A MYSTERY OF

ROSCOE CONKLING PARK

Seward W Hopkins

1864-1919

The Argosy, April 1916

Contents

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Chapter 15 | Chapter 16

Chapter 17 | Chapter 18

Chapter 19 | Chapter 20

Chapter 21 | Chapter 22

Chapter 23 | Chapter 24

Chapter 25 | Chapter 26

Chapter 27 | Chapter 28

Chapter 29 | Chapter 30

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Chapter 1

The Goddess From the Street Car.

AS the south-bound Genesee Street trolley stopped in front of John  Raymond’s handsome residence the two young men seated on the broad veranda glanced toward it.

“Greenland,” said one, “who is the goddess from the car?”

“Search me,” replied the other, with a quiet laugh and a pronounced grunt of approval. “I never saw her before. By Jove, she’s coming here!”

“Thank the Lord,” was the rejoinder. “Aside from the somber contemplation of your approaching happiness, George, I had nothing to live for until this moment. She is certainly some looker!”

“The Lady of the Dawn,” murmured Greenland.

“For a man who is going to be married at eight o’clock in the morning, and in this very house, your remark registers a fickle character. By Jove! What an air of possession the lady wears!”

“Independence, rather,” said Greenland. “The Declaration is written all over her.”

Meanwhile the object of these gratuitous phrases of commendation was approaching the gate. Genesee Street being exceptionally wide, and Mr. Raymond’s house being situated fifty feet back from his front line-fence, the two men had ample opportunity  to study the new arrival, who in a moment became the stranger within the gates.

She was tall, and of fine form and carriage. Her hair glowed in the light of the setting sun, and to Greenland it was a beautiful auburn, while to Yale, who had never been engaged or even in love, it was a most exquisite red.

As a matter of fact, or poesy, one who writes feelingly upon such things would pronounce the great mass of hair atop of a well-shaped head a golden brown, and make it rhyme with royal crown, or some such foolishness. This well-dressed ruddy mass was but slightly concealed by a round something that was probably a hat, but which might masquerade under the title of toque, or turban, or whatsoever.

It is the immediate impression that she created in the minds of George Greenland and Kenneth Yale that is here being recorded, and as one was to be married the next morning to Nancy Raymond, with whom he was very much in love, and the other was stricken suddenly foolish with admiration at the beauty of the approaching visitor, nobody is going to try to make their impressions appear sane.

The visitor was not more than nineteen, nor much less. She carried in her right hand a well-traveled suitcase, in her left a tightly rolled umbrella, and from her shoulder, suspended by a strap, there hung a camera.

It was amazing how well she fitted into the picture.

From the gate to Raymond’s house a marble tessellated walk led straight to the great marble steps, the cost of which might have built a cottage. On either side stretched a lawn of velvet green, ornamental trees and shrubs, and on one side a fountain sent jets of water into the air from reeds in the mouths of nymphs, and on the other a great garden of autumn flowers gave color to the scene.

“I’ll bet her name is Aurora,” remarked Greenland.

“I don’t care a hang what her name is,” said Yale.

“She is Aurora.”

They were soon to have their curiosity satisfied. From the massive front door there came a swish of skirts, the tap of light, small shoes on the marble porch, and the figure of a finely formed and very pretty girl went flying down to meet the visitor.

“Beverly Wayne, by all that’s great and good!” exclaimed Miss Nancy Raymond, clasping her friend with both arms and kissing her.

“Yum!” murmured Greenland.

“Shut up,” said Yale. “Those same lips have probably kissed yours often enough, and after eight o’clock to-morrow will be all yours. I’m the one who is suffering.”

“You!”

They stopped chaffing and listened.

“I was so afraid you did not get my invitation,” Miss Raymond was saying.

“Well, your fear was justified. What invitation?”

“Why, you goose, to my wedding to-morrow morning, of course.”

“Oh,” replied Miss Wayne in a matter-of-fact way. “I suppose there is an ‘of course’ to it. But you see, I have not been home in three months. I don’t suppose you sent out your invitations three months ago.”

“I wasn’t even engaged three months ago.”

“Well, you are taking chances! I’d have to know a man about ten years before I’d stick my third finger out for a metal hoop that represents an iron collar around your neck.”

“What an absurd thing you are! It does no such thing.”

“It must. I read it in an ancient book.”

“Lord deliver us from battle, murder, sudden death and red-headed scoffers,” said Kenneth Yale. “Does the euphonious name, Beverly Wayne, bring anything to your mind, Greenland?”

“Yes, I have heard of Beverly Wayne. She was sort of chum to Nance at Smith’s College. I’ve heard Nance speak of her. From Nance’s panegyrics I gather that Miss Wayne is a rather eccentric character, who gets away with her eccentricities on account of the hypnotic effect she has on other people. Lives with an old aunt who is also eccentric, besides having the additional merit of being pretty well fixed in shekels and some chronic ailment that has threatened to deprive her of life a dozen times.”

By this time the strenuous greeting between the two girls had simmered down to reasonable warmth, Miss Raymond had taken the suitcase from her visitor, and now the two girls, arm in arm, tripped lightly and merrily up the steps.

“Come and meet my to-morrow’s husband,” said Miss Raymond.

“You speak as though you had them in relays or drove tandem,” observed Miss Wayne. “I hope there is good team-work between the lot.”

Of course, this was not intended for other listeners. Nevertheless Greenland grunted disapproval and Yale covered his mouth with his hand.

“Such a knowledge of human nature,” he murmured to George.

The suitcase and camera and umbrella were now consigned to a man-servant who appeared from the house, and the two young ladies approached the two young men, who instantly rose.

“George, this is my friend Beverly Wayne, of whom you have heard me speak. Beverly, Mr. Greenland, my— my—”

“Husband for to-morrow,” finished out Miss Wayne, accepting Greenland’s out stretched hand and giving him a flash from her eyes.

“And this is Mr. Kenneth Yale, who, like you, arrived without knowing anything about our wedding. Mr. Yale, Miss Wayne.”

There was no awkwardness in Miss Wayne’s manner. She bore herself like one who was continually being introduced to kings and princes and who never admitted that they had anything on her for looks, position or independence of spirit.

As Yale bowed, not daring to follow Greenland’s example in offering his hand, he saw hers, a small, well-shaped one, thrust toward him. He took it eagerly. There was no mistaking the heartiness of her grip nor the muscular strength of the delicate-looking fingers.

When he spoke he looked her in the face, and felt as if he was gazing at the sun.

Her eyes were large, well-separated, and were of a peculiar, deep violet. Her teeth were even, pearly white, but not small. There was no sign of gold or any other filling. Miss Wayne could chew her own breakfast-food, and her complexion proved that there was nothing the matter with her digestion.

“Come and look at my presents,” said Miss Raymond. “They’re in the dining room. We’ll see you later, boys.”

Left to themselves, the “boys” sank weakly to their chairs.

“A queen,” proclaimed Greenland.

“George,” said Yale, fumbling in his pocket for a cigar, “I have made a discovery.”

“Shoot.”

“Violet is the only permissible color for eyes, and all hair except that tint of red should be barred by law.”

“You are an ass.”

“That is my privilege. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States nor the statutes of the State of New York to prevent me from rushing into the dining room, flopping myself on the ground, and pleading with Miss Wayne to be my wife.”

“I fancy Miss Wayne would bowl you over. I’m glad I’m engaged to Nance.”

