The Window at the White Cat...........................................................................................................................1

Mary Roberts Rinehart .............................................................................................................................1

IN my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed

and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by

selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have

been stolen down on the avenue, or the staidly respectable black and middleaged skirt of the client whose

husband has found an affinity partial to laces and fripperies, and has run off with her-all the wearers are

ladies, and as such announced by Hawes. In fact, he carries it to excess. He speaks of his wash lady, with a

husband who is an ash merchant, and he announced one day in some excitement, that the lady who had just

gone out had appropriated all the loose change out of the pocket of his overcoat.

So when Hawes announced a lady, I took my feet off my desk, put down the brief I had been reading, and

rose perfunctorily. With my first glance at my visitor, however, I threw away my cigar, and I have heard

since, settled my tie. That this client was different was borne in on me at once by the way she entered the

room. She had poise in spite of embarrassment, and her face when she raised her veil was white, refined, and

"I did not send in my name," she said, when she saw me glancing down for the card Hawes usually puts on

my table. "It was advice I wanted, and I-I did not think the name would matter."

She was more composed, I think, when she found me considerably older than herself. I saw her looking

furtively at the graying places over my ears. I am only thirtyfive, as far as that goes, but my family, although

"Won't you sit down?" I asked, pushing out a chair, so that she would face the light, while I remained in

shadow. Every doctor and every lawyer knows that trick. "As far as the name goes, perhaps you would better

She acquiesced to this and sat for a moment silent, her gaze absently on the windows of the building across.

In the morning light my first impression was verified. Only too often the raising of a woman's veil in my

office reveals the ravages of tears, or rouge, or dissipation. My new client turned fearlessly to the window an

unlined face, with a clear skin, healthily pale. From where I sat, her profile was beautiful, in spite of its

drooping suggestion of trouble; her first embarrassment gone, she had forgotten herself and was intent on her

"I hardly know how to begin," she said, "but suppose"-slowly-"suppose that a man, a wellknown man,

should leave home without warning, not taking any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was coming

"How long has he been gone?" I asked. I had heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a woman like

"I should think it ought to be looked into," I said decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit quietly. A

lawyer who is worth anything is always a partisan, I suppose, and I never hear of a man deserting his wife

that I am not indignant, the virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps. "But you will have to tell me more

"Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for money,

"He had been. His wife died when I-" She stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all!

Oddly enough, the sun came out just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty rug

But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new

"No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find him." Her voice broke again and her

"Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it is serious," I said. "Sometimes the things that seem most

mysterious have the simplest explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried or-even a

slight accident would account-" I saw I was blundering; she grew white and wideeyed. "But, of course,

"His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that," she assented eagerly.

"Don't you think I ought to know his name?" I asked. "It need not be known outside of the office, and this is a

sort of confessional anyhow, or worse. People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't think of telling the

"My name is Fleming, Margery Fleming," she said after a second's hesitation, "and my father, Mr. Allan

Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox, what are we going to do? He has been gone for more than a week!"

No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity of the missing man. So Allan Fleming was lost! A good

many highly respectable citizens would hope that he might never be found. Fleming, state treasurer,

delightful companion, polished gentleman and successful politician of the criminal type. Outside in the

corridor the office boy was singing under his breath. "Oh once there was a miller," he sang, "who lived in a

mill." It brought back to my mind instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a year before, where for a few

hours we had blown the feeble spark of protest against machine domination to a flame. We had sung a song

to that very tune, and with this whitefaced girl across from me, its words came hack with revolting truth. It

"Oh, once there was a capitol That sat on a hill, As it's too big to steal away It's probably there still. The ring's

hand in the treasury And Fleming with a sack. They take it out in wagon loads And never bring it back." I put

"I am more than sorry," I said. I was, too; whatever he may have been, he was her father. "And of course

there are a number of reasons why this ought not to be known, for a time at least. After all, as I say, there may

"I hate politics!" she broke in suddenly. "The very name makes me ill. When I read of women wanting to-to

vote and all that, I wonder if they know what it means to have to be polite to dreadful people, people who

have even been convicts, and all that. Why, our last butler had been a prize fighter!" She sat upright with her

hands on the arms of the chair. "That's another thing, too, Mr. Knox. The day after father went away, Carter

"Yes. He served luncheon the day after father went away, and the maids say he went away immediately after.

He was not there that evening to serve dinner, but-he came back late that night, and got into the house, using

his key to the servants' entrance. He slept there, the maids said, but he was gone before the servants were up

"We'll go back to Carter again," I said. "Your father has not been ill, has he? I mean recently."

"I can not think of anything except that he had a tooth pulled." She was quick to resent my smile. "Oh, I

know I'm not helping you," she exclaimed, "but I have thought over everything until I can not think any

"He forgot my birthday, two weeks ago," she said. "It was the first one he had ever forgotten, in nineteen of

"What I meant was this," I explained. "People sometimes have sudden and unaccountable lapses of memory

and at those times they are apt to stray away from home. Has your father been worried lately?"

"He has not been himself at all. He has been irritable, even to me, and terrible to the servants. Only to

Carter-he was never ugly to Carter. But I do not think it was a lapse of memory. When I remember how he

looked that morning, I believe that he meant then to go away. It shows how he had changed, when he could

"Please tell me how you happened to come to me," I urged. "I think you know that I am both honored and

"I didn't know where to go," she confessed, "so I took the telephone directory, the classified part under

'Attorneys,' and after I shut my eyes, I put my finger haphazard on the page. It pointed to your name."

I am afraid I flushed at this, but it was a wholesome douche. In a moment I laughed.

"We will take it as an omen," I said, "and I will do all that I can. But I am not a detective, Miss Fleming.

"Not the police!" she shuddered. "I thought you could do something without calling a detective."

"Suppose you tell me what happened the day your father left, and how he went away. Tell me the little things

"In the first place," she began, "we live on Monmouth Avenue. There are just the two of us, and the servants:

a cook, two housemaids, a laundress, a butler and a chauffeur. My father spends much of his time at the

capital, and in the last two years, since my old governess went back to Germany, at those times I usually go

I nodded: I knew the Maitland ladies well. I had drawn four different wills for Miss Letitia in the last year.

"My father went way on the tenth of May. You say to tell you all about his going, but there is nothing to tell.

We have a machine, but it was being repaired. Father got up from breakfast, picked up his hat and walked out

"He took it with him. I knew he was disturbed, for he did not even say he was going. He took a car, and I

thought he was on his way to his office. He did not come home that night and I went to the office the next

morning. The stenographer said he had not been there. He is not at Plattsburg, because they have been trying

"Why don't you tell me everything?" I asked, "You may be keeping back the one essential point."

She flushed. Then she opened her pocketbook and gave me a slip of rough paper, On it, in careless figures,

"I was afraid you would think it silly," she said. "It was such a meaningless thing. You see, the second night

after father left, I was nervous and could not sleep. I expected him home at any time and I kept listening for

his step downstairs. About three o'clock I was sure I heard some one in the room below mine-there was a

creaking as if the person were walking carefully. I felt relieved, for I thought he had come back. But I did not

hear the door into his bedroom close, and I got more and more wakeful. Finally I got up and slipped along the

hall to his room. The door was open a few inches and I reached in and switched on the electric lights. I had a

queer feeling before I turned on the light that there was some one standing close to me, but the room was

"When I saw the room was empty I went in. The paper had been pinned to a pillow on the bed. At first I

thought it had been dropped or had blown there. When I saw the pin I was startled. I went back to my room

and rang for Annie, the second housemaid, who is also a sort of personal maid of mine. It was halfpast three

o'clock when Annie came down. I took her into father's room and showed her the paper. She was sure it was

"Eleven twentytwo," I repeated. "Twice eleven is twentytwo. But that isn't very enlightening."

"No," she admitted. "I thought it might be a telephone number, and I called up all the eleven twentytwos in

"We are not brilliant, certainly," I said at last. "In the first place, Miss Fleming, if I thought the thing was very

serious I would not laugh-but no doubt a day or two will see everything straight. But, to go back to this

"Yes, Annie said Carter had come back and she went to waken him, but although his door was locked inside,

he did not answer. Annie and I switched on all the lights on the lower floor from the top of the stairs. Then

we went down together and looked around. Every window and door was locked, but in father's study, on the

first floor, two drawers of his desk were standing open. And in the library, the little compartment in my

writingtable, where I keep my house money, had been broken open and the money taken."

"Nothing. The silver on the sideboard in the diningroom, plenty of valuable things in the cabinet in the

"It might have been Carter," I reflected, "Did he know where you kept your house money?"

"It is possible, but I hardly think so. Besides, if he was going to steal, there were so many more valuable

things in the house. My mother's jewels as well as my own were in my dressingroom, and the door was not

"They had been disturbed," she admitted. "My grandmother left each of her children some unstrung pearls.

They were a hobby with her. Aunt Jane and Aunt Letitia never had theirs strung, but my mother's were made

into different things, all oldfashioned. I left them locked in a drawer in my sittingroom, where I have

always kept them. The following morning the drawer was unlocked and partly open, but nothing was

"All but one ring, which I rarely remove from my finger." I followed her eyes. Under her glove was the

"It does not sound like an ordinary burglary," I reflected. "But I am afraid I have no imagination. No doubt

what you have told me would be meat and drink to a person with an analytical turn of mind. I can't deduct.

Nineteen from thirtyfive leaves sixteen, according to my mental process, although I know men who could

I believe she thought I was a little mad, for her face took on again its despairing look.

"We must find him, Mr. Knox," she insisted as she got up. "If you know of a detective that you can trust,

please get him. But you can understand that the unexplained absence of the state treasurer must be kept

secret. One thing I am sure of: He is being kept away. You don't know what enemies he has! Men like Mr.

"Schwartz!" I repeated in surprise. Henry Schwartz was the boss of his party in the state; the man of whom

one of his adversaries had said, with the distinct approval of the voting public, that he was so low in the scale

of humanity that it would require a special dispensation of Heaven to raise him to the level of total

degradation. But he and Fleming were generally supposed to be captain and first mate of the pirate craft that

"Mr. Schwartz and my father are allies politically," the girl explained with heightened color, "but they are not

The inference I allowed to pass unnoticed, and as if she feared she had said too much, the girl rose. When she

left, a few minutes later, it was with the promise that she would close the Monmouth Avenue house and go to

her aunts at Bellwood, at once. For myself, I pledged a thorough search for her father, and began it by

watching the scarlet wing on her hat through the top of the elevator cage until it had descended out of sight.

I am afraid it was a queer hodgepodge of clues and sentiment that I poured out to Hunter, the detective, when

"They're rotten clear through," he reflected. "This administration is worse than the last, and it was a peach.

There have been more suicides than I could count on my two hands, in the last ten years. I warn you-you'd be

"What do you think about the eleven twentytwo?" I asked as he got up and buttoned his coat.

"Well, it might mean almost anything. It might be that many dollars, or the time a train starts, or it might be

"You'd better stick to the law, Mr. Knox," he said from the door. "We don't use Latin in the detective

PLATTSBURG was not the name of the capital, but it will do for this story. The state doesn't matter either.

You may take your choice, like the story Mark Twain wrote, with all kinds of weather at the beginning, so the

We will say that my home city is Manchester. I live with my married brother, his wife and two boys. Fred is

older than I am, and he is an exceptional brother. On the day he came home from his wedding trip, I went

down with my traps on a hansom, in accordance with a prearranged schedule. Fred and Edith met me inside

"Here's your latchkey, Jack," Fred said, as he shook hands. "Only one stipulation-remember we are

strangers in the vicinity and try to get home before the neighbors are up. We have our reputations to think of."

"There is no hour for breakfast," Edith said, as she kissed me. "You have a bath of your own, and don't smoke

I had been there now for six years. I had helped to raise two young Knoxes-bully youngsters, too: the oldest

one could use boxinggloves when he was four-and the finest collie pup in our end of the state. I wanted to

raise other things-the boys liked pets-but Edith was like all women, she didn't care for animals.

I had a rabbithutch built and stocked in the laundry, and a dovecote on the roof. I used the general bath,

and gave up my tub to a younger alligator I got in Florida, and every Sunday the youngsters and I had a great

time trying to teach it to do tricks. I have always taken it a little hard that Edith took advantage of my getting

the measles from Billy, to clear out every animal in the house. She broke the news to me gently, the day the

rash began to fade, maintaining that, having lost one cook through the alligator escaping from his tub and

being mistaken, in the gloom of the backstairs, for a rubber boot, and picked up under the same

On the day that Margery Fleming came to me about her father, I went home in a state of mixed emotion.

Dinner was not a quiet meal: Fred and I talked politics, generally, and as Fred was on one side and I on the

"What about Fleming?" I asked at last, when Fred had declared that in these days of corruption, no matter

what the government was, be was "forninst" it. "Hasn't he been frightened into reform?"

"Bad egg," he said, jabbing his potato as if it had been a politician, "and there's no way to improve a bad egg

"Fleming is a rascal, daughter or no daughter," Fred persisted. "Ever since he and his gang got poor Butler

into trouble and then left him to kill himself as the only way out, I have felt that there was something coming

to all of them-Hansen, Schwartz and the rest. I saw Fleming on the street today."

" 'Hasn't he a daughter!' " he quoted. "Yes, I saw him, Jack, this very day, in an unromantic fourwheeler,

"Chestnut and Union. His cab had been struck by a car, and badly damaged, but the gentleman refused to get

"Look here, Fred," I said earnestly. "Keep that to yourself, will you? And you too, Edith? It's a queer story,

"Don't get mixed up with those people, Jack," she advised. "Margery's a dear girl but her father practically

"You needn't make it a family affair," I protested. "I have only seen the girl once."

But Edith smiled. "I know what I know," she said. "How extravagant of you to send Bobby that enormous

"The boy has to learn to ride sometime. In four years he can have a pony, and I'm going to see that he has it.

"You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past forty without being sought and won

"I will be thirtynine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed

by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do-if I do -it will be to some girl who turns and runs

"The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A woman is like a

In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. "I can't think with you two whispering

As he slammed the door into his workroom Edith picked up her skirts and scuttled after him.

"How dare you run away like that?" she called. "You promised me-" The door closed behind her.

"'Follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows'-oh, wife and mother!" I called.

"For heaven's sake, Edith," Fred's voice rose irritably. "If you and Jack are going to talk all evening, go and

sit on his knee and let me alone. The way you two flirt under my nose is a scandal. Do you hear that, Jack?"

"Good night, Edith," I called, "I have left you a kiss on the upper left hand panel of the door. And I want to

ask you one more question: what if I fly from the woman and she doesn't follow?"

"Thank your lucky stars," Fred called in a muffled voice, and I left them to themselves.

I had some work to do at the office, work that the interview with Hunter had interrupted, and half past eight

hat night found me at my desk. But my mind strayed from the papers before me. After a useless effort to

concentrate, I gave it up as useless, and by ten o'clock I was on the street again, my evening wasted, the

papers in the libel case of the Star against the Eagle untouched on my desk, and I the victim of an uneasy

apprehension that took me, almost without volition, to the neighborhood of the Fleming house on Monmouth

Avenue. For it had occurred to me that Miss Fleming might not have left the house that day as she had

promised, might still be there, liable to another intrusion by the mysterious individual who had a key to the

It was a relief, consequently, when I reached its corner, to find no lights in the building. The girl had kept her

word. Assured of that, I looked at the house curiously. It was one of the largest in the city, not wide, but

running far back along the side street; a small yard with a low iron fence and a garage, completed the

property. The street lights left the back of the house in shadow, and as I stopped in the shelter of the garage, I

was positive that I heard some one working with a rear window of the empty house. A moment later the

sounds ceased and muffled footsteps came down the cement walk. The intruder made no attempt to open the

iron gate; against the light I saw him put a leg over the low fence, follow it up with the other, and start up the

street, still with peculiar noiselessness of stride. He was a short, heavyshouldered fellow in a cap, and his

I followed, I don't mind saying in some excitement. I had a vision of grabbing him from behind and leading

him-or pushing him, under the circumstances, in triumph to the police station, and another mental picture, not

so pleasant, of being found on the pavement by some passerby, with a small punctuation mark ending my

sentence of life. But I was not apprehensive. I even remember wondering humorously if I should overtake

him and press the cold end of my silver mounted fountain pen into the nape of his neck, if he would throw up

his hands and surrender. I had read somewhere of a burglar held up in a similar way with a shoehorn.

Our pace was easy. Once the man just ahead stopped and lighted a cigarette, and the odor of a very fair

Turkish tobacco came back to me. He glanced back over his shoulder at me and went on without quickening

his pace. We met no policemen, and after perhaps five minutes walking, when the strain was growing tense,

my gentleman of the rubbersoled shoes swung abruptly to the left, and-entered the police station!

I had occasion to see Davidson many times after that, during the strange development of the Fleming case; I

had the peculiar experience later of having him follow me as I had trailed him that night, and I had occasion

once to test the strength of his long arms when he helped to thrust me through the transom at the White Cat,

but I never met him without a recurrence of the sheepish feeling with which I watched him swagger up to the

night sergeant and fall into easy conversation with the man behind the desk. Standing in the glare from the

open window, I had much the lost pride and self contempt of a wet cat sitting in the sun.

Two or three roundsmen were sitting against the wall, lazily, helmets off and coats open against the warmth

of the early spring night. In a back room others were playing checkers and disputing noisily. Davidson's voice

"The house is closed," he reported. "But one of the basement windows isn't shuttered and the lock is bad. I

couldn't find Shields. He'd better keep an eye on it." He stopped and fished in his pockets with a grin. "This

was tied to the knob of the kitchen door," he said, raising his voice for the benefit of the room, and holding

The men gathered around him, even the sergeant got up and leaned forward, his elbows on his desk.

"Dear Tim," Davidson read, in a mincing falsetto, "We are closing up unexpected, so I won't be here tonight.

I am going to Mamie Brennan's and if you want to talk to me you can get me by calling up Anderson's

drugstore. The clerk is a gentleman friend of mine. Mr. Carter, the butler, told me before he left he would

The sergeant scowled. "I'm goin' to talk to Tom," he said, reaching out for the note. "He's got a nice family,

I lighted the cigar, which had been my excuse for loitering on the pavement, and went on. It sounded

involved for a novice, but if I could find Anderson's drugstore I could find Mamie Brennan; through Mamie

Brennan I would get Delia; and through Delia I might find Carter. I was vague from that point, but what Miss

Fleming had said of Carter had made me suspicious of him. Under an arc light I made the first note in my

It was late when I reached the corner of Chestnut and Union Streets, where Fred had said Allan Fleming had

come to grief in a cab. But the cornerman had gone, and the night man on the beat knew nothing, of course,

"There's plinty of 'em every day at this corner," he said cheerfully. "The department sends a wagon here every

night to gather up the pieces, automobiles mainly. That trolley pole over there has been sliced off clean three

times in the last month. They say a fellow ain't a graduate of the automobile school till he can go around it on

I left him looking reminiscently at the pole, and went home to bed. I had made no headway, I had lost conceit

with myself and a day and evening at the office, and I had gained the certainty that Margery Fleming was safe

in Bellwood and the uncertain address of a servant who might know something about Mr. Fleming.

I was still awake at one o'clock and I got up impatiently and consulted the telephone directory. There were

When I finally went to sleep, I dreamed that I was driving Margery Fleming along a street in a broken

taxicab, and that all the buildings were pharmacies and numbered eleven twentytwo.

AFTER such a night I slept late. Edith still kept her honeymoon promise of no breakfast hour and she had

I have great admiration for Edith, for her tolerance with my uncertain hours, for her cheery breakfastroom,

and the smiling good nature of the servants she engages. I have a theory that, show me a sullen servant and I

will show you a sullen mistress, although Edith herself disclaims all responsibility and lays credit for the

smile with which Katie brings in my eggs and coffee, to largess on my part. Be that as it may, Katie is a

smiling and personable young woman, and I am convinced that had she picked up the alligator on the

backstairs and lost part of the end of her thumb, she would have told Edith that she cut it off with the bread

knife, and thus have saved to us Bessie the Beloved and her fascinating trick of taking the end of her tail in

On that particular morning, Katie also brought me a letter, and I recognized the cramped and rather uncertain

"DEAR MR. KNOX: "Sister Letitia wishes me to ask you if you can dine with us tonight, informally. She

has changed her mind in regard to the Colored Orphans' Home, and would like to consult you about it.

It was a very commonplace note; I had had one like it after every boardmeeting of the orphans' home, Miss

Maitland being on principle an aggressive minority. Also, having considerable mind, changing it became

almost as ponderous an operation as moving a barn, although not nearly so stable.

(Fred accuses me here of a very bad pun, and reminds me, quite undeservedly, that the pun is the lowest form

I came across Miss Jane's letter the other day, when I was gathering the material for this narrative, and I sat

for a time with it in my hand thinking over again the chain of events in which it had been the first link, a

series of strange happenings that began with my acceptance of the invitation, and that led through ways as

dark and tricks as vain as Bret Harte's Heathen Chinese ever dreamed of, to the final scene at the White Cat.

With the letter I had filed away a half dozen articles and I ranged them all on the desk in front of me: the

letter, the bit of paper with eleven twentytwo on it, that Margery gave me the first time I saw her; a

notebook filled with jerky characters that looked like Arabic and were newspaper shorthand; a railroad

schedule; a bullet, the latter slightly flattened; a cubeshaped piece of chalk which I put back in its box with a

shudder, and labeled 'poison', and a small gold buckle from a slipper, which I-at which I did not shudder.

I walked to the office that morning, and on the way I found and interviewed the cornerman at Chestnut and

Union. But he was of small assistance. He remembered the incident, but the gentleman in the taxicab had not

been hurt and refused to give his name, saying he was merely passing through the city from one railroad

At eleven o'clock Hunter called up; he said he was going after the affair himself, but that it was hard to stick a

dip net into the political puddle without pulling out a lot more than you went after, or than it was healthy to

get. He was inclined to be facetious, and wanted to know if I had come across any more k. v's. Whereupon I

put away the notes I had made about Delia and Mamie Brennan and I heard him chuckle as I rang off.

I went to Bellwood that evening. It was a suburban town a dozen miles from the city, with a picturesque

station, surrounded by lawns and cement walks. Streetcars had so far failed to spoil its treebordered streets,

and it was exclusive to the point of stagnation. The Maitland place was at the head of the main street, which

had at one time been its drive. Miss Letitia, who was seventy, had had sufficient commercial instinct, some

years before, to cut her ancestral acres-their ancestral acres, although Miss Jane hardly counted-into building

lots, except perhaps an acre which surrounded the house. Thus, the Maitland ladies were reputed to be

The homestead as I knew it, was one of impeccable housekeeping and unmitigated gloom. There was a chill

that rushed from the oldfashioned center hall to greet the newcomer on the porch, and that seemed to

I had taken dinner at Bellwood before, and the memory was not hilarious. Miss Letitia was deaf, but chose to

ignore the fact. With superb indifference she would break into the conversation with some wholly alien

remark that necessitated a reassembling of one's ideas, making the meal a series of mental gymnastics. Miss

Jane, through long practice, and because she only skimmed the surface of conversation, took her cerebral

Nor was Miss Letitia's dominance wholly conversational. Her sister Jane was her creature, alternately

snubbed and bullied. To Miss Letitia, Jane, in spite of her sixtyfive years, was still a child, and sometimes a

bad one. Indeed many a child of ten is more sophisticated. Miss Letitia gave her expurgated books to read,

and forbade her to read divorce court proceedings in the newspapers. Once, a recreant housemaid presenting

the establishment with a healthy male infant, Jane was sent to the country for a month, and was only brought

Poor Miss Jane! She met me with fluttering cordiality in the hall that night, safe in being herself for once,

with the knowledge that Miss Letitia always received me from a thronelike horsehair sofa in the back parlor.

"Our niece is here," she explained, as I took off my coat-everything was "ours" with Jane; "mine" with

Letitia-"and we are having an ice at dinner. Please say that ices are not injurious, Mr. Knox. My sister is so

"On the contrary, the doctors have ordered ices for my young nephews," I said gravely, "and I dote on them

Miss Jane beamed. Indeed, there was something almost unnaturally gay about the little old lady all that

evening. Perhaps it was the new lace cap. Later, I tried to analyze her manner, to recall exactly what she had

said, to remember anything that could possibly help. But I could find no clue to what followed.

Miss Letitia received me as usual, in the back parlor. Miss Fleming was there also, sewing by a window, and

in her strait white dress with her hair drawn back and braided around her head, she looked even younger than

before. There was no time for conversation. Miss Letitia launched at once into the extravagance of both

molasses and butter on the colored orphans' bread and after a glance at me, and a quick comprehension from

my face that I had no news for her, the girl at the window bent over her sewing again.

"Molasses breeds worms," Miss Letitia said decisively. "So does pork. And yet those children think Heaven

"You have had no news at all?" Miss Fleming said cautiously, her head bent over her work.

"None," I returned, under cover of the table linen to which Miss Letitia's mind had veered. "I have a good

man working on it." As she glanced at me questioningly, "It needed a detective, Miss Fleming." Evidently

another day without news had lessened her distrust of the police, for she nodded acquiescence and went on

with her sewing. Miss Letitia's monotonous monologue went on, and I gave it such attention as I might. For

the lamps had been lighted, and with every movement of the girl across, I could see the gleaming of a

"If I didn't watch her, Jane would ruin them," said Miss Letitia. "She gives 'em apples when they keep their

faces clean, and the bills for soap have gone up double. Soap once a day's enough for a colored child. Do you

I sniffed and lied, whereupon Miss Letitia swept her black silk, her colored orphans and her majestic presence

out of the room. As the door closed, Miss Fleming put down her sewing and rose. For the first time I saw

"I do not dare to tell them, Mr. Knox," she said. "They are old, and they hate him anyhow. I couldn't sleep

"I suppose so, yes." She took up her sewing from the chair with a sigh. "But I'm afraid he won't come-not

soon. I have hemmed tea towels for Aunt Letitia today until I am frantic, and all day I have been wondering

over something you said yesterday. You said, you remember, that you were not a detective, that some men

"The fact is-I-you see," I blundered, "it was a-merely a figure of speech, a-speech of figures is more

accurate,-" And then dinner was announced and I was saved. But although she said little or nothing during the

meal, I caught her looking across at me once or twice in a bewildered, puzzled fashion. I could fairly see her

Miss Letitia presided over the table in garrulous majesty. The two old ladies picked at their food, and Miss

Jane had a spot of pink in each withered cheek. Margery Fleming made a brave pretense, but left her plate

almost untouched. As for me, I ate a substantial masculine meal and half apologized for my appetite, but

Letitia did not hear. She tore the board of managers to shreds with the roast, and denounced them with the

"Please do eat your dinner," she whispered. "I made the salad myself. And I know what it takes to keep a big

"Mrs. Stevens is an unmitigated fool. I said if they elected her president I'd not leave a penny to the home.

That's why I sent for you, Knox." And to the maid, "Tell Heppie to wash those cups in lukewarm water.

They're the best ones. And not to drink her coffee out of them. She let her teeth slip and bit a piece out of one

"Harry Wardrop, a cousin's son, and-" she patted Margery's hand with its ring-"soon to be something closer."

"They've put up an iron fence," Miss Letitia reverted somberly to her grievance, "when a wooden one would

"Harry stays with us when he is in Manchester," Miss Jane went on, nodding brightly across at Letitia as if

she, too, were damning the executive board. "Lately, he has been almost all the time in Plattsburg. He is

secretary to Margery's father. It is a position of considerable responsibility, and we are very proud of him."

I had expected something of the sort, but the remainder of the meal had somehow lost its savor. There was a

lull in the conversation while dessert was being brought in. Miss Jane sat quivering, watching her sister's face

for signs of trouble; the latter had subsided into muttered grumbling, and Miss Fleming sat, one hand on the

"You look like a fool in that cap, Jane," volunteered Letitia, while the plates were being brought in. "What's

"Well, you needn't," snapped Letitia, "I can hear you well enough. You told me it was junket."

"I said icecream, and you said it would be all right," poor Jane shrieked. "If you drink a cup of hot water

"Fiddle," Letitia snapped unpleasantly. "I'm not going to freeze my stomach and then thaw it out like a drain

So we waited until Miss Letitia's had been heated, and was brought in, sicklied over with pale hues, not of

thought, but of confectioners' dyes. Miss Letitia ate it resignedly. "Like as not I'll break out, I did the last

The meal was over finally, but if I had hoped for another word alone with Margery Fleming that evening, I

was foredoomed to disappointment. Letitia sent the girl, not ungently, to bed, and ordered Jane out of the

"You'd better wash those cups yourself, Jane," she said. "I don't see any sense anyhow in getting out the best

Poor, meek, spiritless Miss Jane! The situation was absurd in spite of its pathos. She confided to me once that

never in her sixtyfive years of life had she bought herself a gown, or chosen the dinner. She was snubbed

with painstaking perseverance, and sent out of the room when subjects requiring frank handling were under

discussion. She was as unsophisticated as a baby, as-well, poor Miss Jane, again.

When the door had closed behind her, Miss Letitia listened for a moment, got up suddenly and crossing the

room with amazing swiftness for her years, pounced on the knob and threw it open again. But the passage

was empty; Miss Jane's slim little figure was disappearing into the kitchen. The older sister watched her out

"I didn't want to see you about the will, Mr. Knox," she began without prelude. "The will can wait. I ain't

going to die just yet-not if I know anything. But although I think you'd look a heap better and more

responsible if you wore some hair on your face, still in most things I think you're a man of sense. And you're

"I've been robbed," she announced in a half whisper, and straightened to watch the effect of her words.

"Indeed!" I said, properly thunderstruck. I was surprised. I had always believed that only the use of the fourth

dimension in space would enable any one, not desired, to gain access to the Maitland house. "Of money?"

"Not money, although I had a good bit in the house." This I also knew. It was said of Miss Letitia that when

"When you had those pearls appraised for me at the jewelers last year, how many were there?"

"Exactly," she corroborated, in triumph. "They belonged to my mother. Margery's mother got some of them.

That's a good many years ago, young man. They are worth more than they were then-a great deal more."

"Twentytwo thousand dollars," I repeated. "You remember, Miss Letitia, that I protested vigorously at the

Miss Letitia ignored this, but before she went on she repeated again her catlike pouncing at the door, only to

find the hall empty as before. This time when she sat down it was knee to knee with me.

"Yesterday morning," she said gravely, "I got down the box; they have always been kept in the small safe at

the top of my closet. When Jane found a picture of my niece, Margery Fleming, in Harry's room, I thought it

likely there was some truth in the gossip Jane heard about the two, and-if there was going to be a

wedding-why, the pearls were to go to Margery anyhow. But-I found the door of the safe unlocked and a little

"Gone!" I echoed. "Ten of them! Why, it's ridiculous! If ten, why not the whole ninetyeight?"

"How do I know?" she replied with asperity. "That's what I keep a lawyer for: that's why I sent for you."

"But you need a detective," I cried. "If you can find the thief I will be glad to send him where he ought to be,

"I will not have the police," she persisted inflexibly. "They will come around asking impertinent questions,

"You have less sense than I thought," she snapped. "I am going to leave them where they are, and watch.

