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Show ilN- - (SOTi r i mm THE STORY THUS FAR: Adam Bruce, FHI operator, wilile on a visit to his old home, ran Into hi previous boss, Inspector Inspec-tor Tope, and Mis. Tope. He sent them out to the Dcwnln's Mill auto camp, operated op-erated by life Oewaln. Later that nitfht Tope phoned Bruce and had him come out with Ned Quill, a state trouper. Tope had been shown to a cottage called Far away, but seeing that something was wrong, he had a transfer made to another an-other cottage. Tope had been told that no one had occupied the Faraway cottage, cot-tage, yet he had seen signs that led him to believe something was wrong. He sent his wife out while he began a search of the cottage to locate the mystery. CHAPTER III "But if a man is doing something In the dark by the light of a match, he will hold it till it burns his fingers. This match would have burned a man's fingers.' And he said: "I looked in the kindling and the paper and behind the logs, till I found eleven matches, oil burned down about the same way. I lighted a match and timed it. Handled carefully, it burned over half a minute. So eleven matches would give some light, in this cabin, for about six minutes. A lot can be done in six minutes. ,p Mrs. Tope suggested: "You can't do much with one hand If you're holding a match in the other!" Tope nodded in quick pride. "That's right, ma'am! Adam, this wife of mine is keen. So whatever was done here, there were two peo- j pie. One of them did it, and the other held the matches, made a light' Bruce said: "I can see that. Go on." And Tope explained, apologetically: apologetical-ly: "So it seemed to me sure that come one had done something here. Either they came to get something, or to hide something. I thought they might have hid something; and I wanted to search the place, see what I could find." He looked at Mrs. Tope. "But I didn't want to bother you, or worry you," he said to her; and then, to Adam. "So I let her go outside. Then I started to look under the beds. That was the only place where much of anything could be hidden. You see how they're made." Adam felt his pulses pounding heavily. "I found something under the bed," Tope explained. The young man tried to speak, to ask a question; ques-tion; but his voice died in a husky whisper. Tope said gravely: "It's still there. It's a dead man. I'll show you!" But as he was about to draw the coverlet away, some one knocked, in a soft, furtive fashion, on the door. That quiet knock was terrifying! terrify-ing! These three whirled as one; and then a knock sounded again, and Bruce opened the door. Then he said !n a vast relief: "Oh, hullo, Ned! Come in." He drew the other man into the room. "This is Ned Quill, Inspector," he said. "You wanted him, and I told him to meet us here." Tope extended his hand. "I've seen enough of Mr. Quill to know he doesn't like violins!" Quill grinned, and took off his cap, and shook hands with Tope and with Mrs. Tope. "That fiddler makes me tired!" he agreed. He stood looking at them, waiting. "Well?" he challenged. chal-lenged. "What's the matter? What's all the shooting for?" Tope, after a moment and without with-out a word, turned again toward the bed. They came silently behind him. "There's a dead man under here," said Tope. He removed the blankets and the sheets, and he took hold of the mattress at one end, looked at Bruce. "You take the oth-r oth-r end," he directed. They lifted the mattress, laid it on the floor. There was left on the bed a spring, made of a square pattern pat-tern of heavy wire. The electric light, a shaded bulb, hung almost directly overhead; and its rays shone down unhindered, so that the wire squares threw a network of shadow on that which lay in the boxlike box-like space below. This was, as Tope said, the body of a man. He lay a little on one side; yet not as though his body had been arranged in this position, but In a twisted fashion vaguely disturbing, disturb-ing, suggestive of some spasmodic effort or movement in the moment of his death. He was an old man, his age manifest in thin gray hair, scantily seen under a ragged cap pulled down to his ears. There was a prickling of gray beard on his chin and the.upper part of his cheek. But except for brow and cheek and chin, his countenance was concealed con-cealed by two strips of bla :k adhesive adhe-sive tape bound tight over his