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Show y,- ..I?- D3 LeMOf'e 9,etm w,u.v,. Isli&LlM t'HAI'TKll XI vUlt Mn. rcahody. Mm. Prabody told Uvea and frlpnda ol Mra. Pealmdy, they FBI IT0B1 THIS "Alt: lli'turnlng thiin aliuut the death of Adeline Tlllait. decided that mont evidence, pointed to Iroin a vlalt with Dyke MrKinnun, hla They derided tu atay and get married and (illliert, Mra. Peahody'a hutliand, aa the tnrle, Toild MrKionon, Ceorglne H i rth lnventi;ate the death of Mlaa Tlllait. murderer of Miaa Tlllait. Jndga Tlllait and Malil daughter, llarhy, atopped to After talking 1 1 h many different rela- called to aee them. CHAPTER XI Horace leaned far over the table. "Look," he said quietly, "suppose, Nell, you tell the assembled company com-pany just what was in that diary that made Gilbert bury the thing." Nella Lace Peabody let them wait for a moment. Two fingers went to the V of her dress, where the silver disk was hidden. Then ihe raised her head with an answering an-swering smile, the pink flags flying In her cheeks. "Why Gilbert should have wanted want-ed to burn it is as much of a mystery mys-tery to me as it is to you," she said smoothly. "He was very strong for the honor of the family, of course, Just as you and your grandfather are. He may have felt that I'd been indiscreet to put down even Innocent little notes in black and white, where someone else could possibly have got hold of them." Horace remarked softly, "Didn't you put down any of your hopes and dreams, in your little line-a-day?" "Plenty of them." She turned to him, and now the glint of something some-thing like deep triumph was clearly clear-ly visible in her eyes. "I wasn't always al-ways as patient as I should have been. 1 used to wish and wish that the time would come when Gilbert and I could be married and have our own home; but I usually got over it. After all, there was always your example before me." "My-" "Waiting so patiently for that Mrs. Hurst down in Vallejo. I do o sympathize with you, Horace. It may be years before her children are near enough grown up so that Bhe'll feel it's right to get her divorce." di-vorce." Something besides the sunset light made Horace's neck and ears glow crimson. Half laughing, he said, "Beats me how you got hold of a story like that, Nell. Mean to say you put that in the diary ?" "I'm afraid so. Was it horribly Indiscreet of me? But then, everyone every-one in town has known about that for at least five years, dear. Things do get around so, and naturally people would wonder why you went jerk your head that way. I seen you pick up that piece of candy, and you and Johnny Crane put your heads together over it." Nella looked round the table In swift bewilderment. Then she seemed to grasp the Implication, and a queer light grew in her eyes. "No, Susie, Gilbert hadn't been in my kitchen for a month. Could I ask, did you find any box or paper, or anything of the kind, In which he could have brought her candy that morning? I don't believe he did." "Didn't And a thing," said Susie with a snap of her jaws. "Except you count that old cardboard box, hardly bigger'n a pillbox it was, in the wastebasket. Cheap cardboard, too. Had sealin' wax on it once." From the gathering shadows Todd spoke, with an oddly startling start-ling effect. "Was there any indication indica-tion of what had been in the box?" "Wisp or two of cotton battin', that's all." The last of the light played across that candid-seeming brow of hers, across the angle of Nella's cheek; it glinted on Horace's spectacles. spec-tacles. There was nothing, nothing you could put your finger on : only four women and two men, sitting quietly around the disorder of a dinner table, speaking in low, passionless pas-sionless voices, smiling often; yet Georgine Wyeth felt suddenly almost al-most suffocated. Murmuring something about Barby's bedtime, she got up and made her escape, calling for her daughter in a firm maternld tone. Todd waited in the upper hall until Barby had been shooed into the bathroom and the splashing had begun. When Georgine rejoined re-joined him, "It's beautiful," he said, "to see her fetching out those motives, after she's been goaded to It. You notice how she wouldn't tell us about the Cousins until she could do it to their faces ? They had every chance to deny those stories but they knew it was no use." He had the mouth organ in his