Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

110 Near the mark, that! Too near to be anything but accidental. “Yes,” he said. “I think I know who the fellow is. You’ve met him, Amy.” “Have I? Where? When?” -Tremlett could not control a sneer. “'You’ve got a short memory, my dear.” Loraine shrugged her shoulders. “I’m afraid I have, when it comes to faces. Did I meet him that day you took me over the mills?” “‘Long before that,” her husband said. “ However, it doesn’t matter.” “But he’s angry with you, and certainly the man is not in his right mind. You ought to protect yourself.. Did you dis- charge him for something?”’ “For stealing,” Peter said, testing her again. Surely that would jog her memory. . It did to a certain extent. She remem- bered what Amy had told her about Dick, the man who was supposed to have been her first husband. She had never been able to refer to him with any appearance of sin- cerity. Somehow it didn’t seem quite fair to Amy, to whom he had been everything in the world, and who had lost him. “Perhaps he was unjustly accused,” Loraine said. ‘ Just as—as Dick was.” She was not altogether sure of her ground here, having only Amy’s word for it that Dick Marshall had been innocent. Nat- urally. Amy would believe that he was. Tremlett did not answer. He was con- vinced now that his wife had not recognized Dick. The next morning he began to wonder if he himself had been fooled by his guilty conscience into fancying a resemblance to a man who must be dead. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. He who had stepped out of the shadows of the garden for a few seconds to utter that curse was bearded and might well be _ middle-aged. Loraine brought up the subject again at breakfast, retailing the dramatic incident to Dorcas, while Peter screened his face with the newspaper. Presently he rose and went into his study, locking the door behind him, but scarcely had he picked. up the telephone when he put it back again. He could not ring up Quentin Prison from Witcham and ask the question he must have answered. The ears of Exchange had figured in a local lawsuit on an occasion quite recently. Across country it was but fifty miles to Quentin. Tremlett ordered his car, and told the chauffeur to drive him to the pris- on. Quite reasonably the big mill-owner and mayor of Witcham might have business with the governor of Quentin, although so far there had never been any personal in- tercourse between them. ‘Tremlett was thankful to remember that the local papers had kindly refrained from referring to the fact when noticing his marriage that his bride was the widow of a man who had but recently died in prison. It was nearly dinner-time before he got back to Witcham. The question was an- swered. Richard Marshall, falsely reported as dead during that period of unspeakable chaos and terror, had been released from Quentin yesterday morning. There was no doubt now in Tremlett’s mind as to the identity of the man who had appeared so mysteriously to call down a curse upon him and Amy. (To be continued NEXT WEEK.) U U Watch for the start of another new serial by one of your favorites MAX BRAND He has again taken the West for his stamping ground, and you will find spirited action a-plenty in “Gun Gentlemen,” which will begin in one of next month’s issues. comicloool C©