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Show . Hidden Ways r -' By FREDERIC F VAN rF watp r w. h. u. service .muum "Through her you can hit him where it'll hurt most. II you're game to carry through a bluff, you may break him." Cochrane had caught my intention. inten-tion. 1 heard him mutter blasphemous blasphe-mous approval. I felt Allegra's eyes on me, but I watched the policeman's police-man's smoldering doubt. "It's your one chance," I told him. "Take it or leave it." Miss Agatha started to speak. Then she checked herself and I knew her nod meant that she surrendered her plan our plan to my keeping. Shannon rumpled his hair and took two uneasy strides away from the desk. I started to speak again. He said: "Wait a minute. AL close that door from the outside and don't let anyone come near it." CHAPTER XIX It took an hour to bend Shannon to the mad purpose. Miss Agatha and Cochrane were my allies. They followed my lead and, at need, took the lead themselves. We hammered the Captain with reasons, prodded him with persuasion, while he her breath. Miss Agatha repeated, almost in satisfaction: "Nothing?" Shannon said to her: "That's probably prob-ably blood on the blade. There are no fingerprints at all." Cochrane hummed beneath his breath. Shannon glared at him, and went on, with aimless anger: "There's a mark on the hilt that might have been made by the fingers fin-gers of a damp glove a lady's glove." Jerry glanced at me and let his eyes slide quickly away. The silence that followed was strangely filled with relief and disappointment. Miss Agatha mused aloud: "He is very clever." "Who?" Shannon snapped. She seemed to hear suspicion of her nephew in the query. Her face hardened and she spoke slowly and purposefully. "The murderer," she told the Captain. Cap-tain. "Or if you want me to name him, Lyon Ferriter." Shannon flinched at the word. "How do you know?" "How do I know?" asked Miss Agatha coldly. "How does Mr. Mal- CHAPTER XVni Continued. 19 "Intelligent people!" Cochrane grinned. '.'But you missed something some-thing this morning. The Sphere had a picture of lone Ferriter. I suspect sus-pect that our competitor, Mr. Duke, bribed some cop to steal it from the flat across the hall. Anyway he tied a knot in my tail, or thought he did. Now I'm ready to tie two in his." He paused to enjoy the drama of suspense. The doorbell thwarted him. Shannon strode into the room. His companion lingered In the hall, satchel in hand. The Captain glared at Cochrane, who beamed in reply, and whatever question he was about to ask concerning the reporter's presence was blown away by Miss Agatha's voice. "I sent for you, Captain," she said precisely, "because we have found the knife that stabbed Mr. Ferriter's visitor." At my side I heard Jerry grunt. He uttered no other sound while Shannon rapped out questions and Miss Agatha replied as calmly as though she were giving census information. in-formation. The Captain strode to the table and gingerly undid the handkerchief. "Yes," he grunted, almost as though he regretted it, "it looks like it." He held it by forefingers pressed to point and butt and turned It this way and that. walked the floor as though he sought cover from our argument. All through the clash of voices and purposes, pur-poses, Allegra sat silent beside her aunt but the pent excitement reached her. Severity left her face. Color came to it and her eyes woke up and moved quickly from speaker to speaker. Sight of her helped me stand up to Shannon. From the second when I lifted my voice, I knew the least faltering would emphasize the desperate fantasy fan-tasy I put forward. At first I feigned confidence, linking fact to fact in arbitrary ar-bitrary union. Then, as I spoke, I converted myself. It seemed as though speech washed away mystery mys-tery to bare at least coherent outlines. out-lines. Cochrane sat beside me. His innocent in-nocent face was drowsy but his nimble nim-ble mind kept pace with mine, endorsing en-dorsing my contentions, supplying pointed comment when Shannon balked. Miss Agatha said little, but her rare words cut. We outraged the policeman's sense of propriety and stripped that from him. We pried his mind loose from official procedure. He withstood us stub- "Blood," he proclaimed, and I never knew before how ugly that word could be. "As for fingerprints finger-prints " He wheeled and glared at me. "You didn't wipe it, or mess