 CHAPTER VII CONCERNING MARGERY 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 fact, and, Miss Jane. Many things, however, that he had unearthed puzzled me. Why had Warder bled 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 difficult for me to wear my hat. 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 Warder 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 met him again. 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 twenty-two on it. It occurred to me that it might mean the twenty-second day of the eleventh month, perhaps something that had happened on some momentous long-buried twenty-second of November, but this was May, and the finding of two slips bearing the same number was too unusual. 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 smallish box, and fresh. 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, running 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 a pearl. 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 experience when they happen on an important clue. 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 wardrobe took the pearls, I kept repeating over and over. If wardrobe took the pearls, who took Miss Jane? I tried to forget the pearls and to fathom the connection between Miss Maitland's disappearance and the absence of her brother-in-law. The scrap of paper, 1122, 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 that would leave Fleming out, and the paper dragged him in. A common enemy. 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 90 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 someone, perhaps Harry Wardrum, 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 pearls. 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 some sort near the house, I would almost have considered my contention proved that anyone 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 Wardrum trying the shutters at the side of the house seemed impossible. Yet there were the stains, the confusion, the open front door to prove it. But, and I stuck here, the abductor who would steal an old woman and take her out into the main 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 a pearl missing from the house. Even the cedar chests were undisturbed. Not a blanket was gone. 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 its nearest neighbor, I was more fortunate. 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 main street, circled the house, and went out as it came. There was no reason, or as 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 from Bellwood. 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, and as I passed I heard my name called. In here, in the old laundry, Marjorie's voice repeated, and I retraced my steps and went up on the porch. At the very end of the wing, 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 disheveled, sat Marjorie 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 knotted over one small ear. I hate to look ridiculous, she said sharply, and I detest being laughed at. I've been crying, and I haven't any handkerchief. I preferred 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 on the floor. Now, she said, when she had jabbed the last hairpin into place and tucked my handkerchief into her belt, if you have been sufficiently amused, perhaps you will help me out of here. Out of where? Do you suppose I'm sitting here because I like it? You have sprained your ankle, I said, with sudden alarm. In reply she brushed back her gown and for the first time I saw what had occurred. She was sitting half over a trapped door in the floor, which had closed on her skirts and held her fast. The wretched thing, she wailed, and I have called until I'm I could shake happy. 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 anything at all? Good old trapped door, 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 was fast, with the skirts to hold it tight. I looked such a fright, she explained. Can't you pry it up with something? I tried several things without success while Marjorie explained her plight. I was sure Robert had not looked carefully in the old wine cellar, she said, and then I remembered this trapped door opened into it. It was the only place we hadn't explored thoroughly. I put a ladder down and looked around. Yeah. What did you find, I asked, as my third broomstick lever snapped? Nothing. Only I know now where Antletisha's Edwin Booth went to. He was a cat, she explained. And Antletisha made the railroad pay for killing him. I gave up finally and stood back. Couldn't you get out of your garments and I could go out and close the door? I suggested delicately. You see, you're sitting on the trapped door, but Marjorie scouted the suggestion with the proper scorn and demanded a pair of scissors. She cut herself loose with vicious snips. While I paraphrase the old nursery rhyme, she cut her petticoats all around about. Then she gathered up her outraged garments and fled precipitately. She was unusually dignified at dinner. Neither of us cared to eat, and the empty places, wardropes and mislaticias, Miss Jane's had not been set, were like skeletons at the board. It was Marjorie 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. He probably has a reason. Why don't you say it? She said suddenly, turning on me, I know what you think. You believe he only pretended he was robbed. I should be sorry to think anything of the—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 like a child, all of you. 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 like a frightened child. I went over to her and took one trembling hand. I wish you didn't know all those things, I said, but since you do, won't you let me share the burden? The only reason I'm still here is on your account. I had a sort of crazy desire to take her in my arms and comfort her. Wardrup or no wardrup. But at that moment, luckily for me perhaps, Miss Letitius's shrill old voice came from the stairway. Get out of my way, happy, she was saying, tartly. I'm not on my deathbed yet, not if I know it. Where's Knox? Whereupon I obediently went out and helped Miss Letitius into the room. 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 talking of it for a month. Not but what her old teeth would have done well enough. 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 Letitius said with the shake of her head. She's the baby, and the youngest's always spoiled. Have you thought that this might be more than it appears to be? I was feeling my way. She was a very old woman. For instance, it might be abduction, kidnapping for a ransom. Ransom, Miss Letitius 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 full 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 born in on me at about that time, that the things that concern Margaery 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. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Window at the White Cat by Mary Robert's Reinhardt. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, reading by Robert Kuiper. Chapter 8. Too late. At nine o'clock that night things remained about the same. The man, Hunter, had sent out to investigate the neighborhood and the country just outside of the town, came to the house about eight and reported nothing discovered. Miss Letitia went to bed early and Margaery took her upstairs. Hunter called me by telephone from town. Can you take the 930 up? He asked. I looked at my watch. Yes, I think so. Is there anything new? Not yet, but there may be. Take a cab at the station and come to the corner of Mulberry Street and Park Lane. You'd better dismiss your cab there and wait for me. 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. Twenty-four minutes I was in the city, and perhaps twelve minutes more saw me at the designated corner, with my cab driving away and the rain dropping off the rim of my hat and splashing on my shoulders. 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 direction I would have been in familiar territory. 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 backwards by its sodden opening. Beyond was a yard full of shadowy wheels and packing cases. The streetlights 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 round his legs. Confident that it was Hunter, I stepped out and touched him on the arm. He wheeled instantly, and in the light which shone on his face I saw my error. Excuse me, I mumbled. I mistook my man. He went on again without speaking, only pulling his soft hat down lower on his face. I looked after him until he turned the next corner, and I knew I had not been mistaken. It was wardrobe. 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 stopped. Did you ever hear the white cat? He asked. Little political club? Never. 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 while you re there and keep your eyes open. It s a queer joint. 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 boards giving off in the rain the aromatic odor of fresh pine. 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, brick-paved 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 brick-paved yard seemed brilliant with lights. Two wires were strung at 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 two-story 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 wooden steps. "'Bove everything else,' he warned. "'Keep your temper. Nobody gives a hang in here whether you're the mayor of the town, champion pool-player of the First Ward, or the roundsman on the beat.' The door at the top of the steps was also Yale locked. He 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-enference was used. The kitchen was bright and clean. It was littered, however, with half-cut 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 was spreading slices of bread and cheese with mustard. "'How are you, Mr. Mayor?' Hunter said as he shed his raincoat. "'This Mr. Knox, the man who's engineering the Star Eagle fight.' The man over the range wiped one greasy hand and held it out to me. "'The cat is burning a welcome,' he said, indicating the frying pan. "'Now if my cookin' turns out right I'll ask you to have some ham with me. I don't know why and thunder gets black in the middle and won't cook round the edges.' I recognized the mayor. He was a big fella, handsome in a heavy way, and Tommy to everyone who knew him. It seemed I was about to see my city government at play. Hunter was thoroughly at home. He took my coat and his own and hung him 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 barbed youth washed some glasses. "'If you want a sandwich, there's 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 rat-prap 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 mustard if it's too lively.' "'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, contained an ice box, stocked with drinkables, ham, eggs, and butter. On shelves above were cards, cigars, and liquors, and there too I saw a box with the endorsement which showed the honor system of the Cat Club. Signed checks and dropped here, it read, and I thought about the old adage of honor among thieves and politicians. When I came out with the cigars, Hunter was standing with a group of new arrivals. They included one of the city's 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 heat and unwanted anxiety. When the three newcomers went upstairs instead of going into the grill-room I looked at Hunter. "'Is this where the political game is played?' I asked. "'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 cuspidores as chairs comprised the furniture of the long room. In one corner was a battered upright piano, and there were two fireplaces with old-fashioned mantles. 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 dussel-tory way. At the piano a man with a red mustache was mimicking the sextet 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 bottles. "'It's fairly quiet tonight,' he said. "'Tomorrow, the big night, Saturday.' "'What time do they close up?' I asked. In answer Hunter pointed to a sign over the door. It was a card neatly printed, and it said, The White Cat Never Sleeps. "'There are only two rules here,' he explained. "'That is one, and the other is, if you get too noisy and the patrol wagon comes, make the driver take you home.' The crowd was good-humored. It paid little or no attention to us, and when someone at the piano began to thump a waltz, Hunter under cover of the noise leaned over to me. "'We traced Fleming here through your corner-man and the cabbie,' he said carefully. "'I haven't seen him, but it's a moral certainty he is skulky in one of the upstairs rooms. His precious private secretary is here, too.' I glanced around the room, but no one was paying any attention to us. "'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 moustache. 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 safely. Please never come here, and a man's business is his own.' "'He's upstairs now?' "'Yes. "'There are four rooms up there for cards and a bathroom. "'It's an old dwelling-house.' "'Would Fleming know you?' "'No, but of course Wardrop would.' "'As if an 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 door and pushed him aside without ceremony.' "'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 anyone notices you, ask if Al Hunter is there. That'll let you out.' 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 fransoms. From below the noise of the piano came up the staircase, un-melodious but rhythmical, and from the street on which the house faced an automobile was starting its engine with a series of shot-like explosions. 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 valuable as the night went on, buying chips recklessly, drinking more than they should. The atmosphere was reeking with smoke. The third door I opened was that of a dingy bathroom with a zinc tub and a slovenly wash stand. 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 opened it and looked in. 