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Show I , J. L . i ii iPU li I CHAPTER VII Continued 12 "Whs It here?" Miss Cornelia's voice ch Fiie ii i ii 111 ccj frrtin the bend of the til Irs. (iiile considered. "Come down a 111 lie," slip sitld. Miss Cornelia descended another t.'li. 'How's this?" "That's iiliout right," said Pale, uncertainly. un-certainly. Miss Cornelia was satisfied. satis-fied. "Mollis, please." She went up tlie ulalrs again to see If slie could puzzle out what course of escape the liian who had shot Fleming had taken, after his crime If It had heen n man. Dale switched on the living room lights, with a sense of relief. The reconstruction re-construction of the crime had trlPd lier sorely. She sat down, to recover her poise. "Doctor! I'm so frightened!" she con fessed. The doctor at once assumed his best manner of professional assurance. assur-ance. "Why, my dear child!" he said lightly. "I'.ecause you happened to be In the room when a crime was committed?" com-mitted?" "Hut he has a perfect case against me," sighed Dale. "That's absurd!" "No." "You don't mean?" said the doctor, aghast. Dale looked at him with horror In her face. "I didn't kill him!" she Insisted anew. "Hut you know the piece of blue-print you found In his hand?" "Yes," from the doctor, tensely. "There was another piece of blueprint blue-print a larger piece " said Dale slowly, "I tore It from him just before be-fore " The doctor seemed greatly excited by her words. But he controlled himself him-self swiftly. "Why did you do such a thing?" "Oh, I'll explain that later," said Pale, tiredly, only too glad to be talking talk-ing the matter out at last, to pay attention at-tention to the logic of her sentences. "It's not safe where it is," she went on, as if the doctor already knew the whole story. "Hilly may throw it out or burn it without knowing" "Let me understand this," said the doctor. "The butler has the paper now?" "lie doesn't know he has it. It was In one of the rolls that went out on the tray." The doctor's eyes gleamed. lie gave Pale's shoulder a sympathetic pat. "Now don't worry about it I'll get It," lie said. Then, on the point of going toward the dining room, he turned. "Hut you oughtn't to have it in your possession," he said thoughtfully, thoughtful-ly, "why not let it be burned?" Dale was on the defensive at once. "Oh, no ! It's important it's vital !" she said decidedly. The doctor seemed to consider ways and means of securing the paper. "The tray is in the dining room?" be asked. "Yes," said Dale. He thought a moment, then left the room by the hall door. Dale sank back In her chair and felt a sense of overpowering over-powering relief steal over her whole body, as if new life had been poured Into her veins. The doctor bad been so helpful why had she not confided In him before? He would know what to do with the paper she would have the benefit of his counsel through the rest of this troubled time. Behind her, mockingly, the head of the Unknown concealed behind the settee lifted cautiously until, if she had turned, she would have just been able to perceive the top of its skull. CHAPTER VIII The Blackened Bag As Is chanced, she did not turn. The hall door opened the head behind be-hind the settee sank down again. Jack Bailey entered, carrying a couple of logs of firewood. Pale moved toward him as soon ao he had shut the door. "Oh, things have gone awfully wrong, haven't they?" she said, with a little break in her voice. He put his finger to his lips. "Be careful!" he whispered. He glanced about the room, cautioifsly. "I don't trust even the furniture in tills house tonight!" be said. He took Pale hungrily in his arms and kissed her once, swiftly, on the lips. Then they parted his voice changed to the formal voice of a servant. j "Miss Van Gorder wishes the fire kept burning." he announced, with a whispered "Hay up !" to Pale. Pale caught his meaning at once. "But some logs on the fire, please," she said loudly, for the benefit of any listening ears, then in an undertone to Bailey, "Jack I'm nearly distracted dis-tracted !" Bailey threw his wood on the fire, which received it with appreciative crackles and sputterings. Then again for a moment, he clasped his sweetheart sweet-heart closely to him. "Pale, pull yourself together:' he whispered warningly. "We've got a fight ahead of us :" lie released her and turned back toward to-ward the lire. "These old-fashioned fireplaces eat up a lot of wood." lie said in casual tones, pretending to arrange the logs witli the poker so the fire would draw more cleanly. I But Pale felt that she must settle one point between them before they took up their game of pretense again. "You know I sent for Richard Fleming, Flem-ing, don't you?" she said, her eyes fixed beseechingly on her lover. The rest of the world might Interpret her action as it pleased she couldn't bear to have Jack misunderstood. Hut there was no danger of that. His faith In her was too complete. "Yes of course " he said, with a look of gratitude. Then his mind reverted re-verted to the