mouth and over his eyes. Each band was carried clear around his head, double dou-ble and triple for full security. Also, his hands were bound behind him, with lengths of insulated wire twisted twist-ed around the wrists; and these - wires held in place around his hands a thick fold of blanket. His feet in the same way had first been wrapped in a blanket and then bound with wires; his swaddled hands were secured to a rope that circled his body like a belt. As for his garments, he was dressed in a very old sweater, gray, too largo for him. stained and soiled; and a pair of overalls, also too large, and stainod with grpase and ciL Through the rents in them no hint of underclothing was visible. This was the whole picture. They looked, and Mrs. Tope closed her eyes and clung to her husband's arm, and Tope covered her hand with his. Adam Bruce was pale and shaken, his face a drawn mask. Save for the cheerful murmur of the brook outside, the night was completely com-pletely still. Tope said gravely: "When I saw the tape, Adam, I thought of you. The gags and the blindfold, looked like kidnaping. This may be in your line." Bruce nodded. "Who is it?" he muttered. Tope shook his head. "I don't know. I haven't touched him, except ex-cept to make sure he was dead." "There's been no kidnaping reported," re-ported," Bruce reflected. "Or we'd have known. The Chief knew where 1 was." And he exclaimed incredulously: incredu-lously: "I was here last night, Tope! Do you suppose he was here then?" "Yes." But Tope spoke, in a tone of finality. final-ity. "Well, there it is," he said. "Quill, this Is up to you and Adam." Bruce objected: "I've no standing unless this chap was carried across a state line." And he urged: "Be- fWwwsm A lltr SI L Tit This was. as Tope said, a body of a man. sides, Inspector, you're not going to walk out on us! Mat Cumberland will keep you on the job if he has to handculf you.' "Cumberland?" Tope echoed. "Is he still the D.A. up here? I worked on the Hichens case for him." Quill suggested: "But Joe Dane does all the work in the office. He'll be back here, later, when he brings Bee home." Adam urged: "It's not up to us to call Joe. Ned. We'll get Mat. If he wants to turn it over to Joe, that's up to him." "You ought to get the medical examiner ex-aminer too," Tope suggested. "But I've a notion it might be a good idea to keep this quiet, just at first. Don't use the telephone. It's a party par-ty line." "I left my bike up at Amasa's," Ned Quill explained. "I can ride to town and get Cumberland." Tope, when the trooper had gone, laid a sheet over the naked springs of the bed, and he and Adam and Mrs. Tope drew near the fire. Adam stood leaning against the mantel; Tope filled his pipe and lighted it; and Adam said: "Looks like a tough one. Tope." "Well, it may get easier as we go along." He puffed contentedly. "After "Aft-er I found this man, I did a lot of listening. Your friend Miss Dewain, she talks without much prodding; and there's a woman, a Mrs. Mur-rell, Mur-rell, that likes to ask questions. Maybe you know her?" "Sure," Adam agreed. "I listened to some of her questions," ques-tions," Tope explained. "And asked some of my own. They tell me eight cottages were full Saturday night. I figure that was the night he was put here." He asked: "Adam, how many people were here last night? What time did you get here? You weren't here Saturday night, were you?" Bruce shook his head. "I was here Tuesday night," he replied. "Left Wednesday, and then came back Sunday. That's yesterday afternoon. aft-ernoon. Bee and I went for a walk after supper last night, upon the ledges back of Amasa's barn. There's a moon, you know. We got back late. But I didn't see anyone, anything." "Who was here? How many?" Tope insisted. "Well, Vade and the Murrells," Bruce said. "And a man and his wife a Maine man, by the way he talked. And two Harvard men in an old flivver, on their way to Chicago or California or somewhere. And a fellow named Bowen, a hardware salesman making this territory. He likes to tell Bee how his wife mis-. mis-. understands him. Harmless, thoughl" "Some one here wasn't harmless," Tope suggested. "How about thil man with the violin! Know anything any-thing about him?" Bruce hesitated. "Why, his particular par-ticular hobby Is rivers and water falls. He's the secretary of an association as-sociation for the protection of oui streams. I don't