The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge Read Online Free PDF

that gentleman. But to act as Hardridge suggested might involve unpleasant consequences, being myself without the law. Then, too, Hardridge was the only possible open sesame I knew of to the mystery of Osborne’s real motive in persuading me into my present masquerade.
    “We all change with the years,” I said carelessly. “You may leave when you like.”
    I picked his revolver up, glanced at it, leveled it at him and arose.
    “But next time—” I hinted.
    “Next time,” he grated harshly, “you get no chance for monkey-shines!”
    “Thanks!” I said. “Good night!”
    He got to his feet slowly and turned away slowly, glaring at me the while and plainly loath to go. The fury that was in his eyes, the fixed hatred that smoldered behind it, told me what a dangerous enemy I was loosing. And no wonder. For it was I, according to his evident belief, who had wreaked havoc upon his life and condemned him to years of solitary brooding in a prison cell.
    I recalled with an inward grimace how Osborne had shaken hands with me that morning and wished me well, knowing, as he must have known, that I was marked for the vengeance of this man. What chance had he really felt there was that he would ever see me again? Or had it really been his belief—and possibly his hope—that I’d kill Hardridge instead? Every thread of the tangle went back to the central mystery of Osborne’s purpose in the matter.
    I remembered that I had had to give some proof of my ability to take care of myself in a pinch before Osborne would open negotiations with me at all. Surely that indicated no desire to furnish Hardridge with a victim.
    Mystified as I was, however, I think I did not permit Hardridge to guess it, and it was with an intent to carry the thing off lightly that I said to him—
    “I suppose you’ll haunt the house like a specter and all that sort of thing.”
    “By ——, you know I will,” he shot viciously over his shoulder.
    Letting him go was really taking a little flyer in Death, Limited, and I knew it.
    Then happened the second peculiar thing of the night. Just as Hardridge put out his hand to open the door, in the silence following the cessation of our footsteps, I heard unmistakably the sound of some one else moving in the house.
    It was difficult to believe, for early in the afternoon I had carefully barred all doors and windows. It could hardly be an accomplice of Hartridge, but, to cover the sound from him, I asked him if he had another gun and ran my hand over his pockets. His snarl at my touch was like a wild beast’s.
    “Then you may need this one,” I said as I pushed him out into the night.
    And, as I closed the door upon him, I flung his revolver after him. The act was, I think, based upon sound strategic principles. It would be very easy for him to get another gun but very difficult to forget my carelessness as to whether he had one.
    But, the moment the key was turned in the lock, I whirled and darted across the room. The inner door of the room opened into a hall that ran the length of the house. I passed through that door and was about to cross the hall into the parlor opposite when another sound decided me. I ran down the hall and through the first door to the left into the library, which adjoined the parlor to the rear. After fumbling for a moment for the electric light switch, I finally found it.
    I’d been prepared for strange things when I came to Cragcastle. Indeed, the remoteness and solitude of its setting, surrounded by miles of black rock and chaparral-covered mountainside, save to the east, where the water eternally beat and lapped against its foundations, gave the house an appearance of being fashioned for mystery and framed in it. And my interview with Hardridge had been sufficiently remarkable to have prepared me for almost anything. Nevertheless, I admit my credulity was staggered then.
    A woman’s figure flashed through the doorway that led back into the parlor. The door slammed shut behind