“So, by the heel of my great-grand father’s last pipeful, am I. And I am particularly glad that your wedding is to be early to-morrow morning. And I am glad that you and Mrs. Greenland are to take a morning train East. I am convinced that without the saving grace of Miss Raymond’s individuality in this matter, Utica is too small to hold Miss Wayne and you and me at one and the same time.”

“I agree with you. If I wasn’t going to marry Nance to-morrow morning I’d hustle you out of town as suddenly as you came in. To my mind Miss— hush! Here they come.”

Chapter 2

An Early Morning Cry

THE chiming voices of the two girls could be heard even before they became visible. Greenland and Yale turned their heads, and watched the front door expectantly.

From it issued Miss Raymond with an arm around Miss Wayne’s slim waist, and Miss Wayne had an arm around Nancy’s still slimmer waist. And their tongues were clacking simultaneously.

“Mr. Greenland, I am delighted to have had the pleasure of seeing Nance’s lovely presents. Did you ever behold so much silverware in one bunch, Mr. Yale?”

“Not outside of Tiffany’s,” replied Kenneth. “I’d like to melt it down and take it to the mint. I never believed in Bryan’s silver theory till I saw that dining-room table. Is there an inch of mahogany to be seen?”

“Not half an inch. And there are more to come.”

“Let us be thankful for mercies received, and not humiliate our souls with covetous longings,” remarked Greenland. “The more of that junk Nance gets, the more expense for me to get furniture to match.”

“George,” broke in Miss Raymond, ignoring this persiflage concerning her wedding presents, “do you know what? Let’s take a walk on the boulevard. Dinner won’t be till seven. It is after five, and there won’t be many people there to gaze at me.”

“I fail to see why we should deny the populace the pleasure of gazing at you. To the boulevard we will go. It will be our last walk together as mere sweethearts.”

“George! Are you going to turn cold right after we are married?”

“No, I shall reserve that stunt till right after I am dead. I mean merely as sweethearts.”

“They are all like that,” said Miss Wayne with the air of one who had suffered from many experiences. “Once a man gets you he won’t wear a coat in the house. Beware, Nance Raymond, your foot is in the noose.”

“We don’t hang people with their heads down, in Utica,” laughed Greenland.

“No, but you trap wild pigeons that way.”

By this time George, who was ever ready to gratify Miss Raymond’s wishes, had ranged himself at her side, and the happy couple, with no sign of a cloud to dim their prospective and immediate bliss, started down the steps.

“They are magnificently indifferent to our welfare,” Miss Wayne remarked to Yale. “I suppose, being only butters-in on this game, we can do no less than follow on.”

“Nothing will give me greater pleasure,” replied Yale, “than to follow them in all their steps and ways with you for company.”

“Well! I must say for a Utica young man you are getting along.”

“But I am not a Utica young man. I was, in the ages long since past, a Utica boy. I now live in New York.”

“Ha! So do I. We are almost relatives. But if we don’t start, Nance and Mr. Greenland will be beyond our following.”

“I should weep no tears. To prove that I am not at present a Utica man, I will admit that I never knew that Utica had a boulevard. And they are going in the least likely direction for me to imagine one.”

Miss Wayne had worn, when she alighted from the electric car, a neat, well-fitting tailor-made traveling suit of dark gray. In the brief period that she and Miss Raymond had been absent from the porch she had not only examined the wedding presents, but had found time, in some mysterious manner known only to herself, to make a change, and now appeared wearing some sort of afternoon street-gown that became her so well that Yale never knew the color of it.

They were soon strolling up Genesee Street in the wake of the engaged couple, and Yale felt a peculiar pang as he saw Miss Raymond’s arm linked in Greenland’s. He glanced at his companion, but her regal, resolute step, her very evident confidence in herself, disposed of any budding idea that she would take his arm. They walked a little faster than the other two, and soon caught up with them.

“Say, George,” called Yale, “since when did Utica boast a boulevard, and where is it? Methinks we are on the way to Richfield Springs.”

“Shut up, you blasphemer,” said Greenland, looking back over Miss Raymond’s shoulder rather than his own. “Know ye that Utica has blossomed out into the City Beautiful. There is a wealthy citizen here who has taken the city in his lap and is bringing it up by hand. He has given several parks to the town, and the one toward which our lagging steps are taking us is the largest. This is called Roscoe Conkling Park. Then the city became converted to the religion of civic beauty and created a boulevard. You must remember Pleasant Street.”

“I do.”

“Well, that’s sort of part of the boulevard. You’ll see.”

“How perfectly lucid. I could find it now without a chaperon,” observed Miss Wayne.

“You recall old Steele’s Hill,” Greenland said to Yale, not deigning to reply to Miss Wayne’s flippancy. “Used to get beechnuts on the southern slope,” said Yale. “That’s where the park begins— at Elm Street. The city— ”

Yale felt his arm jerked backward, and, as a matter of course, lagged his steps.

“Bother their old park,” said Miss Wayne. “Did we come here from Central Park, and Bronx, not to speak of Pelham Bay Park with nearly two thousand acres, to be beguiled with Roscoe Conkling Park? Who’s his friend, this Roscoe Conkling?”

Yale laughed under his breath and explained that Roscoe Conkling was at one time the most prominent citizen of Utica, and a Senator of the United States.

“Let’s talk about something nearer to our sensibilities. What am I to do? You seem to be on intimate terms with the Raymonds, so you can set me right.”

“Intimate terms with the Raymonds!” exclaimed Yale. “Why, I never saw one of the Raymonds till about half an hour before you came.”

“Bless us all! But Greenland— ”

“I’ll explain briefly. Matters concerning my grandfather’s death and a small inheritance several miles north of Utica brought me here, where I have not been in years. When Greenland and I were boys we sat together in the Utica Academy. Well, he ran into me a short time after I left the Empire State Express this afternoon, and insisted, with his usual wooden persistence, that I go to the Raymonds’ to stop over till after the wedding. I felt horribly out of place till you came.”

“How did it make you feel any more comfortable to know some one else was in the same boat?” the girl inquired.

“Well, you know, as soon as I set eyes on you I had something else to think of.”

“How deliciously you say it. Well, to ’fess up in my turn, I have been spending the summer at a friend’s camp in the Adirondacks, and am on my way home to New York. I might better leave out home and just say New York, for I am a homeless wanderer upon the cold and still-cooling crust of the earth. I got as far as Herkimer, on the Herkimer & Malone, and remembered that Nance lived in Utica. I had never met her people, but wanted to see Nance. I came from Herkimer on a local, expecting to spend the night with Nance, and go on to New York to-morrow.”

“It would be jolly if we could arrange to go to New York together.”

“Some time.”

“Here’s the boulevard ahead,” announced Greenland.

“Sure it’s ahead? Thought we might have passed it with such distracted guides as you two,” chaffed Yale.

“Oo— o— o! ” called Miss Wayne. “Who is the solid man on the stone pedestal?”

She pointed to a statue of heroic size on Genesee Street, facing a great, wide, beautiful boulevard running east and west.

“That’s Baron Von Steuben,” answered Greenland.

“Is he the man who gave the big park to the city?”

“No, no; that was Thomas R. Proctor, He’s alive. Steuben has been dead I don’t know how long. He was in the American army in the Revolutionary War.”

“If it wasn’t so late I’d wish I had my camera,” Miss Wayne told Yale. “I’d take a picture of the old Baron. I’m what the Philistines call a camera fiend, Mr. Yale.”

“And who are the Philistines?”

“Prominent people who will not be snap-shotted.”

“Well, you may snapshot me all you like.”

“But I am not a millionaire. I can’t waste films.”

