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Show II fo il ! 'kpiWj'tf amazement. "I will make out the check. Warner can take you down to the noon train." Liddy's face was really funny. "You'll have a nice time at your sister's," I went on. "Five children, hasn't she?" "That's it," Liddy said, suddenly bursting into tears. "Send me away, after all these years, and your new-shawl new-shawl only half done, and nobody knowin' how to fix the water for your bath." "It's time I learned to prepare my own bath." I was knitting complacently. compla-cently. But Gertrude got up and put her arms around Liddy's shaking shoulders. "Y'ou are two big babies," she said soothingly. "Neither one of you could get along for an hour without the other. oth-er. So stop quarreling and be good. Liddy, go right up and lay out aunty's night things. She is going to bed early." After Liddy had gone I began to thinlt about the men at the stable, and I grew more and more anxious. Hal- &KMARY ROBERTS RINZHART lumrxATions by RyWJrJ' SoryHCMT 1909 soa&i tKLi' c& T SYNOPSIS. Mies- Innes. spinster and puardi.in of Gertrude and Halsey. established summer headquarters at Sunnyside. The servants desert. Gertrude and Halsey arrive with Jack Bailey. The house was awakened by a revolver shot and Arnold Armstrong was found shot to death in the hall. Miss Innes found Halscv's revolver on the lawn. He and Jack Bailey had disappeared. disap-peared. Gertrude revealed that she was engaged to Jack Bailey, with whom she talked in the billiard room shortly before the murder. Detective Jamieson accused Miss Innes of holding back evidence. He imprisoned an intruder in an empLy room. The prisoner escaped. Gertrude was suspected sus-pected because of an injured foot. Halsey Hal-sey reappears and says lie and Bailey were called away by a telegram. Cashier Bailey of Paul Armstrong's bank, defunct, de-funct, was arrested for embezzlement. Paul Armstrong's death was announced. Hal.sev's fiancee, Louise Armstrong, told Halsey that while she still loved him. she was to marry another. It developed that Dr. Walker was the man. Louise was found at the bottom of the circular staircase. stair-case. Recovering consciousness, she said something had brushed by her on the stairway and she fainted. Bailey is suspected sus-pected of Armstrong's murder. After "seeing a ghost." Thomas, the lodgekeep-er, lodgekeep-er, was found dead with a slip in his pocket bearing the name of "Dticien Wallace." Wal-lace." Dr. Walker asked Miss Innes to vacate In favor of Mrs. Armstrong. She refused. A note from Bailey to Gertrude arranging a meeting at night was found. coming toward me, and I shrank into I the bushes. It was Gertrude, going back quickly toward the house. I was surprised. I waited until she had had time to get almost to the house before I started. And then I stepped back again into the shadows. The reason why Gertrude had not kept her tryst was evident. Leaning on the parapet of the bridge in the moonlight, and smoking a pipe, was Alex, the gardener. I could have throttled Liddy for her carelessness in reading the torn note where he could hear. And I could cheerfully have choked Alex to death for his audacity. But there was no help for it; I turned and followed Gertrude slowly back to the house. The frequent invasions of the house had effectually prevented any relaxation relaxa-tion after dusk. We had redoubled our vigilance as to bolts and window-locks, window-locks, but, as Mr. Jamieson had suggested, sug-gested, we allowed the door at the east entry to remain as before, locked by the Yale lock only. To provide only one possible entrance for the invader, and to keep a constant guard in the dark at the foot of the circular staircase, stair-case, seemed to be the only method. In the absence of the detective, Alex and Halsey arranged to change off, Halsey to be on duty from ten to two, and Alex from two until six. "There's a ladder up the clothes chute, Miss Innes," she said. "It's up that tight I can't move it, and I didn't like to ask for help until I spoke to you." It was useless to dissemble; Mary Anne knew now as well as I did that the ladder had no business to be there. I did the best I could, however. how-ever. I put her on the defensive at once. "Then you didn't lock the laundry last night?" "I locked it tight, and put the key in the kitchen on its nail." "Very well, then you forgot a window." win-dow." Mary Anne hesitated. "Yes'm," she said at last. "I thought I locked them all, but there was one open this morning." I went out of the room and down the hall, followed by Mary Anne. The door into the clothes chute was securely se-curely bolted, and when I opened it I saw the evidence of the woman's story. A pruning ladder had been brought from where it had lain against the stable and now stood upright up-right in the clothes shaft, its end resting rest-ing against the wall between the first and second floors. I turned to Mary. "This is due to your carelessness," I said. "If we had all been murdered in our beds it would have been your sey was aimlessly knocking the billiard bil-liard balls around in the billiard room, and I called to him. "Halsey," I