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Show Tlhe Mystery Hartley Houase By CLIFFORD S. RAYMOND .g I"trated by IRVIN MYERS Copyright by George H. Doren Co. l Mrs. Aldrich brought me a light breakfast, and one of the "ardeners came to say that the dogs had been found In the woods. They had been fed drugged meat and were sick and even now barely able to stand. I was preparing to go to Mr. Sidney's Sid-ney's room when the telephone rang again. It was a call from the village of Horwieh. forty miles east, a place of some repute, or ill repute, for the number and character of its drinking places and roadhouses. The man calling me said he was the. constable of the township of Ilorwieh and asked If he were talking to a person per-son of responsibility. I assured him he was. Then he told me that an automobile auto-mobile accident had occurred two miles out of Horwieh and that the only identifying marks suggested Hartley house as a place to make Inquiries, lie asked if I could come to Horwieh. I endeavored to question him over the telephone, hut he said there was little information he could give, a diary. Do you know where Jed kept It?" "No, doctor," said Mrs. Sidney. "If there had been any chance of finding It we should have taken It away from him. In his absence we have searched his room frequently." "These people are after the manuscript, manu-script, and they are satisfied that they have it." I Raid. "I am sure of that. There was a small pearl-inlaid box, open and emply, In the middle of the floor." "We never found such a box," said Mrs. Sidney. "Then it might have been there?" "It might." "If it was, they have It and we must get it back." "Oh, If we can, we must!" she cried, holding her hands so tightly clasped that the delicate bones made a crackling crack-ling noise. I tried to be encouraging and consoling consol-ing and, as a practical measure, gave her a bromide. CHAPTER X. nartley house had a general office where the business of the estate was handled. It was to one side of the main entrance. I had promised to be. an extraordinary extraordin-ary person In meeting extraordinary circumstances, but all I did was to go to the oflice and, lighting the lights, sit there. I was in the extreme dejection of a weakling when the door opened and Isobel came in. "What are you doing, up?" I asked. "I'll ask the same thing of you. What are you and the whole household doing, awake and moving?" I told her that housebreakers had been surprised at work and had escaped. es-caped. "If you have been disturbed," I suggested, sug-gested, "probably your father has, also. You had better go to his room and tell him that the servants have been flustered flus-tered by a burglar scare, and then you had better go to your mother's room and stay with her until things quiet down." That seemed sound enough advice, but when Isobel had gone I was left eavesdropper get what I came to get in direct conversation. I had my bottle of beer, and the bartender bar-tender '.vent back to the group, dominated domi-nated by the squat, talkative fellow. He was not the comic type of constable. con-stable. He showed Intelligence and decision, but evidently he was fond of a story when he had It to tell. He was saying: "I was up late because there was a bad set at the Half Day, and Bill Dailey thought he might have trouble with them before he got them on their way. About one o'clock they had a quarrel, without anything but talk, divided into two sets and went away In two cars toward the city. Bill and I split a bottle of beer, and Bill said he'd be going himself. It was nearly one-thirty then, and I thought I'd wait up for Number Eleven at two o'clock and see if anyone got off. "Bill gave me the keys and told me to shut the place up. I had another bottle of beer and was playing solitaire soli-taire on the bar when Number Eleven stopped. "I went to the front door of the bar and looked over toward the station. A man had got off, and he was headed toward the Half Day, which was the only place showing a light. I waited in the doorway, and when he came up, I saw he was a foreigner. He had gold rings In his ears. "He made as if he wanted to come in. He didn't speak enough English for me to make out what he was saying. say-ing. I let him In, and he went up to the bar, put down a quarter and pointed point-ed toward the whisky. I gave him the bottle, and he pointed to me and smiled. So I said I didn't mind If I did, and we had a drink together. I thought I'd like to know what this fellow fel-low wanted In town, so I didn't suggest sug-gest it was closing time. "Then I was surprised to hear a car coming along. The other fellow seemed to be expecting it We both went to the door. The car stopped at the door, and a man helped a woman out He was a little old shriveled fellow. She was young and pretty. "The old fellow said something to my foreigner, and he threw his arms CHAPTER IX Continued. 