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 side showed the room had been serving as a bed-chamber. But none of these things caught my eye at first. At the table leaning forward his head on his arms was a man. I coughed and receiving no answer stepped into the room. I beg your pardon, I said, but I'm looking for—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 has stopped. I hurried over and raised the heavy, wobbling, gray head. It was Alan Fleming, and he had been shot through the forehead. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Only one eye closed. My first impulse was to rouse the house. My second, to wait for Hunter. To turn loose that mob of half-drunken 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 un-strong. 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 of any kind. 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 open the door to face Harry Wardrup, and behind him Hunter. I do not remember that anyone 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 Wardrup came in, Hunter locked the door behind him, and we three stood staring at the prostrate figure over the table. I watched Wardrup. 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's 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 street. Hunter was listening while he examined the room, peering under the table, lifting the blankets that had trailed off the couch onto the floor. Someone outside tried the doorknob, and finding the door locked shook it slightly. Fleming, he called under his breath. Fleming! We were silent in response to a signal from Hunter, and the steps retreated heavily down the hall. The detectives spread the blankets decently over the couch, and the three of us moved the body there. Wardrup was almost collapsing. Now, Hunter said quietly, before I call Dr. Gray from the room across, what do you know about this thing, Mr. Wardrup? Wardrup looked dazed. 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's 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. As soon as I dared to leave him, I went out to try to find a doctor to get some cocaine. Yes. Not because he was already wounded and you were afraid it was fatal? Wardrup shuddered. Then he pulled himself together, and his tone was more natural. Well, what's the use of lying about it? He said weirdly, 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. The revolver, hunter queried, linkside, was in his hand. He was dead then. Where is the revolver? I will turn it over to the coroner. You will give it to me, hunter replied sharply. And after a little fumbling, Wardrup produced it from his hip pocket. It was an ordinary 38. The detective opened it and glanced at it. Two chambers were empty. And you waited, say, 10 minutes before you called for help, and even then you went outside hunting a doctor. What were you doing in those 10 minutes? Wardrup shut his lips and refused to reply. 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 written a dozen words. 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. Wardrup, to be careful what you say. Will you ask Dr. Gray to come in, Mr. Knox? I went across the hall to the room where the noise was loudest. Fortunately, Dr. Gray was out of the game. He was opening a can of caviar 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 effect on him, but the identity of the dead man almost stupefied him. Fleming, he said, awed, and he looked down at the body. Fleming by all its sacred and a suicide! Hunter watched him grimly. How long's he been dead, he asked. The doctor glanced at the bullet wound in the forehead and from there significantly to the group around the couch. 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 Hunter inquiringly. What about getting him away from here, he said. There is sure to be a lot of noise about it, and you remember what happened when Butler killed himself here. He was reported as being found dead in the lumberyard, Hunter said, dryly. Well, doctor, this body stays where it is and I don't give a hoop if the whole city government wants it moved. It won't be. This is murder, not suicide. The doctor's expression was curious. Murder, he repeated, why, who? 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 him he's 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 broken windows. 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'm gonna send for the coroner and then I shall ask you to go with me to the office and tell the chief what you know about this. Knox, will you telephone to the coroner? 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 room downstairs and tried to think how I was to take the news to Marjorie. At 12.30, 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 office 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 the 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 as hanged. I am, I was Mr. Allen 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 9th 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, 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 as a butler. There was trouble of some kind 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 10th. Was that the day Mr. Fleming disappeared? The chief interrupted. Yes, he went to the white cat and stayed there but no one but the caretaker and one other man knew he was there. On the night of the 21st 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 that 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 Mrs. 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 empty. I affirmed it in a word. The chief was growing interested. What was in the bag? He asked. Wardrobe tried to remember. A pair of pajamas, he said, two military brushes and a clothes brush, two or three soft bosom shirts, perhaps a half dozen collars and a suit of underwear and all this was taken as well as the money. The bag was left empty except for my railroad schedule. The chief and Hunter exchanged significant glances then. Go on, if you please, the detective said cheerfully. I think Wardrobe realized the absurdity of trying to make anyone believe that part of the story. He shut his lips and threw up his head as if he intended to say nothing further. Go on, I urged. If he could clear himself, he must. I could not go back to Marjorie Fleming and tell her that her father had been murdered and her lover was accused of the crime. 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 founded among the flowers below the veranda empty. The chief eyed me with awakened interest. You also live at Bellwood, Mr. Knox? No, I am attorney to Miss Leticia Maitland and was there one night as her guest. I found the bag Mr. Wardrobe described empty. The chief turned back to Wardrobe. How much money was there in it when you left it? A hundred thousand dollars. I was afraid to tell Mr. Fleming, but I had to do it. We had a stormy scene this morning. I think he thought the natural thing that I had taken it. He struck you, I believe, and knocked you down, asked Hunter smoothly. Wardrobe flushed. He was not himself and, well, it meant a great deal to him. 