Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 52: what you’re looking at

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558 or at least suspected who Creveling’s guest was that night.” ‘Then what are they shielding him for? Blackmail?” Dennis’s gray eyes snapped with interest. ‘‘ From what you've told me of them, Mac, ’twould hardly be loy- alty would keep them quiet; you’d think they each of them had a fish to fry, by the looks of it!” CHAPTER XII. * THE SHADOW ON THE STAIBS. cCARTY darted a quick glance at M his companion. ‘ True for you, Denny, and I’m wondering if may- be this fellow Hill isn’t trying deliberately to draw our fire-by refusing to tell where . he spent the night, meaning to collect pri- vately from somebody for creating the diversion. Rollins and Sarah are easy to handle, but that valet is away above his- job, and he’s been with Creveling since his bachelor days—probably knows more about him than any one else in the world. If we could only find the way to make him talk—” ‘““What about Mrs. Creveling?”’ inter- rupted Dennis suddenly. ‘ From what you say, she took the new’ as cool as a ' cucumber. Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about the workings of a woman’s mind, not being a damned fool, but it don’t seem natural like for her not to scream nor faint nor raise some sort of a ruction.” ‘““T don’t know.” McCarty held a match to his cigar and then flipped it into the gutter. ‘‘ She’s a determined woman and a strong one, and she’s got her own sus- picions all right, but she knows she can’t prove anything by herself; that’s why she called in the biggest man in his line she ever heard of—Terhune. She’ll waste no time keening the dead till she’s caught the one that killed him—that is, if there’s any grief ‘in her heart.” 2 ‘Tf there isn’t, why should she be so anxious to get revenge on the murderer?” asked Dennis. | ‘Well, if there’s one thing .- that’s Stronger than grief, it’s hate, Denny, and ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. I’m thinking Mrs. Creveling, for all her gentle ways, would be a good hater. We got more than a hint from her uncle’s tes- timony that there might have been a com- mercial angle to that marriage, and every one but him is willing to admit that Creveling was no saint, neither before nor after, though her friends don’t think she’s been on to his philandering.” ““ Her friends ’?” Dennis repeated. “Sure. I had a little talk with one of them just now at the Belterre Hotel, the husband of the lady she’s been staying with down on Long Island.” He described his interview with Douglas Waverley and the corroboration of his alibi over the telephone by Samuel Venner, and Dennis whistled. | “So that’s the kind of a bird Creveling’s been traveling with, is it? Fat and flashy and going to ‘con’ men’s parties on the side! That crowd can’t be the real thing in spite of their money, Mac, take it from me. What show was it you said the girls at the supper came from?” “The ‘ By-By Baby’ company.” Mc- Carty glanced again at his companion. “Why? Is it show-girl’s that’s interesting you how, at your time of life?” . The sarcasm passed unnoticed over Den- nis’s hard head. “It is not,” he responded equably. “And as to my time of life, I'll have you remember I’m younger than you by a year!” “Eleven months,” McCarty protested. “But what about the show?” “Nothing, only Terry Burns’s daughter is in it; Beatrice, the little one. He was telling me only the other day that there was no holding her back. She calls herself ‘ Trixie ’ now, and threw over Eddie Kirby, that’s well fixed in the ice business, for what she speaks about as a ‘career.’ Terry’s as fine a fellow as ever promoted a fight in Harlem, and Id hate to think of little Bea at a party like the one Venner gave.” — “IT. mind Terry and the _ family, though ’tis-years since I’ve seen any of them,” McCarty observed meditatively. “If ’twas a daughter of mine—” “Tis no daughter of either of us, thanks Original AON ie OOO SHaCO =) L_I\J