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Show I Seshuttikid houses l By BEN AMES WILLIAMS PlUPTER XII Continued 13 handed June the pad on which j'-.: '"jj been writing, and Clint stood et er shoulder so that they read it "uS Leaford began getting Tl ..l0er before dark. Everyone J t to supper except Mrs. V! Ewdon. They came in relays, er-" About 7:50 Mrs. Taine came to I0'.:: -j; Mr. and Mrs. Hurder to bed. i' About eight, Asa Taine came ' t! ,.r a Cup ol tea, used milk, out . r' d bottle-J'; bottle-J'; juter he left, Mrs. Taine heat- id milk for Mr. and Mrs. Hurd- fI Rab Taine came in to say i , cod night. The milk was on the J,sve. He stood near the stove. I1;' Then'he left for Providence. . J About 8:25 Mrs. Taine left, , jr. and Mrs. Hurder in bed. lJ:'1 About 8:30 Miss Leaford unied out downstairs lights and iit to her room. About 8:45 met Clint outside. S About 11:05 Clint .and Miss Leaford returned and stopped in ' tent of the house, fid About 11:10 they saw the fire. At 11:19 exactly, the alarm lasrungin. The apparatus ar-" ar-" rived at exactly 11:23. Mrs. laine and Asa arrived at the j, fire about 11:21. '? At exactly 11:51 Mrs. Taine pat in a call for Providence to i:i ter son. " Me June and Clint studied this tiedule in silence, Tope explained: "You know when you went up-sirs, up-sirs, and when you went out to in i reet Clint; and I've guessed at the b aes before that. I know when a alarm was rung in, and when :e apparatus arrived; and by al-'." al-'." iriig for all you and Clint did after ;:a saw the fire and before the ap-:;ratus ap-:;ratus arrived, I can figure out ' m the time you saw the fire." 5 "Yes," June said. "This seems stout right." "" "I've a record of the call to Previa Prev-ia ::ence," Tope added. "How bad i ;s the fire then when your aunt rj rent to phone?" jn "The whole house was burning," 3 ,'jie decided. a lope nodded. "There's one other ::etion I've got to ask you," he !-:d gravely. "Do you think any . ; a of your relatives might have ,.. . pen your mother poison? Or st ..! house on fire?" ft "No, no," June whispered. "They . tere hard and stubborn; but No. Si" " "Did any of them except your "ther ever take a sleeping-pdw-"7 W he insisted. se hesitated. "Why, yes," she . ad doubtfully. "Uncle Justus did." -id she explained in a faint amuse- I : "He really had insomnia, iv ; Mimes. If seems odd, because :j :i could always sleep in a chair; 'sometimes he Qouldn't sleep in hi a Doctor Cabler gave him some ts once; but Aunt Evie took away from him, wouldn't let I -u use them. So poor Uncle Justus . to ask me to give him a tablet '' of Mother's bottle, now and : and I know Rab took some :-Mm once." " When was that?" Tope asked, f " Hvely. About a month ago," June re- j Jj :d. "I found Rab in the bath- Jr; he told me." wagged his head; but he -' -' not push this matter further, jj f you know Miss Thayer?" he 4, 'f4 "Her name's Lissa." ' I '," June assented. "That is, 'ij her sometimes, when I was ik ng in the woods." 'M Did you ever see your cousin ' 'ith her?" Tope asked. The v J shook her head; and Tope ex- ':1 ,.' saw them kiss each other to- ft, at the fire. They were back 'i ' ,e shadows, but I saw.".,, . Jsa?.". June cried incredulously. nev knew anything about I ,01!' n'" sl?e declared. "But if 'J .;! !oved .her. he wouldn't have mi" 1 anypnev. They'd have been rf ?- Aunt Eyie, and Grandma 1 mean.!' ' it 'u think .so?" Tope prompted es! Mother used to tell me-" vil Va,K tated-' we"t bravely on: "C" used to tell me that if I d .-.j.j w'thout their consent, they ." wush me. They did crush , 'Uknow.",- , 1 W0r ToPe nodded; and he .J, his words with care. "You il ;fmb" Mr- Glovere, who lived " "-J VJ T in the woods-the man OtSf c ed Uncle Jim. You liked :0. .''t you?" ',. Jt ' She sa'd- "So much. He o'' "He y' afler Mother died." ;,t tome back," the Inspector ,iH i We is ne?" she cried eager- K t: "ated' he confessed at ::V Sector Heale is holding M a, , anaested him?" Her "Ilea Pale' t ,:aieihinJh,Ught he mix nave nad to do " "Oh," she protested in loyal pride "Uncle Jim wouldn't. No, no." "He came back at noon today " Tope explained. "Came back asking ask-ing for you . . . Miss Leaford, I used to be a policeman. I'm trying to find out what happened out there. You understand that we are sure your mother, somehow, was poisoned. poi-soned. Someone put some extra tablets tab-lets in that glass of milk she drank. It might have been done while the milk was still in the bottle, in Mrs. Bowdon's refrigerator. Or afterward after-ward in your grandmother's kitchen, or on the way upstairs, or after it was taken upstairs. And anyone might have done it. Anyone at all." The girl was trembling, but her eyes were