Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

DESE- 30 DUST. heritance from the jealous old lady if it had become known. “He tried to break away after a while, but the girl couldn’t understand and kept running after him until he was mortally afraid it would come to the old lady's ears. He kept in touch with Zorn and told him all his difficulties. One night the girl bor- rowed her sweetheart’s car and waylaid Hamersley as he was leaving his benefac- tress’s house after a big dinner party. ‘“ Minnie was heartbroken and hysterical and in fear that she would make a scene which some of the other departing guests might witness he got in and drove for a little way out into the country with her. ‘“ Zorn professes not to know how it actu- ally happened, but it is inconceivable that Hamersley deliberately wrecked the car. Anyway, it was found next morning demol- ished in a ditch on the outskirts of the city, with the girl dead beside it. There were houses near, although not near enough for their occupants to have heard the crash, and most of them had telephones. An am- bulance could have reached the spot from a city hospital in plenty of time to save her life, as the autopsy proved, but the girl died without aid, alone.” ‘“ How—terrible!” Claudia shuddered. ‘“What a fiend—a cowardly, despicable wretch he was! I cannot believe it, and vet—-I once saw an expression on his face— [ suppose that even a life could not stand in the way of his ambition!” ‘“ That was it, Claudia,” Stephen agreed gently. ‘‘ Now for Zorn’s part in it, and you must believe as much or as little of his account as you please. It was midnight or a little after in late summer, and too hot to sleep. He was tossing about half- clad on his bed in the shabby little hotel room when Hamersley slipped in, white and shaking and covered with dust and blood. ‘He told Zorn of the meeting and the drive out into the country, of telling Min- nie that he was through and wouldn't see her again and the scene that ensued. He admitted he was driving and going faster and faster in his anger and disgust with the whole affair and suddenly the girl, beside herself, seized the wheel, sending the car into the ditch. He said he was thrown 917 clear and stunned, but not hurt except for - the gash in his shoulder, but when he re- gained consciousness the girl was dead. ‘‘ Zorn swears he believed him then, but there was no mark on Hamersley’s head as though he had been stunned, and the autopsy revealed that the girl had lived for at least an hour after the accident, too weak to call for help. ““He said that when he saw there was nothing to be done for Minnie he began to think of the old woman and the fortune that night’s work would cost him if it were known, and so he had come to Zorn for an alibi, sneaking into the hotel past the sleep- ing porter. He took off the rags of his dinner clothes, and Zorn bathed and ban- daged his shoulder, getting him into pyja- mas. Then they rang for the porter to bring ice water, complaining that they’d been ringing for an hour, that Zorn had had a nose bleed, and pointing to the soiled tow- els for verification. They made a few other remarks to convince the man that they’d been in the room together since early eve- ning, immediately after Hamersley had left the old lady’s dinner party, in the event that any one might have seen him with the girl. ‘No one had, though. Zorn lent him a suit in the morning and the following night buried the torn, blood-stained dinner clothes in one of the parks while Hamersley was in Chicago, where he had gone to duplicate them in a hurry. The car was traced, of course, the girl’s fiancé was arrested and served a term in the penitentiary. When he came out he disappeared, and Zorn swears he kept silence through friendship for Hamersley. That was the risk he ran. The young man couldn’t prove where he had spent the evening, you see, and the cir- cumstantial evidence was damning. ‘‘ The old lady died subsequently without changing her will to leave anything to Ham- ersley, but he’d—er—borrowed enough from her by that time to lay the founda- tions of his fortune. His success on the market in Chicago was phenomenal. Zorn says he lost track of him after he left St. Louis, which may or may not be true. He himself had fallen on hard times and he recognized a picture of Hamersley published COMmiclooe S (©