said when he sauntered in, "Is there a policeman in Casanova?" Casa-nova?" "Constable," he said lacoriic,ally. "veteran of the war, one arm; in office of-fice to conciliate the G. A. R. element. Why?" "Because I am uneasy tonight." And I told him what Liddy had said. "Is there any one you can think of who could be relied on to watc'fi the outside of the house to-night?" "We might get Sam Bohannon from the club," he said thoughtfully. "It wouldn't be a bad scheme. He's a smart darky, and with his mouth shut and his shirt-front covered, you couldn't could-n't see him a yard off in the dark." Halsey conferred with Alex, and the result, in an hour, was Sam. His instructions were simple. There had been numerous attemDts to break into CHAPTER XXI Continued. "Grossmutter," he said. And I saw Mr. Jamieson's eyebrows go up. "German," he commented. "Well, young man, you don't seem to know much about yourself." "I've tried it all the week," Mrs. Tate broke in. "The boys knows a word or two of German, but he doesn't know where he lived, or anything about himself." Mr. Jamieson wrote something on a card and gave it to her. "Mrs. Tate," he said, "I want you to do something. Here is some money for the telephone call. The instant the boy's mother appears here, call up that number and ask for the person whose name is there. You can run across to the drug store on an errand and do it quietly. Just say, 'The lady has come.' " " 'The ladv has come,' " repeated Lach inan was armed, and, as an additional ad-ditional precaution, the one off duty slept in a room near the head of the circular staircase and kept his door open, to be ready for emergency. These arrangements were carefully kept from the servants, who were only commencing to sleep at night, and who retired, one and all, with barred doors and lamps that burned full until morning. The house was quiet again Wednesday Wednes-day night. It was almost a week since Louise had encountered some one on the stairs, and it was four days since the discovery of the hole in the trunk-room trunk-room wall. Arnold Armstrong and his father rested side by side in the Casanova churchyard, and at the Zion African church, on the hill, a new mound marked the last resting-place of poor Thomas. Louise was with her mother in town, and, beyond a polite note of fault. She shivered. Now, not a word of this through the house, and send Alex to me." The effect on Alex was to make him apoplectic with rage, and with it all I fancied there was an element of satisfaction. satis-faction. As I look back, so many things are plain to me that I wonder I could not see at the time. It is all known now, and yet the whole thing was so remarkable that perhaps my stupidity was excusable. Alex leaned down the chute and examined ex-amined the ladder carefully. "It is caught," he said with a grim smile. "The fools, to have left a warning like that! The only trouble is, Miss Innes, they won't be apt to" come back for a while." "I shouldn't regard that in the light of a calamity," I replied. Until late that evening Halsey and Alex worked at the chute. They forced down the ladder at last, and Mrs. Tate. "Very well, sir, and I hope it will be soon. The milk bill alone Is almost double what it was." "How much is the child's board?" I asked. "Three dollars a week, including his washing." "Very well," I said. "Now, Mrs. Tate, I am going to pay last week's board and a week in advance. If the mother comes she is to know nothing of this visit absolutely not a word, and, in return for your silence, you may use this money for something for your own children." Her tired, faded face lighted up, and I saw her glance at the little Tates' small feet. Shoes, I divined the feet of the genteel poor being almost as expensive ex-pensive as their stomachs. As we went back Mr. Jamieson made only one remark; I think he was laboring under the weight of a great disappointment. "Is King's a children's outfitting place?" he asked. "Not especially. It is a general department de-partment store." He was silent after that, but he went to the telephone as soon as we got home, and called up King & Co. in the city. After a time he got the general manager, and they talked for some time. When Mr. Jamieson hung up the receiver he turned to me. "The plot thickens," he said with his ready smile. "There are four women named Wallace at King's, none L 11 tl 11 I IU LilC, V UCQ1U UUHllUJ, from her. Dr. Walker had taken up his practice again, and we saw him now and then flying along the road, always at top speed. The murder of Arnold Armstrong was still unavenged, and I remained firm in the position I had taken to stay at Sunnyside until the thing was at least partly cleared. And yet, for all its quiet, it was on Wednesday night that perhaps the boldest attempt was made to enter the house. On Thursday afternoon the laundress sent word she would like to speak to me, and I saw her in my private sitting room, a small room beyond the dressing room. Mary Anne was embarrassed. She had rolled down her sleeves and tried a white apron around her waist, and she stood making folds in it with fingers fin-gers that were red and shiny from her