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Show THREE SMUTTEKED HOUSES "y BEN AMES WILLIAMS Copyright WNU SESV1CI Cn.VPTEB Xin-CoHtlnucd 14 But It must have been a quarter of an hour alter Clint heard the garage-door roll back before he saw a light in the garage. Then he heard a starter grind, and a car backed out of the garage, its headlights head-lights swinging as it turned. Clint stood frozen in attention. The car followed the drive around the house on this side, the lights for an instant shining almost directly toward where Clint stood. Then it went on toward the road. So Asa was gone; Clint felt a faint relief. He wondered what had become be-come of Inspector Tope, and he hissed a signal, but had no reply. Then he heard the car returning! He saw no lights; but he did see, dimly, a dark moving bulk as the car rounded the corner of the house yonder. It moved fast, dangerously dangerous-ly so . . - He heard a great crash, a shattering shat-tering of glass, a tinny crumpling of metal a great crash, then silence. si-lence. And then Tope's voice, yonder, in imperious summons: "Clint! Quick! Here!" And a police whistle', shrill and long. CHAPTER XTV After that crashing impact and Tope's cry, and the shrill blast of his whistle, silence descended. Clint took one bound toward where he guessed Tope to be; . then he checked, and turned. June from the window above him spoke softly: "Clint, you all right?" "You'd better come," he said hoarsely. It was a matter of seconds sec-onds only, until she stood beside him. Her fingers caught his. "Here, you take this!" she bade him, and pressed Tope's old revolver revolv-er into his hand. He saw Tope kneeling beside a man who lay here on the ground. The flashlight illumined his counte nance, itao Maine! His cneeK was smeared. Blood from a cut on his head had flowed out over his ear and trickled down his brow and face. He lay limp and lifeless. "Dead?" Clint asked hoarsely. Tope shook his head. His hand was on Rab's wrist, feeling for the faint pulse that fluttered there. "Not de-id yet," he said. June pressed close to Clint, and she said miserably: "It's Asa:' Oh, what is it, Clint? What happened?" Clint shook his head, staring at Asa Taine, who sat here under the jammed wheel of the car. Asa was j unconscious; and there was something some-thing mysteriously affrighting in his posture. His hands hung down limply limp-ly by his sides; and the bent steering-column pressed the wheel itself against his body, so that he seemed to bulge in the middle. His head was in a grotesque and unnatural position. Cricked to one side, it rested against the frame of the door. His head was erect, even tilted backward, but his chin seemed to be pressed down on his chest. It was as though he were frozen in the very act of a hiccough. hic-cough. .; . , Tope said reflectively, as though thinking aloud: "I guess he piled into that tree faster than he meant to. He must have seen me, and that would surprise him. I guess he lost his head, stepped on it He didn't mean to hit so hard." Rand and another policeman in uniform came panting through the rain. "What happened?" Rand gasped. V ...... i T crisply: "One of you watch the other oth-er house. Rand, you go call Inspector Inspec-tor Heale. If he's not too sick to move, get him up here." Since they first discovered Asa here, Inspector Tope had not left the man's side, had kept him fixed in the flashlight's beam. Now they saw that his lips began to stir and mumble. Then he blinked. The light was in his eyes. ' June cried softly: "We'll get you out in a minute, Asa." Mrs. Taine came running out of the kitchen, door, brushing past Rand as he entered, drawing some wrap around her. She reached' the side of the car. "Asa!" she cried, and caught at his shoulder, tugging at him. "Oh," he- whispered. It was like a whistle of pain. "My head. Neck. Don't touch " Mrs. Taine whirled on the Inspector. Inspec-tor. "Quick," she commanded. "Get him out of there." And she looked all about. "Where is Rab?" she cried. Asa muttered through stiff lips; his lips were blue. "Sorry, Mother," he said, and tried to smile. "He dodged in front of me. I ran right into him. I couldn't help it." His lips closed and opened again. "I couldn't help it," he repeated. "We both dodged the same way." "I was going to town," Asa murmured. mur-mured. "But my headlights went cut as soon as I hit the road. I came back to get a new fuse" His words were spaced widely; there were long pauses between them. Mrs. Taine did not understand. "What does he mean?" she protested. protest-ed. "Where is Rab?" Tope said gently: "Rab's hurt too, ma'am. We'll need the Doctor bad. Quick, you call him up!" Understanding, she