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Show tM1'' . a.' - ----- -'- ----- - " :B r 1 i j The House of Whispers ii I 1 !j By WILLIAM JOHNSTON Copyrlfbt bj Linle, Brown A Co. A SECRET PASSAGE. Hyoojum. SpaldlnK Neloa Is occupying oc-cupying the ai.ii Uiuoila of his Bieul-uncle, Itulua Gualon. The Giintons, Ir-avinK oil a trip, tll lilin about niyatei Ioum limn and "wlilM-ptrrs" "wlilM-ptrrs" Unit Imve Bcuie'l thrill, tic hi ono-M ttcnuulnleU Willi HarOalii lliaiHulil, who lives In the name bit; bulhliiiK. lie lii.itlnctlvely Ul.t-llkea Ul.t-llkea and dinlruata 1 lie aupei In lenil-enl. lenil-enl. Wick. Tin) rnjMleiu-a In his apartments tiffin wllh the ulsay-l-arunc of tne 1 1 a.slun pearls from the wall safu. Ha decide not to cull In he police, but to do his own Inventlh'atliiK- It la soon evident that sonii'one hail mveHS to his rooms. ilecninltiK friendly with lliuhara, he learns that tier apartments apart-ments are equally mHlerlous. bhe tells lilin that several years before her sister Claire, who Uvea with her, hud made a run-away rnar-rlah'ft rnar-rlah'ft with an adventurer, from whuin she was aoon parted, and th marriage hud been annulled. I'lalre Is entruKed to be married and someone some-one has Htolen documents concerning concern-ing the affair from the Hradtord apart men t and Is ill tcinpll hk to blackmail the Itradfords. Nelson takes MIhm Kelly, the telephone Klrl, to dinner with the Idea of pumping her. (iornian, a hotel detective, de-tective, recognizes her aa the wife of lA-l'ty Moore, a noted burglar. Neluon tells his story to Gorman. CHAPTER VII Continued. 9 "Anil tho number she cullt'il up tli private iiiiiiihcr did yon litx out about' Unit ?" "Sure, that was easy. It's one of the apnrhncnls In the Grnndileck Henry Kent's. Who's he?' "I never heard'' of hlfn. I'll try to find out, though." "I would, hut bp careful how you go asking (ineslions around the ilaee. The Moore woman may have a pal. They generally work In pairs." The ease and celerity with which Gorman had learned nil these things about the girl impressed me greatly, mid I said as much, lie received my compliments with u deprecating wave of the hand. "Nothing to It, liny, ivli.'n you know the ropes. But last night you told me you had taken the girl out to try to pump something out of tier. What vas It? What's doing?" From beginning to end I told him tie whole story In all of Its perplexing perplex-ing details, starting with the day that T liad receiver! my great-uncle Kttfus' note that had led to the chance meeting meet-ing with Mis ISradford. bringing In miy discharge find the disappearance of the Gaston pearls, and explaining what made me think these facts were In some way Involved with the at-tetppt at-tetppt to blackmail the Bradfords. f "What do you make of It?" I asked s I ended my1 narrative. "Who do ron think Is at he bottom of It?" "I don't think," he retorted. "In our business It does not pay to think too quick. You're apt to convict the wrong party." I "l'.ut you must think something," I protested. T think," he said slowly and medl- iiitfvely, "that there's a lot of crooked jrork going on I'll say that much. 'And you alid Miss Bradford's pretty close to being tlie center of it." . "What can we do about It?" "There's a way I learned from a Vnwyer that ain't bad. He'd take his client and put him In the center of a Ng circle with lines running in all directionsalibi, di-rectionsalibi, insanity, mistaken Ulcutity, no proof of guilt, lack of jurisdiction, escape on legal technicallyhe'd technical-lyhe'd mark out every possible defense. de-fense. Then he'd follow each line out and see where It led and what plan the opposing lnwyers would be likely to spring on htm. Generally he got his man off." T don't quite see how that applies." ' "You don't, eh?" lie traced an Imaginary circle with his forefinger on the table in the little Uack room where we were sitting. "Here's you and Miss Bradford In he center, surrounded by a lot of mysterious mys-terious deviltry. We'll make two circles. cir-cles. Tills Inside one is the things that have happened to both of you ;be wall safes opened, the papers stolen, the pearls gone, tin anonymous sotes, the blackmail threats, the loss 5f your job, the voices you've heard. Now on this outer circle we'll mark Jown all the reople who might1 be iiixed up in these things mind ye, I mij only