hand, gently hitting it. "I've got to get to work tomorrow. There's something alluring about the lady in Vallejo, rat-poises, that mean somebody's walkung around up there, and the tapping 1 heard those; but I didn't hear anyone on the stairs." "So," Todd said thoughtfully. "I wish I weren't such a good sleeper, or that I'd had the sense to stay awake deliberately." She remembered, long afterward, after-ward, her vicarious pleasure at the sight of Nella's radiant face over the breakfaat table. Early as it was, the mail had come, and at last there were letters from Gilbert Peabody, four of them in a bunch. "He's well," Nella whispered to herself, "or at least he doesn't say he's not." Horace and Mary Helen, again unexpectedly at table, smiled at her with what seemed simple pleasure. "And an answer to mine about the furniture," Nella said, becoming becom-ing businesslike. "He says to sell it, just as I hoped." Todd disappeared and Horace went off to work, but Mary Helen loitered leisurely. "I'm taking a few days of my vacation now," she volunteered with an agreeable smile. "Why not, after all?" Recalled from thought, Georgine gave young Mrs. Crane a startled look. Why not, indeed? Except that late March was a curious time for an unscheduled holiday. Todd came downstairs and started outdoors with a portable typewriter which he had managed to borrow somewhere. He was headed for the old summer-house, i Georgine followed him, hesitating over how to begin her speech. "Something's bothering you," he said, turning to face her. "What is it, the clothes?" "I I hate to think of postponing postpon-ing our wedding, Todd dear, but my dress is in that box. She flushed a trifle, meeting his eyes. "Informal "Inform-al or not, I want this to be something some-thing we can both remember as being well, dignified and lovely. If the box doesn't get here, all I've got is year-before-last's silk jersey that I've been wearing for five days straight already. It just isn't suitable. And I'd like you to be UrNk it V w 11 3fceam i air 1 1 a 'A.St. I BJBM 1 p tF i aa I H Slat" I aaaSt ' ' M jf .LfWsLaaaw aaaaan ' Jar wmj g aLMBaaarV k. aaaaav 1 ' (M VsaljwSk naaaaa?- laaaaaaaEaaaaVx! down there two or three times a week. We've rather admired your faithfulness; but then you always were good at waiting until things broke just right for you." Nella's voice was all loving kindness. "As long as you're sure of getting them in the end, you can wait almost forever, Isn't that so? I used to remember that, and tell myself to be patient. But you know, it's more than likely that I shouldn't have put that down in pen and ink. Gilbert Gil-bert may have felt that I shouldn't. He might have wanted to protect his family." The air in the dining room felt sultry, as if a thunderstorm were threatening; yet the evening was a fairly cool one. Georgine felt the skin of her hands tingling uncomfortably. uncom-fortably. "How far did the diary go?" said Mary Helen, her curiosity not yet sated. "Oh right up to the day your aunt died, I believe. Yes, it must have done," said Nella dreamily, "because I can remember writing in it while supper was cooking that night, before I knew that she was sinking. Just a few words about the Jessup girl's trousseau, and how I'd seen Gilbert that noon " There was a little stir at the back door, but the cousins ignored It. Both of them looked at Nella with peculiar intensity. "You mean after he'd been in to see Aunt Adeline Ade-line that morning?" Mary Helen said gently. "Did you happen to note--what his manner was?" "Why, I don't believe I did, so It must have been the same as usual. He just said he'd been on an errand er-rand to the safety deposit, and brought his aunt something she wanted." The cousins looked at each other swiftly, again with that effect of complicity. "Something she wanted," want-ed," Horace said, and smiled and shook his head. "What're you all talkin' about?" said Susie Labare from the kitchen door. "I come over to bring you a pie, Nell, but I declare you was all talkin' so fast you didn't hear a thing out there." "Susie, how good of you. Would anyone have a piece of pie right now?" "No, great God, Nell; we're all stuffed to the gills. How long have you been out there, Susie?" Horace Hor-ace sounded more nearly irritable than he had at any former time. "Few minutes. Talkin' about the morning Gilbert come to see old Miss Tillsit, wasn't