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Show k3 Hidden Was - By FREDERIC F. VAN DE WATEA KXZ ZXXll CHAPTER IX Continued 11 "If," I went on, "you'll let me keep my amateur standing, I'll be very glad to escort your niece. Otherwise, as I told you, I'm busy." " 'Pride goeth before destruction,' destruc-tion,' ' Miss Agatha informed me. "Why don't you finish it?" I asked. " 'And a haughty spirit -before a fall.' " She stared at me for a long moment. mo-ment. Then she nodded. "Yes," she told me, "I suppose you're right. Will you be here at eight, David?" "With pleasure," I said and, gathering gath-ering up my copy, went back to the workroom. If Lyon had not opened the door of his apartment as I left Miss Agatha's, Aga-tha's, I should have forgotten him entirely. "Hello," said he. "I'd just about given you up and was on my way out for a paper. Come in." His flat was bright with lights but it had a feeling of emptiness. He explained as he took my hat and ' coat that lone and Everett had gone for a walk. "He's a lazy dog," Lyon said easily; eas-ily; "takes no exercise, whatever, and of course when there's a strain, it simply pulls him all apart. Here we are." . He had led me into the living room and pointed to the trophy above the mantelpiece. I admired it overcoat and hat, thrust myself into my jacket. I kept my eyes on him. His expression was so perfectly astonished as-tonished that it quickened a doubt. This made me sr.gry at myself and I snapped: "You can stop registering purity of heart. Look at your epee." He stared at the weapon on the floor before him, glanced at me in something like fright and, bending, picked it up. He reached out his left hand and tried the broken point with his thumb. "My God!" he said at last "Exactly," I answered. Color quickened his tanned face. He looked from me to the weapon and back again. "It's it's why " he babbled and then burst out: "Good Lord, Mal-lory, Mal-lory, I might have killed you." I admired his acting if acting it were and was ashamed of myself for even questioning its fraudulence. I said: "That was my impression, too." "You thought," he groped, "you thought that I would I never looked. The button must have snapped it must be about. Ah!" He bent down on his side of the table and rose with the little blob of waxed thread in his hand. It wabbled wab-bled on his trembling palm. "It snapped off," he said in a hushed voice. "It must have when I tried the steel." The memory of the weapon, flung ceilingward by its own resilience, my guard and followed with a lunge ' that I barely turned. He caught my riposte. For an instant we faced each other. A strange calm held me. I had fathomed his purpose and now I understood how he would perform it. He was a trained fencer, stronger strong-er if no quicker than I. He held his weapon delicately in the French fashion. He could have run me through before now, if he had wiped away his instinctive regard for my utterly harmless sword. But he could not or would not The zest of contest con-test had him. Eventually he would kill me, foully if necessary, but first he would match his skill against mine, seeking a fair opening through which to drive his point Steel's sibilance broke now and then in the high thin chime of blade upon resonant shell guard, an innocent, inno-cent, mocking sound. I fought carefully, care-fully, knowing that my first mistake mis-take would be my last and, in the fascination of contest, he tolerated me. Defense would not serve me. He could at any minute catch my harmless harm-less blade in his free hand and drive his own point home. My sole, fragile frag-ile chance lay in a trick. It could be attempted only once. It must be tried before the already aching muscles mus-cles of my sword arm grew weary. The blades engaged and parted with clicks and brief sharp sigh-ings. sigh-ings. The shell guards rang brightly. bright-ly. We moved against each other, and with an effort kept from looking behind the couch where the black-bearded black-bearded body had lain. Lyon ran through his collection with the engaging pride of a child, taking down sabers, claymores, rapiers, ra-piers, thrusting them upon me to swing and balance while he chatted chat-ted of their history and where and how he acquired them. It was pleasant pleas-ant to see a middle-aged man so openly gleeful. "Here," he said at last, his leathery leath-ery face glowing, "are my best beloveds," be-loveds," and opened a