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Show ROnZRXS RINEHART !Li USTffATlOftt BY RyWfiJr SYMOPSIS. Miss Innes, spinster and guardian of Gertrude and Halsey, established summer sum-mer headquarters at Sunnyside. Arnold Armstrong was found shot to death in the hall. Gertrude and her fiance, Jack Bailey, had conversed In the billiard room shortly before the murder. Detective Detec-tive Jamieson accused Miss Innes of holding hold-ing back evidence. Cashier Bailey of Paul Armstrong's bank, defunct, was arrested for embezzlement. Paul Armstrong's death was announced. Halsey's fiancee, Louise Armstrong, told Halsey that while she still loved him, she was to marry another. an-other. It developed that Dr. Walker was the man. Louise was found unconscious at the bottom of the circular staircase. She said something had brushed by her in the dark on the stairway and she fainted. Bailey is suspected of Armstrong's Arm-strong's murder. Thomas, the lodgekeep-er, lodgekeep-er, was found dead with a note in his pocket bearing the name "Lucien Wallace." Wal-lace." A ladder found out of place deepens deep-ens the mystery. The stables were burned, and in the dark Miss Innes shot an intruder. Halsey mysteriously disappeared. disap-peared. ' His auto was found wrecked by a freight train. It developed Halsey had an argument in the library with a woman before his disappearance. New cook disappears. dis-appears. Miss Innes learned Halsey was alive. Dr. Walker's face becomes livid at mention of the name of Nina Carring-ton. Carring-ton. Evidence was secured from a tramp that a man, supposedly Halsey, had been bound and gagged and thrown into an empty box car. Gertrude was missing. Hunting for her, Miss Innes ran into a man and fainted. A confederate of Dr. Walker confessed his part in the mystery. mys-tery. He stated that the Carrington woman wo-man had been killed, that Walker feared her, and that he believed that Paul Armstrong Arm-strong had been killed by a hand guided by Walker. Halsey was found in a distant dis-tant hospital. Paul Armstrong was not dead. Miss Innes discovered secret rooms In which the Traders' bank treasure was believed to be. Mrs. Watson, dying, said she killed Arnold Armstrong, who years before had married her sister under the alias of Wallace. Lucien Wallace was born of the marriage. Miss Innes discovered discov-ered a secret panel to the mysterious room and unwittingly locked herself within. with-in. During the hunt for her the searchers search-ers ran across Paul Armstrong. Armstrong Arm-strong pitched forward down the circular staircase, breaking his neck. In the secret se-cret room was found the Traders' bank loot, which Armstrong had taken. He Was Kissing Her. was Halsey's idea that John Bailey come to the house as a gardener, and pursue his investigations as he could. His smooth upper lip had been sufficient suffi-cient disguise, with his change of clothes, and a hair-cut by a country barber. So it was Alex, Jack Bailey, who had been our ghost. Not only had he alarmed Louise and himself, he admitted ad-mitted on the circular staircase, but he had dug the hole in the trunkroom wall, and later sent Eliza into hysteria. The note Liddy had found in Gertrude's Ger-trude's scrap-basket was from him, and it was he who had startled me into unconsciousness by the clothes chute, and, with Gertrude's help, had carried me to Louise's room. Gertrude, Ger-trude, I learned, had watched all night beside me, in an extremity of anxiety about me. That old Thomas had seen his master, mas-ter, and thought he had seen the Sunnyside Sun-nyside ghost, there could be no doubt. Of that story of Thomas, about seeing see-ing Jack Bailey in the footpath between be-tween the club and Sunnyside, the night Liddy and I heard the noise on the circular staircase that, too, was right. On the night before Arnold Armstrong was murdered, Jack Bailey had made an attempt to search for the secret room. He secured Arnold's keys from his room at the club and got into the house, armed with a golf-stick golf-stick for sounding the walls. ' He ran against the hamper at the head of the stairs, caught his cuff-link in it, and dropped the golf-stick with a crash. He was glad enough to get away without an alarm being raised, and he took the "owl" train to town. The oddest thing to me was that Mr. Jamieson had known for some time that Alex was Jack Bailey. But the face of the pseudo-gardener was very queer indeed when, that night, in the cardroom, the detective turned to him and said: "How long are you and I going to play our little comedy, Mr. Bailey?" Well, it is all over now. Paul Armstrong Arm-strong rests In Casanova churchyard, and this time there is no mistake. I went to the funeral, because I wanted to be sure he was really buried, and I looked at the step of the shaft where I had sat that night, and wondered won-dered if it was all real. Sunnyside is for sale no, I shall not buy it. Little Lucien Armstrong is living with his step-grandmother, who is recovering gradually from troubles that had extended ex-tended over the entire period of her second marriage. Anne Watson lies not far from the man she killed, and who as surely caused her death. Thomas, the fourth victim of the conspiracy, con-spiracy, is buried on the hill. With Nina Carrington, five lives were sacrificed sac-rificed in the course of this grim conspiracy. con-spiracy. There will be two weddings before long, and Liddy has asked for my heliotrope poplin to wear to the church. I knew she would. She has wanted it for three years, and she was quite ugly the time I spilled coffee cof-fee