In half an hour they had had all of the boulevard they wanted, and all four returned to the house and Mr. Raymond. This gentleman was very rich, very grim and stern, and more than very set in his purpose when roused, as will be seen.

Dinner was soon ready, and they ate it in a room made suitable, so that the vast show of costly wedding presents on the real dining-room table might not be disturbed. Mrs. Raymond was a little woman, refined, and evidently well educated. But she was almost a nonentity under the grim rule of the self-made man, her husband.

Dinner passed off very pleasantly, however, and Yale listened with much misgiving to a number of duties to be performed by Mrs. Raymond, Nancy and the servants that evening.

“We’re in the way here,” he said to Beverly Wayne. “Let’s take a sneak and beat it down to the gay lights.”

“Where, in Utica?”

“Well, let’s take a trolley ride and lap up some ice cream, or anything to get out of their way.”

“I’d like to help,” said Miss Wayne. “But I’m such an outsider! Did you see Mr. Raymond eye me?”

“I did. And me. I fancy he is a bit of a Caesar in his home, as well as in his business.”

Yale and Miss Wayne started out soon after dinner, although the evening was then well advanced, and did not return till all the household except Sims, the butler, was asleep. He admitted them, and then went to bed himself. Yale was tired and dropped off almost the minute he touched the pillow.

He had bidden Miss Wayne good night, and she had waved her hand at him from her room door. His dreams were pleasant. He was an early riser, and it was but about half-past six when he woke and began leisurely to dress, intending to take a walk before the household was astir. So far as he could tell, the silence was so profound, not a soul was stirring except himself.

Suddenly the air was split with a shrill cry of terror or pain, or both, and the voice was the agonized voice of a woman. Yale flung on a few remaining garments, hurled himself out of his room, and crashed into Greenland, clad only in his pajamas and but half awake.

Chapter 3

Under Suspicion.

"HEY! Hey! What’s all this row? What the devil— ”

“Let me alone, you fool,” shouted Yale, whom Greenland had grabbed by the throat. “I didn’t holler, and I didn’t make anybody else holler. Get your clothes on.”

He hurled Greenland from him and rushed down-stairs. The main staircase led into the wide main hall, and against the wall of this Yale found a maid of the household leaning, screaming and beating her breasts with her hands.

“What’s the matter? Who hurt you? What have you seen?” asked Yale, putting his arms around the maid, fearing she was going to faint. “Stop that noise.”

“They’ve gone! They’ve gone! They’ve gone!” she yelled shrilly, and nearly beside herself, she caught Yale’s hair in both her hands. “Where have they gone?”

“Who’s gone? Let go my hair,” shouted Yale. “Who’s gone? What’s the matter with you? Greenland and Miss Raymond haven’t gone. I just met Greenland.”

“Not them! Nobody! Them things in there.”

She pointed to the dining-room door, having released Yale’s hair.

By that time Mr. Raymond and Greenland had arrived on the scene. Mr. Raymond had on his trousers, a dark brown dressing-gown, and slippers. Greenland wore the Tuxedo he had sported the previous evening, and the vest belonging to it. These had been put on over his striped pajamas, and he was barefooted.

“What’s the ding-dong ringing for? What’s the matter here?” Greenland demanded to know.

“They’ve gone! They’ve gone! They’ve gone!” howled the maid, pointing toward the dining-room.

“What the devil does she mean, Yale?” asked Greenland, while Mr. Raymond stood looking daggers at the visitor.

“Has this man offered you hurt or insult, my girl?” he asked sternly. Yale laughed.

“They’ve gone! They’ve gone!” continued the hysterical maid.

“Explain this thing, sir,” said Mr. Raymond to Yale.

“I can’t explain it and prevent this girl from falling at the same time. Can’t you see she’s about lost her senses? Help me get her to a chair.”

Greenland rushed to the drawing-room and dragged out a small, armless divan sort of thing, upon which they placed the girl, who immediately rolled off on to the floor.

“They’ve gone!” she screamed once more, and then fell silent in a faint.

“She pointed to the dining-room,” Yale said to Greenland. “Let’s take a look.”

He, the coolest because it was his nature to be cool, and because he was less concerned than the other two in whatever had occurred, led the way, followed by the grotesque Greenland and the utterly incompetent self-made Raymond.

They stood in a row inside the newly decorated dining-room and gazed stupidly at the mahogany table they had left loaded with wealth the night before. Not a vestige of that wealth was visible now. All the expensive and rare pieces of silver, the costly dinner and tea-sets, candelabra, urns, silver table baskets, fruit dishes, all, or nearly all, of solid silver of sterling grade, had disappeared. One window of the dining-room was open.

“Rouse the house!” roared Mr. Raymond. “Get everybody out. I say, George, wake everybody! Good Heaven, what have you got on? Would you present yourself to my wife and daughter in that ridiculous garb? Go to your room and dress. I’ll wake the house.”

It occurred to Yale that Mr. Raymond, though undoubtedly an able man in the business world, was not the man to grapple with a problem like the one before them. He went into the hall, and found Sims, the butler, and another female servant working over the maid who had fainted.

“Mr. Raymond wants the entire household roused,” Yale said to Sims quietly. “The house has been robbed.”

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Sims. “Yes, sir.”

He sped away, and the woman had the maid revived before any one else appeared.

But the services of Sims were scarcely needed. The shrill screams of the hysterical servant had penetrated almost every corner of the house, large as it was, and now excited and wondering people came from the main hall and the servants’ staircase in the rear. Mrs. Raymond, with a dressing-gown over her night attire, rushed down and up to her husband, who had followed Yale out in a mechanical manner. Miss Nancy followed, and was swallowed up by a horde of servants who flocked from the rear hall, in all gradations of terror and bewilderment and almost all conditions of dishabille.

Mr. Raymond swung around in a half circle, and viewed the group with eyes that flashed ominously. He was the chanticleer of this flock, and they should know it.

“There is one missing,” his steely voice rang out. “I said everybody? No person under my roof is exempt from my orders at a time like this. Where is Miss

Wayne?” Miss Raymond, still surrounded by excited servants, and still ignorant of her great loss, looked around in a bewildered sort of way as if she half expected Beverly Wayne to appear out of the walls, or to drop from the ceiling. But Miss Wayne did not appear from anywhere.

“I ask again, where is Miss Wayne?” thundered the millionaire.

“I’ll bring her down, papa,” said Nancy. “Don’t be cross.”

“Cross,” he muttered, as he watched her. Nancy worked her way through the mass of savants, and ran upstairs with light feet. Somehow she had dressed more completely than any one else.

Greenland, who had gone back to his room to exchange his pajamas for trousers, came down and joined the group. He wore a troubled look, but was far from the excited creature Mr. Raymond was. For some reason or other that cannot be explained, a hush, an air of expectancy, came upon all those gathered in the hall.

And while silence reigned Nancy came running down the broad stairs. “Beverly is not in her room,” she cried. “Has anything happened to her?”

“To her,” repeated Mr. Raymond, in a tone that all remembered afterward. “No, but to you a thing has happened. Come here.”

He seized her arm, and hurried her inside the dining-room with a roughness born of his own great agitation. “Look at that table!” he thundered. “Last night it held thousands of dollars’ worth of wedding presents. Where are they now, and where is your pretty friend?”

For a moment the girl stood staring at the bereft table.

Then she cried: “Not Beverly! Oh, don’t tell me it was Beverly!” and sank in a faint in her mother’s arms.

“Telephone the police!” commanded Mr. Raymond.

Chapter 4

A Detective Moves.

