Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

154 her. She did not draw away. He stood ‘very close, looking into her eyes. They were rather baffling eyes at that moment. But her voice was soft and assured as she said: ‘‘ Some time, if you’d care to, I'd like you to take dinner with me.” “ To-night?” asked Pendleton quietly. A curious expression came into the girl’s eyes. They laughed at Pendleton, they rebuked him, they taunted him, they— yes, he was sure of it—they invited him. “Why not to-night?” he urged her. “We can take the car and go off into the country—cross the river, if you say so, and go out on Long Island.” “You want me to—very much?” asked the girl. For answer he caught her hands. She slipped away quickly and went to the door. ‘Will you?” he asked, following her. The girl opened the door, and nodded. “What time?” he whispered. The girl hardly made a sound, but her lips said, “ Five-thirty.” And she was gone. Brent was in the Inn parlor a little after five that afternoon. Peggy and he had dined together every evening. There was a step outside the door, and Brent looked up to see the girl entering. He was sur- prised to find that although they were to have taken dinner at the Inn she was dressed for motoring. ‘“ Just come in?” he asked, although he had been told when he arrived that Miss Spalding was in her room. “No; [’m just going out,” she said, settling on the arm of a spacious easy chair. ‘I’m to have dinner with Mr. Pen- dleton.”’ It seemed to Brent that ‘the earth gave a sudden lurch. He all but swayed from his feet, and it is doubtful just what he would have done had not the Inn clerk come to the door just then to tell Miss Spalding she was wanted on the telephone. | By the time the girl returned Brent had himself pretty well under control. She came in, lagsening her coat. ‘“ I’m not going out with Mr. Pendleton, after all,” she said; then asked: ‘“‘ Do you know what’s in the evening papers?” ‘““Haven’t read it yet,” said Brent as THE ARGOSY. calmly as could be expected, and picked up the folded copy he had tossed to the table when he came in. ‘He told me to look at to-night’s pa- per,” she said; then, glancing at Brent, cried: ‘‘ What is it?” “It” was a seven-column head across the top of the Press: MRS. SPALDING MURDER VICTIM The Press, an anti-administration paper, delivered in that night’s issue a broadside that it had been quietly preparing for three days. The death of Mrs. Spalding, colorful in the faithfulness of the dog, but forgotten in the next day’s news, had suddenly been electrified into a tremendous mystery and scandal. In the first place, the parrot that had been cared for by the next-door neighbors had, when sufficiently recovered and able to talk, shrieked: ‘Police! Robbers! Help!” The Press had affidavits of the Johnsons and the other neighbors to prove that this was so, and that the parrot had never been known to raise those cries before. Secondly: The local paper had discov- ered (and it may have been through Mrs. West, who was present when Brent recog- nized the girl) that the daughter who had arrived the day the death was discovered was none other than Peggy Archer, an actress then playing in New York. Thirdly: Simeon Sturgis, of Crescent Avenue and Maple Street, declared that the police had been derelict in not running down the clue afforded by his report of two evil-looking characters.’ who had loitered in the neighborhood. Fourthly: Mrs. Fanny West charged Prosecutor Pendleton (the opposition par- ty’s prosecutor) with having denied her the right to testify at the inquest. Fifthly: The Press had learned that Miss Spalding (Peggy Archer) had made > representations to Prosecutor Pendleton that money was missing from her mother’s home, and that she feared foul play. Sixthly: Miss Spalding (Peggy Archer) was known: to have spent Sunday night at the home of Dr. Philip Brent, temporarily county physician by the grace of the op- cComicloooks C©