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Show started as soon as she rot It, so sho could see me before I go South. I am her favorite slater's chUd. That letter we wrote convinced her that 1 am going to die. and the wanted to see me before It was too late." "Oh. I see." protested Btandlslu. - -I suppose." Mrs. Standish went on. "that I ought to feel grateful it required re-quired a great sactiflos on herfcart to get here. 8 he hadn't Intended" "Hadn't Intended?" interrupted Standish. Stan-dish. "Then what did she writs you that letter for?" "She didn't; Aunt Cella wrote It I had a letter from her today, too. She said that since I had not seen fit to reply re-ply she bad come to the conclusion that I didn't want to see her. so she bad changed her mind, and was not coming after alL" Sndlsh groaned In real anguish. Say. he Mid. "doea your Aunt Cella ' make hot bread and lire In a house with a fence around It?" "No." said Mrs. Standish; "and she never, had & felon, either." New York I ' ziYSTZST FTAaxim SOLVED BY DEDUCTION. "We no sooner get one mystery cJ eared up in this family," sail Mrs. 8 tan dish, ''than along; comes another" "What has happened cowT" masked Standish - , - "A letter. It is the strangest letter you ever read. It says: " Dear Elizabeth: X am writing this in a great hurry. I have good news for you. I want to teU you that at last we And ourselves in a position where we can accept your Invitation to pay you a visit. We have been trying to come ever sine you married and settled set-tled In New York, but somehow we could never manage It.- Now, however, we are so situated, that we can set away for three or four weeks. You have repeatedly urged us to soma, you know,- at any time. You said you could always make room for us. so oa the strength of that standing: invitation I am glad to tell you that we wiU be in New York not later than the 20th. I will let you know In a day or so the exact ex-act date of our arrival. I hope you and WIU lam are both well." Mrs. Standish stopped and fixed upon her husband an expressive flare. "Now", she presently added, "what do you think of thatT" "I think." said Standish. decisively, "that you had better write and head them off.,w "Ah." said Mrs. Standish, "that is' Just what I would like to do. but I can't I don't know who to bead off. I don't know who wrote the letter." "You don't know who wrote It?" echoed 8tandlah. "Isn't It signed V "No. it Isn't. She said in the beginning begin-ning that she was writing In a hurry, and I guess she was. At any rate, by the time she got through she was so rushed that she didn't have time to sign her name." "But you must be able to Identify her in some way." Standish insisted. "Where Is- the letter from?" "Chicago." ' "Whew!" whistled Standish. "That complicates matters somewhat There are a good many people in Chicago." "There are," assented his wife, "and a surprisingly large number of them are related to me." "But you haven't Invited the whole bunch to come to see us?" he hazarded. "Ah. that's just the trouble. I have. I have told every last one of them that when they come to New York I want them to make our house their headquarters. head-quarters. Of course. I didn't think when I said It that any of them would ever come. Now that they are about to swoop down on us. I suppose I oan't go back on my word. We'U have to entertain them." Standish. however, refused to accept the apparently Inevitable so readily. "Don't you recognize the writing V he asked. "Unfortunately, no. I am not familiar famil-iar with the writing of the younger generation, and all the old folk write Just alike." "Never mind." said Standish. hopefully. hope-fully. "We'll circumvent them yet Just let me look at that letter a minute, won't you? I have done a good deal of work In the Sherlock Holmes line in my time. One of the fellows down at the ofTlce was saying yesterday that when It comes to putting two and two together he'd sooner trust me than any professional detective In town. Since I am so proficient in outeide Jobs I may be able to make something out of this." Mrs. Standish handed over the letter. let-ter. Standish grabbed a lock of hair at either side of his forehead, and. leaning forward with his elbows on the table, strove to elucidate the mystery of the unsigned communication. "I have a clue." he finally announced. "Which of your relatives has had a felon on her middle finger?" Mrs. Standish reflected. "I think." she said, "that It was Aunt Ruth. Why, yes; I am sure It was Aunt ROth. I remember re-member all about it now. She had an awful time witn a reion tnree or xour years ago. The bone came out, and everything." "That's good," said Standish, with heartless satisfaction. "The writer of this letter has a felon. Also, she lives In a house set back In a yard that is surrounded by an iron fence. She has children, one of them possibly a boy about 19 years old. That boy is particularly partic-ularly fond of hot bread with lots of buttsr on It. His mother always makes hot bread for breakfast, and what the kid can't get away with at the table he sneaks out Into the yard and eats on the sly. Mrs. 8tandlsh Interrupted this psychic unraveling of the letter with an appreciative appre-ciative clapping of her hands. "William," she cried, "you are simply a marel! That is Aunt Ruth to a dot-felon, dot-felon, hot bread, hungry boy and all. How on earth could you ever make It out?" "Oh." said Standish. loTtlly. "this case Is dead easy compared with some of the hard nuts Tve cracked. Of course, I don't like to give any trade secrets away; still. T don't mind letting you know how I reached a few of my conclusions. con-clusions. I deduced the felon proposition from the peculiar little tails attacked to certain letters. This letter was mailed about breakfast time, and the envelope is marked with the greasy Imprint of the boy's fingers and two little specks of Iron rust, which tell me that when the youngster went out to mall the letter let-ter he laid It on top of two of the pickets pick-ets of the Iron fence while he stopped to finish eating the hunk of hot bread he had snatched up when leaving the table." ta-ble." Mrs. Standish applauded again. "What a wonderful mind you have," she said. "It was Aunt Ruth who wrote that letter: I wouldn't be afraid to bet a million dollars on that." "Very well." said 8tandlsh. "You must head her off. Tell her you are going away. Say that your lungs are giving you a good deal of trouble this winter, and that the doctor has advised ad-vised you to go South to escape the Dernictous effects of the New York cll- mate. I'll compose the letter for you If you like." "Do." said Mrs. Standish. fervently. In the letter that Standish that day wrote to his wife's affectionate relative rela-tive his best literary genius flowered forth. "It reads Just like a magaxlne story," said Mrs. Standish. "Thank you," said 8tandlsh. I am rather stuck on It myself. It will be sure to accomplish something." And It did. Just how much It accomplished accom-plished Standish found out when he came home from the office one evening in the beginning Of the following week. Mrs. Standish met him at the door and greeted him In a tragic whisper. "Aunt Ruth Is here." she said, "and all the children." "What!" exclaimed Standish. "Didn't she ret our letter?" "JiH tm wJhai Wouxht bc Sha 1 |