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 had been emptied. It's no wonder I questioned my sanity. And then tonight, the chief persisted, tonight I felt that someone 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 was sitting with his back to the door and his head on the table. Was the revolver in his hand? Yes, you are sure, from Hunter, isn't it a fact, Mr. Wardrobe, that you took Mr. Fleming's revolver from him this morning when he threatened you with it? Wardrobe's face twitched nervously. 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 cashier of the Burlbank, who met him there once by appointment. The chief made no comment. Now, Mr. Knox, how about you? Well I opened the door into Mr. Fleming's room perhaps a couple of minutes after Mr. Wardrobe went out, I said. He was dead then, leaning on his outspread arms over the table. He had been shot in the forehead. You heard no shot while you were in the hall? There was considerable noise. I heard two or three sharp reports like the explosions of an automobile engine. Did they seem close at hand? Not particularly. I thought, if I thought at all, that they were on the street. You were right about the automobile, Hunter said, dryly. The mayor sent his cars away as I left to follow Mr. Wardrobe. The sounds you heard were not shots. 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. Was there any powder marks on the body? None, Hunter said. The chief got up stiffly. Thank you very much, gentlemen. He spoke quietly. I think that is all, Hunter. I would like to see you for a few minutes. I think Wardrobe 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 had only closed one eye. The last train was gone. We took a night-electric car to Winton and walked the three miles to Bellwood. Neither of us was talkative, and I imagine we were both thinking of Marjorie and the news she would have to hear. It had been raining, and the roads were vile. Once Wardrobe 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 Wardrobe stood still while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three of us trudged on talking of immaterial things. At the door Wardrobe 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 two nights before. I guess I will, he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes. This thing's only a matter of form, anyhow. 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. Chapter 10 Breaking the News Wardrobe looked so wretched that I asked him into my room and mixed him some whiskey and water. When I had given him a cigar he began to look a little less hopeless. You've been a darn sight better to me than I would have been to you under the circumstances, he said, gratefully. I thought we would better arrange about Miss Marjorie before we try to settle down, I replied. What she's gone through in the last 24 hours is nothing to what is coming tomorrow. Will you tell her about her father? He took a turn about the room. 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 everybody else of murdering her father. Now, I do not suspect you of anything, I justified myself. I don't think you're entirely open, that's all Wardrobe. I think you're damaging yourself to shield someone else. His expressive face was on his guard in a moment. He ceased his restless pacing, pausing impressively before me. 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. Mr. Wardrobe, did you ever hear of the figures 1122, I inquired. 1122, he repeated. No, never in any unusual connection. You never heard Mr. Fleming use them? I persisted. He looked puzzled. Probably, he said. In the very nature of Mr. Fleming's position, we use figures all the time. 1122, well, that's the time the theater train leaves the city for Balewood. Not what you want, huh? Not quite, I answered noncommittally, and began to wind my watch. He took the hint and prepared to leave. I'll not keep you any longer, he said, picking up his raincoat. He opened the door and stared ruefully down at the detective in the hall below. No place is queer without Miss Jane, he said, irrelevantly. Well, good night, and thanks. He went heavily along the hall, and I closed my door. I heard him pass Marjorie's room and then go back and wrap lightly. She was evidently awake. It's Harry, he called. I thought you wouldn't worry if you knew I was in the house tonight. She asked him something. Yes, he's here, he said. He stood there for a moment, hesitating over something, but whatever it was, he decided against it. Good night, dear, he said gently, and went away. 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 when 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 reproving slap for not having shaved. I pulled myself up sharply, and after taking off my dripping coat I went to the window and looked out into the main 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 wide awake as I was at that moment, acute enough of hearing to detect Warderp'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 fourth dimension. I found myself avoiding the most recent occurrence of 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 Marjorie 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 dress coat 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 news of the moths to Fred. I was ready for bed when Warderp came back and wrapped at my door. He was still dressed and he had the leather bag in his hand. Look here, he said excitedly, when I opened the door. This is not my bag at all, fool that I was, I never examined it carefully. He held it out to me, and I carried it to the light. It was an ordinary 18 inch Russia leather traveling bag, tan in color, and with gold-plated mountings. It was empty, save for the railroad schedule that still rested in one side pocket. Look 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 and address. I looked inside the pocket on both sides, nothing had been written in. 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 is no maker's name in it, I said, after a casual examination. Wardrobe's face fell and he took the bag from me despondently. No matter which way I turned, he said, I run into a blind alley. If I were worth a damn, I suppose I could find a way out, but I'm not. Well, I'll let you sleep this time. 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 the bag for future reference. 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 conch shells which flanked either end of the stone hearth. I had failed the night before, I meant to be on hand that night. 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 dressing gown, 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 conch shell, 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 door sill, and that it had moved at least eight feet while I slept. When I could walk I put it on the mantle, 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 Wardrup 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, stretched out in his chair and looking up at me. I'm frozen, he called up cautiously, throwing 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 horse-hair 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 backbone bent like a hook. 