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Show Hidden Wavs pi I h. - B FREDERIC F. VAN DE VVATER 51-. v 1 flat. I object less to that, David, than to the knowledge that he is laughing at us now. I never have iked to be laughed at It's been my legs, I suppose. Heavens, our assembled as-sembled brains should be as good as his. If only we could find a flaw a weakness." ' She drank again and then went on: "Everything radiates from Lyon Ferriter, but none of it reaches back to him." A thought pricked me and some of the jumble of fact fell into coherent co-herent pattern "That's why," I blurted, "Lyon tried to kill me; that's why my room was searched. He thought I had found that knife. His own fingerprints fin-gerprints must be on it" "They won't be," Miss Agatha promised grimly. We were still for a moment Then she said: . "Day after tomorrow is Grove's birthday." Her voice was so bare of sentiment senti-ment that it was piteous. The day when Grove attained his inheritance, the day toward which, all his' life, she had steered her foster son, would find him in disgrace and danger, dan-ger, unless I jumped at the telephone's ring. Could Shannon have arrived so soon? "Answer it," Miss Agatha bade and her voice quavered a little. I obeved and was BshnmpH nf nnv I flinched when Miss Agatha said Impatiently: "Can't you do it?" She rolled forward to take the key. It turned as she moved and I pulled the door open before her advancing chair. "There it Is," Miss Agatha said, "over " Her voice died. The harsh sound of her indrawn breath set my neck to prickling. The light of the ceiling ceil-ing bulb poured into the maw of the storeroom. It shone upon something at Miss Agatha's feet at which she stared, at which I gaped, first stupidly, stu-pidly, then in frantic disbelief. I bent forward. "Careful," Miss Agatha warned in a dry whisper. "Don't touch it" CHAPTER XVin Wind boomed in the elevator shaft and I heard the whine and catch of a car shifting gears in the street. The rest of my mind had stalled under un-der its sudden load. Close to my ear Miss Agatha's breath came and went quickly. So we remained for a palsied instant, watching the object ob-ject on the storeroom floor. It lay just within the ventilation space at the iron door's base a bizarre bi-zarre item for a spinster's storeroom, store-room, yet, in itself, nothing to wake dread. It was a knife with a black leather handle and a worn gray blade, streaked with what might CHAPTER XVII-Contlnued. 18 ie returned and announced etstatha asked and ,hP Tstfutoe" to her voice hurt J "-Then I'U see him in the Uv- rmaidTu'shed the wheel chair ' thehalL I sat at the desk and ,lrove to set down on paper, after L Agatha's prescription, my own Xe of the Morello mystery. I old it bard, for each item bore in- unable streamers of surrnise Zi suspicion. I do not know how lone AUegra had been standing in ,te doorway when I looked up. I rose clumsily. She was still a!e but she seemed more tired now S,an angry. There was a droop to her shoulders and I cursed myself (or feeling pitiful. She said at last: you make it just as hard as possible, pos-sible, don't you?" A few hours earlier she had pointed point-ed out the abyss that lay between her and me. I had sworn then never nev-er to strive to rebridge it Sense still assured me that it was best for ber to remain on her side and I on mine. Hunger for her, desire to lid ber were checked by memory of ny recent adolescent idiocy. It hurts to have even a silly dream kicked apart I said: "I beg your pardon." "You heard me." I made no reply. She went on, like a child reciting a lesson: "If I've misjudged you. I m sorry-" "Miss Paget" I told her, "I misjudged mis-judged you and am even sorrier." "I came in here,"'she told me, "to apologize because Agatha thought I should." She might have been talking to the butler. There was no call for ber to put me in my place. I was there already and had sworn not to leave it again. I said: "That seems to me about the worst reason in the world." Again she apparently hoped for something in my face that was not there. She muttered: "You make it very hard." She was just a kid after all. Which was still another reason why things should stay as they