Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

166 pleted his breakfast hastily, as soon as he had dismissed the police officer with a warning to keep the affair secret. Then he went directly to his own suite, and locking himself in, gave a hasty glance at the wrecked room in which he, had met his supposed death. But before getting down to a close examination of the wreckage, he turned on his radio to get the latest news report on the mysterious hap- pening. He listened about a half hour, but learned practically nothing beyond what the newspaper account had given him. He was relieved to hear no in- ference that there was any doubt about his death. Several other unrelated items were interpolated in the course of the news report. ‘To one of these Edison Ward listened with peculiar interest, and shuddered at its conclusion. “The dead body of a man was found early this morning in the shrubbery be- side the Eastern Boulevard, near Gil- son Avenue,” the report ran. “ The man’s neck was broken and there were severe bruises about the body. It is believed that he had been hit by a motor while walking in the highway. He had evidently been dead for several hours; the accident apparently happen- ing during the darkness of the night. The body has not yet been identified. The man was of medium height, slen- der, of light complexion, and wore a police uniform. It seems probable that he was masquerading for some purpose or other, as his badge was a bogus one, and at police headquarters he is not rec- ognized as any member of the force.” Edison Ward sat in thoughtful si- lence for some minutes after this report was concluded, and then turned to the business of a careful inspection of the interior of his wrecked room. The mass of débris told a tale as puzzling as that in the newspapers. The explosion had evidently taken place near the microphone, but if any human being had entered that room and thrown a bomb, he would have ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. been killed himself by the explosion. The expression of Ward’s face as he worked indicated that he was as puz- zled over what he found as the police had been. Piece by piece he went over the frag- ments of débris. The bits of furniture were quickly recognized and set aside. There were also the sections of a radio receiving set he had installed there and which had been completely blown to pieces. In addition were the remnants of a quantity of spare radio parts, which he had kept in the shattered cabinet. The one certainly alien element were the fragments of a cast iron shell which he pieced together into a sphere of the size and nature of the bomb he had caught in his hands in front of his of- fice building, a shell, he would judge, made in the same mold as the other, and probably by the same evil genius. When Ward had completed his in- vestigation he failed_to show any in- dication in his countenance that he had learned anything that shed any light on the puzzle that was troubling him. He turned to the house phone and got Haskins. ‘ Haskins,” he directed, “ will you call up my office and ask for Miss Marian Lord. Do not, under any cir- cumstances, admit to her that I am alive, you understand. I wish to reveal that fact to her myself. Simply tell her that something has come up in connec- tion with my private correspondence, and that she is wanted out here at my home at once ‘Tell her you can ex- plain nothing further over the phone, but insist on her coming. When she arrives show her in the reception room and let me know.” Ward spent the interval awaiting Marian’s arrival pacing nervously back and forth in his sitting room. He told himself that he was confiding in Marian Lord because she was the only one in whom he felt perfect confidence. Such is the infatuation of a lover, that it never occurred to him to ask EOPMIC OO KS (E@)