitch dark. A slight man could have done the trick as well as a big man. At any rate, he could have done it just as expeditiously as the little mozo or the octoroon woman. ‘There’s the point about making away with the body. Who do you think did that?” “The old Negro, of course,” I said readily. ‘Was there time enough before the first light went on?” I reflected carefully. I remembered that when we who were on the top story came out with our lamps, we could not see just what was going on downstairs. The Negro —if he had planned it all very carefully— might have run down the flight of back, stairs that lead to the kitchen, and then sneaked out in the moment of darkness tnat still remained, and have dragged the body away from the foot of the stair- well. “But look here,” the doctor said, “ wasn’t Cronk in the kitchen at that time making coffee? And didn’t he have a light? The back stairs go directly into that kitchen, and he would have seen the Negro running down. You remember Cronk did not come out until after the fall of the body to the floor.” This completely upset my whole theory. A body had been thrown, probably from the top gallery to the floor below, a it Sate been en = And whoever See — Big ——_ CEMICDOOKE, com lat shat me. eS hee ee . ae =