Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 136: what you’re looking at

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

918 in a New York paper that he picked up in Milwaukee a few days before—before the wedding. ‘The change of name puzzled him, but he was certain of his identity and came to get his old friend to help him, as he puts it. He had enough money to make a pre- sentable appearance in the church and man- aged to get an usher to admit him without a card. Hamersley thought he was dead, it seems, and although Zorn swears he was not responsible for such a rumor reaching him, T fancy it was all part of a well-laid scheme. “He declares that about three months ago he ran into the young man who had disappeared. He’d been digging up evi- dence against Hamersley and was deter- mined to get him if the law didn’t, but he was looking for ‘ Jim Raikes,’ you see. He doesn’t know now that they were one and the same, nor that the man who let his sweetheart die is dead himself, but Zorn asserts that he is here in the East now, and he can produce him at a few hours’ notice. Whether that is a bluff or not, he evidently held it over Hamersley’s head, and now he wants twenty-five thousand dol- lars, Claudia, before nine to-morrow morn- ing or he’ll come down and give himself up as a material witness for the State. Mr. Rowe and his associate say his story—” Stephen paused suggestively and Dreyer exclaimed: “Tt would send you up, Mrs. Hamersley, without the jury leaving the box!” “It isn’t as though you were guilty, Claudia!’? Matthew Rowe supplemented. ‘You are innocent and we cannot afford to let the prosecution get hold of this evi- dence to further injure your case.” “To do so might bring about a miscar- riage of justice, Claudia,” Stephen said in a choked voice. ‘ That scoundrel will never carry out his threat! If you won’t consent to the payment of this money I swear that when I meet him in the morning to keep my appointment I’ll silence him forever!” “Stephen! No! Never that!” Claudia cried. ‘There has been enough hideous tragedy connected with this case and there shall be no blood on your hands because of me! Give him the money, Uncle Matt! You can arrange for such a sum in time?” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “IT have had it ready, waiting!” Rowe returned grimly. ‘“ Stephen will send me a message when he has concluded the busi- ness, and I'll see that it reaches us in court. Now try to rest, my dear; your ordeal has just begun, but thank God, our way is clear before us at last!” No sleep came to Claudia that night, however. Her own agony over the district attorney’s scathing attack upon her was for- gotten in that pitiful, needless tragedy of the past, and until the dawn the specter of the injured girl, dying helpless and alone be- cause of Niles Hamersley’s cowardice, was ever before her eyes. What a vile creature had been this man whom she had married! Beneath his suave, smiling exterior what depths of de- pravity and calculating cruelty had lain concealed! Duping a senile old woman and cajoling her into lending him huge sums of money to further his own interests, breaking a girl’s heart to amuse himself, standing by while the man who had really loved her went to prison for his own crim- inal, craven fault! After disillusionment cured her of her blind infatuation she had shuddered with horror at the thought of his love, but had he really cared for her? Was such a black heart as his capable of real affection? The idea was too awful to contemplate now that she knew his true character. But he was dead! It was over! Still her unhappy mind returned to that last scene between them. How grimly he had warned her of the Bluebeard’s Chamber into which she must net pry, and then hur- riedly assured her that there had never been another woman than herself in his life! Could he have uttered those words without the vision rising before him then, as she saw it now, of the broken body gasping out its last in the ditch beside the wrecked car? In the world without there had been no rain for many days. With the coming of morning a wind rose, gaining steadily in volume until it was blowing a gale by the time court opened. Claudia heard it moan- ing and swirling in violent gusts as she crossed the Bridge of Sighs to the renewal of her ordeal and the ominous promise of com- ing storm accorded with the dull forebod- COMmiclooe (©