"I don't advise it," I said decidedly. "You have most of them now, and you might easily lose them all; not

"Stuff and nonsense!" the old lady said, with spirit. "As for Jane, she doesn't even know they are gone. I

know who did it. It was the new housemaid, Bella MacKenzie. Nobody else could get in. I lock up the house

myself at night, and I'm in the habit of doing a pretty thorough job of it. They went in the last three weeks, for

I counted them Saturday three weeks ago myself. The only persons in the house in that time, except

ourselves, were Harry, Bella and Hepsibah, who's been here for forty years and wouldn't know a pearl from a

"Then-what do you want me to do?" I asked. "Have Bella arrested and her trunk searched?"

"Her trunk!" she said scornfully. "I turned it inside out this morning, pretending I thought she was stealing the

laundry soap. Like as not she has them buried in the vegetable garden. What I want you to do is stay here for

three or four nights, to be on hand. When I catch the thief, I want my lawyer right by."

It ended by my consenting, of course. Miss Letitia was seldom refused. I telephoned to Fred that I would not

be home, listened for voices and decided Margery Fleming had gone to bed. Miss Jane lighted me to the door

of the guest room, and saw that everything was comfortable. Her thin gray curls bobbed as she examined the

water pitcher, saw to the towels, and felt the bed linen for dampness. At the door she stopped and turned

"Has-has anything happened to disturb my sister?" she asked. "She-has been almost irritable all day."

"She is worried about her colored orphans," I evaded. "She does not approve of fireworks for them on the

Miss Jane was satisfied. I watched her little, old, blackrobed figure go lightly down the hall. Then I bolted

THE windows being wide open, it was not long before a great moth came whirring in. He hurled himself at

the light and then, dazzled and singed, began to beat with noisy thumps against the barrier of the ceiling.

Finding no egress there, he was back at the lamp again, whirling in dizzy circles until at last, worn out, he

The room began to fill with tiny winged creatures that flung themselves headlong to destruction, so I put out

Miss Letitia's troubles I dismissed shortly. While it was odd that only ten pearls should have been taken,

still-in every other way it bore the marks of an ordinary theft. The thief might have thought that by leaving

the majority of the gems he could postpone discovery indefinitely. But the Fleming case was of a different

order. Taken by itself, Fleming's disappearance could have been easily accounted for. There must be times in

the lives of all unscrupulous individuals when they feel the need of retiring temporarily from the public eye.

But the intrusion into the Fleming home, the ransacked desk and the broken money drawer-most of all, the bit

of paper with eleven twentytwo on it-here was a hurdle my legal mind refused to take.

I had finished my second cigar, and was growing more and more wakeful, when I heard a footstep on the path

around the house. It was black outside; when I looked out, as I did cautiously, I could not see even the

graywhite of the cement walk. The steps had ceased, but there was a sound of fumbling at one of the

shutters below. The catch clicked twice, as if some thin instrument was being slipped underneath to raise it,

I drew in my head and, puffing my cigar until it was glowing, managed by its light to see that it was a quarter

to two. When I listened again, the housebreaker had moved to another window, and was shaking it cautiously.

With Miss Letitia's story of the pearls fresh in my mind, I felt at once that the thief, finding his ten a prize,

had come back for more. My first impulse was to go to the head of my bed, where I am accustomed to keep a

revolver. With the touch of the tall corner post, however, I remembered that I was not at home, and that it was

Finally, after knocking over an ornament that shattered on the hearth and sounded like the crash of doom, I

found on the mantel a heavy brass candlestick, and with it in my hand I stepped into the gloom of the hallway

There were no night lights; the darkness was total. I found the stairs before I expected to, and came within an

ace of pitching down, headlong. I had kicked off my shoes-a fact which I regretted later. Once down the stairs

I was on more familiar territory. I went at once into the library, which was beneath my room, but the sounds

at the window had ceased. I thought I heard steps on the walk, going toward the front of the house. I wheeled

quickly and started for the door, when something struck me a terrific blow on the nose. I reeled back and sat

down, dizzy and shocked. It was only when no second blow followed the first that I realized what had

With my two hands out before me in the blackness I had groped, one hand on either side of the open door,

which of course I had struck violently with my nose. Afterward I found it had bled considerably, and my

My candlestick had rolled under the table, and after crawling around on my hands and knees, I found it. I had

lost, I suppose, three or four minutes, and I was raging at my awkwardness and stupidity. No one, however,

seemed to have heard the noise. For all her boasted watchfulness, Miss Letitia must have been asleep. I got

back into the hand from there to the diningroom. Some one was fumbling at the shutters there, and as I

looked they swung open. It was so dark outside, with the trees and the distance from the street, that only the

creaking of the shutter told it had opened. I stood in the middle of the room, with one hand firmly clutching

But the window refused to move. The burglar seemed to have no proper tools; he got something under the

sash, but it snapped, and through the heavy plateglass I could hear him swearing. Then he abruptly left the

I blundered in the same direction, my unshod feet striking on projecting furniture and causing me agonies,

even through my excitement. When I reached the front door, however, I was amazed to find it unlocked, and

standing open perhaps an inch. I stopped uncertainly. I was in a peculiar position; not even the most ardent

admirers of antique brass candlesticks endorse them as weapons of offense or defense. But, there seeming to

be nothing else to do, I opened the door quietly and stepped out into the darkness.

The next instant I was flung heavily to the porch floor. I am not a small man by any means, but under the fury

of that onslaught I was a child. It was a porch chair, I think, that knocked me senseless; I know I folded up

While I came to 1 was lying where I had fallen, and a candle was burning beside me on the porch floor. It

took me a minute to remember, and another minute to realize that I was looking into the barrel of a revolver.

It occurred to me that I had never seen a more villainous face than that of the man who held it-which shows

my state of mind-and that my position was the reverse of comfortable. Then the man behind the gun spoke.

"What bag?" I inquired feebly. My head was jumping, and the candle was a volcanic eruption of sparks and

"Don't be a fool," the gentleman with the revolver persisted. "If I don't get that bag within five minutes, I'll

"I haven't seen any bag," I said stupidly. "What sort of bag?" I heard my own voice, drunk from the shock.

"You've hidden it in the house," he said, bringing the revolver a little closer with every word. My senses

"Go in and look," I responded. "Let me up from here, and I'll take you in myself.

"You'll take me in! You!" He got up without changing the menacing position of the gun. "You walk in

I was too bewildered to struggle. I got up dizzily, but when I tried to stoop for the candle I almost fell on it.

My head cleared after a moment, and when I had picked up the candle I had a good chance to look at my

assailant. He was staring at me, too. He was a young fellow, well dressed, and haggard beyond belief.

"I don't know anything about a bag," I persisted, "but if you will give me your word there was nothing in it

"My name is Knox," I said coolly, feeling for my handkerchief-my head was bleeding from a cut over the

"Knox!" Instead of showing relief, his manner showed greater consternation than ever. He snatched the

candle from me and, holding it up, searched my face. "Then-good God-where is my travelingbag?"

"I am Harry Wardrop," he said, "and I have been robbed, Mr. Knox. I was trying to get in the house without

waking the family, and when I came back here to the front door, where I had left my valise, it was gone. I

thought you were the thief when you came out, and-we've lost all this time. Somebody has followed me and

"What was in the bag?" I asked, stepping to the edge of the porch and looking around, with the help of the

"Valuable papers," he said shortly. He seemed to be dazed and at a loss what to do next. We had both

"You are certain you left it here?" I asked. The thing seemed incredible in the quiet and peace of that

Once more I began a desultory search, going down the steps and looking among the cannas that bordered the

porch. Something glistened beside the step, and stooping down I discovered a small brown leather

"Here it is," I said, not so gracious as I might have been; I had suffered considerably for that travelingbag.

The sight of it restored Wardrop's poise at once. His twitching features relaxed."By Jove, I'm glad to see it,"

he said. "I can't explain, but-tremendous things were depending on that bag, Mr. Knox. I don't know how to

"You did," I said grimly, and gave him the bag. The moment he took it I knew there was something wrong;

he hurried into the house and lighted the library lamp. Then he opened the travelingbag with shaking

He stood for a moment, staring incredulously into it. Then he hurled it down on the table and turned on me,

"It's a trick!" he said furiously. "You've hidden it somewhere. This is not my bag. You've substituted one just

"Don't be a fool," I retorted. "How could I substitute an empty satchel for yours when up to fifteen minutes

ago I had never seen you or your grip either? Use a little common sense. Some place tonight you have put

down that bag, and some clever thief has substituted a similar one. It's an old trick."

"It's impossible," he said after a pause, while he seemed to be going over, minute by minute, the events of the

night. "I was followed, as far as that goes, in Plattsburg. Two men watched me from the minute I got there, on

Tuesday; I changed my hotel, and for all of yesterday-Wednesday, that is-I felt secure enough. But on my

way to the train I felt that I was under surveillance again, and by turning quickly I came face to face with one

"Yes. I thought he was a detective; you know I've had a lot of that sort of thing lately, with election coming

"Yes, the other one may. The thing I don't understand is this, Mr. Knox. When we drew in at Bellwood

Station I distinctly remember opening the bag and putting my newspaper and railroad schedule inside. It was

"It is here," I said, drawing out the yellow folder. For a moment my companion looked almost haunted. He

"The whole thing is impossible. I tell you, that valise was heavy when I walked up from the station. I changed

it from one hand to the other because of the weight. When I got here I set it down on the edge of the porch

"But it wasn't locked," I broke in. "When I came downstairs to look for a burglar, I found it open at least an

"We're both crazy then," he asserted gravely. "I tell you, I tried every way I knew to unlock that door, and

could hear the chain rattling. Unlocked! You don't know the way this house is fastened up at night."

We were so engrossed that neither of us had heard steps on the stairs. The sound of a smothered exclamation

from the doorway caused us both to turn suddenly. Standing there, in a loose gown of some sort, very much

surprised and startled, was Margery Fleming. Wardrop pulled himself together at once. As for me, I knew

what sort of figure I cut, my collar stained with blood, a lump on my forehead that felt as big as a doorknob,

"What is the matter?" she asked uncertainly. "I heard such queer noises, and I thought some one had broken

"Mr. Wardrop was trying to break in," I explained, "and I heard him and came down. On the way I had a

I don't think she quite believed me. She looked from my swollen head to the open bag, and then to Wardrop's

pale face. Then I think, womanlike, she remembered the two great braids that hung over her shoulders and

"I'm glad that's all it is," she called back cautiously, and we could hear her running up the stairs.

"You'd better go to bed," Wardrop said, picking up his hat. "I'm going down to the station. There's no train

out of here between midnight and a flag train at fourthirty A.M. It's not likely to be of any use, but I want to

"It is only half past two," I said, glancing at my watch. "We might look around outside first."

The necessity for action made him welcome any suggestion. Reticent as he was, his feverish excitement made

me think that something vital hung on the recovery of the contents of that Russia leather bag. We found a

lantern somewhere in the back of the house, and together we went over the grounds. It did not take long, and

As I look back on that night, the key to what had passed and to much that was coming was so simple, so

direct-and yet we missed it entirely. Nor, when bigger things developed, and Hunter's trained senses were

brought into play, did he do much better. It was some time before we learned the true inwardness of the

At five o'clock in the morning Wardrop came back exhausted and nerveless. No one had taken the

fourthirty; the contents of the bag were gone, probably beyond recall. I put my dented candlestick back on

the mantel, and prepared for a little sleep, blessing the deafness of old age which had enabled the Maitland

ladies to sleep through it all. I tried to forget the queer events of the night, but the throbbing of my head kept

me awake, and through it all one question obtruded itself-who had unlocked the front door and left it open?

I WAS almost unrecognizable when I looked at myself in the mirror the next morning, preparatory to

dressing for breakfast. My nose boasted a new arch, like the back of an angry cat, making my profile Roman

and ferocious, and the lump on my forehead from the chair was swollen, glassy and purple. I turned my back

Miss Fleming was in the breakfastroom when I got down, standing at a window, her back to me. I have

carried with me, during all the months since that time, a mental picture of her as she stood there, in a pink

morning frock of some sort. But only the other day, having mentioned this to her, she assured me that the

frock was blue, that she didn't have a pink garment at the time this story opens and that if she did she

positively didn't have it on. And having thus flouted my eye for color, she maintains that she did not have her

back to me, for she distinctly saw my newlyraised bridge as I came down the stairs. So I amend this. Miss

Fleming in a blue frock was facing the door when I went into the breakfastroom. Of one thing I am certain.

"It isn't mine," I replied meekly. "My own face is beneath these excrescences. I tried to cover the bump on

my forehead with French chalk, but it only accentuated the thing, like snow on a mountain top."

"'The purple peaks of Darien,'" she quoted, pouring me my coffee. "Do you know, I feel so much better since

I thought ruefully of the failure of my first attempt to play the sleuth, and I disclaimed any right to Miss

Letitia's high opinion of me. From my dogging the watchman to the police station, to Delia and her note, was

"Before any one comes down, Miss Fleming," I said, "I want to ask a question or two. What was the name of

"What does one know about new servants?" she responded. "They bring you references, but references are

the price most women pay to get rid of their servants without a fuss. Rose was fat and old, but Delia was

Wardrop came in then, and we spoke of other things. The two elderly ladies it seemed had tea and toast in

their rooms when they wakened, and the three of us breakfasted together. But conversation languished with

Wardrop's appearance; he looked haggard and worn, avoided Miss Fleming's eyes and after ordering eggs

"I want to get the ninethirty, Margie," he said, coming back with his hat in his hand. "I may not be out to

dinner. Tell Miss Letitia, will you?" He turned to go, but on second thought came back to me and held out his

"Not if I see you first," I interrupted. He glanced at my mutilated features and smiled.

"I have made you a Maitland," he said. "I didn't think that anything but a prodigal Nature could duplicate

Miss Letitia's nose! I'm honestly sorry, Mr. Knox, and if you do not want Miss Jane at that bump with a cold

silver knife and some butter, you'd better duck before she comes down. Goodby, Margie."

I think the girl was as much baffled as I was by the change in his manner when he spoke to her. His smile

faded and he hardly met her eyes: I thought that his aloofness puzzled rather than hurt her. When the house

door had closed behind him, she dropped her chin in her hand and looked across the table.

"You did not tell me the truth last night, Mr. Knox," she said. "I have never seen Harry look like that.

"He was robbed of his travelingbag," I explained, on Fred's theory that half a truth is better than a poor lie.

"It's a humiliating experience, I believe. A man will throw away thousands, or gamble them away, with more

equanimity than he'll see some one making off with his hair brushes or his clean collars."

"His travelingbag!" she repeated scornfully. "Mr. Knox, something has happened to my father, and you and

"On my honor, it is nothing of the sort," I hastened to assure her. "I saw him for only a few minutes, just long

She got up and crossing to the wooden mantel, put her arms upon it and leaned her head against them. "I

wanted to ask him," she said drearily, "but I am afraid to. Suppose he doesn't know and I should tell him! He

would go to Mr. Schwartz at once, and Mr. Schwartz is treacherous. The papers would get it, too."

Her eyes filled with tears, and I felt as awkward as a man always does when a woman begins to cry. If he

knows her well enough he can go over and pat her on the shoulder and assure her it is going to be all right. If

he does not know her, and there are two maiden aunts likely to come in at any minute, he sits still, as I did,

"I didn't sleep much," she explained, dabbing at her eyes, "and I am nervous, anyhow. Mr. Knox, are you sure

"Only Harry," I repeated. "If Mr. Wardrop's attempt to get into the house leaves me in this condition, what

"There was some one moving about upstairs not long before I came down," she said slowly.

"Very well," triumphantly. "Some one did. Not only that, but they were in the storeroom on the floor above.

I could hear one person and perhaps two, going from one side of the room to the other and back again."

"You heard a goblin quadrille. First couple forward and back," I said facetiously.

"I heard real footsteps-unmistakable ones. The maids sleep back on the second floor, and-don't tell me it was

I was more impressed than I cared to show. I found I had a half hour before train time, and as we were neither

of us eating anything, I suggested that we explore the upper floor of the house. I did it, I explained, not

We crept past the two closed doors behind which the ladies Maitland were presumably taking out their crimps

and taking in their tea. Then up a narrow, obtrusively clean stairway to the upper floor.

It was an oldfashioned, slopingroofed attic, with narrow windows and a bare floor. At one end a door

opened into a large room, and in there were the family trunks of four generations of Maitlands. One on

another they were all piled there-little hair trunks, squabtopped trunks, huge Saratogas-of the period when

the two maiden ladies were in their late teens-and there were handsome, modern trunks, too. For Miss

Fleming's satisfaction I made an examination of the room, but it showed nothing. There was little or no dust

In the main attic were two stepladders, some curtains drying on frames and an old chest of drawers with

glass knobs and the veneering broken in places. One of the drawers stood open, and inside could be seen a

red and white patchwork quilt, and a grayish thing that looked like flannel and smelled to heaven of camphor.

Part way down the attic stairs Margery stopped, her eyes fixed on the whitescrubbed rail. Following her

gaze, I stopped, too, and I felt a sort of chill go over me. No spot or blemish, no dirty finger print marked the

whiteness of that stair rail, except in one place. On it, clear and distinct, every line of the palm showing, was

Margery did not speak; she had turned very white, and closed her eyes, but she was not faint. When the first

revulsion had passed, I reached over and touched the stain. It was quite dry, of course, but it was still

reddishbrown; another hour or two would see it black. It was evidently fresh-Hunter said afterward it must

have been about six hours old, and as things transpired, he was right. The stain showed a hand somewhat

short and broad, with widened fingertips; marked in ink, it would not have struck me so forcibly, perhaps,

but there, its ugly red against the white wood, it seemed to me to be the imprint of a brutal, murderous hand.

"What did I tell you?" she asked. "Some one was in this house last night; I heard them distinctly There must

We went on downstairs into the quiet and peace of the diningroom again. I got some hot coffee for

"I am beginning to think I am being pursued by a malicious spirit," she said, trying to smile. "I came away

from home because people got into the house at night and left queer signs of their visits, and now, here at

Bellwood, where nothing ever happens, the moment I arrive things begin to occur. And-just as it was at

I did not tell her of the open hall door, just as I had kept from her the fact that only the contents of Harry

Wardrop's bag had been taken. That it had all been the work of one person, and that that person, having in

some way access to the house, had also stolen the pearls, was now my confident belief.

I looked at Bella-the maid-as she moved around the diningroom; her stolid face was not even intelligent;

certainly not cunning. Heppie, the cook and only other servant, was partly blind and her horizon was the

diameter of her largest kettle. No-it had not been a servant, this mysterious intruder who passed the Maitland

silver on the sideboard without an attempt to take it, and who floundered around an attic at night, in search of

nothing more valuable than patchwork quilts and winter flannels. It is strange to look back and think how

quietly we sat there; that we could see nothing but burglary-or an attempt at it-in what we had found.

It must have been after nine o'clock when Bella came running into the room. Ordinarily a slow and clumsy

creature, she almost flew. She had a tray in her hand, and the dishes were rattling and threatening overthrow

at every step. She brought up against a chair, and a cup went flying. The breaking of a cup must have been a

serious offense in Miss Letitia Maitland's house, but Bella took no notice whatever of it.

"Nonsense!" I said, seeing Margery's horrified face. "Don't come in here with such a story. If Miss Jane is not

Bella stooped and gathered up the broken cup, her lips moving. Margery had recovered herself. She made

"Do you mean-she is not in her room?" she asked incredulously. "Isn't she somewhere around the house?"

"Go up and look at the room," the girl replied, and, with Margery leading, we ran up the stairs.

Miss Jane's room was empty. From somewhere near Miss Letitia could be heard lecturing Hepsibah about

putting too much butter on the toast. Her high voice, pitched for Heppie's old ears, rasped me. Margery closed

The bed had been occupied; its coverings had been thrown back, as if its occupant had risen hurriedly. The

room itself was in a state of confusion; a rocker lay on its side, and Miss Jane's clothing, folded as she had

taken it off, had slid off on to the floor. Her shoes stood neatly at the foot of the bed, and a bottle of toilet

vinegar had been upset, pouring a stream over the marble top of the dresser and down on to the floor. Over

the high wooden mantel the Maitland who had been governor of the state years ago hung at a waggish angle,

Margery stared around her in bewilderment. Of course, it was not until later in the day that I saw all the

details. My first impression was of confusion and disorder: the room seemed to have been the scene of a

struggle. The overturned furniture, the clothes on the floor, the picture, coupled with the print of the hand on

And as if to prove it conclusively, Margery picked up Miss Jane's new lace cap from the floor. It was

"She has been killed," Margery said, in a choking voice. "Killed, and she had not an enemy in the world !"

Margery had more presence of mind than I had; I suppose it is because woman's courage is mental and man's

physical, that in times of great strain women always make the better showing. While I was standing in the

middle of the room, staring at the confusion around me, Margery was already on her knees, looking under the

high, fourpost bed. Finding nothing there she went to the closet. It was undisturbed. Pathetic rows of limp

black dresses and on the shelves two black crepe bonnets were mute reminders of the little old lady. But there

"Call Robert, the gardener," Margery said quickly, "and have him help you search the grounds and cellars. I

will take Bella and go through the house. Above everything, keep it from Aunt Letitia as long as possible."

I locked the door into the disordered room, and with my head whirling, I went to look for Robert.

It takes a short time to search an acre of lawn and shrubbery. There was no trace of the missing woman

anywhere outside the house, and from Bella, as she sat at the foot of the front stairs with her apron over her

head, I learned in a monosyllable that nothing had been found in the house. Margery was with Miss Letitia,

and from the excited conversation I knew she was telling her-not harrowing details, but that Miss Jane had

"Look in the fruit closet in the storeroom," I heard her say. "She's let the spring lock shut on her twice; she

"Then she's out looking for stump water to take that wart off her neck. She said yesterday she was going for

"But her clothes are all here," Margery persisted. `'We think some one must have got in the house."

"If all her clothes are there she's been sleepwalking," Miss Letitia said calmly. "We used to have to tie her

by a cord around her ankle and fasten it to the bedpost. When she tried to get up the cord would pull and

I think after a time, however, some of Margery's uneasiness communicated itself to the older woman. She

finished dressing, and fumed when we told her we had locked Miss Jane's door and mislaid the key. Finally,

Margery got her settled in the back parlor with some peppermints and her knitting; she had a feeling, she said,

that Jane had gone after the stump water and lost her way, and I told Margery to keep her in that state of mind

I sent for Hunter that morning and he came at three o'clock. I took him through the back entrance to avoid

Miss Letitia. I think he had been skeptical until I threw open the door and showed him the upset chair, the old

lady's clothing, and the bloodstained lace cap. His examination was quick and thorough. He took a crumpled

sheet of note paper out of the wastebasket and looked at it, then he stuffed it in his pocket. He sniffed the

toilet water, called Margery and asked her if any clothing was missing, and on receiving a negative answer

asked if any shawls or wraps were gone from the halls or other rooms. Margery reported nothing missing.

Before he left the room, Hunter went back and moved the picture which had been disturbed over the mantel.

What he saw made him get a chair and, standing on it, take the picture from its nail. Thus exposed, the wall

showed an opening about a foot square, and perhaps eighteen inches deep. A metal door, opening in, was

unfastened and ajar, and just inside was a copy of a recent sentimental novel and a bottle of some sort of

complexion cream. In spite of myself, I smiled; it was so typical of the dear old lady, with the heart of a girl

and a skin that was losing its roses. But there was something else in the receptacle, something that made

Margery Fleming draw in her breath sharply, and made Hunter raise his eyebrows a little and glance at me.

The something was a scrap of unruled white paper, and on it the figures eleven twentytwo!

HARRY WARDROP came back from the city at four o'clock, while Hunter was in the midst of his

investigation. I met him in the hall and told him what had happened, and with this new apprehension added to

the shock of the night before, he looked as though his nerves were ready to snap.

Wardrop was a man of perhaps twentyseven, as tall as I, although not so heavy, with direct blue eyes and

fair hair; altogether a manly and prepossessing sort of fellow. I was not surprised that Margery Fleming had

found him attractive-he had the blond hair and offhand manner that women seem to like. I am dark, myself.

He seemed surprised to find Hunter there, and not particularly pleased, but he followed us to the upper floor

and watched silently while Hunter went over the two rooms. Beside the large chest of drawers in the main

attic Hunter found perhaps half a dozen drops of blood, and on the edge of the open drawer there were traces

of more. In the inner room two trunks had been moved out nearly a foot, as he found by the faint dust that had

been under them. With the stain on the stair rail, that was all he discovered, and it was little enough. Then he

took out his note took and there among the trunks we had a little seance of our own, in which Hunter asked

"Have you a pencil or pen, Mr. Knox ?" he asked me, but I had none. Wardrop felt his pockets, with no better

"I have lost my fountain pen somewhere around the house today," he said irritably. "Here's a pencil-not

"About halfpast one or perhaps a few minutes later. The clock struck two while I was still awake and

"This person who was walking through the attics here-would you say it was a heavy person? A man, I

"Yes," she said finally. "It was very stealthy, but I think it was a man's step."

"There could have been no such sounds," I said. "I sat in my room and smoked until a quarter to two. I heard

nothing until then, when I heard Mr. Wardrop trying to get into the house. I went down to admit him, and-I

"The last train gets in here at twelvethirty," he said slowly. "Does it always take you an hour and a quarter

Wardrop flushed uneasily, and I could see Margery's eyes dilate with amazement. As for me, I could only

"Then-will you be good enough to tell me where you did go?" he asked. "I have reasons for wanting to

"Damn your reasons-I beg your pardon, Margery. Look here, Mr. Hunter, do you think I would hurt a hair of

that old lady's head? Do you think I came here last night and killed her, or whatever it is that has happened to

"Not necessarily," Hunter said, unruffled. "It merely occurred to me that we have at least an hour of your time

last night, while this thing was going on, to account for. However, we can speak of that later. I am practically

certain of one thing, Miss Maitland is not dead, or was not dead when she was taken away from this house."

"Well, it is possible. It's a puzzling affair all through. You are certain there are no closets or unused rooms

"I never heard of any," Margery said, but I saw Wardrop's face change on the instant. He said nothing,

however, but stood frowning at the floor, with his hands deep in his coat pockets.

Margery was beginning to show the effect of the long day's strain; she began to cry a little, and with an air of

"You are going to lie down, Margery," he said, holding out his hand to help her up. "Mrs. Mellon will come

"Sleep!" she said with scorn, as he helped her to her feet. "Sleep, when things like this are occurring! Father

He faced her, as if he had known the question must come and was prepared for it.

"I know that he is all right, Margery. He has been-out of town. If it had not been for something unforeseen

"And Aunt Jane?" she asked Hunter, from the head of the attic stairs, "you do not think she is dead?"

"Not until we have found something more," he answered tactlessly. "It's like where there's smoke there's fire;

When they had both gone, Hunter sat down on a trunk and drew out a cigar that looked like a bomb.

"I'll be damned if I know," he responded, looking around for some place to expectorate and finding none.

"The window," I suggested, and he went over to it. When he came back he had a rather peculiar expression.

"In the first place," he began, "we can take it for granted that, unless she was crazy or sleepwalking she

didn't go out in her nightclothes, and there's nothing of hers missing. She wasn't taken in a carriage,

providing she was taken at all. There's not a mark of wheels on that drive newer than a week, and besides,

"Then, unless she went away in a balloon, where it wouldn't matter what she had on, she is still around the

"Are you sure it was she who was hurt?" I asked. "That print of a hand-that is not Miss Jane's."

In reply Hunter led the way down the stairs to the place where the stain on the stair rail stood out, ugly and

"Suppose," he said, "suppose you grip something very hard, what happens to your hand?"

"Now, look at that stain. Look at the short fingers-why, it's a child's hand beside mine. The breadth is from

pressure. It might be figured out this way. The fingers, you notice, point down the stairs. In some way, let us

say, the burglar, for want of a better name, gets into the house. He used a ladder resting against that window

"Yes, there is a pruning ladder there. Now then-he comes down these stairs, and he has a definite object. He

knows of something valuable in that cubby hole over the mantel in Miss Jane's room. How does he get in?

The door into the upper hall is closed and bolted, but the door into the bathroom is open. From there another

door leads into the bedroom, and it has no bolt-only a key. That kind of a lock is only a threeminutes delay,

or less. Now then, Miss Maitland was a light sleeper. When she wakened she was too alarmed to scream; she

tried to get to the door and was intercepted. Finally she got out the way the intruder got in, and ran along the

hall. Every door was locked. In a frenzy she ran up the attic stairs and was captured up there. Which bears out

"Good heavens, what an awful thing!" I gasped. "And I was sitting smoking just across the hall."

"He brings her down the stairs again, probably half dragging her. Once, she catches hold of the stair rail, and

"But why did he bring her down?" I asked bewildered. "Why wouldn't he take what he was after and get

"She probably had to get the key of the iron door," he suggested. "It was hidden, and time was valuable. If

there was a scapegrace member of the family, for instance, who knew where the old lady kept money, and

"Or even our young friend, Wardrop," Hunter said quietly. "He has an hour to account for. The trying to get

in may have been a blind, and how do you know that what he says was stolen out of his satchel was not what

I was dizzy with trying to follow Hunter's facile imagination. The thing we were trying to do was to find the

"Then where is she now?" I asked. He meditated. He had sat down on the narrow stairs, and was rubbing his

chin with a thoughtful forefinger. "Onethirty, Miss Margery says, when she heard the noise. Onefortyfive

when you heard Wardrop at the shutters. I tell you, Knox, it is one of two things: either that woman is dead

somewhere in this house, or she ran out of the hall door just before you went downstairs, and in that case the

Lord only knows where she is. If there is a room anywhere that we have not explored-"

"I am inclined to think there is," I broke in, thinking of Wardrop's face a few minutes before. And just then

Wardrop himself joined us. He closed the door at the foot of the boxedin staircase, and came quietly up.

"You spoke about an unused room or a secret closet, Mr. Hunter," he said, without any resentment in his

tone. "We have nothing so sensational as that, but the old house is full of queer nooks and crannies, and

perhaps, in one of them, we might find-" he stopped and gulped. Whatever Hunter might think, whatever I

might have against Harry Wardrop, I determined then that he had had absolutely nothing to do with little

The first place we explored was a closed and walledin winecellar, long unused, and to which access was

gained by a small window in the stone foundation of the house. The cobwebs over the window made it

practically an impossible place, but we put Robert, the gardener, through it, in spite of his protests.

"There's nothin' there, I tell you," he protested, with one leg over the coping. "God only knows what's down

there, after all these years. I've been livin' here with the Miss Maitlands for twenty year, and I ain't never been

He went, because we were three to his one, but he was up again in sixty seconds, with the announcement that

We moved every trunk in the storeroom, although it would have been a moral impossibility for any one to

have done it the night before without rousing the entire family, and were thus able to get to and open a large

closet, which proved to contain neatly tied and labeled packages of religious weeklies, beginning in the

The grounds had been gone over inch by inch, without affording any clue, and now the three of us faced one

another. The day was almost gone, and we were exactly where we started. Hunter had sent men through the

town and the adjacent countryside, but no word had come from them. Miss Letitia had at last succumbed to

the suspense and had gone to bed, where she lay quietly enough, as is the way with the old, but so mild that

At five o'clock Hawes called me up from the office and almost tearfully implored me to come back and

attend to my business. When I said it was impossible, I could hear him groan as he hung up the receiver.

Hawes is of the opinion that by keeping fresh magazines in my waitingroom and by persuading me to the

extravagance of Turkish rugs, that he has built my practice to its present flourishing state. When I left the

telephone, Hunter was preparing to go back to town and Wardrop was walking up and down the hall.