were. So I said: "You said that before which leaves us just where we started." "Do you want to leave it there?" she asked directly, and I forced myself my-self to answer: "Why not?" There was a stir In the hall and the sound of voices. I did not know whether I was relieved or desolate . ' - - w- J own agitation. Jerry Cochrane drawled: "Dave, I want to see you. I've got hold of something a bit. interesting, interest-ing, my laddie. Where can you meet me?" He slipped away from further questions. It was too important to discuss over the house, telephone, he said, and for like reason I fore-bore fore-bore to tell what we had found. At last I clapped my hand over the mouthpiece and said to Miss Agatha: Aga-tha: - "It's Cochrane. He sounds so sleepy, I know he's excited. May he come here?" At once she refused and then, to my amazement, gave way before my arguments. I pleaded that it might be important before Shannon came, to learn what Cochrane had discovered. T I said we needed the alliance of Jerry's quick mind. Miss Agatha consented at last: , "Have him come, David. You're very stubborn and I I imagine I'm . getting old." - ' ,1 bade Cochrane hasten, and hung up as Miss Agatha '.said: "Allegra, my dear, will you tell the hall force that Mr. Cochrane is to be admitted?" " The fur collar of the girl's cloak softened her face and the February wind had lent it color. - Her' aunt, told her dryly and briefly of our discovery. Allegra glanced past me 5 at the swathed, weapon on the desk. Then a thought startled her'-, "Agatha. You've sent for the pov lice. And no one knows whose fingerprints fin-gerprints may 'be on that .knife. Even" '' : .. : ;- .'. "Even Grove's," "her aunt completed.- in a level, voice ".Yes, . my dear.- I'm not a Roman matron, but I have a respect for law.- If they are there " Allegra had stepped ; Ickly - lot ward the desk. ' I knew her purpose pur-pose and moved between her and, the knife. "They aren't your brother's,", I told her. "He was here when that knife was lost." ." ... Anger lighted her eyes but- her face went white. ' - "If you think," she said in a taut voice, "I'm going to let my brother's life be juggled about because'" spy has hoodwinked an old woman" Miss Agatha's quiet speech stilled her. ... :...-.. . "1 came In here," she told me, "to apologize." have been rust We both knew whence it had come. It was the knife that had hung in the sheath they had found on Black-beard's Black-beard's murdered body. It had been driven Into its owner's heart It had uttered the flat sound of smitten smit-ten metal when it had fallen during dur-ing my struggle in the basement, to lodge inside the door of the Paget storeroom. I bent over it again. Miss Agatha Aga-tha made no further protest as I picked it up by its point, swathed it loosely in my handkerchief, and rose. Her eyes met mine and asked a question. I feared to answer. I heard myself say: "We had better go upstairs." She nodded. 1 placed the handkerchief-wrapped knife in her lap and trundled her to the elevator shaft We were silent on our upward up-ward journey. In the work-room, I picked up the muffled weapon carefully care-fully and laid it on the desk. Then I faced Miss Agatha- ' It was hard to ask the question. The knife had killed; it might kill again. It was the link between the mni-Hpred and the murderer. My when she left. Senator Groesbeck, now sleek and pompous, passed the doorway. Miss Agatha trundled herself her-self into the room. "What was Allegra doing in here?" she asked. "Apologizing," I said. She gave me one of the looks that made me feel she was counting my vertebrae and then said, "Hah!" in an odd tone. Thereafter, her mind dwelt on other matters. "I wish," she complained, . "that 1 hadn't so respectable an attorney. I need a scoundrel who'll help an idiot who won't help himself." "As bad as that?" I asked. She nodded and lighted a cigarette. ciga-rette. "Grove," she said, "is being held as a material witness. He still won't talk, so they're going to take him before the grand jury presently. If be doesn't talk then, he'll be indicted." in-dicted." Her brisk voice was armor that, 1 know, hid great distress. She brooded a minute, while I groped for words and then asked: "Where's the typewriter?" "You said," I told her, "that it was in the storeroom." "Why didn't you get it?" "Miss Agatha," I asked, "can you "I'm not too. old. Allegra... sne said, "to be obeyed in my' own house. Will you tell-the hall force to admit Mr. Cochrane, or shall I?"