might be. First, there's 'Lefty Moore's woman we know she's l crook. Then who do we know that iaows her? There's at least two Mr. Wick, the superintendent that felred her, and this Mr. Henry Kent, srse apartment she telephoned to. Then there's all the rest of the help in tie bouse. Any one of them might be V-r pal. Then there's the flighty Sradlord girl " -You don't suspect her, do you?" I rried, horrified at tl'.e prospect of bis e-;!g;ttion taking this turn. -Be easy," he retorted. "I'm not jc-specting anyone. I'm only putting rin down. There's the F.radfor.1 5lri and her cx husband, lie's a blg-j'ist blg-j'ist and that makes hLni a crook. Tiose 'wo men you saw in the park, .m ,.t them willi a scar on bis face r ,' .un them nown. Yen know a ;,. ip.- t.ar uivil man goes 'o, so that's a start. TliJv-e's the man who shadowed you would you know him again If you saw him?" I shook my head doubtfully. "I'm afraid riot," I admitted, "you "Don't bother to explain. You either would or wouldn't, and that's all we need to know now. There's old Mr. (.'aston and his wife. It's queer about their ducking out so suddenly and leaving no address, but maybe they're only scared. Let's see who else Is there the Bradford servants and the old man's; the old washerwoman and the families who live In the house. We've got the circle pretty well covered, cov-ered, haven't we?" More and more I had begun to appreciate ap-preciate how valuable the services of an experienced detective would be likely to be In helping to solve the mystery. "Look here, Gorman," I said, "why can't you take charge of this case for us?" "What's In It?" he asked. My face fell, and my enthusiasm died a sudden death. Once more I was confronted by the specter of my poverty. Of what use my talking to a high-priced Investigator like Gorman Gor-man when all the money I had In the world was less than two hundred dol lars, out or which I nau to live unui i found employment. Yet I must serve Barbara Bradford. "If you clear up this ease,". I announced, an-nounced, "I'll give you every cent I've got In the world." lie shook his head. "It ain't enough. If I take this case, It won't be for the money that's In It. For that matter I can get all I want from old Gaston for getting bis pearls hack. That'll be enough." "Then you will take the case," I cried jubilantly. "(In one condition. That you'll promise prom-ise to keep everything away from the police." "I'll promise that for myself and Miss Bradford, too. That was the one reason she advanced against my telling you about things. She was afraid you'd call in the police." "Never -fear about that. There's nothing I'd like better than to put It over that bunch of young reformers they've got down In Center street. This hotel work don't suit me, anyhow. I've been thinking of opening up an office of my own. The recovery of the Gaston Gas-ton pearls' would be a nice feather in my cap to start with." "I see." I replied, "but you'll need money for expenses and that sort of thing, won't you? I have " "Leave that part of It to me," he retorted with a quizzical smile. "After all the years I was on the police po-lice force I ain't exactly broke by a long shot. All you've got to do Is to keep your eyes open and let me know all that goes on In the apartment house. I'll attend to the rest. Don't do anything, though, without consulting consult-ing me first." "I'll gladly promise that." "Good enough. We'd better arrange then to meet here every day at three sharp. It's as good a place as any." "I'll be here." "And look out you're not trailed. They may try shadowing you again." "Who do you mean by they?" I asked eagerly. "Them that trailed you yesterday," replied Gorman with a grin. "If you don't know, I don't know either yet." From his manner I was confident that he already had a shrewd suspicion suspi-cion as to the Identity of some of the miscreants. The maze in the center of which he had placed Miss Bradford and myself meant far more to him, undoubtedly, than It did to me. More than likely his vast knowledge of the methods of criminals and his acquaintanceship acquaint-anceship with others like Lefty Moore had given him clues enough as to where to look for the plotters. I realized real-ized that It would be useless to question ques-tion him further. He would admit suspecting no one until he was sure of their guilt, a quality I admired greatly. "You