Suddenly Wardrop stopped his uneasy promenade and hailed the detective on his way to the door.

"By George," he exclaimed,"I forgot to show you the closet under the attic stairs!"

We hurried up and Wardrop showed us the panel in the hall, which slid to one side when he pushed a bolt

under the carpet. The blackness of the closet was horrible in its suggestion to me. I stepped back while Hunter

"Better not go in," Wardrop said. "It hasn't been used in years and it's black with dust. I found it myself and

"It hasn't been used for years!" reflected Hunter, looking around him curiously. "I suppose it has been some

"Several years," Wardrop replied carelessly. "I used to keep contraband here in my college days, cigarettes

Hunter took his foot off a small object that lay on the floor, and picking it up, held it out to Wardrop, with a

WHEN Hunter had finally gone at six o'clock, summoned to town on urgent business, we were very nearly

where we had been before he came. He could only give us theories, and after all, what we wanted was

Why had Wardrop lied about so small a matter as his fountain pen? The closet was empty: what object could

he have had in saying he had not been in it for years? I found that my belief in his sincerity of the night

before was going. If he had been lying then, I owed him something for a lump on my head that made it

It would have been easy enough for him to rob himself, and, if he had an eye for the theatrical, to work out

just some such plot. It was even possible that he had hidden for a few hours in the secret closet the contents of

the Russia leather bag. But, whatever Wardrop might or might not be, he gave me little chance to find out, for

he left the house before Hunter did that afternoon, and it was later, and under strange circumstances, that I

Hunter had not told me what was on the paper he had picked out of the basket in Miss Jane's room, and I

knew he was as much puzzled as I at the scrap in the little cupboard, with eleven twentytwo on it. It

occurred to me that it might mean the twentysecond day of the eleventh month, perhaps something that had

happened on some momentous, longburied twentysecond of November. But this was May, and the finding

After Hunter left I went back to the closet under the upper stairs, and with some difficulty got the panel open

again. The space inside, perhaps eight feet high at one end and four at the other, was empty. There was a row

of hooks, as if at some time clothing had been hung there, and a flat shelf at one end, gray with dust.

I struck another match and examined the shelf. On its surface were numerous scratchings in the dust layer,

but at one end, marked out as if drawn on a blackboard, was a rectangular outline, apparently that of a

My match burned my fingers and I dropped it to the floor, where it expired in a sickly blue flame. At the last,

however it died heroically-like an old man to whom his last hours bring back some of the glory of his prime,

burning brightly for a second and then fading into darkness. The last flash showed me, on the floor of the

closet and wedged between two boards, a small white globule. It did not need another match to tell me it was

I dug it out carefully and took it to my room. In the daylight there I recognized it as an unstrung pearl of fair

size and considerable value. There could hardly be a doubt that I had stumbled on one of the stolen gems; but

a pearl was only a pearl to me, after all. I didn't feel any of the inspirations which fiction detectives

I lit a cigar and put the pearl on the table in front of me. But no explanation formed itself in the tobacco

smoke. If Wardrop took the pearls, I kept repeating over and over, if Wardrop took the pearls, who took Miss

I tried to forget the pearls, and to fathom the connection between Miss Maitland's disappearance and the

absence of her brotherinlaw. The scrap of paper, eleven twentytwo, must connect them, but how? A

family scandal? Dismissed on the instant. There could be nothing that would touch the virginal remoteness of

that little old lady. Insanity? Well, Miss Jane might have had a sudden aberration and wandered away, but

I smoked and considered some time over this. An especially malignant foe might rob, or even murder, but it

was almost ludicrous to think of his carrying away by force Miss Jane's ninety pounds of austere flesh. The

solution, had it not been for the bloodstains, might have been a peaceful one, leaving out the pearls,

altogether, but later developments showed that the pearls refused to be omitted. To my mind, however, at that

time, the issue seemed a double one. I believed that some one, perhaps Harry Wardrop, had stolen the pearls,

hidden them in the secret closet, and disposed of them later. I made a note to try to follow up the missing

Then-I clung to the theory that Miss Maitland had been abducted and was being held for ransom. If I could

have found traces of a vehicle of any sort near the house, I would almost have considered my contention

proved. That any one could have entered the house, intimidated and even slightly injured the old lady, and

taken her quietly out the front door, while I sat smoking in my room with the window open, and Wardrop

trying the shutters at the side of the house, seemed impossible. Yet there were the stains, the confusion, the

But-and I stuck here-the abductor who would steal an old woman, and take her out into the May night

without any covering-not even shoes-clad only in her nightclothes, would run an almost certain risk of

losing his prize by pneumonia. For a second search had shown not an article of wearing apparel missing from

Just before dinner I made a second round of the grounds, this time looking for traces of wheels. I found none

nearby, and it occurred to me that the boldest highwayman would hardly drive up to the door for his booty.

When I had extended my search to cover the unpaved lane that separated the back of the Maitland place from

The morning delivery wagons had made fresh trails, and at first I despaired. I sauntered up the lane to the

right, however, and about a hundred feet beyond the boundary hedge I found circular tracks, broad and deep,

where an automobile had backed and turned. The lane was separated by high hedges of osage orange from the

properties on either side, and each house in that neighborhood had a drive of its own, which entered from the

There was no reason, or, so far as I could see, no legitimate reason, why a car should have stopped there, yet

it had stopped and for some time. Deeper tracks in the sand at the side of the lane showed that.

I felt that I had made some progress: I had found where the pearls had been hidden after the theft, and this put

Bella out of the question. And I had found-or thought I had-the way in which Miss Jane had been taken away

I came back past the long rear wing of the house which contained, I presumed, the kitchen and the other

mysterious regions which only women and architects comprehend. A long porch ran the length of the wing,

"In here in the old laundry," Margery's voice repeated, and I retraced my steps and went up on the porch. At

the very end of the wing, dismantled, piled at the sides with firewood and broken furniture, was an old

laundry. Its tubs were rusty, its walls mildewed and streaked, and it exhaled the musty odor of empty houses.

On the floor in the middle of the room, undeniably dirty and dishevelled, sat Margery Fleming.

"I thought you were never coming," she said petulantly. "I have been here alone for an hour."

"I'm sure I never guessed it," I apologized. "I should have been only too glad to come and sit with you."

She was fumbling with her hair, which threatened to come down any minute, and which hung, loosely

"I hate to look ridiculous," she said sharply, "and I detest being laughed at. I've been crying, and I haven't any

I proffered mine gravely, and she took it. She wiped the dusty streaks off her cheeks and pinned her hair in a

funny knob on top of her head that would have made any other woman look like a caricature. But still she sat

"Now," she said, when she had jabbed the last hairpin into place and tucked my handkerchief into her belt,

In reply she brushed aside her gown, and for the first time I saw what had occurred. She was sitting half over

"The wretched thing!" she wailed. "And I have called until I am hoarse. I could shake Heppie! Then I tried to

call you mentally. I fixed my mind on you and said over and over, 'Come, please come.' Didn't you feel

"Good old trapdoor!" I said. "I know I was thinking about you, but I never suspected the reason. And then to

have walked past here twenty minutes ago! Why didn't you call me then?" I was tugging at the door, but it

"I was sure Robert had not looked carefully in the old wine cellar," she said. "and then I remembered this

trapdoor opened into it. It was the only place we hadn't explored thoroughly. I put a ladder down and looked

"Nothing-only I know now where Aunt Letitia's Edwin Booth went to. He was a cat," she explained, "and

"Couldn't you-er-get out of your garments, and-I could go out and close the door," I suggested delicately.

But Margery scouted the suggestion with the proper scorn, and demanded a pair of scissors. She cut herself

loose with vicious snips, while I paraphrased the old nursery rhyme, "She cut her petticoats all around about."

She was unusually dignified at dinner. Neither of us cared to eat, and the empty places-Wardrop's and Miss

It was Margery who, after our pretense of a meal, voiced the suspicion I think we both felt.

"It is a strange time for Harry to go away," she said quietly, from the library window.

"Why don't you say it?" she said suddenly, turning on me. "I know what you think. You believe he only

"I should be sorry to think anything of the kind," I began. But she did not allow me to finish.

"I saw what you thought," she burst out bitterly. "The detective almost laughed in his face. Oh, you needn't

think I don't know: I saw him last night, and the woman too. He brought her right to the gate. You treat me

In sheer amazement I was silent. So a new character had been introduced into the play-a woman, too!

"You were not the only person, Mr. Knox, who could not sleep last night," she went on. "Oh, I know a great

many things. I know about the pearls, and what you think about them, and I know more than that, I-"

She stopped then. She had said more than she intended to, and all at once her bravado left her, and she looked

"I wish you didn't know all those things," I said. "But since you do, won't you let me share the burden? The

I had a sort of crazy desire to take her in my arms and comfort her, Wardrop or no Wardrop. But at that

moment, luckily for me, perhaps, Miss Letitia's shrill old voice came from the stairway.

"Get out of my way, Heppie," she was saying tartly. "I'm not on my deathbed yet, not if I know it. Where's

"I think I know where Jane is," she said, putting down her cane with a jerk. "I don't know why I didn't think

about it before. She's gone to get her new teeth; she's been talkin' of it for a month. Not but what her old teeth

"She would hardly go in the middle of the night," I returned. "She was a very timid woman, wasn't she?"

"She wasn't raised right," Miss Letitia said with a shake of her head. "She's the baby, and the youngest's

"Have you thought that this might be more than it appears to be?" I was feeling my way: she was a very old

"Ransom!" Miss Letitia snapped. "Mr. Knox, my father made his money by working hard for it: I haven't

wasted it-not that I know of. And if Jane Maitland was fool enough to be abducted, she'll stay awhile before I

pay anything for her. It looks to me as if this detective business was going to be expensive, anyhow."

My excuse for dwelling with such attention to detail on the preliminary story, the disappearance of Miss Jane

Maitland and the peculiar circumstances surrounding it, will have to find its justification in the events that

followed it. Miss Jane herself, and the solution of that mystery, solved the even more tragic one in which we

were about to be involved. I say we, because it was borne in on me at about that time, that the things that

concerned Margery Fleming must concern me henceforth, whether I willed it so or otherwise. For the first

time in my life a woman's step on the stair was like no other sound in the world.

AT nine o'clock that night things remained about the same. The man Hunter had sent to investigate the

neighborhood and the country just outside of the town, came to the house about eight, and reported "nothing

"Not yet; there may be. Take a cab at the station and come to the corner of Mulberry Street and Park Lane.

I sent word upstairs by Bella, who was sitting in the kitchen, her heavy face sodden with grief, and taking

my hat and raincoat-it was raining a light spring drizzle-I hurried to the station. In twentyfour minutes I was

in the city, and perhaps twelve minutes more saw me at the designated corner, with my cab driving away and

I found a sort of refuge by standing under the wooden arch of a gate, and it occurred to me that, for all my

years in the city, this particular neighborhood was altogether strange to me. Two blocks away, in any

Back of me a warehouse lifted six or seven gloomy stories to the sky. The gate I stood in was evidently the

entrance to its yard, and in fact, some uncomfortable movement of mine just then struck the latch, and almost

precipitated me backward by its sudden opening. Beyond was a yard full of shadowy wheels and packing

cases; the street lights did not penetrate there, and with an uneasy feeling that almost anything, in this none

too savory neighborhood, might be waiting there, I struck a match and looked at my watch. It was twenty

minutes after ten. Once a man turned the corner and came toward me, his head down, his long ulster flapping

around his legs. Confident that it was Hunter, I stepped out and touched him on the arm. He wheeled

He went on again without speaking, only pulling his soft hat down lower on his face. I looked after him until

The next minute Hunter appeared, from the same direction, and we walked quickly together. I told him who

the man just ahead had been, and he nodded without surprise. But before we turned the next corner he

"I'm a member of it," he went on rapidly. "It's run by the city ring, or rather it runs itself. Be a good fellow

The corner we turned found us on a narrow, badly paved street. The broken windows of the warehouse still

looked down on us, and across the street was an ice factory, with two deserted wagons standing along the

curb. As well as I could see for the darkness, a lumber yard stretched beyond the warehouse, its piles of

At a gate in the fence beyond the warehouse Hunter stopped. It was an ordinary wooden gate and it opened

with a thumb latch. Beyond stretched a long, narrow, brickpaved alleyway, perhaps three feet wide, and

lighted by the merest glimmer of a light ahead. Hunter went on regardless of puddles in the brick paving, and

I stumbled after him. As we advanced, I could see that the light was a single electric bulb, hung over a second

gate. While Hunter fumbled for a key in his pocket, I had time to see that this gate had a Yale lock, was

provided, at the side, with an electric bell button, and had a letter slot cut in it.

Hunter opened the gate and preceded me through it. The gate swung to and clicked behind me. After the

gloom of the passageway, the small brickpaved yard seemed brilliant with lights. Two wires were strung its

length, dotted with many electric lamps. In a corner a striped tent stood out in grotesque relief; it seemed to

be empty, and the weather was an easy explanation. From the twostory house beyond there came suddenly a

burst of piano music and a none too steady masculine voice. Hunter turned to me, with his foot on the

"Above everything else," he warned, "keep your temper. Nobody gives a hang in here whether you're the

mayor of the town, the champion poolplayer of the first ward, or the roundsman on the beat."

The door at the top of the steps was also Yalelocked. We stepped at once into the kitchen, from which I

imagined that the house faced on another street, and that for obvious reasons only its rear entrance was used.

The kitchen was bright and clean; it was littered, however, with halfcut loaves of bread, glasses and empty

bottles. Over the range a man in his shirt sleeves was giving his whole attention to a slice of ham, sizzling on

a skillet, and at a table nearby a young fellow, with his hair cut in a barber's oval over the back of his neck,

"How are you, Mr. Mayor?" Hunter said, as he shed his raincoat. "This is Mr. Knox, the man who's

"The Cat is purring a welcome," he said, indicating the frying ham. "If my cooking turns out right I'll ask you

to have some ham with me. I don't know why in thunder it gets black in the middle and won't cook around the

I recognized the mayor. He was a big fellow, handsome in a heavy way, and "Tommy" to every one who

Hunter was thoroughly at home. He took my coat and his own and hung them somewhere to dry. Then he

went into a sort of pantry opening off the kitchen and came out with four bottles of beer.

"We take care of ourselves here," he explained, as the newly barbered youth washed some glasses. "If you

want a sandwich, there is cooked ham in the refrigerator and cheese-if our friend at the sink has left any."

The boy looked up from his glasses. "It's rattrap cheese, that stuff," he growled.

"The other ran out an hour ago and didn't come back," put in the mayor, grinning. "You can kill that with

"Get some cigars, will you?" Hunter asked me "They're on a shelf in the pantry. I have my hands full."

I went for the cigars, remembering to keep my eyes open. The pantry was a small room: it contained an

icebox, stocked with drinkables, ham, eggs and butter. On shelves above were cards, cigars and liquors, and

there, too, I saw a box with an indorsement which showed the "honor system" of the Cat Club.

"Sign checks and drop here," it read, and I thought about the old adage of honor among thieves and

When I came out with the cigars Hunter was standing with a group of new arrivals; they included one of the

city physicians, the director of public charities and a judge of a local court. The latter, McFeely, a little, thin

Irishman, knew me and accosted me at once. The mayor was busy over the range, and was almost purple with

When the three newcomers went upstairs, instead of going into the grillroom, I looked at Hunter.

"Yes, if the political game is poker," he replied, and led the way into the room which adjoined the kitchen.

No one paid any attention to us. Bare tables, a wooden floor, and almost as many cuspidors as chairs,

comprised the furniture of the long room. In one corner was a battered upright piano, and there were two

fireplaces with oldfashioned mantels. Perhaps a dozen men were sitting around, talking loudly, with much

scraping of chairs on the bare floor. At one table they were throwing poker dice, but the rest were drinking

beer and talking in a desultory way. At the piano a man with a red mustache was mimicking the sextette from

Lucia and a roar of applause met us as we entered the room. Hunter led the way to a corner and put down his

"What time do they close up?" I asked. In answer Hunter pointed to a sign over the door. It was a card, neatly

"There are only two rules here," he explained. "That is one, and the other is, 'If you get too noisy, and the

The crowd was goodhumored; it paid little or no attention to us, and when some one at the piano began to

"We traced Fleming here, through your cornerman and the cabby," he said carefully. "I haven't seen him,

but it is a moral certainty he is skulking in one of the upstairs rooms. His precious private secretary is here,

"I don't know Fleming by sight," the detective went on, "and the pictures we have of him were taken a good

while ago, when he wore a mustache. When he was in local politics, before he went to the legislature, he

practically owned this place, paying for favors with membership tickets. A man could hide here for a year

"Yes. There are four rooms up there for cards, and a bathroom. It's an old dwelling house. Would Fleming

As if in answer to my objection, Wardrop appeared at that moment. He ran down the painted wooden stairs

and hurried through the room without looking to right or left. The piano kept on, and the men at the tables

were still engrossed with their glasses and one another. Wardrop was very pale; he bolted into a man at the

"You might go up now," Hunter said, rising. "I will see where the young gentleman is making for. Just open

the door of the different rooms upstairs, look around for Fleming, and if any one notices you, ask if Al

He left me then, and after waiting perhaps a minute, I went upstairs alone. The second floor was the

ordinary upper story of a small dwelling house. The doors were closed, but loud talking, smoke, and the rattle

of chips floated out through open transoms. From below the noise of the piano came up the staircase,

unmelodious but rhythmical, and from the street on which the house faced an automobile was starting its

The noise was confusing, disconcerting. I opened two doors, to find only the usual poker table, with the

winners sitting quietly, their cards bunched in the palms of their hands, and the losers, growing more voluble

as the night went on, buying chips recklessly, drinking more than they should. The atmosphere was reeking

The third door I opened was that of a dingy bathroom, with a zinc tub and a slovenly washstand. The next,

however, was different. The light streamed out through the transom as in the other rooms, but there was no

noise from within. With my hand on the door, I hesitated-then, with Hunter's injunction ringing in my ears, I

A breath of cool night air from an open window met me. There was no noise, no smoke, no sour odor of stale

beer. A table had been drawn to the center of the small room, and was littered with papers, pen and ink. At

one corner was a tray, containing the remnants of a meal; a pillow and a pair of blankets on a couch at one

But none of these things caught my eye at first. At the table, leaning forward, his head on his arms, was a

Then the truth burst on me, overwhelmed me. A thin stream was spreading over the papers on the table,

moving slowly, sluggishly, as is the way with blood when the heart pump is stopped. I hurried over and

raised the heavy, wobbling, gray head. It was Allan Fleming and he had been shot through the forehead.

MY FIRST impulse was to rouse the house; my second, to wait for Hunter. To turn loose that mob of

halfdrunken men in such a place seemed profanation. There was nothing of the majesty or panoply of death

here, but the very sordidness of the surroundings made me resolve to guard the new dignity of that figure. I

was shocked, of course; it would be absurd to say that I was emotionally unstrung. On the contrary, I was

conscious of a distinct feeling of disappointment. Fleming had been our key to the Bellwood affair, and he

had put himself beyond helping to solve any mystery. I locked the door and stood wondering what to do next.

I should have called a doctor, no doubt, but I had seen enough of death to know that the man was beyond aid

It was not until I had bolted the door that I discovered the absence of any weapon. Everything that had gone

before had pointed to a position so untenable that suicide seemed its natural and inevitable result. With the

discovery that there was no revolver on the table or floor, the thing was more ominous. I decided at once to

call the young city physician in the room across the hall, and with something approximating panic, I threw

I do not remember that any one spoke. Hunter jumped past me into the room and took in in a single glance

what I had labored to acquire in three minutes. As Wardrop came in, Hunter locked the door behind him, and

I watched Wardrop: I have never seen so suddenly abject a picture. He dropped into a chair, and feeling for

his handkerchief, wiped his shaking lips; every particle of color left his face, and he was limp, unnerved.

"Did you hear the shot?" Hunter asked me. "It has been a matter of minutes since it happened."

"I don't know," I said, bewildered. "I heard a lot of explosions, but I thought it was an automobile, out in the

Hunter was listening while he examined the room, peering under the table, lifting the blankets that had trailed

off the couch on to the floor. Some one outside tried the doorknob, and finding the door locked, shook it

We were silent, in response to a signal from Hunter, and the steps retreated heavily down the hall. The

detective spread the blankets decently over the couch, and the three of us moved the body there. Wardrop was

"Now," Hunter said quietly, "before I call in Doctor Gray from the room across, what do you know about this

"He was in a bad way when I left this morning," he said huskily. "There isn't much use now trying to hide

anything; God knows I've done all I could. But he has been using cocaine for years, and today he ran out of

the stuff. When I got here, about half an hour ago, he was on the verge of killing himself. I got the revolver

from him-he was like a crazy man, and as soon as I dared to leave him, I went out to try and find a doctor-"

Wardrop shuddered; then he pulled himself together, and his tone was more natural.

"What's the use of lying about it?" he said wearily. "You won't believe me if I tell the truth, either, but-he was

dead when I got here. I heard something like the bang of a door as I went upstairs, but the noise was terrific

down below, and I couldn't tell. When I went in, he was just dropping forward, and-" he hesitated.

"You will give it to me," Hunter replied sharply. And after a little fumbling, Wardrop produced it from his

hip pocket. It was an ordinary thirtyeight. The detective opened it and glanced at it. Two chambers were

"And you waited-say ten minutes, before you called for help, and even then you went outside hunting a

"If Mr. Fleming shot himself," the detective pursued relentlessly, "there would be powder marks around the

wound. Then, too, he was in the act of writing a letter. It was a strange impulse, this-you see, he had only

I glanced at the paper on the table. The letter had no superscription; it began abruptly:

"I shall have to leave here. The numbers have followed me. Tonight-" That was all.

"This is not suicide," Hunter said gravely. "It is murder, and I warn you, Mr. Wardrop, to be careful what you

I went across the hall to the room where the noise was loudest. Fortunately, Doctor Gray was out of the game.

He was opening a can of caviare at a table in the corner and came out in response to a gesture. He did not ask

any questions, and I let him go into the death chamber unprepared. The presence of death apparently had no

"Fleming!" he said, awed, as he looked down at the body. "Fleming, by all that's sacred! And a suicide!"

The doctor glanced at the bullet wound in the forehead, and from there significantly to the group around the

"Not an hour-probably less than half," he said. "It's strange we heard nothing, across the hall there."

Hunter took a clean folded handkerchief from his pocket and opening it laid it gently over the dead face. I

think it was a relief to all of us. The doctor got up from his kneeling posture beside the couch, and looked at

"What about getting him away from here?" he said. "There is sure to be a lot of noise about it, and-you

"He was reported as being found dead in the lumber yard," Hunter said dryly. "Well, Doctor, this body stays

where it is, and I don't give a whoop if the whole city government wants it moved. It won't be. This is murder,

But Hunter had many things to attend to; he broke in ruthlessly on the doctor's amazement.

"See if you can get the house empty, Doctor; just tell them he is dead-the story will get out soon enough."

As the doctor left the room Hunter went to the open window, through which a fresh burst of rain was coming,

and closed it. The window gave me an idea, and I went over and tried to see through the streaming pane.

There was no shed or low building outside, but not five yards away the warehouse showed its ugly walls and

"Look here, Hunter," I said, "why could he not have been shot from the warehouse?"

"He could have been-but he wasn't," Hunter affirmed, glancing at Wardrop's drooping figure. "Mr. Wardrop,

I am going to send for the coroner, and then I shall ask you to go with me to the office and tell the chief what

In an incredibly short time the clubhouse was emptied, and before midnight the coroner himself arrived and

went up to the room. As for me, I had breakfasted, lunched and dined on horrors, and I sat in the deserted

At twelvethirty Wardrop, Hunter and the coroner came downstairs, leaving a detective in charge of the

body until morning, when it could be taken home. The coroner had a cab waiting, and he took us at once to

Hunter's chief. He had not gone to bed, and we filed into his library sepulchrally.

Wardrop told his story, but it was hardly convincing. The chief, a large man who said very little, and leaned

back with his eyes partly shut, listened in silence, only occasionally asking a question. The coroner, who was

yawning steadily, left in the middle of Wardrop's story, as if in his mind, at least, the guilty man was as good

"I am-I was-Mr. Allan Fleming's private secretary," Wardrop began. "I secured the position through a

relationship on his wife's side. I have held the position for three years. Before that I read law. For some time I

have known that Mr. Fleming used a drug of some kind. Until a week ago I did not know what it was. On the

ninth of May, Mr. Fleming sent for me. I was in Plattsburg at the time, and he was at home. He was in a

terrible condition-not sleeping at all, and he said he was being followed by some person who meant to kill

him. Finally he asked me to get him some cocaine, and when he had taken it he was more like himself. I

thought the pursuit was only in his own head. He had a man named Carter on guard in his house, and acting

"There was trouble of some sort in the organization; I do not know just what. Mr. Schwartz came here to

meet Mr. Fleming, and it seemed there was money needed. Mr. Fleming had to have it at once. He gave me

some securities to take to Plattsburg and turn into money. I went on the tenth-"

"Yes. He went to the White Cat, and stayed there. No one but the caretaker and one other man knew he was

there. On the night of the twentyfirst, I came back, having turned my securities into money. I carried it in a

package in a small Russia leather bag that never left my hand for a moment. Mr. Knox here suggested that I

had put it down, and it had been exchanged for one just like it, but I did not let it out of my hand on that

journey until I put it down on the porch at the Bellwood house, while I tried to get in. I live at Bellwood, with

the Misses Maitland, sisters of Mr. Fleming's deceased wife. I don't pretend to know how it happened, but

while I was trying to get into the house it was rifled. Mr. Knox will bear me out in that. I found my grip

"A pair of pajamas," he said, "two military brushes and a clothesbrush, two or three softbosomed shirts,

I think Wardrop realized the absurdity of trying to make any one believe that part of the story. He shut his

"Go on," I urged. If he could clear himself he must. I could not go back to Margery Fleming and tell her that

"The bag was empty," he repeated. "I had not been five minutes trying to open the shutters, and yet the bag

had been rifled. Mr. Knox here found it among the flowers below the veranda, empty."

"No, I am attorney to Miss Letitia Maitland, and was there one night as her guest. I found the bag as Mr.

"A hundred thousand dollars. I was afraid to tell Mr. Fleming, but I had to do it. We had a stormy scene, this

"He was not himself; and, well, it meant a great deal to him. And he was out of cocaine; I left him raging, and

when I went home I learned that Miss Jane Maitland had disappeared, been abducted, at the time my satchel

"Tonight, I felt that some one would have to look after Mr. Fleming; I was afraid he would kill himself. It

was a bad time to leave while Miss Jane was missing. But-when I got to the White Cat I found him dead. He

"You are sure?" from Hunter. "Isn't it a fact, Mr. Wardrop, that you took Mr. Fleming's revolver from him

"You have been misinformed," he replied, but no one was impressed by his tone. It was wavering, uncertain.

From Hunter's face I judged it had been a random shot, and had landed unexpectedly well.

"How many people knew that Mr. Fleming had been hiding at the White Cat?" from the chief.

"Very few-besides myself, only a man who looks after the clubhouse in the mornings, and Clarkson, the

"I opened the door into Mr. Fleming's room, perhaps a couple of minutes after Mr. Wardrop went out," I said.

"He was dead then, leaning on his outspread arms over the table; he had been shot in the forehead."

"There was considerable noise; I heard two or three sharp reports like the explosions of an automobile

"Not particularly; I thought, if I thought at all, that they were on the street."

"You are right about the automobile," Hunter said dryly. "The mayor sent his car away as I left to follow Mr.

"It is a strange thing," the chief reflected, "that a revolver could be fired in the upper room of an ordinary

dwelling house, while that house was filled with people-and nobody hear it. Were there any powder marks on

"Thank you very much, gentlemen," he spoke quietly. "I think that is all. Hunter, I would like to see you for a

I think Wardrop was dazed at finding himself free; he had expected nothing less than an immediate charge of

murder. As we walked to the corner for a car or cab, whichever materialized first, he looked back.

"I thought so," he said bitterly. A man was loitering after us along the street. The police were not asleep, they

The last train had gone. We took a night electric car to Wynton, and walked the three miles to Bellwood.

Neither of us was talkative, and I imagine we were both thinking of Margery, and the news she would have to

Once Wardrop turned around to where we could hear the detective splashing along, well behind.

"I hope he's enjoying it," he said. "I brought you by this road, so he'd have to wade in mud up to his neck."

"The devil you did!" I exclaimed. "I'll have to be scraped with a knife before I can get my clothes off."

We both felt better for the laugh; it was a sort of nervous reaction. The detective was well behind, but after a

while Wardrop stood still, while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three of us trudged

At the door Wardrop turned to the detective with a faint smile. "It's raining again," he said, "you'd better

come in. You needn't worry about me; I'm not going to run away, and there's a couch in the library."

The detective grinned, and in the light from the hall I recognized the man I had followed to the police station

"I guess I will," he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes. "This thing is only a matter of form,

But he didn't lie down on the couch. He took a chair in the hall near the foot of the stairs, and we left him

there, with the evening paper and a lamp. It was a queer situation, to say the least.

WARDROP looked so wretched that I asked him into my room, and mixed him some whisky and water.

"You've been a darned sight better to me than I would have been to you, under the circumstances," he said

"I thought we would better arrange about Miss Margery before we try to settle down," I replied. "What she

has gone through in the last twentyfour hours is nothing to what is coming tomorrow. Will you tell her

"I believe it would come better from you," he said finally. "I am in a peculiar position of having been

suspected by her father of robbing him, by you of carrying away her aunt, and now by the police and

"I do not suspect you of anything," I justified myself. "I don't think you are entirely open, that is all, Wardrop.

His expressive face was on its guard in a moment. He ceased his restless pacing, pausing impressively before

"I give you my word as a gentleman-I do not know who killed Mr. Fleming, and that when I first saw him

dead, my only thought was that he had killed himself. He had threatened to, that day. Why, if you think I

killed him, you would have to think I robbed him, too, in order to find a motive."

I did not tell him that that was precisely what Hunter did think. I evaded the issue.

"Probably," he said. "In the very nature of Mr. Fleming's position, we used figures all the time. Eleven

twentytwo. That's the time the theater train leaves the city for Bellwood. Not what you want, eh?"

"Not quite," I answered noncommittally and began to wind my watch. He took the hint and prepared to

"I'll not keep you up any longer," he said, picking up his raincoat. He opened the door and stared ruefully

down at the detective in the hall below. "The old place is queer without Miss Jane," he said irrelevantly.

He went heavily along the hall and I closed my door. I heard him pass Margery's room and then go back and

"It's Harry," he called. "I thought you wouldn't worry if you knew I was in the house tonight."

"Yes, he is here," he said. He stood there for a moment, hesitating over something, but whatever it was, he

The little familiarity made me wince. Every unattached man has the same pang now and then. I have it

sometimes when Edith sits on the arm of Fred's chair, or one of the youngsters leaves me to run to "daddy."

