Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/53

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE GIRL IN HIS HOUSE

If Bordman had found it easy to sell the house in Seventy-second Street, how much easier to dispose of stocks and bonds and mortgages and cash! But how had he worked it without creating suspicion? How had he hoodwinked the keen bankers? How had he managed the transfer of the property without arousing some inquiry? These puzzles Armitage determined to solve at once. There was, however, a dim recollection regarding some power of attorney.

Six blocks below the Concord apartments was the Armitage office-building, where, behind a door with the modest sign, "Estates," Bordman had labored honorably for three decades. Toward this building Armitage measured his steps energetically, despite the fact that each step became heavier and harder, until his sensations were something akin to those of a man fighting a gale across sand dunes. Supposing the Armitage was gone?

Dread and self-analysis—dread for the possibilities of the future and tingling scorn for the past! Ruined; and he had no one to thank except himself. He took James

37