can count on me," I repeated. I "I'll be here at three tomorrow." Yet how foolish it was for any of us to predict what we will be doing or where we will be twenty-four hours from now. Seldom do things happen in the routine of our lives as we bad anticipated. I was not there the next dav at the time appointed. By no possibility pos-sibility could I have been there, however how-ever "much I might have wished to. Many things had happened in quick succession. How It came about that my promise to meet Gorman went unfulfilled can best be explained by narrating t lie events of the evening aft-r I returned to the Granddeck. It wti nearly five when I left the detective. I strolled leisurely down town and had dinner in the cafe where on one occasion I had seen the scar-faced man. I lingered :here for a long time over my coffee hoping in vain that he might appear. I-even ventured to cautiously question the waiter and bead waiter, describing ' -he man as best I could, but both of ;heru Insisted that they never hail seen any such person. As I walked home I kept a wary eye out to make sure 1 was not being followed, but apparently appar-ently no one was now shadowing me. It was nine-thirty when I reached home. It had been arranged that Barbara Bar-bara about ten would signal me that we might have a chat from our respective re-spective windows. As I sat In my room waiting for the time to come, I was reviewing flie case in all Its aspects. as-pects. Indeed there was hardly a waking wak-ing moment that I was not thinking of the many mysteries about us. I was wondering If, when the case was cleared up the mysterious whispers that we all had heard would also he explained. I recalled Claire Bradford's Brad-ford's unexpected visit to my apartment apart-ment the evening before and her confusion con-fusion when I had captured her. I wondered If the explanations she had offered bad been the truth. Was she really trying to locate the source of the whispers? I looked Interestedly up at the section of the wall that I had found her Inspecting. What had she hoped to discover there? I decided to make a close inspection inspec-tion of both sides of the wall. As I lighted up the sitting room and hall for this purpose, something unusual came to my notice that had hitherto escaped me enturely. TUB I XX E It WALL OF MY ROOM. the one running along the hall of the apartment HAD THE APPEARANCE APPEAR-ANCE OF B ICING AT LEAST FOCR FEET THICK. It seemed so absurd that I refused to believe the evidence my eyes had given me. In these modern days of steel construction there was no reason for a wall being of medieval proportions. propor-tions. I sprang to my great-aunt's work basket and began rummaging to see If I could find a tape measure, and luckily my search was quickly rewarded. re-warded. I sketched a rough diagram of the rear rooms, and began measuring them off, carefully checking my figures as I went along. I found myself growing grow-ing wildly excited as the tape measure meas-ure confirmed what my eyes already had told me. The Inner wall was at least four feet thick. With thrills ut the thought of the possibility of a secret passage there, I climbed up on a chair just as Claire Bradford had done, and began inspecting in-specting the wall Inch by inch. Even As I, Trembling All Over at the Thought of the Peril She Had Been In, Put My Arms About Her and Helped Her In. as I did so I could not help laughing at myself. The Idea that a modern apartment building might contain a secret passage was utterly ridiculous, yet as I pounded lightly on the wall it gave forth a hollow sound, vastly different from any other part of the room. I was convinced that between my room and the hall there was space enough at least fot a passageway in which a man might walk. I surveyed with growing Interest the wooden paneling that In my room ran clear up to the ceiling. In the other rooms there was no paneling. Mounting Mount-ing the chair again I pressed sharply against the wood at the point from which the sound had seemed to come. It seemed to me it gave a little to m touch. I struck one of the sections a sharp blow. It dropped back a full half-inch, leaving what looked like a doorway a space three feet wide hy live feet high. The bottom of the opening was hardly two feet from the floor. If there was a passageway here, this panel certainly would explain ex-plain