Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

HOW MANY CARDS? ' small circular inset of pinkish marble upon which it had rested. It moved slightly be- neath his fingers, and pulling out his pen- knife he pried up one edge. There, in a shallow recess beneath, lay a thin packet of letters held together by a rubber band. Two minutes later the vase was back in its accustomed place, and McCarty, with an expression upon his countenance not un- like that supposed to have been worn by- - the celebrated cat that ate the canary, was letting himself silently out the front door. CHAPTER XXXII. THE NAME IN THE BOOK. “TT’S a pity you could not have stopped | by for me on your way down to head- quarters, the day!” Dennis observed reproachfully as late that afternoon he stretched out his lanky form in McCarty’s comfortable delapidated armchair. ‘ Well you knew I was off duty until six this eve- ning, and then on solid for twenty-four hours! I'd have liked first rate to have seen Martin’s face when he found how the dressmaker had tricked him with the Hill woman inside that wedding gown instead of the dummy!”’ “IT only went down to report to the in- spector, not thinking Mrs. Hill would show up so soon,” McCarty explained. “ But what do you think of those letters I found where Hill had hid them under the vase?” _ He had recounted to his companion the tale of the morning’s adventures, and of all that he had learned about Cutter’s es- tablishment and those who frequented it, ending with his visit to the Creveling house and spread the letters out on the desk be- fore him. “I’m thinking,” Dennis observed, “ that our fine gentleman, Mr. Creveling, was a crook and a blackguard, and he must have been flirting with that bullet a good while before it finally got him; but all this don’t lead you any nearer to who fired it, Mac. You’ve enough to do finding him without chasing after those emeralds, too.” “T’ve given my word,” McCarty re- sponded soberly. ‘ Hill is the sly fox, but that galoot of a wife of his, for all she’s a 718 fine figure of a woman, is too stupid to be anything but honest, and if Creveling framed her it’s up to me to get her off. As for the shooting, I’ve my own ideas about that, and I’m not springing them on even you, yet, Denny. What do you make of the handwriting of those seven words that were added at the bottom of Crevel- ing’s letter and sent back to him?” “If I was Terhune, now, with his little magnifying glasses, I might be able to tell you the color of the guy’s hair that wrote it, and the maiden name of both his grand- mothers; but being as I’m not, it’s little I make of it at all!” Dennis regarded the double sheet of note-paper critically. ‘“ I’d never say, though, that he was the lad to send a bullet through the heart of anybody, for all the letters are kind of bold and dashing. See the way that one straggles and this bit ofa blot where the ink dropped off the end of the pen? The hand that held the pen was shaking, Mac, but the one that held the gun didn’t.” “True for you.” McCarty folded the letters thoughtfully and put them in his pocket. ‘“ But it may have been the same hand for all that. It could have shook from excitement or anger beforehand, yet been steady enough when the time came to act. But I’ve more to tell you, Denny: there are so many loose ends to this case that I made up my mind I’d give this day to pulling out of the tangle, and one of them led straight back here, under this very roof!” _ “Here?” Dennis glanced around him at the shabby, homelike room as though he expected something sinister to rear its head in the familiar surroundings. “To the musty old shop of, the little Frenchman down-stairs.” . McCarty went on: ‘“ Do you mind I told you that when I had the interview with Mrs. Kip on Fri- day I had a kind of an idea I couldn’t shake off that I’d seen her before, and not so long ago at that? I could not place her, and it’s been bothering me till this after- noon when I went to see her again. While I was waiting for her to come down I looked around the reception-room a bit, and what did I see but an old cabinet with long-legged birds carved on it and lettering nn) 6)(0)©) (C (C(O) S (C(O) nn