And one of the sanest men I ever met went to his office and proposed to his stenographer in sheer craving for

domesticity, after watching the wife of one of his friends run her hand over her husband's chin and give him a

I pulled myself up sharply and after taking off my dripping coat, I went to the window and looked out into the

May night. It seemed incredible that almost the same hour the previous night little Miss Jane had

disappeared, had been taken bodily away through the peace of the warm spring darkness, and that I, as

wideawake as I was at that moment, acute enough of hearing to detect Wardrop's careful steps on the gravel

walk below, had heard no struggle, had permitted this thing to happen without raising a finger in the old

lady's defense. And she was gone as completely as if she had stepped over some psychic barrier into the

I found myself avoiding the more recent occurrence at the White Cat. I was still too close to it to have gained

any perspective. On that subject I was able to think clearly of only one thing: that I would have to tell

Margery in the morning, and that I would have given anything I possessed for a little of Edith's diplomacy

with which to break the bad news. It was Edith who broke the news to me that the moths had got into my

evening clothes while I was hunting in the Rockies, by telling me that my dresscoat made me look narrow

across the shoulders and persuading me to buy a new one and give the old one to Fred. Then she broke the

I was ready for bed when Wardrop came back and rapped at my door. He was still dressed, and he had the

"Look here," he said excitedly, when I had closed the door, "this is not my bag at all. Fool that I was. I never

He held it out to me, and I carried it to the light. It was an ordinary eighteeninch Russia leather

travelingbag, tan in color, and with goldplated mountings. It was empty, save for the railroad schedule that

still rested in one side pocket. Wardrop pointed to the empty pocket on the other side.

"In my bag," he explained rapidly, "my name was written inside that pocket, in ink. I did it myself-my name

"Don't you see?" he asked excitedly. "Whoever stole my bag had this one to substitute for it. If we can

succeed in tracing the bag here to the shop it came from, and from there to the purchaser, we have the thief."

"There's no makers's name in it," I said, after a casual examination. Wardrop's face fell, and he took the bag

"No matter which way I turn," he said, "I run into a blind alley. If I were worth a damn, I suppose I could find

At the door, however, he turned around and put the bag on the floor, just inside.

"If you don't mind, I'll leave it here," he said. "They'll be searching my room, I suppose, and I'd like to have

He went for good that time, and I put out the light. As an afterthought I opened my door perhaps six inches,

and secured it with one of the pink conchshells which flanked either end of the stone hearth. I had failed the

I went to sleep immediately, I believe. I have no idea how much later it was that I roused. I wakened

suddenly and sat up in bed. There had been a crash of some kind, for the shock was still vibrating along my

nerves. Dawn was close; the window showed gray against the darkness inside, and I could make out dimly

the larger objects in the room. I listened intently, but the house seemed quiet. Still I was not satisfied. I got up

and, lighting the candle, got into my raincoat in lieu of a dressinggown, and prepared to investigate.

With the fatality that seemed to pursue my feet in that house, with my first step I trod squarely on top of the

conchshell, and I fell back on the edge of the bed swearing softly and holding the injured member. Only

when the pain began to subside did I realize that I had left the shell on the doorsill, and that it had moved at

When I could walk I put it on the mantel, its mate from the other end of the hearth beside it. Then I took my

candle and went out into the hall. My door, which I had left open, I found closed; nothing else was disturbed.

The leather bag sat just inside, as Wardrop had left it. Through Miss Maitland's transom were coming certain

strangled and irregular sounds, now falsetto, now deep bass, that showed that worthy lady to be asleep. A

glance down the staircase revealed Davidson, stretching in his chair and looking up at me.

"I'm frozen," he called up cautiously. "Throw me down a blanket or two, will you?"

I got a couple of blankets from my bed and took them down. He was examining his chair ruefully.

"There isn't any grip to this horsehair stuff," he complained. "Every time I doze off I dream I'm coasting

down the old hill back on the farm, and when I wake up I'm sitting on the floor, with the end of my back bone

He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat down again, taking the precaution this time to put his legs on

another chair and thus anchor himself. Then he produced a couple of apples and a penknife and proceeded to

"Found 'em in the pantry," he said, biting into one. "I belong to the apple society. Eat one apple every day and

keep healthy!" He stopped and stared intently at the apple. "I reckon I got a worm that time," he said, with

"I'll get something to wash him down," I offered, rising, but he waved me back to my stair.

"Not on your life," he said with dignity. "Let him walk. How are things going upstairs?"

"You didn't happen to be up there a little while ago, did you?" I questioned in turn.

"Some one came into my room and wakened me," I explained. "I heard a racket and when I got up I found a

shell that I had put on the doorsill to keep the door open, in the middle of the room. I stepped on it."

He examined a piece of apple before putting it in his mouth. Then he turned a pair of shrewd eyes on me.

"No. I guess you won't step on it up there. Like the old woman: she says, 'Motorman, if I put my foot on the

rail will I be electrocuted?' And he says, 'No, madam, not unless you put your other foot on the trolley wire.'"

"Some one had been in the room," I reiterated. "The door was closed, although I had left it open."

He finished his apple and proceeded with great gravity to drop the parings down the immaculate register in

"I've only got one business here, Mr. Knox," he said in an undertone, "and you know what that is. But if it

will relieve your mind of the thought that there was anything supernatural about your visitor, I'll tell you that

it was Mr. Wardrop, and that to the best of my belief he was in your room, not once, but twice, in the last

hour and a half. As far as that shell goes, it was I that kicked it, having gone up without my shoes."

"What could he have wanted?" I exclaimed. But with his revelation, Davidson's interest ceased; he drew the

I went back to bed, but not to sleep. I deliberately left the door wide open, but no intrusion occurred. Once I

got up and glanced down the stairs. For all his apparent drowsiness, Davidson heard my cautious movements,

But I had none. I gave him a box of cigarettes, and after partially dressing, I threw myself across the bed to

wait for daylight. I was roused by the sun beating on my face, to hear Miss Letitia's tones from her room

"Nonsense," she was saying querulously. "Don't you suppose I can smell? Do you think because I'm a little

"You?" Miss Letitia snarled. "What are you smoking for? That ain't my shirt; it's my-"

"I ain't smokin'," yelled Heppie. "You won't let me tell you. I spilled vinegar on the stove; that's what you

"Vinegar," she said with scorn. "Next thing you'll be telling me it's vinegar that Harry and Mr. Knox carry

I hurried downstairs to find Davidson gone. My blanket lay neatly folded, on the lower step, and the

horsehair chairs were ranged along the wall as before. I looked around anxiously for the telltale ashes, but

there was none, save, at the edge of the spotless register, a trace. Evidently they had followed the apple

parings. It grew cold a day or so later, and Miss Letitia had the furnace fired, and although it does not belong

to my story, she and Heppie searched the house over to account for the odor of baking apples-a mystery that

Wardrop did not appear at breakfast. Margery came downstairs as Bella was bringing me my coffee, and

"Another day!" she said wearily. "Did you ever live through such an eternity as the last thirtysix hours?"

I responded absently; the duty I had assumed hung heavy over me. I had a frantic impulse to shirk the whole

thing: to go to Wardrop and tell him it was his responsibility, not mine, to make this sadeyed girl sadder

still. That as I had not his privilege of comforting her, neither should I shoulder his responsibility of telling

her. But the issue was forced on me sooner than I had expected, for at that moment I saw the glaring

She must have followed my eyes, for we reached for it simultaneously. She was nearer than I, and her quick

eye caught the name. Then I put my hand over the heading and she flushed with indignation.

"You are not to read it now," I said, meeting her astonished gaze as best I could. "Please let me have it. I

"You are very rude," she said without relinquishing the paper. "I saw a part of that; it is about my father!"

"Drink your coffee, please," I pleaded. "I will let you read it then. On my honor."

"How can you be so childish!" she exclaimed. "If there is anything in that paper that it-will hurt me to learn,

I gave up then. I had always thought that people heard bad news better when they had been fortified with

something to eat, and I had a very distinct recollection that Fred had made Edith drink something-tea

probably-before he told her that Billy had fallen off the back fence and would have to have a stitch taken in

his lip. Perhaps I should have offered Margery tea instead of coffee. But as it was, she sat, stonily erect,

staring at the paper, and feeling that evasion would be useless, I told her what had happened, breaking the

I stood by her helplessly through the tearless agony that followed, and cursed myself for a blundering ass. I

had said that he had been accidentally shot, and I said it with the paper behind me, but she put the evasion

"Accidentally!" she repeated. The first storm of grief over, she lifted her head from where it had rested on her

arms and looked at me, scorning my subterfuge. "He was murdered. That's the word I didn't have time to

read! Murdered! And you sat back and let it happen. I went to you in time and you didn't do anything. No one

I did not try to defend myself. How could I? And afterward when she sat up and pushed back the damp

"I did not mean what I said about your not having done anything," she said, almost childishly. "No one could

But even then I knew she had trouble in store that she did not suspect. What would she do when she heard

that Wardrop was under grave suspicion? Between her dead father and her lover, what? It was to be days

before I knew and in all that time, I, who would have died, not cheerfully but at least stoically, for her, had to

stand back and watch the struggle, not daring to hold out my hand to help, lest by the very gesture she divine

She recovered bravely that morning from the shock, and refusing to go to her room and lie down-a

suggestion, like the coffee, culled from my vicarious domestic life-she went out to the veranda and sat there

in the morning sun, gazing across the lawn. I left her there finally, and broke the news of her

brotherinlaw's death to Miss Letitia. After the first surprise, the old lady took the news with what was

"Shot!" she said, sitting up in bed, while Heppie shook her pillows. "It's a queer death for Allan Fleming; I

After that, she apparently dismissed him from her mind, and we talked of her sister. Her mood had changed

and it was depressing to find that she spoke of Jane always in the past tense. She could speak of her quite

calmly-I suppose the sharpness of our emotions is in inverse ratio to our length of years, and she regretted

"We are all there," she said, "eleven of us, counting my sister Mary's husband, although he don't properly

belong, and I always said we would take him out if we were crowded. It is the best lot in the Hopedale

We held a family council that morning around Miss Letitia's bed: Wardrop, who took little part in the

proceedings, and who stood at a window looking out most of the time, Margery on the bed, her arm around

Miss Letitia's shriveled neck, and Heppie, who acted as interpreter and shouted into the old lady's ear such

"I have talked with Miss Fleming," I said, as clearly as I could, "and she seems to shrink from seeing people.

The only friends she cares about are in Europe, and she tells me there are no other relatives."

Heppie condensed this into a vocal capsule, and thrust it into Miss Letitia's ear. The old lady nodded.

"And yet," I went on, "there are things to look after, certain necessary duties that no one else can attend to. I

don't want to insist, but she ought, if she is able, to go to the city house, for a few hours, at least.

"It ought to be cleaned," Miss Letitia acquiesced, "and fresh curtains put up. Jane would have been in her

element; she was always handy at a funeral. And don't let them get one of those letdownattheside

"I was going to suggest," I put in hurriedly, "that my brother's wife would be only too glad to help, and if

Miss Fleming will go into town with me, I am sure Edith would know just what to do. She isn't curious and

Margery threw me a grateful glance, grateful, I think, that I could understand how, under the circumstances, a

"When you have to say the letter 's,' turn your head away," Miss Letitia rebuked her. "Well, I don't object, if

Knox's sisterinlaw don't." She had an uncanny way of expanding Heppie's tabloid speeches. "You can take

my white silk shawl to lay over the body, but be sure to bring it back. We may need it for Jane."

If the old lady's chin quivered a bit, while Margery threw her arms around her, she was mightily ashamed of

it. But Heppie was made of weaker stuff. She broke into a sudden storm of sobs and left the room, to stick her

Wardrop went with us to the station at noon, but he left us there, with a brief remark that he would be up that

night. After I had put Margery in a seat, I went back to have a word with him alone. He was standing beside

the train, trying to light a cigarette, but his hand shook almost beyond control, and after the fourth match he

gave it up. My minute for speech was gone. As the train moved out I saw him walking back along the

platform, paying no attention to anything around him. Also, I had a fleeting glimpse of a man loafing on a

baggage truck, his hat over his eyes. He was paring an apple with a penknife, and dropping the peelings with

I had arranged over the telephone that Edith should meet the train, and it was a relief to see that she and

Margery took to each other at once. We drove to the house immediately, and after a few tears when she saw

the familiar things around her, Margery rose to the situation bravely. Miss Letitia had sent Bella to put the

house in order, and it was evident that the idea of clean curtains for the funeral had been drilled into her until

it had become an obsession. Not until Edith had concealed the stepladder were the hangings safe, and late in

the afternoon we heard a crash from the library, and found Bella twisted on the floor, the result of putting a

teakwood tabouret on a table and from thence attacking the lace curtains of the library windows.

Edith gave her a good scolding and sent her off to soak her sprained ankle. Then she righted the tabouret, sat

"Do you know that you have not been to the office for two days?" she said severely. "And do you know that

Hawes had hysterics in our front hall last night? You had a case in court yesterday, didn't you?"

"Nothing very much," I said, looking over her head. "Anyhow, I'm tired. I don't know when I'm going back. I

She reached behind her and pulling the cord, sent the window shade to the top of the window. At the sight of

"The girl was in trouble-is in trouble, Edith," I burst out. "Any one would have done the same thing. Even

Fred would hardly have deserted that household. It's stricken, positively stricken."

"Of course it's your own affair," she said, not looking at me, "and goodness knows I'm disinterested about it,

you ruin the boys, both stomachs and dispositions, and I could use your room splendidly as a sewing room-"

She dabbed at her eyes furiously with her handkerchief, and walked with great dignity to the door. Then she

"Oh, Jack, if we could only have saved you this!" she said, and a minute later, when I did not speak: "Who is

"A distant relative, Harry Wardrop," I replied, with what I think was very nearly my natural tone. "Don't

"Pooh!" Edith returned sagely. "So do I know I've got to die and be buried some day. Its being inevitable

doesn't make it any more cheerful." She went out, but she came back in a moment and stuck her head through

"That's the only inevitable thing there is," she said, taking up the conversation-an old habit of hers-where she

"I don't know what you are talking about," I retorted, turning my back on her. "And anyhow, I regard your

That Saturday afternoon at four o'clock the body of Allan Fleming was brought home, and placed in state in

Miss Jane had been missing since Thursday night. I called Hunter by telephone, and he had nothing to report.

I HAD a tearful message from Hawes late that afternoon, and a little after five I went to the office. I found

him offering late editions of the evening paper to a couple of clients, who were edging toward the door. His

expression when he saw me was pure relief, the clients', relief strongly mixed with irritation.

I put the best face on the matter that I could, saw my visitors, and left alone, prepared to explain to Hawes

"I've been unavoidably detained, Hawes," I said, "Miss Jane Maitland has disappeared from her home."

"So I understood you over the telephone." He had brought my mail and stood by impassive.

"There was no one to do anything, Hawes. I was obliged to stay," I apologized. I was ostentatiously

examining my letters and Hawes said nothing. I looked up at him sideways, and he looked down at me. Not a

muscle of his face quivered, save one eye, which has a peculiar twitching of the lid when he is excited. It

"Don't wait, Hawes," I said guiltily, and he took his hat and went out. Every line of his back was accusation.

The sag of his shoulders told me I had let my biggest case go by default that day; the forward tilt of his head,

that I was probably insane; the very grip with which he seized the doorknob, his "good night" from around

the door, that he knew there was a woman at the bottom of it all. As he closed the door behind him I put

down my letters and dropped my face in my hands. Hawes was right. No amount of professional zeal could

account for the interest I had taken. Partly through force of circumstances, partly of my own volition, I had

placed myself in the position of first friend to a family with which I had had only professional relations; I had

even enlisted Edith, when my acquaintance with Margery Fleming was only three days old! And at the

thought of the girl, of Wardrop's inefficiency and my own hopelessness, I groaned aloud.

"I forgot to tell you that a gentleman was here half a dozen times today to see you. He didn't give any

"I have a little sherry in my office, Mr. Knox-twentysix years in the wood. If you-"

"For God's sake, Hawes, there's nothing the matter with me!" I exclaimed, and he went. But I heard him stand

Almost immediately after, some one entered the waitingroom, and the next moment I was facing, in the

He was a tall man, with thin, colorless beard trimmed to a Vandyke point, and pale eyes blinking behind

glasses. He had a soft hat crushed in his hand, and his whole manner was one of subdued excitement.

"I have been here six times since noon," he said, dropping rather than sitting in a chair. "My name is

"I was terribly shocked at the news of his death," he stumbled on, getting no help from me. "I was in town

and if I had known in time I could have kept some of the details out of the papers. Poor Fleming-to think he

"But he didn't," I protested. "It was not suicide, Mr. Lightfoot. According to the police, it was murder."

His cold eyes narrowed like a cat's. "Murder is an ugly word, Mr. Knox. Don't let us be sensational. Mr.

Fleming had threatened to kill himself more than once; ask young Wardrop. He was sick and despondent; he

left his home without a word, which points strongly to emotional insanity. He could have gone to any one of

a half dozen large clubs here, or at the capital. Instead, he goes to a little thirdrate political club, where,

presumably, he does his own cooking and hides in a dingy room. Is that sane? Murder! It was suicide, and

"I have seen the police," he went on. "They agree with me that it was suicide, and the party newspapers will

straighten it out tomorrow. It is only unfortunate that the murder theory was given so much publicity. The

"Suicide!" I said finally. "With no weapon, no powder marks, and with a halffinished letter at his elbow."

"Mr. Fleming had been-careless," he said. "I can tell you in confidence, that some of the state funds had been

deposited in the Borough Bank of Manchester, and-the Borough Bank closed its doors at ten o'clock today."

"I arrived here last night," he said, "and I searched the city for Mr. Fleming. This morning I heard the news. I

have just come from the house: his daughter referred me to you. After all, what I want is a small matter.

Some papers-state documents-are missing, and no doubt are among Mr. Fleming's private effects. I would

"I have hardly the authority," I replied doubtfully. "Miss Fleming, I suppose, would have no objection. His

"I will make an attempt," I said. "Let me have the name of your hotel, and I will telephone you if it can be

He had to be satisfied with that, but his eagerness seemed to me to be almost desperation. Oddly enough, I

could not locate Wardrop after all. I got the Maitland house by telephone, to learn that he had left there about

I went to the Fleming house for dinner. Edith was still there, and we both tried to cheer Margery, a sad little

figure in her black clothes. After the meal, I called Lightfoot at his hotel, and told him that I could not find

Wardrop; that there were no papers at the house, and that the office safe would have to wait until Wardrop

was found to open it. He was disappointed and furious; like a good many men who are physical cowards, he

said a great deal over the telephone that he would not have dared to say to my face, and I cut him off by

hanging up the receiver. From that minute, in the struggle that was coming, like Fred, I was "forninst" the

It was arranged that Edith should take Margery home with her for the night. I thought it a good idea; the very

sight of Edith tucking in her babies and sitting down beside the library lamp to embroider me a

scarfpinholder for Christmas would bring Margery back to normal again. Except in the matter of Christmas

gifts, Edith is the sanest woman I know; I recognized it at the dinner table, where she had the little girl across

When we rose at last, Margery looked toward the musicroom, where the dead man lay in state. But Edith

"Get your hat on right away, while Jack calls a cab," she directed. "I must get home, or Fred will keep the

When Margery came down there was a little red spot burning in each pale cheek, and she ran down the stairs

like a scared child. At the bottom she clutched the newelpost and looked behind fearfully.

"Some one has been upstairs," Margery panted. "Somebody has been staying in the house while we were

"Nonsense," I said, seeing that her fright was infecting Edith. "What makes you think that?"

"Come and look," she said, gaining courage, I suppose, from a masculine presence. And so we went up the

long stairs, the two girls clutching hands, and I leading the way and inclined to scoff.

At the door of a small room next to what had been Allan Fleming's bedroom, we paused and I turned on the

"Before we left," Margery said more quietly, "I closed this room myself. It had just been done over, and the

pale blue soils so easily. I came in the last thing, and saw covers put over everything. Now look at it!"

It was a sort of boudoir, filled with feminine knickknacks and mahogany lounging chairs. Wherever possible,

a pale brocade had been used, on the empire couch, in panels in the wall, covering cushions on the

The linen cover that had been thrown over the divan was folded back, and a pillow from the windowseat

bore the imprint of a head. The table was still covered, knobby protuberances indicating the pictures and

books beneath. On one corner of the table, where the cover had been pushed aside, was a cup, empty and

cleanwashed, and as if to prove her contention, Margery picked up from the floor a newspaper, dated Friday

A used towel in the bathroom nearby completed the inventory; Margery had been right; some one had used

"Might it not have been your-father?" Edith asked, when we stood again at the foot of the stairs. "He could

"I don't think so," Margery said wanly. "I left the door so he could get in with his key, but-he always used his

study coach. I don't think he ever spent five minutes in my sittingroom in his life."

We had to let it go at that finally. I put them in a cab, and saw them start away: then I went back into the

house. I had arranged to sleep there and generally to look after things-as I said before. Whatever scruples I

had had about taking charge of Margery Fleming and her affairs, had faded with Wardrop's defection and the

The lower floor of the house was full of people that night, local and state politicians, newspaper men and the

usual crowd of the morbidly curious. The undertaker took everything in hand, and late that evening I could

hear them carrying in tropical plants and stands for the flowers that were already arriving. Whatever panoply

At midnight things grew quiet. I sat in the library, reading, until then, when an undertaker's assistant in a pink

"Is it customary for somebody to stay up, on occasions like this?" I asked. "Isn't there an impression that

"I don't think it will be necessary, sir," he said, trying to conceal a smile. "It's all a matter of taste. Some

people like to take their troubles hard. Since they don't put money on their eyes any more, nobody wants to

He left with that cheerful remark, and I closed and locked the house after him. I found Bella in the basement

kitchen with all the lights burning full, and I stood at the foot of the stairs while she scooted to bed like a

scared rabbit. She was a strange creature, Bella-not so stupid as she looked, but sullen, morose-"smouldering"

I closed the doors into the diningroom and, leaving one light in the hall, went up to bed. A guest room in the

third story had been assigned me, and I was tired enough to have slept on the floor. The telephone bell rang

just after I got into bed, and grumbling at my luck, I went down to the lower floor.

"Mr. Knox, are you willing to put yourself on record that Mr. Fleming committed suicide?"

"Tonight's Star says you call it suicide, and that you found him with the revolver in his hand."

I went back to bed, irritated that I had betrayed myself. Loss of sleep for two nights, however, had told on

I wakened with difficulty. My head felt stupid and heavy, and I was burning with thirst. I sat up and

wondered vaguely if I were going to be ill, and I remember that I felt too weary to get a drink. As I roused,

however, I found that part of my discomfort came from bad ventilation, and I opened a window and looked

The window was a side one, opening on to a space perhaps eight feet wide, which separated it from its

neighbor. Across from me was only a blank red wall, but the night air greeted me refreshingly. The wind was

blowing hard, and a shutter was banging somewhere below. I leaned out and looked down into the welllike

space beneath me. It was one of those apparently chance movements that have vital consequences, and that

Below me, on the wall across, was a rectangle of yellow light, reflected from the library window of the

As I still stared, the light was slowly blotted out-not as if the light had been switched off, but by a gradual

My first thought was burglars: my second-Lightfoot. No matter who it was, there was no one who had

business there. Luckily, I had brought my revolver with me from Fred's that day, and it was under my pillow;

to get it, put out the light and open the door quietly, took only a minute. I was in pajamas, barefoot, as on

I got to the second floor without hearing or seeing anything suspicious, but from there I could see that the

light in the hall had been extinguished. The unfamiliarity of the house, the knowledge of the silent figure in

the drawingroom at the foot of the stairs, and of whatever might be waiting in the library beyond, made my

I don't believe in the man who is never afraid: he doesn't deserve the credit he gets. It's the fellow who is

scared to death, whose knees knock together, and who totters rather than walks into danger, who is the real

hero. Not that I was as bad as that, but I would have liked to know where the electric switch was, and to have

The stairs were solidly built, and did not creak. I felt my way down by the baluster, which required my right

hand, and threw my revolver to my left. I got safely to the bottom, and around the newelpost: there was still

a light in the library; and the door was not entirely closed. Then, with my usual bad luck, I ran into a heap of

folding chairs that had been left by the undertaker, and if the crash paralyzed me, I don't know what it did to

The light was out in an instant, and with concealment at an end, I broke for the door and threw it open,

standing there with my revolver leveled. We-the man in the room, and I-were both in absolute darkness. He

"Speak up, or I'll shoot!" I said, not without an ugly feeling that he might be-even probably was-taking

careful aim by my voice. The darkness was intolerable: I reached cautiously to the left and found, just beyond

the door frame, the electric switch. As I turned it the light flashed up. The room was empty, but a porti�re in a

I leaped for the curtain and dragged it aside, to have a door just close in my face. When I had jerked it open, I

found myself in a short hall, and there were footsteps to my left. I blundered along in the semidarkness, into

a black void which must have been the diningroom, for my outstretched hand skirted the table. The

footsteps seemed only beyond my reach, and at the other side of the room the swinging door into the pantry

I made a misstep in the pantry, and brought up against a blank wall. It seemed to me I heard the sound of feet

running up steps, and when I found a door at last, I threw it open and dashed in.

The next moment the solid earth slipped from under my feet, I threw out my hand, and it met a cold wall,

smooth as glass. Then I fell-fell an incalculable distance, and the blackness of the night came over me and

WHEN I came to, I was lying in darkness, and the stillness was absolute. When I tried to move, I found I was

practically a prisoner: I had fallen into an air shaft, or something of the kind. I could not move my arms,

where they were pinioned to my sides, and I was halflying, halfcrouching, in a semivertical position. I

worked one arm loose and managed to make out that my prison was probably the dumbwaiter shaft to the

I had landed on top of the slide, and I seemed to be tied in a knot. The revolver was under me, and if it had

exploded during the fall it had done no damage. I can hardly imagine a more unpleasant position. If the man I

had been following had so chosen, he could have made away with me in any one of a dozen unpleasant

ways-he could have filled me as full of holes as a sieve, or scalded me, or done anything, pretty much, that he

I had fallen feet first, evidently, and then crumpled up unconscious, for one of my ankles was throbbing. It

was some time before I could stand erect, and even by reaching, I could not touch the doorway above me. It

must have taken five minutes for my confused senses to remember the wire cable, and to tug at it. I was a

heavy load for the slide, accustomed to nothing weightier than political dinners, but with much creaking I got

myself at last to the floor above, and stepped out, still into darkness, but free.

I still held the revolver, and I lighted the whole lower floor. But I found nothing in the diningroom or the

pantry. Everything was locked and in good order. A small alcove off the library came next; it was

undisturbed, but a tabouret lay on its side, and a half dozen books had been taken from a low bookcase, and

lay heaped on a chair. In the library, however, everything was confusion. Desk drawers stood open-one of the

linen shades had been pulled partly off its roller, a chair had been drawn up to the long mahogany table in the

center of the room, with the electric dome overhead, and everywhere, on chairs, over the floor, heaped in

After searching the lower floor, and finding everything securely locked, I went upstairs, convinced the

intruder was still in the house. I made a systematic search of every room, looking into closets and under beds.

Several times I had an impression, as I turned a corner, that some one was just ahead of me, but I was always

disappointed. I gave up at last and, going down to the library, made myself as comfortable as I could, and

I heard Bella coming down the stairs, after seven sometime; she came slowly, with flagging footsteps, as if

the slightest sound would send her scurrying to the upper regions again. A little later I heard her rattling the

I was too tired to have a theory about the night visitor; in fact, from that time on, I tried to have no theories of

any kind. I was impressed with only one thing-that the enemy or enemies of the late Allan Fleming evidently

carried their antagonism beyond the grave. As I put on my collar I wondered how long I could stay in this

game, as I now meant to, and avoid lying in state in Edith's little drawingroom, with flowers around and a

I had my ankle strapped with adhesive that morning by my doctor and it gave me no more trouble. But I

caught him looking curiously at the blue bruise on my forehead where Wardrop had struck me with the chair,

"How does the other fellow look?" he inquired, and to my haltingly invented explanation of my battered

That day was uneventful. Margery and Edith came to the house for about an hour and went back to Fred's

A cousin of the dead man, an elderly bachelor named Parker, appeared that morning and signified his

willingness to take charge of the house during that day. The very hush of his voice and his black tie prompted

Edith to remove Margery from him as soon as she could, and as the girl dreaded the curious eyes of the

It was Sunday, and I went to the office only long enough to look over my mail. I dined in the middle of the

day at Fred's and felt heavy and stupid all afternoon as a result of thus reversing the habits of the week. In the

afternoon I had my first conversation with Fred and Edith, while Margery and the boys talked quietly in the

nursery. They had taken a great fancy to her, and she was almost cheerful when she was with them.

Fred had the morning papers around him on the floor, and was in his usual Sunday argumentative mood.

"Well," he said, when the nursery door upstairs had closed, "what was it, Jack? Suicide?"

"How can I tell?" irritably. "The police say it was suicide, and they ought to know."

"The TimesPost says it was murder, and that they will prove it. And they claim the police have been called

I said nothing of Mr. Lightfoot, and his visit to the office, but I made a mental note to see the TimesPost

"I can not help thinking that he deserved very nearly what he got," Edith broke in, looking much less

vindictive than her words. "When one thinks of the ruin he brought to poor Henry Butler, and that Ellen has

"What was the Butler story?" I asked. But Fred did not know, and Edith was as vague as women usually are

"Henry Butler was treasurer of the state, and Mr. Fleming was his cashier. I don't know just what the trouble

was. But you remember that Henry Butler killed himself after he got out of the penitentiary, and Ellen has

been in one hospital after another. I would like to have her come here for a few weeks, Fred," she said

appealingly. "She is in some sanatorium or other now, and we might cheer her a little."

"Have her if you like, petty," he said resignedly, "but I refuse to be cheerful unless I feel like it. What about

this young Wardrop, Jack? It looks to me as if the TimesPost reporter had a line on him."

"Look at her engagement ring," Edith threw back triumphantly. "And it's a perfectly beautiful solitaire, too."

I caught Fred's eye on me, and the very speed with which he shifted his gaze made me uncomfortable. I made

my escape as soon as I could, on the plea of going out to Bellwood, and in the hall upstairs I met Margery.

"I saw Bella today," she said. "Mr. Knox, will you tell me why you stayed up last night? What happened in

"Is that all the truth or only part of it?" she asked. "Why do men always evade issues with a woman?"

Luckily, womanlike, she did not wait for a reply. She closed the nursery door and stood with her hand on

"I wonder what you believe about all this," she said. "Do you think my father-killed himself? You were there;

It seemed to me it was her right to know. The boys were romping noisily in the nursery. Downstairs Fred

and Edith were having their Sunday afternoon discussion of what in the world had become of the money from

Fred's latest book. Margery and I sat down on the stairs, and, as well as I could remember the details, I told

"And so the police have given up the case!" she said despairingly. "And if they had not, Harry would have

been arrested. Is there nothing I can do? Do I have to sit back with my hands folded?"

"The police have not exactly given up the case," I told her, "but there is such a thing, of course, as stirring up

a lot of dust and then running to cover like blazes before it settles. By the time the public has wiped it out of

its eyes and sneezed it out of its nose and coughed it out of its larynx, the dust has settled in a heavy layer,

clues are obliterated, and the public lifts its skirts and chooses another direction. The 'no thoroughfare' sign is

She sat there for fifteen minutes, interrupted by occasional noisy excursions from the nursery, which resulted

in her acquiring by degrees a lapful of broken wheels, threelegged horses and a live water beetle which the

boys had found under the kitchen sink and imprisoned in a glass topped box, where, to its bewilderment, they

were assiduously offering it dead and mangled flies. But our last five minutes were undisturbed, and the girl

"Whoever killed my father-and it was murder, Mr. Knox-whoever did it is going free to save a scandal. All

my-friends"-she smiled bitterly-"are afraid of the same thing. But I can not sit quiet and think nothing can be

done. I must know, and you are the only one who seems willing to try to find out."