how my rooms had been surreptitiously surrep-titiously visited. Feverishly I worked at the panel trying try-ing to push" It further back. If there was a passageway there in the wall I was determined to see whither It led. My efforts to move the pane! further seemed hopeless. As I worked at It I heard a tapping on my window sill. It must be Barbara. In my excitement excite-ment over the find I had forgotten all about the time. I sprang from the chair and rushed to the window. I found her peering out, trying to ascertain ascer-tain why I had net answered her signal. sig-nal. "Oh," she breathed with relief, as my head appeared, "you were there. Did you see the detective?" "Yes." I replied, speaking as low as my excited stale would permit me, "but Just now I discovered something vastly more iuipurlanU" "What is it?" "A secret passageway leading Into my room. It seems to run along the hall.. The wall there is at least four feet thick room for a man to walk. There Is a panel in the wall in my room leading Into it. I was just prying pry-ing it open when you signaled." "Oh. how I wish I could see It !" "Why can't you? Slip out of your ' front door, and I'll be at my door to admit you." "I can't do that. Mother and Claire are in the front part of the house playing bridge with some guests. They will be sure to"iear me going out." "Come In tomorrow morning, then," I suggested. She did not answer, and before I realized what she was doing, Barbara was out on the ledge making her perilous way across to my window. "If Claire can do this, I can." she announced triumphantly, as L trembling trem-bling all over at the thought of the peril she had been in, put my, arms about her and helped her In. "Darling," I cried, still holding her In my arms, "don't ever do that again. It's too dangerous. Promise me, Barbara, Bar-bara, dear, you'll never again try that." With her pretty face flushed at the terms of endearment that bad unwittingly unwit-tingly escaped me, she laughingly released re-leased herself from my arms. "That was nothing," she said In a tetise whisper. "Where's the panel?" Relieved to find that she was not angered by my presumption, I hastened has-tened to turn up the light and pointed at the hole in the wall. As I had done, she sprang up on the chair and endeavored en-deavored to push the panel further back, but was unable to budge it. Quicker witted than I, she then tried sliding It along. At the slightest touch it slid back in a groove, revealing reveal-ing the opening leading into what? Striking a match, we both of us peered In. The space between the walls was certainly high enough and side enough for a man to walk there in comfort. So fur as the flickering light of the match enabled us to judge, It ran the length of the hall, and near Its further end there appeared to be some steps. "Come," cried the Intrepid Barbara, "let's explore It." "No," I said firmly. "We must do nothing until I have seen the detective. de-tective. We have put the ease in his hanfls." "But we must find out about it," protested the girl. "Tomorrow," I said. "We know where It Is. We know where the voices and whispers come from now." "I wonder," she said thoughtfully, "if there Is the same sort of a passageway pas-sageway in our apartment?" "Promise roe that if you find there lis one, you will not attempt to explore It alone." As we argued about it we both stopped short and with blanching faces listened. From somewhere it sounded as if It was right below us we heard sounds as If two people were struggling. Then came a woman's shriek, a wild scream with the death terror In it. The sound seemed close at hand. It seemed to come rignt up from the opening in the panel by which we -were standing. Once more there came an awful scream a scream stopped off short as If some brutal hand had throttled the woman's throat. "What is it?" cried Barbara. "Listen," I commanded. "It seems to come from the floor below." Holding our breaths we strained our ears for further sounds. Suddenly a shot rang out, and there was a thud as if a body bad fallen to the floor. Then all was silence. With terror In our faces we turned to each other, seeking an explanation which neither could give. "Mother Claire !" cried Barbara. "They'll be alarmed. I must go back to them at once." "She's been murdered. Get the police quick." 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