- I saw what was coming. The girl's face seemed' to break apart into quivering fragments. Her voice shook with ghastly mirth. "I won't:' It can't be' happening. It's a funny, hideous" . I said sharply. "Get hold of yourself. . You aren't lone Paget.". She looked at me , like someone -just waked. Then she drew a' deep ; unsteady breath and went to the telephone, to -do her aunt's bidding. Thereafter,' she turned and looked at me again. - - "Thank you," she said. "That's the first time" , ..Forget it," I told her. She drew up a chair beside Miss Agatha. Their hands joined. The girl bent over 'and kissed the still old face. So we waited for Shannon while the crumpled mound of handkerchief hand-kerchief on the desk kept us still. It was Cochrane who arrived first His chubby face, his mild prosaic air loosened the atmosphere. He bowed and acknowledged Miss Agatha's Aga-tha's introduction to her niece so easily that I think the girl was partly reassured. Then he beamed at me. "This is in confidence," he said, including the whole room in his smile "This, my lad, is banner-line stuff if we can get to use it Did you see the Sphere; this mornina. any of you?" ' ' . ' I shook my head.: I felt the sting in Allegra's voice as she answered; "We read the Press.". . (TO BE COYflMEDi voice was hoarse: "What shall we do, now?" She blinked. Her speech was calm as her face: "I think we had better -telephone Captain Shannon." I said: "There may be no one's fingerprints finger-prints on that knife. There may be anybody's." I could not speak her nephew's name, but she understood. "Call Captain Shannon," she said; and there was a lump in my throat as I obeyed. I spoke only briefly, asking the Homicide Bureau chief to come at once with a fingerprint man; then hung up on his further questioning. The receiver clattered as my shaking hand restored it. Miss Agatha said: "We both need a drink," and rang for Annie. I nursed the liquor I would willingly willing-ly have gulped. Miss Agatha sipped hers and at last spoke part of her thought aloud: "This was what you heard fall, that night in the basement, but how why I don't see " Her voice ran down. I said feebly: fee-bly: "Unless it is a maniac-Uncertainty maniac-Uncertainty left her. She gave a crooked smile. "Who had designs on Higgins? she scoffed. "David, Lyon Ferriter Ferri-ter is no maniac. He is amazingly clever. I told you that this morning." morn-ing." "But Lyon," I pointed out, was in your flat when" She did not let me finish. "I know, I know," she said. But he did it. He killed the visitor to his unagine Wiggins letting me rummage rum-mage through a basement storeroom without a writ of mandamus, a habeas ha-beas corpus and a strong-arm Jquad?" The lines of worry in her face slackened and she chuckled. "No," she admitted. "I'm an old 'ool, David, but just the least bit bedeviled today. We'll go down together." to-gether." I trundled her into the hall and rang for the elevator. She said noth-mg noth-mg till the car appeared, but the grim lines had deepened again on "er face and I knew she was eating ner heart out for her nephew. Hoyt us down. I could see his ears Pricked for tidings, but we did not im I had ProPelled Miss Agatha " o the basement hall, A wan light there and the air was heavy coal ,amili" smell of lime and ' Sas and cabbage for the Hig-Mis Hig-Mis , ners' Past and present an gaUla dug in her handbag ad chose a key from a ring. hall ne side of the basement I A8 Series of iron doors, with ti la, L U"tel and threshold for ven-on. ven-on. They guarded the cubbies Z MrVn 88 attics for tenants of i s?;! 0; wa aga'nst one of dark ' had reeled during my Ch mgg 6 With intder. I how ti ? 1 'Umbled with lock' u len " Space atual meas-C1' meas-C1' '?11""! ago, that had S mv a n,Sht' I might have end-Cen7(S'"y' end-Cen7(S'"y' I might have saved tress Ttk much da"ger and dis- basment 7m !!' a?d gIoota of the toemorv I themselves with 3 10 hghten my nerves so that |