THE Utica headquarters of police is situated on Pearl Street, and locks arms with the City Hall, which is on the comer of Pearl and Genesee. A stone-paved court lies between the two buildings, and this paved court answers to the famous Bridge of Sighs in the New York Tombs. For from the cells beneath the police headquarters the morning batch of prisoners is marched across this court to the courtroom of the city magistrate.

In a little office largely occupied by telegraphic apparatus and telephone the chief of police sat reading reports, and listening to the clicking of the telegraphic instruments. The telephone bell rang and the operator took up the receiver.

“For you, chief,” he said, relinquishing the wire to the outstretched hand of his superior.

“Well?” said the chief into the mouth-piece. “Police headquarters, yes. I am the chief, yes. Who is this? Mr. Raymond’s house on Genesee Street? Robbed? Who is this talking?

“Oh, Sims, the butler. Go ahead, Sims. All the silver wedding presents? Mr. Raymond much excited? Miss Raymond prostrated? One guest missing?’ Hold on. You needn’t tell me any more over the wire. I will send the best man I have. Tell Mr. Raymond not to worry. Nobody can get away with a job like that in Utica.”

The chief hung up. “Get Blake in here,” he said.

His boast was not an idle one. Following the course of able predecessors, and himself an able police officer, the chief had kept the name of Utica a ringing terror to evil-doers. Few escaped his vigilance and the activity of the small force at his command.

Blake soon appeared, in citizen’s clothing.

“John Raymond’s house, Genesee,” explained the chief laconically.

“All Miss Raymond’s wedding presents gone— in the night.”

“Any information, inside or outside job?”

“No information except there is one guest missing.”

“Man or woman?”

“Don’t know. You will learn that when you get there. Make it a quick job. A thing like this will spread all over the State.”

“I’ll wind ’em up,” said Blake.

A few strides took him to the Genesee Street trolley line. A few minutes sufficed for the car to reach Raymond’s house. Detective Blake, though he knew the place well enough, could not forbear a moment’s survey of the beautiful lawns, and the splendid front of the mansion.

“George Greenland knows the right butter-tub to sit down in,” he said to himself, as he strode up the tessellated walk. He rang the bell. He knew he rang the bell, for he heard the heavy gong through the massive oaken doors. Yet the door did not open.

Blake rang again. And again he waited.

“What the devil is the matter in there?” Mr. Blake asked of himself.

Suddenly Sims appeared around the corner of the veranda. The face of Sims wore a bewildered look. As a butler Sims was superb. As a factor in the unraveling of a crime he was a sheep.

“Sir,” said Sims, “I must ask you to enter by way of the porte cochère. The front door is locked, and we cannot find the key.”

“I’ll enter by way of the chimney, if you say so,” answered Blake.

“Lead on.” He was soon in the dining-room, now occupied only by Mr. Raymond and George Greenland. Mrs. Raymond was with Nancy in her bedroom, where with the assistance of two maids the distracted mother was bringing the girl back to consciousness.

“I am Blake, from headquarters,” announced the detective. “You know me, Mr. Greenland.”

“I certainly do. Mr. Raymond, this is Detective Blake.” Raymond turned a fierce face toward the detective. “Look! ” he said with unnecessary energy, as he swept his arm over a portion of the mahogany table.

“Last night when the household retired this table was laden with thousands of dollars’ worth of silver wedding presents. Thousands, sir! Now look. A maid in the house discovered about half-past six this morning— what you see now, sir. All gone— gone in the dark of the night. A pretty place Utica is getting to be for wealthy people. An entire silversmith’s establishment could hold no more than this table did last night. Where has it gone?”

Blake scarcely repressed a smile. He knew that Raymond was not a native born Utican. He had lived in many mill and factory towns, moving from one to another, always on the upgrade in his choice of population, location and opportunity for displaying wealth. It had been rumored that John Raymond was not an easy taskmaster to the employees who created his wealth. There was a merciless glitter in his eyes now.

“You speak only of silver, by which I suppose you mean plate mostly, and ornaments. In such a collection of wedding presents one is likely to find jewels. Any jewels stolen?”

“Ha! I never thought of that,” said Mr. Raymond, who, as a matter of fact, had not thought of anything except to have Sims telephone the police. “There were jewels. But they were put in my wife’s boudoir safe.”

“And you have not ascertained whether that was molested?”

“That has not occurred to any of us. The oversight can be easily-remedied. Sims, go to Mrs. Raymond’s room and see if the safe is locked. If Mrs. Raymond can be seen, ask her to open the safe and make sure if the jewels are there.”

While Sims was gone Mr. Raymond paced to and fro in the dining-room, showing great agitation. At that moment Yale, who had taken the opportunity to go to his room to rearrange his clothing, came in, looking as though no excitement had ever entered his uneventful life. He glanced curiously at the detective.

“Kenneth, Detective Blake,” explained Greenland. “Mr. Blake, my friend and old schoolmate, Kenneth Yale. We went to the Academy together.”

Blake shook hands with Yale and looked at him searchingly.

“You don’t live in Utica now. Your father was Frederick Yale. He lived on Oneida Street, and was cashier of the Oneida County National Bank.”

“The same, sir,” Yale replied.

“Blake,” suddenly broke in Mr. Raymond. “I want no expense spared. I want no leniency shown. Those wedding presents must be found if I send my best friends to prison.”

“They will be found, Mr. Raymond.”

Yale looked at Raymond with some curiosity. There seemed to be something almost pointed in his remarks. Then Raymond swung upon him.

“Mr. Yale,” said the self-made and self-willed man, “you appear surprised at my agitation. Well may you marvel at it. Others would no less. I lost, in a factory fire in Little Falls, half a million dollars in one hour, and slept like a top the rest of the night. In a Gloversville fire— I had a glove factory there— I lost two hundred thousand in the same way. In an industrial strike I lost a million. I was not broke.

“Factories can be rebuilt. Strikes can be settled. More money can be made. I recuperated my losses. But who is going to replace stolen wedding presents? Tokens of love and affection from those who have known my daughter all her life and know her worth? I would rather lose a million in money than have this thing happen. Now you understand my excited condition.”

“Yes,” said Yale soberly, “I think I can appreciate your feelings in the matter, Mr. Raymond. But do not be too quick with suspicions.” Raymond was evidently about to make an impatient reply when Sims reappeared, and the millionaire’s open lips closed soundlessly.

“There is no evidence that the safe in Mrs. Raymond’s boudoir has been touched, sir. Miss Nancy is now recovered from her swoon, and Mrs. Raymond examined the contents of the safe. She told me that everything was all right.” Blake heard this, and stood a moment in deep reflection.

“Are the jewels valuable?” he asked. “As valuable, let us say, as the silver?”

“Well, on the whole, more valuable,” answered Mr. Raymond. “It would take quite a collection of silverware, even of the purest, to equal in value a diamond dog collar with four rows of diamonds, and a ruby pendant.”

“Who gave her that?” asked Blake sharply. “I did— her father.”

Blake mused. “It is clear,” he said, “that this was a planned job, and the thieves, while they knew all about the silver, did not know about the jewels. This job has been done by some one familiar with the premises, and who knew just what the table held. Let me examine that front door.”

“This window was found open this morning,” interposed Greenland. “It was closed when we retired last night.”

Blake walked to the window and looked out.

Chapter 5

Yale Speaks His Mind.

THE view that was spread before the detective’s inquisitorial gaze was beautiful, but limited. Looking down, he saw a velvet spread of closely cut lawn. Here and there well trimmed ornamental shrubs added their various shades of green. Toward the rear a maple or two showed bare limbs, with a few yellow and red leaves. In the garden were fruit trees and vines. The next house on that side was three or four hundred feet away, and could not be seen, except the upper floor and roof, the vista being cut short by a row of closely grown flowering shrubbery that stretched, as a line fence, the entire length of Mr. Raymond’s lawn. This was the side ornamented by the porte cochère, through which Blake had entered. The carriage path lay almost beneath the window.

