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Show IJTTilP HU pT By BEN AMES WILLIAMS i. WNUSRViCB 5a-:. ' Si?0nlinUCd 'rt : rs Wne added, in her lte iii fashion: "We have no ' '': to give you. My moth-b,( moth-b,( bed and asleep. I was lift. , My son Asa was asleep 'i- lining-room. My husband r-S My was in - !.Ice Miss Leaford was-I '"where. I knew nothing Electric lights went out, and i 4 to look at the fuse-box, I the flames rom pantry -'insisted: "Gentlemen, you i! : .r3oy these ladies! They have . I! J;-" P :'!'Mrs Taine said quietly: 4'r :".;e Rab. It is not a 1ues" .7,', .anoyance, or of endurance. '.0t choose to be questioned; '. V all-" She repeated: "And I ' ;.s dangerous gossip stopped, ' ; .."ae nodded toward- the door i' ' . esture of dismissal. . . :;; said gently: "I see you ! -ij your hand!" ii Taine eyed him steadily. I- i "when I lighted one of the . , She said. "The match- V Rab cried bitterly: '"Gentle-Tl '"Gentle-Tl -1 won't permit this! You must II : ' r -( looked to Inspector Heale ' .'-idance; and the other yielded, -jhvo men came out together;-"-jt of doors, in the lee of the !tr;.. sheltered from the rain, 7i(L.j mopped his brow. muring bis name, Chief Mason h ' '; - Sd, and turned; and Tope with g toward the ruins of the burned i asked: sizf; -vou think you can find anything zeli- -;re?" ch it. II will be a piece of luck if we ,i yc . the Chief confessed. "Arson's :;rs hard to prove." He added: size; it was a gas-explosion, sure. 43, V - by the way the fire ripped up f jj. ;:;gh that laundry-chute, I should l'j r j oil had been poured down the x or gasoline. It's not likely e s6T :fcd anything, but we might." 149 id he said grimly: "But I'll go ranc: :.jgh the ashes with a sifter. If ::;'s anything there, I mean to ' ' ;it. Old Denman Harder was a :'eman. He always had a word mm i any man on the street. I liked jjjjj He's still alive," Tope pointed jl Dz 'stu11 o smoke, and gas too," replied. "Must have had uuii -gh gas to kill him." So chance it was accident?" ! ; asked soberly, ence :j night have been," the Chief elfc' igingly assented. "There was a and! :leak somewhere. The cellar and r room must have been full of perlt'' And crossed wires sputtering ler sc.- rht have set it off. The place i a firetrap. Mr. Hurder had art of- : electric lights put in, with a de-: de-: installation, but then the others acted up to his line, and did the s themselves. Poor job, prob-;, prob-;, ; It's a wonder they hadn't : trouble before." !ure' . ":pe nodded, and he asked: "Then ;ne ' do you know it wasn't just , ; isd wires, and a leaky union in bser. ' .: gas-line?" ( Chief said honestly: "I don't : P""' show I know. But when you've , J in this business as long as I point :;,'ti Hetg are. some fires that don't pe Si-; s-a right; that's all. You get a a tli they're wrong, without know-, know-, is '' :i why." whit-1 ,:e Inspector looked at him ap-ain ap-ain ":' ;::'ingly. He had observed some-"8 some-"8 of the sort himself, so many ;is' He inquired: thief, were you slow in answer-r$T, answer-r$T, :'e alarm tonight?" UJ 'Don't think so," the Chief as-7 as-7 : him. "I wasn't there, but ''y said anything about a de- tffil U like to know what time the "i i1 tame in," Tope told him. gjg what time the first apparatus n get it for you," the Chief 31 : ed. He turned back to the HOTEL '.38fire- and Inspector Heale went ! ,'olhe police car beside the road; ! ,lleale confessed in an irascible 1 w ve got almighty little to 'M TPe- No place to begin." f,t 1 to And out as much about things happened as I can," ..vt.sug6este(l- "Let's drive down i'7 nw and check up on that ..ne-caU. Nothing to do here i'",: ; '"' "flight, anyway." 'e agreed; so they departed "mission. Heale phoned to ... e Providence police to make i about Rab Taine; and they V ! i i-'i Fire Headquarters a rec--lV- tu ' e alarm. Then Providence ? " - i: jack: Heale answered, and v " i':nt- Tope' witn a dry amuse" ',',Here's something! Rab Taine was ;e' all right; but he wasn't alone, and Mrs.' Registered in, under f t-y.?1 "ame, late last night, !AK ie.l out about midnight, after , Ta! ,Phne Cal1-" tfiH S-al.5 his Dulses quicken; and L, ;:Jnc',C0mmented: "Pretty cool V:f i'h 1 goin8 off on a sPree' teW He , erandPa dead at home." kerned to see no more in the incident than an ugly intrigue, and Tope offered no comment. So presently pres-ently they drove back up Kenesaw Hill. There they could only wait, while the embers of the Hurder house still smoked and steamed. Inspector In-spector Heale went presently to sleep, here beside Tope in the car. A gray and miserable dawn came at last, through the drenched and sodden trees to reveal the desolation desola-tion here. Where the Hurder house had stood was a black pit now, with embers and half-burned timbers scattered all