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Show Dy C11AIJLE0 J. BUTTON IluslraHona by Irwin IMycra i! 1 1 j; e lotnrluM l.f liy rSHd hA.,l.t Co., : . .. .. .. CHArMCH VII Continued. "It looks," 1 coiuu.cnled, "as If whoever who-ever committed the crime did not pas-s through the living mum." l'anley gave me a disgusted looU. "Cr else. I'elt, the dug knew hlm. The only way to reach the room where Shke slept was up those stairs, and to reach the uta'.ra he bad to pans through the living room. Kemeiuber this, too, Lawrence said that Slyke was not going to bed. but evpected another visitor. The butler says the dn? was In the room ul!h him when he let Lawrence out. Suppose the other visitor came. If Slyke himself admitted lit in. the do; would have probably barked at laast omv that Is, unless he knew Mm." "Then It might have been someone In the bouse," I suggested. llartley assented, and we discussed the various persons In the household, first, we both agreed that (he khot .'V ;;.-; -v Bartley Then Analyzed ths S. star-In-I Law. the boy bad heard was the one that had killed Siyke. and that the time must have been between half-past one a::d tw-o o'eliK'k. If that wor fo. then, when the girl came In about throe o'ebvk. S'.yke was already dead, l'-artley was sure that It took at least I thirty minutes to undress Slyke and I get him down from the balcony to his room. If the shot that the boy heard was fired before two o'clock, then the girl won 1 not be su-pooted. for she had not returned until three. We eliminated her. IVartley then analysed the sister-in-law. He said he felt sure she was hiding something, for she had not been frank In telling what she knew, and seemKl anxious to get hliu out of the linn". Whether what she was withholding concerned Slyke's death or not be could not tell ; but whatever what-ever It was. he was determined to discover It. "I'o you remember, I'elt," be asked, "that Currie told us she runs a oulja board? There Is nothing startling In that; thousands are doing the same thing. Since the war all forms of Fplritu.tliMti have made hundreds cf converts. When she met King at the door this morning, she told biiu that the board bad spelled 'trouble' the night liefore." I stared at him In astonishment, lie seemed to be regarding a ouija board seriously. He saw my look r.ud chuckled. "fli. I'm not Interested In the ouija board Itself; what I am Interested In Is that word trouble' that It spelled out for her." This was more astonishing still, and I nslced, "Why, you haven't any faith In those things, have you?" Again lie chuckled, then became serious. se-rious. "Sure I have, but not In the way you think. The messages people think cor.ie from another world, come from the subconscious minds of the persons who are fooling with the board. They do not reali.e that they themselves are subconsciously directing direct-ing Its movements and spelling out their own messages. Now, that board wrote for Miss Potter, 'Trouble Is coming," not once but many times. Whut I want to know ia this: What was the something that, deep In her mind, told her that trouble was coming? com-ing? What was the cause of her fear?" lie lighted another cigar before he continued: "There Is still another thing that shows she knew some danger dan-ger was threatening. You remember she also told us that she had dreamed that Slyke hnd been killed." I knew what he was driving nt now. Freud, whose theory of psycho-analysis was well known to Hartley, had worked out the Interpretations of dreams. The theory or psycho-analysis Is that In our sleep the subconscious subcon-scious mind has full play; our repressions re-pressions come to the surface and express themselves In dreams The psycho-analyst Is thus often aole to tiplore the secret places of our minds through hem and tell the enu.so of our trouble. "Shakespeare was right when he said, 'We are such MulT as dreams are imole of," Hartley added In a 1111I.I cal lone as ho paused to relight bis cigar. "Mis- Totter dreamed more than once that Slyke had been killed. We are told a dream Is a suppressed wlt.li, and that In our dreams our wli.het are often hidden by symbols This woman probably did not wish Slyke actually dead. She bad no quarrel Willi hlm as far as I know. What sho did wish was entirely dllTer-etit. dllTer-etit. She wished that be might be away to that be would be o.it of some trouble, and her suppressed wish caused her to dream that he was dead. That's the reason why I bi-lleve bi-lleve that bhe knows more than she will tell." "What can It be?" I asked. "I don't know, but It Is something that was causing a great deal of trouble to Slyke, perhaps to ull of them. It might even be Hnuiethlng that will bring dishonor. Anyway, It was tut serious that, sleeping or waking. wak-ing. It was on her mind. I wish she would talk; we need all the light we can get." "Hut that does not actually prove that she knows anything about his death," I suggested. Hartley turned quickly and glanced at me to fee If I were serious. Seeing that I was. he explained: "I don't say that It does. The ouija board performances an.l the dreams were before bis death, not after t. Of course, the fact that the dog did not bark throws suspicion on everyone that was In the house nt the time." He was Fib r.t for a while, glancing thoughtfully out of the window, and then resumed his story. After I left hlm. he had locked hlm self lu the tower for over an hour and gone over the two rooms and the balcony bal-cony almost Inch by Inch. The only thing that bad escaped us In our tlrst search, he said, was a small stopper, the end covered with red wax. He was not sure whether the Hilling of the stopper meant anything or not. His second examination bad made him more positive than ever that Slyke bad been murdered, and that tl.e murderer wished his death lo appear ap-pear to be suicide. It would be almost Impossible to make a Jury believe that It was murder mur-der on the slight evidence that we bad. and I said