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Show had been to the Derby or Wad iron, any eepeclal suit upon that day? The more I cudgeled my brains over ft the more benumbed they became, nntll at last I picked up my hat and rushed out of the house. Having but little idea that I would learn anything by bo doing, I nevertheless immediately boarded a car and going to the shop of my tailor threw the note on the counter before him. "What do you know about that note, Johnson?" I demanded. de-manded. He picked it up, adjusted his eyeglasses eye-glasses and read it with a slowly forming and negative pursing of his mouth. Then he held it forth. "Nothing at all. What is there about it?" I took the card from him and replaced it carefully in my pocket as I made my reply. "Only this that it is a forgery. And while I did not for a uiomerw think that you had any information about it, I went to the pains of coming here to ask you. Neither do I suppose yon know anything concerning the whereabout where-about of the clothes mentioned." His answer furnished me the second surprise sur-prise of the day. "Oh, yes, I do. The suit is here all right. It was brought in yesterday yester-day by a strange men who said you wished mo to press it for you. I have done so and it is now in perfect condition." condi-tion." I looked at him with the incredulity in-credulity with which one faces a person per-son who makes an incredible statement state-ment with a straight face and under the guise of seriousness. "Let me see the suit," I ordered. He did so, and I inspected it critically. critic-ally. I could discover nothing amiss with It externally, and searching the pockets found they were empty. However, How-ever, that was to be expected, as I could remember having nothing in them when I had hung it away, certainly cer-tainly nothing of any value to anybody any-body but myself. I had only succeeded succeed-ed in thickening the mystery which enveloped this extraordinary transaction, transac-tion, and puzzled beyond expression, I arranged with the tailor that in the future he should allow none of my clothes which he happened to have in his possession to leave his hands upon an order ostensibly written by me unless the order contained a secret mark which ws then and there agreed upon. Then instructing him that if any one called for the suit in-question in-question and presented an order for the same not bearing the minute token of its genuineness which we had juflt invented, that he was to detain de-tain him until he could summon an officer and have him arrested, I departed. de-parted. What possible object ,any person could have had in wishing ta say ti ttitef had 'ivf to th front ( door. How do you account for an outsider possessing that?" I wondered if she had forgotten the incident of my keyi having been for some days in the possession of the maid and the possibility of duplicates du-plicates easily made from the original. I hesitated for a moment as I idly turned the pages of a book that she might hav time to recall this circumstance, circum-stance, but she merely sat placidly surveying me and I thought it would be better taste not to mention it. Her confidence in Janet seemed to be complete, and of course in matters of this kind if the maid was guilty her mistress would be the last one in whom she would confide. I therefore decided to abandon the subject for the time. "I do not attempt to account for it," I returned slowly. "But as must be apparent to you, my cousin Bruce is under suspicion in some quarters, and believing from the bottom of my heart that he is innocent, I am trying to evolve a theory which will let him out despite his own obstinacy and seeming determination to keep himself him-self in. I was merely trying to discover dis-cover all possible leaks through which the information might have escaped. I have told Mr. LeDuc everything and you need not be surprised if he calls upon you. But he is a gentleman and you need have no hesitancy about talking to him freely." She appeared a trifle annoyed at this prospect, but after a moment's reflection, wherein her brow was clouded, 6he drew a long breath. "Poor Bruce," she said sympathetically. sympathetical-ly. "It would be a shame if he should somehow get dragged into this. In the few times I met him I learned to admire ad-mire him very much. It is Impossible that he is guilty I simply know he is not. I sincerely hope that he may clear himself without publicity." "Amen," I responded heartily. CHAPTER XII. A few days later there happened a little incident so inexplicable and irritating irri-tating in its character that it caused me considerable annoyance and thought. It was one of those peculiar occurrences that one does not care anything about in itself, yet which exasperates him because of his inability in-ability to explain it It so happened that I desired to wear a certain suit of clothes which I had purchased a short while before, and with that purpose pur-pose before me went into the closet where I kept my spare apparel hanging hang-ing in order to get it cut. I could not ingly a ViVOi impatient at