soap-suds. "Well, Mary," I said encouragingly, "what's the matter? Don't dare to tell me the soap is nut." "No, ma'am, Miss Innes." She had a nervous habit of looking first at my one eye and then at the other, her own optics shifting ceaselessly, right eye, left eye, right eye, until I found myself doing the same thing. "No, ma'am. I was askin' did you want the ladder left up the clothes chute?" "The what?" I screeched, and was sorry the next minute. Seeing her suspicions were verified, Mary Anne had gone white, and stood with her eyes shifting more wildly than ever. ptiL a new uun uu tue uuui . .rth iui myself, I sat and wondered if I had a deadly enemy, intent on my destruction. destruc-tion. I was growing more and more nervous. nerv-ous. Liddy had given up all pretense at bravery, and slept regularly in my dressing room on the couch, with a prayer-book and a game knife from the kitchen under her pillow, thus preparing pre-paring for both the natural and the supernatural. That was the way things stood that Thursday night, when I myself took a hand in the struggle. CHAPTER XX11I. While the Stables Burned. About nine o'clock that night Liddy came into the living room and reported re-ported that one of the housemaids declared de-clared she had seen two men slip around the corner of the stable. Gertrude Ger-trude had been sitting staring in front of her, jumping at every sound. Now she turned on Liddy pettishly. "I declare, Liddy," she said, "you are a bundle of nerves. What if Eliza rtid see some men around the stable? It may have been Warner and Alex." "Warner is in the kitchen, miss," Liddy said with dignity. "And if you had come through what I have, you would be a bundle of nerves, too. Miss Rachel, I'd be thankful if you'd give me my month's wages to-morrow. I'll be going to my sister's." "Very w:ell," I said, to her evident the house; it was the intention, not to drive intruders away, but to capture cap-ture them. If Sam saw anything suspicious sus-picious outside, he was to tap at the east entry, where Alex and Halsey were to alternate in keeping watch through the night. As before, Halsey watched the east entry from ten until two. He had an eye to comfort, and he kept vigil in a heavy oak chair, very large and deep. We went upstairs rather early, and through the open door Gertrude and I kept up a running fire of conversation. Liddy was brushing my hair, and Gertrude Ger-trude was doing her own, with a long free sweep of her strong, round arms. "Did you know Mrs. Armstrong and Louise are in the village?" she called. "No," I replied, startled. "How did you. hear it?" "I met the oldest Stewart girl today, to-day, the doctor's daughter, and she told me they had not gone back to town after the funeral. They went directly di-rectly to that little yellow house next to Dr. Walker's, and are apparently settled there. They took the house furnished for the summer." "Why, it's a bandbox," I said. "I can't imagine Fanny Armstrong in such a place." "It's true, nevertheless. Ella Stewart Stew-art says Mrs. Armstrong has aged terribly, ter-ribly, and looks as if she is hardly able to walk." I lay and thought over some of these things until midnight. The electric elec-tric lights went out then, fading slow- ly until there was only a red-hot loop to be seen in the bulbs, and then even that died away and we were embarked on the darkness of another night. (TO BE CONTINUED.) of them married, and none over 20. 1 think I shall go up to the city to-night. I want to go to the Children's hospital. But before I go, Miss Innes, I wish you would be more frank with me than you have been yet. I want you to show me the revolver you picked up in the tulip bed." So he had known all along! "It was a revolver, Mr. Jamieson," I admitted, cornered at last, "but I cannot can-not show it to you. It is not in my possession." CHAPTER XXII. A Ladder Out of Place. At dinner Mr. Jamieson suggested sending a man out in his place for a touple of days, but Halsey was certain cer-tain there would be nothing more, and felt that he and Alex could manage man-age the situation. The detective went back to town early in the evening, and by nine o'clock Halsey, who had been playing golf as a man does anything to take his mind away from trouble was sleeping soundly on the big leather leath-er davenport in the living room. I sat and knitted, pretending not to notice when Gertrude got up and wandered wan-dered out into the starlight. As soon as I was satisfied that she had gone, however, 1 went out cautiously. I had no intention of eaves-dropping, but I wanted to be certain that it was Jack Bailey she was meeting. Too many things had occurred in which Gertrude Ger-trude was. or appeared to be. involved, to allow anything to be left in question. ques-tion. I went slowly across the lawn, skir-ed skir-ed the hedge to a break not far from the lodge, and found myself on the open road. Perhaps 100 feet to the left the path led across the valley to the Country club, and only a li'tle way off was the foot-bridge over Casanova Cas-anova creek. But just as I was about to turn down the path I heard steps r" t I'll 7 rr E3 Eg II I Mary Anne Had Gone White. |