So it was, that, when I left the house a half hour later, I was committed. I had been commissioned by the girl I

loved-for it had come to that-to clear her lover of her father's murder, and so give him back to her-not in so

many words, but I was to follow up the crime, and the rest followed. And I was morally certain of two

things-first, that her lover was not worthy of her, and second, and more to the point, that innocent or guilty,

I had promised her also to see Miss Letitia that day if I could, and I turned over the events of the preceding

night as I walked toward the station, but I made nothing of them. One thing occurred to me, however. Bella

had told Margery that I had been up all night. Could Bella-? But I dismissed the thought as absurd-Bella, who

had scuttled to bed in a panic of fright, would never have dared the lower floor alone, and Bella, given all the

courage in the world, could never have moved with the swiftness and light certainty of my midnight prowler.

But after all I did not go to Bellwood. I met Hunter on my way to the station, and he turned around and

"So you've lain down on the case!" I said, when we had gone a few steps without speaking.

"Of course," I persisted, "being a simple and uncomplicated case of suicide, there was nothing in it anyhow.

"For ten cents," he said gravely, "I would tell the chief and a few others what I think of them. And then I'd go

"I'm going out of the business," he stormed. "I'm going to drive a garbage wagon: it's cleaner than this job.

Suicide! I never saw a cleaner case of-" He stopped suddenly. "Do you know Burton-of the TimesPost ?"

"Well, he's your man. They're dead against the ring, and Burton's been given the case. He's as sharp as a steel

He paused at a corner. "Goodby," he said dejectedly. "I'm off to hunt some boys that have been stealing

milk bottles. That's about my size, these days." He turned around, however, before he had gone many steps

"Wardrop has been missing since yesterday afternoon," he said. "That is, he thinks he's missing. We've got

I gave up my Bellwood visit for the time, and taking a car downtown, I went to the TimesPost office. The

Monday morning edition was already under way, as far as the staff was concerned, and from the

waitingroom I could see three or four men, with their hats on, most of them rattling typewriters. Burton

came in in a moment, a redhaired young fellow, with a short thick nose and a muggy skin. He was rather

stocky in build, and the pugnacity of his features did not hide the shrewdness of his eyes.

"Can't we talk in a more private place?" I asked, trying to raise my voice above the confusion of the next

room. In reply he took me into a tiny office, containing a desk and two chairs, and separated by an eightfoot

"This is the best we have," he explained cheerfully. "Newspapers are agents of publicity, not privacy-if you

I liked Burton. There was something genuine about him; after Wardrop's kidglove finish, he was a relief.

"Hunter, of the detective bureau, sent me here," I proceeded, "about the Fleming case."

He took out his notebook. "You are the fourth today," he said. "Hunter himself, Lightfoot from Plattsburg,

and McFeely here in town. Well, Mr. Knox, are you willing now to put yourself on record that Fleming

In reply Burton fumbled in his pocket and brought up a pasteboard box, filled with jeweler's cotton.

"I got it from the coroner's physician, who performed the autopsy," he said casually. "You will notice that it is

a thirtytwo, and that the revolver they took from Wardrop was a thirtyeight. Question, where's the other

"Little thing, isn't it?" he said. "We think we're lords of creation, until we see a quarterinch bichloride

tablet, or a bit of lead like this. Look here." He dived into his pocket again and drew out a roll of ordinary

"Look at that," he said dramatically. "Kill an army with it, and they'd never know what struck them. Cyanide

"It's a beautiful case, all around," he said, as he got his hat. "I haven't had any Sunday dinner yet, and it's five

o'clock. Oh-the cyanide? Clarkson, the cashier of the bank Fleming ruined, took a bite off that corner right

BURTON listened while he ate, and his cheerful comments were welcome enough after the depression of the

last few days. I told him, after some hesitation, the whole thing, beginning with the Maitland pearls and

ending with my drop down the dumbwaiter. I knew I was absolutely safe in doing so: there is no person to

whom I would rather tell a secret than a newspaper man. He will go out of his way to keep it: he will lock it

in the depths of his bosom, and keep it until seventy times seven. Also, you may threaten the rack or offer a

larger salary, the seal does not come off his lips until the word is given. If then he makes a scarehead of it,

and gets in three columns of space and as many photographs, it is his just reward.

So-I told Burton everything, and he ate enough beefsteak for two men, and missed not a word I said.

"The money Wardrop had in the grip-that's easy enough explained," he said. "Fleming used the Borough

Bank to deposit state funds in. He must have known it was rotten: he and Clarkson were as thick as thieves.

According to a timehonored custom in our land of the brave and home of the free, a state treasurer who is

crooked can, in such a case, draw on such a bank without security, on his personal note, which is usually

"He did. Then things got bad at the Borough Bank. Fleming had had to divide with Schwartz and the Lord

only knows who all, but it was Fleming who had to put in the money to avert a crash-the word crash being

synonymous with scandal in this case. He scrapes together a paltry hundred thousand, which Wardrop gets at

the capital, and brings on. Wardrop is robbed, or says he is: the bank collapses and Clarkson, driven to the

wall, kills himself, just after Fleming is murdered. What does that sound like?"

"Like Clarkson!" I exclaimed. "And Clarkson knew Fleming was hiding at the White Cat!"

"Now, then, take the other theory," he said, pushing aside his cup. "Wardrop goes in to Fleming: with a story

that he has been robbed: Fleming gets crazy and attacks him. All that is in the morning-Friday. Now,

then-Wardrop goes back there that night. Within twenty minutes after he enters the club he rushes out, and

when Hunter follows him, he says he is looking for a doctor, to get cocaine for a gentleman upstairs. He is

white and trembling. They go back together, and find you there, and Fleming dead. Wardrop tells two stories:

first he says Fleming committed suicide just before he left. Then he changes it and says he was dead when he

arrived there. He produces the weapon with which Fleming is supposed to have killed himself, and which, by

the way, Miss Fleming identified yesterday as her father's. But there are two discrepancies. Wardrop

practically admitted that he had taken that revolver from Fleming, not that night, but the morning before,

"The bullet. Nobody ever fired a thirtytwo bullet out of a thirtyeight caliber revolver-unless he was trying

"And he didn't do it himself for two good reasons: he had no revolver that night, and there were no powder

"I'll have to have another steak, if I'm to settle that," he said. "I can only solve one murder on one steak. But

disappearances are my specialty; perhaps, if I have a piece of pie and some cheese-"

"I can't quite see the old lady in it," he confessed. "She hadn't any grudge against Fleming, had she? Wouldn't

"Good Lord!" I said. "Why, she's sixtyfive, and as timid and gentle a little old lady as ever lived."

"Wouldn't be likely to have eloped with the minister or advertised for a husband, or anything like that?"

"You would have to know her to understand," I said resignedly. "But she didn't do any of those things, and

she didn't run off to join a theatrical troupe. Burton, who do you think was in the Fleming house last night?"

"I believe I'll run over to the capital tonight," he said. "While I'm gone-I'll be back tomorrow night or the

next morning-I wish you would do two things. Find Rosie O'Grady, or whatever her name is, and locate

Carter. That's probably not his name, but it will answer for a while. Then get your friend Hunter to keep him

in sight for a while, until I come back anyhow. I'm beginning to enjoy this; it's more fun than a picture puzzle.

We're going to make the police department look like a kindergarten playing jackstraws."

"Go to Bellwood and find out a few things. It's all well enough to say the old lady was a meek and, timid

person, but if you want to know her peculiarities, go to her neighbors. When people leave the beaten path, the

"I'll have to pack for my little jaunt," he said, and purchased a toothbrush, which proved to be the extent of

his preparations. We separated at the station, Burton to take his red hair and his toothbrush to Plattsburg, I to

take a taxicab, and armed with a page torn from the classified directory to inquire at as many of the twelve

Anderson's drugstores as might be necessary to locate Delia's gentleman friend, "the clerk," through him

It occurred to me somewhat tardily, that I knew nothing of Delia but her given name. A telephone talk with

Margery was of little assistance: Delia had been a new maid, and if she had heard her other name, she had

I had checked off eight of the Andersons on my list, without result, and the taximeter showed something over

I opened the door and glanced behind. A duplicate of my cab stood perhaps fifty feet behind, and from it a

familiar figure was slowly emerging, carrying on a highpitched argument with the chauffeur. The figure

stopped to read the taximeter, shook his fist at the chauffeur, and approached me, muttering audibly. It was

"That liar and thief back there has got me rung up for nineteen dollars," he said, ignoring my amazement.

"Nineteen dollars and forty cents! He must have the thing counting the revolutions of all four wheels!"

He walked around and surveyed my expense account, at the driver's elbow. Then he hit the meter a smart

"Nineteen dollars!" he repeated dazed. "Nineteen dollars and-look here," he called to his driver, who had

brought the cab close, "it's only thirty cents here. Your clock's ten cents fast."

"You back up to nineteen dollars and thirty cents," he persisted, ignoring me. "If you'll back up to twelve

dollars, I'll pay it. That's all I've got." Then he turned on me irritably. "Good heavens, man," he exclaimed,

"do you mean to tell me you've been to eight drugstores this Sunday evening and spent nineteen dollars and

"Do you think I'm after a drink?" I asked him. "Now look here, Davidson, I rather think you know what I am

after. If you don't, it doesn't matter. But since you are coming along anyhow, pay your man off and come with

He agreed without hesitation, borrowed eight dollars from me to augment his twelve and crawled in with me.

"The next address on the list is the right one," he said, as the man waited for directions. "I did the same round

yesterday, but not being a plutocrat, I used the streetcars and my legs. And because you're a decent fellow

and don't have to be chloroformed to have an idea injected, I'm going to tell you something. There were

eleven roundsmen as well as the sergeant who heard me read the note I found at the Fleming house that night.

You may have counted them through the window. A dozen plainclothes men read it before morning. When

the news of Mr. Fleming's mur-death came out, I thought this fellow Carter might know something, and I

trailed Delia through this Mamie Brennan. When I got there I found Tom Brannigan and four other detectives

sitting in the parlor, and Miss Delia, in a blue silk waist, making eyes at every mother's son of them."

I laughed in spite of my disappointment. Davidson leaned forward and closed the window at the driver's

"Understand me, Mr. Knox," he said, "Mr. Fleming killed himself. You and I are agreed on that. Even if you

aren't just convinced of it I'm telling you, and-better let it drop, sir." Under his quiet manner I felt a threat: it

"I'll let it drop when I'm through with it," I asserted, and got out my list of addresses.

"You'll let it drop because it's too hot to hold," he retorted, with the suspicion of a smile. "If you are

The chauffeur stopped his engine with an exasperated jerk and settled down in his seat, every line of his back

"You'll have to travel some to do it, son," he said. "Carter left for parts unknown last night, taking with him

"The trip was for the benefit of his health. He has been suffering-and is still suffering, from a curious lapse of

memory." Davidson smiled at me engagingly. "He has entirely forgotten everything that occurred from the

time he entered Mr. Fleming's employment, until that gentleman left home. I doubt if he will ever recover."

With Carter gone, his retreat covered by the police, supplied with funds from some problematical source,

further search for him was worse than useless. In fact, Davidson strongly intimated that it might be dangerous

and would be certainly unpleasant. I yielded ungraciously and ordered the cab to take me home. But on the

way I cursed my folly for not having followed this obvious clue earlier, and I wondered what this thing could

be that Carter knew, that was at least surmised by various headquarters men, and yet was so carefully hidden

The party newspapers had come out that day with a signed statement from Mr. Fleming's physician in

Plattsburg that he had been in ill health and inclined to melancholia for some time. The air was thick with

rumors of differences with his party: the dust cloud covered everything; pretty soon it would settle and hide

Davidson left me at a corner downtown. He turned to give me a parting admonition.

"There's an old axiom in the mills around here, 'never sit down on a piece of metal until you spit on it. If it

sizzles, don't sit." He grinned. "Your best position just now, young man, is standing, with your hands over

your head. Confidentially, there ain't anything within expectorating distance just now that ain't pretty well het

He left me with that, and I did not see him again until the night at the White Cat, when he helped put me

through the transom. Recently, however, I have met him several times. He invariably mentions the eight

dollars and his intention of repaying it. Unfortunately, the desire and the ability have not yet happened to

I took the evening train to Bellwood, and got there shortly after eight, in the midst of the Sunday evening

calm, and the calm of a place like Bellwood is the peace of death without the hope of resurrection.

I walked slowly up the main street, which was lined with residences; the town relegated its few shops to less

desirable neighborhoods. My first intention had been to see the Episcopal minister, but the rectory was dark,

and a burst of organ music from the church near reminded me again of the Sunday evening services.

Promiscuous inquiry was not advisable. So far, Miss Jane's disappearance was known to very few, and

Hunter had advised caution. I wandered up the street and turned at random to the right; a few doors ahead a

newish red brick building proclaimed itself the postoffice, and gave the only sign of life in the

neighborhood. It occurred to me that here inside was the one individual who, theoretically at least, in a small

The door was partly open, for the spring night was sultry. The postmaster proved to be a onearmed veteran

of the Civil War, and he was sorting rapidly the contents of a mailbag, emptied on the counter.

"We don't sell stamps on Sunday nights," he explained, more politely. "But if you're in a hurry for them-"

"I am," I lied. And after he had got them out, counting them with a wrinkled finger, and tearing them off the

"I suppose you do a good bit of business here?" I asked. "It seems like a thriving place."

"Not so bad; big mail here sometimes. First of the quarter, when bills are coming round, we have a rush, and

It was when I asked him about his empty sleeve, however, and he had told me that he lost his arm at

Chancellorsville, that we became really friendly. When he said he had been a corporal in General Maitland's

"The Maitland ladies! I should say I do," he said warmly. "I've been fighting with Letitia Maitland as long as

I can remember. That woman will scrap with the angel Gabriel at the resurrection, if he wakes her up before

"Miss Jane? She's an angel-she is that. She could have been married a dozen times when she was a girl, but

Letitia wouldn't have it. I was after her myself, fortyfive years ago. This was the Maitland farm in those

days, and my father kept a country store down where the railroad station is now."

"Wealthy! They don't know what they're worth:-not that it matters a mite to Jane Maitland. She hasn't called

her soul her own for so long that I guess the good Lord won't hold her responsible for it."

All of which was entertaining, but it was much like an oldfashioned seesaw; it kept going, but it didn't

"It's a shameful thing," the old man pursued, "that a woman as old as Jane should have to get her letters

surreptitiously. For more than a year now she's been coming here twice a week for her mail, and I've been

keeping it for her. Rain or shine, Mondays and Thursdays, she's been coming, and a sight of letters she's been

"Did she come last Thursday?" I asked overeagerly. The postmaster, all at once, regarded me with suspicion.

"I don't know whether she did or not," he said coldly, and my further attempts to beguile him into

conversation failed. I pocketed my stamps, and by that time his resentment at my curiosity was fading. He

"Any news of the old lady?" he asked. "It ain't generally known around here that she's missing, but Heppie,

"I was tellin' the missus the other day," he said, "that there is an old walledup cellar under the Maitland

place. Have you looked there ?" He was disappointed when I said we had, and I was about to go when he

"Miss Jane didn't get her mail on Thursday, but on Friday that niece of hers came for it-two letters, one from

I walked past the Maitland place, but the windows were dark and the house closed. Haphazard inquiry being

out of the question, I took the ten o'clock train back to the city. I had learned little enough, and that little I was

at a loss to know how to use. For why had Margery gone for Miss Jane's mail after the little lady was missing

The family had retired when I got home except Fred, who called from his study to ask for a rhyme for

mosque. I could not think of one and suggested that he change the word to "temple." At two o'clock he

banged on my door in a temper, said he had changed the rhythm to fit, and now couldn't find a rhyme for

"temple!" I suggested "dimple" drowsily whereat he kicked the panel of the door and went to bed.

THE funeral occurred on Monday. It was an ostentatious affair, with a long list of honorary pallbearers, a

picked corps of city firemen in uniform ranged around the casket, and enough money wasted in floral pillows

and sheaves of wheat tied with purple ribbon, to have given all the hungry children in town a square meal.

Amid all this state Margery moved, stricken and isolated. She went to the cemetery with Edith, Miss Letitia

having sent a message that, having never broken her neck to see the man living, she wasn't going to do it to

see him dead. The music was very fine, and the eulogy spoke of this patriot who had served his country so

long and so well. "Following the flag," Fred commented under his breath, "as long as there was an

And when it was all over, we went back to Fred's until the Fleming house could be put into order again. It

was the best place in the world for Margery, for, with the children demanding her attention and applause

Mrs. Butler arrived that day, which made Fred suspicious that Edith's plan to bring her, far antedated his

consent. But she was there when he got home from the funeral, and after one glimpse at her thin face and

hollow eyes, I begged Edith to keep her away from Margery, for that day at least.

Fortunately, Mrs. Butler was exhausted by her journey, and retired to her room almost immediately. I

watched her slender figure go up the stairs, and, with her black trailing gown and colorless face, she was an

embodiment of all that is lonely and helpless. Fred closed the door behind her and stood looking at Edith and

"I tell you, honey," he declared, "that brought into a cheerful home is sufficient cause for divorce. Isn't it,

"She is ill," Edith maintained valiantly. "She is my cousin, too, which gives her some claim on me, and my

"Ladylove," Fred said solemnly, "if you do not give me the key to the cellarette, I shall have a chill. And let

me beg this of you: if I ever get tired of this life, and shuffle off my mortality in a lumber yard, or a political

From somewhere above, there came a sudden crash, followed by the announcement, made by a scared

housemaid, that Mrs. Butler had fainted. Fred sniffed as Edith scurried upstairs.

"Hipped," he said shortly. "For two cents I'd go up and give her a good whiff of ammonia-not this aromatic

stuff, but the genuine article. That would make her sit up and take notice. Upon my word, I can't think what

possessed Edith; these spineless, softspoken, timid women are leeches on one's sympathies."

But Mrs. Butler was really ill, and Margery insisted on looking after her. It was an odd coincidence, the

widow of one state treasurer and the orphaned daughter of his successor; both men had died violent deaths, in

The boys were allowed to have their dinner with the family that evening, in honor of Mrs. Butler's arrival,

and it was a riotous meal. Margery got back a little of her color. As I sat across from her, and watched her

expressions change, from sadness to resignation, and even gradually to amusement at the boys' antics, I

I remembered a woman-a client of mine-who said that whenever she sat near a railroad track and watched an

engine thundering toward her, she tortured herself by picturing a child on the track, and wondering whether,

I felt a good bit that way; I was firmly embarked on the case now, and I tortured myself with one idea.

Suppose I should find Wardrop guilty, and I should find extenuating circumstances-what would I do? Publish

the truth, see him hanged or imprisoned, and break Margery's heart? Or keep back the truth, let her marry

After all, I decided to try to stop my imaginary train. Prove Wardrop innocent, I reasoned with myself, get to

the bottom of this thing, and then-it would be man and man. A fair field and no favor. I suppose my proper

attitude, romantically taken, was to consider Margery's engagement ring an indissoluble barrier. But this was

not romance; I was fighting for my life happiness, and as to the ring-well, I am of the opinion that if a man

really loves a woman, and thinks he can make her happy, he will tell her so if she is strung with engagement

rings to the ends of her fingers. Dangerous doctrine? Well, this is not propaganda.

Tuesday found us all more normal. Mrs. Butler had slept some, and very commendably allowed herself to be

tea'd and toasted in bed. The boys were started to kindergarten, after ten minutes of frenzied cap hunting.

"You have not learned anything?" she asked cautiously, glancing back to Edith, at the telephone calling the

"Not much," I evaded. "Nothing definite, anyhow. Margery, you are not going back to the Monmouth

"Not just yet; I don't think I could. I suppose, later, it will have to be sold, but not at once. I shall go to Aunt

"Very well," I said. "Then you are going to take a walk with me this afternoon in the park. I won't take no;

When she had agreed I went to the office. It was not much after nine, but, to my surprise, Burton was already

there. He had struck up an acquaintance with Miss Grant, the stenographer, and that usually frigid person had

melted under the warmth of his red hair and his smile. She was telling him about her sister's baby having

"I wish I had studied law," he threw at me. "'What shall it profit a man to become a lawyer and lose his own

When we had gone into the inner office, and shut out Miss Grant and the whoopingcough, he was serious

"Well," he said, sitting on the radiator and dangling his foot, "I guess we've got Wardrop for theft, anyhow."

"Well, larceny, if you prefer legal terms. I found where he sold the pearls-in Plattsburg, to a wholesale

"Then," I said conclusively, "if he took the pearls and sold them, as sure as I sit here, he took the money out

If he had any reason, he refused to give it. I told him, in my turn, of Carter's escape, aided by the police, and

he smiled. "For a suicide it's causing a lot of excitement," he remarked. When I told him the little incident of

"The old lady's in it, somehow," he maintained. "She may have been lending Fleming money, for one thing.

"There's only one thing to do," Burton said finally, "and that is, find Miss Jane. If she's alive, she can tell

something. I'll stake my fountain pen on that-and it's my dearest possession on earth, next to my mother. If

Miss Jane is dead-well, somebody killed her; and it's time it was being found out."

"It's easy enough to find her;" he exploded. "Make a noise about it; send up rockets. Put a halfcolumn ad in

every paper in town, or-better still-give the story to the reporters and let them find her for you. I'd do it, if I

wasn't tied up with this Fleming case. Describe her, how she walked, what she liked to eat, what she wore-in

this case what she didn't wear. Lord, I wish I had that assignment! In fortyeight hours she will have been

seen in a hundred different places, and one of them will be right. It will be a question of selection-that is, if

In spite of his airy tone, I knew he was serious, and I felt he was right. The publicity part of it I left to him,

and I sent a special delivery that morning to Bellwood, asking Miss Letitia to say nothing and to refer

reporters to me. I had already been besieged with them, since my connection with the Fleming case, and a

Burton attended to the matter thoroughly. The one o'clock edition of an afternoon paper contained a short and

vivid scarlet account of Miss Jane's disappearance. The evening editions were full, and while vague as to the

manner of her leaving, were minute as regarded her personal appearance and characteristics.

To escape the threatened inundation of the morning paper men, I left the office early, and at four o'clock

Margery and I stepped from a hill car into the park. She had been wearing a short, crepeedged veil, but once

away from the gaze of the curious, she took it off. I was glad to see she had lost the air of detachment she had

"Hold your shoulders well back," I directed, when we had found an isolated path, "and take long breaths. Try

She was very tractable-unusually so, I imagined, for her. We swung along together for almost a halfhour,

hardly talking. I was content merely to be with her; and the sheer joy of the exercise after her enforced

confinement kept her silent. When she began to flag a little I found a bench, and we sat down together. The

bench had been lately painted, and although it seemed dry enough, I spread my handkerchief for her to sit on.

Whereupon she called me "Sir Walter," and at the familiar jest we laughed like a pair of children.

I had made the stipulation that, for this one time, her father's death and her other troubles should be taboo,

and we adhered to it religiously. A robin in the path was industriously digging out a worm; he had tackled a

long one, and it was all he could manage. He took the available end in his beak and hopped back with the

expression of one who sets his jaws and determines that this which should be, is to be. The worm stretched

"The robin is a parent," I reminded her. "It is precisely the same as Fred, who twists, jerks, distorts and

attenuates the English language in his magazine work, in order to have bread and icecream and jelly cake

She had taken off her gloves, and sat with her hands loosely clasped in her lap.

"I wish someone depended on me," she said pensively. "It's a terrible thing to feel that it doesn't matter to

anyone-not vitally, anyhow-whether one is around or not. To have all my responsibilities taken away at once,

"I didn't promise to be cheerful," she returned. "Besides my father, there was only one person in the world

The sunlight caught the ring on her engagement finger; and she flushed suddenly as she saw me looking at it.

We sat there for a while saying nothing; the long May afternoon was coming to a close. The paths began to

fill with long lines of hurrying homeseekers, their day in office or factory at an end.

Margery got up at last and buttoned her coat. Then impulsively she held out her hand to me.

"You have been more than kind to me," she said hurriedly. "You have taken me into your home-and helped

"I am not virtuous," I replied, looking down at her. "I couldn't help it. You walked into my life when you

came to my office-was it only last week? The evil days are coming, I suppose, but just now nothing matters at

She dropped her veil quickly, and we went back to the car. The prosaic world wrapped us around again; there

was a heavy odor of restaurant coffee in the air; people bumped and jolted past us. To me they were only

shadows; the real world was a girl in black and myself, and the girl wore a betrothal ring which was not mine.

MRS. BUTLER came down to dinner that night. She was more cheerful than I had yet seen her; and she had

changed her mournful garments to something a trifle less depressing. With her masses of fair hair dressed

high, and her face slightly animated, I realized what I had not done before-that she was the wreck of a very

beautiful woman. Frail as she was, almost shrinkingly timid in her manner; there were times when she drew

up her tall figure in something like its former stateliness. She had beautiful eyebrows, nearly black and

She was very weak; she used a cane when she walked, and after dinner, in the library, she was content to sit

impassive, detached, propped with cushions, while Margery read to the boys in their night nursery and Edith

Fred had been fussing over a play for some time, and he had gone to read it to some manager or other. Edith

"We could go a little ways out of town," she was saying, "and we could have an automobile; Margery says

theirs will be sold, and it will certainly be a bargain. Jack, are you laughing at me?'

"Certainly not," I replied gravely. "Dream on, Edith. Shall we train the boys as chauffeurs, or shall we buy in

"I am sure," Edith said aggrieved, "that it costs more for horse feed this minute for your gray, Jack, than it

Edith turned her back on me and sewed. Near me, Mrs. Butler had languidly taken up the paper; suddenly she

"I'm glad, glad," she said. Then she grew weak and semihysterical, laughing and crying in the same breath.

When she had been helped upstairs, for in her weakened state it had been more of a shock than we realized,

"I am glad Fred was not here," Edith confided to me. "Ellen is a lovely woman,and as kind as she is mild; but

It was strange to contrast the way in which the two women took their similar bereavements. Margery

represented the best type of normal American womanhood; Ellen Butler the neurasthenic; she demanded

everything by her very helplessness and timidity. She was a constant drain on Edith's ready sympathy. That

night, while I closed the house-Fred had not come in-I advised her to let Mrs. Butler go back to her

At tweIvethirty I was still downstairs; Fred was out, and I waited for him, being curious to know the verdict

on the play. The bell rang a few minutes before one, and I went to the door; some one in the vestibule was

tapping the floor impatiently with his foot. When I opened the door; I was surprised to find that the late

He came in quietly, and I had a chance to see him well, under the hall light; the change three days had made

was shocking. His eyes were sunk deep in his head, his reddened lids and twitching mouth told of little sleep,

of nerves ready to snap. He was untidy, too, and a three days' beard hardly improved him.

"I'm glad it's you," he said, by way of greeting. "I was afraid you'd have gone to bed."

'It's the top of the evening yet," I replied perfunctorily, as I led the way into the library. Once inside, Wardrop

"I came here," he said nervously, looking at the windows, "because I had an idea you'd keep your head.

"Sit down, man," I pushed a chair to him. "You don't look as if you have been in bed for a couple of nights."

He went to each of the windows and examined the closed shutters before he answered me.

"I haven't. You wouldn't go to bed either; if you thought you would never wake up."

"Well, it's true enough. Knox, there are people following me wherever I go; they eat where I eat; if I doze in

my chair they come into my dreams!" He stopped there, then he laughed a little wildly. "That last isn't sane,

but it's true. There's a man across the street now, eating an apple under a lamppost."

"Suppose you are under surveillance," I said. "It's annoying to have a detective following you around, but it's

hardly serious. The police say now that Mr. Fleming killed himself; that was your own contention."

He leaned forward in his chair and, resting his hands on his knees, gazed at me somberly.

"Suppose I say he didn't kill himself?" slowly. "Suppose I say he was murdered? Suppose-good God-suppose

"For the last two days I've been wondering-if I did it! He hadn't any weapon; I had one, his. I hated him that

day; I had tried to save him, and couldn't. My God, Knox, I might have gone off my head and done it-and not

His condition was pitiable. I looked around for some whiskey, but the best I could do was a little port on the

sideboard. When I came back he was sitting with bent head, his forehead on his palms.

"I've thought it all out," he said painfully. "My mother had spells of emotional insanity. Perhaps I went there,

without knowing it, and killed him. I can see him, in the night, when I daren't sleep, toppling over on to that

table, with a bullet wound in his head, and I am in the room, and I have his revolver in my pocket!"

"You give me your word you have no conscious recollection of hearing a shot fired."

"My word before Heaven," he said fervently. "But I tell you, Knox, he had no weapon. No one came out of

that room as I went in and yet he was only swaying forward, as if I had shot him one moment, and caught him

as he fell, the next. I was dazed; I don't remember yet what I told the police."

The expression of fear in his eyes was terrible to see. A gust of wind shook the shutters, and he jumped

"You will have to be careful," I said. "There have been cases where men confessed murders they never

committed, driven by Heaven knows what method of undermining their mental resistance. You expose your

imagination to 'third degree' torture of your own invention, and in two days more you will be able to add full

"I knew you would think me crazy," he put in, a little less somberly, "but just try it once: sit in a room by

yourself all day and all night, with detectives watching you; sit there and puzzle over a murder of a man you

are suspected of killing; you know you felt like killing him, and you have a revolver; and he is shot. Wouldn't

"Wardrop," I asked, trying to fix his wavering eyes with mine, "do you own a thirtytwo caliber revolver?"

I was startled beyond any necessity, under the circumstances. Many people have thirtytwos.

"That is, I had," he corrected himself. "It was in the leather bag that was stolen at Bellwood."

"I can relieve your mind of one thing," I said. "If your revolver was stolen with the leather bag, you had

nothing to do with the murder. Fleming was shot with a thirtytwo." He looked first incredulous, then

"Now, then," I pursued, "suppose Mr. Fleming had an enemy, a relentless one who would stoop to anything

to compass his ruin. In his position he would be likely to have enemies. This person, let us say, knows what

you carry in your grip, and steals it, taking away the funds that would have helped to keep the lid on

Fleming's mismanagement for a time. In the grip is your revolver; would you know it again?"

"This person-this enemy finds the revolver; pockets it and at the first opportunity, having ruined Fleming,

"There were a dozen-a hundred-people who would have been glad to ruin him!" His gaze wavered again

"You forget one thing, Knox," he said, after a moment. "There was nobody else who could have shot him: the

"There is no doubt in my mind that he was shot from there. He was facing the open window, sitting directly

under the light, writing. A shot fired through a broken pane of one of the warehouse windows would meet

every requirement of the case: the empty room, the absence of powder marks-even the fact that no shot was

heard. There was a report, of course, but the noise in the clubhouse and the thunderstorm outside covered

"By George!" he exclaimed. "The warehouse, of course. I never thought of it!" He was relieved, for some

"It's a question now of how many people knew he was at the club, and which of them hated him enough to

"Because it was he who came to the door of the room while the detectives and you and I were inside, and

I pulled out my pocketbook and took out the scrap of paper which Margery had found pinned to the pillow

in her father's bedroom. "Do you know what that means?" I asked, watching Wardrop's face. "That was found

in Mr. Fleming's room two days after he left home. A similar scrap was found in Miss Jane Maitland's room

when she disappeared. When Fleming was murdered, he was writing a letter; he said: 'The figures have

followed me here.' When we know what those figures mean, Wardrop, we know why he was killed and who

"I do not know," he said, and I believed him. He had got up and taken his hat, but I stopped him inside the

"You can help this thing in two ways," I told him. "I am going to give you something to do: you will have

less time to be morbid. Find out, if you can, all about Fleming's private life in the last dozen years, especially

the last three. See if there are any women mixed up in it, and try to find out something about this eleven

"Eleven twentytwo," he repeated, but I had not missed his change of expression when I said women.