it up, did you?" he barked. Miss Agatha's voice cut: "Mr. Mallory and I found it together to-gether as I told you. If we had wished to suppress evidence, we should have suppressed it entirely." The bullying note left Shannon's voice as she looked at him. "Right you are, Miss Paget," he granted and turned to his assistant. "We'll be going over it, AL Miss Paget, is there a bathroom handy? We'll make a bit of a mess here." Miss Agatha rang for Annie. They followed the maid down the hall. Cochrane looked reproachfully at me and more sympathetically at aunt and niece, who sat still and stiff in their anxiety. The silence grew unbearable. Jerry said at last: "And I thought I had hold of something!" some-thing!" Allegra did not seem to hear him. Rigid and intent she watched the doorway. Miss Agatha asked: "And it has no importance now?" Cochrane had forgotten his pretense pre-tense of indifference. He frowned and shrugged. "It may, or it may not," he grumbled, grum-bled, "according to what Shannon finds on that knife. Dave has told you of the mysterious siren who called on him?" "No," said Miss Agatha wryly, "I've always understood gentlemen don't talk of such things." Cochrane grinned at her in admiration. admi-ration. I muttered: "It didn't seem important." "That was one of the things," Jerry Jer-ry went on, "that made me think it might be. The night our bright young friend was jumped in the basement, the night that knife was lost, Dave had a call from a dark voune woman who wouldn't leave Allegra looked at me and turned away. lory know? How do you know yourself, your-self, Captain Shannon? By something some-thing that's worthless in court. Lyon Ferriter killed that man. He used that km'fe you hold. I don't know why. Perhaps to protect that precious pre-cious sister of his, for whose sake he's willing to let an innocent and foolish boy play scapegoat." At each word Miss Agatha spoke in her bitter, careful voice, my mad idea grew more normal in shape and color. It drove me to speech, but Shannon's harsh voice rode over my words. "Miss Paget, whether you're right or wrong, no one can say. That was my own thought at first and now" He shrugged. Cochrane completed it for him: "And now," he said softly, "when you announce you've found the murder mur-der weappn, but no clue to how it got in the basement, or who left it there, you're through whipped, outwitted, out-witted, scuttled. Mr. Ferriter, who hasn't been sure where that knife has been, wins. He'll sleep easier from now on." bornly, tramping to and fro, rumpling rum-pling his hair, now and then shaking shak-ing his head like a fly-pestered horse. He took that afternoon the sweating he and his associates had dealt to many. "It's it's illegaL" he blurted at last with a cornered air and glared at Cochrane who chuckled. "So," Jerry drawled, "is a length of rubber hose." . It was luck more than logic that broke Shannon at last. He raked his hair and shook his head again. "Maybe," he granted, "it would make a good movie. But the girl has an alibi. You can't get over that. Somebody downstairs Hoyt it was, saw her come in." I got up. "If that's all that gags you," I said, "I'll see Hoyt. He'll back our play. His story will be that he didn't want to get a lady into trouble." I did not wait for Shannon's objection, ob-jection, but opened the door, almost upsetting Al who guarded it I found Hoyt at the switchboard. I told him, as quickly as I could, what I wanted and why. He gasped and boggled and at last consented, when I reminded him of his earlier offer of aid. Then he whispered some- "All right," Shannon snarled in angry helplessness; "that's like most of the newspaper suggestions. It's a help, isn't it? What would you do, wise boy?" Cochrane shook his head. I heard Miss Agatha say: "I know what I'd do." We looked at her. Her face was hard and her voice, that spoke what I had feared to utter, was firm: "If Lyon Ferriter has a weakness, it is his love for his sister. I think he can be reached by attacking her." Shannon had not the sort of brain that is fired by abstract theory. There was scorn in his grunt. "Would you then? And how?" If the old lady's suggestion had roiled his mind, it had clarified mine. Her speech had been a key, unlocking the door of my mind behind be-hind which that wild, originally fantastic fan-tastic idea had waited. I said, before be-fore Miss Agatha could speak again: "Arrest lone