ever-present problem before them. "But who In God's name killed him?" be muttered, kneeling before be-fore the fire. "You don't think It was Billy?" Dale saw Billy's face before her for a moment, calm, Impassive. But he was an Orientnl an alien his face might be .just as calm, just as impassive while his hands were still red with blood. She shuddered at the thought. Bailey considered the matter. "More likely the man Lizzie saw going upstairs," he said finally. "But I've been all over the upper floors." "And nothing?" breathed Dale. "Nothing." Bailey's voice had an accent of dour finality. "Dale, do you think that " he began. Some Instinct warned the gi"- that they were not to continue their conversation con-versation uninterrupted. "Be careful care-ful !" she breathed, as footsteps sounded in the hall. Bailey nodded and turned back to his pretense of mending the fire. Dale moved away from him slowly. The door opened and Miss Cornelia entered, her black knitting bag in her hand, on her face a demure little smile of triumph. She closed the door carefully behind her and began to speak at once. "Well, Mr. Alopecia Urticaria Rubeola Ru-beola otherwise Bailey !" she said, In tones of the greatest satisfaction, addressing ad-dressing herself to Bailey's rigid back. Bailey jumped to his feet mechanically mechan-ically at her mention of his name. He and Dale exchanged one swift and hopeless glance of utter defeat. "I wish," proceeded Miss Cornelia obviously enjoying the situation to the full, "I wish you young people would remember that even if hair and teeth have fallen out at sixty the mind still functions." She pulled out a cabinet photograph from the depths of her knitting bag. "II is photograph on your dresser!" she eluded Pale. "Burn it and be quick about it !" Dale took the photograph but continued con-tinued to stare at her aunt with incredulous in-credulous eyes. "Then you knew?" she stammered. .Miss Cornelia, the effective little tableau she had planned now accomplished accom-plished to her most humorous satisfaction, satis-faction, relapsed into a chair. "My dear child," said the indomitable indom-itable lady, with a sharp glance at Bailey's bewildered face, "I have employed em-ployed many gardeners in my time and never before had one who manicured mani-cured his finger-nails, wore silk socks and regarded baldness as a plant Instead In-stead of a calamity." An unwilling smile began to break on the faces of both Pale and her lover. The former crossed to the fireplace fire-place and threw the damning photograph photo-graph of Bailey on the flames. She watched it shrivel, curl up be reduced re-duced to ash. She stirred the ashes with a poker till they were well scattered. scat-tered. Bailey, recovering from the shock of finding that Miss Cornelia's sharp eyes had pierced his disguise without with-out his even suspecting it, now threw himself on her mercy. "Then you know why I'm here?" he stammered. "I still have a certain amount of imagination ! I may think you are a fool for taking the risk, but I can see what that idiot of a detective might not that if you had looted the Union bank you wouldn't be trying to discover if the money is in this house. Y'ou would at least presumably presum-ably know where it is." The knowledge that he had an ally in this brisk and indomitable spinster lady cheered him greatly. But she did not wait for any comment from Shu. She turned abruptly to Pale. "Xow I want to ask you something," she said, more gravely. "Was there a blue-print, and did you get it from Richard Fleming?'' It was Pale's turn now to bow her head. "Yes," she confessed. Bailey felt a thrill of horror run through bim. She hadn't told him. this! "Pale !" he said, uncomprehending-ly, uncomprehending-ly, "don't you see where this places "you? If you had it, why didn't you give it to Anderson when he asked for it?"- "Because, " said Miss Cornelia, uncompromisingly, "she had sense enough to see that Mr. Anderson considered con-sidered that piece of paper the final link in the evidence against her!" "But she could have no motive!" stammered Bailey, distraught, still failing to grasp the significance of Pale's refusal. "Couldn't she?" queried Miss Cornelia, Cor-nelia, pityingly. "The detective thinks she could to save you!" Xow the full light of revelation broke upon Bailey. He took a step back. Miss Cornelia would have liked to comment tartly upon the singular lack of intelligence displayed by even the nicest young men in trying circumstances. circum-stances. But there was no time. They might be interrupted at any moment and before they were, there were things she must find out. A Novel from the Play By Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood "The Eat," copyright, 1920, by Mary Robert! Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. WNIJ Bervtc "Where is that paper, now?" she asked Dale sharply. "Why the doctor Is getting It for me." Dale seemed puzzled by the Intensity In-tensity of her aunt's manner. "What?" almost shouted Miss Cornelia. Cor-nelia. Pale explained. "It was on the tray Billy took out," she said, still wondering why so simple sim-ple an answer should disturb Miss Cornelia so greatly. "Then I'm afraid everything's over," Miss Cornelia said despairingly, and made her first gesture of defeat. She turned away. Pale followed her, still unable to fathom her course of reasoning. rea-soning. "I didn't know what else to do," she said rather plaintively, wondering wonder-ing If again, as with Fleming, she had misplaced her confidence at a moment critical for them all. But Miss Cornelia seemed to have no great patience with her dejection. "One of two things will happen now," she said, with acrid logic. "Father the doctor's an honest man In which case, as coroner, he will hand that paper to the detective " Pale gasped. "Or he is not an honest man," went on Miss Cornelia, "and he will keep it -for himself. I don't think he's an honest man." The frank expression of her distrust dis-trust seemed to calm her a little. She ffaffi T Ivf I. : "You Don't Think It Was Billy?" resumed her interrogation of Pale more gently. "Xow, let's be clear about this. Had Richard Fleming ascertained that there was a concealed room in this house?" "He was starting up to it!" said Dale, in the voice of a ghost, remembering. remem-bering. . "Just what did you tell him?" "That I believed there was a hidden room in the house and that the money from the Union bank might be in it." Again, for the millionth time, indeed, in-deed, it seemed to her, she reviewed the circumstances of the crime. "Could anyone have overheard?" asked Miss Cornelia. The question had rung in Dale's ears ever since she had come to her senses after the firing of the shot and seen Fleming's body stark on the floor of the alcove. "I don't know," she said. "We were very cautious." "You don't know where this room is?" "No, I never saw the print. Upstairs Up-stairs somewhere, for he ' "Upstairs! Then the thing to do, if we can get that paper from the doetoris to locate the room at once." Jack Bailey did not recognize the direction where her thoughts were tending. It seemed terrible to bim that anyone should devote a thought to' the money while Dale was still in danger. "What does the money matter now?" he broke in somewhat irritably. "We've got to save her!" and his eyes went to Dale. Miss Cornelia gave him an ineffable look of weary patience. "The money matters a great deal," she said, sensibly. "Some one was In this house on the same errand as Richard Fleming. After all," she went on, with a tinge of irony, "the course of reasoning that you followed. Mr. Bailey, is not necessarily unique." She rose. "Somebody efre may have suspected that Courtleigli Fleming robbed his own bank," she said thoughtfully. Her eye fell on the doctor's professional profes-sional bag she seemed to consider it as if it were a strange sort of animal. "Find the man who followed your course of reasoning," she ended, with a stare at Bailey, "and you have found the murderer." "Wirn that reasoning, you might suspect sus-pect me!" said the latter a trille touchily. Miss Cornelia did not give an Inch. "I have," she said. Dale shot a swift, sympathetic glance at her lover . another less sympathetic and more indignant at her aunt Miss Cornelia smiled. "However, I now suspect somebody else," she said. They waited for her to reveal the name of the suspect but she kept her own counsel. By now she had entirely given up confidence if not in the probity at least in the intelligence of all persons, male or female, under the age of sixty-five. She rang the bell for Billy. But Dale was still worrying over the possible pos-sible effects of the confidence she had given Doctor Wells. "Then you think the doctor may give this paper to Mr. Anderson?" she asked. "He may or he may not. It Is entirely possible that he may elect to search for this room himself! He may even already have gone upstairs up-stairs !" She moved quickly to the door and glanced across toward the dining room, but so far apparently all was safe. . The doctor was at the table, making a pretense of drinking a cup of coffee, and Billy was in close attendance. at-tendance. That the doctor already had the paper she was certain ; it was the use he intended to make of it that was her concern. She signaled to the Jap, and he came out into the hall. Beresford, she learned, was still in the kitchen with his revolver, waiting for another attempt at-tempt on the door, and the detective was still outside in his search. To Billy she gave her order in a low voice. "If the doctor attempts to go upstairs," up-stairs," she said, "let me know at once. Don't seem to be watching. Y'ou can be In the pantry. But let me know instantly." Once back in the living room the vague outlines of a plan a test formed slowly in Miss Cornelia's mind, grew more definite. "Dale, watch that door, and warn me if anyone Is coming !" she commanded, com-manded, indicating the door into the hall. Dale obeyed, marveling silently at her aunt's extraordinary force of character. Most of Miss Cornelia's contemporaries would have called for a quiet ambulance to