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 pair and offer me one. Found him 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 steered intently at the apple. I reckon I got a worm that time, he said, with less ardor. I'll get something to wash him down, I offered, rising, but he waved me back to my chair. Not on your life, he said, with dignity. Let him walk. How are things going upstairs? It didn't happen to be up there a while ago, did you? I questioned in turn. No, I've been kept busy trying to sit tight where I am. Why? Someone 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 door sill 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. That's funny, he said. Anything in the room disturbed? Nothing. Where's the shell now? On the mantel. I didn't want to step on it again. He thought for a minute, but his next remark was wholly facetious. 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 trolleywire. I got up impatiently. There was no humor in the situation that night for me. Someone 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 pairings down the immaculate register in the floor beside his chair. Then, 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. I stared at him blankly. What could he have wanted, I exclaimed. But with his revelation, Davidson's interest ceased. He drew the blanket up around his shoulders and shivered. Search me, he said, and yawned. 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 and saluted me in a husky whisper. Have you got any quinine? He said, I'm freezing my head off. 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 across. Nonsense, she was saying queerlessly. Don't you suppose I can smell? Ya think because I'm a little hard of hearing that I've lost my other senses? But he's been smoking. It's me, heppy shouted. I'd you, Miss Letitia snarled. What are you smoking for? That ain't my shirt, it's my, I ain't smoking, yelled hippy. You won't let me tell you. I spilled vinegar on the stove. That's what you smell. Miss Letitia's sardonic chuckle came through the door. Vinegar, she said, with scorn. Next thing you'll be telling me, it's vinegar that Harry and Mr. Knox carry round little boxes in their pocket. Ooh, you pin my cap to my scalp. 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 were none, save, at the edges of the spotless register, a trace. Evidently they had followed the apple pairings. 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 hippy searched the house over to account for the odor of baking apples, a mystery that was never explained. Wardrip did not appear at breakfast. Marjorie came downstairs as Bella was bringing me my coffee, and dropped languidly into her chair. She looked tired and white. Another day, she said wearily, did you ever live through such an eternity as the last thirty-six 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 Wardrip and tell him it was his responsibility, not mine, to make this sad-eyed girl sadder still, that 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 headlines of the morning paper, laid open at Wardrip's plate. 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 promise you I will give it to you almost immediately. 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. She looked at me, then she withdrew her hand and sat erect. How can you be so childish, she exclaimed? If there is anything in that paper that it will hurt me to learn, is a cup of coffee going to make it any easier? 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 Marjorie tea instead of coffee, but as it was she sat stonely erect, staring at the paper, and feeling that evasion would be useless, I told her what had happened, making the news as gently as I could. 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 aside bitterly. Accidentally? 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 did anything. I did not try to defend myself, how could I? And afterwards, when she sat up and pushed back the damp strands of hair from her eyes, she was more reasonable. I did not mean what I said about your not having done anything, she said, almost childishly. No one could have done more. It was to happen, that's all. But even then, I knew she had trouble in store that she did not suspect. What would she do when she heard that wardrobe 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 divined my wild longing to hold her for myself. She recovered bravely that morning from the shock, and refused to go to her room and lie down, a suggestion like the coffee called 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 brother-in-law's death to Miss Letitia. After the first surprise, the old lady took the news with what was nearer complacency than resignation. Shocked, she said, sitting up in her bed, while Heppy shook her pillows. It's a queer death for Alan Fleming. I've always said he would be hanged. 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 sense. 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 that under the circumstances Jane would not rest in the family lot. We are all there, she said, eleven of us counting my sister Mary's husband, although he didn't properly belong. And I always said we would take him out if we were crowded. It is the best lot in the Hopedale Cemetery. You can see the shaft are two miles in any direction. We held a family council that morning around Miss Letitia's bed. Wardrup, who took little part in the proceedings, and who stood at a window looking out most of the time, margarie on the bed, her arm around Miss Letitia's shriveled neck, and Heppy, who acted as interpreter and shouted into the old lady's ear such parts of the conversation as she considered essential. 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 that there are no other relatives. Heppy condensed this into a vocal capsule and thrusted into Miss Letitia's ear the old lady nodded. No other relatives, she corroborated. God, be praised for that, anyhow! 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. City house, Heppy yelled in her ear. 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 let down at the side coffins, they're leaky! Luckily margarie did not notice this. 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 she's very capable. Margarie threw me a grateful glance, grateful, I think, that I could understand how, under the circumstances, a stranger was more acceptable than curious friends could be. Mr. Knox's sister-in-law, interpreted Heppy. When you have to say the letter S, turn your head away. Miss Letitia rebuked her. Well, I don't object if Knox's sister-in-law don't. She had an uncanny way of expanding Heppy's tabloid speeches. She 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 Margarie threw her arms around her, she was mightily ashamed of it. But Heppy was made of weaker stuff. She broke into a sudden storm of sobs and left the room to stick her head in the door a moment later. Kidneys or chops? She shouted almost belligerently. Kidneys! Miss Letitia replied in kind. Wardrup 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 Margarie 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 pen-knife and dropping the peelings with careful accuracy through a crack in the floor of the platform. I had arranged over the telephone for Edith to meet the train, and it was a relief to see that she and Margarie 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, Margarie 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 where the hanging is 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 tabaret 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 tabaret, sat down on it, and began on me. 