steady. And when he did not speak, she cried:, "Why should they do a thing like that?" He said slowly: "They might have been afraid afraid of something we don't know about. Or wanting something." some-thing." And he spoke to Miss Moss. "Justus Taine has all the wills, Bowdon's Bow-don's and Hurder's. He wouldn't tell me what's in them. They'll be public pub-lic by and by, but there may not "Clint, whoever did this is a monster, not human." be time." His tone was deeply troubled. trou-bled. He spoke to June.1 "You and your cousins would inherit all the money, I expect," he said. "All the money in the family." I "I don't know," she .confessed. "Was there much?" But before he could answer, she cried: "That doesn't matter now, though." Rising Ris-ing anger steadied her. "I want to know who killed my mother," she said. ; Tope looked at her apprisingly. "Mean that, do you?" ; "Of course." v "Because," he said, "you can help find out! This is ugly business to talk about, hard to believe. But Miss Leaford, your gnandpa, Mr; Hurder, is out there, in that house, near dying. It wouldn't take much to make him die. Whoever set fire to the house last night:' wants him dead." And after a moment Tope added soberly: "They refuse to have a nurse for him." He shook his head; lie said in a grim, and stricken tone:; "I- think there's an insane murderer mur-derer loose out there insane, and clever as a cat. He's managed to get by so far without leaving a trace. It's the first time in forty years that I've seen a case without one single lead." , Clint cried: "What are you getting get-ting at, Inspector?." . , Tope hesitated for. a. moment. He ignored Clint, said slowly then: "There's one more thing you ought to know, Miss Leaford: Inspector Heale has arrested this man you call -Uncle Jim. .Heale thinks he did it" .. "But why should he?" she protested. protest-ed. . "What reason had he?" And Tope said briefly, kindly: "He's your father,' June." , For a long moment then, silence held them all. June sat still, and the color drained out of her cheeks till she was white as snow. Clint caught her, and she clung to him; yet she did not hide her face from them. She stared at Inspector Tope, and her eyes wereLstreaming, and her lips worked as though she would speak, but no words came. She watched him. and tears streamed down her cheeks, and she began to hiccough with, smothered sobs. Tope spoke slowly, in explicit terms. "Your mother ran away with him when she was a girl." he said "By and by they came home to live- and after two years there, the old folks broke it up. Mrs. Bowdon and Mrs. Taine, he told me. turned your mother against him. He said Mr. and Mrs. Hurder were on his side but the others broke them down. Finally he left. He wanted your mother to go with him, but she was afraid, so he went away alone And he explained: ' He didn t know about you till afterward, years afterward. When you were about ten years old, he came back and met you in the woods, and you told him who you were. So he stayed, to be near you, lived in the cabin there. They wanted to put him off the land; but there wasn't any divorce, di-vorce, and he threatened to make trouble unless they let him stay. He didn't ask anything of them except ex-cept to be near you, to see you sometimes." He looked at Miss Moss, sure she would understand. "I guess he still loved Kitty Leaford," he said. "When she died, it hit him hard. He went away; but he came back yesterday, says he was asleep in his (cabin all last night. So Heale has locked him up." "It would seem simple enough to Heale," she pointed out. "Heale will say that Mr. Leaford killed Mrs. Leaford and then the Hurders, so that June would inherit their money. mon-ey. Then he could claim June as his daughter, and get her and the money too." June moved, about to speak; and Clint held her close, protectingly. She said faintly: "I can remember once, when I was a little girl, Aunt Evie tried to make me Stay away from him, and I told him, and he came to the house to see her, and after that she never bothered me ... . "But he didn't do-this!" She rubbed her eyes with her hands like one just Waking; she stood up, supporting sup-porting herself by Clint's arm. "Oh, I want to do something!" she cried. "What can I do?" The Inspector said soberly: "This, if you want to," he said. "I know it's not safe for you" "Safe!" she exclaimed almost scornfully. . "I don't want to' be safe, with my mother dead, and my father " - "Mr. Hurder's in the Bowdon house," Tope explained. "They aim to keep him there. They won't have a nurse in to take care of him. But Miss Leaford, they'd have you. They want you home, and if you went, and insisted on nursing him" Clint made a swift indignant