long rosewood rose-wood box. From chamois casing, he drew one forth, an epee de combat, and handed it to me tenderly. It was a beautiful weapon, a little longer than the French dueling sword a full yard I judged from the etched steel shell of the guard to the button of waxed thread that blunted the point, yet sweetly balanced and easy to my hand. '.'Like it?" Lyon asked artlessly. "Very much," I told him. "It would be a joy to use." He looked wistfully about the room. "I don't suppose," he mused, "that shook my belief. Lyon rocked it further now by asking in mixed indignation in-dignation and reproach: "Why didn't you tell me, man? Am I not in enough trouble without that?" He swore proficiently. I asked: "Are you deaf, by any chance? Or maybe it's just a bad memory. I did tell you. Perhaps I should have stopped to write." Lyon looked at me a long minute. min-ute. His question was simple and dazing as a punch in the jaw. "Didn't you know that I was deaf?" I pulled myself together and jeered: "Congratulations on a fast recovery." recov-ery." He shook his head. "My boy, I can read lips, but I'm quite deaf." The smile vanished from his lean face and dim horror succeeded it. "I heard you call," he said. His voice shook a little. "I couldn't tell what you were saying. Your face was masked. I thought " He broke off savagely and shrugged. "What in hell," he stormed, "do you care what I think? Or for my apology? Or for the fact that I'll never touch sword again? You thought, you had every right to think But why, Mallory, in heaven's name, should I want to kill you?" I didn't know whether he were honest or not. I knew that I could serve myself best by letting him think I believed him so. "That question," I told him, "also occurred to me." He drew himself together with a shudder. "Well," he said and gave a crooked crook-ed smile, "you've given me something some-thing else to think about, anyway. If the police had found a second body I wish there were something I could do or say or offer as apology for " "Let it go at that," I broke in. I picked up my hat and coat and left. "Whatever is on your mind will have to be unloaded while I shave." cat-footed, sharp-witted, tight-bodied. And I felt myself tiring. I forced all myself into desperate assault. My purpose needed the deftness deft-ness of long practice, which I lacked. Strength it demanded too, and I doubted if I had enough, but it was my only chance. The apparent wildness of my attack at-tack pleased Lyon. He must have seen in it the flurry before the end, and so he contented himself merely with parrying my weapon, waiting wait-ing until my vain fury should flag. I thought I heard him chuckle as he turned aside my thrust. And then, for a flash, his blade was where I wanted it. I threw my life into the trick d'Armhaillac had taught me. My sword whipped about his in clumsy imitation of the Frenchman's French-man's deadly cutover. I heard him gasp. I saw the epee half torn from his hand. He was quick in recovering, but I was swifter. I leaped forward to pass him and, in the leap, brought my own weapon down like a whip across the knuckles of his sword hand. He grunted. Behind me, I heard the ringing clatter of the dropped epee. I reached the table and tore off the mask with my left hand. My right gripped the ornate hilt of a sixteenth-century Italian rapier. With the long blade ready, I whirled. Lyon had made no effort to retrieve re-trieve his fallen sword. He had taken tak-en off his mask and was sucking with a slight frown the hand I had struck. His calm was more shocking shock-ing than fury. It saved his life for, at the instant, I should have run him through right gladly. Lyon looked up from his injury with a rueful smile and his words made me feel that I had reached in darkness dark-ness for a step that was not there. "Effective," he said quietly, "though perhaps not quite orthodox." ortho-dox." He seemed for the first time to see the long sword in my hand and lifted his eyebrows. He was still breathing fast but was quite unruffled. unruf-fled. I wondered, for a wild instant, in-stant, which one of us was mad. His dignity, the normal furnishings of the room, mocked my recent terror. ter-ror. Yet I kept the rapier ready. "Entirely unorthodox," I agreed, striving to match his self-possrssion, "but necessary. And now that we've enlightened each other, I'll be going." go-ing." His bewilderment, as I backed toward the door, gathering