"Also," I went on, "I want you to tell me who was with you the night you tried to break into the house at

He was taken completely by surprise: when he had gathered himself together his perplexity was overdone.

He lost his composure altogether then. I put my back against the door and waited for him to get himself in

"There was a woman," I persisted, "and what is more, Wardrop, at this minute you believe she took your

"But she couldn't," he quavered. "I've thought until my brain is going, and I don't see how she could have

He became sullen when he saw what he had done, refused any more information, and left almost

BURTON'S idea of exploiting Miss Jane's disappearance began to bear fruit the next morning. I went to the

office early, anxious to get my more pressing business out of the way, to have the afternoon with Burton to

"Small woman, well dressed, gray hair?" I repeated. "I think I'll go up and see. Where was the body found ?"

"In the river at Monica Station," was the reply. "There is a scar diagonally across the cheek to the corner of

With a breath of relief I said it was not the person we were seeking and tried to get down to work again. But

Burton's prophecy had been right. Miss Jane had been seen in a hundred different places: one perhaps was

A reporter for the Eagle had been working on the case all night: he came in for a more detailed description of

the missing woman, and he had a theory, to fit which he was quite ready to cut and trim the facts.

"It's Rowe," he said confidently. "You can see his hand in it right through. I was put on the Benson

kidnapping case, you remember, the boy who was kept for three months in a deserted lumber camp in the

mountains? Well, sir, every person in the Benson house swore that youngster was in bed at midnight, when

the house was closed for the night. Every door and window bolted in the morning, and the boy gone. When

we found Rowe-after the mother had put on mourning-and found the kid, ten pounds heavier than he had

been before he was abducted, and strutting around like a turkey cock, Rowe told us that he and the boy took

in the theater that night, and were there for the first act. How did he do it? He offered to take the boy to the

show if he would pretend to go to bed, and then slide down a porch pillar and meet him. The boy didn't want

"There can't be any mistake about the time in this case," I commented. "I saw her myself after eleven, and

The Eagle man consulted his notebook. "Oh, yes," he asked; "did she have a diagonal cut across her cheek

My next visitor was a cabman. On the night in question he had taken a small and a very nervous old woman

to the Omega ferry. She appeared excited and almost forgot to pay him. She carried a small satchel, and wore

a black veil. What did she look like? She had gray hair, and she seemed to have a scar on her face that drew

At ten o'clock I telephoned Burton: "For Heaven's sake," I said, "if anybody has lost a little old lady in a

black dress, wearing a black veil, carrying a satchel, and with a scar diagonally across her cheek from her eye

"That's funny," he said. "We're stirring up the pool and bringing up things we didn't expect. The police have

been looking for that woman quietly for a week: she's the widow of a coal baron, and her soninlaw's under

"Well, he didn't," I affirmed. "She committed suicide from an Omega ferry boat and she's at the morgue this

"Bully," he returned. "Keep on; you'll get lots of clues, and remember one will be right."

It was not until noon, however, that anything concrete developed. In the two hours between, I had

interviewed seven more people. I had followed the depressing last hours of the coal baron's widow, and

jumped with her, mentally, into the black river that night. I had learned of a small fairishhaired girl who had

tried to buy cyanide of potassium at three drugstores on the same street, and of a tall, light woman who had

At twelve, however, my reward came. Two men walked in, almost at the same time: one was a motorman, in

his official clothes, brass buttons and patches around the pockets. The other was a taxicab driver. Both had

the uncertain gait of men who by occupation are unused to anything stationary under them, and each eyed the

The motorman claimed priority by a nose, so I took him first into my private office. His story, shorn of his

On the night in question, Thursday of the week before, he took his car out of the barn for the eleven o'clock

run. Barney was his conductor. They went from the barn, at Hays Street, downtown, and then started out for

Wynton. The controller blew out, and two or three things went wrong: all told they lost forty minutes. They

The car went to the bad again at Wynton, and he and Barney tinkered with it until twoforty. They got it in

shape to go back to the barn, but that was all. Just as they were ready to start, a passenger got on, a woman,

alone: a small woman with a brown veil. She wore a black dress or a suit-he was vague about everything but

the color, and he noticed her especially because she was fidgety and excited. Half a block farther a man

boarded the car, and sat across from the woman. Barney said afterward that the man tried twice to speak to

The man got out when the car went into the barn, but the woman stayed on. He and Barney got another car

and took it out, and the woman went with them. She made a complete round trip this time, going out to

Wynton and back to the end of the line downtown. It was just daylight when she got off at last, at First and

Asked if he had thought at the time that the veiled woman was young or old, he said he had thought she was

probably middleaged. Very young or very old women would not put in the night riding in a streetcar. Yes,

he had had men who rode around a couple of times at night, mostly to sober up before they went home. But

I took his name and address and thanked him The chauffeur came next, and his story was equally pertinent.

On the night of the previous Thursday he had been engaged to take a sick woman from a downtown hotel to a

house at Bellwood. The woman's husband was with her, and they went slowly to avoid jolting. It was after

twelve when he drove away from the house and started home. At a corner-he did not know the names of the

streets-a woman hailed the cab and asked him if he belonged in Bellwood or was going to the city. She had

missed the last train. When he told her he was going into town, she promptly engaged him, and showed him

"I waited an hour," he finished, "before she came; I dropped to sleep or I would have gone without her. About

halfpast one she came along, and a gentleman with her. He put her in the cab, and I took her to the city.

When I saw in the paper that a lady had disappeared from Bellwood that night, I knew right off that it was my

"I would know his voice, I expect, sir; I could not see much: he wore a slouch hat and had a travelingbag of

"He didn't say much. Before he closed the door, he said, 'You have put me in a terrible position,' or something

like that. From the travelingbag and all, I thought perhaps it was an elopement, and the lady had decided to

"Was it a young woman or an old one," I asked again. This time the cabby's tone was assured.

"Young," he asserted, "slim and quick: dressed in black, with a black veil. Soft voice. She got out at Market

"I hardly think it was Miss Maitland," I said. "She was past sixty, and besides-I don't think she went that way.

He fumbled in his pocket, and after a minute brought up a small black pocketbook and held it out to me. It

"She dropped this in the cab, sir," he said. "I took it home to the missus-not knowing what else to do with it.

I opened the purse and took out a small white card, without engraving. On it was written in a pencil the

WHEN the cabman had gone, I sat down and tried to think things out. As I have said many times in the

course of this narrative, I lack imagination: moreover, a long experience of witnesses in court had taught me

the unreliability of average observation. The very fact that two men swore to having taken solitary women

away from Bellwood that night, made me doubt if either one had really seen the missing woman.

Of the two stories, the taxicab driver's was the more probable, as far as Miss Jane was concerned. Knowing

her childlike nature, her timidity, her shrinking and shamefaced fear of the dark, it was almost incredible

that she would walk the three miles to Wynton, voluntarily, and from there lose herself in the city. Besides,

such an explanation would not fit the bloodstains, or the fact that she had gone, as far as we could find out,

Still-she had left the village that night, either by cab or on foot. If the driver had been correct in his time,

however, the taxicab was almost eliminated; he said the woman got into the cab at onethirty. It was between

I think for the first time it came to me, that day, that there was at least a possibility that Miss Jane had not

been attacked, robbed or injured: that she had left home voluntarily, under stress of great excitement. But if

she had, why? The mystery was hardly less for being stripped of its gruesome details. Nothing in my

knowledge of the missing woman gave me a clue. I had a vague hope that, if she had gone voluntarily, she

To my list of exhibits I added the purse with its inclosure. The secret drawer of my desk now contained,

besides the purse, the slip marked eleven twentytwo that had been pinned to Fleming's pillow; the similar

scrap found over Miss Jane's mantel; the pearl I had found on the floor of the closet, and the cyanide, which,

as well as the bullet, Burton had given me. Add to these the still tender place on my head where Wardrop had

almost brained me with a chair, and a blue ankle, now becoming spotted with yellow, where I had fallen

down the dumbwaiter, and my list of visible reminders of the double mystery grew to eight.

I was not proud of the part I had played. So far, I had blundered, it seemed to me, at every point where a

blunder was possible. I had fallen over folding chairs and down a shaft; I had been a halfhour too late to

save Allan Fleming; I had been up and awake, and Miss Jane had got out of the house under my very nose.

Last, and by no means least, I had waited thirtyfive years to find the right woman, and when I found her,

He walked into the office jauntily and presented Miss Grant with a club sandwich neatly done up in waxed

"Avaunt, dull care!" he exclaimed, taking in my dejected attitude and exhibits on the desk at a glance. "Look

"Grin, darn you," he said, and put something on the desk in front of me. It was a Russia leather bag.

"Where did you get it?" I exclaimed, incredulous. Burton fumbled with the lock while he explained.

It was not locked, and I got it open in a minute. As I had expected, it was empty.

"Then-perhaps Wardrop was telling the truth," I exclaimed. "By Jove, Burton, he was robbed by the woman

in the cab, and he can't tell about her on account of Miss Fleming! She made a haul, for certain."

I told him then of the two women who had left Bellwood on the night of Miss Jane's disappearance, and

showed him the purse and its inclosure. The C puzzled him as it had me. "It might be anything," he said as he

gave it back, "from a book, chapter and verse in the Bible to a prescription for rheumatism at a drugstore.

As to the lady in the cab, I think perhaps you are right," he said, examining the interior of the bag, where

Wardrop's name in ink told its story. "Of course, we have only Wardrop's word that he brought the bag to

Bellwood; if we grant that we can grant the rest-that he was robbed, that the thief emptied the bag, and either

"It was a coincidence. There have been a shrewd lot of baggage thieves in two or three eastern cities lately,

mostly Boston. The method, the police say, was something like this-one of them, the chief of the gang, would

get a wagon, dress like an expressman and go round the depots looking at baggage. He would make a mental

note of the numbers, go away and forge a check to match, and secure the pieces he had taken a fancy to. Then

he merely drove around to headquarters, and the trunk was rifled. The police got on, raided the place, and

found, among others our Russia leather bag. It was shipped back, empty, to the address inside, at Bellwood."

"It came while I was lunching with Miss Letitia," he said easily. "We're very chummy-thick as thieves. What

I want to know is"-disregarding my astonishment-"where is the hundred thousand?"

"Did you ever hear of Anderson, the nerve specialist ?" he asked, without apparent relevancy.

"I have been thinking of him," I answered. "If we could get Wardrop there, on some plausible excuse, it

would take Anderson about ten minutes with his instruments and experimental psychology, to know

"I'll go on one condition," Burton said, preparing to leave. "I'll promise to get Wardrop and have him on the

spot at two o'clock tomorrow, if you'll promise me one thing: if Anderson fixes me with his eye, and I begin

to look dotty and tell about my past life, I want you to take me by the flap of my ear and lead me gently

The recovery of the bag was only one of the many astonishing things that happened that day and the

following night. Hawes, who knew little of what it all meant, and disapproved a great deal, ended that

afternoon by locking himself, blinking furiously, in his private office. To Hawes any practice that was not

lucrative was bad practice. About four o'clock, when I had shut myself away from the crowd in the outer

office, and was letting Miss Grant take their depositions as to when and where they had seen a little old lady,

probably demented, wandering around the streets, a woman came who refused to be turned away.

"Young woman," I heard her say, speaking to Miss Grant, "he may have important business, but I guess

I interfered then, and let her come in. She was a woman of medium height, quietly dressed, and fairly

handsome. My first impression was favorable; she moved with a certain dignity, and she was not laced,

crimped or made up. I am more sophisticated now; The Lady Who Tells Me Things says that the respectable

However, the illusion was gone the moment she began to speak. Her voice was heavy, throaty,

expressionless. She threw it like a weapon: I am perfectly honest in saying that for a moment the surprise of

"I beg your pardon," I said, after a minute. "You mean-the Allan Fleming who has just died?"

She nodded. I could see she was unable, just then, to speak. She had nerved herself to the interview, but it

was evident that there was a real grief. She fumbled for a blackbordered handkerchief, and her throat

"He married me three years ago, in Plattsburg. I came from there last night. I-couldn't leave before."

"No. Nobody knew about it. I have had to put up with a great deal, Mr. Knox. It's a hard thing for a woman to

know that people are talking about her, and all the time she's married as tight as ring and book can do it."

"Estate!" Her tone was scornful. "I guess I'll take what's coming to me, as far as that goes-and it won't be

"I know he did not," she said tensely. "Not only that: I know who did it. It was Schwartz-Henry Schwartz."

"You don't know Schwartz," she said grimly. "I was married to him for fifteen years. I took him when he had

a saloon in the Fifth Ward, at Plattsburg. The next year he was alderman: I didn't expect in those days to see

him riding around in an automobile-not but what he was making money-Henry Schwartz is a moneymaker.

"He was a brute," she said vindictively. "He wanted me to go back to him, and I told him I would rather die. I

took a big house, and kept bachelor suites for gentlemen. Mr. Fleming lived there, and-he married me three

"Schwartz?" I meditated. "Do you happen to know if Senator Schwartz was in Plattsburg at the time of the

"He had already tried to kill him, the day we were married. He stabbed him twice, but not deep enough."

I looked at her in wonder. For this woman, not extraordinarily handsome, two men had fought and one had

"I can prove everything I say," she went on rapidly. "I have letters from Mr. Fleming telling me what to do in

case he was shot down; I have papers-canceled notes-that would put Schwartz in the penitentiary-that is," she

"Yes, I'm afraid-afraid he'll get me back yet. It would please him to see me crawl back on my knees."

"Yes, he can," she shivered. From which I knew she had told me only a part of her story.

After all she had nothing more to tell. Fleming had been shot; Schwartz had been in the city about the

Borough Bank; he had threatened Fleming before, but a political peace had been patched; Schwartz knew the

"I know a lot about inside politics," she said, as she got up. "I have seen the state divided up with the roast at

my table, and served around with the dessert, and I can tell you something you don't know about your White

Cat. :A back staircase leads to one of the upstairs rooms, and shuts off with a locked door. It opens below,

out a side entrance, not supposed to be used. Only a few know of it. Henry Butler was found dead at the foot

"The police said so," she replied, with her grim smile. "There is such a thing as murdering a man by driving

"Just a minute," I said, as she was about to go. "Have you ever heard Mr. Fleming speak of the Misses

"They were-his first wife's sisters. No, he never talked of them, but I believe, just before he left Plattsburg, he

"There is something else," I said. "Did you ever hear of the number eleven twentytwo?"

It seemed rather ridiculous, when she had gone, and I sat down to think it over. It was anticlimax, to say the

least. If the mysterious number meant only the address of this very ordinary woman, then-it was probable her

story of Schwartz was true enough. But I could not reconcile myself to it, nor could I imagine Schwartz, with

It would have been more like the fearlessness and passion of the man to have shot Fleming down in the state

house corridor, or on the street, and to have trusted to his influence to set him free. For the first time it

occurred to me that there was something essentially feminine in the revenge of the figures that had haunted

That night, at the most peaceful spot I had ever known, Fred's home, occurred another inexplicable affair, one

THAT was to be Margery's last evening at Fred's. Edith had kept her as long as she could, but the girl felt that

"I don't know what I am going to do without you," she said that night when we were all together in the

library, with a wood fire, for light and coziness more than heat. Margery was sitting before the fire, and while

The May night was cold and rainy, and Fred had been reading us a poem he had just finished, receiving with

"If it's about anything, it isn't poetry," he replied. "Poetry appeals to the ear: it is primarily sensuous. If it is

"I'm afraid I'm getting old," she said, "I'm getting the nap habit after dinner. Fred, run up, will you, and see if

Fred stuffed his poem in his pocket and went resignedly upstairs. Edith yawned again, and prepared to retire

"If Ellen decides to come downstairs," she called back over her shoulder, "please come and wake me. She

At the door she turned, behind Margery's back, and made me a sweeping and comprehensive signal. She

finished it off with a double wink, Edith having never been able to wink with one eye alone, and crossing the

Margery and I were alone. The girl looked at me, smiled a little, and drew a long breath.

"It's queer about Edith," I said, "I never before knew her to get drowsy after dinner. If she were not beyond

suspicion, I would think it a deeplaid scheme, and she and Fred sitting and holding hands in a corner

"But why-a scheme?" She had folded her hands in her lap, and the eternal ring sparkled malignantly.

Perhaps I was morbid about the ring: it seemed to me she lifted her hand and looked at it.

"It's drafty in here: don't you think so?" she asked suddenly, looking back of her. Probably she had not meant

it, but I got up and closed the door into the hall. When I came back I took the chair next to her, and for a

moment we said nothing. The log threw out tiny red devil sparks, and the clock chimed eight, very slowly.

"I'm not afraid to see him," she said proudly, "and he ought not to be afraid to see me."

"I want to tell you something before you see him. Last night, before he came, I thought that-well, that at least

"In justice to him, and because I want to fight fair, I tell you tonight that I don't believe he knows anything

about your father's death, and that I believe he was robbed that night at Bellwood."

"I think when the proper time comes, he will tell about that too, Margery." I did not notice my use of her

name until too late. If she heard, she failed to resent it. "After all, if you love him, hardly anything else

matters, does it?" How do we know but that he was in trouble, and that Aunt Jane herself gave them to him?"

"I won't run a race with a man who is lame," I said quietly. "Ethically, I ought to go away and leave you to

your dreams, but I am not going to do it. If you love Wardrop as a woman ought to love the man she marries,

then marry him and I hope you will be happy. If you don't-no, let me finish. I have made up my mind to clear

him if I can: to bring him to you with a clear slate. Then, I know it is audacious, but I am going to come, too,

She sat with her head bent, her color coming and going nervously. Now she looked up at me with what was

"It sounds like a threat," she said in a low voice. "And you-I wonder if you always get what you want?"

Then, of course, Fred came in, and fell over a hassock looking for matches. Edith opened the door of the den

and called him to her irritably, but Fred declined to leave the wood fire, and settled down in his easy chair.

After a while Edith came over and joined us, but she snubbed Fred the entire evening, to his bewilderment.

And when conversation lagged, during the evening that followed, I tried to remember what I had said, and

knew I had done very badly. Only one thing cheered me: she had not been angry, and she had understood.

We broke up for the night about eleven. Mrs. Butler had come down for a while, and had even played a little,

something of Tschaikovsky's, a singing, plaintive theme that brought sadness back into Margery's face, and

made me think, for no reason, of a wet country road and a plodding, backburdened peasant.

Fred and I sat in the library for a while after the rest had gone, and I told him a little of what I had learned that

"A second wife!" he said, "and a primitive type, eh? Well, did she shoot him, or did Schwartz? The Lady of

Fred closed the house with his usual care. It required the combined efforts of the maids followed up by Fred,

to lock the windows, it being his confident assertion that in seven years of keeping house, he had never failed

On that night, I remember, he went around with his usual scrupulous care. Then we went up to bed, leaving a

The house was a double one, built around a square hall below, which served the purpose of a general

sittingroom. From the front door a short, narrow hall led back to this, with a room on either side, and from it

doors led into the rest of the lower floor. At one side the stairs took the ascent easily, with two stops for

landings, and upstairs the bedrooms opened from a similar, slightly smaller square hall. The staircase to the

My bedroom was over the library, and Mrs. Butler and Margery Fleming had connecting rooms, across the

hall. Fred and Edith slept in the nursery wing, so they would be near the children. In the square upper hall

there was a big reading table, a lamp, and some comfortable chairs. Here, when they were alone, Fred read

aloud the evening paper, or his latest short story, and Edith's sewing basket showed how she put in what

I did not go to sleep at once: naturally the rather vital step I had taken in the library insisted on being

considered and almost regretted. I tried reading myself to sleep, and when that failed, I tried the soothing

combination of a cigarette and a book. That worked like a charm; the last thing I remember is of holding the

cigarette in a death grip as I lay with my pillows propped back of me, my head to the light, and a delightful

I was awakened by the pungent acrid smell of smoke, and I sat up and blinked my eyes open. The side of the

bed was sending up a steady column of gray smoke, and there was a smart crackle of fire under me

somewhere. I jumped out of bed and saw the trouble instantly. My cigarette had dropped from my hand, still

lighted, and as is the way with cigarettes, determined to burn to the end. In doing so it had fired my bed, the

It took some sharp work to get it all out without rousing the house. Then I stood amid the wreckage and

looked ruefully at Edith's pretty room. I could see, mentally, the spot of water on the library ceiling the next

morning, and I could hear Fred's strictures on the heedlessness and indifference to property of bachelors in

Three pitchers of water on the bed had made it an impossible couch. I put on a dressinggown, and, with a

blanket over my arm, I went out to hunt some sort of place to sleep. I decided on the davenport in the hall just

outside, and as quietly as I could, I put a screen around it and settled down for the night.

I was wakened by the touch of a hand on my face. I started, I think, and the hand was jerked away-I am not

sure: I was still drowsy. I lay very quiet, listening for footsteps, but none came. With the feeling that there

was some one behind the screen, I jumped up. The hall was dark and quiet. When I found no one I concluded

it had been only a vivid dream, and I sat down on the edge of the davenport and yawned.

I heard Edith moving back in the nursery: she has an uncomfortable habit of wandering around in the night,

covering the children, closing windows, and sniffing for fire. I was afraid some of the smoke from my

conflagration had reached her suspicious nose, but she did not come into the front hall. I was wideawake by

that time, and it was then, I think, that I noticed a heavy, sweetish odor in the air. At first I thought one of the

children might be ill, and that Edith was dosing him with one of the choice concoctions that she kept in the

bathroom medicine closet. When she closed her door, however, and went back to bed, I knew I had been

The sweetish smell was almost nauseating. For some reason or other-association of certain odors with certain

events-I found myself recalling the time I had a wisdom tooth taken out, and that when I came around I was

being sat on by a dentist and his assistant, and the latter had a black eye. Then, suddenly, I knew. The sickly

I had the light on in a moment, and was rapping at Margery's door. It was locked, and I got no answer. A pale

light shone over the transom, but everything was ominously quiet, beyond the door. I went to Mrs. Butler's

door, next; it was unlocked and partly open. One glance at the empty bed and the confusion of the place, and

The atmosphere was reeking with chloroform. The girl was in bed, apparently sleeping quietly. One arm was

thrown up over her head, and the other lay relaxed on the white cover. A folded towel had been laid across

her face, and when I jerked it away I saw she was breathing very slowly, stertorously, with her eyes partly

I threw up all the windows, before I roused the family, and as soon as Edith was in the room I telephoned for

the doctor. I hardly remember what I did until he came: I know we tried to rouse Margery and failed, and I

know that Fred went downstairs and said the silver was intact and the back kitchen door open. And then the

doctor came, and I was put out in the hall, and for an eternity, I walked up and down, eight steps one way,

Not until the doctor came out to me, and said she was better, and would I call a maid to make some strong

black coffee, did I come out of my stupor. The chance of doing something, anything, made me determine to

It was Edith who brought Mrs. Butler to my mind. Fred had maintained that she had fled before the intruders,

and had was probably in some closet or corner of the upper floor. I was afraid our solicitude was long in

coming. It was almost an hour before we organized a searching party to look for her. Fred went upstairs, and

It was I who found her, after all, lying full length on the grass in the little square yard back of the house. She

We could get no story from either of them that night. The two rooms had been ransacked, but apparently

nothing had been stolen. Fred vowed he had locked and bolted the kitchen door, and that it had been opened

It was a strange experience, that night intrusion into the house, without robbery as a motive. If Margery knew

or suspected the reason for the outrage, she refused to say. As for Mrs. Butler, to mention the occurrence put

her into hysteria. It was Fred who put forth the most startling theory of the lot.

"By George," he said the next morning when we had failed to find tracks in the yard, and Edith had reported

every silver spoon in its place, "by George, it wouldn't surprise me if the lady in the grave clothes did it to

herself. There isn't anything a hysterical woman won't do to rouse your interest in her, if it begins to flag.

How did any one get in through that kitchen door, when it was locked inside and bolted? I tell you, she

I did not like to force Margery's confidence, but I believed that the outrage was directly for the purpose of

searching her room, perhaps for papers that had been her father's. Mrs. Butler came around enough by

morning, to tell a semiconnected story in which she claimed that two men had come in from a veranda roof,

and tried to chloroform her. That she had pretended to be asleep and had taken the first opportunity, while

they were in the other room, to run downstairs and into the yard. Edith thought it likely enough, being a

As it turned out, Edith's intuition was more reliable than my skepticism,-or Fred's.

THE inability of Margery Fleming to tell who had chloroformed her, and Mrs. Butler's white face and

brooding eyes made a very respectable mystery out of the affair. Only Fred, Edith and I came down to

breakfast that morning. Fred's expression was half amused, half puzzled. Edith fluttered uneasily over the

coffee machine, her cheeks as red as the bow of ribbon at her throat. I was preoccupied, and, like Fred, I

"Did you find anything, Fred?" Edith asked. Fred did not reply, so she repeated the question with some

"Yes, dear-that is, no. Nothing to amount to anything. Upon my soul, Jack, if I wrote the editorials of this

paper, I'd say something." He subsided into inarticulate growls behind the paper, and everything was quiet.

Then I heard a sniffle, distinctly. I looked up. Edith was crying-pouring cream into a coffee cup, and feeling

blindly for the sugar, with her pretty face twisted and her pretty eyes obscured. In a second I was up, had

crumpled the newspapers, including Fred's, into a ball, and had lifted him bodily out of his chair.

"When I am married," I said fiercely, jerking him around to Edith and pushing him into a chair beside her, "if

I ever read the paper at breakfast when my wife is bursting for conversation, may I have some good and

faithful friend who will bring me back to a sense of my duty." I drew a chair to Edith's other side. "Now, let's

She wiped her eyes shamelessly with her table napkin. "There isn't a soul in this house I can talk to," she

wailed. "All kinds of awful things happening-and we had to send for coffee this morning, Jack. You must

have used four pounds last night-and nobody will tell me a thing. There's no use asking Margery-she's sick at

her stomach from the chloroform-and Ellen never talks except about herself, and she's horribly-uninteresting.

And Fred and you make a ba-barricade out of newspapers, and fire 'yes' at me when you mean 'no.'"

"I put the coffee back where I got it, Edith," I protested stoutly. "I know we're barbarians, but I'll swear to

that." And then I stopped, for I had a sudden recollection of going upstairs with something fat and tinny in

my arms, of finding it in my way, and of hastily thrusting it into the boys' boot closet under the nursery stair.

Fred had said nothing. He had taken her hand and was patting it gently, the while his eyes sought the

"You burned that blue rug," she said to me disconsolately, with a threat of fresh tears. "It took me ages to find

"Yes, to take away when you get married." There is a hint of the shrew in all good women.

Here, I regret to say, Edith suddenly laughed. She threw her head back and jeered at me.

"You!" she chortled, and pointed one slim finger at me mockingly. "You, who are so mad about one girl that

you love all women for her sake! You, who go white instead of red when she comes into the room! You, who

have let your practice go to the dogs to be near her, and then never speak to her when she's around, but sit

with your mouth open like a puppy begging for candy, ready to snap up every word she throws you and

"Honestly, Edith, do I do that?" I gasped. But she did not answer; she only leaned over and kissed Fred.

"Women like men to be awful fools about them," she said. "That's why I'm so crazy about Freddie." He

"Then-Margery's engagement ring was stolen last night and when I commiserated her she said-dear me, the

Edith rang the bell and seemed to be thinking. "Perhaps we'd better make it four small rugs instead of one

"Oh, that! Why, she said it didn't really matter about the ring. She had never cared much about it anyway."

"But that's only a matter of taste," I protested, somewhat disappointed. But Edith got up and patted me on the

"Silly," she said. "If the right man came along and gave her a rubber teething ring, she'd be crazy about it for

She took me upstairs before I left for the office to measure for the Shirvan, Edith being a person who

believes in obtaining a thing while the desire for it is in its first bloom. Across the hall Fred was talking to

"Mustard leaves are mighty helpful," he was saying. "I always take 'em on shipboard. And cheer up: land's in

I would have given much for Fred's ease of manner when, a few minutes later, Edith having decided on four

She was lying very still and pale in the center of the white bed, and she tried bravely to smile at us.

"I hope you are better," I said. "Don't let Edith convince you that my coffee has poisoned you."

She said she was a little better, and that she didn't know she had had any coffee. That was the extent of the

conversation. I, who have a local reputation of a sort before a jury, I could not think of another word to say. I

stood there for a minute uneasily, with Edith poking me with her finger to go inside the door and speak and

act like an intelligent human being. But I only muttered something about a busy day before me and fled. It

was a singular thing, but as I stood in the doorway, I had a vivid mental picture of Edith's description of me,

sitting up puppylike to beg for a kind word, and wiggling with delight when I got it. If I slunk into my office

At the office I found a note from Miss Letitia, and after a glance at it I looked for the first train, in my

railroad schedule. The note was brief; unlike the similar epistle I had received from Miss Jane the day she

"DEAR SIR-Kindly oblige me by coming to see me as soon as you get this. Some things have happened, not

that I think they are worth a row of pins, but Hepsibah is an old fool, and she says she did not put the note in

I had an appointment with Burton for the afternoon, to take Wardrop, if we could get him on some pretext, to

Doctor Anderson. That day, also, I had two cases on the trial list. I got Humphreys, across the hall, to take

them over, and evading Hawes' resentful blink, I went on my way to Bellwood. It was nine days since Miss

Jane had disappeared. On my way out in the train I jotted down the things that had happened in that time:

Allan Fleming had died and been buried; the Borough Bank had failed; some one had got into the Fleming

house and gone through the papers there; Clarkson had killed himself; we had found that Wardrop had sold

the pearls; the leather bag had been returned; Fleming's second wife had appeared, and some one had broken

into my own house and, intentionally or not, had almost sent Margery Fleming over the borderland.

It seemed to me everything pointed in one direction, to a malignity against Fleming that extended itself to the

daughter. I thought of what the woman who claimed to be the dead man's second wife had said the day

before. If the staircase she had spoken of opened into the room where Fleming was shot, and if Schwartz was

in town at the time, then, in view of her story that he had already tried once to kill him, the likelihood was

If Wardrop knew that, why had he not denounced him? Was I to believe that, after all the mystery, the

number eleven twentytwo was to resolve itself into the number of a house? Would it be typical of the

Schwartz I knew to pin bits of paper to a man's pillow? On the other hand, if he had reason to think that

Fleming had papers that would incriminate him, it would be like Schwartz to hire some one to search for

them, and he would be equal to having Wardrop robbed of the money he was taking to Fleming.

Granting that Schwartz had killed Fleming-then who was the woman with Wardrop the night he was robbed?

