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Show Tlie Mystery of a IJauisitesl Maaisioa. 7$y Wyndham Marly n W. N. V. Service Copyright by Vyndham Martyn were dead, so that he could marry the younger woman he runs around with." Hanby put his hands ro his head. "This Is too much I" he murmured. "Remember. 1 had him In my house for a month." "1 had him for more than thirty years. L'p to the time he met this musical comedy person she must he forty now he was a good busbitnd Now he takes the woman out to dance halls. He has money saved but he's sfiending It. 1 have never been so atferly deceived In any one His wife, who Is religions, thinks he's possessed of a devil, and maybe she's right. She says he has any amount of money. I had his books exam Ined, and he hasn't embezzled one cent. All he has done Is to divert money from other houses to the up keep and repair of the one you're in You've no kick coming. He saved you money. What was he doing fot you?" Hanby explained. He told Douglas what his Improvements had been, their cost, and the time in which l.hej were executed. The real-estate man made calculations on the back of a menu card. Fortunately Hanby had exact particulars as' to dimensions "Here's another puzzle!" said Douglas. "To complete the work In that time he must have worked many more men than you paid for. I know prices and labor scales in New York state. It amounts to this he went up to you to "get the very job yon pressed on him. Why? Search me. Hanby search me! Another thing he must have paid for extra work men out of his own pocket, so that he could get the work done by a certain cer-tain time. Again you may search me !" Hanby frowned. "He may have wanted the workmen off the premises for some purpose of his own." "What purpose?" Douglas asked. "How should I know? By the way did you ever deny permission to a former tenant, a Miss Selenos, to go back and dig something up from the garden?" "I denied her right to do some excavation. ex-cavation. Appleton told me she was a maniac who wanted to bomb the place. I turned it over to him. Anything Any-thing in what he said?" Hanby told him of the affair of Miss Selenos and her pets. "I don't mind admitting that Apple-ton Apple-ton has destroyed a lot of my faitb in mankind." Douglas said presently. "He was the one man I would have wagered my soul on as being square and white." "Ever see the woman?" "That was how it all came out. 1 ran out of gas near Mineola, and had to go to a very third-rate roadhouse. There was Appleton, In a neat tuxedo, tux-edo, doing fancy steps with a good looking ex-actress. I looked at him very hard. I couldn't believe It was he." Douglas langhed a lit tie. "He had the d d insolence to say that If I annoyed his lady friend by making baby eyes at her, he'd knock my block off. Next morning he didn't try to make excuses. He had a hangover, hang-over, and be told me much of what he had concealed since 1S90 or thereabouts. there-abouts. It appeared that he had always al-ways hated me and envied me my good luck." Douglas grew almost Irritable. Ir-ritable. "No more about Appleton, or I'll change my table 1" Hanby did not get back to the Gray house until late. He said a few words to the younger people and then asked Dina and Bill to come J:o the library. "I've had a great day," he announced. an-nounced. "Incidentally 1 have discovered dis-covered that my judgment of character charac-ter Is no better, let's say, than Bill's." "And me a house detective I" Bill cried. "Your reason totters!" "We've all been deceived but Les." "Les?" cried Dina. "Oh, Uil, you're joking! That boy?" "Dina. light of my life," said Hanby, Han-by, "if there is a more thoroughgoing old hellion than Mr. Frederick Darby Pickwick Appleton, let me learn his dishonored name. I've seen his Joan this afternoon, and I know what I'm talking about. Listen ! I'll begin with what Douglas told me and then come to my Interview with that poor crippled old woman." "It seems Impossible I" commented Dina, at the end of her husband's narrative. "I begin to suspect myself," Bill murmured. "Appleton I" "It took me that way when I first heard It, but it cannot be doubted. He came here to get the opportunity to be In and near this house, and to see what was going on. He has al ways been coming and going. I've heard something that may boar on It a little. I got It from Mrs. Appleton. Her brother was a very rich man but he speculated and died In poverty. pover-ty. There were a few years when It looked as If she was going to be his heiress; and Appleton was going to use the legacy to buy the Gray house and make It a fashionable road-house. road-house. He said there was a fortune in It. Fishing, golf, swimming everything ev-erything that was needed for a rest dential hotel. Perhaps 'roadiionse' Isn't just what he meant, but that was Mrs. Applet on's term." "But If her brother died In pov-erty, pov-erty, where would he get the money to buy this place?" Bill asked. "I don't know. I admit that It doesn't solve the question why he should still be interested in It. There Is no solution, as far as 1 see, and yet we know that something Is going on here, or something Is planned to go on, and that we stand In the way and they want to remove us. I won der If we ought to consult the police!" po-lice!" "And get all kinds of notoriety ! Oh, HII, don't think of itl Nothing has happened not even a tramp " "D n It," said Hanby, "I'm a sitn pie type. If I like people, I trust them absolutely. I go the limit for them, and they can have everything I've got. This gives me pause whatever what-ever that means." He put his Land on his wife's arm. "Come and dance with me, Delilah, ere I challenge Bill to mortal combat!" "Not a care In the world !" said Cella, a little later, watching tier parents and talking intermittently to Les. "Why should they have?" he an swered. "Come to that, why should you have any cares?" "Life bores me," the girl yawned. "1 talked like that In the begin nlng of my sophomore year. It used to make quite a hit. You've forgotten forgot-ten to ask what is life. I always did that." "Les," she snapped, "1 hate you I Your apperceptions are nebulous." "That's a new one, 1 admit," tie said. "I'll use it" "To others girls?" "Why Dot? If you won't have me, I must try my luck somewhere else." "You have an attenuated soul substance, sub-stance, Les." "Feed it with