up my outer clothing, made me feel silly. "I don't understand," said Lyon slowly. "Neither," I told him, "do I." With the tabie between him and me and the door behind me, I let go of the rapier and laying aside we could. I sayl Lets shove tne sofa aside and try. Oh come," he urged as I hesitated. "Here are masks" he lifted them from the waU "and we shan't need gloves. Indulge an old man whose fencing days are over, Mallory. Just for a minute or so. It will be all I can stand, I assure you." He had stripped off his jacket as he talked. His enthusiasm and the pleading of the sword in my hand impelled me to follow him. We thrust the sofa against the wall, put on our masks, and faced each other. "En garde," he cried in an odd voice. His blade darted for my throat. Instinct alone prompted my parry. He caught my thrust on his guard and the shell uttered a high clear note. His riposte grazed my arm. The fury of his attack startled me. I shifted so that light fell upon his weapon. The button that made mine harmless was missing from his. The blunt, nail-head point had broken bro-ken off. The new steel of the fracture frac-ture was a flickering spark before me. I cried a warning and lowered my blade. Lyon Ferriter laughed harshly and lunged. CHAPTER X Body, not mind, saved me. The reflex centers that keep half-forgotten training helped my sword to engage en-gage and delay his. I leaped backward back-ward barely in time and he had me in a corner. I could retreat no farther. far-ther. Our blades bound. There was no sound but our breathing and the whisper of steel on steel. In that odd instant of delay, neither of us spoke. I knew it was useless to repeat my warning and he, embarked em-barked on his purpose, had no need for words. I parried the deadly spark of that unguarded point. Astonishment's As-tonishment's half-palsy had vanished. van-ished. Understanding came in that split second, as lightning bares a landscape. His face was blurred by the mask but I could see purpose in the pose of his body; could feel it in the vigilant vigi-lant movement of his blade along my own. I felt little fear. It was hard to recognize death in a familiar famil-iar and heretofore safe sport. Shame was uppermost in my mind, and shame sired anger. Thought of my own stupidity row-eled row-eled me. By a pose of mystery, by fatuous hints to Everett and Lyon I had asked for this. I had stuck my neck out While his brother and sister found an alibi elsewhere, Lyon would silence me so deftly that, no matter what others might suspect, he would be safe. I wondered what he thought I knew that made my murder necessary and then had time for no further thought. His sword had felt and tested and tapped mine. Automatically, I had responded. He feinted now to lift He made no movement to follow me. I had a bare hour to change and return to the Paget apartment when I reached my lodging house. I galloped gal-loped up the stair, thrust open the door and paused, staring. "Hi, accomplice," said Jerry Cochrane, "I began to think you'd moved again." He sat beneath the lighted wall bracket and gave a bland smile. I was not too hospitable. "Whatever," I told him, "is on your mind will have to be unloaded while I shave and dress. I've got a date." "Oh-ho," crooned Cochrane, and looked at me with fake mildness. "Something more important than your duty to your paper, for which every reporter worthy of the. name would give his life blood?" "In round numbers, about a thousand thou-sand times as important to me." I told him where I was going while I stripped off coat, vest and shirt. He said mildly: "For a country lad, you aim high, Mister." I let that pass. Cochrane droned: "I've found out something." "So what?" I wasn't encouraging. He blinked and beamed. "You remember the guy I told you about, who went gold hunting with Lyon Ferriter, and never came back?" The question stopped me as I turned toward the bureau for my shaving kit. I nodded. "Horstman, wasn't it?" "The same." Cochrane droned. "This Everett Ferriter. the brother, broth-er, does he look like a Heinic?" "Is this." I asked, rasped by the knowledge that he hid something, "a game of twenty questions? If so, let's postpone it. Look like a Heinie? Of course he doesn't. He's got a phony Oxford accent, a little waxed mustache, a faintly mauve manner and a letch for cologne. He wears a funny expression, half liau teur, half imminent sneeze. Hft'i no German." (TO BE COXIMI D' |