Why did he take the pearls and sell them? How did the number eleven twentytwo come into Aunt Jane's

possession? How did the leather bag get to Boston? Who had chloroformed Margery? Who had been using

the Fleming house while it was closed? Most important of all now-where was Aunt Jane?

The house at Bellwood looked almost cheerful in the May sunshine, as I went up the walk. Nothing ever

changed the straight folds of the oldfashioned lace curtains; no dog ever tracked the porch, or buried

sacrilegious and odorous bones on the level lawn; the birds were nesting in the trees, well above the reach of

Robert's ladder, but they were decorous, wellbehaved birds, whose prim courting never partook of the

exuberance of their neighbors', bursting their little throats in an elm above the baby perambulator in the next

When Bella had let me in, and I stood once more in the straight hall, with the green rep chairs and the

Japanese umbrella stand, involuntarily I listened for the tap of Miss Jane's small feet on the stairs. Instead

The old lady was sitting by a window of her bedroom, in a chintz upholstered chair. She did not appear to be

feeble; the only change I noticed was a relaxation in the severe tidiness of her dress. I guessed that Miss

Jane's exquisite neatness had been responsible for the white ruchings, the soft caps, and the spotless shoulder

"You've taken your own time about coming, haven't you?" Miss Letitia asked sourly. "If it hadn't been for

that cousin of yours you sent here, Burton, I'd have been driven to sending for Amelia Miles, and when I send

"I have had a great deal to attend to," I said as loud as I could. "I came some days ago to tell you Mr. Fleming

was dead; after that we had to bury him, and close the house. It's been a very sad-"

"Did he leave anything?" she interrupted. "It isn't sad at all unless he didn't leave anything."

"He left very little. The house, perhaps, and I regret to have to tell you that a woman came to me yesterday

"Then," she said with a snap, "there's one other woman in the world as big a fool as my sister Martha was. I

"The last time I was here," I shouted, "you thought she was dead; have you changed your mind?"

"The last time you were here," she said with dignity, "I thought a good many things that were wrong. I

"What!" I exclaimed incredulously. She put her hands on the arms of her chair, and leaning forward, shot the

She didn't expect me to believe her, any more than she believed it herself. But why on earth she had changed

"Very well," I said, "I'm glad to know it was a mistake. Now, the next thing is to find Miss Jane."

"Found her!" This time I did get out of my chair. "What on earth do you mean, Miss Letitia? Why, we've

She opened a religious monthly on the table beside her, and took out a folded paper. I had to control my

"Heppie found it on the back porch, under a milk bottle," she prefaced. Then she read it to me. I do not

remember the wording, and Miss Letitia refused, both then and later, to let it out of her hands. As a result,

unlike the other manuscripts in this case, I have not even a copy. The substance, shorn of its bad spelling and

The writer knew where Miss Jane was; the inference being that he was responsible. She was well and happy,

but she had happened to read a newspaper with an account of her disappearance, and it had worried her. The

payment of a small sum of five thousand dollars would send her back as well as the day she left. The amount,

left in a tin can on the base of the Maitland shaft in the cemetery, would bring the missing lady back within

twentyfour hours. On the contrary, if the recipient of the letter notified the police, it would go hard with

"What do you think of it?" she asked, looking at me over her glasses. "If she was fool enough to be carried

away by a man that spells cemetery with one m, she deserves what she's got. And I won't pay five thousand,

"It doesn't sound quite genuine to me," I said, reading it over. "I should certainly not leave any money until

"I'm not so sure but what she'd better stay a while anyhow," Miss Letitia pursued. "Now that we know she's

living, I ain't so particular when she gets back. She's been notionate lately anyhow."

I had begun reading the note again. "There's one thing here that makes me doubt the whole story," I said.

"What's this about her reading the papers? I thought her reading glasses were found in the library."

"Reading the paper!" she sniffed. "You've got more sense than I've been giving you credit for, Knox. Her

It was a disappointment to me, although the explanation was simple enough. It was surprising that we had not

had more attempts to play on our fears. But the really important thing bearing on Miss Jane's departure was

when Heppie came into the room, with her apron turned up like a pocket and her dust cap pushed down over

When she got to the middle of the room she stopped and abruptly dropped the corners of the apron. There

rolled out a heterogeneous collection of things: a white muslin garment which proved to be a nightgown, with

long sleeves and high collar; a halfdozen hair curlers-I knew those; Edith had been seen, in midnight

emergencies, with her hair twisted around just such instruments of torture-a shoe buttoner; a railroad map,

Miss Letitia changed her glasses deliberately, and took a comprehensive survey of the things on the floor.

"I found 'em stuffed under the blankets in the chest of drawers in the attic," Heppie shouted at her. "If we'd

"Shut up!" Miss Letitia said shortly, and Heppie's thin lips closed with a snap. "Now then, Knox, what do you

"If that's the nightgown she was wearing the night she disappeared, I think it shows one thing very clearly,

Miss Maitland. She was not abducted, and she knew perfectly well what she was about. None of her clothes

is missing, and that threw us off the track; but look at this new glove! She may have had new things to put on

and left the old. The map-well, she was going somewhere, with a definite purpose. When we find out what

"I don't believe a word of it," the old lady burst out. "She didn't have a secret; she was the kind that couldn't

keep a secret. She wasn't responsible, I tell you; she was extravagant. Look at that glove! And she had three

"Just the number, eleven twentytwo," I repeated. "Does it mean anything to you? Has it any significance?"

"I should say it has," she retorted. "In the last ten years the Colored Orphans' Home has cared for, fed,

clothed, and pampered exactly eleven hundred and twentytwo colored children, of every condition of shape

"Eleven twentytwo? Twice eleven is twentytwo, if that's any help. No, I can't think of anything. I loaned

Allan Fleming a thousand dollars once; I guess my mind was failing. It would be about eleven twentytwo by

Neither of which explanations sufficed for the little scrap found in Jane's room. What connection, if any, had

it with her flight? Where was she now? What was eleven twentytwo? And why did Miss Letitia deny that

she had lost the pearls, when I already knew that nine of the ten had been sold, who had bought them, and

I ATE a light lunch at Bellwood, alone, with Bella to look after me in the diningroom. She was very

solicitous, and when she had brought my tea, I thought she wanted to say something. She stood awkwardly

"She was not very well this morning, but I don't think it is serious, Bella," I replied. She turned to go, but I

"Oh, Bella," I called, as she was going out, "I want to ask you something. The night at the Fleming home,

when you and I watched the house, didn't you hear some person running along the hall outside your door?

"You heard that?" I asked gently, "and yet you slept all night? Bella, there's a hitch somewhere. You didn't

sleep that night, at all; you told Miss Fleming I had been up all night. How did you know that? If I didn't

know that you couldn't possibly get around as fast as the-person in the house that night, I would say you had

been in Mr. Fleming's desk, looking for-let us say, postage stamps. May I have another cup of coffee?"

She turned a sickly yellow white, and gathered up my cup and saucer with trembling hands. When the coffee

finally came back it was brought grumblingly by old Heppie. "She says she's turned her ankle," she sniffed.

"Turned it on a lathe, like a table leg, I should say, from the shape of it." Before I left the diningroom I put

I got back to the city somewhat late for my appointment with Burton. I found Wardrop waiting for me at the

office, and if I had been astonished at the change in him two nights before, I was shocked now. He seemed to

have shrunk in his clothes; his eyeballs were bloodshot from drinking, and his fair hair had dropped,

neglected, over his forehead. He was sitting in his familiar attitude, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his

He looked at me with dull eyes, when I went in. I did not see Burton at first. He was sitting on my desk,

holding a flat can in his hand, and digging out with a wooden toothpick one sardine after another and bolting

"Your good health," he said, poising one in the air, where it threatened oily tears over the carpet. "As an

appetitequencher and thirstproducer, give me the festive sardine. How lovely it would be if we could eat

Burton eyed him reproachfully. "Is that what I get for doing without lunch, in order to prove to you that you

are not crazy?" He appealed to me. "He says he's crazy-lost his think works. Now, I ask you, Knox, when I go

to the trouble to find out for him that he's got as many convolutions as anybody, and that they've only got a

"I didn't know you knew each other," I put in, while Burton took another sardine.

"He says we do," Wardrop said wearily; "says he used to knock me around at college."

"He doesn't remember me, but he will," he said. "It's his nerves that are gone, and we'll have him restrung

Wardrop had that afterdebauch suspicion of all men, but I think he grasped at me as a dependability.

"He wants me to go to a doctor," he said. "I'm not sick; it's only-" He was trying to light a cigarette, but the

"Better see one, Wardrop," I urged-and I felt mean enough about doing it. "You need something to brace you

Burton gave him a very small drink, for he could scarcely stand, and we went down in the elevator. My

contempt for the victim between us was as great as my contempt for myself. That Wardrop was in a bad

position there could be no doubt; there might be more men than Fleming who had known about the money in

the leather bag, and who thought he had taken it and probably killed Fleming to hide the theft.

It seemed incredible that an innocent man would collapse as he had done, and yet-at this minute I can name a

dozen men who, under the club of public disapproval, have fallen into paresis, insanity and the grave. We are

Burton knew the specialist very well-in fact, there seemed to be few people he did not know. And considering

the way he had got hold of Miss Letitia and Wardrop, it was not surprising. He had evidently arranged with

The doctor was a large man, his size emphasized by the clothes he wore, very light in color, and

unprofessional in cut. He was sandyhaired, inclined to be bald, and with shrewd, light blue eyes behind his

glasses. Not particularly impressive, except as to size, on first acquaintance; a good fellow, with a brisk

He began by sending Wardrop into a sort of examining room in the rear of the suite somewhere, to take off

his coat and collar. When he had gone the doctor looked at a slip of paper in his hand.

"I think I've got it all from Mr. Burton," he said. "Of course, Mr. Knox, this is a little out of my line; a nerve

specialist has as much business with psychotherapy as a piano tuner has with musical technique. But the idea

is Munsterburg's and I've had some good results. I'll give him a short physical examination, and when I ring

"Press man, lawyer, or doctor," Burton broke in, "we all fatten on the other fellow's troubles, don't we?"

"I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he was making money," he said. "Look at the way a doctor grinds

for a pittance! He's just as capable as the lawyer; he works a damn sight harder, and he makes a tenth the

income. A man will pay his lawyer ten thousand dollars for keeping him out of jail for six months, and he'll

kick like a steer if his doctor charges him a hundred to keep him out of hell for life! Which of you will come

"I guess it is Knox's buttin," Burton conceded, "but I get it later, Doctor; you promised."

The physical examination was very brief; when I was called in Wardrop was standing at the window looking

down into the street below, and the doctor was writing at his desk. Behind Wardrop's back he gave me the

"Test is for association of ideas. Watch length of time between word I give and his reply. I often get hold of

facts forgotten by the patient. A wait before the answering word is given shows an attempt at concealment."

He drew a chair to the centertable for Wardrop, and another, just across for himself. I sat back and to one

side of the patient, where I could see Wardrop's haggard profile and every movement of the specialist.

On the table was an electric instrument like a small clock, and the doctor's first action was to attach to it two

"Now, Mr. Wardrop," he said, "we will go on with the test. Your other condition is fair, as I told you; I think

you can dismiss your idea of insanity without a second thought, but there is something more than brain and

body to be considered; in other words, you have been through a storm, and some of your nervous wires are

down. Put the mouthpiece between your lips, please; you see, I do the same with mine. And when I give you

a word, speak as quickly as possible the association it brings to your mind. For instance, I say 'noise.' Your

first association might be 'street,' 'band,' 'drum,' almost anything associated with the word. As quickly as

The first few words went simply enough. Wardrop's replies came almost instantly. To "light" he replied

"lamp;" "touch" brought the response "hand;" "eat" brought "Burton," and both the doctor and I smiled.

"Taxicab," said the doctor, and, after an almost imperceptible pause, "road" came the association. All at once

"Head." After a perceptible pause the answer came uncertainly. "Hair." But the association of ideas would not

be denied, for in answer to the next word, which was "ice," he gave "blood," evidently following up the

I found myself gripping the arms of my chair. The dial on the doctor's clocklike instrument was measuring

the interval; I could see that now. The doctor took a record of every word and its response. Wardrop's eyes

"Travelingbag." He brought out the word "train" after an evident struggle, but in answer to the next word

"lost," instead of the obvious "found," he said "woman." He had not had sufficient mental ability to get away

"Murder" brought "dead," but "shot," following immediately after, brought "staircase."

I think Wardrop was on his guard by that time, but the conscious effort to hide truths that might be damaging

made the intervals longer, from that time on. Already I felt sure that Allan Fleming's widow had been right;

Wardrop was going to the bad. When, to the next word, "staircase," again, he said "scar," his demoralization

was almost complete. As for me, the scene in Wardrop's mind was already in mine-Schwartz, with the scar

"Gate." He stopped here so long, I thought he was not going to answer at all. Presently, with an effort, he said

"wood," but as before, the association idea came out in the next word; for "electric light" he gave "letters."

"Closet." After perhaps a second and a half came "dust," showing what closet was in his mind, and

A long list of words followed which told nothing, to my mind, although the doctor's eyes were snapping with

excitement. Then "travelingbag" again, and instead of his previous association, "woman," this time he gave

"yellow." But, to the next word, "house," he gave "guest." It came to me that in his mental process I was the

guest, the substitute bag was in his mind, as being in my possession. Quick as a flash the doctor followed up-

To a great many words, as I said before, I could attach no significance. Here and there I got a ray.

Eleven twentytwo C! He gave no evidence of having noticed any peculiarity in what he said; I doubt if he

realized his answer. To me, he gave the impression of repeating something he had apparently forgotten. As if

a number and its association had been subconscious, and brought to the surface by the psychologist; as if, for

The psychologist took the small mouthpiece from his lips, and motioned Wardrop to do the same. The test

"I don't call that bad condition, Mr.-Wardrop," the doctor said. "You are nervous, and you need a little more

care in your habits. You want to exercise, regularly, and you will have to cut out everything in the way of

stimulants for a while. Oh, yes, a couple of drinks a day at first, then one a day, and then none. And you are

to stop worrying-when trouble comes round, and stares at you, don't ask it to have a drink. Take it out in the

"Bellwood, of course," the doctor responded heartily. "Ten miles a day, four cigarettes, and three

I put him on the train for Bellwood myself, and late that afternoon the three of us-the doctor, Burton, and

"When the answer comes in fourfifths of a second," he said, before we began, "it is hardly worth comment.

There is no time in such an interval for any mental reservation. Only those words that showed noticeable

We worked until almost seven. At the end of that time the doctor leaned back in his chair, and thrust his

"I got the story from Burton," he said, after a deep breath. "I had no conclusion formed, and of course I am

not a detective. Things looked black for Mr. Wardrop, in view of the money lost, the quarrel with Fleming

that morning at the White Cat, and the circumstance of his leaving the club and hunting for a doctor outside,

instead of raising the alarm. Still, no two men ever act alike in an emergency. Psychology is as exact a

science as mathematics; it gets information from the source, and a man can not lie in fourfifths of a second.

'Head,' you noticed brought 'hair' in a second and three quarters, and the next word 'ice,' brought the 'blood'

that he had held back before. That doesn't show anything. He tried to avoid what was horrible to him.

"But I gave him 'travelingbag;' after a pause, he responded with 'train.' The next word, 'lost,' showed what

was in his mind; instead of 'found,' he said 'woman.' Now then, I believe he was either robbed by a woman, or

"I learned yesterday of a back staircase that leads into one of the upper rooms," I said. "It opens on a side

"We look there for our criminal," he said. "Nothing hides from the chronoscope. Now then, 'staircase-scar.'

Isn't that significant? The association is clear: a scar that is vivid enough, disfiguring enough, to be the first

"Schwartz!" Burton said with awe. "Doctor, what on earth does 'eleven twentytwo C' mean?"

"I think that is up to you, gentlemen. The C belongs there, without doubt. Briefly, looking over these slips, I

make it something like this: Wardrop thinks a woman took his travelingbag. Three times he gave the word

'letters,' in response to 'gate,' 'guest' and 'money.' Did he have a guest at the time all this happened at

"Yes. By Jove, I wonder if there is anything in it? I have reason to know that he came into my room that night

"I think it is very likely," he said dryly. "One thing we have not touched on, and I believe Mr. Wardrop

knows nothing of it. That is, the disappearance of the old lady. There is a psychological study for you! My

conclusion? Well, I should say that Mr. Wardrop is not guilty of the murder. He knows, or thinks he knows,

who is. He has a theory of his own, about some one with a scar: it may only be a theory. He does not

necessarily know, but he hopes. He is in a state of abject fear. Also, he is hiding something concerning letters,

and from the word 'money' in that connection, I believe he either sold or bought some damaging papers. He is

The doctor rose and picked up his hat. "He is a weakling," he said, from the doorway.

Burton looked at his watch. "By George!" he said. "Seventwenty, and I've had nothing since lunch but a box

of sardines. I'm off to chase the festive mutton chop. Oh, by the way, Knox, where is that locked bag?"

"I'll drop around in the morning and assist you to compound a felony," he said easily. But as it happened, he

I was very late for dinner. Fred and Edith were getting ready for a concert, and the two semiinvalids were

playing pinochle in Fred's den. Neither one looked much the worse for her previous night's experience; Mrs.

The game was over when I went into the den. As usual, Mrs. Butler left the room almost immediately, and

went to the piano across the hall. I had grown to accept her avoidance of me without question. Fred said it

was because my overwhelming vitality oppressed her. Personally, I think it was because the neurasthenic type

of woman is repulsive to me. No doubt Mrs. Butler deserved sympathy, but her open demand for it found me

I told Margery briefly of my visit to Bellwood that morning. She was as puzzled as I about the things Heppie

"I am just as sure, now, that she is living, as I was a week ago that she was dead," she said, leaning back in

"She had loaned my father a great deal of money," Margery said, with heightened color. "She had not dared

to tell Aunt Letitia, and the money was to be returned before she found it out. Then-things went wrong with

the Borough Bank, and-the money did not come back. If you know Aunt Jane, and how afraid she is of Aunt

Letitia, you will understand how terrible it was for her. I have wondered if she would go-to Plattsburg, and

"The Eagle man is working on that theory now," I replied. "Margery, if there was a letter 'C' added to eleven

"I think I know who did it, but I don't understand. I have been trying all day to think it out. I'm afraid to go to

"You need not be," I assured her "If necessary we will have the city police in a ring around the house. If you

know and don't tell, Margery, you are running a risk, and more than that, you are protecting a person who

"Just what she said this morning. And she says valuable papers were taken from under her pillow. She was

The gloom and smouldering fire of the Sonata Apassionata came to us from across the hall. I leaned over and

"Why don't you tell me?" I urged. "Or-you needn't tell me, I know what you think. But there isn't any motive

"I don't know," Margery shuddered. "Sometimes-I wonder-do you think she is altogether sane?"

The music ended with the crash of a minor chord. Fred and Edith came down the stairs, and the next moment

we were all together, and the chance for a quiet conversation was gone. At the door Fred turned and came

"Watch the house," he said. "And by the way, I guess"-he lowered his voice-"the lady's story was probably

straight. I looked around again this afternoon, and there are fresh scratches on the porch roof under her

It was a relief to know that, after all, Mrs. Butler was an enemy and a dangerous person to nobody but herself.

She retired to her room almost as soon as Fred and Edith had gone. I was wondering whether or not to tell

Margery about the experiment that afternoon; debating how to ask her what letters she had got from the

postmaster at Bellwood addressed to Miss Jane, and what she knew of Bella. At the same time-bear with me,

oh masculine reader, the gentle reader will, for she cares a great deal more for the love story than for all the

crime and mystery put together-bear with me, I say, if I hold back the account of the terrible events that came

that night, to tell how beautiful Margery looked as the lamplight fell on her brown hair and pure profile, and

how the impulse came over me to kiss her as she sat there; and how I didn't, after all-poor gentle reader!-and

She didn't mind it; speaking as nearly as possible from an impersonal standpoint, I doubt if she was even

surprised. You see, the ring was gone and-it had only been an engagement ring anyhow, and everybody

And then an angel with a burning sword came and scourged me out of my Eden. And the angel was Burton,

"I hate to take you out," he said. "The bottom's dropped out of the sky; but I want you to make a little

experiment with me." He caught sight of Margery through the porti�res, and the imp of mischief in him

prompted his next speech. "She said she must see you," he said, very distinctly, and leered at me.

"Don't be an ass," I said angrily. "I don't know that I care to go out tonight."

"Let's go and take a look at the staircase you fellows have been talking about," he said. "I don't believe there

is a staircase there, except the main one. I have hounded every politician in the city into or out of that joint,

I felt some hesitation about leaving the house-and Margery-after the events of the previous night. But

Margery had caught enough of the conversation to be anxious to have me to go, and when I went in to consult

"Lightning never strikes twice in the same place," she said bravely. "I will ask Katie to come down with me if

I went without enthusiasm. Margery's departure had been delayed for a day only, and I had counted on the

evening with her. In fact, I had sent the concert tickets to Edith with an eye single to that idea. But Burton's

plan was right. It was, in view of what we knew, to go over the ground at the White Cat again, and Saturday

night, with the place full of men, would be a good time to look around, unnoticed.

"I don't hang so much to this staircase idea," Burton said, "and I have a good reason for it. I think we will find

"You can depend on it, Burton," I maintained, "that the staircase is the place to look. If you had seen

Wardrop's face today, and his agony of mind when he knew he had associated 'staircase' with 'shot,' you

would think just as I do. A man like Schwartz, who knew the ropes, could go quietly up the stairs, unbolt the

door into the room, shoot Fleming and get out. Wardrop suspects Schwartz, and he's afraid of him. If he

opened the door just in time to see Schwartz, we will say, backing out the door and going down the stairs, or

to see the door closing and suspect who had just gone, we would have the whole situation, as I see it,

"Suppose the stairs open into the back of the room? He was sitting facing the window. Do you think Schwartz

"He had a neck," I retorted. "I suppose he might have turned his head to look around."

We had been walking through the rain. The White Cat, as far off as the poles socially, was only a halfdozen

blocks actually from the best residence portion of the city. At the corner of the warehouse, Burton stopped

"I always get mad when I look at this building," he said. "My great grandfather had a truck garden on this

exact spot seventy years ago, and the old idiot sold out for three hundred dollars and a pair of mules! How do

"I was wondering if I had a grudge-I have, for that matter-against the mayor, and I wanted to shoot him, how

I would go about it. I think I should find a point of vantage, like an overlooking window in an empty building

like this, and I would wait for a muggy night, also like this, when the windows were up and the lights going. I

We had stopped near the arched gate where I had stood and waited for Hunter, a week before. Suddenly

Burton darted away from me and tried the gate. It opened easily, and I heard him splashing through a puddle

The gate swung to behind me, and I could not see six inches from my nose. Burton caught my elbow and

"If it isn't locked too tight," he was saying, "we can get in, perhaps through a window, and get upstairs. From

It was a rat, I think, and it scrambled away among the loose boards in a frenzy of excitement. Burton struck a

match; it burned faintly in the dampness, and in a moment went out, having shown us only the approximate

location of the heavy, arched double doors. A second match showed us a bar and a rusty padlock; there was

The windows were of the eightpaned variety, and in better repair than the ones on the upper floors. By good

luck, we found one unlocked and not entirely closed; it shrieked hideously as we pried it up, but an opportune

By this time I was ready for anything that came; I was wet to my knees, muddy, disreputable. While Burton

held the window I crawled into the warehouse, and turned to perform the same service for him. At first I

could not see him, outside. Then I heard his voice, a whisper, from beyond the sill.

I dropped below the window and above the rain I could hear the squash of the watchman's boots in the mud.

He flashed a night lamp in at the window next to ours, but he was not very near, and the open window

escaped his notice. I felt all the nervous dread of a real malefactor, and when I heard the gate close behind

him, and saw Burton put a leg over the sill, I was almost as relieved as I would have been had somebody's

Burton had an instinct for getting around in the dark. I lighted another match as soon as he had closed the

window, and we made out our general direction toward where the stairs ought to be. When the match went

out, we felt our way in the dark; I had only one box of wax matches, and Burton had dropped his in a puddle.

We got to the second floor, finally, and without any worse mishap than Burton banging his arm against a

wheel of some sort. Unlike the first floor, the second was subdivided into rooms; it took a dozen precious

matches to find our way to the side of the building overlooking the club, and another dozen to find the

window we wanted. When we were there at last, Burton leaned his elbows on the sill, and looked down and

"Could anything be better!" he said. "There's our theater, and we've got a proscenium box. That room over

He was right. Not more than fifteen feet away, and perhaps a foot lower than our window, was the window of

the room where Fleming had been killed. It was empty, as far as we could see; the table, neat enough now,

was where it had been before, directly under the light. Any one who sat there would be an illuminated target

from our window. Not only that, but an arm could be steadied on the sill, allowing for an almost perfect aim.

The club was evidently full of men, as he had prophesied. Above the rattle of the rain came the thump-thump

of the piano, and a halfdozen male voices. The shutters below were closed; we could see nothing.

"I'll bet you a fivedollar bill," he said, "that if I fire off my revolver here, now, not one of those fellows

"I'll take that bet," I returned. "I'll wager that everytime anybody drops a poker, since Fleming was shot, the

In reply Burton got out his revolver, and examined it by holding it against the light from across the way.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "Everybody down there knows me; I'll drop in for a bottle of beer, and you

fire a shot into the floor here, or into somebody across, if you happen to see any one you don't care for. I

suggest that you stay and fire the shot, because if you went, my friend, and nobody heard it, you would

"Wait for ten minutes," he said. "It will take five for me to get out of here, and five more to get into the

HE WENT away into the darkness, and I sat down on an empty box by the window and waited. Had any one

asked me, at that minute, how near we were to the solution of our double mystery, I would have said we had

made no progress-save by eliminating Wardrop. Not for one instant did I dream that I was within less than

I timed the interval by using one of my precious matches to see my watch when he left. I sat there for what

seemed ten minutes, listening to the rush of the rain and the creaking of a door behind me in the darkness

somewhere, that swung back and forth rustily in the draft from the broken windows. The gloom was infinitely

depressing; away from Burton's enthusiasm, his scheme lacked point; his argument, that the night duplicated

the weather conditions of that other night, a week ago, seemed less worthy of consideration.

Besides, I have a horror of making myself ridiculous, and I had an idea that it would be hard to explain my

position, alone in the warehouse, firing a revolver into the floor, if my own argument was right, and the club

Everyone who has counted the passing of seconds knows how they drag. With my eyes on the room across,

and my finger on the trigger, I waited as best I could. At ten minutes I was conscious there was some one in

the room over the way. And then he came into view from the side somewhere, and went to the table. He had

his back to me, and I could only see that he was a large man, with massive shoulders and dark hair.

It was difficult to make out what he was doing. After a halfminute, however, he stepped to one side, and I

saw that he had lighted a candle, and was systematically reading and then burning certain papers, throwing

the charred fragments on the table. With the same glance that told me that, I knew the man. It was Schwartz.

I was so engrossed in watching him that when he turned and came directly to the windows I stood perfectly

still, staring at him. With the light at his back, I felt certain I had been discovered, but I was wrong. He shook

the newspaper which had held the fragments, out of the window, lighted a cigarette and flung the match out

also, and turned back into the room. As a second thought, he went back and jerked at the cord of the

He was not alone, for from the window he turned and addressed some one in the room behind.

"All there were, Mr. Schwartz," he replied. "We were nearly finished before the woman made a bolt." He was

fumbling in his pockets. I think I expected him to produce an apple and a penknife, but he held out a small

"I would rather have done it alone, Mr. Schwartz," he said. "I found this ring in Brigg's pocket this morning.

Schwartz swore, and picking up the ring, held it to the light. Then he made an angry motion to throw it out of

the window, but his German cupidity got the better of him. He slid it into his vest pocket instead.

"You're damned poor stuff, Davidson," he said, with a snarl. "If she hasn't got them, then Wardrop has. You'll

Davidson left, for I heard the door close. Schwartz took the ring out and held it to the light. I looked at my

A fresh burst of noise came from below. I leaned out cautiously and looked down at the lower windows; they

were still closed and shuttered. When I raised my eyes again to the level of the room across, I was amazed to

Schwartz had not seen her. He stood with his back to her, looking at the ring in his hand. The woman had

thrown her veil back, but I could see nothing of her face as she stood. She looked small beside Schwartz's

She must have said something just then, very quietly, for Schwartz suddenly lifted his head and wheeled on

her. I had a clear view of him, and if ever guilt, rage, and whitelipped fear showed on a man's face, it

showed on his. He replied-a halfdozen words, in a low tone, and made a motion to offer her a chair. But she

I have no idea how long a time they talked. The fresh outburst of noise below made it impossible to hear what

they said, and there was always the maddening fact that I could not see her face. I thought of Mrs. Fleming,

but this woman seemed younger and more slender. Schwartz was arguing, I imagined, but she stood

immobile, scornful, watching him. She seemed to have made a request, and the man's evasions moved her no

It may have been only two or three minutes, but it seemed longer. Schwartz had given up the argument,

whatever it was, and by pointing out the window I supposed he was telling her he had thrown what she

wanted out there. Even then she did not turn toward me; I could not see even her profile.

What happened next was so unexpected that it remains little more than a picture in my mind. The man threw

out his hands as if to show he could not or would not accede to her request; he was flushed with rage, and

even at that distance the ugly scar on his forehead stood out like a welt. The next moment I saw the woman

I yelled to Schwartz to warn him, but he had already seen the revolver. As he struck her hand aside, the

explosion came; I saw her stagger, clutch at a chair and fall backward beyond my range of vision.

I turned and ran frantically toward the stairs. Luckily, I found them easily. I fell rather than ran down to the

floor below. Then I made a wrong turning and lost some time. My last match set me right and I got into the

It was raining harder than ever, and the thunder was incessant. I ran around the corner of the street, and found

the gate to the White Cat without trouble. The inner gate was unlocked, as Burton had said he would leave it,

and from the steps of the club I could hear laughter and the refrain of a popular song. The door opened just as

Burton was there in the kitchen, with two other men whom I did not recognize, each one holding a stein of

beer. Burton had two, and he held one out to me as I stood trying to get my breath.

"You win," he said. "Although I'm a hardworking journalist and need the money, I won't lie. This is

Osborne of the Star and McTighe of the Eagle, Mr. Knox. They heard the shot in there, and if I hadn't told the

"For God's sake, Burton," I panted, "let's get upstairs quietly. I didn't fire any shot. There's a woman dead up

With characteristic poise, the three reporters took the situation quietly. We filed through the grillroom as

casually as we could; with the door closed, however, we threw caution aside. I led the way up the stairs to the

On the landing at the top of the stairs I came face to face with Davidson, the detective, and behind him Judge

McFeely. Davidson was trying to open the door of the room where Fleming had been shot, with a skeleton

key. But it was bolted inside. There was only one thing to do: I climbed on the shoulders of one of the men, a

tall fellow, whose face to this day I don't remember, and by careful maneuvering and the assistance of

I hardly know what I expected. I was in total darkness. I know that when I got the door open at last, when the

cheerful light from the hall streamed in, and I had not felt Schwartz's heavy hand at my throat, I drew a long

breath of relief. Burton found the electric light switch and turned it on. And then-I could hardly believe my

"Stung!" he said lightly. "What sort of a story have you and your friend framed up, Burton?'