you?" Susie joined the party with aplomb. "I must say, Nell Lace, it's a comfort to be able to talk free in front of you many's the time I've nearly bit my tongue out tryin' not to mention something I thought 'ud hurt your feelings. Now, here's something I've wondered about, many's the time. Was Gilbert ever hangln' round your kitchen when you made tny of that almond paste of yours? Lordy, Horace, needn't prouu oi me. His agate eyes were attentive. "We'll skip the remarks about 'I should be proud no matter what you wore.' Let's figure this. If we wait for the dress, it means a one-day one-day postponement at most. Right? And if we go home to Berkeley for yet another dress, which is one mor alternative, we take out a fresh license and wait three days more." "Yes," she said hesitantly, all at once perceiving the dilemma. Another night deliberately spent in this house, as against the disappointing dis-appointing wait, the formalities all to be gone through again. "If I'm to choose," Todd said, "I'll take the lesser evil. Is it tomorrow, to-morrow, then, instead of today?" "You know," said Georgine irrelevantly, ir-relevantly, "part of why I love you is the way you understand feminine femin-ine reasons for things." His eyes glinted with sudden laughter. "That'll do until something some-thing better turns up." She would have to spend another night in the Tillsit house. Georgine went out to the summer-house and found her intended in the midst of sheets of yellow paper. He was grinning as he beat out half a dozen lines and ripped the paper from the typewriter. Todd's eyes went to the house, and dwelt considerably on its fantastic fan-tastic rear. "A painless death. D'you know, I've thought a good deal about the poison that was used. It's easy to see why luminal was chosen, not only because no one hated the old lady, but cause presumably the whol lot had access to it." "Look at 'em. Horace in the drugstore, Mary Helen acting as the doctor's secretary and renewing renew-ing the supplies in his bag, the doctor himself, Susie Labare caring car-ing for a number of patients who might have had it prescribed if she'd wanted a stock of luminal she might easily have held out on those patients a few times, given 'em a sugar pill instead. The Judge might have had it himself, at some time. Both Gilbert and Nella had been near Serena during her illness. ill-ness. It was rather clever," said Todd pensively, "to pick out one that gave lots of latitude, when it would have been so easy to turn suspicion toward just one person and that would have ben so much more dangerous." 'How do you i.iean?" "Look at the possible poisons, look at the choice this murderer had. Strychnine for pests and arsenic ar-senic sprays In constant use on a ranch, cyanide In a photographer's studio, the whole pharmacopoeia In the drugstore and the doctor's bag. It's almost an embarrassment Of poisons. You could look around and choose, slowly and carefully rather like that charming gal In the Browning poem, how does It go?" (TO BB CONTINUED) Nell, you're a damn fool woman, wom-an, and always were!" marking time until "Hush, Todd!" Georgine looked round swiftly at the closed doors. "Georgine," Todd said, with his Intent look, "do you want to go home, right now?" She glanced at his still face. Tomorrowwhy, To-morrowwhy, tomorrow would be their wedding day. When you got this near, a postponement even of three days more seemed like an eternity. Two things in which he can be entirely adequate, she thought. "Don't let me fly off into hysteria," hys-teria," she said, and smiled at him. "Of course we'll wait over. After all, the box with my clothes should arrive in the morning. I don't want to pass it on the way!" Todd took hold of her arms and shook it gently in affection. Todd met her in the hall as she was trying to slip down early to breakfast; she thought that coffee might restore her and cure her headache before anyone noted the dark circles under her eyes. She had not slept. He clicked his tongue. "You didn't sleep after all; disobeying my express orders!" "Orders, indeed. We're not married mar-ried yet, my good man." "Did you hear something after all?" His eyes were narrow. "You might call It that. Todd " She drew him to the landing, where she could look both up and down for a possible listener. "We may have been wrong about anybody's going up attic by night. The the |