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Show . fcj4 ISABEL MTTsMm ' TV (N bid at the auction. "Prepare for some lively bidding," he'd said that night at supper. Would he mail me cash and then bid. too? Not likely Not unless could he be that subtle? sub-tle? Could he have chosen this meth-od, meth-od, for reasons of his own, and be hiding around the Head? In which case he'd blown up the bridge and killed Brown. The fire might have been an accident, but the hand I'd seen in the sea chest wasn't. There's something about a dead hand-Ugh! I could feel little chills creeping up and down my spine. Any minute I expected to hear a voice demand back its $500. I ran Into the hall, and, as the old stairs creaked behind me, I paced down, nearly losing my balance, and screaming as I went. The whole piazza rose in a mass and came running to meet me. "Judy!" Aunt Nella cried. "What's the matter, Judy?" Hugh met me at the stairs and caught me to him. "Are you all right?" "Sure she's all right." Bessie got between her brother and me. "I I'm nervous, I guess." I faltered, fal-tered, sitting down on the stairs. "It's nothing, really. Go go on with your seance." "See anyone upstairs?" Lily wanted want-ed to know. "Of course not." Goodness, I mustn't give way like that "I don't know why I screamed. Got to thinking think-ing of of what I saw in the chest." "We're all pretty much keyed up," Auntie said. "Judy, you come out to the kitchen and help me start the chowder." But I wouldn't I signaled to Victor Vic-tor Quade, and when he came over to my side I whispered: "Just you. Come." I went on into my little office, and he scattered the rest. Didn't Victor stopped me with a gesture. iAW- We want to get going with the rest of the crew. We can Investigate the minister and his pris-on pris-on record later. Think you could remember re-member most of that letter? Where was it postmarked? Notice the date?" Three questions. The postmark had been Boston. The date was blurred, but I'd found it in the letterbox let-terbox the day before the auction, which was, as he knew, July 3. "Good heavens! Was it only yester-day?" yester-day?" Victor nodded, prompting: "So the letter came in the regular mail, July 2? Who has come to the inn since then?" "Nobody but you." I said. "Roddy came at suppertime that night." "H-m-m-m," Victor considered, his strong white hands patting noisily noisi-ly together. "Quite a coincidence. You get the wherewithal to buy the church from an unknown. Roddy Lane arrives. There's rumor he's hidden bank funds somewhere on the Head. Lane disappears, though bis car is still here. An old recluse is burned to death, who may have discovered Lane's secret horde, or seen him uncovering it" "But-but you're forgetting the diamond ring!" I cried. "Roddy'd never leave that Mr. Quincy noticed no-ticed it that night and said it was a very valuable stone, remember?" "Judy, before you do anything else, jot down the letter. I'll go along out now. You might tear out the page of signatures in your inn register. Copy that, couldn't you? Maybe the writing of one of them would give you a clue." I began to shake. "You think one of our guests did it a double murder?" I I to ! Judjr. ,,,0B, fci aa"o.a- ehorch Za day- The body of i UuoitJ Une I. found Siucinent ol the church, to f. W later. Victor 3 , Norcros.' goU Cub ) i lis I" burn ,ppar" , i bus named Brown. .., i found near the rj boveri around Uncle jl i y tells of his only meet-f meet-f 'w. Brown. Wylii I. jjji , Vtt Judy's story. z be had permission to i!! hack long as he s liked. J in who from. None of jj Old shed ain't been t ootleggin' days, when wnded up a cache of U lie. That ain't got noth- 4 j, this. You only saw i; eiier once after that s I3 ;tt flshin' off the rocks. " friiny thing about that" i initiated. "Cloudy day t lover near the Pirate's L sfraid he might fall I! path, but it's mighty : J yelled at him, and by fcbe 'twas a coincidence i Id around and saw me. appeared. I tore after 8 Iwasn't in the Pirate's bed up the other side, Hyway, I saw his light ick." fcean that old man got lhack before you didT it?" Victor asked inly. in-ly. It was cloudy and r it suddenly does when !s thunder, but I could is the Pirate's Mouth, around in the waters r.ted to take a look at sowing about the auc-Nella auc-Nella Mrs. Gerry's I red after that location, rin if 'twould pay to Idiog into a bungalow do. Nella ain't so spry -" Bessie Norcross will see plenty," Vic-Jr. Vic-Jr. Gerry, you'll cer-them cer-them much to think ;k you for telling us .yslerious Mr. Brown, t short nor tall, wears , uses an earphone, but ei unexpectedly yelled ira nowhere just before to occur on the Head, apparently feeble, yet !ato and out of that Pi-io Pi-io rapidly that he'd y the time you reached igh you tore after him. ery ( interesting, don't r : Quincy?" I way I manage with- r." M a conniption over Wylie had said about fourth. It was ridicu-ose ridicu-ose he'd sent me the "Don't go lumping to conclusions like that. We've only one corpus delicti. There may be another in the sea. If ever we get into communication com-munication with the mainland, we may find out." "If we had some mush we'd have some mush and milk if we had some milk." "Exactly. Meanwhile, whether Lane killed Brown and swam the gut, or vice versa; or whether one of the inn crowd did them both in and is still with us, the fact remains re-mains your letter is probably connected con-nected with it The police will tear the church to pieces. Dig up the basement Blast the cliff. You get that letter down, and suppose" He checked himself, staring at