Blake seemed, for a moment, about to jump out. “That won’t do,” he said to himself. “I might spoil a good clue.”

He went from the dining-room into the hall, and to the front door. “Turn on the nearest light,” he said. “I want to see if there are any thumb marks.”

Sims pressed the switch, and Blake found some thumb marks.

“A woman— and a young one,” he said. Then, straightening up, he looked keenly at Mr. Raymond.

“I was told by the chief that a guest was missing from this house. There are fingerprints on this door that seem fresh, and are undoubtedly the prints of the fingers of a young woman. Is the missing guest a young woman?”

“Yes,” blurted Mr. Raymond, “and to my mind a very strange young woman, too. She arrived here late yesterday afternoon, armed with a camera. I believe she had had an invitation sent to her by my daughter to attend the wedding, which was to be this morning. Nevertheless, she came as an uninvited guest, for she has been away from her home, wherever that may be, and received no invitation— so she says.

“She knew nothing about my daughter’s engagement or proposed marriage— so she says. As a matter of fact, none of us know anything about her or her people. She is a school acquaintance of my daughter’s.”

“What is her name?”

“She calls herself Beverly Wayne.”

“Stop!” Blake, Raymond and Greenland faced Yale, who stood ready to meet their anger or physical blows if they came. “You cannot, Mr. Raymond,” he said, “take away the character of a young girl in my presence without giving her a chance to be heard. I sympathize with you in your misfortune. Your deductions, however, smack of hysteria.

“I myself came to Utica ignorant of George Greenland’s impending marriage. I did not know you, nor one of your family. Greenland insisted that I should come here as his guest, and yours, till after the wedding. I knew of these silver wedding presents now missing. I did not know of any jewels. You might just as well accuse me as to charge Miss Wayne with the robbery without a hearing.”

“I may, before I’m done,” thundered Raymond, beside himself with rage. Blake looked at Yale with eyes that were reduced to narrow slits. “Don’t talk too much,” he said. “Youth is liable to mistakes of the tongue. Did you spend all night in bed?”

“Between the time I went to bed and the time I got up, I was in bed,” answered Yale coolly.

“Don’t get impudent to me, or you’ll go visit the chief.”

“I expect to before I leave Utica. He was my father’s friend.”

Mr. Raymond had stiffened visibly as though he had received a shock. It was clear that Yale had furnished him with a fresh idea.

“You and Miss Wayne were out last night when we all retired.”

“Yes, we went out because we knew the family had much to do, and we were too much outsiders to help.”

“What time did you come in?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Sims may know. He admitted us. I saw Miss Wayne enter her room. I went to mine, to bed, and right to sleep.”

“But you were the first to hear the maid scream. You were the first down-stairs, except the maid.”

“I am an early riser. I intended to go out for a walk.”

“You took a walk with Miss Beverly Wayne. How long have you known her?” asked Blake.

“Since about five o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She is a very pretty girl, and a camera fiend.”

“This is no joking matter, Mr. Yale,” said Blake with rising anger. “Levity is out of place here.”

“I am not trying to be facetious. You asked me what I know about Miss Wayne. I have told you all I know.”

“Where do you live now?” asked Blake, cooling a little.

“New York.”

“Where does Miss Wayne live, do you know, Mr. Raymond?”

“New York.”

“Ah! And you wish to have it understood that you did not know Miss Wayne in New York, Mr. Yale?”

“There are several millions of people in New York. There are a few that I have not met.”

At this moment Mrs. Raymond and Nancy, now properly dressed, came down the broad stairs. Nancy went at once to Greenland and put her arm in his. Mrs. Raymond crossed to her husband’s side and turned to face the others, but she showed extreme nervousness and lack of guiding force. For a moment there was silence.

The entrance of Mrs. Raymond and Nancy ended the interrogation of Yale.

“Well,” exclaimed Mr. Raymond, turning to the detective, “in Heaven’s name why don’t you do something?”

“I intend to do something, perhaps a great deal,” answered Blake, considerably nettled. “Before, however, I can take any steps, I must know more about your mysterious guest. Miss Raymond, what do you know about Miss Wayne?”

“Why— ” Nancy’s voice faltered.

“Speak out, please. I can’t afford to waste time. Trains are running.”

“Beverly Wayne is a very, very lovely and fascinating girl, to me,” said Nancy. “I have always found her true and honorable. She is, I will admit, rather odd. She has her own ideas, and lives up to them. She is practically alone in the world. She has a home with an invalid aunt in New York, who supports her.”

“Have you ever seen this aunt?”

“No, I have never been a visitor at Beverly’s home.”

Blake’s face took on a perplexed expression. He turned, and stood looking contemplatively at the locked door. Then he turned again. Sims stood in the background, with his arms folded.

“Sims, what time did Mr. Yale and Miss Wayne return from their walk?”

“Some time before midnight, sir.”

“After they came in you locked this door? The key was here then?”

“Yes, sir.” Blake walked into the dining-room, and to the open window. Again he stood contemplating the green lawn, the shrubbery, the chimneys of the house next door, over the screen of shrubs. “Let me out the way I came in,” he directed. Sims guided him to the porte-cochere, and then returned to the family group. This now separated into two, one at each of the large dining-room windows, eagerly watching the detective.

Blake first scanned the pebbled carriage path leading from the wide gateway that was about twenty feet south of the pedestrians’ gate. Then he took a foot-rule from his pocket and made some measurements. Next he extracted a notebook and fountain-pen from his pockets and wrote something down. Finally, with a puzzled look, he went down to the gate. From the dining-room windows the groups could not see him.

Mr. Raymond muttered something about “useless waste of time,” and led Mrs. Raymond to a chair. Greenland and Nancy were engaged in earnest and not very agreeable conversation. Yale and Sims went to the drawing-room from the windows of which they could once more watch Blake. The detective was going through the same movements as before.

“A strange thing to happen in Utica, sir,” Sims remarked to Yale.

“Why Utica any more than any other place? Such things happen everywhere, Sims.”

“But such a fine young lady, sir.”

“Don’t worry about the young lady, Sims.”

“You don’t believe she— that she did this?”

“Certainly not.”

“I hope not, sir.” Blake now walked toward the house, and Yale returned to the dining-room. Blake entered, again by way of the porte-cochere.

“Miss Raymond,” he said, “are you able to write out a list of the stolen articles?”

“I think mama and I can manage.”

“Now,” said Blake again, while Nancy had gone for pen and paper, “who, besides those present, and Miss Wayne, has seen all the presents?”

“Well,” said Mr. Raymond, striving to think, “I don’t believe anybody saw them all. They kept coming up to a late hour.” Nancy returned with paper and a little gold-mounted fountain-pen. She sat down at the denuded table by her mother’s side.

“Mama, you must help me remember,” she said.

Suddenly she jumped up. “Goodness, gracious!” she exclaimed. “We are forgetting the minister!”

“What about him?” asked Greenland. “Go telephone him at once that the wedding must be postponed.”

Greenland stared at her, and Yale saw his lips move to form a word that is not usually spoken in good society.

Chapter 6

Defending The Absent

“WHY don’t you hurry, George?” demanded Nancy, as Greenland failed to move.

“Mr. Jakeson may be getting ready to come now.”