affection. It will expand." ex-pand." "The main trouble with you is that you couldn't surprise me in any way. I know all your mental reactions. You never jump off the road. I could surprise you, Les, and I've a good mind to." Celia paused. "Perhaps I ought to tell you the whole romantic affair." Leslie Barron looked at her, frowning. frown-ing. The word "romantic" spelled danger. "Let the clutch In," he commanded. "You are not the only man here," she said. "Last night, when yon were playing pool with Bill, I went out to the swimming pool. It was midnight. I went out to pick some asphodel." "What's that?" "A romantic blossom to be found in most gardens of verse. Les, I met a most adorable, godlike man. He looked at me like a wild faun and then disappeared in a cloud of star dust." There was something harder and more resolute about Leslie than Celia had ever seen before. She bad an uneasy impression that there were depths In his nature as yet nn-plumbed nn-plumbed by her; but she would not tell him so. "Don't be rough," she said, and took her hand away from his. "Don't scowl at me so." "Godlike strangers who disappear In star dust interest me," he said slowly. "I'd like to break his d d neck !" "But you couldn't," she answered. "He is mucb more splendid than you are." "You admit talking to him?" The young man's tone annoyed Celia. "I admit nothing." "I accuse you of talking to him," persisted Les, whose voice was husky. "Of course, If you listened," she said airily, "why should I deny It?" (TO BE CONTINUED.) S THE STORY Hilton Hany has purchased a country place the Gray house, near Pine Plains. Miss Selenos, a former tenant, warns him that the house la under a curse. Further alarming details are impressed im-pressed upon Adolf Smucker, Hanby'a secretary, by a man who claims to have been chauffeur for Sir Stanford Seymour, former occupant oc-cupant of the place. The Han-Dys Han-Dys laugh oft the warnings. But they are shocked when they hear that the caretaker of the Gray house, a man named Kerr, has been mysteriously murdered. Hanby consults his friend Pel-ham. Pel-ham. The family starts fcr the new home. Appleton, a clerk cf Douglas and Smith, the agents from whom Hanby bought the Gray house, urges Pelham to dissuade dis-suade Hanby from occupying the Gray house. Pelham becomes a member of the household. A phone call from a man who declares de-clares he is an old acquaintance of Hanby's, urges him to preserve pre-serve a part of the grounds as a bird sanctuary. The Hanbys take possession of the Gray house. A stranger Introducing himself as Frederick Appleton, calls at the Gray house and Is welcomed because be-cause of his interest in bird life. Hanby engages Appleton as bis agent. The Selenos mystery ts explained. Smucker, out of a Job after the loss of his position with Hanby, becomes embittered against him as the author of his misfortunes, and plans revenge. CHAPTER VII Continued 13 He turned away and made for the bird sanctuary. The wire netting about It he climbed nimbly, and then unheeding thorns and brambles, he crept like the hunted thing he was to Its black center. Suddenly he stepped Into nothingness. He felt himself falling. . Then came a blow, and he was no more aware of time and space. " When Tim Hanby, Intent on adding add-ing a white owl to his collection, had carefully aimed his twenty-two at the creature as It sat on an elm branch. ' he had not been prepared for the ex traordinary intervention that saved its life. As his finger caressed the trigger, there came a bloodcurdling scream, and some large animal had sprung from the base of the tree. Tim felt that It was no disgrace to flee Immediately. Im-mediately. Hanby bad not been near his office for two months. An hour's dictation cleared up his correspondence, and he went to the Hardware club fot luncheon. , "Hello, Douglas!' he said, stopping at the table where an elderly, gray-haired gray-haired man was sitting. "I called you up this morning, but you were bnsy." "Glad to see you," Douglas replied heartily; "I've missed you. What's U like to be a landed proprietor?" "The best life in the world," Hanby declared! "but a darned sight more to do than I thought Why did you recommend me to buy those farms?" "A sound Investment. They'll be wanted for a country club some day. How are your Improvements coming along?" "They are finished, thanks to your admirable Appleton. Douglas, how could you let a Jewel of a man like that go?" There was n curious smile on the heavily lined face of the real estate man. "So Appleton has been up there again, has he?" Inquired Douglas. "Again? What do yon mean?" "The Gray house holds some singular singu-lar fascination for him that's what I mean. You ask why I let him go. You call him a Jewel. I did that for more than thirty years." "And yet you refused to raise his pay, and stuck some jackanapes over him. I thought you were a better business man than that" "Tell me Just what he said," Douglas Doug-las returned. He listened to Hanby In silence. "Now hear me," he resumed. "1 fired Appleton. 1 didn't refuse to raise his pay, and I put nobody over him." "You fired Appleton? Douglas, you- must have been crazy! What for?" "Ostensibly because he was drunk and Impertinent." "Appleton? Why, he never drinks!" "Another reason was because he had deliberately misled me as to his family life. Yet a third was because he had manipulated accounts. I don't mean that he took money from me. I mean that, he had robbed Peter to pay Paul. 1 mean specifically that for years he had been charging other clients for the money he used to effect ef-fect repairs on the Gray house." "On my house?" Douglas nodded. "For years he has been Interested In your house for the last ten years, anyway. Another thing Southard called me np a month or so ago, to ask why 1 allowed a man like you. with a lovely family, to buy a house where people died from had drains. For the last few years Appleton has kept clients from buying that house. You ask why. I can't explain. Ask Appleton. I did, and was told to go to h 1." "The Appleton I mean Is a man of N sixty, plump, smiling, and married to an Invalid to whom he Is devoted. He calls himself , Darby and his wife Joan." "That's my Appleton, too. I took It upon myself to see her. There was another Illusion gone. She Is an Invalid, but as to being devoted, b tell hex openly he wishes she |