obeyed him, she hurried away, and after a moment mo-ment they heard her voice, withindoors, within-doors, demanding that Rand yield to her the telephone. Asa asked some hoarse question, indistinguishable. "My neck hurts," he complained. "Rab? He's dead? I tried to miss him." And Tope answered him, In slow stern tones. "You didn't hit Rab, Asa," he said. "I pulled him away in time. I pulled him away from "It's Asa. Oh, what Is it, Clint? What happened?" the tree, where you'd propped him up!" His voice had in it the inexorable ring of doom. "He's alive?" Asa asked slowly, carefully, his mouth twisted. "He'll come around," said Tope. "He'll be all right by and by." Without any movement of his head, Asa's eyes swung to seek out their countenances. He peered in the darkness, and his lips writhed so that his teeth were hideously bare. Then he moved. It was as though he leaped, as though he would have sprung to action. His lips set hard; his shoulder rose; his whole body contorted; one hand darted down. ... It whipped up, and a gun showed in the flashlight's gleam. Inspector Tope, leaning into the car, sought to seize the gun. But before he could touch Asa, could grasp the weapon; the need for action passed. When the hurt man thus leaned sharply forward, his head was tardy in following his movement. It seemed to hang back, and then to be jerked aside as though by an invisible hand; and this was a strange, unnatural thing to see. Asa's head turned at a grotesque gro-tesque angle, as though it had slipped; and instantly Asa himself was smaller, like a pricked balloon. And quite still. Clint whispered: '.'For God's sake, Inspector! Is he dead?" Tope nodded slowly. "Yes, dead," he said, in a low tone. CHAPTER XV For a moment more these three stood silently by the car with a dead man at the wheel. Then Rand returned. re-turned. ' "Heale's coming," he reported. "Right away." ' ' .. Tope nodded. "This man in the car is dead," he said. "Stay by him. Don't touch anything." And he turned back to where Rab lay on the ground. Then Mrs. Taine came running from the house. "Doctor "Doc-tor Cabler will be here ,at once," she gasped; and she cried: "Where's Asa? What have you done with him?" June put her arms about the older old-er woman, held her away. "Rab needs you now," she urged. "Rab, Aunt Evie." "Asa?" the older woman demanded. demand-ed. "He's dead," June told her, mercifully mer-cifully frank. "Who killed him?" There was a dreadful challenge in the slow, soft tones. "He was alive a moment ago. Talking to me. Who killed my son?" "He just died," June told her. "Please. We must take care of Rab now." But Mrs. Taine swung toward the car. Tope with his flashlight bent on the hurt man on the ground, heard the mother brooding over Asa, calling his name, pleading with him then June compelling her to turn this way. There was strength in the girl's tones; she was able to command Aunt Evie at last, to fetch her here where Tope and Clint knelt beside the unconscious man. "We'll carry Rab to the house," said the Inspector. "Out of the rain. Clint, you take his legs." They bore him into the house, where Tope knelt beside him, and with careful fingers appraised his hurts. Mrs. Taine stood still as ice, watching, and June held her fast Tope looked up at last "Just a bump on the head, ma'am," he told Mrs. Taine. "I can't feel that the skull's broken." Mrs. Taine began suddenly to cry; and this was a strange thing to see in that woman of iron. June said: "I'll make her lie down." She led Mrs. Taine, submissive, submis-sive, away. When they were gone, Clint knelt by the Inspector's side, asked the question he had not dared ask before. be-fore. He nodded toward the door, toward Asa outside in the rain. "You think he did it?" he whispered. whis-pered. Tope assented gravely. "But I liked him," Clint protested. protest-ed. "He was the best of them all!" The doorbell- rang; Clint went through the dark hall; lighted the gas, opened the door. Doctor Cabler. Ca-bler. Clint came back with the physician physi-cian on his heels; and Doctor Cabler, Ca-bler, with no more than a nod toward to-ward the Inspector, knelt beside the man on the floor. Presently he finished, tipped back on his heels. "Concussion," he said. "I shall make a spinal puncture, try to relieve the pressure on his brain. Otherwise the young man may die without recovering consciousness." And he directed: "Help me. Push those two tables together. Put water wa-ter on to boil. Where's Mrs. Taine?" "In the front room," said Tope. "With June." And he explained: "Asa's dead, in the car, outside. He ran into that pine tree. Neck broken, I believe. Alive at first. Talked, then he tried to move, his head