my stupidl-ity. stupidl-ity. "The ,ote on your card which you sent mo only yesterday saying that I was V3 give it to the tailor," she retorted. re-torted. I could only repeat somewhat more emphatically that I had done no such thing. She threw down her towel with a sniff and began rumaging about among the odds and ends of a shelf. Presently she picked up a small piece of cardboard, whloh she handed me with an expression of triumph. "Very well. Just read it for yourself then. If that is not your card and writing I cannot trust my eyes, and if I cannot can-not trust my eyes the Lord knows what I can trust And that is all I have got to say about that." I seized the piece of paper and glanced at it It was certainly either one of my cards or a perfect imitation, and having hav-ing satisfied myself on that point I turned it over and saw written on the back a few lines, which while certainly certain-ly bearing a strong resemblance to my chirography when I scribble in a hurry, were as certainly not mine. They read: "Mrs. Tebbets: Please to deliver to the bearer, who is in the employ of my tailor, the suit of clothes I wore on Derby day that he may press the same. Thomas Halli-day." Halli-day." For a moment I was too surprised to do more than turn it over in mute incredulity. Then I turned upon her sharply. "What kind of a looking man brought this?" "He was short and fat I guess he was about as old as you are. I thought at the time that he looked funny in the eyes, but I did not let him in the house and did not pay much attention to him. I am always careful about admitting strangers, you know. It is all right, isn't it?" "No, there isn't anything right about it. It is a plain, unmitigated, unadulterated unadul-terated forgery. 'Did he say anything more to you?" Her chin dropped. "Well, of all things! To think of the impudence of people nowadays. No, sir, he said scarcely a word and I never did like the looks of him. He Just took the clothes and went away as fast as he could, and I never thought of it again. But that is certainly cer-tainly your card, isn't it, Mr. Tom? It looks just like those I used to see on your dresser." It was plain that she -was beginning to be distressed and I hastened to reassure, her. "The card is either mine or a very clever imitation, I am not quite certain cer-tain of which as yet. But in all probability is it one of mine. The "Have You Any Idea of How He Became Possessed of the Key to th House Which I Saw Him Have Yesterday ?" LASH f I .fK? &y Harry Irving Greene m Author ofYosonde of the. Wilderness" i5dV2jJ IlkisTroions by Magnus O. Ktner- Due, who would keep his secre equally equal-ly sacred, and we would be none the wiser. I sincerely regret his obstinacy, obstin-acy, for even though it does not get him into any particular trouble it may compel him to go through an ordeal or-deal that may be unpleasant for us all. I know LeDuc well enough to believe be-lieve that he will get at the bottom of this affair If he possibly can, no matter whom he uncovers as he digs." She breathed a little sigh. "Of course I appreciate all that and I have tried to reason with him, but he would not listen to me any more than he did to you. He almost swore when I begged him to ignore me and tell you men all about himself. While I would stake my life upon his innocence inno-cence of all complicity In this matter, I can explain it to myself in only one way, and I cannot force myself to believe be-lieve even that." Our eyes met squarely. "I am certain there is no other woman in the case; Bruce is not that kind," I stated positively. She reddened and her hands became be-came tight little fists. "No, I will not believe such a thing of him," she cried with a slight quivering of the lips. Quickly she arose and passed into my uncle's apartments with head on high. It seemed too bad that I had been obliged to mention such a distasteful thing, but I knew well enough that despite herself it was hovering in her mind, and I wanted to add my convictions of his moral honesty to her own. It distressed me to see her unhappy, but deeming it best to let her have a little time In which to compose herself I did not follow her, leaving the house almost immediately thereafter, and in fact avoiding any further contact with my uncle that day. A little later I had gotten Mrs. Dace on the telephone and told her that I would like to see her as I was the possessor of rather startling news. She asked me to come to her at once. She did not seem to be as surprised or interested at my recital as I thought the tale warranted. To be sure her eyes quickly arose to mine when I told her of the crime, and she gave me her undivided attention until I had finished; then seemed to be turning turn-ing the affair over in her own mind, for she allowed several minutes to elapse without comment "Whom do you suspect I mean you personally?" she then asked me. I requested that she pledge herself to secrecy, which she did with a little laugh that told me that she considered consid-ered such a formula superfluous. "I suspect absolutely no one. Yet I am puzzled and worried by Bruce's