But I stopped at that minute and picked up a small nickelplated revolver from the floor. I held it out, on my

Burton, after all, was the quickestwitted of the lot. He threw open one of the two doors in the room,

revealing a shallow closet, with papered walls and a row of hooks. The other door stuck tight. One of the men

pointed to the floor; a bit of black cloth had wedged it, from the other side. Our combined efforts got it open

WE GOT her into the room and on the couch before I knew her. Her fair hair had fallen loose over her face,

and one long, thin hand clutched still at the bosom of her gown. It was Ellen Butler!

She was living, but not much more. We gathered around and stood looking down at her in helpless pity. A

current of cold night air came up the staircase from an open door below and set the hanging light to swaying,

I was too much shocked to be surprised. Burton had picked up her hat, and put it beside ber.

"She's got about an hour, I should say," said one of the newspaper men. "See if Gray is around, will you, Jim?

"No; it is Henry Butler's widow," I returned, and the three men were reporters again, at once.

Gray was there and came immediately. Whatever surprise he may have felt at seeing a woman there, and

dying, he made no comment. He said she might live six hours, but the end was certain. We got a hospital

ambulance, and with the clang of its bell as it turned the corner and hurried away, the White Cat drops out of

Three detectives and as many reporters hunted Schwartz all of that night and the next day, to get his story.

But he remained in hiding. He had a start of over an hour; from the time he switched off the light and escaped

down the builtin staircase. Even in her agony, Ellen Butler's hate had carried her through the doorway after

I got home just as the cab, with Fred and Edith, stopped at the door. I did not let them get out; a half dozen

words, without comment or explanation, and they were driving madly to the hospital.

Katie let me in, and I gave her some money to stay up and watch the place while we were away. Then, not

The building was appallingly quiet. The elevator cage, without a light, crept spectrally up and down; my

footsteps on the tiled floor echoed and re�choed above my head. A night watchman, in felt shoes, admitted

There was another long wait while the surgeon finished his examination, and a nurse with a basin of water

and some towels came out of the room, and another one with dressings went in. And then the surgeon came

out, in a white coat with the sleeves rolled above his elbows, and said I might go in.

The cover was drawn up to the injured woman's chin, where it was folded neatly back. Her face was

bloodless, and her fair hair had been gathered up in a shaggy knot. She was breathing slowly, but regularly,

and her expression was relaxed-more restful than I had ever seen it. As I stood at the foot of the bed and

looked down at her, I knew that as surely as death was coming, it would be welcome.

Edith had been calm, before, but when she saw me she lost her selfcontrol. She put her head on my

shoulder, and sobbed out the shock and the horror of the thing. As for Fred, his imaginative temperament

made him particularly sensitive to suffering in others. As he sat there beside the bed I knew by his face that

he was repeating and repenting every unkind word he had said about Ellen Butler.

She was conscious; we realized that after a time. Once she asked for water, without opening her eyes, and

Fred slipped a bit of ice between her white lips. Later in the night she looked up for an instant, at me.

During the long night hours I told the story, as I knew it, in an undertone, and there was a new kindliness in

She was still living by morning, and was rallying a little from the shock. I got Fred to take Edith home, and I

took her place by the bed. Some one brought me coffee about eight, and at nine o'clock I was asked to leave

the room. while four surgeons held a consultation there. The decision to operate was made shortly after.

"There is only a chance," a grayhaired surgeon told me in brisk, shortclipped words. "The bullet went

down, and has penetrated the abdomen. Sometimes, taken early enough, we can repair the damage, to a

I knew of no family but Edith, and over the telephone she said, with something of her natural tone, to do what

I hoped to get some sort of statement before the injured woman was taken to the operatingroom, but she lay

in a stupor, and I had to give up the idea. It was two days before I got her deposition, and in that time I had

On Monday I took Margery to Bellwood. She had received the news about Mrs. Butler more calmly than I

"I do not think she was quite sane, poor woman," she said with a shudder. "She had had a great deal of

trouble. But how strange-a murder and an attempt at murder-at that little club in a week!"

She did not connect the two, and I let the thing rest at that. Once, on the train, she turned to me suddenly,

"Don't you think," she asked, "that she had a sort homicidal mania, and that she tried to kill me with

"I hardly think so," I returned evasively. "I am inclined to think some one actually got in over the porch roof."

"I am afraid," she said, pressing her gloved hands tight together. "Wherever I go, something happens that I

can not understand. I never wilfully hurt any one, and yet-these terrible things follow me. I am afraid-to go

"A lot of help I have been to you," I retorted bitterly. "Can you think of a single instance where I have been

able to save you trouble or anxiety? Why, I allowed you to be chloroformed within an inch of eternity, before

"But you did find me," she cheered me. "And just to know that you are doing all you can-"

"It is very comforting to have a friend one can rely on," she finished, and the little bit of kindness went to my

head. If she had not got a cinder in her eye at that psychological moment, I'm afraid I would figuratively have

trampled Wardrop underfoot, right there. As it was, I got the cinder, after a great deal of looking into one

beautiful eye-which is not as satisfactory by half as looking into two-and then we were at Bellwood.

We found Miss Letitia in the lower hall, and Heppie on her knees with a hatchet. Between them sat a packing

"Here, give it to me," Miss Letitia demanded, as we stopped in the doorway. "You've got stove lengths there

With the hatchet poised in mid air she saw us, but she let it descend with considerable accuracy nevertheless,

"Come in"-thump-"like as not it's a mistake"-bang-"but the expressage was prepaid. If it's mineral water-"

"If it's mineral water," I said, "you'd better let me open it. Mineral water is meant for internal use, and not for

hall carpets." I got the hatchet from her gradually. "I knew a case once where a bottle of hair tonic was spilled

on a rag carpet, and in a year they had it dyed with spots over it and called it a tiger skin."

She watched me suspiciously while I straightened the nails she had bent, and lifted the boards. In the matter

of curiosity, Miss Letitia was truly feminine; great handfuls of excelsior she dragged out herself, and heaped

The article that had smashed under the vigor of Miss Letitia's seventy years lay on the top. It had been a

teapot, of some very beautiful ware. I have called just now from my study, to ask what sort of ware it was,

and the lady who sets me right says it was Crown Derby. Then there were rows of cups and saucers, and

heterogeneous articles in the same material that the women folk seemed to understand. At the last, when the

excitement seemed over, they found a toast rack in a lower corner of the box and the "Ohs" and "Ahs" had to

Not until Miss Letitia had arranged it all on the diningroom table, and Margery had taken off her wraps and

admired from all four corners, did Miss Letitia begin to ask where they had come from. And by that time

Heppie had the crate in the woodbox, and the excelsior was a black and smoking mass at the kitchen end of

There was not the slightest clue to the sender, but while Miss Letitia rated Heppie loudly in the kitchen, and

"If-if Aunt Jane were-all right," she said tremulously, "it would be just the sort of thing she loves to do."

I had intended to go back to the city at once, but Miss Letitia's box had put her in an almost cheerful humor,

and she insisted that I go with her to Miss Jane's room, and see how it was prepared for its owner's return.

"I'm not pretending to know what took Jane Maitland away from this house in the middle of the night," she

said. "She was a good bit of a fool, Jane was; she never grew up. But if I know Jane Maitland, she will come

back and be buried with her people, if it's only to put Mary's husband out of the end of the lot.

"And another thing, Knox," she went on, and I saw her old hands were shaking. "I told you the last time you

were here that I hadn't been robbed of any of the pearls, after all. Half of those pearls were Jane's and-she had

a perfect right to take fortynine of them if she wanted. She-she told me she was going to take some, and

I believe it was the first lie she had ever told in her hard, conscientious old life. Was she right? I wondered.

Wardrop had been taking a long walk; he got back about five, and as Miss Letitia was in the middle of a

diatribe against white undergarments for colored children, Margery and he had a halfhour alone together. I

had known, of course, that it must come, but under the circumstances, with my whole future existence at

stake, I was vague as to whether it was colored undergarments on white orphans or the other way round.

When I got away at last, I found Bella waiting for me in the hall. Her eyes were red with crying, and she had

a crumpled newspaper in her hand. She broke down when she tried to speak, but I got the newspaper from

her, and she pointed with one workhardened finger to a column on the first page. It was the announcement

of Mrs. Butler's tragic accident, and the mystery that surrounded it. There was no mention of Schwartz.

Amid fresh tears and shakings of her heavy shoulders, as she sat in her favorite place, on the stairs, Bella told

me, briefly, that she had lived with Mrs. Butler since she was sixteen, and had only left when the husband's

suicide had broken up the home. I could get nothing else out of her, but gradually Bella's share in the mystery

Slowly, too-it was a new business for me-I was forming a theory of my own. It was a strange one, but it

seemed to fit the facts as I knew them. With the story Wardrop told that afternoon came my first glimmer of

He was looking better than he had when I saw him before, but the news of Mrs. Butler's approaching death

and the manner of her injury affected him strangely. He had seen the paper, like Bella, and he turned on me

almost fiercely when I entered the library. Margery was in her old position at the window, looking out, and I

He looked relieved at that, but only for a moment. Then he began to pace the room nervously, evidently

debating some move. His next action showed the development of a resolution, for he pushed forward two

"Sit down, both of you," he directed. "I've got a lot to say, and I want you both to listen. When Margery has

heard the whole story, she will probably despise me for the rest of her life. I can't help it. I've got to tell all I

know, and it isn't so much after all. You didn't fool me yesterday, Knox; I knew what that doctor was after.

But he couldn't make me tell who killed Mr. Fleming, because, before God, I didn't know."

"I HAVE to go back to the night Miss Jane disappeared-and that's another thing that has driven me desperate.

Will you tell me why I should be suspected of having a hand in that, when she had been a mother to me? If

she is dead, she can't exonerate me; if she is living, and we find her, she will tell you what I tell you-that I

"I am quite certain of that, Wardrop," I interposed. "Beside, I think I have got to the bottom of that mystery."

Margery looked at me quickly, but I shook my head. It was too early to tell my suspicions.

"The things that looked black against me were bad enough, but they had nothing to do with Miss Jane. I will

have to go back to before the night she-went away, back to the time Mr. Butler was the state treasurer, and

"Butler was not a business man. He let too much responsibility lie with his subordinates-and then, according

to the story, he couldn't do much anyhow, against Schwartz. The cashier was entirely under machine control,

and Butler was neglectful. You remember, Knox, the crash, when three banks, rotten to the core, went under,

and it was found a large amount of state money had gone too. It was Fleming who did it-I am sorry, Margery,

but this is no time to mince words. It was Fleming who deposited the money in the wrecked banks, knowing

what would happen. When the crash came, Butler's sureties, to save themselves, confiscated every dollar he

had in the world. Butler went to the penitentiary for six months, on some minor count and when he got out,

after writing to Fleming and Schwartz, protesting his innocence, and asking for enough out of the fortune

they had robbed him of to support his wife, he killed himself, at the White Cat."

Margery was very pale, but quiet. She sat with her fingers locked in her lap, and her eyes on Wardrop.

"It was a bad business," Wardrop went on wearily. "Fleming moved into Butler's place as treasurer, and took

Lightfoot as his cashier. That kept the lid on. Once or twice, when there was an unexpected call for funds, the

treasury was almost empty, and Schwartz carried things over himself. I went to Plattsburg as Mr. Fleming's

private secretary when he became treasurer, and from the first I knew things were even worse that the average

"Schwartz and Fleming had to hold together; they hated each other, and the feeling was trebled when Fleming

Margery looked at me with startled, incredulous eyes. What she must have seen confirmed Wardrop's words,

and she leaned back in her chair, limp and unnerved. But she heard and comprehended every word Wardrop

"The woman was a very ordinary person, but it seems Schwartz cared for her, and he tried to stab Mr.

Fleming shortly after her marriage. About a year ago Mr. Fleming said another attempt had been made on his

life, with poison; he was very much alarmed, and I noticed a change in him from that time on. Things were

not going well at the treasury; Schwartz and his crowd were making demands that were hard to supply, and

"He employed a man to protect him, a man named Carter, who had been a bartender in Plattsburg. When

things began to happen here in Manchester, he took Carter to the home as a butler.

"Then the Borough Bank got shaky. If it went down there would be an ugly scandal, and Fleming would go

too. His notes for half a million were there, without security, and he dared not show the canceled notes he

"I'm not proud of the rest of the story, Margery." He stopped his nervous pacing and stood looking down at

her. "I was engaged to marry a girl who was everything on earth to me, and-I was private secretary to the

"Mr. Fleming came back here when the Borough Bank threatened failure, and tried to get money enough to

tide over the trouble. A half million would have done it, but he couldn't get it. He was in Butler's position

exactly, only he was guilty and Butler was innocent. He raised a little money here, and I went to Plattsburg

with securities and letters. It isn't necessary to go over the things I suffered there; I brought back one hundred

and ten thousand dollars, in a package in my Russia leather bag. And-I had something else."

He wavered for the first time in his recital. He went on more rapidly, and without looking at either of us.

"I carried, not in the valise, a bundle of letters, five in all, which had been written by Henry Butler to Mr.

Fleming, letters that showed what a dupe Butler had been, that he had been negligent, but not criminal;

accusing Fleming of having ruined him, and demanding certain notes that would have proved it. If Butler

could have produced the letters at the time of his trial, things would have been different."

"I intended to, but-I didn't. It was a little bit too dirty, after all. I met Mrs. Butler for the second time in my

life, at the gate down there, as I came up from the train the night I got here from Plattsburg. She had offered

to buy the letters, and I had brought them to sell to her. And then, at the last minute, I lied. I said I couldn't

get them-that they were locked in the Monmouth Avenue house. I put her in a taxicab that she had waiting,

and she went back to town. I felt like a cad; she wanted to clear her husband's memory, and I-well, Mr.

"I do not think so. It seems to be the only explanation, but I did not let it out of my hand one moment while

we were talking. My hand was cramped from holding it, when she gave up in despair at last, and went back to

"I kept them with me that night, and the next morning hid them in the secret closet. That was when I dropped

"Two days before I left," he said. "We were using every method to get money, and your father said to

"Did you think I stole them?" he demanded. And I confess that I was ashamed to say I had thought precisely

"Your father gave me nine unmounted pearls to sell," he reiterated. "I got about a thousand dollars for

Margery looked at me. I think she was fairly stunned. To learn that her father had married again, that he had

been the keystone in an arch of villainy that, with him gone, was now about to fall, and to associate him with

so small and mean a thing as the theft of a handful of pearls-she was fairly stunned.

"Then," I said, to bring Wardrop back to his story, "you found you had been robbed of the money, and you

"He thought what you all thought," Wardrop said bitterly. "He accused me of stealing the money. I felt worse

Margery had put her hands over her eyes. It was a terrible strain for her, but when I suggested that she wait

"I came back here to Bellwood, and the first thing I learned was about Miss Jane. When I saw the blood print

on the stair rail, I thought she was murdered, and I had more than I could stand. I took the letters out of the

secret closet, before I could show it to you and Hunter, and later I put them in the leather bag I gave you, and

"As for that night at the club, I told the truth then, but not all the truth. I suppose I am a coward, but I was

With the memory of his huge figure and the heavy undershot face that I had seen the night before, I could

"I went to that room at the White Cat that night, because I was afraid not to go. Fleming might kill himself or

some one else. I went up the stairs, slowly, and I heard no shot. At the door I hesitated, then opened it quietly.

The door into the builtin staircase was just closing. It must have taken me only an instant to realize what had

happened. Fleming was swaying forward as I caught him. I jumped to the staircase and looked down, but I

was too late. The door below had closed. I knew in another minute who had been there, and escaped. It was

raining, you remember, and Schwartz had forgotten to take his umbrella with his name on the handle!"

"Now do you understand why I was being followed?" he demanded. "I have been under surveillance every

minute since that night. There's probably some one hanging around the gate now. Anyhow, I was frantic. I

saw how it looked for me, and if I had brought Schwartz into it, I would have been knifed in fortyeight

hours. I hardly remember what I did. I know I ran for a doctor, and I took the umbrella with me and left it in

the vestibule of the first house I saw with a doctor's sign. I rang the bell like a crazy man, and then Hunter

"That is all I know. I'm not proud of it, Margery, but it might have been worse, and it's the truth. It clears up

something, but not all. It doesn't tell where Aunt Jane is, or who has the hundred thousand. But it does show

who killed your father. And if you know what is good for you, Knox, you will let it go at that. You can't fight

the police and the courts singlehanded. Look how the whole thing was dropped, and the most coldblooded

"I am not so sure about Schwartz," I said thoughtfully. "We haven't yet learned about eleven twentytwo C."

MISS JANE MAITLAND had been missing for ten days. In that time not, one word had come from her. The

reporter from the Eagle had located her in a dozen places, and was growing thin and haggard following little

old ladies along the street-and being sent about his business tartly when he tried to make inquiries.

Some things puzzled me more than ever in the light of Wardrop's story. For the third time I asked myself why

Miss Letitia denied the loss of the pearls. There was nothing in what we had learned, either, to tell why Miss

How she had gone, in view of Wardrop's story of the cab, was clear. She had gone by streetcar, walking the

three miles to Wynton alone at two o'clock in the morning, although she had never stirred around the house at

night without a candle, and was privately known to sleep with a light when Miss Letitia went to bed first, and

The theory I had formed seemed absurd at first, but as I thought it over, its probabilities grew on me. I took

Margery had gone to Miss Letitia's room, and Wardrop was pacing up and down the veranda, smoking. He

looked dejected and anxious, and he welcomed my suggestion that he walk down to the station with me. As

"You see, I am only nominally a free agent," he said morosely. "They'll poison me yet; I know too much."

We said little on the way to the train. Just before it came thundering along, however, he spoke again.

"I am going away, Knox. There isn't anything in this political game for me, and the law is too long. I have a

"I mean that there isn't any longer a reason why one part of the earth is better than another. Mexico or Alaska,

He turned on his heel and left me. I watched him swing up the path, with his head down; I saw the shadowy

figure of the other man fall into line behind him. Then I caught the platform of the last car as it passed, and

that short ride into town was a triumphal procession with the wheels beating time and singing: "It's all the

I called Burton by telephone, and was lucky enough to find him at the office. He said he had just got in, and,

as usual, he wanted something to eat. We arranged to meet at a little Chinese restaurant, where at that hour,

nine o'clock, we would be almost alone. Later on, after the theater, I knew that the place would be full of

"Hello, Mike," he said to the unctuous Chinaman who admitted us. And "Mike" smiled a slanteyed

welcome. The room was empty; it was an unpretentious affair, with lace curtains at the windows and small,

very clean tables. At one corner a cable and slide communicated through a hole in the ceiling with the floor

above, and through the aperture, Burton's order for chicken and rice, and the inevitable tea, was barked.

"So Schwartz did it, after all!" he said regretfully, when I finished. "It's a tame ending. It had all the elements

of the unusual, and it resolves itself into an ordinary, everyday, mantoman feud. I'm disappointed; we

"Schwartz bought the TimesPost at three o'clock this afternoon," Burton said, with repressed rage. "I'm

called off. Tomorrow we run a photograph of Schwartzwold, his place at Plattsburg, and the next day we

eulogize the administration. I'm going down the river on an excursion boat, and write up the pigkilling

"How is Mrs. Butler?" I asked, as his rage subsided to mere rumbling in his throat.

"Delirious"-shortly. "She's going to croak, Wardrop's going to Mexico, Schwartz will be next governor, and

Miss Maitland's body will be found in a cistern. The whole thing has petered out. What's the use of finding

the murderer if he's coated with asbestos and lined with money? Mike, I want some more tea to drown my

We called up the hospital about tenthirty, and learned that Mrs. Butler was sinking. Fred was there, and

without much hope of getting anything, we went over. I took Burton in as a nephew of the dying woman, and

I was glad I had done it. She was quite conscious, but very weak. She told the story to Fred and myself, and

in a corner Burton took it down in shorthand. We got her to sign it about daylight sometime, and she died

To give her story as she gave it would be impossible; the ramblings of a sick mind, the terrible pathos of it

all, is impossible to repeat. She lay there, her long, thin body practically dead, fighting the death rattle in her

throat. There were pauses when for five minutes she would lie in a stupor, only to rouse and go forward from

She began with her married life, and to understand the beauty of it is to understand the things that came after.

She was perfectly, ideally, illogically happy. Then one day Henry Butler accepted the nomination for state

treasurer, and with that things changed. During his term in office he altered greatly; his wife could only guess

The crash came, after all, with terrible suddenness. There had been an allnight conference at the Butler

home, and Mr. Butler, in a frenzy at finding himself a dupe, had called the butler from bed and forcibly

ejected Fleming and Schwartz from the house. Ellen Butler had been horrified, sickened by what she

regarded as the vulgarity of the occurrence. But her loyalty to her husband never wavered.

Butler was one honest man against a complete organization of unscrupulous ones. His disgrace,

imprisonment and suicide at the White Cat had followed in rapid succession. With his death, all that was

worth while in his wife died. Her health was destroyed; she became one of the wretched army of

neurasthenics, with only one idea: to retaliate, to pay back in measure full and running over, her wrecked life,

She laid her plans with the caution and absolute recklessness of a diseased mentality. Normally a shrinking,

nervous woman, she became cold, passionless, deliberate in her revenge. To disgrace Schwartz and Fleming

She resorted to hounding Fleming, meaning to drive him to suicide. And she chose a method that had more

nearly driven him to madness. Wherever he turned he found the figures eleven twentytwo C. Sometimes just

the number, without the letter. It had been Henry Butler's cell number during his imprisonment, and if they

were graven on his wife's soul, they burned themselves in lines of fire on Fleming's brain. For over a year she

pursued this course-sometimes through the mail, at other times in the most unexpected places, wherever she

could bribe a messenger to carry the paper. Sane? No, hardly sane, but inevitable as fate.

The time came when other things went badly with Fleming, as I had already heard from Wardrop. He fled to

the White Cat, and for a week Ellen Butler hunted him vainly. She had decided to kill him, and on the night

Margery Fleming had found the paper on the pillow, she had been in the house. She was not the only intruder

in the house that night. Some one-presumably Fleming himself-had been there before her. She found a ladies'

desk broken open and a small drawer empty. Evidently Fleming, unable to draw a check while in hiding, had

needed ready money. As to the jewels that had been disturbed in Margery's boudoir, I could only surmise the

impulse that, after prompting him to take them, had failed at the sight of his dead wife's jewels. Surprised by

the girl's appearance, she had crept to the upper floor and concealed herself in an empty bedroom. It had been

almost dawn before she got out. No doubt this was the room belonging to the butler, Carter, which Margery

She took a key from the door of a side entrance, and locked the door behind her when she left. Within a

couple of nights she had learned that Wardrop was coming home from Plattsburg, and she met him at

Bellwood. We already knew the nature of that meeting. She drove back to town, half maddened by her failure

to secure the letters that would have cleared her husband's memory, but the wiser by one thing: Wardrop had

The next night she went to the White Cat and tried to get in. She knew from her husband of the secret

staircase, for many a political meeting of the deepest significance had been possible by its use. But the door

Above her the warehouse raised its empty height, and it was not long before she decided to see what she

could learn from its upper windows. She went in at the gate and felt her way, through the rain, to the

windows. At that moment the gate opened suddenly, and a man muttered something in the darkness. The

I had no idea, that night, of what my innocent stumbling into the warehouse yard had meant to a halfcrazed

woman just beyond my range of vision. After a little she got her courage again, and she pried up an unlocked

The rest of her progress must have been much as ours had been, a few nights later. She found a window that

commanded the club, and with three possibilities that she would lose, and would see the wrong room, she

won the fourth. The room lay directly before her, distinct in every outline, with Fleming seated at the table,

She rested her revolver on the sill and took absolutely deliberate aim. Her hands were cold, and she even

rubbed them together, to make them steady. Then she fired, and a crash of thunder at the very instant covered

Fleming sat for a moment before he swayed forward. On that instant she realized that there was some one

else in the room-a man who took an uncertain step or two forward into view, threw up his hands and

disappeared as silently as he had come. It was Schwartz. Then she saw the door into the hall open, saw

Wardrop come slowly in and close it, watched his sickening realization of what had occurred; then a sudden

panic seized her. Arms seemed to stretch out from the darkness behind her, to draw her into it She tried to get

away, to run, even to scream-then she fainted. It was gray dawn when she recovered her senses and got back

By night she was quieter. She read the news of Fleming's death in the papers, and she gloated over it. But

there was more to be done; she was only beginning. She meant to ruin Schwartz, to kill his credit, to fell him

with the club of public disfavor. Wardrop had told her that her husband's letters were with other papers at the

Fleming's body was taken home that day, Saturday, but she had gone too far to stop. She wanted the papers

before Lightfoot could get at them and destroy the incriminating ones. That night she got into the Fleming

house, using the key she had taken. She ransacked the library, finding, not the letters that Wardrop had said

were there, but others, equally or more incriminating, canceled notes, private accounts, that would have

It was then that I saw the light and went downstairs. My unlucky stumble gave her warning enough to turn

out the light. For the rest, the chase through the back hall, the diningroom and the pantry, had culminated in

her escape up the back stairs, while I had fallen down the dumbwaiter shaft. She had run into Bella on the

upper floor, Bella, who had almost fainted, and who knew her and kept her until morning, petting her and

That day she realized that she was being followed. When Edith's invitation came she accepted it at once, for

the sake of losing herself and her papers, until she was ready to use them. It had disconcerted her to find

Margery there, but she managed to get along. For several days everything had gone well: she was getting

stronger again, ready for the second act of the play, prepared to blackmail Schwartz, and then expose him.

She would have killed him later, probably; she wanted her measure full and running over, and so she would

Then-Schwartz must have learned of the loss of the papers from the Fleming house, and guessed the rest. She

felt sure he had known from the first who had killed Fleming. However that might be, he had had her room

entered, Margery chloroformed in the connecting room, and her papers were taken from under her pillow

while she was pretending an�sthesia. She had followed the two men through the house and out the kitchen

The next night, when she had retired early, leaving Margery and me downstairs, it had been an excuse to

slip out of the house. How she found that Schwartz was at the White Cat, how she got through the side

entrance, we never knew. He had burned the papers before she got there, and when she tried to kill him, he

When we were out in the cheerful light of day again, Burton turned his shrewd, blue eyes on me.

"Awful story, isn't it ?" he said. "Those are primitive emotions, if you like. Do you know, Knox, there is only

one explanation we haven't worked on for the rest of this mystery-I believe in my soul you carried off the old

"Come up," I said, "and bring the keys to the Monmouth Avenue house. I have some things to tell you,

I met her at the station with Lady Gray and the trap. My plans for that afternoon were comprehensive; they

included what I hoped to be the solution of the Aunt Jane mystery; also, they included a little drive through

the park and a-well, I shall tell about that, all I am going to tell, at the proper time.

To play propriety, Edith met us at the house. It was still closed, and even in the short time that had elapsed it

"Now this is going to be a sort of game," I explained. "It's a sort of button, button, who's got the button,

without the button. We are looking for a drawer, receptacle or closet, which shall contain, bunched together,

and without regard to whether they should be there or not, a small revolver, two military brushes and a

clothes brush, two or three soft bosomed shirts, perhaps a halfdozen collars, and a suit of underwear. Also a

"I am not talking, I am theorizing," I explained. "I have a theory, and according to it the things should be

I think Margery caught my idea at once, and as Edith was ready for anything, we commenced the search.

Edith took the top floor, being accustomed, she said, to finding unexpected things in the servants' quarters;

For ten minutes there was no result. At the end of that time I had finished two rooms, and commenced on the

blue boudoir. And here, on the top shelf of a threecornered Empire cupboard, with glass doors and spindle

legs, I found what I was looking for. Every article was there. I stuffed a small package into my pocket, and

"When did you lose anything?" Edith demanded. "Do you mean to say, Jack Knox, that you brought us here

"I brought you here to find Aunt Jane," I said soberly, taking a letter and the flat package out of my pocket.

"You see, my theory worked out. Here is Aunt Jane, and there is the money from the Russia leather bag."

I laid the packet in Margery's lap, and without ceremony opened the letter. It began:

"I am writing to you, because I can not think what to say to Sister Letitia. I am running away!

I-am-running-away! My dear, it scares me even to write it, all alone in this empty house. I have had a cup of

tea out of one of your lovely cups, and a nap on your pretty couch, and just as soon as it is dark I am going to

take the train for Boston. When you get this, I will be on the ocean, the ocean, my dear, that I have read

"I am going to realize a dream of forty years-more than twice as long as you have lived. Your dear mother

saw the continent before she died, but the things I have wanted have always been denied me. I have been of

those that have eyes to see and see not. So-I have run away. I am going to London and Paris, and even to

Italy, if the money your father gave me for the pearls will hold out. For a year now I have been getting

steamship circulars, and I have taken a little French through a correspondence school. That was why I always

made you sing French songs, dearie: I wanted to learn the accent. I think I should do very well if I could only

"I am afraid that Sister Letitia discovered that I had taken some of the pearls. But-half of them were mine,

from our mother, and although I had wanted a pearl ring all my life, I have never had one. I am going to buy

me a hat, instead of a bonnet, and clothes, and pretty things underneath, and a switch; Margery, I have wanted

"I suppose Letitia will never want me back. Perhaps I shall not want to come. I tried to write to her when I

was leaving, but I had cut my hand in the attic, where I had hidden away my clothes, and it bled on the paper.

I have been worried since for fear your Aunt Letitia would find the paper in the basket, and be alarmed at the

stains. I wanted to leave things in order-please tell Letitia-but I was so nervous, and in such a hurry. I walked

three miles to Wynton and took a streetcar. I just made up my mind I was going to do it. I am sixtyfive,

"I came in on the car, and came directly here. I got in with the second key on your keyring. Did you miss it?

And I did the strangest thing at Bellwood. I got down the stairs very quietly and out on to the porch. I set

down my empty traveling bag-I was going to buy everything new in the city-to close the door behind me.

Then I was sure I heard some one at the side of the house, and I picked it up and ran down the path in the

"You can imagine my surprise when I opened the bag this morning to find I had picked up Harry's. I am

"If you find this right away, please don't tell Sister Letitia for a day or two. You know how firm your Aunt

Letitia is. I shall send her a present from Boston to pacify her, and perhaps when I come back in three or four

"I am not quite comfortable about your father, Margery. He is not like himself. The last time I saw him he

gave me a little piece of paper with a number on it and he said they followed him everywhere, and were

driving him crazy. Try to have him see a doctor. And I left a bottle of complexion cream in the little closet

over my mantel, where I had hidden my hat and shoes that I wore. Please destroy it before your Aunt Letitia

"Goodby, my dear niece. I suppose I am growing frivolous in my old age, but I am going to have silk

When Margery stopped reading, there was an amazed silence. Then we all three burst into relieved,

uncontrolled mirth. The dear, little, old lady with her new independence and her sixtyfiveyearold,

Then we opened the packet, which was a sadder business, for it had represented Allan Fleming's last clutch at

Edith ran to the telephone with the news for Fred, and for the first time that day Margery and I were alone.

She was standing with one hand on the library table; in the other she held Aunt Jane's letter, half tremulous,

"Margery, I want my answer, dear. I love you-love you; it isn't possible to tell you how much. There isn't

enough time in all existence to tell you. You are mine, Margery-mine. You can't get away from that."

She turned, very slowly, and looked at me with her level eyes. "Yours!" she replied softly, and I took her in

As she came toward the door, Margery squirmed, but I held her tight. In the doorway Edith stopped and