“Well,” blurted Greenland, “let him come. He was told to come. Guests have been invited, and they will come. We can’t reach them all by telephone.”

“We can reach a good many.”

“But I don’t see why we should. Just because some silverware has been stolen, why should we postpone our wedding? It isn’t necessary at all, my love.”

“Not necessary! That’s the man of it. All you think of is getting married and having it over with. What condition am I in now to go through the ceremony? And by the time I have explained to twenty or more guests that all my presents have been stolen I won’t be worth a rag. It must be done, dear. Now, please.”

“But the guests will be here at eight, and all the breakfast stuff is in.”

“I’m all in, too,” she answered, with a wan sort of smile at her lapse into slang.

“I think myself,” boomed Mr. Raymond’s voice, “that it will be better to postpone the wedding. We may have a house full of police by eight o’clock. Anyway, you could not leave on your trip, because we shall need Nancy here to identify the articles when they are recovered.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Greenland, with rising choler, “that we can’t be married till that junk is found?”

“Junk!” screamed Mr. Raymond, “I am amazed at you, George. That junk, as you call it, came from Nancy’s friends, not yours.”

“Thank God, I haven’t got so many fool friends,” answered Greenland. “So far as identifying the presents is concerned we could be married and stay home.”

“No, no, no!” Mr. Raymond paced the floor again. “That won’t do at all. My daughter’s wedding, when it does take place, must not be marred by unpleasant incidents. Be good, George, and I will double the check.”

“First time I’ve heard anything about a check,” growled George. “I am not marrying your check-book. Damn your check. I want my bride.”

“You shall have your bride— anything you want. Fine house, plenty of money, servants, automobiles, anything. But be good now, George.” And George subsided, and was good. A few minutes later he passed close to Yale.

“What Sherman said war was isn’t a patch to a postponed wedding,” he whispered. “I’ve got to hang on here, I suppose. So must you.”

“That depends on how Miss Wayne fares at the hands of the police,” replied Yale.

“Why? What the devil is Miss Wayne to you?”

“At half-past six this morning she was a new acquaintance. Now that a calumny has been sprung against her good name she is everything.”

“You are a fool!”

“Same to you, Greenland. If you wish to quarrel because I am standing up for fair play for an absent girl, go ahead and quarrel. I can take care of myself.” Greenland muttered something under his breath and moved away.

Blake took his place. “Mr. Yale,” said the detective, “I have been watching you. You have the only cool head in the house. Permit me to apologize for the way I spoke some time ago. Now, tell me your honest opinion. Do you connect the absence of Miss Wayne with this robbery?”

“No, I do not,” answered Yale promptly. “Nor do I connect the absence of the front door-key with the robbery. But I do connect the absence of the front door-key with the absence of Miss Wayne.”

“Please explain your conundrum.” Yale laughed. “Miss Wayne is a camera fiend. For an amateur photographer there is a lure in a clear, bright, early morning light. Have Miss Raymond ascertain if Miss Wayne’s camera is in her room.”

“But— the hour! ” exclaimed Blake. “The discovery was made at half-past six. There would not be light enough for an outside picture before seven or eight.”

“Miss Wayne may have planned a long walk to get her views. It was light enough for that at half-past six.”

“You are a stanch defender of Miss Wayne.”

“And when you see her you will not be her enemy.”

“Suppose, now, that this rich aunt should prove to be a myth. Suppose Miss Wayne should have no visible means of support, but lives by her wits. What would you believe?”

“A man must believe anything that is proven beyond a doubt. I should require absolute proof.”

“Let us go out into the hall. I want to know more about your meeting. You must have had considerable conversation during that long walk.”

Blake led the way, and stopped near the front door.

“It wasn’t all walk. We rode in about all the cars. Miss Wayne was interested in the peculiar lighting system of Utica, in the light-towers, and after we had been all around we had a light supper at the Hotel Utica.”

“And what did she say about herself?”

“No more than you have already been told.” “She is, then, a reticent, non-communicative girl. Conversation with her is difficult.”

“Quite the contrary. Miss Wayne is the most delightful companion I ever met. She is witty, and, in a measure, unconventional. She can talk on any subject under the sun. Let s, into her eyes, which, by the way, are violet, and you will believe everything she says.”

“But Mr. Raymond seems to suspect her.”

“He has not looked into her eyes.”

“By Jove, I would like to see a girl who can make such an impression on a man in so short a time.”

Yale stiffened. He held up a warning finger. Distinctly the two heard a clicking sound at the door.

“You will probably have that pleasure now,” said the young defender of Miss Wayne’s good name. “Here she comes.”

Blake stood staring at the still unopened door.

Chapter 7

An Astounding Admission.

YALE’S prediction was immediately verified.

The heavy oaken door swung in ward, and a vision of the dawn appeared to Blake. Yale heard the quick intake of his breath as the Lady of the Camera entered. She was dressed in the dark gray tailor made suit she had worn when first she burst upon the vision of Greenland and Yale as she alighted from the car. Her violet eyes were clear and sparkling with bounding health and the pleasure of being alive. Her gold-brown hair was becomingly arranged, and atop of it perched a small cap, primarily designed for a man with a diminutive head, or a boy, and held in place by two hat pins with red and yellow gems as heads that would have been worth vast sums had they been anything but cheap glass. They pretended to be nothing else. They would not fool a blind man.

Miss Wayne’s cheeks were flushed with the early morning exercise, and she was the most beautiful creature that Blake had ever seen. He was stricken dumb. This was the girl against whom a charge of burglary, or complicity in a burglary, or conspiracy, must be made. The inevitable camera hung from her shoulder. The key of the front door twirled defiantly on her little finger.

“Morning,” she said, beaming at Yale, and giving Blake a quick, inquiring look. His presence needed no immediate explanation. There was to be a wedding at eight o’clock, it was almost that now, and Blake might easily be one of the guests.

“I got him,” proceeded Miss Wayne with an air of having triumphed in some great endeavor.

“Got him right, too. I had to get up early because the—”

“Got who?” blurted Yale, disregarding manners and grammar and everything except the fact that a detective was there to get somebody and Miss Wayne had “got him.”

“Why, Baron von Steuben, of course.”

Miss Wayne spoke as one who was accustomed to get barons and things like that, and turning calmly to the door, inserted the key in the lock.

“Mr. Blake,” came the voice of Miss Raymond from the dining-room, “the list is ready, as far as we can remember.”

“Oh, is Nance in there?” said Miss Wayne. “I’ll go in.”

The entrance of the Queen of Spades could have caused no greater sensation.

“Oh, Bev!” cried Miss Raymond in a tone of reproach. And there was reproach, depths of it, in her glance as she looked at the returned photographer.

“What’s the matter? Are you ill?” asked Miss Wayne. “Where are your guests? You are not dressed for a wedding! Oh! You’ve put away all your beautiful things! I’m so glad I didn’t miss them.”

“We miss them sorely, Miss Wayne,” snapped Mr. Raymond. “We miss them very sorely indeed. I wish you would be more explicit in your remarks. Do you know anything about the presents?”

“Do I what? What do you mean? Do I know anything about the presents? I think you are the one to be explicit, Mr. Raymond.”

“I will. Those presents you saw last evening, and which you do not see now, have been stolen. I am asking you if you know anything about the matter.”

“Do I understand that you are asking me if I am a thief? I did not come here to be insulted. I came here to visit Nance. I did not know that she was to be married, but she tells me that she sent me an invitation. So it’s all the same, Mr. Raymond. I would have been here anyway. But, as I came, I will go.”

She started with regal stride toward the door.