on it. We are very quiet, just the two of us. Liddy still clings to her ghost theory, and points to my wet and muddy boots in the trunkroom as proof. I am gray, I admit, but haven't felt as well in a dozen years. Sometimes, when I am bored, I ring for Liddy, and we talk things over. When Warner married Rosie, Liddy sniffed and said what I took for faithfulness faith-fulness in Rosie had been nothing but mawkishness. I have not yet outlived Liddy's contempt because I gave them silver knives and forks as a wedding gift. So we sit and talk, and sometimes Liddy threatens to leave, and often 1 discharge her, but we stay together somehow. I am talking of renting a house next year, and Liddy says to be sure there is no ghost. To be perfectly perfect-ly frank, I never really lived until that summer. Time has passed since I began this story. My neighbors are packing up for another summer. Liddy is having the awnings put up, and the window-boxes filled. Liddy or no Liddy, Lid-dy, I shall advertise to-morrow for a house in the country, and I don't care if it has a Circular Staircase. THE END. He and Louise had no conversation together until that night. Gertrude and Alex I mean Jack had gone for a walk, although it was nine o'clock, and anybody but a pair of young geese would have known that dew was falling, fall-ing, and that it is next to impossible to get rid of a summer cold. At half after nine," growing weary of my own company, I went downstairs down-stairs to find the young people. At the door of the living room I paused. Gertrude and Jack had returned and were there, sitting together on a divan, with only one lamp lighted. They did not see or hear me, and I beat a hasty retreat to the library. But here again I was driven back. Louise was sitting in a deep chair, looking the happiest I had ever seen her, with Halsey on the arm of the chair, holding her close. The next day, by degrees, I got the whole story. Paul Armstrong had a besetting evil the love of money. Common enough, but he loved money, not for what it would buy, but for its own sake. An examination of the books showed no irregularities in the past year since John had been cashier, but be- days Halsey lay in the box car, tied hand and foot, suffering tortures of thirst, delirious at times, and discovered discov-ered by a tramp at Johnsville only in time to save his life. To go back to Paul Armstrong. At the last moment his plans had been frustrated. Sunnyside, with its hoard in the chimney room, had been rented without his knowledge! Attempts to dislodge me having failed, he was driven to breaking into his own house. The ladder in the chute, the burning of the stable and the entrance through the cardroom window all were in the course of a desperate attempt to get into the chimney room. Louise and her mother had, from the first, been the great stumbling-blocks. stumbling-blocks. The plan had been to send Louise away until it was too late for her to interfere, but she came back to the hotel at C just at the wrong time. There was a terrible scene. The girl was told that something some-thing of the kind was necessary; that the bank was about to close and her stepfather would either avoid arrest and disgrace in this way, or kill himself. him-self. Fanny Armstrong was a weakling, weak-ling, but Louise was more difficult to CHAPTER XXXII!. Continued. As Alex and I reached the second floor, Mr. Jamieson met us. He was grave and quiet, and he nodded com-prehendingly com-prehendingly when he saw the safe. "Will you come with me for a moment, mo-ment, Miss Innes?" he asked soberly, and on my assenting, he led the way to the east wing. There were lights moving around below, and some of the maids were standing gaping down. They screamed when they saw me, and drew back to let me pass. There was a sort of hush over the scene; Alex, behind me, muttered something I could not hear, and brushed past me without ceremony. Then I realized that a man was lying doubled up at the foot of the staircase, and that Alex was stooping over him. As I came slowly down, Winters stepped back, and Alex straightened himself, looking at me across the body with impenetrable, eyes. In his hand he held a shaggy gray wig, and before me on, the floor lay the man whose headstone stood in Casanova churchyard Paul Armstrong. Winters told the story in a dozen words. In his headlong flight down the circular staircase, with Winters just behind', Paul Armstrong had pitched forward violently, struck his head against the door to the east veranda, ver-anda, and probably broken his neck. He had died as Winters reached him. As the detective finished, I saw Halsey, Hal-sey, pale and shaken, in the card-room card-room doorway, and for the first time that night I lost my self-control. I put my arms around my boy, and for a moment he had to support me. A second sec-ond later, over Halsey's shoulder, I saw something that turned my emotion emo-tion into other channels, for behind him, in the shadowy cardroom, were Gertrude and Alex, the gardener, and there is no use mincing matters he was kissing her! I was unable to speak. Twice I opened my mouth; then I turned Halsey Hal-sey around and pointed. They were quite unconscious of us; her head was on his shoulder, his face against her hair. As it happened, it was Mr. Jamieson who broke up the tableau. He stepped over to Alex and touched him on the arm. "And now," he said quietly, "how long are you and I to play our little comedy, Mr. Bailey?" CHAPTER XXXIV. The Odds and Ends. Of Dr. Walker's sensational escape that night to South America, of the recovery of over $1,000,000 in cash and