me in a frowning way that made me wonder won-der where I'd failed until he said: "The rest of that money. Five hundred? Judy, he may want it back. That keep-the-change stuff might not go for so large a sum." (My very thought.) "Have you a safe here?" I laughed at the idea. "We're poor," I reminded him. "Taking boarders!" "WelL don't keep it on your person. per-son. Were they new bills? In sequence?" se-quence?" "In sequence? The numbers? I didn't think to look at them very closely. They weren't new. Old, I'd say. Not in order as you might get them from a bank." "They wouldn't be. Whoever sent them is far too clever. Put them back in your drawer. Might be a good idea to tell everybody about the letter you received, its loss, and that whoever took it would find the cash in the same place. I don't want you to go away by yourself after this. Keep with somebody you can trust all the time like your aunt or your uncle." It was then I confessed Aunt Nella was really no relative of mine, nor her husband, either. I could trust him, Victor said, and the way he glanced at me made me blush till I was afraid he'd see it I reached for the register to hide my confusion, and opened it at the blotter. blot-ter. "Mr. Quade, look! All the signatures signa-tures have been torn out!" We examined the torn ledger, hunting fruitlessly in the waste-basket ' Victor's eyes gleamed. "That's where he made a boner. Did did Lane register that night?" "No. I put his name down, though. See, back here. He was only a meal-er. meal-er. 'One supper 75 cents.' There it is." "And I suppose everybody's been in here to telephone." 'er and whispered into s ear: "Did you send uma?" 4e question, only sub-ord sub-ord money. He acted ,!fiing, and started fish-:liet, fish-:liet, and drew out some you want? Only got Pjself and ran into the Is high time I told Vic-I' Vic-I' letter. He could do f: make them all write and compare the pen-; pen-; -Mining. 1 ere a mess We,d business and clean n "art lunch, pretty e beds had been ler ta my hasty search ond ring, but that ,0vra room didn't even "'ring. I flung them EaP and ran to the bu- was gone! be;v e it. Maybe it P drawer, where I stuck f paPr lining. I tried I to top one again, flings helter-skrtt. "Told me he had permission to stay in that shack." they, all want a breathing space? Why not go in a body down to look at the Pirate's Mouth, and also at the golf club, to see if someone had borrowed Mr. Norcross'? Would they wait for him? Meet at the steps in ten minutes? They would. Unanimously. "Well, Miss Judy, what's bothering bother-ing you?" Victor sat down in the old morris chair where Uncle Wylie often retreated with his pipe when things got too warm for him in the kitchen. I closed the door. When I turned and saw Victor Quade's glowing eyes boring darkly into mine, I was struck again by his odd resemblance to Roddy Lane. If Lane had had a brother! But I knew better. And when he smiled at me, how different from the Lane leer. Such magnificent magnifi-cent teeth! I sighed faintly, thinking think-ing for a moment how handsome the man was. Then I plunged into the strange incident of the letter. "An anonymous letter, you say?" "It was merely signed 'A Friend. Inclosed were forty twenty-dollar bills." "May I see this epistle?" "Uh-huh. Even you when you found the wires were cut." He inquired then when I'd missed the letter, and I had to admit I'd only just discovered it wasn't there when I went up to get it to show to him. I hadn't looked at it since I hid it under the paper lining in my bureau drawer. Somebody wasn't taking any chances of having his or her signature signa-ture compared with the letter-writ-ing Maybe he was afraid of not disguising some peculiarity enough. Experts can tell every time. But now there's only the contents, as you remember them, to go by.' "Then bow did he make a boner?" "Just this: If Old Man Brown came in here he'd have been seen by one of the guests. Mr. Quincy to usually on the piazza. That KendaD woman is ubiquitous. No. Brown didn't get in. I doubt if Une did. gi, handwriting wasn't there you , But somebody's was. Somebody Some-body who was sparring for time till bTfound and destroyed the letter he'd sent you." (JO BE CONTINUED) ""oubt about it my hands and knees 71" the bureau. I " from the wall. No ijP I c I been to leave wen, anyway, I intents. But now IUed how sprawl- backhanded and ev- ir? , aWempt to wuld no longer tenly te be terribly Person who tried d, COnnection with Jh followed? Was .aaSf, murderer jd half a thousand i Ba7 Pssession? to present me her h JJe d never 1 feeing, nor pass old church? He b! ' he'd sald - Wa planning to I felt full of confusion. What an Idiot I'd been to leave it in a bureau bu-reau drawer the first place anyone would look. I had to admit I'd been a chump; that the letter was gone. Victor began to rock backward and forward in the gawky old chair, sitting up on the edge of it now, as if the swaying movement helped him think. He shook his head slowly and smiled at me: "You couldn't know, of course, but I'm afraid you did pull a boner." "But he said, 'Don't tell a soul.' Oh, I'm not excusing myself. I know It was stupid. The 'sentimental reasons' rea-sons' got me. And that's another thing before the auction, when we, the guests, I mean, were all discussing dis-cussing bidding in. the Rev. Jonas De Witt used those very words. "What words?" "Sentimental reasons.' He'd like, be said, to own the old Quaker church for sentimental reasons. "Used to hold services there, didn't he?" "Said so. Not since my time, though he had the Rockville con-grega-" -J |