as much to Hartley. He agreed with me. and admitted he would not be surprised If King, as coroner, brought In a verdict of suicide. sui-cide. I pondered on this a while; then a thought struck n.e. "Suppose, after all, be did kill himself, him-self, Hartley. You base your theory of murder on the position of the bedclothes bed-clothes uud tl.e way the gun was held. Suppose he did kill himself, and some other person, not the murderer, came Into the room and pulled the bedclothes bed-clothes up around his neck." He shook his head In denial. "We would still have, I'elt." he said with a rattier surcastlc smile, "the other questions to be answered. First, we would ask how the blood-stains got on the balcony of the tower. We would also want to know why the band did not grasp the (run as tightly as It should. Then we would demand to know why there was 110 blood on the pillow where his head rested. It won't do. There Is no doubt of It. Ho was killed." I Interrupted to nsk If, as Miss Hot-ter Hot-ter admitted, she had closed his eyes, why she might not have been also the one who pulled the bedclothes up around his neck. Hartley replied. "It Is true that she did close his eyes, but she Insists she touched nothing else." "I'.ut," I broke In, "vvhnt was her real reason for doing It?" "She said, you remember, tbr.t the eyes frightened I -or. Ix-t n nervous woman come suddenly upon 11 dead boily and It Is very possible that the eyes staring at her might so frighten her that she would close them. lleY cenfes-sti n cleared up a point that bothered me. The accounting for the eyes being elo-ed does not prove that he eommlf:ed suicide, however. There Is little enough evidence one way or another, hut what there is points to murder and to nothing else." "There Is another thing," I said. "Why was tl.e revolver taken from hlm while we were upstairs? It seems a very foolish thing to have done. Who did It? Was it the butler or Miss Hotter?" Hoth the butler and Miss Totter had been out of the tower room. Hartley Hart-ley reminded me. for some time before be-fore we suspected Slyke's death was murder and not suicide. As to who bad taken the revolver, It was Impossible Impos-sible to say as yet. If we believed that the butler hail seen Hrifl'.mr on the stairs while we were on the balcony, bal-cony, then he might be the one. The finding of the gun In the vault and nis appearance almost Immediately artervvard seemed to point to hlm. Whoever had done It had been very foolish. The next matter thnt he spoke about did not seem to have any relation rela-tion with what had preceded It- It J was the robbery of the year before, lie had learned from the Mcp-daugth lor It ut ! that the bad not positively Ideiitllled Ihe men now In Jail, but had thought that one of the men vvns similar In height and build to one of Ihe men she had seen In the room. The room had been loo dark for her to see very clearly. Nor was that all that (die had told him which had disagreed disa-greed Willi the accounts of the burglary bur-glary that I!o;'elS bad given us. Ill) hud said that M10 bad aroused Slyke. and told him thai burglars were downstairs; down-stairs; while In her story to Hartley she Mated that, after she heard llm noise In tin' living room, she went to the door of Slyke's room to call hlm. but found It empty. When she saw hlm be was standing on the lower slop of the stairs leading to the living room. There bad evidently boon u snuggle, and a gun went o.T Jo--t bo-fore bo-fore siiu reached hlm. It was she who had culled the police, and Sly lie had opposed her doing so "as nothing had been taken." "You see bow It looks. I'elt," bo said with a grin. "Sly lie did not want the police In at all. lie did not wish any action t.iken. either then or later, lie was nearer the men than anyone else, yet he swore he could not Identify them. That makes ma believe that lie knew who they were and did not want the matter looked Into." "lld the pill tell you who found that piciv of new spapt-r?" I asked. "She said It was the chauffeur who bad called their attention to It. The police ch not seem to have made any search that night, or In fact until noon the next day. Then, with the help of the chauffeur and the butler, they searched the living room, and the chauffeur directed their attention to a piece of pnp-r lying on the floor, half under a rug. (if course, you sa what that leads to. For hours that room had been unguarded, and any one who wishisl could have gone In there. Fven the piece of cloth was not found for several days, strangely enough; nor did the police find the footprints under the window until thtis' days later, although they claimed they had searched the spot before." I broke In with, "That looks. In ether words, as If " "As If some one wlsfn-d to send those men to Jail," he finished for me. He sighed, cave a little laugh, and remarked: "There are at least three things I would like to know. First, ! was the robbery a plant?" j "A plant?" I asked. looMng at hlm In wonder. "Yes ! There may have been no robbery at all." " hat do you mean by that?" He threw out his hands. "I don't quite know myself, but let that pass. There Is another thing thnt puzzles me, and that Is the chauffeur. I can tell by the way Miss Hotter acted when we mentioned his name that she does not like 1dm. He It was win took from the library the book with the account of the Fngllsh crime In It. lie bad words with Slyke the day before the murder, and was missing when we wanted to question Mm. A few minutes after he was seen nenr the tower room the revolver was miss- "Perhaps the Girl Killed Him." Ing. I believe he Is well worth watching. watch-ing. And lastly, what was tlio motive for Slyke's murder?" A wild thought struck me. I know nt the time how absurd It was, yet a desire to hear what Hartley would reply made me voice It. "Herhaps the girl killed him." Hartley gnve me a surprised loolc, started to speak, then decided to wait and hear what I had to say. tTO HB COXTINl'KP.) |