“One moment, Miss Wayne,” interposed Blake. “I must have a few words with you. I am a detective.”

“Oh!” she said dryly. “I thought you were a guest. Well?”

She stood a moment looking straight into Blake’s eyes. Then as he seemed to be stricken speechless she started for the door again.

“Wait, Miss Wayne,” Blake commanded. His face was rather flushed. “Don’t compel me to use harsh measures. Will you answer me a few questions?”

“No, I will not. I have understood from friends who know that it is a dangerous thing to answer questions to a policeman or detective. If you want me to answer questions take me before a magistrate. I’ll answer him.”

While this dialogue was going on Miss Raymond sat slumped down in a heap, with her eyes fixed in a wild stare on Beverly’s flushed face.

When Miss Wayne had finished her defiant speech Nancy cried:

“Bev! Oh, Bev! Don’t break my heart! You know I don’t believe you know any thing about it. You couldn’t!”

Miss Wayne waved her hand as though brushing aside all entreaty.

“You say you asked me to come to a wedding. I came without being asked, to see you because I loved you so. Now I am accused of being a thief. Break your heart! What about mine, then?”

“Miss Wayne,” spoke up Blake, “histrionics won’t help. If I take you before a magistrate I must first place you under arrest.”

“Go ahead and do it. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

This speech, hurled with all the defiance that could be expressed by flashing eyes and red, writhing lips, was a staggerer to all that amazed group.

They all stared at her aghast. That this beautiful girl, scarcely more than child in years, with a form like Diana, and a crown of red-gold hair like Aurora, could stand there defying the representative of the law, and brazenly make the announcement that an arrest now would not be the first one, was enough go shatter any one’s belief in anything like goodness in the world.

“For what were you arrested the other time— or times?” asked Blake, when he had recovered his breath.

“I told you that I would answer none of your questions. Do as you please. I believe, though, it is not customary to let a prisoner go hungry. I’d like something to eat before I am locked up.”

She spoke with superb disdain and coolness. To Yale she presented a picture of queenly grace and beauty that fairly swept him off his feet, mentally speaking. She stood erect, facing Blake. Her camera strap ran from her right shoulder across her swelling breast, and the camera rested against her left hip. Yale felt that the camera might have been a sword, and she an honorary colonel of hussars. Oh, she was rich in her defiance, and all the chivalry of Yale burst into flower. Blake seemed nonplused. Whether this was the bluff of guilt, or the natural stubbornness of a willful woman, or the outburst of injured innocence, was a problem that seemed to have him up a tree. He looked at his watch.

“So far as breakfast is concerned,” he said, “there is plenty of time. I presume, since the discovery of the robbery was made so early, that Mr. Raymond’s family has not yet breakfasted. I can wait while you eat.”

“Wait! What, here? Do you think I would eat in this house? Not a crumb!”

There was infinite scorn— scorn of the hottest kind— scorn that burned and scorched and seared in her tone, in her manner, in the words as she flung them out. Her beautiful red lips writhed with passion. The tigress was roused.

Chapter 8

A Surprise Tor Yale.

MISS WAYNE’S outburst of scorn was followed by a moment of absolute silence that was a better form of praise for her dramatic talent than any panegyrics.

Yale was speechless with admiration, Blake speechless with amazement, Mr. Raymond speechless from consuming rage. Greenland, after one brief stare, walked away by himself to the window and stood looking out.

Suddenly Miss Raymond woke to something like life. “Oh, Bev! Oh, Bev!” she wailed. “Do you want to kill me?”

“You say you asked me here.”

“Oh, Bev! That you should speak to me in that tone after all our lovely days at Smith’s!”

“I never accused you of stealing anything at Smith’s.” Miss Wayne had dropped her scornful tone and manner, but there was no sign of faltering, no weakness. Her voice was as firm as though she was carrying on an ordinary conversation, but there was nevertheless a metallic irony in it. Yale’s mind was in a whirl. Here, he said to himself, was a girl who, if she loved, would go through all the hells on earth with, and for, the man of her choice. Fearless, she would brave the snows of the north, the wild beasts of the wilderness. She would build and tend the camp-fire, nurse him if he were wounded or sick, encourage him if he grew weak. Strong, she would carry her half of the load.

It was a scene so dramatic, and so powerful in its intensity, that it is a safe conclusion that no person present ever forgot the vivid picture it made. Yale felt such a thrill as had never before stirred his pulses. Right or wrong, innocent or guilty, he felt that this was his woman— his mate. But Blake was growing restless.

“Miss Wayne,” he said, and the stern detective, supposed by tradition to be emotionless, actually spoke pleadingly, “why all this nonsense and shilly-shallying? Why not answer me a few questions? It is possible that you may satisfy Mr. Raymond that you know nothing about this matter.”

“Satisfy him!” she repeated, and her lip curled again. “Why, he disliked me the moment I entered his house.”

“We are not accustomed here to young women who carry themselves with so bold a manner,” said Raymond sternly.

She swung at him like a flash. “Bold! Put your daughter Nance in my place. Deprive her— suppose you could—  of a father and mother at the age of six. Let her be brought up by an aunt who occupies her time with her own miserable ailments. Let her fight her way among the temptations that assail a good looking girl without even a brother to protect her. Bold! I might be bolder now if I had been weaker before.”

“We understand that, Miss Wayne,” said Blake, trying his best to be soothing. “We want to help you all we can. Now answer me this. Do you know anything about the robbery?”

She drew herself to her full height.

“Mr. Policeman, I have spoken to that point quite enough. I refuse to say anything more in this house.”

“Then I must place you under arrest and take you before the city judge, who acts as examining magistrate in all such cases.”

“I have already asked you to do so. I will answer any question a magistrate asks.”

Blake touched her lightly on the shoulder with one finger.

“Then,” he said, “I place you under arrest on suspicion of complicity in the robbery of Mr. Raymond’s house. Are you ready to go?”

“I would like a moment to make a change or two in my raiment and fix my hair.”

“Take all the time you want. You have my confidence.”

“Thank you.” And with that she left the room.

All those left behind took in a great breath which ended in a long, sobbing sigh. All seemed to realize that the great tragedy of a young life had just begun.

“Mr. Raymond,” said Blake, “of course you will be in court to give your testimony.”

“I? I go to court? Why— why—”

“Certainly. I did not catch the young lady in any crime. I am arresting her on your charge. What would the judge say if I presented a prisoner— such a prisoner—  before him without a charge of my own, or a complainant? What about a witness? There is no witness available. Without you to press your charge I can show no good reason for having arrested her. “I have heard the judge on such occasions. I have seen policemen turn red. It takes a good deal to make a policeman blush, believe me. Either you go to court at ten o’clock and make whatever charge you like, or I walk out of here without a prisoner.”

“Huh! She refused to answer your questions. There is such a thing as hindering. an officer in his duty. Can you not arrest her for that?”

“No. How am I to prove to the judge that I was justified in asking her any questions? She’s something of a tigress, that young woman. She’s no puling babe to wilt under an examination. Suppose she turns on me and tells the judge that the arrest was merely persecution because she refused to listen to me, not answer me. Without a witness her word is as good as mine before the city magistrate.”

“Well— I’ll go,” said Raymond reluctantly. “I’ll be there. Ten, did you say? This morning, I suppose.”

“Yes, I shall not humiliate her by locking her up first. If the judge remands her that’s his business, not mine.”

“Well— it’s a hard thing— to be compelled to go. But duty is duty, and I still believe I’m right. I feel assured that she could tell something about the robbery if she would.”