around. Firemen were busy; and steam still rose from the embers. Dawn became day, and Inspector In-spector Heale woke, and took Tope away to breakfast and brought him back again. They could only wait; and it was near noon when they got back to Kenesaw Hill. The Chief at last came swiftly toward them, with something in his hand. He extended extend-ed it triumphantly. "There, look at that!" he cried. Tope saw what it was: a large fuse of the sort used in electric circuits cir-cuits designed to carry a considerable consider-able current. It was a cylinder "You're fine, Miss Leaford," Tope said. "This is hard for you, and I know it and understand." some three inches long, with brass or copper ends, of heavy waxed cardboard composition. At one place this tough composition, composi-tion, harder than wood, had been whittled with a knife till the soft metal conveyer within was exposed. This metal now was fused. The composition com-position was smutted all around the opening. The whole was set as though it had lain in water. And Chief Mason cried triumphantly: tri-umphantly: "There you are! That's how it was done." Tope turned the thing in his hand. "Just how do you mean?" he asked. And the Chief explained: "Someone turned on the gas in the cellar, let it run for a while; then he short-circuited the light wires, somehow, and blew this fuse. The flash would set off the gas." And he added: "It was a piece of luck we got this. The explosion must have blown it off the wall, and it fell in a drain-ditch full of water, didn't burn." Inspector Tope felt a quick premonition pre-monition of success. It was such accidents as this which had betrayed be-trayed murderers before, and would again He looked at Inspector Heale wondering whether the other had the same thought; but Heale's eyes were fixed on someone a little distance dis-tance off, and when Tope swung that way, he saw the man whom June had called Uncle Jim approaching ap-proaching them at swift long strides. ... He came near, and he cried. "Where's Miss Leaford?" Heale said harshly: "Where ve you been? I've been looking for vou." .. Glovere made an impatient gesture. ges-ture. "Is she all right?" he in- "Tope said gently:"Yes, she's all right, Mr. Leaford." And at that word Heale swung toward him, then back to the other man. "You Mr. Leaford?' he demanded de-manded in a Quick astonishment There was a long silence; the other oth-er at last lifted his hand helplessly. "Yes Yes When Kitty died, I went away . . Came back yesterday. But I didn't know about this till jU"Where were you last night?" Heale demanded. t "In my cabin down there. "Didn't wake up?" No I'd lost sleep lately. Heaie made a gesture of satisfaction. satisfac-tion. "I guess you're the man I " June's" father stared at him with narrowing eyes. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. t was Tope who answered We think Mrs.' Leaford was murdered, think this last night was murder tnn " he said. And Heale added in a comp acent tone "So that's why I want you. m" Leaford. You're going for a little ride with me. CHAPTER XII June woke to strange surroundings; surround-ings; to a room she had never seen before, a bed she did not know. She woke, and lay with wide eyes, remembering; re-membering; and for a while she was content to stay abed, putting her thoughts in order, assorting all her horrified impressions of the night before ... At last she heard someone stop outside her door and stand still there as though listening; for a moment she shuddered with vague terrors, then decided this must be a friendly step, and called: "Come in." So Miss Moss opened the door; and June saw kindness in her, and strength and affection. The older woman came gently to her bedside; she said quietly: "Good morning, Miss Leaford. Did you sleep well?" "I must have, I think," June confessed. con-fessed. "What time is it?" "Past eleven," Miss Moss told her gently. "Stay in bed. I'll bring you some coffee." But June sat up quickly. "Oh, no. So late!" And she asked: "Where's Clint?" "Sound asleep." "Is he all right?" "Yes; yes, my dear. Perfectly. Just a few burns and blisters." "He was so brave," June whispered whis-pered proudly; and Miss Moss said smilingly: "He's sleeping like a child. He took Inspector Tope out there last night, after you went to bed; but he came back soon himself, and I took care of him." June nodded. "You've always taken care of him, haven't you?" "Since his mother died, yes. Of him and of Clara. The girl insisted on arising; and she and Miss Moss had a long hour together before Clint woke at all, moving quietly, speaking in half-whispers half-whispers so that he might not be disturbed. Once the telephone rang, and Miss Moss answered it. June heard her speak in a steady negation nega-tion to some insistent one, and guessed the truth before Miss Moss confessed to her. "That was your cousin," the older old-er woman explained. "Mr. Taine wanting you to come home, ile saia he would come fetch you." "Rab or Asa?" June asked, almost al-most fearfully. "I don't know." "Oh, I don't want to go," the girl declared. "I can't bear to go back there."