twisted to one side, and that was the end of him." "Well, such things have happened," hap-pened," the Doctor confessed, after a moment. "Some shock dislocates the vertebrae without dislodging them. Then a movement, an attempt at-tempt to turn the head, and the big neck muscles drag one vertebra across the other like a . pair of shears. Snip the cord." Doctor Cabler and Mrs. Taine, Clint and June could do all that was needful here. Tope watched them for a moment; then he went to the telephone, called Miss Moss and told her guardedly that Rab was hurt and Asa dead. She whispered: "Asa dead?" "Yes," he said. "Is his wife there?" Miss Moss asked. "Lissa?" And at Tope's negative: neg-ative: "She would want to be. She has a right to be. I'm coming out. I'll bring her." He was full of a deep comfort to know that she would come. "All right," he assented. "Do." He looked at his watch and returned re-turned to the veranda. As he did so, Inspector Heale came hurriedly across the lawn from the road. Heale exclaimed: "Tope, what's happened here?" . Tope said slowly: "Rab's hurt-got hurt-got a bad crack on the head. Doctor Doc-tor Cabler's working on him." He added: "And Asa's out in the car with a broken neck." "Broken neck?" Heale echoed. His voice was husky. "Is he dead?" ; "Just as dead. .as if . he'd -been hanged," Tope assented. He said it with something like contentment in his tones, as though he perceived : a seemliness and order in the world: "They don't hang in this State any more; but I always said it was the thing for murderers, I mean." Heale ejaculated: "Murderers?" And Tope told him briefly: "Yes. He and Rab had an argument tonight, to-night, in the garage. He hit Rab with a monkey-wrench, propped him against that pine tree by the corner of the drive, got out his car. He drove to the road and turned around and came back again. He meant to run into Rab, finish him. "But I was there. Before Asa got back, I'd dragged Rab away from the tree. Asa saw me. Seeing me must have startled him so that he stepped on the gas. Anyway, he rammed into the tree so hard it snapped his own neck." Heale stood in an Incredulous amazement, and Tope concluded: "Didn't kill him right off. He came to. He thought he'd hit Rab, and he told us it was an accident, that Rab dodged in front of the car. When I told him he hadn't hit Rab, that Rab was alive, he went for his gun. "But when he moved, his neck snapped. Finished him!" Heale was almost wordless. "Gun?" he repeated. J "Here it is," said Tope, and delivered de-livered Asa's weapon to the other man. Then Doctor Cabler came out to them. "Gentlemen," he said, satisfaction satis-faction in his tones, "Rab is showing show-ing signs of returning conscious- "He'll live?" Tope asked. "Oh, that, certainly," the physician physi-cian confidently agreed. "And I think by morning he may be able to talk to you." He went back into the house; and Heale roused from his paralysis of surprise. "You think Asa did the rest of it?" he asked. "I've known that, since this morning," morn-ing," Tope replied. "Why didn't you tip me?" "Knowing isn't proving," Tope reminded re-minded him; and Heale ruefully assented. as-sented. "I guess I'll call Derrie," he decided de-cided at last. "Have him up here in the morning!" And he confessed a little grudgingly: "You've made a double-barreled fool out of him, Inspector." CHAPTER XVI The Inspector's call had come to Miss Moss like an expected summons. sum-mons. Before she dressed, she telephoned tele-phoned for a taxicab; and when she came out it was at the door. "The Providence road," she directed. di-rected. "I'll tell you when to stop." When she rang the doorbell of the house behind the garage, it was far into the small hours; the rain still sheeted down. A window opened above her head, and Thayer called a question. "I must speak to Miss Thayer," Miss Moss explained. The garage man himself came to the door with his daughter, sleepily protesting and bewildered. Miss Moss hesitated, unwilling to betray to him the girl's secret unless she must. Yet there appeared no other way. "Miss Thayer," she said. "I have bad news for you. Young Mr. Taine " She saw Lissa white in the dim-lit dim-lit hall. "He is hurt," Miss Moss explained ex-plained gently. "I'll come," said the girl quickly. Thayer put a swift protecting arm around his daughter, so that Miss Moss understood he had known the truth. "If Lissa's going, so am I," Thayer suggested. "Send your cab away. I'll take my car." Miss Moss assented. And presently pres-ently they started up the hill, Thayer Thay-er driving. In the seat behind, Miss Moss held the girl close. "There, there, my dear," she whispered comfortingly. (TO BE CONTINUED) |