conduct. I do not attach much importance im-portance to his denial of having the key and our failure to find it, although I cannot account for the denial part of it. Neither do I give great weight to his words about his going to get hold of a large sum of money. I take It for granted that when he said he was going to raise it somehow or other oth-er it was with the mental reservation that it was to be done honestly, of course. Also when It comes to his absolute refusal to tell us where he was last night I can imagine a solution solu-tion of that, for when a man is under the influence of liquor he will sometimes some-times do things that he would not think of were he in his right mind. It is also on record that sleep walkers walk-ers sometimes commit burglaries when they are in a trance and are utterly irresponsible for their actions. Take that recent case that everybody was talking about. The person involved in-volved attended a dance and became very tired, fell asleep on the way home, skilfully broke into his own house and robbed himself of money that he had hidden away, and the next day remembered nothing about the matter. It was long afterwards that he happened to stumble across the money where he had secreted It in his semiconscious state." She did not appear to be particularly particular-ly impressed by my statement. "I am inclined to believe that whoever robbed your uncle at least thought he knew what he was about," she answered an-swered with what I imagined was a faint suggestion of sarcasm. "However, "How-ever, Bruce, being somewhat indisposed indis-posed and in an excited state, might have unconsciously let fall a remark in some public place, which, in connection con-nection with his perhaps exhibiting the key, led to its being stolen from him and the perpetration of the crime by some one else,," I acquiesced. "I have thought of that as a possible pos-sible solution of the reason as to why he will not reveal his whereabouts, and I am certain it will not escape LeDuc. Le-Duc. Perhaps Bruce is conscious of having bean indiscreet in his speech or actions and is ashamed to talk about it. But this much is fairly certain. cer-tain. It is too great a stretch of the imagination to conceive that the attack at-tack upon the 6afe at this particular time was made at hap-hazard. The on- who did it knew to a certainty tht the money was in the house. And so far as we now know but four persons per-sons in the world had that knowledge, knowl-edge, namely, Uncle Abner, Bruce, myself and " I paused, clearing my throat and giving her an opportunity to interrupt me if she chose. She did so promptly. "You told me," she said sweetly. "Therefore it seems to lie between Bruce and myself." The opening that I had been feinting for was now before me and I thrust at it. "Is it not barely possible that Janet, the maid, might have overheard me mention the fact of uncle having a large sum in the safe and thoughtlessly thought-lessly repeated it to some acquaintance acquaint-ance of hers?" Although not a muscle of her face moved, in some mysterious mysteri-ous way I knew that my companion was smiling Inwardly. "No. Janet hears nothing that is not spoken to her, and I do not permit per-mit her to have lovers. Besides, you r ? j secure possession of a suit of my clothes which contained nothing of the slightest worth; and who having secured possession of it should go to the trouble of conveying it from my house to the tailor shop was utterly beyond my comprehension. The forger for-ger had not Injured the clothes, as some petty-minded enemy might have done out of a spirit of spite, and altogether al-together I could conceive of no possible pos-sible benefit or satisfaction any one could have derived from such hd elaborate and criminal subterfuge. T7t trly baffled, I determined to say nothing more about it for the time, quietly awaiting any new developments develop-ments that might arise. The next morning another strangs -thing had happened. I was dressing for the day at my customary hour for arising when suddenly the house, keeper's knuckles fell upon the door in a series of nervous taps. She almost al-most never came to the upper floor before the breakfast hour, and I there-' fore searched her face with some curiosity cu-riosity as I told her that she might enter. She immediately burst forth Id an excited volley. "Oh, Mr. Tom! The house has been burglarized again in the night. What on earth are we coming to with such people prowling all around in the darkness? I never was so frightened in my life. I declare I nearly fell in a faint when I discovered it. Please come with me and I will show you." Dumfoundedly, and with my necktie still dangling from my hand, I followed fol-lowed her squat figure as she climbed down the front stairs, waddled through the dining room and kitchen and then one foot at a time descended descend-ed the steep stairs that lnd to the basement. There was only one door entering from the outside Into these lower regions and that was never used in fact, had been bolted ever since my occupancy of the premises. The aperture in the side of the house