securities' in the safe from the chimney room the papers have kept the public well informed. Of my share in discovering the secret chamber they have been singularly silent. The inner history has never been told. Mr. JamiesoD got all kinds of credit, and some ot it he deserved, but if Jack Bai'.ey, as Alex, had not traced Halsey and insisted on the disinterring of Paul Armstrong's casket, if he had not suspected the truth from the start, where would the detective have j been? When Halsey learned the truth, he insisted on going the next morning, weak as he was, to Louise, and by night she was at Sunnyside, under Gertrude's particular care, while her mother had gone to Barbara Fitz-hugh's. Fitz-hugh's. What Halsey said to Mrs. Arm-itrong Arm-itrong I never knew, but that he was considerate and chivalrous I feel confident. con-fident. It was Halsey's way always with women. fore that, in the time of Anderson, the old cashier, who had died, much strange juggling had been done with the records. The railroad in New Mexico had apparently drained the banker's private fortune, and he determined de-termined to retrieve it by one stroke. This was nothing less than the looting loot-ing of the bank's securities, turning them into money, and making his escape. es-cape. But the law has long arms. Paul Armstrong evidently studied the situation situa-tion carefully. Just as the only good Indian is a dead Indian, so the only safe defaulter is a dead defaulter. He decided to die, to all appearances, and when the hue and cry subsided, he would be able to enjoy his money almost al-most anywhere he wished. The first necessity was an accomplice. accom-plice. The connivance of Dr. Walker was suggested by his love for Louise. The man was unscrupulous, and with the girl as a bait, Paul Armstrong soon had him fast. The plan was apparently ap-parently the acme of simplicity: A small town in the west, an attack of heart disease, a body from a medical college dissecting room shipped in a trunk to Dr. Walker by a colleague in San Francisco, and palmed off for the supposed dead banker. What was simpler? The woman, Nina Carrington, was the cog that slipped. What she only suspected, what she really knew, we never learned. She was a chambermaid chamber-maid in the hotel at C , and it was evidently her intention to blackmail Dr. Walker. His position at that time was uncomfortable: To pay the woman wom-an to keep quiet would be confession. He denied the whole thing, and she went to Halsey. It was that that had taken Halsey to the doctor the night he disappeared. disap-peared. He accused the doctor of the deception, and, crossing the lawn, had said something cruel to Louise. Then, furious at her apparent connivance, he had started for the station. Dr. Walker and Paul Armstrong the latter lat-ter still lame where I had shot him hurried across to the embankment, certain only of one thing. Halsey must not tell the detective what he suspected sus-pected until the money had been removed re-moved from the chimney room. They stepped into the road in front of the car to stop it, and fate played into their hands. The car struck the train, and they had only to dispose of the unconscious figure in the road. This they did as I have told. For three manage. She had no love for her stepfather, step-father, but her devotion to her mother moth-er was entire, self-sacrificing. Forced into acquiescence by her mother's appeals, ap-peals, overwhelmed by the situation, the girl consented and fled. From somewhere in Colorado she sent an anonymous telegram to Jack Bailey at the Traders' bank. Trapped as she was, she did not want to see an innocent man arrested. The telegram, tele-gram, received on Thursday, had sent the cashier to the bank that night in a frenzy. Louise arrived at Sunnyside and found the house rented. Not knowing what to do, she sent for Arnold at the Greenwood club, and told him a little, not all. She told him that there was something wrong, and that the bank was about to close. That his father was responsible. Of the conspiracy she said nothing. To her surprise, Arnold already knew, through Bailey that night, that things were not right. Moreover, he suspected what Louise did not, that the money was hidden at Sunnyside. He had a scrap of paper that indicated a concealed room somewhere. some-where. His inherited cupidity was aroused. Eager to get Haisey and Jack Bailey out of the house, he went up to the east entry, and in the billiard room gave the cashier what he had refused earlier in the evening the address of Paul Armstrong in California and a telegram which had been forwarded to the club for Bailey, from Dr. Walker. Walk-er. It was in response to one Bailey bad sent, and it said that Paul Armstrong Arm-strong was very ill. Bailey was almost desperate. He decided to go west and find Paul Armstrong Arm-strong and to force him to disgorge. But the catastrophe at the bank occurred oc-curred sooner than he had expected. On the moment of starting west, at Andrews station, where Mr. Jamieson had located the car, he read that the bank had closed, and, going back, surrendered sur-rendered himself. John Bailey had known Paul Armstrong Arm-strong intimately. He did not believe that the money was gone; in fact, it was hardly possible in the interval since the securities had been taken. Where was it? And from some chance remark let fall some months earlier I by Arnold Armstrong at a dinner, Eailey felt sure there was a hidden j room at Sunnyside. He tried to see the architect of the building, but, like l the contractor, if he knew of the ' room, be refused any information. It |