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 need a vacation. She reached behind her and, pulling the cord, sent the window shade to the top of the window. At the sight of my face thus revealed she drew a long sigh. The biggest case you ever had, Jack, the biggest retainer you ever had. I spent that, I protested feebly. A vacation, and you only back from Pinehurst. The girl was in trouble, is in trouble, Edith, I burst out. Anyone would have done the same thing. Even Fred would hardly have deserted that household. It's stricken, positively stricken. My remark about Fred did not draw her from cover. 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. Edith, you abominable little liar. She dabbed at her eyes furiously with her handkerchief, and walked with great dignity to the door. Then she came back and put her hand on my arm. Oh, Jack, if we could only have saved you this, she said, and a minute later, when I did not speak, who is the man, dear? A distant relative, Harry Wardrop, I replied, with what I think was very nearly my natural tone. Don't worry, Edith, it's all right, I've known it right along. Poo! Edith returned sagely, so do I know I've got to die and be buried some day. It's being inevitable doesn't make it any more cheerful. She went out, but she came back in a moment, and stuck her head through the door. That's the only inevitable thing there is, she said, taking up the conversation and old habit of hers, where she had left off. I don't know what you're talking about, I retorted, turning my back on her, and anyhow I regard your suggestion as immoral, but when I turned again she had gone. That Saturday afternoon, at four o'clock, the body of Alan Fleming was brought home, and placed in state in the music room of the house. Miss Jane had been missing since Thursday night. I called Hunter by telephone, and he had nothing to report. CHAPTER 11 A NIGHT IN THE FLEMMING HOME 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 what I could hardly explain to myself. I have 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. Also her brother-in-law is dead. The papers are full of it. 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 in his face quivered saved one eye, which has a peculiar twitching of the lid when he's excited. It gave him a sardonic appearance of winking. He winked at me then. 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 Marjorie 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 had not heard the door open. I forgot to tell you that a gentleman was here half dozen times today to see you, and he didn't give any name. I dropped my hands. From around the door Hawes' nervous eye was winking wildly. You're not sick, Mr. Knox? Never felt better? I thought I heard—I was singing, I lied, looked at him straight in the eye. He backed nervously to the door. Now, I have a little sherry in my office, Mr. Knox, twenty-six 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 a perceptible time outside the door before he tiptoed away. Almost immediately after, someone entered the waiting room, and the next moment I was facing in the doorway a man I had never seen before. He was a tall man with thin, colorless beard trimmed to a van dyke 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. Mr. Knox? He asked from the doorway. Yes, come in. I've been here six times since noon, he said, dropping rather than sitting in a chair. My name is Lightfoot. I am—was Mr. Fleming's cashier. Yes. 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 would end it that way. End it? Shoot himself! He watched me closely. 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. Let us be sensational. Mr. Fleming had threatened to kill himself more than once. Ask young Wardrup. 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 Capitol. Instead, he goes to a little third-grade political club where, presumably, he does his own cooking and hides in a dingy room. Is that—is that sane? Murder. It was suicide. And that puppy Wardrup knows it well enough. I wish I had him by the throat. He had worked himself into quite a respectable rage. But now he calmed himself. 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 Times Post, which is democratic, of course, I could not handle. I sat stupefied. Suicide, I said finally, with no weapon, no powder-marks, and with a half-finished letter at his elbow. He brushed my interruption aside. Mr. Fleming had been careless, he said. I can tell you in confidence that some of the state funds had been deposited in the burrow bank of Manchester, and the burrow bank closed its doors at ten o'clock today. I was hardly surprised at that, but the whole trend of events was amazing. 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 like to go through his papers and leave tonight for the capital." I have hardly the authority, I replied doubtfully. Mr. Fleming, I suppose, would have no objection. His private secretary, Wardrop, would be the one to superintend such a search. Can you find Wardrop at once? Something in his eagerness put me on my guard. I will make an attempt, I said. Let me have the name of your hotel and I will telephone you if it can be arranged for tonight. 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 three o'clock and had not come back. I went to the Fleming house for dinner. Edith was still there. And we both tried to cheer Marjorie, 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, 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 opposite the government. It was arranged that Edith should take Marjorie home with her for the night. I thought it was a good idea. The very sight of Edith tucking in her babies and sitting down beside the library lamp to embroider me a scarf-pin holder for Christmas would bring Marjorie 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 from her planning her morning hats before the dinner was half finished. When we rose at last Marjorie looked toward the music room, where the dead man lay in state. But Edith took her by the arm and pushed her toward the stairs. Get your hat on right away, while Jack calls a cab, she directed. I must get home, or Fred will keep the boys up till nine o'clock. He is absolutely without principle. When Marjorie 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 Newell post and looked behind fearfully. What's the matter, Edith demanded, glancing uneasily over her shoulder. Someone has been upstairs, Marjorie panted. Someone has been staying in the house while we were away. 