take them to a sanatorium some hours ere this but Miss Cornelia was not merely, comparatively com-paratively speaking, as fresh as a daisy her manner bore every evidence evi-dence of a firm intention to play Sherlock Sher-lock Holmes to the mysteries that surrounded sur-rounded her, in spite of doctors, detectives, de-tectives, dubious noises or even the Bat himself. The last of the Van Gorder spinsters turned to Bailey now. "Get some soot from that fireplace," she ordered. "Be quick. Scrape it off with a knife or a piece of paper. Anything." Bailey wondered and obeyed. As he was engaged in his grimy task, Miss Cornelia got out a piece of writing writ-ing paper from the drawer and placed it on the center-table, with a lead pencil beside It. Bailey emerged from the fireplace with a handful of sooty flakes. "Is this all right?" "Yes. Now rub it on the handle of that bag." She indicated the little black bag, in which Doctor Wells carried the usual paraphernalia of a country doctor. A private suspicion grew in Bailey's mind as to whether Miss Cornelia's fine but eccentric brain had not suffered suf-fered too sorely under the shocks of the night. But he did not dare disobey. dis-obey. He blackened the handle of the doctor's bag with painstaking thoroughness and awaited further instructions. in-structions. "Somebody's coming !" Dale whispered, whis-pered, warning from her post by the door. Bailey quickly went to the fireplace and resumed his pretended labors with the fire. Miss Cornelia moved away from the doctor's bag and spoke for the benefit of whoever might be coming. com-ing. "We all need sleep," she began, as If ending a conversation with Pale, "and I think" The door opened, admitting Billy. "Poctor just go upstairs," he said, and went out again leaving the door open. A flash passed across Miss Cornelia's Cor-nelia's face. She stepped to the door. She called. "Doctor! Oh, Doctor!" "Yes?" answered the doctor's voice from the main staircase. His steps clattered down the stairs he entered the room. Perhaps he read something in Miss Cornelia's ninnner that demanded de-manded an explanation of his action. At any rate, he forestalled her, just as she was about to question him. "I was about to look around above," he said. "I don't like to leave If there Is the possibility of some assassin still hidden in the house." "That is very considerate of you. But we are well protected now. And besides, why should this person remain re-main In the house? The murder Is I done, the police are here." "True," he said. "I only thought " , But a knocking at the terrace door interrupted him. While the attention of the others was turned In that direction di-rection Dale, less cynical than her aunt, made a srruill plea to him and realized before she had finished with it that the doctor had his price. "Poctor did you get it?" she repeated, re-peated, drawing the doctor aside. The doctor gave her a look of apparent ap-parent bewilderment. "My dear child," he said softly, "are you sure that you put it there?" Pale felt as if she had received a blow in the face. "Why, yes I " she began, in tones of utter dismay. Then she stopped. The doctor's seeming bewilderment was too pat too plausible. Of course she was sure and, though possible, It seemed extremely unlikely that anyone any-one else could have discovered the hiding place of the blue-print in the few moments that had elapsed between be-tween the time when Billy took the tray from the room and the time when the doctor ostensibly went to find it. A cold wave of distrust swept over her she turned away from the doctor silently. Meanwhile Anderson had entered, slamming the terrace door behind him. "I couldn't find anybody!" he said in an irritated voice. "I think that Jap's crazy.' The doctor began to struggle into his overcoat, avoiding any look at Dale. "Well," he said, "I believe I've fulfilled ful-filled all the legal requirements I think I must be going." He turned toward the door, but the detective halted him. "Doctor," he said, "did you ever hear Courtleigh Fleming mention a hidden room in this house?" If the doctor started, the movement move-ment passed apparently unnoticed by Anderson. And his reply was coolly made. "No and I knew him rather well." "You don't think, then," persisted the detective, "that such a room and the money in it could be the motive for this crime?" The doctor's voice grew a little curt. "I don't believe Courtleigh Fleming robbed his own bank, if that's what you mean," he said with nicely calculated cal-culated emphasis, real or feigned. He crossed over to get his bag and spoke to Miss Cornelia. "Well, Miss Van Gorder," he said, picking up the hag by its blackened handle, "I can't wish you a comfortable comfort-able night, but I can wish you a quiet one." Miss Corneila watched him silently. As he turned to go, she spoke. "We're all of us a little upset, naturally," nat-urally," she confessed. "Perhaps you could write a prescription a'sleepi'ng-powder a'sleepi'ng-powder or a bromide of some sort." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |