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Show BM ISABEL WAITT -XS THE STORY SO FAR: Judy Jason, who is telling the story, receives an anonymous letter enclosing $800 and asking ask-ing her to bid for an abandoned church to be auctioned the next day. She suspects, sus-pects, in turn, each of the guests at the Inn where she is staying. They are the Reverend Jonas DeWitt, Lily Kendall, Tbaddeus Quincy, Albion Potter, Hugh Norcross and his sister, Bessie. Other possibilities are Aunt Nella and Uncle Wylie, owners of tlie inn. Jndy bids for lue church and gets It. That night she finds a hand protruding from an old sea chest. By a ring she recognizes It as Roddy Lane's. A new guest, Victor Quade, arrives. Now continue with Judy's story. CHAPTER III "Wylie's gone to the village to see about gettin' the sink drain fixed," Aunt Nella murmured drowsily. That meant Rockville beyond Pirates Pi-rates Neck, where the rest of the boarders probably were. I went down the two flights Auntie and I have rooms in the attic and reported. re-ported. "We'll just have to wait," Mr. Quincy said. "It's after ten o'clock. Someone will be along soon. No celebration in Rockville to keep 'em late fireworks display or silly bonfire." bon-fire." "I could walk it," Mr. Quade objected. ob-jected. "Only four or five miles, isn't it?" "If you do, you'll take Miss Jason and push me, young man!" Victor grinned, and I felt completely com-pletely disarmed. No man with lovely teeth like that could be a coldblooded cold-blooded villain. "Maybe you're right," he said. "You're sure there's nobody at the castle who could go?" "What do you, a stranger, know about the castle?" "Nothing, except that the garage man said it was empty. I could have the whole grounds to work in. He also recommended Mrs. Gerry's pies. Can't beat that combination solitude and good pie." Someone was coming down the stairs. We all looked up to see Hugh Norcross pausing to smooth his slick hair and straighten an already meticulously me-ticulously correct tie before he entered. en-tered. "Did you knock on my door a while ago, Miss Jason?" "Why, yes, I did. You didn't answer. an-swer. This is Mr. Quade. Mr. Norcross." Nor-cross." Hugh bowed swiftly and then turned again to me. "I thought it was my sister. Next time it's you, announce yourself, young lady." "Nice brother!" "Well, there's such a thing as self-defense. self-defense. Bessie's very nervous. Had three fits this evening. Wanted me to thrash Lane for for what he said to poor Mr. De Witt. Said she'd fix him if he ever came around here again. Tell him a thing or two herself. her-self. Why," he broke off, "what makes you all look so funny? Anything Any-thing wrong?" Thaddeus Quincy spoke up: "Where's Bessie now?" "Sound asleep, thanks be! I just peeked." "And I suppose you were reading between fits?" Victor Quade asked nonchalantly. "I was. Ethics of Spinoza, since you ask." Was he telling the truth? Before we had a chance to tell him about my gruesome discovery in the basement of the church Lily Kendall came toddling into the room and plunked herself down on the nearest stuffed chair. "Gee, I'm tuckered!" She fanned herself with a chubby ringed hand, fingering her beads with the other. "Well, Judy, I see you beat me home. Oh, introduce me! Another boarder?" Victor Quade received her melting melt-ing smile politely. Mr. Quincy cut in: "Miss Kendall, you've been walking, I take it, the long way round. See anybody between be-tween here and the church?" Lily shook her chin. "Only you down there at the steps. Me, I wandered all over, through the Lane castle grounds." She inquired of Mr. Quade. Then, "If you mean the Lane feller, no, I didn't see him. Nobody there, looks like. Why?" I thought the silence would never end. Victor Quade just stared at Lily till she again demanded, "Why? What you all so mysterious about?" "You didn't know the Lane feller has been killed, I presume?" "Killed! Auto accident?" "Murder." Lily's pink beads broke and spattered spat-tered in all directions. Then her pleasant face lighted. "Oh, boy! Think of the publicity. Wish my niece washere. Pictures all over the newspapers and no fake stuff, either. Why, you couldn't buy it. Interviews and everything! Who shot him?" "Who said he was shot?" Victor threw at her. "Was he?" "Search me. Maybe somebody stuck a knife in his back. Somebody Some-body wanted to last night, all rightie. I heard what I heard. And I saw what I saw. I ain't insinuatin' nothing, noth-ing, Mr. Quincy, but you did leave the table first, and I did see you down at the church a little while ago." Thaddeus Quincy's Up curled. "Oh, surely. I marathoned down in my wheel chair and knifed him." He was looking at Quade now. "Then I cut the telephone wires so the police po-lice couldn't be notified." "You're sure you didn't see anybody any-body skulking about during your walk?" Mr. Quade asked Lily. "No, sirree. Why ask me? Where's the rest of the gang? Gone to the movies? Nothing else doin' in Rockville, so I decided to stay home." "They ought to be back pretty soon if they have," Hugh said, offering of-fering cigarettes to everybody. "What's say you and I wander down the road to meet them, Mr. Quade?" A muffled boom that was not the sea rattled the windows of the old house. No cannon crackers ever made that noise, either. "What was that?" we cried in unison. uni-son. "Sounded like an explosion," Victor Vic-tor Quade said. A moment we sat petrified as the rumbling noise of an explosion came to our ears. Hugh Norcross tore up the stairs as Aunt Nella tore down. "Judy, Where's your Uncle Wylie?" Wy-lie?" She stood just outside the door, but we could all see her bare feet. "What was that noise?" "We don't know, Auntie. Why don't you go back to bed? Just somebody celebrating the Fourth." "Why should she go back to bed?" Mr. Quincy wanted to know. "She's in this thing, too." "Don't Mis' Gerry know he's been killed?" shrilled Lily. Aunt Nella keeled but caught herself. her-self. Victor sprang to help her into the room, while we all explained at once it wasn't her husband who'd been murdered. "Lane!" Aunt Nella sat up trembling. trem-bling. "Bessie! And I don't blame her a mite." (Trust the Head to remember re-member a five-year-old scandal!) Hugh was back. "Keep my sister's sis-ter's name out of this. She didn't hear the the explosion, thanks be." "Get your aunt dressed, Miss is it Jason? Come on, you." Mr. Quade grabbed hold of Hugh's arm. "Let's rtfw ) ml 4? s Victor Quade received her melting melt-ing smile politely. investigate. Something happened down the road. Accident probably. May need help." "Wait. Want my first-aid kit?" "Good -girl. Hurry." I ran upstairs to the medicine closet, where I'd marked a shoe-box shoe-box on a top shelf "first aid." It had sterilized gauze, adhesive tape, an iodine swab and vaseline in it. But the kit wasn't needed, after all. I'd barely reached the front hall when two cars brought home the rest of our guests. They joined the others, while Lily, Hugh, Mr. Quincy in his chair, and Aunt Nella, who'd managed to get into her robe but stood shivering in bare feet, plied them with questions. I began to count them, all talking at once about the explosion: Albion Al-bion Potter and the Rev. Jonas De Witt, but where was Uncle Wylie? "Where's Wylie?" lisped Aunt Nella. I put my arm around her. "He's all right or they'd say so. The explosion wrecked the bridee." "What bridge? I don't remember a bridge between here and the mainland." main-land." Victor Quade said. "Dark when I came in. The fog and all." "You wouldn't notice it at night," Hugh said. "Just a short affair over a bit of the Neck. Pirate's Head is really an island." "Mean a person could walk across? Marshland, isn't it?" "No. Not there. Rocky. Dangerous Dan-gerous currents. Regular rip tide. Take a mighty strong swimmer, that gap. The water swirls and eddies into a regular whirlpool. Darned narrow escape they had, if you ask me." It was difficult to find out what'd happened when all made such a din. But the bridge had blown up not long after the two cars had crossed safely over. They'd both stopped and gone back, but had seen nobody, no-body, and so come on. All agreed the bridge was out of commission, either by a bomb or dynamite. 