Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

O12 —a number of small! pearls across the back of a pin—he ‘had seen one very like it at the throat of Mary Dover, and with a word to Sanford he left the room and went straight to Mary's door. She was in bed, undoubtedly, but until he saw her now, he could neither sleep nor rest: and the pin might pass for an excuse. At his second knock she called. He placed his lips close to the door. “Tiger.” He caught a muffled exclamation, there was a series of faint rustlings, and then the clicking of the lock. The door opened on her wrapped to the throat in a loose-sleeved dressing-gown of blue stuff, very pale, and over it there was worked a Chinese pattern in dull rose. Her hair had been caught in a loose knot at the base of her neck: there were white bedroom slippers on her feet. Ordinarily, he would not have no- ticed one of these things, but now he searched her with a bitter interest: what- ever flaw there was within, there was none without. It was a ghastly mockery. It was only a breathless part of a second that he stood there. “Tiger!” she gasped. ‘“ In with you!” And she drew him swiftly into the room, and then leaned at the door to peer up and down th» hall before she closed it. She was quite white when she turned on him at length. ‘Has any one seen you?” “Come in here? No.” ‘Not that. Has any one seen you come to the Tangle?”’ “They have.” She struck her fists together. “You fool! You fool!” she whispered. “Of course they’ve seen you, and d’you know what they’ll do now?” ““T might guess.” “ You'd guess wrong. They'll croak you, Tiger! D’you hear me? They’ll get you! Why didn’t you stay awav? What brought you back?” He held out the pin. “T found this. [t's yours, isn’t it?” Her eyes went slowly from the pin tu his face and lingered there suspiciously, but he made his expression a mask. Would she know when she had lost it? ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, “It must have slipped into my pocket. I don’t know how. I found it and brought it back.”’ She stood with her head bent, clasping and unclasping the pin, and without raising her face she said: ‘‘ You found it on the floor of your room. You came back for something else.”’ “T did.” | She turned silently and fitted the bolt of the door iinto its slot. Then: “ You’re in. No matter why. The thing is, to get you out safe. Sit down!” He obeyed; the could tell by the trembling of her hand as she sat down opposite him how terribly she was excited, but she kept her voice perfectly even. “First,” he said, “ you're sure that I don’t embarrass vou by being here? At this hour?”’ ‘““Iembarrass? Me?’ She laughed. “Listen, Tiger, no matter what they ¢hink about Mary Dover. they don’t talk about her in the Tangle, and.as long as they don’t talk 1 don’t care a rap for their thoughts. Here’s what comes first: Who saw you on the way. Things are dead in the streets to-night. Maybe you got by.” ‘An old woman saw me.” “That all?” ce Yes." “What was she like?’’ “Bent as a bow, wrapped up in a big shawl.’’ “Blinkie Liz! Is that all?” ‘She told me there were others waiting for me.” ( Ah?” Boynton and six more.” ‘And you didn’t turn around then? You didn’t turn around?” In ther anger her voice shook. ‘I suppose you think you’re too fast with a gat to be beat, eh?” ‘T haven't a gun with me.”’ She could only stare for a moment, and then her wrath burst over him: “ No gat! Tiger, d’you think you can jimmy a door with a paper-knife? Can you snuff a drum without soup? Well, it’s easier to do that than to buck the Tangle without a gun! Brains? A microscope couldn’t find ’em! A door-rapper is a paperhanger compared to you! What you meaphyaitetohkees cane