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Dangerous Days

Page 182

Herman's lips drew back over his teeth.

"You knew it, eh? And you did not tell me?"

"It wasn't my funeral," said Rudolph coolly. "If you wanted to believe

she bought it herself?"

"If she bought it herself!" Rudolph's shoulder was caught in an iron

grip. "You will tell me what you mean."

"Well, I ask you, do you think she'd spend that much on a watch?

Anyhow, the installment story doesn't go. That place doesn't sell on

installments."

"Who is there would buy her such a watch?" Herman's voice was thick.

"How about Graham Spencer? She's been pretty thick with him."

"How you mean--thick?"

Rudolph shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't mean anything. But he's taken her out in his car. And the

Spencers think there's nothing can't be bought with money."

Herman put down the dish-cloth and commenced to draw down his shirt

sleeves.

"Where you going?" Rudolph demanded uneasily.

"I go to the Spencers!"

"Listen!" Rudolph said, excitedly. "Don't you do it; not yet. You got

to get him first. We don't know anything; we don't even know he gave her

that watch. We've got to find her, don't you see? And then, we've got to

learn if he's going there--wherever she is."

"I shall bring her back," Herman said, stubbornly. "I shall bring her

back, and I shall kill her."

"And get strung up yourself! Now listen?" he argued. "You leave this to

me. I'll find her. I've got a friend, a city detective, and he'll help

me, see? We'll get her back, all right. Only you've got to keep your

hands off her. It's the Spencers that have got to pay."

Herman went back to the sink, slowly.

"That is right. It is the Spencers," he muttered.

Rudolph went out. Late in the evening he came back, with the news that

the search was on. And, knowing Herman's pride, he assured him that the

hill need never learn of Anna's flight, and if any inquiries came he

advised him to say the girl was sick.

In Rudolph's twisted mind it was not so much Anna's delinquency that

enraged him. The hill had its own ideas of morality. But he was fiercely

jealous, with that class-jealousy which was the fundamental actuating

motive of his life. He never for a moment doubted that she had gone to

Graham.

And, sitting by the fire in the little house, old Herman's untidy head

shrunk on his shoulders, Rudolph almost forgot Anna in plotting to use

this new pawn across the hearth from him in his game of destruction.

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