'The murderer did it, of course," shrilled Lily, "so's he could make a getaway before we called the police." "Murderer!" They gasped, wide-eyed. wide-eyed. "Oh, dear! Where's my husband?" hus-band?" piped Aunt Nella. The Reverend De Witt stood up. "Don't be alarmed, my good woman. wom-an. He's out in the car." He boomed oratorically on all occasions, even now. "Is he hurt'? Why doesn't he come in?" Aunt Nella started for the door. Albion Potter blocked the way. "I'll get him, Mrs. Gerry. He isn't hurt." A sort of sickly grin crept round his mouth. "Just slightly slightly" . " under the weather? He'll sleep it off," grinned Lily Kendall. "Mr. Potter and I brought him home with us," the clergyman said as Aunt Nella wriggled past him with a loud "H'mmmp!" He spread his hand as if he were giving the benediction. "Now what's all this about a murder?" "Suppose you talk, Quade," Thaddeus Thad-deus Quincy said. "This young man, Victor Quade, is a writer. He arrived ar-rived at the Head in a trailer to write fiction, inspired by the inn pies and the Lane 'estate. That right?" Victor smiled. "In a way. Go on." "No, you go on. Tell 'em the whole business. We're all here but Wylie Gerry, and he's 'hors de combat.' com-bat.' " "That's French for drunk," Lily whispered to me. "Ain't this thrilling? thrill-ing? My, I'm glad I didn't go to Bar Harbor." Victor Quade took the floor and gave the facts as he knew them. How he'd arrived after dark and waited in the inn parlor till we found him. How Mr. Quincy and I had gone down to the church for my handbag to find a key to fit Bessie Norcross' door, and how I'd seen Lane's dead hand sticking out of the lid of the j sea chest in the cellar. How the wires of the phone had been found cut. And now the bridge blown up. "We're trapped. Miss Kendall was right. Whoever killed Lane had no intention of our getting back to town tonight to get the police," Hugh said. "What are we going to do?" "We're going to keep quiet and let Mr. Quade talk," Mr. Quincy said, thumping his cane. "The rest of us were just one happy family till he came along. Let him continue. contin-ue. Maybe he'D give himself away." "Right." Victor showed those marvelous teeth of his in a smile which could make anyone believe him a saint. "The question is, what are we to do? I would have called the police, but my car is in a Rockville Rock-ville garage. Now your cars are useless on account of the bridge. It's high tide. Anyone feel like swimming swim-ming across, and then walking the Just how far is it?" The bridge is about half a mile from the Head and four miles from town. Hugh said fee was darned if he'd leave his sister at a time like that. Mr. Quincy shook his head resignedly. That left only the Reverend, Rev-erend, who boomed his swimming days were over, and Victor Quade. "It would be suicide for me," Victor Vic-tor said. "Doctor's orders. This trailer business, with the dabbling at writing, is because I'm recovering from a recent illness." "But the police will be here, anyway, any-way, won't they?" De Witt said. "They must have heard the explosion explo-sion in Rockville." The men doubted it. Certainly it hadn't sounded very loud in the inn parlor so close by. If they did hear it, they'd put it down to shindigs shin-digs the night before the Fourth. The milkman would be coming to the Head when? Not till around noon! "Let's see it's now 11 o'clock. The explosion occurred when? Quarter of?" We let it go at approximately that. The movies close early in Rockville, Rock-ville, and the two cars had come along together. "Perhaps the police will come. Meanwhile, why don't we all try to act as normally as possible until dayl " He broke off as a shrill cry from outside came from Aunt Nella. "Wylie! Wyliiiiie!" We hadn't noticed that Albion Potter, who'd gone out with my aunt, had come back and was standing stand-ing in the doorway. "He he wasn't in the car, Mrs. Gerry," he stammered. stam-mered. "She's hunting all over creation cre-ation in her bare feet. He can't be far." "No, i should imagine not," boomed the preacher. He broke off, and suggested, after some hesitation: hesita-tion: "If if the water isn't too rough, I could row a boat." Yes, and escape, es-cape, I couldn't but think. Hadn't Lane called him Smith? Maybe he was an ex-convict. "You could not," Mr. Quincy said with finality. "Isn't any." And that was that "I'm going after my aunt Will someone come with me. She'll know." "I will." Hugh was on one side and Victor Quade on the other. But the whole crowd followed. We hadn't gone six yards before Aunt Nella gave a thin piercing scream that sounded down toward the sea. "Help! Hellllllp!" Pellmell into the fog we ran. "Coming, Auntie!" I called in answer an-swer to her call for help. (TO BE CONTINVEDJ |