The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1912-1984, 1916-04-04

asked the girl.
I'm going to send you out to your
Aunt Agatha's on Long Island!" was
his curt response as he swung about
to his secretary. And while Mar
gery's getting her things together.
Manley, you send Train, the chauf-
feur, here to me for his instructions.
Manley, promptly crossing to the
door, was startled to find the figure OF
the new footman standing close beside
it as it was swung open.
Ten minutes later, when Manley re-
turned to the library with Train at his
heels, he found Enoch Golden staring
down at sheet of paper lying on his
desk. At the center ~of this paper
stood large black blot.
It's the Spotted Warning" said
Golden, his heavy face furrowed with
a trouble deeper than he was willing
to admit. But how, in Gods name,
did it get here?"
Manley, after staring at the strange
ly-spotted sheet, stared even more in
tently at the ceiling directly above the
point where the paper lay on the desk
top. A momentary look~of satisfac-
ton fitted across his face as Golden
turned to him with crisp command
to precede Margery to Cedarton and
there explain both the reasons for her
visit and the precautions to be exer-
cised during that visit.
"And as for you, Train continued
the grim-eyed old millionaire, turning
to his chauffeur, Il want you to take
my daughter out to Cedarton as quick
ly as your car and the speed laws will
let you carry her. There are special
reasons for this, remember. And from
the moment you leave this house, don't
let anything or anybody stop you
Thirty minutes later Margery Cold
en-, surrounded by her bags, sat back
in the swaying automobile, puzzled
over this new and unexpected turn
in the tide of events. And as mile by
mile swan by beneath the hurrying
wheels, the keen-eyed man in the driv
ing seat found load lifted from his
own shoulders.
Yet at the next turn in the road his
light-heartedness suddenly departed
from that keen-eyed driver. For as he
took this turn and speeded up along
dustless stretch of open highway,
he saw figure run out to the middle
of the road. 1t was not the fact that
this figure stood directly in his path
that most disturbed him. 1t was the
discovery, as he drew down on it,
that this figure wore yellow band of
cloth across the eyes, with moon
shaped apron falling almost to the end
of the nose, that brought the redoubt-
able Trains heart suddenly up in his
mouth. But even while that figure
remained stubbornly and directly in
his path, motioning for him to stop,
he remembered his ordscs. Instead of
slackening his speed, in fact, he in
creased it, increased it to the limit
of the engines power. And he would
surely have ridden down that would
be interceptor had not the latter, at
the last moment. leaped quickly aside.
Margery Golden, as he did so, half
rose in her seat, for she, too, had
caught sight of that mysteriously-
Swallowed face.
But that was the Laughing Mask"
she cried aloud, in wonder, as they
swept on.
A little later she was startled by q
quick cry of warning bursting from the
drivers throat. Staring ahead, she
saw that still another effort was being
made to intercept them. This time it
was man with red flag. Instead of
stopping, the car swept past the man
so close that it's fender-end slapped
against the flagstick itself as he re-
peated his lusty shout of command
But that command was more or less
lost on Train, a little dizzy now with
the sheer drunkenness of speed
"Stop? Knocked the driver as he
raced on. I'm going to stop for moth
ing this side of hell"
Yet that valiant boast was little
more than the articulation of mortal
pride so often preluding mortal disas-
ter. For, bearing down on them along
that lonely stretch of roadway they
could already see second car. The
point about this car that worried Train
was that it was not approaching them
as well-behaved car should approach
a comrade vehicle, but vermiculated
drunkenly from one side of the road to
the other. Even Margery, as she
leaned forward, puzzling over these
strange movements, realized that peril
was involved in passing q vihicle so
uncertain of it's course. At the same
time, too, she could hear from far be-
hind her the prolonged and warning
cry of an auto horn. wailing disturb
ingly through the quiet air of the late
afternoon.
The next moment the two cars had
met, head-on.
There was crash of metal and
glass, rending of honey-comb radia-
tors and coppered tenders.
What happened after that for all
time remained strangely like dream
to Margory. She remembered seeing
Train lying close beside his wrecked
car, with the blood trickling from his