Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

170 too much publicity is a bad thing for gentlemen in our line of activity, and would be just as well pleased simply to destroy the formula after making a few for my own use, but | will give you your choice as to whether I rule the International Company, or destroy It. For your information I will tell you that for the last six months, my little band has been diligently at work plant- ing charges of TNT in the basements of every one of the plants of the Inter- national concern. ‘These mines are all connected -with a single firing device that I can set off by simply pressing a button at any time that my spies report a suspicious move on your part. If you don’t believe it, call my bluff.” Coddington made an effort to stare the other down, but it was a feeble at- tempt. He visibly wilted before Red- fern’s steady glare. Sweat poured out on his face. Finally he shrugged help- lessly. All right. he surrendered. “'That’s better,” Redfern told him heartily. ‘‘ Now that we are little pals again I'll tell you of a suspicion of mine that may surprise you. I don’t believe that Edison Ward is dead.” Coddington started violently and turned even paler than before. “ Not dead!” he exclaimed. “ Why, how can that be? Nearly everybody in the world heard it. To be sure, there was a lot of secrecy about the reports, but I suppose that was policy in at- tempting to baffle the criminals. In fact, I have not yet been able to make any headway in securing a coroner’s in- quest to establish legally the death of Mr. Ward.” “There you are. Well, now, to talk open and aboveboard, I think in some mysterious way, in spite of all precau- tions, Ward got word beforehand that something was going to happen. My man, Ivan, who was scouting around the grounds just before the bombing, came scuttling back, and said that a lot You seem to have me,” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. of plainclothes cops had been stationed about the grounds. So we were obliged to postpone a little raid upon the house that I had planned for the time of the bombing. “I perched him on the roof up here to keep watch in case our place was suspected and they tried to raid us. A little later I found his body badly brok- en up out in the yard after the gang had gone. Just before he died he de- clared he had seen Edison Ward’s ghost. Now, I don’t attempt to explain it, but I don’t believe in ghosts. It may be that it was the hallucination of a dying man, but I am more inclined to believe that it was a fact. “Now, the beauty of it is, if I am right, and by some trick Edison Ward escaped that bomb and is just playing dead in order to pry into our affairs, we may be able to turn the tables on him without doing any more bombing. Ivan’s body was found over by the boulevard, but suppose we find that Ward is alive and can’t prove that he was in that room where the bomb went off, I might cook up a sweet little mur- der charge against him.” Coddington was recovering from his first discomfiture and at these words of Redfern he showed a revival of inter- est. “That’s a good idea,” he agreed. “That’s much better than this rough stuff, like bombing. Let’s have no more of that.” “ Well, we'll put that on file among the other little things we have up our sleeve,” the arch plotter continued. “ Now, what I’d like to get at is, wheth- er there is a traitor in our camp, or whether some bright-eyed little spy is prying into our affairs. What do you know about that Lord girl, who is Ward’s secretary? The way she looked at me that time I called at your office has been on my nerves ever since.”’ Coddington considered an instant. “Tt wouldn’t surprise me if she knew more than she ought to,” he agreed. “As a matter of fact, .I've COPNICLOOOKS (F@