11 By this time I had my senses fully recovered. I ran to the nearest window win-dow and wag Just In time to see two figures, one in white, the other Indistinct, Indis-tinct, at the far edge of the lawn, running. run-ning. They ran into the woods, and while I stood at the window, trying with painful consciousness of stupidity and Ineptitude to decide upon a course of action, I heard an automobile engine en-gine start In the lane beyond the woods. Out of a stupor, In which I watched the two strange figures go from the moonlight on the lawn Into the dark of the oak grove, I was aroused pos-Hlbly pos-Hlbly by the sound of the engine of the automobile with a course of actiou auggested. It came of fears long entertained, now present with a threat of Imminent consequence. I ran for the stairs, flushing the light, up the stairs and to Jed's room. His door was open. As I have said, this wing was not wired for electricity. I turned my light about the room, saw that the fear which had caused me to patrol the house was realized and ihen hunled for the lamp, which I found and lighted. Jed's room was In the disorder In which a hard-working housebreaker, Intent on finding Jewels he knew the room contained, might have left It. It seemed almost ripped to pieces. On a table was a small pearl-Inlaid ebony box. The lid was open ; the box was empty. As I stood In the midst of the disarray dis-array of the room, with the empty box the most, significant thing in it, the marvelous unreality of Hartley house, a smiling dread, seemed to have visible token. The empty box, I thought, had contained con-tained the manuscript which recorded Mr. Sidney's secret. The flash of white which I had seen In the hall Indicated the method by which It had disappeared. disap-peared. The two figures crossing the lawn In the moonlight were further Indication. There was the sound of the automobile engine. I had a sore spot on my head. The manuscript, I knew or believed had been In the box which stood with significant emptiness emp-tiness in the midst of the disordered room of Jed, who had been kidnaped. If my surmises were correct, Mr. Sidney's Sid-ney's secret, upon which I knew the happiness of the family depended, was in the hands of men designing to make use of It. Jed, being a major-domo about the place, had In his room a telephone connecting con-necting with the various servants' quarters. I used it to arouse the chauffeur. chauf-feur. It took Ave minutes of ringing his bell to awaken him ; when he responded, re-sponded, I told him that the house had been robbed by a man and a woman dressed In white, who had escaped, under my sight, through the oak grove and had used an automobile waiting for them on the road beyond the grove. I told him to awaken one of the gardeners, gar-deners, take weapons and go as quickly quick-ly as possible south by the best roads. When this had been done, I called Mrs. Sidney's maid and told her to awaken Mrs. Sidney and tell her, if in the air, wriggled all over, laughed and fell on the old fellow and kissed him. The old boy struggled and kicked, but the foreigner just picked him right up and kissed him on both cheeks. "That old boy was mad when he got loose. 'This is unthinkable,' he said. 'It is beyond expression. You human pig I Dog of a man slobbering beast 1' Then he stopped speaking English and said a lot of things the foreigner understood, un-derstood, but it didn't make him mad. His eyes just sparkled. He put a dollar dol-lar on the bar and pointed to the whisky again. " 'Bring our drinks over here,' said the old boy, pointing to one of the tables in a far corner of the room. "They sat down, and the two men talked. The girl didn't seem to have the language. The foreigner was excited. ex-cited. The old boy kept wiping his eyeglasses. He wasn't showing as much nervousness as the foreigner, but he was pleased over something. "I kept behind the bar, as near their table as I could, and pretended to play solitaire and wait for their orders, or-ders, watching them as much as possible pos-sible and trying to make out what they were talking about. Pretty soon they wanted another round of drinks. When I served them the old boy wanted want-ed to know if he could telephone to the city. He paid me the toll, and I showed him the telephone booth and heard him give his number. It was River 4600. "When he got his party, he said : 'Is that you, Sim? Everything Is all right. Yes, as expected. Let him go.' "That was all. He went back to the table. I noticed that he kept tight hold all the time on a leather case. When they got to talking again, the foreigner kept pointing toward the case and began to get more excited. As near as I could make out what was happening, as they kept on talking and motioning, it was the black leather case the foreigner wanted, and the other man wouldn't let him have It (TO BE CONTINUED.) II m wondering again what to do next. It was out of the question to notify the authorities. The thieves had- stolen something which, from what I knew of It. I preferred to have In their hands rather than in the possession of the police. Our detective agency I could trust, but I did not want to communicate with anyone but McGuire, the superintendent, superin-tendent, and there was no need of telephoning tele-phoning him until later In the morning. morn-ing. The case, as I thought It over, came to this : The Spaniard and the attorney, attor-ney, by the aid of a confederate, a woman, had obtained possession of the diary containing the secret of Hartley house. They would soon be heard from. They would not disappear. We did not have to pursue them. They would pursue us. There was the possibility of dealing with them by force extra-legally. Anything Any-thing we did for our protection had to be done extra-legally. I thought McGuire Mc-Guire could and would attend to that, and I intended to instruct him to consider, con-sider, murder the only process not to bo thought of. I tried to reconcile my ideas of Mr. Sidney's character with the facts of the family's terrible dilemma. What ' could a man of so just and