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 Alan Fleming's bedroom, we paused, and I turned on the light. Before we left, Marjorie said, more quietly, I closed this room myself. It had just been done over, and the pale blue soil 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 knick-knacks 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 window seat, it was evidently Marjorie's private sitting-room. The linen cover that had been thrown over the divan was folded back, and a pillow from the window seat 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 clean-washed. And as if to prove her contention, Marjorie picked up from the floor a newspaper dated Friday morning the 22nd. I used towel in the bathroom, nearby completed the inventory. Marjorie had been right. Someone had used the room while the house was closed. Might it not have been your father?" Edith asked when we stood again at the foot of the stairs. He could have come here to look for something and lain down to rest. I don't think so, Marjorie said whinely. I left the door so he could get in with his key, but he always used his study couch. I don't think he ever spent five minutes in my sitting-room in his life. He 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 Marjorie Fleming and her affairs had faded with Wardrobe's defection and the new mystery of the blue boudoir. The lower floor of the house was full of people that night. People 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 the death scene had lacked, Alan Fleming was lying in state now. At midnight things grew quiet. I sat in the library reading until then, when an undertaker's assistant in a pink shirt and polka dot cravat came to tell me that everything was done. Is it customary for somebody to stay up on occasions like this, I asked? Isn't there an impression that wandering cats may get into the room or something of that sort? I don't think that would be necessary, sir, he said, trying to conceal the 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 anymore, nobody wants to rob the dead. 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 solemn, morose, smouldering about expresses it. I closed the doors into the dining room, 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 I grumbled at my luck. I went down to the lower floor. It was the time's post, and the man at the telephone was in a hurry. This is the time's post, Mr. Wardrope there? No. Who's this? This is John Knox. The attorney? Yes. This is John Knox. Are you willing to put yourself on record that Mr. Fleming committed suicide? Ha! I'm not going to put myself on record at all. Tonight Star says you call it suicide and that you found him with a revolver in his hand. The Star lies, I retorted, and the man at the other end chuckled. Many thanks, he said, and rang off. I went back to bed, irritated that I had betrayed myself. Loss of sleep for two nights, however, had told on me. In a short time I was sound asleep. I wakened with difficulty. My head felt stupid and heavy. I was burning with thirst. I sat up and wondered vaguely if I was going to be ill. Then I remembered 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 the window and looked out. 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 well-like space beneath me. It was one of those apparently chanced movements that have vital consequences, and that have always made me believe in the old Calvinistic creed of foreordination. Below me, on the wall across, was a rectangle of yellow light, directed from the library window of the Fleming Home. There was someone in the house. As I still stared, the light was slowly blotted out. Not as if the light had been switched off, but by a gradual decreasing in size of the lighted area, the library shade had been drawn. My first thought was burglars. My second, light foot. 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, to put out the light and open the door quietly took only a minute. I was in pajamas barefoot, as on another almost similar occasion, but I was better armed than before. 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 drawing room at the foot of the stairs, and of whatever might be waiting in the library beyond made my position uncomfortable, to say the least. 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 seen the trap before I put my head in. 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 Newell post. 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 folded chairs that had been left by the undertaker. And if the crash paralyze me, I don't know what it did to the intruder in the library. 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 had the advantage of me. He knew my location, and I could not guess his. Who is there, I demanded. Only silence, except that I seemed to hear rapid breathing. 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 doorframe, the electric switch. As I turned it, the light flashed up. The room was empty, but a portier in the doorway to my right was still shaking. 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 semi-darkness, into a black void, which must have been the dining room, for my outstretched hands skirted the table. The footsteps seemed only beyond my reach, and at the other side of the room, the swinging door into the pantry was still swaying when I caught it. 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 the 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 met a cold wall smooth as glass. Then I fell, fell an incalculable distance, and the blackness of the night came over me and smothered me. CHAPTER 12 MY COMMISSION 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 pinion to my sides, and I was half lying, half crouching, in a semi-vertical position. I worked one arm loose and managed to make out that my prison was probably the dumbwaiter shaft to the basement kitchen. 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 chose. But nothing happened. The house was impressively quiet. 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 dining room or the pantry. Everything was locked and in good order. A small alcove off the library came next. It was undisturbed, but a tabaret 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 stacks on the table, were papers. 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 someone 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 waited for morning. I heard Bella coming down the stairs after seven some time. 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 range in the basement kitchen, and I went upstairs and dressed. 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 Alan 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 drawing-room with flowers around and a gentleman in black gloves at the door. 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 wardrobe had struck me with a chair, and at my nose no longer swollen but mustard yellow at the bridge. Been doing any boxing lately, he said, as I laced up my shoe. Not for two or three years. No machine? No. He smiled at me quizzically from his desk. How's the other fellow look? He inquired, and to my haltingly invented explanation of my battered appearance he returned the same enigmatical smile. That day was uneventful. Marjorie and Edith came to the house for about an hour and went back to Fred's again. 