Wizard of Crime by Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson

Author:Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson [Grant, Maxwell & Gibson, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Espionage, Fiction, Thrillers
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1939-08-18T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII. THE PROPOSITION

UNTIL the telephone call came from Burbank, Harry Vincent was only slightly interested in the evening party at the home of Carter J. Weylan. Though it was quite a fashionable affair, Harry considered it to be a mere waste of time that he could otherwise have spent with persons who might offer chance clues to crime.

The word that Burbank relayed from The Shadow promptly changed the situation. Immediately, Harry began to look for suspicious characters in the Weylan homestead, hoping that he would spot some. But the scene proved very placid.

There were some twenty guests at the place with men slightly in the majority. Harry knew all of them, and they constituted an exclusive crowd. Alicia Weylan was very popular; and she was one young lady who avoided fortune hunters. Her friends were blue bloods, men who came from old and solid families. In a brief check-up of noses, Harry assured himself that there wasn't a phony in the entire lot.

One guest was not listed in the social register, but Harry automatically gave him a clean slate. He was a young man named Ralph Atgood who was supposed to be engaged to Alicia Weylan. Ralph wasn't wealthy, as the other guests were reputed to be, but everyone liked him and spoke well of him.

Harry had met Ralph previously and had sized him up as a good sort. The chap had a certain sincerity that was a recommendation in itself. Furthermore, he stood high in the estimation of Alicia's father. Harry had seen Ralph chatting with Carter Weylan earlier in the evening, and there was every indication that Weylan would be pleased to have Ralph as a son-in-law.

That, in itself, gave Ralph a high rating. If any man had a right to brag about his ability at judging human character, the man in question was Carter J. Weylan.

The patent-medicine king owed his success to his policy of always picking the right people as his friends and business associates. Weylan was not only friendly toward Ralph; he had offered the young man a job and a good one. Ralph, so Harry had learned, had declined the offer for the present, which indicated that he was already well placed.

Just by way of check-up, Harry stepped over to chat with Montague Fitzcroft, the most aristocratic of the socially prominent guests.

A polo player and steeplechase rider, Fitzcroft was lounging in a corner of the Weylan ballroom, looking rather bored as he watched half a dozen couples dancing to the music of a seven-piece orchestra.

"HELLO Monty!" said Harry. "When is the big event of the evening coming off?"

Fitzcroft puffed his cigarette through a long holder, drew the latter from his lips and inquired in a drawly, but puzzled tone:

"What big event?"

"The announcement of the engagement," replied Harry, "between Alicia and this chap Atgood. I thought it was all settled."

"Not yet," returned Fitzcroft. "Percy Caulden was asking Alicia about it this evening. They were childhood sweethearts you know Percy and Alicia. She told Percy that the engagement would not be announced until after she returns from the Mediterranean.

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