Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

CIRCUMSTANCES. persuaded you to help her keep her se- cret.” “What does it mean?” asked the girl, staring at the paper she had drawn from the envelope. “It means,” said Prosecutor Pendleton in a tone of satisfaction, “ that the law will make you tell what you know about your fnother’s death.” Brent snatched the subpena out of the girl’s hands. After a quick glance at it he again faced the prosecutor. “I notice,” he said steadily, “that you have subpe- naed ‘ Miss Elsie Spalding.’” Pendleton was about to make an offhand reply, but Brent added: “ Miss Elsie Spalding is d » The’ prosecuto» loolted from. Brent to the girl still holding the envelope, then back again to the doctor. “I made out the burial certificate,” Brent assured him. “It’s on file at the city hall if you care to look at it.” Then pressing the paper in the prosecu- tor’s hand, Brent observed: “I think the dead are beyond the law.” Pendleton laughed. “ True enough,” he agreed, then, turning to the girl, suggested: “If you'll look in the envelope you'll find a subpena for Miss Peggy Archer.” CHAPTER XIIL THE CASE FOR THE STATE. STICE is more swift than sure when Ji: agents are driven to justify them- selves. ‘ Shufflin’ Joe”? Madden was speedily brought to trial. Prosecutor Thornton had prepared a strong case for the State. Before the grand jury, and in shaping his case for the trial, he did not attempt to question Peggy Archer beyond the circumstance of the space behind the loose brick having-been a hiding-place for money. Publicly it was explained that Miss Ar- cher’s reticence in the first place had been due to the desire of a daughter to keep the memory of her mother without the shocking anticlimax of a murder trial. Either Pendleton believed this to be so, ‘sty Google | a 443 or he was less interested in establishing the facts in Mrs. Emily Spalding’s death than in proving Madden had caused it. The days that followed Peggy Archer’s fragmentary but startling admission were terrible ones for Brent. So far, he had solved only one of the mysteries that sur- rounded the woman he loved. He believed now that Mrs. Spalding had deliberately identified the daughter-in-law as.the daugh- ter to establish the complete disowning of the girl who had gone on the stage. No doubt the brief mention of it in the paper, describing the deceased as a daughter, had been regarded by the neighbors as just an- other of the mistakes the newspapers were always making. What Brent forgot: was his own nervous haste because of the uncanny way the par- rot called the dead girl’s name, and, pos- sibly, the tendency toward error or mis- Statement in a person passing through the experience Mrs. Spalding was undergoing at the time she supplied the information for the death certificate. But for the single circumstance ex- plained, there were others more bewilder- ingly complicated. And there was the promise that he, Philip Brent, had made to be silent when even the little that he knew might easily have meant the difference be- tween life and death to Madden. Brent had been in love with Peggy Ar- cher when she had been to him but a pres- ence in another world, the make-believe land of the play. Probably, in ordinary circumstances, he would never have offered to lift that veil of illusion. Perhaps, had the opportunity come, he would not have dared risk discovery that this woman of his dreams was after all only a real woman with very real vanities and weaknesses. Then, by magic, she had been trans- lated into his own life, wonderful beyond even his dreams. And Brent knew that he loved her and would go on loving her in spite of everything. Brent recalled that line from Lovelace: I could not love thee, dear, so much loved I not honor more. He had always liked it. But now— What was honor without her love? Honor mar * ~~. “Orttin: a SS (clOOO CO