Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 13, 1923 — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

612 ‘You'll stay here in your room?” ‘* You can depend on me.” Macleod joined Alan and Bicknell out- side. As he approached them an employee of the Great North, Sandy Wolf, came up. “You find that fur?” he asked. *“ What do you know about it?” Macleod demanded. “Look in the closet in Mears’s room and in his chest.” “What do you mean?” “ My sister, Witte, the housekeeper, she make his bed this morning. She hang up the clothes in the closet. She smell fur. In the closet she see a silver gray fox.” ° ‘Come on, you two,” Macleod com- manded as he turned back to the dwelling house. He knocked at Mears’s door and entered. His face was black as he strode across the room and into the closet. Ina moment he appeared with the skin of a sil- ver gray fox in his hands. He threw open the lid of a chest that stood against the wall and from beneath some clothing he dragged out a dark- skinned fisher. As he stood up he saw Helen, who had followed the others into the room. “Vou can’t go on with this!” she cried fiercely. ‘‘ You know it is not true.” She saw the fur in the district manager’s hands, took a faltering step forward and then collapsed. Alan caught her in his arms and laid her on her father’s bed. “Go, all of you,” Mears said. “Tl take care of her. Go away and leave us.” The three went out into the hall. Alan ran to the kitchen for some water, which he set inside the room, and then joined Mac- leod and Bicknell. Macleod seemed to be stunned by what he had discovered. “Think of it!’ he exclaimed hoarsely. “A Great North man all his life and then this! I thought I could understand the killing. He was beside himself with anger. But to steal! To steal fur from the com- pany! I can’t believe it.” For Alan the matter was closed so far as his participation in it was concerned. He had never feared the charges against him, but now that the worst had been proved against Mears he wished he could shoulder ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. the responsibility. Across the hall, broken and crushed, was the person in the world’ he cared most about, and yet he was power- less to help her. He had placed little credence in Bick- nell’s story. He had believed from the first that Allardyce had taken advantage of his quarrel with Mears and had stolen the fur and fired the building to cover the theft. When the clerk’s remains were found he had been sickened by what he knew the result would. be for Helen. ‘““T’ll be at home if you want me for any- thing,’’ he told Macleod as he started away. There was. no business to occupy Alan’s. attention at his own post. No hunters had come in and his employees, after the hard work of fighting fire, were resting in their. homes:. Physically he also was tired out, and he had been under @ severe nervous. strain for two days and nights, but he had no desire to: sleep. He sat. down in the living room. It was the first time he had been alone and had the. Point. by point he took up the facts produced. opportunity to go over the evidence. against Mears. Until the finding of the skull he had believed the old man innocent and he saw now that he had not wished to believe him otherwise. He recalled that un- consciously he had suppressed evidence in his story to: Macleod, that he had not men- tioned the fact that the trading shop had been. locked: on the outside or that the fire had started in. the office at the rear, where the skull had afterwards been found. : He admitted, too, the reason for his silence. as he thought: of. how he had last seen her,. crushed and broken by what her father had done. Suddenly he heard a knock at the door and arose. to admit the girl herself. White-faced, lacking completely the fire and the pride with which she had always met him, Helen walked into the room with- out speaking. She did not even look up. As Alan closed the door she turned to face: him, but her eyes were still directed down- ward.. “ve come,” she said in a low voice. Aljan, dumfounded, remained silent. “ Don’t make it harder for me!” she cried CORICLOO© He. had wished to spare Helen.. He wished to spare her now. He shuddered S (E@)