honorable, kindly and charming a nature as revealed re-vealed in his old age have done, even in a liot and passionate youth, which he could not face now? What crime could he have committed which not only constituted a danger to his security secur-ity but remained a source ot satisfaction satisfac-tion to him? For two hours I saCnf the telephone, expecting momentarily to hear from the chauffeur who had gone in pursuit of the thieves. It was about four o'clock in the morning there was a pale suggestion of light in the windows when Mrs. Aldrich, the housekeeper, came to the office. She was an imperturbable imper-turbable lady of disciplinary habit and ordinarily unruffled dignity, but now she was disturbed. "Doctor," she said, "Agnes, the new maid, cannot be' found. She is not in her room. Her bed has not been touched. Most of her belongings and her suitcase are gone. I came to you with this probably unimportant domestic do-mestic incident, thinking that well, the occurrence of the night might have some connection with this girl." "I think Agnea probably was Involved In-volved in the matter." I said. "We. have always so dreaded to take a new servant," said Mrs. Aldrich. "but Agnes came recommended fur the month by a very faithful girl who wanted a month's leave. Has anything of great value been taken?" "Nothing of any intrinsic value whatever, Mrs. Aldrich. I imagine the robbers were alarmed before they found any jewels or plate." "That's a consolation, in any event," said the housekeeper; "but we never shall be able to take in a new servant again with any ease of mind." The chauffeur telephoned as Mrs. Aldrich went away. The chase in the night had beeu useless, as might be expected, and I told him to return home. I Had My Bottle of Beer. man and a woman in a car man past middle age, a young woman in white; the man was dead, the woman badly injured. "I'll be over as soon as possible," I said. "Please keep the effects all together." to-gether." There was no doubt In my mind that the quavering little rascal of a lawyer with his precise way and timid but controlling unscrupulousness had come to the end of his road and at the very moment when he had success suc-cess In his hand. There was no reason rea-son to doubt that the woman was the maid Agnes whom I had surprised at midnight stealing down the stairs from Jed's room with Mr. Sidney's diary. But if we were rid of the timorous, grasping little attorney, we were in worse difficulties. With the attorney and his Spanish client, we at least knew the manner of dealing. It was disconcerting I might almost be forgiven for-given the exaggeration of saying it was horrifying to consider that the diary was being handled by a constable, con-stable, a sheriff or a coroner or even by any idler or resort-keeper in the village of Harwich. If the automobile accident had disposed dis-posed of one ingenious enemy only to make a half-dozen equally unscrupulous unscrupu-lous ones, or to apprise (I was tempted to think this was worse) one incorruptible incor-ruptible officer of the condition of Hartley house in either event, we were the worse for the change in circumstance. cir-cumstance. One of the stablemen knew how to drive a car, and I asked him to bring out the automobile which I used when I went to town. The chauffeur, when tie returned, would have beeu up most of the night. I did not want to impose on biro. I might be gone most of the clay In a half-hour we were away toward Horwieh. I never had been over the road, which ran by old farms with stone fences and was little traveled trav-eled except by the people who lived along it. Originally the place had a respectable respect-able tavern. It was called the White Owl. It was still respectable, but oddly odd-ly euough, it was the success of the White Owi which had attracted the other places. I inquired for the constable and was told that I should likely find him at the White Owl, he being a frequenter of that place and now having a case which needed a great deal of drinking and talking over. I went to the White Owl and on entering en-tering the barroom, which really had an attractive rather than a disreputable disreputa-ble appearance, saw a group of men about a short, broad, square-shouldered fellow who was talking to the interest of half a dozen or more fellows. fel-lows. My entrance made no diversion, and judging, from what I had been told, that the squat, talkative fellow was the constable and that he was telling the story I wanted to know, I decided to remain unidentified, have a bottle of beer from the bartender, who came half-heartedly from the constable's con-stable's narration and thus as un "Oh, If We Can, We Must!" She Cried. possible without alarming her, that I wished to speak to her on an urgent matter. In a few m'.nu;s the maid came back and said that Mrs. Sidney could see me. I found her iu the sitting room of her suite. "It is nothing serious, Mrs. Sidney," I said "nothing that we need now regard re-gard as serious; and it does not concern con-cern Mr. Sidney's health. There has been an intruder In the house. Moreover, More-over, the purpose was to oreak into Jed's room, and Jed's room has been broken Into. I got a glimpse of the person who did It, a woman. I saw a man and a woman run into the oak grove and I heard an automobile engine en-gine start on the road. I have sent a chauffeur and a gp .-doner In chase, but they are tnivelp.g against so great a start that ' h9ve no hope. What I fwn- W !li"T ;ney have Mr. Sidney's |