- "You need not," Miss Moss assured as-sured her calmly. "You will stay here as long as you choose, my dear." She smiled and lifted the receiver re-ceiver off the hook. "We'll not even answer the telephone," she declared. de-clared. "Besides, it might wake Clint. He needs sleep." "I want to see him," June ad- mitted, her cheeks bright; Miss Moss smiled, and on a sudden impulse im-pulse put her arm around the girl. Later Miss Moss heard a buzzing in the telephone, and it continued so. persistently that she lifted the receiver. This was Aunt Evie, insisting in-sisting in her even, pitiless tones that June come home. But Miss Moss yielded not an inch; and June, when she heard who it was, cried: "I can't. Miss Moss. Mother's rfpad. and now Grandma. Oh, I can't go back to them." Her voice was raised; it may have roused Clint, asleep in Inspector Tope's own bed. He came in Panamas Pa-namas to the door, his hair rumpled, his eyes drowsy, still not tuny waked. But when June saw him there, she ran into his arms, and he held her close; and Miss Moss said in a deep and tender mirth: "She wouldn't be happy till you did wake up, Clint. I couldn't please her." June looked back over her shoulder shoul-der and said gratefully: "You were sweet to me. But I did want Clint too." So June was able to forget for a while those horrors of last night; she and Clint and Miss Moss laughed together over the breakfast-table, and while they washed dishes afterward. after-ward. But early in the afternoon Inspector Tope came home. The old man was tired and worn and haggard, and his clothes were sodden. sod-den. Miss Moss seized on him &nd hustled him, protesting, away to change; she would have put him to bed, but the Inspector balked. June asked Clint desperately: "What is it, dear? What has happened? hap-pened? Why is he that way?" And suddenly: "Why do you call him 'Inspector'? Is he a policeman?" "He used to be," Clint told her. "For years." He thought uncertainly uncertain-ly to distract her attention; and he said almost eagerly: "He can tell you the greatest stories, about the cases he had, the things he did. I guess he's the greatest detective they ever had around here." She stared at him with narrowed eyes. "Detective?" she whispered. "But why" And suddenly Clint saw the blood drain out of her lips and leave them white as marble; but her eyes were steady. "Clint," she demanded, "does he think" But he was saved the necessity of answering, for Inspector Tope and Miss Moss came out to them again; and June turned to the older man. "You think someone killed my moth er?" she said swiftly. Clint protested something, and Inspector. In-spector. Tope stood uncertain; but June turned to Miss Moss. "Tell me," she insisted. "Is it true?" Miss Moss answered her. "Yes, June," she said. "I think it is true." Her voice was infinitely kind. June's eyes closed; she seemed to grow tall, she stood so straight and still. She looked at them all again, and said slowly: "You must tell me. Oh, tell me what to do." Miss Moss and Clint were silent, full of tenderness; but Inspector Tope spoke in a deep approvaL "You're fine, Miss Leaford," he said. "This is hard for you, and I know it, and understand. I would like to talk to you," he explained gravely. "If you can stand talk, questions." Tope began with Mrs. Leaford; he came at last to the tragedy of the night before. "Your grandmother died," he said. "Mr. Hurder is still alive. He ought to be in a hospital, to have every chance; but Mrs. Taine insists on keeping him there. Attending him herself" He was silent for a moment, frowning, foreboding in his eyes. Then he went on: "Now you've already told me about your mother and the night she died. You remember, when I came out with Clint. But Miss Leaford, I want to ask you about last night about everything that happened before be-fore you left the house to meet Clint: who you saw, what you did, what other people did." So June, picking her words with care, arranging her memories in order, or-der, began to tell him; and while she tallied, he made an occasional note, on a pad of paper, till she con cluded at last: "And then Clint brought me away, brought me in here." Inspector Tope nodded with a deep approval. "That's fine," he said; and he explained: "I've been trying to figure out the times when some of these things happened. I've made a schedule. Some of this you don't know about; but you and Clint look at it and see if it's about right, as far as you know." (TO BE CONTINUED) |