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Show I kuto f the m)wkmeB f By CHARLES J. BUTTON E!Iu5.ra.ion3 by Irwin Myerg J Copyright 193 j Dodd. Haul A Co., Inn. CHAPTER VII Continued. 12 "It looks," I commented, "as If whoever who-ever committed the crime, did not puss through the living room." Hartley Rave me a disgusted look. "Or else, Pelt, the dog knew him. The only way to reach the room where Slylte slept wns up those stairs, and to reach the stairs he had to pass through the living room. Hememlier this, too, Lawrence suld that Slyke was not going to bed, but expected another visitor. The butler says the dog was In the room with him when he let Lawrence out. Suppose the other visitor cmne. If Slyke himself admitted htm, the dog would have probably barked at lmist once that Is, unless he knew him." "Then It might have been someone In the house," I suggested. Hartley assented, and we discussed the various persons In the household. First, we both agreed that the shot ; . i was the robbery of the year before, lie bad leurned from the step-daughter Huth that she hud not positively Identified the men now In jail, but bad thought that one of the men was similar In height und build to one of the men she had seen In the room. The roo.-n hod been too dark for her to see very clenrly. Nor was that all that she bad told blm which had disagreed disa-greed with the accounts of the burglary bur-glary that Rogers had given us. lie bad said that she had aroused Slyke and told him that burglars were downstairs; down-stairs; while in her story to Hartley she stated that, after she heard the noise In the living room, she went to the door of Slyke's room to call him. i but found It empty. When she saw him he was standing on the lower step of the stairs leading to the lhlng room. There had evidently been a struggle, and a gun went off Just before be-fore she reached him. It was she who had called the police, and Slyke had opposed her doing so "as nothing had been taken." "You see how It looks, Pelt," he said with a grin. "Slyke did not want the police In at all. He did not wish any action taken, either then or Inter. He was nearer the men than anyone else, yet he swore he could not identify them. That makes me believe that he knew who they were and did not want the matter looked into." "Did the girl tell you who found that piece of newspaper?" I asked. "She said it was the chauffeur who had called their attention to It. The police do not seem to have made any search that night, or In fact until noon the next day. Then, with the help of the chauffeur and the butler, they searched the living room, and the chauffeur directed their attention to a piece of paper lying on the floor, half under a rug. Of course, you see what thnt leads to. For hours that room had been unguarded, and any one who wished could have gone In there. Even the piece of cloth was not found for several days, strangely enough ; nor did the police find the footprints under the window until three days later, although they claimed they had searched the spot before." I broke In with, "That looks, in other words, as If " "As If some one wished to send those men to jail," he finished for me. He sighed, gave a little laugh, and remarked: "There are at least three things I would like to know. First, was the robbery a plant?" "A plant?" I asked, looking at him In wonder. "Yes! There may have been no robbery at all." "What do you mean by thatr He threw out his hands. "I don't quite know myself, but let that pass. There Is another thing that puzzles me, and that Is the chauffeur. I can tell by the way Miss Potter acted when we mentioned his name that she does not like him. He It was who took from the library the book with the account of the English crime in It. He had words with Slyke the day before the murder, and was missing when we wanted to question him. A few minutes after he was seen near the tower room the revolver was miss- through them und tell tbo cause of our trouble. "Shakespeare was right when he said, 'We are such stuff as dreams are mule of," Hartley added In a quizzical quizzi-cal tone as he paused to relight his cigar. "Miss Potter dreamed more than once that Slyko had been killed. We are told a dream Is a suppressed wish, and that in our dreams our wishes are often bidden by symbols. This woman probably did not wish Slyke actually dead. She had no quarrel with him as far as I know. What she did wish was entirely different. differ-ent. She wished that he might be away so that he would be out of some trouble, and her suppressed wish caused her to dream that he was dead. That's the reason why I believe be-lieve that she knows more than she will tell." "What can It be?" I asked. "I don't know, but It Is something that was causing a great deal of trouble to Slyke, perhaps to all of them. It might even be something that will bring dishonor. Anyway, It was so serious that, sleeping or waking, wak-ing, it was on her mind. I wish she would talk ; we need all the light we can get." "But that does not actually prove that she knows anything about his death," I suggested. Bnrtley turned quickly and glanced at me to see if I were serious. Seeing that I was, he explained: "I don't sny that It does. The oulja board performances and the dreams were before his death, not after It. Of course, the fact that the dog did not bark throws suspicion on everyone that was In the house at the time." He was silent for n while, glancing thoughtfully out of the window, and then resumed his story. After left him, he had locked himself him-self in the tower for over an hour and gone over the two rooms and the balcony bal-cony almost Inch by Inch. The only thing that had escaped us In our first search, he said, was a small stopper, the end covered with red wax. He was not sure whether the finding of the stopper meant anything or not. Ills second examination had made hini more positive than ever thnt Slyke had been murdered, and