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 Marjorie from him as soon as she could, and as the girl dreaded the curious eyes of the crowd that filled the house she was glad to go. 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 Marjorie 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? I don't know, I replied bluntly. Well, what do you think? He insisted. How can I tell, irritably? The police say it was suicide, and they ought to know. Times Post says it was murder, and they will prove it, and they claim the police been called off. I said nothing of Mr. Lightfoot and his visit to the office. But I made a mental note to see the Times Post people and learn, if I could, what they knew. I cannot 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 been practically an invalid ever since, I can't be sorry for him. What was the Butler's story, I ask, but Fred did not know, and Edith was as vague as women usually are in politics. 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's in some sanatorium or other now, and we might cheer her a little. Fred groaned. Have her if you like, petty, he said, resignedly. But I refuse to be cheerful unless I feel like it. What about this young wardrobe, Jack? Looks to me as if the Times Post reporter had a line on him. Hush, Edith said softly, he is Marjorie's fiance, and she might hear you. How do you know? Fred demanded. Did she tell you? 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 Marjorie. I saw Bella today, she said. Mr. Knox, will you tell me why you stayed up last night? What happened in the house? I thought I heard someone in the library, I stammered, but I found no one. Is that all the truth or only part of it? She asked. Why do men always evade issues with a woman? Luckily, a woman like she did not wait for a reply. She closed the nursery door and stood with her hand on the knob, looking down. I wonder what you believe about all this? She said. Do you think my father killed himself? You were there. You know. Someone would only tell me everything. 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. Marjorie and I sat down on the stairs, and as well as I could remember the details, I told her what had happened at the White Cat. She heard me through quietly. And so the police had 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 had 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 up. She sat there for fifteen minutes, interrupted by occasional noisy excursions from the nursery which resulted in her acquiring by degrees a lap full of broken wheels, three-legged horses, and a live water beetle which the boys had found under the kitchen sink and imprisoned in a glass-top box, where to its bewilderment they were assiduously offering it dead and mangled flies. But our last five minutes were undisturbed, and the girl brought out with an effort the request she had tried to make all day. 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 cannot 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 he 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 he was indirectly implicated in the crime. 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 Marjorie 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, who 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 prowl. It had not been Bella. But after all, I did not go to Bellwood. I met Hunter on my way to the station, and he turned around and walked with me. So you've laid down on the case, I said, when we had gone a few steps without speaking. He grumbled something unintelligible and probably unrepeatable. Of course I persisted being a simple and uncomplicated case of suicide. There was nothing in it, anyhow, if it had been murder under peculiar circumstances. He stopped and gripped my arm. For ten cents, he said gravely, I would tell the chief and a few others what I think of him. And then I'd go out and get full. Not on ten cents. I'm going out of the business, he stormed. I'm going to drive a garbage truck. It's cleaner than this job. Suicide! I never saw a cleaner case of—he stopped suddenly. You know Burton of Times Post? No. I've heard of him. 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 trap. You two get together. He paused at a corner. Goodbye, he said dejectedly. I'm off to hunt some boys that have been stealing milk bottles. It's about my size these days. He turned around, however, before he had gone many steps and came back. Wardrop has been missing since yesterday afternoon, he said. That is, he thinks he's missing. We've got him all right. I gave up my Bellwood visit for the time, and taking a car downtown, I went to the Times Post office. The Monday morning addition was already underway as far as the staff was concerned, and from the waiting room I could see three or four men with their hats on, most of them rattling typewriters. Burton came in in a moment, a red-haired young fellow with a short, thick nose and muggy skin. He was rather stocky in build, and the pugnacity of his features did not hide the shrewdness of his eyes. I introduced myself, and at my name his perfunctory manner changed. Knox, he said. I called you last night over the phone. 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 eight-foot partition from the other room. This is the best we have, he explained cheerfully. Newspapers are agents of publicity, not privacy, if you don't care what you say. I like Burton. There was something genuine about him. After Wardrobe's kid-globe 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 committed suicide? No, I said firmly. It is my belief that he was murdered. And that the secretary fellow, what's his name, Wardrobe, that he killed him? Possibly. In reply Burton fumbled in his pocket and brought out a paste-board box filled with jeweler's cotton. Underneath was a small object which he passed to me with care. I got it from the coroner's physician who performed the autopsy, he said, casually. You will notice that it's a 32 and that the revolver they took from Wardrobe was a 38. Question. Where's the other gun? I gave him back the bullet and he rolled it around on the palm of his hand. Little thing, isn't it, he said. You think we're lords of creation till we see a quarter-inch bicloride tablet or a bit of lead like this. Look here! He dived into his pocket again and drew out a roll of ordinary brown paper. When he opened it a bit of white chalk fell on the desk. Look at that! He said dramatically. Kill an army with it! And they'd never know what struck him. Cyanide of potassium! And the druggist that sold it ought to be choked! Where did it come from? I asked curiously. Burton smiled his cheerful smile. 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 there this morning. Clarkson, I exclaimed, how is he? God only knows, said Burton gravely, from which I took it Clarkson was dead. End of chapter 12