Ferriter." I had uttered her thought. I saw her start and look at me in wonder. "Arrest her?" Shannon jeered. "For what?" His crooked smile was mocking. Allegra's eyes widened. Cochrane looked at me as though he were dozing. I stood their combined regard. re-gard. "For murder. For the murder of Blackbeard. There's enough to make it stick for a while." "For a while," the policeman echoed ech-oed in derision. Miss Agatha said quickly, sitting straight and flushed in her wheel chair: "Captain Shannon, Lyon Ferriter killed that man. I know it Mr. Mallory knows it. You suspected it at first. But you could not reach him. His story, his alibi, had no apparent weakness. Yet he has a weakness. It is his love for nis sister." " Shannon stared as though he wondered won-dered whether she had lost her mind. I prodded him further: thing that sent me hot-footing it up the stair again. I saw when I re-entered the workroom work-room that Shannon wavered. "Personally, Captain Shannon," Miss Agatha was saying, "I place justice above orthodoxy. The murder mur-der was unconventional. Why shouldn't the arrest be equally so? I know he did it You think he did. If he didn't, lone or Everett did; and the two survivors are accessories accesso-ries after and, perhaps, before the fact. Are you always so wedded to legal formality, Captain?" Cochrane leaned forward. "Listen," he wheedled, "what can you lose? Say it doesn't click. So what? Are you worse off? It's a crazy idea. Sure. But so is this whole set-up. We're trying to give you the chance to tear this case wide open and solo at that Do you want to be just a captain all your life?" Allegra was watching me. She alone in the room seemed to feel the tidings I bore. Shannon spoke with the muffled roar of the hard-pressed. hard-pressed. "All right. Suppose I go goofy and throw in with you? How are you gonna gon-na work it? Tell me that! Call up Lyon at the Babylon and say, 'Can we bother you to come on down here so we can tell you what we've got on your sister, before we make a collar?' " In the silence he glared about and breathed loudly through his nose. I said as quietly as I could: "If that's all that's worrying you, Lyon is next door now. He came in a while ago. Hoyt says." "By God!" Shannon aid at last in an unwilling voica. I went on: "Edd-e will ask him to stop in here, when he starts to go. You might serxi your man downstairs down-stairs just to make sure that he does." Shannon watered for the last time. Then he squared his shoulders, shoul-ders, inhaled like one entering a cold plunge and called: "Al!" (TO BE COTlMED) her name with the landlady, good Mrs. Shaw, who has a stern sense of virtue and, what is better, an eagle eye and an elephantine memory. "Because," said Cochrane, resuming resum-ing his sleepy air, "she has recognized recog-nized the picture of lone Ferriter in the Sphere as Dave's would-be visitor. vis-itor. There seems to be no question ques-tion about the identification. Mrs. Shaw is positive. Why should Lyon Ferriter's beloved sister want to see you, Dave?" Allegra looked at me and turned away. I did not answer at once. Her glance and the derisive emphasis empha-sis laid by Cochrane on "beloved" had thrust an idea into my mind. It was so fantastic that I tried to evict it but it stayed while I said: "You can search me." "That's been done already." Cochran Coch-ran crooned, "by the late Mr. Ferriter Fer-riter who was looking for that very knife. Dave, could it have been a woman in the basement that night?" His question chimed in so neatly with the idea I had branded as idiocy idi-ocy that I gaped at him a moment. "I don't know," I answered at las'- , j , , y . . "No'" Cochrane asked. I just wondered, Dave; Don't let it agitate agi-tate you, laddie." But the question had rocked me. The wonder it had started did not subside and I heard, with odd indifference, in-difference, the clump of feet as Shannon and his aid came along the hall. Miss Agatha's head went n -I could see by Allegra's stiff face how tightly she held herself and even Cochrane forgot to look '"The thrust of Shannon's jaw. the little narrowed eyes that darted at each of us were ominous. He carried car-ried the knife no longer gingerly, even a little scornfully. No one dared to pry into his silence, until Cochrane drawled: , -All right. I'll ask it. What did ' you tlnd. Captain?" Nothing." said Shannon in a v,;cak voice. 1 heard Allegra let go |