through which the coal supply was dumped from the drive Into the bin was protected by an Iron grating which was always carefully locltod after such an operation, and the low windows which admitted llRht to the furnace room had fixed iron bars on the outside. The police, LeDuc and myself had gone over this region thoroughly in our search and hiid found that the locks had not been tampered with nor the gratings disturbed; dis-turbed; the dust and the rust had proven that beyond contention. Now to my amazement I saw that the door had been forced by some powerful power-ful instrument that lad torn the receiving re-ceiving socket for the bolt bodily from its fastenings. My lialr htobu with a cold tingling of my scalp, much as It might have done had 1 been suddenly confronted by some uncanny object in the dead of night (TO BK CONTINUED.) 8 SYNOPSIS. Abner Halliday, a miserly millionaire. Is found gassed, bound and Insensible in his room, his safe rifled and $40,000 missing. miss-ing. The thread of the story Is taken up by his nephew Tom. Living in the same house are other relatives;- reckless Bruce Halliday and pretty Clare Wlnton. Bruce, who Is a bond broker, has been trying to raise $10,000 to put through a deal and save himself from financial ruin. He has applied to his miserly uncle and to others for the loan hut has been refused. Tom Bends for William LeDuc, an old-time friend connected with a detective agency, In relating; the story Tom reverts to his acquaintance with a Mrs. Dace, a wealthy widow, whose business agent is Richard Mackay, a boodler and political boss. Tom Is jealous of Mackay and Is deeply In love with Mrs. Dace. Bruce Halliday warns him to shun her as an adventuress. Tom sees Mrs. Dace and Mackay together. togeth-er. He afterwards meets the woman at a horse race, and, happening to mention that Bruce had a tip on the winner, she gives him $600 to place on the race. The tip goes wrong and she loses her money. Later Tom invests In stocks. He makes some money, and returns the lost $500 to Mrs. Dace. It is at tilts juncture that the theft of the $40,000 from old Abner Halliday Halli-day occurs. Le Due meets Clare and Bruce. He learns that the key wh'ih Clare had to the house is missing. MV-kay's MV-kay's dealings with Mrs. Dace make Tom more Jealous. Mo $0tdV. V7oVdW3.0.u Jd cmfw mm CHAPTER XI. I went back to the house. Clare had left my uncle's room and I heard her voice mingled with Bruce's on the lawn below. Uncle Abner had arisen and was carefully examining his papers as he rearranged them in their customary order. He had been - hurt but little, and now that his blood was circulating freely again and the stiffness was disappearing from his limbs he was not suffering bodily to amount to anything. But his humor was beastly. The look with which he greeted me as I entered was almost carnivorous. "This is what comes of housing fly--by-nights who spend their money staying stay-ing In hotels when they should be at home in the beds which they have already al-ready paid for," he snarled. "If you had been here it would not have happened. hap-pened. I don't believe there was more than one thief, and he could not have held you if you had any fight in you." "He probably would not have tried it. At any rate, had I resisted I would have stood an excellent chance of being killed. Men who enter the houses of others to commit a crime at uight know that they hold their own lives in the hollow of their hands and are prepared to meet resistance with bloodshed," I returned somewhat icily. But the coolness of my tones only made his wrath flame the hotter. "It don't make any difference. It was your business to be here when you knew there was so much money In the house instead of running away like a coward and leaving me to protect pro-tect it all alone. And I suppose you expect you will inherit some of it After I am gone, but I'll show you," ho yelled. Tke direct intimation that he would ignore me upon his death bed, and that he considered my life of Vss consequence than a fraction of his wealth, turned me from him without with-out a word. I went to my own room, where I etood at the window looking upon the grounds below. Bruce and Clare were wandering aimlessly about, and even at that distance I could see the worry that lay upon her face. As for ' Bruce, ho seemed to have recovered a good deal of his old-time assurance, put presently he turned away with a curt nod while she stood for a moment mo-ment watching him with a pathetic little clasping of her hands; then turned and came hurriedly into the house. I Intercepted her at the head of the stairs and signalled for her to come into my apartments. She did so, seating herself in a chair that I drew for her. "Well," I said inquiringly. inquir-ingly. She shook her head. Sympathetically I continued: "It is really too bad and I don't understand under-stand it either. Nobody in the world has more confidence in Bruce's honesty hon-esty than I have, and if he would only speak I would believe him against a host of circumstances. But there are certain things which he as a man should come forward and