Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

© You found him changed, then?” j “ Greatly. He was alone in an armchair in the sitting room. He kept the shades _ down, saying that the light hurt his eyes. He looked positively ghastly—like an old man, in fact. He seemed to have aged twenty years in the few that had passed since we met. Hie said little, but held my hand, as if he did not want me to go. After that he grew nervous and hysterical, and IT felt that it was wise to leave him. The next thing I heard was this dreadful story about the Albany boat.”’ * Did you ever hear where he went when he left the city unexpectedly?” ~ Never definitely, but it was my belief that he went to the Argentine. In nfy short visit we had no opportunity of talking about his trip.”’ Peabody Smith was very thoughtful after he left Miss Fordson. He stopped at the office of one of the steamship companies, and also made some inquiries at the rail- road offices. When Tim Burke, his assist- ant, met him that evening the old man was engaged in going over a mass of time-tables. “What’s the matter, boss?” he asked. “Getting ready for a vacation?” *“T don’t know whether you’d call it a vacation,” responded Peabody, grimly: “but I start for Buenos Aires to-morrow.” The veteran did not go away for rest and relaxation, and yet he managed to combine pleasure with business. When he reached the lively capital of the Argentine he was in the right mood to pursue his investiga- tions. His fame had preceded him, and he found the police officials eager to assist him in his quest. It was several days be- fore he was able to trace the movements of Vernon Colfax, and in the meantime he made it his business to haunt the streets of community, admiring the skyscrapers the up-to-date methods of the most inn- t city in South America. less than a week he had located some who knew Colfax when he was living nos Aires, and a day later he found n who had been one of the » castaway. It was in the ter part of the city that he acquaintance of af wee 3 as ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. a he was interested in Sefor Colfax ere was nothiny that sh ling to tell him. 7 — a They sat on the balcony of a white- washed brick house. The lattice work around it was covered with creeping flow- ers, and off in the distance they looked down upon a beautiful rose garden. The girl talked of love in a low, tender voice that made the detective experience twinges of conscience as well as of sentiment. “To know Sefior Colfax,” said the girl softly, “was to love him. There was no .thought of marriage between us, and yet I would have married him at any time if he had asked me. He drank, alas, more than was good for him. But always he was the gentleman. He was so romantic, too. One night nothing would do but that he should have a heart tattooed upon his right arn. That, he said, was to always be a reminder of me.” Filled with these reminiscences, Peabody called on the local police the next morning and was given a most astonishing bit of in- formation. They, too, had traced the American, and they found that he had been drowned two years before. The sad-faced detective scratched his sparse hair and tried to puzzle out the mystery. How could Vernon Colfax be drowned from a Hudson River steamboat six weeks ago if he had died in Buenos Aires two years earlier? “Are you sure about the date?” “As sure as we can be about a matter that will never be entirely cleared,” was the reply. Tt seems that on or about the date men- tioned the steamship Bolivar had taken a party of excursionists on a trip along La Plata River. That stream is subject to sudden and violent gusts of wind. On this occasion a storm broke with unexampled fury and a score of the passengers were lost. Vernon Colfax had been on the Boli- var, and it was generally believed that he was among the missing. Some of the bodies were recovered, 2nd that of the American was identified by a brother who was said to have come from New York. But there were no official records of this, and Senor Smith would have to rely on word of mouth for his proof.