protest; pro-test; but June hushed him. "Yes, I understand," she told the man steadily.' "I'll go. But why? What am I to do?". "To watch," he said. "To be ready." "Ready for what?" she insisted. So, reluctantly, he put the thing in words. "Whoever did this wants Mr. Hurder dead,"r he pointed out. "I think there'll be another try at killing him." And he said gravely: "There might be more than that. There might be a try at killing you." CHAPTER XIII Clint had listened to Inspector Tope's suggestion that June return to Kenesaw Hill with an incredulous and angry horror. Now he pried in a bitter wrath: .... "No! I won't stand for that. June's been through enough " "We'll be there to take care- of her," Tope , urged. "You and I, Clint. We'JJ. be on the, job. It's only for tonight. I've a notion 'tonight 'to-night will tell the tale." . "No," Clint, insisted. "She's through with them out there, all those people. I'm going to be all her family from .now on. If you think I'm going to let her go out there for bait, to bait a trap " And he cried: "Why do you have to -mix-in, Inspector? Let them wash theii own' dirty linen." Tope urged gravely: "It's any citizen's cit-izen's duty to, do what he can, Clint." His tone was grim. "And son there's a murderer loose out there. . Maybe a maniac. I . think he is. There's a terrible, mad persistence per-sistence in him. Or her." . , "Her?" Clint echoed, startled by that pronoun. , Tope hesitated. "Him or her, whoever who-ever it is," he repeated. "Clint, whoever did this is a monster, not human. No telling what will come next." "And you want to risk June's life?" "I don't aim to," Tope argued. "She'll have her eyes open. I'll tell her what to watch for. She'll have a pistol, to use if she has to. We'll be right outside." He spoke to June herself. "You won't go into it blindly," he said. . "Nor at all, unless un-less you want." "Let Heale work it out," Clint cried. "It's his job." June was a long time in taking any part in this discussion between them: But when she spoke at last, it was decisively. "I don't trust Inspector Heale, Clint," she said. "If he thinks Uncle Un-cle Jim my father did this, he must be a dull, witless man." They watched her; she seemed to think aloud. "It was money, the money always," she cried, half to herself. "I can see that now. Everything Every-thing had to be done to keep the money in the family. That was why they were so furious when Mother married Uncle Jim for fear some of the money would get away from them. ' Oh, I've heard them talk, and plan!"v Clint said warmly: "Sweet, hush! You're never going back there again." But June smiled at him, and she said: "Yes,, I am, Clint. I can go back and watch and see things now that I couldn't see before. I can understand." Inspector. Tope said slowly: "Heale is afraid of your people. He won't go after them hard, the way he would after other folk. And I never saw an uglier business. This senseless, pitiless . butchering! There's a maniac" loose out there; and Heale won't act. I've got to find some way." "I'll do whatever you say," June insisted; and Clint knew at last that he could not dissuade the girl. He said slowly: "I wish you wouldn't, June. But I can see, can feel the same way. Inspector, what do you mean to do?" Tope considered, his eyes on the floor, his head wagging. "I think the thing will ripen tonight," he confessed. con-fessed. "If it seems sure that Mr. Hurder will live, the murderer will try to end him tonight." He watched June intently. "And maybe you. too! I'm guessing at this; but I'm a good guesser. Some one out there is money-crazy. Mr. Hurder is a rich man; and some one out there wants that money. Maybe wants it quick... Maybe has to have it quick. "I'm . guessing," he repeated. "Justus Taine wouldn't tell me what was in the wills. But my guess is that the Hurder money is in a trust agreement for Mrs. Leaford but she's dead and then for you, Miss Leaford. With trustees. Maybe Taine himself. Maybe. his sons. It doesn't matter wouldn't help us any if we knew, because they're all in the same pot together. But it comes down to it that you're the only one left in the way, Miss Leaford. Lea-ford. With., you dead, the Hurder money's bound to stay in the Taine family," '. ; June nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, ' they . could make Grandpa Hurder write his will the way they wanted it. They'd leave him do p.aace till he did." --"SO ' there it is," Tope agree'4, -.with a grim simplicity. "The moJi-,-ey vvaitirig ready to run into their pto.ckets as soon as Mr. Hurder dies. You're the last dam in the way, the last thing that holds it back. They'll be after you." ; "I'm not afraid!" said June (TO BE CONTINUED) |