Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 4, 1922 — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

~ DOUBLES AND QUITS, charge, if I may say so. I daresay you're excited and a little upset. We all are, in fact.” The disappointed guardians took up their tall hats and conferred with one another in whispers. They were not in the least satisfied with the way things had turned out, but with Mrs. Tremlett looking like a fury, and Elspeth hysterical—as it seemed to them she must be—their questioning of «Agnew would have to wait. ‘IT am not in the least upset,” Elspeth replied with cold passion. She moved her ‘shoulder to dislodge the young minister’s - hand. He needn't try to calm her down. She was sure of her ground and would stick to it, even if it came to the point of dis- cussing a birth-mark which would be on Mrs. Tremlett’s back were she really the Amy referred to in Mr. Dundas’s will. ‘“T think you're a fool,’ Loraine said coarsely. She turned to Peter and laughed, saving something in an undertone. Will Agnew was speeding the guardians. “ Yes, gentlemen, I will see you in my office to-morrow at ten o'clock. Extraordinary, I grant you, but I fear there is no mistake. A great pity, since poor Mrs. Dundas really wanted the charities to benefit.” The solicitor was thoroughly enjoying himself, The greater the scandal, the more advertisement for him. He had not as yet made up his mind whether he would go to the length of blackening Anna Dundas’s memory. Whichever course he took de- pended upon the Tremletts. Hf they were furious at her having kept Mrs. Tremlett out of her rightful dues all these years, then there was no reason why Witcham shouldn’t know of Anna Dundas’s dishonesty. Mr. Powell, the minister, lingered dis- tressfully. He was voung and rather poor, and the few hundred pounds his late bene- factress had put him down for would have made all the difference in the world to his personal happiness—he could have married on the strength of it—but he was not con- cerned with his own loss at this moment. Indeed, he scarcely thought of it. He had the highest respect for Elspeth McQueen; he knew her good qualities so well that it distressed him to feel she had got this strange and altogether mad notion into her 469 head. At the very beginning she was alie- nating the Tremletts, who might otherwise have considered it a pleasure as well ‘as a duty to befriend her. “ It’s easy to call a body a fool,” Elspeth retorted to lLoraine’s sneering remark. “Any fool can do that. But it’s not that you'll be calling me when I challenge you. in a court of law to show the jury the mole on your back which you haven’t got, and which anybody could see you haven’t got when wearing what you might be calling an ‘evening dress,’ though, God knows no de- cent woman would do the same. Not my Miss Amy, her whose name you've vilified and dishonored by your goings-on from the first day you set foot in Witcham.” Loraine was white to the lips with anger and her voice shook as she faced ‘the in- trepid Elspeth. ‘“ How dare you speak to me like that!” “ Because you're a fraud and an impos- ‘tor,” Elspeth said coldly. | “My good Elspeth—” Mr. Powell pro- tested. Will Agnew took a quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket and chewed it reflec- tively. He saw the anger in Loraine’s face, and he saw something else besides. Was it fear? “Peter, we will go,” Loraine said. She tried to speak contemptuously, but that Strange quiver of alarm ran through her voice and told something to the astute solici- tor. Will Agnew believed in frauds and impostors, He made his living by them. ‘“ Just one moment,” he said, switching the toothpick te the other side of his mouth. “Let me get this straight before we part. What do you propose to do, Miss Mc- Queen ?”’ Do? Poor Elspeth thought she had done all that was sufficient. ‘There should be a mole on her back, just below the left shoulder-blade, and there isn’t,” she said. Mr. Powell turned a little red, coughed modestly, and strolled to the window; but the solicitor was a practical man-of-the- world. ‘‘ Have you—er—any such mark?” he asked Mrs. Tremlett. ‘ Certainly not,” she snapped. COmiclbooks.Conm