Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1920 — THE MAN WHO WASN'T HIMSELF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAN WHO WASN'T HIMSELF

By ROBERT AMES BENNET

; » SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I.—AlighUngYrom a train at’ Denver a well-dressed traveler 13 familiarly accosted by a man about his own age. The traveler ignores the advance. A. few minutes later he Is greeted as ••Will” by an elderly lady and gentleman, who stop their auto to speak. He Imagines It a case of mistaken identity and announces himself as ‘‘Richard Clinton,” on his way to the coast. The couple appear greatly surprised, and learning he Is to be in town until midnight, the lady, introducing herself as Mrs. Kirkland, and her husband as Doctor Kirkland, invites him to dinner, explaining the action by his truly remarkable resemblance to a friend of theirs. He accepts. At the Kirkland home he meeta a young lady who greets him as her fiance. She is Ellen Kirkland, and plainly Is greatly hurt by his assertion that he Is "Richard Clftxton.” CHAPTER IL —At dinner "Clinton" learns that his host Is a medical specialist and that he Is believed to be Will Lowrie, a young man who had been suffering from a nervous breakdown and had gone east for medical treatment. Lowrie had had in his possession bonds of the Value of 1100,000, belonging to the bank w‘ 'e he was employed, which have dlsand of which he has no recollection. With Dr. Kirklang. "Clinton goes to the Lowrie home, the doctor being satisfied that Amy Lowrie, Will’s sister, will convince "Clinton” he Is really Lowrie, suffering from loss of memory. CHAPTER Hl.—Amy declares at once he is her brother, and Insists on treating Alm as such, to his great embarrassment. CHAPTER IV.—Doctor Kirkland arranges to send a telegram to the sanitarium where Lowrie Is undergoing treatment, inquiring as to his whereabouts. CHAPTER V.—Ellen and Amy try In vain to convince “Clinton” he Is Will Lowrie, brother of one and the fiance of the other. He visits the bank with Doctor Kirkland and cashes a draft. Bemm telle the president of the bank he is sure “Clinton" is Will Lowrie and agrees to find out the whereabouts of the missing bonds. 1 • CHAPTER Vl.—With Bemm "Clinton” visits the athletic club and there Bemm discovers that a s birthmark, familiar to Lowrie’s friends, has disappeared from "Clinton's” arm. Bemm is somewhat disconcerted but unconvinced. That evening an answer to Doctor Kirkland's telegram arrives, with the information that the superintendent of the sanitarium Is away, and the matter is left thus. CHAPTER Vll.—Bemm Is very much in love with Amy Lowrie. Her brother has discouraged the Intimacy, and Bemm thinks he can prove to Amy that her brother has made away with the bonds and is in danger of prosecution, from •which only Bemm can save him.

CHAPTER VIII. A Hairbreadth Escape. Soon after Clinton’s flight Doctor Kirkland had been summoned to the sanitarium. When Amy came In by iway of the dining room Ellen was pensively watching her mother play solitaire. looked up and, mlstakiing the cause of the color In Amy’s cheeks, asked delightedly: “Oh, what Ils it, dear. Has Charlie —?” “The silly! Heinade the dreadfully cross!” petulantly replied Amy. She glanced into, the parlor, and her vexation suddenly gave place to alarm. -‘Where Is Will? Surely you’ve not let him go off?” % “No, no, my dear, not even with the doctor,” reassured Mrs. Kirkland. "He has gone up to his room.” A few moments later Clinton, brooding heavily over his pipe, heard a»tap at his door. He frowned. The tap became a rap.. He called In a brusque tone: “Well, what Is It?” “Me!” came back a soft whisper. “Miss Lowrie —you?” he replied. “What do you want?” "Let me in.” He glanced In consternation at his ■stockinged feet and bare arms. “I—l must beg you to excuse me,” he stammered. “You see, I’m not—that is, I’m about to retire.” “No, no. no!” the whisper shrilled In protest. “I must have a talk with you! If you don’t let me in I shall scream 1” “Not that, not that,” he called back. -‘Wait a moment. I’ll be out at once.” He dived into the closet to seize the lounging robe, which he slipped on as he hurried to the door. He slid back the bolt, instantly the door was thrust in against him. Amy popped through the opening. She closed the door and spoke to him in a tone as matter of fact as it was affectionate: “The Idea of making such a fuss about letting me In. Now we’ll sit down and have a good old-time talk while I do my hair.” He stared at her, speechless. She had on a kimono of soft,pink silk embroidered with gold flowers. In one hand she held a' silver-backed hairbrush. “Where are your manners?” she reproved, and’ she went to set two chairs before the full-length mirror on the wall opposite the bathroom passage. “Come. I don’t want to have to shout to you over there. Sit down and behave.” He started to obey* and blushed as his stockinged feet appeared from under the edge of his robe. But she had perched on one of the chairs and was studying herself In the mirror. He seated himself in the chair close beside her. She handed him the hairbrush and put up both hands to her head. The loose sleeves, of her kimono slipped down, baring her dimpled white arms. He stared, fascinated, at them and at her shapely fingers, which were nimbly drawing the pins from

