Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 42: what you’re looking at

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

384 His fists, turned to ice, were clenched but useless at his sides. His head whirled crazily; he could feel his whole body swaying ridiculously for second after sec- ond. Then blood began to flow again and Hemmett bounded at the open closet. She simply could not be gone! There had been a fight of some kind in here, probably with one of the servants, be- cause servants in Guanama are as prone to do the unexpected as so many dyna- mite bombs. And she must have fainted into that closet or—no, she wasn’t in the closet! Hemmett had dived down and both hands had covered the floor in three seconds; and again the crazy reeling at- tacked his brain. And as quickly the reeling left! This was no time for hysterics. If the mys- terious blight had fallen upon his own wife, it was the moment of all his existence ripest for quick action. Mr. Hemmett, conquering the wild glare of his eye, the tendency of his voice to rise in a shout, went back to the door of the bedroom and beckoned the maid. It was a gesture so odd that she obeyed instantly; and when the door had been closed behind her and the younger Ed- ward could not see, Hemmett gripped both the girl’s arms and clutched her so energetically that his fingers drove into the soft flesh. ‘Your mistress! Quick!” ‘‘ She—she is not here?” the girl cried wildly. “No, and you know it! What hap- pened in here?” her employer snarled. Where is’ she? “Talk! D’ye hear! Talk, or I'll wring your neck!” “But, senor!” the frightened girl pro- tested faintly. ‘I do not know! I have but waited for the senora! See! As you found me sitting, so have I been sitting since the senora closed this door—this I swear! At—at one time it seemed to me that I heard a fall, but I called and there was no answer. It was not for me, senor, to go and open a door which—”’ THE ARGOSY. ‘This fall—when did you hear it?” ‘Not five minutes back, sefior!”’ One of her arms Mr. Hemmett fiung away from him; the other he gripped the tighter and dragged the girl across toward the corridor door. ‘You come with me!” he panted. “I think you’re lying, but—you come with me!” Quite unaware of her gaspings and stumblings, he made for the back stairs and down them to the main floor. There was a little foyer here, with the kitchen and the storerooms at the sides, the cor- ridor to the body of the house just behind, and the back door just ahead; and while it had been Edward Hemmett’s intention to turn into the kitchem and summon every oily, smirking servant in the place, he halted at the open door. Part of the story at least lay out this way! On the concrete pavement was the companion to the broken comb up-stairs; on the pavement, too, lay a little torn strip of ermine fur. It was not, perhaps, the only bit of ermine in Guanama; but it was one of a very few; and as certainly as if he had seen it torn away, Hemmett knew that the white fragment had come from the wide collar of Carmen’s opera- cloak. His very breath seemed to stop. Sub- consciously, up to this very moment, he had been trying to assure himself that the confusion above was merely accident, that Carmen had stepped down-stairs on some perfectly conventional errand; now that last foolish little hope had departed, and Hemmett, pushing the girl from him, was out in the air and looking around wildly. There was nothing whatever to be seen —pavement was there and the garden beyond and the stone garage, open; but never a sign of Carmen. He wheeled about, causing the maid to scream faint- ly and crouch into a corner as he passed; he dashed at the door of the only model kitchen in Guanama and through it. Amid white tiles and copper pots only the fat, elderly Elenida was visible; and comicloool C©