explain. He did not produce the key and denied ever having had it, while I know it was in his possession yesterday. The only thing we could get out of him was his permission for us to go to an uncomfortable place. Have you any idea of how he became possessed of the key to the house which I saw him have yesterday?" "I have not assuming that you are right. We have been talking that same matter over and he says he had no key in his side coat pocket and never carries one there. I know that I never gave him mine, and its disappearance at this time can be nothing more than a strange coincidence. He also denies that he ever at any time had possession posses-sion of my key, and I am satisfied that he did not for the reason that If he had I should have missed it I don't care a snap what anybody thinks or says; I know Bruce is as puzzled over your charge that he had it as you seem to be over his denial." Her mouth set defiantly and I knew she would defend him to the last ditch should I attack him, which, of course, I had not the remotest idea of doing. Instead, I became even more mollifying, mollify-ing, hoping to reason him out of his stubbornness through argument advanced ad-vanced to her. "I know that his denial proves nothing any more than does the fact of his going broke on 'change, or his making that silly remark that he was going to get $10,000 some way. Neither Neith-er would his refusal to tell- us where he spent the night prejudice me, although al-though it might seem somewhat singular, sin-gular, and under the circumstances be sufficient to arouse suspicion in those who do not know him. But the combination of all these things places him in a position before LeDuc which I regret to see him occupy. You and I have often discussed his outspokenness, outspoken-ness, and you have said that he did not know that there was a back door to anything. It is his present complete com-plete reversal of form and his evident desire to cover up something that ought to be revealed that puzzles me. Why don't he come out as he has always al-ways done before and tell us where he was at the time this happened? If for any reason he does not care to tell you, he at least might confide in me, knowing as he does that any j secret would be safe in my keeping. Then I could investigate his statement state-ment merely as a matter of form, and hav'-g found it true I could satisfy LeDuc or anybody else without going into particulars. If on the other hand there is any reason why h on't care to take you or me into his confidence, con-fidence, he could at least talk to Le- "It Is a Plain, Unmitigated, Unadulterated Forgery." writing is also a fair counterfeit. Anyway, Any-way, it is good enough to fool almost any one, and I do not blame you in the least for having been deceived. Don't feel worried about it, for it is not your fault at all. Nevertheless, there Is something wrong about it and I don't undestand it." I thrust the card into my pocket and returned to my rooms a great deal more perplexed than I had been when I left them. Hastily I attempted to run over in my mind the people who could by any possibility have had access to my private stationery, but was obliged to dismiss that thought when I realized real-ized that my cards were scattered throughout the entire list of my acquaintances ac-quaintances and that my card case containing a number of them was stllJ missing. The field of possibilities jt, this direction was too large for me to form even a remote conjecture, and I was drawn to the conclusion that it find it. Growing more and more Impatient Im-patient as I searched among my things I at last removed all that the closet contained, article by article, and laid them on the bed. The suit that I was looking for was certainly missing. I sat down and thought. I remembered remem-bered distinctly the last time I had worn It, and had an equally clear recollection of replacing it in its accustomed ac-customed place at the end of the day. I was positive that I had not touched it since that time and its absence now, as far as I was able to reason, could only be explained on the theory of theft. I went downstairs to Mrs. Tebbets Teb-bets to question her about it, and happening to recall that she had expressed ex-pressed her admiration of it upon seeing it upon me for the first time, I now described It to her as the suit which I had worn on Derby day. She answered me very promptly. "Why, yes. That is the one you sent me word about yesterday. I let the man have it as you told me to in the note." 1 looked at her in mystification, knowing that I had sent her no note and being at a loss to grasp her meaning. "What note what man?" 1 demanded. She stood rubbing her damD hands with a towel and seem- in all probability was the work of some clever sneak thief who had found my card case and then written the note upon it. But even that was an explanation which explained nothing. Granting that a petty rascal had picked up the cards containing my name and address, how was lie able to so closely counterfeit my handwriting; p.nd more mysterious than all else, how did be know that I |