Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 12, 1927 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

THE MARK OF ‘¢ Are you still interested in that non- sense?” I replied. ‘“T am, very much interested.” “Very well, then. All we have to do is to take them‘to the druggists at Seven Bay- ous. He'll develop them.” 3 “Tl send Maizie with the film,” ‘she said. Maizie left. And shortly afterward Dr. Zobel turned up. The gaunt old gentleman showed the ef- fects of a sleepless night—and likewise of some hard drinking. We reported everything that had hap- pened. ‘“ You see,” I concluded, “ our only two suspects are dead. The mozo has joined Pythagoras in the next world, taking. their secret, whatever it was, with them.” The doctor was not as much taken aback as I expected. He showed no surprise what- ever. “T wonder who will be next?” was all he said. “Tt might stand us in better stead to wonder who the murderer is,” I remarked. ‘“ Maizie is the only one left to meet 2 he said. The octoroon was the only one left as far as the doctor could see. But in my mind there was one other: The doctor himself. Furthermore, in a wild stretch of the imagination which, needless to say was be- yond my power, you could include Shirley Scudder as a third. Maizie, the doctor, Shirley; there were the three which by a process of very definite elimination were left. Shirley, and I myself in my less rational moments, added a fourth: the judge. THE MOCCASIN. 113 ‘““Where is Maizie now,” the doctor asked. We told him that she had gone ‘to town with the film. The doctor was enraged. She would get away. We had made a fatal mistake. The chances were a hundred to one that we would never see her again. But he was wrong. Maizie returned early that afternoon bringing with her another proof—one that might almost be called con- ‘clusive—that Judge Scudder was the per- ‘petrator of all the horrors we had seen. “The druggist said it was a very queer film,” the octoroon announced. She was visibly excited, and I saw, in the next mo- ment, that she had very good cause to be. She handed us a print of the film. It gave an indistinct reproduction of the judge’s bedchamber—the old carved four- poster bed with its bairés draped from the ° high posts in the manner of a canopy. It showed the Spanish chest, the corner of one of the reed mats, the door to the closet. All these details however were very dark. On the floor was a huddled heap of clothes in which you could barely distinguish the white kinky head of Pythagoras Awls. His black hands were partly opened, clutch- ing the air like a bird’s claws. His silk top- hat was near by, evidently having toppled . from his head, and rolled to the floor. Over this pile of clothes there was ‘an elongated splotch of black, a sort of hov- ering form, topped by the white face ‘of ‘Judge Scudder. The judge’s eyes were closed; he looked exactly as he had looked the last time T had seen him in his tomb. It was eee face of a dead man. TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK U U U Next week’s Complete Novelette will be a vividly realistic tale of the open— By FLORIA HOWE BRUESS Do not ot, ‘to read a shee story of the fearless a Ee oe Pe a re Sew ee = = eae = = wt) A)’ t vs | are i » a ' ae ae i~ as = COmichook com