know whether then is any such association, but he's the secretary of it, anyway!" Tope looked at the young mar thoughtfully. "Your vacation ut here have anything to do with him, Adam? I gathered he didn't lik you." Bruce chuckled. "You're cute ai a weasel. Tope, for smelling out i trail, but you can cross Vade olT." The older man did not press tha point. "All right," he said. "We'I cross Vade off. But two men camt In tonight after we got here. On of them called himself Whitlock was talking to Priddy after supper. I think they're after something; bul they weren't here Saturdaj night?" "No," Adam agreed. "Nobodj here by those names " "How about the Murrells?" Adam chuckled. "Out," he said positively. "And Miss Dewain? She doesn't seem as stubborn and cantankeroui as you said she was. What aboul her?" "Why, I met her two or thret years ago," Adam explained. "Whil I was working In the bank commissioner's commis-sioner's office. I came up here tt look over the local bank, and sh( was secretary to the president. A man named Eberly." He spoke rue fully. "I liked her, and she liked me, but the bank was in bad shape. After I made my report, the commissioner com-missioner closed it, and she has held It against me ever since. Or a' least she pretends to. She was devoted de-voted to Mr. Eberly. . . . But Tope, this doesn't get us anywhere. Nol on this business. I don't see thai we've got any place to start, 01 this." "Well, son, we know some things," Tope reminded him: "We know there were two people in it, becaus one of them struck matches to mak( a light, while the other did the job And by the way the bed was made I wouldn't be surprised if one oi them was a woman. Not many mer can make a bed right. Then there'i another thing: That's electricians tape around this man's mouth and eyes; and the wires he's tied up with are old ignition wires off a. car; and the clothes on him are greasy Maybe whoever tied him up was a mechanic, a chauffeur." "That's just guessing." "Well, I believe in guessing," Tope insisted. "Then those piece! of blanket wrapped around his hands and feet and head a dog had slepl on that blanket. A police dog, 1 think. You can see the hairs." "Plenty of police dogs around!" Tope considered; and then h asked. In the tone of one who has made a discovery: "Adam, whj were his feet and his hands and hi! head wrapped up in pieces of blanket? blank-et? Why were his hands tied to nil body behind?" Bruce shook his head. "I don't know!" Tope said positively: "Why, tc keep him from making a noise, bj kicking, or butting with his head, or beating with his hands. A nois that some one might hear." Bruce stared at him. "You mean he wasn't dead when they put hire here?" "Well, it's sure he wasn't dead when they tied him up, anyway." Mrs. Tope spoke swiftly. "Inspector!" "Inspec-tor!" They looked at her. "Inspector, "Inspec-tor, no one would kidnap a pool man! This man has on old, shabbj clothes." Tope watched her. "Oh, thej changed hrs clothes." "Why?" she challenged, as thougl she knew the answer. "So he couldn't be Identified bj what he had on." "You mean they changed nil clothes after they killed him?" "Why yes!" "But you just said," she argued, "that the reason they tied his handi and feet, and muffled them with blankets, was because be was aliv and might make a noise." "Of course." She cried triumphantly: "Bul don't you see that won't fit? If ht was already tied up, they couldn't change his clothes without untyinj his hands and feet; and if he wer already dead when they changed hii clothes, there wouldn't be any poinl to tying him up again afterward." And she urged: "So he was alivi when Biey changed his clothes; anc he was alive when they brought hire here, because otherwise there wai no point In muffling his hands and feet and head to keep him from making mak-ing a noise." They heard the sound of footstepi on the drive Ned Quill returning, with Mat Cumberland and Doctoi Medford. Cumberland was a laxgi man with an almost bovine calm; one of those individuals whom othei men trust as they do a stone, 01 a hill, for their very immobility. Doctor Medford was of a differenl mold; chunky, some hint of swaggei in the set of his shoulders, with I round open countenance. After in-traductions, in-traductions, the Doctor went U where the dead man lay, and Cumberland Cum-berland asked a question, and Top told briefly what thert was to tell (TO BE CONTINUED) |