her hair. Soon the thick coiis began to sag. She shook her head. A!) the glossy brown locks came tumbling down about her slender shoulders. She turned sideways, with her back to him, and, clasping the hairpins in her lap, sat waiting. He gazed in wondering admiration at the wealth of rippling hair and the shapely little head from which it flowed down. “Why don’t you begin?” she impatiently demanded. "You’ll never finish unless you start.” “Start?” f X “Brushing, stupid!” “You —do you mean you wish me to —to brush your hair?” “Oh, no; I'm merely sitting here for you to look at,” she bantered. “Don’t be a goose.” She caught the brush from him and made half a dozen vigorous strokes, each time running her free hand under the brown maze. He took the brush from her backward-stretched hand, and asked in a deep low tone: Am I to hold it that way with my hand?” “How else can you do It right?” she replied. He cautiously took a full stroke from her forehead back across her da Intv head and down the rippling mass of hair. His smile was now that of a man completely lost in blissful intoxication. “That’s better,” she said; “only still harder. Don’t be afraid. I’m not a paper doll—There, that’s the way. Now I can settle down and talk. First of all, I’m going to tell you the bad news and get through with it” “Yes?” he asked, inhaling the delicious fragrance of her hair. “You’re not listening, and it’s very Important. It has made me dreadfully cross at Charlie.” He stiffened at the name, Instantly attentive. “That fellow? What about him? Has he —?” “Yes. But that’s not the trouble, the bank has been making a fuss. It can wait. The horrid thing is tn«t about those bonds you lost They claim that you have a lot of money in a Chicago bank.” "Yes. What of It?” “That proves what I told Charlie. Of course you don’t realize you can t realize.” “Realize what?” he asked, pausing in the midst of a long brush stroke. “Why, about the bonds.” “You mean the bonds lost by your brother?” “Charlie knows some one who has found out all about them. It must have been a detective. He found the key of the safe deposit vault In your pocket—” “In my pocket?” “Charlie said the man said the key was found in your pocket, and—Oh, I forgot. He said it was all secret yet But of course you’re my brother, and you ought to know, and you won’t tell —will you?” “Why should I? Please go on. I fail to understand about the key. But how about it? If it was a detective that found the key, he must have discovered where It belonged and found the missing bonds.” “That’s the horrid part of It,” replied Amy. “Charlie says they found the safe deposit box, but the bonds were gone.” Clinton’s smile vanished behind a look of blanjc surprise. “Gone?” “Yes —and all that money in Chicago in the bank is in your new namel That’s what made me so cross at Charlie.” “I don’t quite see the connection.” “You don’t?. Of course it will be easy for you to explain about the money and —” “Nothing easier if — Jove I Why didn’t I think of it sooner?” he exclaimed, and he dropped.. the hairbrush. “See here, Miss Lowrie —” “‘Miss Lowrie!’” she reproved. • He went on, unchecked: “You claim that I look exactly like your brother?” “There you go again! Don’t be silly !” ’ / < He sprang up, clear of the eager arms that she sought to fling around him. “No, wait!” he exclaimed, as she jumped up after him. “It’s —it’s not what you suppose—just the opposite.” “Opposite!” she repeated. “I said, I actually began to believe —to doubt my own identity. But at the Athletic club — Tell me. You say I look exactly like .your brother. That must be so, because every one who knew him— Yet there’s one thing. Had he any peculiar mark —a mole or scar, for instance —let us say, on his arm?” “Why, of course. Everybody knows it; everybody has seen it when you play tennis.” • “Seen what?” “Don’t'pretend! The mark on your arm below the elbow.” , "Which arm?” The girl’s brown eyes began to di-

late. ~wnat —what makes you talk this way?" . “Which arm la the mark on?” he insisted. She replied In a half whisper: "The right” He drew up the loose sleeve of his

robe and held out his bare forearm. She stared at It Incredulously. x “Well?” he queried. “It —it can’t be that I'm —that It’s the other?” she murmured. He bared the left arm. “You see — Can there be a more positive proof of iderillty than such a mark as that on your brother’s arm? —which Is not on my arm?” The vague dread that clouded her dilated eyes swiftly increased to a paralyzing terror. She stared at him as white-faced and immobile as a marble statue. Stricken with concern for her, he bent forward. Instantly her cheeks flushed scarlet with maidenly shame. She clutched wildly at her loose hair and fled to the door. In a twinkling she was out In the hall, with the door shut between herself and Clinton. He had not moved. For some time he stood where she had left him. His body was motionless, but It was evident that his thoughts were in a whirl of almost violent emotions. Across his face. In quick succession, passed looks of bewilderment, pity, delight, tenderness. Last of all came contrition, and again pity, both of which merged into resolution. rFrom the closet he brought out his suitcase and the suit that he had worn in his arrival in town. Next came a rummage through the dresser and closet to restore to the suitcase the articles that had been taken from It. Some he could npt find. He dressed himself in the suit so neatly tailored by old Tillie, and glanced around the room, preparatory to closing the suitcase. The hairbrush, lying on the floor where he had dropped it, caught his eye. He picked it up and gazed at it several moments. He then went’to the mantel, where stood the framed photographs of Ellen and Amy. When he returned to his suitcase one of the frames was empty. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Held Out His Bare Forearm.