that the murderer wished his death to appear ap-pear to be suicide. It would be almost Impossible to make a jury believe that it was murder mur-der on the slight evidence that we had, and I said as much to Bartley. He agreed with me, and admitted he would not be surprised If King, as coroner, brought in a verdict of suicide. sui-cide. I pondered on this a while; then a thought struck me. "Suppose, after all, he did kill himself, him-self, Bartley. You base your theory of murder on the position of the bedclothes bed-clothes and the way the gun was held. Suppose he did kill himself, and some other person, not the murderer, came into the room and pulled the bedclothes bed-clothes up around his neck." He shook his head In denial. "We would still have, Pelt," he said with a rather sarcastic smile, "the other questions to be answered. First, we would ask how the blood-stains got on the balcony of the tower. We would also want to know why the hand did not grasp the gun as tightly as it should. Then we would demand to know why there was no blood on the pillow where his head rested. It won't do. There is no doubt of it. He was killed." I Interrupted to ask if, as Miss Potter Pot-ter admitted, she had closed his eyes, why she might not have been also the one who pulled the bedclothes up around his neck. Bartley replied, "It la true that she did close his eyes, but she insists she touched nothing else." "But," I broke in, "what was her real reason for doing it?" "She said, you remember, that the eyes frightened her. Let a nervous woman come suddenly upon a dead body and it Is very possible that the eyes staring at her might so frighten her that she would close them. Her confession cleared up a point that bothered me. The accounting for the eyes being closed does not prove that he committed suicide, however. There Is little enough evidence one way or another, but what there Is points to murder and to nothing else." "There is another thing," I said. "Why was the revolver taken from him while we were upstairs? It seems a very foolish thing to have done. Who did it? Was it the butler or Miss Potter?" Both the butler and Miss Potter had been out of the tower room, Bnrtley Bnrt-ley reminded me, for some time before be-fore we suspected Slyke's death was murder and not suicide. As to who had taken the revolver, it was Impossible Impos-sible to say as yet. If we believed that the butler had seen Briffrmr on the stairs while we were on the balcony, bal-cony, then he might be the one. Tlip finding of thp gun In the vault and ms appearance almost Immediately arterwnrd seemed to point to him. Whoever had done it had been very foolish. The next matter that he spoke about did not seem to have any relation rela-tion with what had preceded U It Bartley Then Analyzed the Sister-in-Law. the boy had heard was the one thnt had killed Slyke, and that the time must have been between half-past one and two o'clock. If that were so, then, when the girl came In about three o'clock, Slyke was already dead. Bartley was sure that it took at least thirty minutes to undress Slyke and get him down from the balcony to his room. If the shot that the boy heard was fired ..before two o'clock, then the girl would not be suspected, for she had not returned until three. We eliminated her. Bartley then analyzed the sister-in-law. He said he felt sure she was hiding something, for she had not been frank In telling what she knew, and seemed anxious to get him out of the house. Whether what she was withholding concerned Slyke's death or not he could not tell ; but whatever what-ever It was, he was determined to discover it. "Do you remember, Pelt," he asked, "that Currle told us she runs a oulja board? There is nothing startling In that; thousands are doing the same thing. Since the war all forms of spiritualism have made hundreds of converts. When she met King at the door this morning, she told him that the board had spelled 'trouble' the night before." I stared at him In astonishment. He seemed to be regarding a oulja board seriously. He saw my look and chuckled. "Oh, I'm not Interested In the oulja board Itself; what I am Interested in Is that word 'trouble' that It spelled out for her." This was more astonishing still, and I asked, "Why, you haven't any faith In those things, have you?" Again he chuckled, then became serious. se-rious. "Sure I have, but not In the way you think. The messages people think come from another world, come from the subconscious minds of the persons 1 who are fooling with the board. They do not realize that they themselves are subconsciously directing direct-ing its movements and spelling out their own messages. Now, that board wrote for Miss Potter, 'Trouble is coming,' not once but many times. What I want to know Is this; What was the something that, deep in her mind, told her that trouble was coming? com-ing? What was the cause of her fear?" He lighted another cigar before he continued: "There Is still another thing that shows she knew some danger dan-ger was threatening. You remember she also told us that she had dreamed that Slyke had been killed." I knew what he was driving at now. Freud, whose theory of psycho-analysis was well known to Hartley, had worked out the Interpretations of dreams. The theory of psycho-analy-ls Is that In our sleep the subconscious subcon-scious mind has full play; our repressions re-pressions come to the surface and express themselves in dreams. The j psycho-analyst Is thus often aole to I explore the secret plaoes of our minds mm & "Perhaps the Girl Killed Him." lng. I believe he is well worth watching. watch-ing. And lastly, what was the motive for Slyke's murder?" A wild thouglit struck me. I knew at the time how' absurd it was, yet a desire to hear what Bartley would reply made me voice it. "Perhaps the girl killed him." Bartley gave me a surprised look, started to speak, then decided to wait and hear what I had fo cay. (TO BE COXTTN'lTD.l . |