By this time Nancy was weeping bitterly, and Mrs. Raymond had very nearly collapsed. Greenland kept his position at the window.

There was a light footfall in the hall, and Miss Wayne came in, armed and weighted as when she stepped from the Genesee Street car. She had her umbrella, suitcase, and camera. The suitcase she placed on the floor, and to everybody’s amazement walked straight up to Yale.

“Mr. Yale,” she said, “we met last evening for the first time, and after dinner spent a few hours together. You talked like a man. Do you think I am connected with a gang of thieves?”

“I do not,” replied Yale, his heart all aflutter.

“You are acquainted in Utica. I have no one here except my very good friends who have accused me of being a thief. I am in need of a friend. I have walked several miles this morning and I am hungry. I expected to return to this house to a merry wedding and a good breakfast. I return to be hustled out of it a prisoner of the law. I want you to take this, and take me to a good hotel for breakfast. The detective will be my guest.”

With a quick, impatient movement, she thrust a well filled purse into Yale’s hand.

“But— but Miss Wayne,” he stammered. “I shall be pleased to do all that you require, but I cannot accept your money.”

“When you ask me to dinner I will let you pay for it. I am asking you to break fast now. Please oblige me.”

There was nothing else to do, and Yale thrust the purse into his pocket. The room was as silent as a sealed tomb. Mrs. Raymond was all down in a formless lump, with her eyes hidden by her hands. Greenland had turned and his eyes were bent on Yale with a stem, disapproving look. Nancy was sobbing violently.

“Yale,” Greenland’s voice crashed on the stillness, “when you have performed your chivalric duties you will return here, I suppose.”

“No,” said Yale. “I shall remain as closely as possible by Miss Wayne’s side till she is out of her trouble.”

“You may go to jail yourself, young man,” thundered Raymond, stung again into uncontrollable anger.

“Come,” said Blake. “We have nothing further to do here.”

Yale picked up Miss Wayne’s suitcase. Sims sped to the front door and opened it. The prisoner, the arresting officer, and the prisoner’s champion passed through. To their ears came a frantic cry:

“Oh, Bev! Oh, Bev! Oh, Bev!” And then: “My God!” in Greenland’s voice. And then the sound of a falling body.

Miss Nancy had fainted once more, and with a vengeance.

Chapter 9

Not a Wedding Breakfast

YALE realized that his position was all most unprecedented, and when the strangely associated trio boarded a north bound car for the down-town district he sank into a reverie in which violet eyes and alluring lips were intermixed with Greenland’s angry looks, and Mr. Raymond’s rage.

Had he done the right thing, after all? It was not like Yale to falter, and this mood quickly passed. By his side sat a girl who had, for no adequate reason that Yale could discover, been accused by an infuriated old man of complicity in a unique robbery.

For a moment chivalry held full sway and he thought only of the girl and the situation, forgetting her wondrous beauty. But who, for long, could forget those eyes? Those lips! It would be difficult for a mere chronicler to tell what emotions stirred the thoughts in the quiet Blake.

It was clear that he was a man who would perform his duty under any circumstances. It was equally clear that he had made an arrest that he did not want to make. But Blake was not the only detective who ever did that, and this was not the first time it had happened to Blake. As for the lady herself, she was perfectly serene.

It was she who broke the silence.

“I never heard of such a thing,” she said, and her voice vibrated with anger. The detective laughed in a subdued manner.

“Neither did I, to tell the truth. Utica has not had such a sensation as this will be in many years.”

“And I thought Nancy Raymond was my best friend.”

“Miss Wayne,” said Yale, “I don’t believe that Miss Raymond has turned against you one little bit of a turn. Analyze the situation in that house for your self. Mrs. Raymond is entirely subservient to her husband’s will. Nancy is under his sway to a like degree. This morning she is upset, distraught, because all her nice wedding presents have been stolen. You might be as weak as she under the same conditions.”

“The same conditions are inconceivable connected with me,” replied Miss Wayne with a mild laugh. “I would never get a table filled with silver.”

The clanging car was now half, way to the City Hall.

“That’s a grand park,” observed Beverly, with enthusiasm. “Of course, it does not equal Central Park, nor Bronx. But then, it is younger. For a city the size of Utica is a grand park. But then, Utica is nothing but an inhabited park.” She was looking at the giant elms on either side of the wide street as she spoke.

“I am glad you like my native city, Miss Wayne,” said Yale.

“Oh, I don’t like it because it is your native city. It is a nice city, notwithstanding my first experience is not very pleasant. I wish I knew some nice people here.”

“So do I,” laughed Yale. “Stick around a while and we’ll get acquainted together.”

“I fancy I am in line for acquaintances I may not like. Where do we go first, Mr. Policeman? To jail? Where is the Utica Tombs?”

“I hardly think you will go to jail before you go before the examining magistrate,” answered Blake. “But it is my duty to take you to police headquarters.”

“Can’t we have breakfast first?”

“I don’t think you will be detained long enough to add to your hunger. It will make the sledding smoother if we go see the chief first.”

“Is he a nice man?”

“All men are nice in Utica.”

“Is the judge a lenient judge?”

“He is, to innocent persons,” and Blake chuckled. “I hope he’s a big man— fat, you know. They are always better natured. They eat more good things.”

“Well, if that’s the way you sample a judge,” said Blake, “the city magistrate will suit you.”

The square tower of the City Hall, with its four clock faces that keep time some times, and occasionally agree, soon loomed up before them.

“Here we are,” announced Blake. The car stopped at Pearl Street, the trio soon walked the short block to police head quarters, and in a moment the grim gray eyes of the chief were looking into the violet ones of the prisoner. He did not remove his fixed gaze from her face while Blake was telling his story.

“So,” he said, when Blake had finished, “you don’t like policemen.”

“I like you and Mr. Blake.”

“ ’M. I think you are something of a jollier, but then, if a man must be jollied in this world, I couldn’t pick out a fitter person to do the jollying. My duty, I suppose, is to lock you up, or at least hold you in custody till court opens. But you’ve brought a lot of paraphernalia for a prisoner. We have no wardrobes in our cells.” His grim face relaxed in a smile. “Oh, I shall get a room at a hotel. Any way, I must go now. I am hungry. I have had no breakfast.”

“Oh, I—”

“Come, Mr. Yale. Come, Mr. Policeman. Thank you, chief. For a chief you are awfully nice.”

Blake gave the chief a shooting glance and received one like it in return. “Ten o’clock,” said the chief, and he actually went to the door to watch the prisoner depart.

“Well, I'll be hornswoggled,” he remarked to the doorman. “I’d like to be city magistrate for just one hour.”

“Are we going to the same hotel where we had supper last night?” Miss Wayne asked Yale.

“No,” he answered, with an air of proprietorship. “I have chosen the Butterfield House. I choose it because it is convenient to the city hall and police headquarters. You will need a headquarters of your own, and convenience is to be considered. You want a room immediately. You can’t lug a suitcase, umbrella and camera into a court room.”

“No; that would look as though I was a runaway and had been arrested en route."

Blake attended to the business of obtaining a suitable room for Miss Wayne, while Yale ordered breakfast for the three. They were soon cosily ensconced at a table in a comer of the dining-room.

“I tell you what I’d like to do if we have time,” Miss Wayne observed when breakfast was nearly over. “I’d like to find a photographer’s place. I mean one who deals in supplies. And one who develops films. My reel is exhausted, and I want a new one, and to leave this one to be developed.”

“I know a good one who will treat you right,” said Blake. “Phrey, of Broad Street.”

In a short time the three, with Miss Wayne in the middle, carrying her camera in the usual fashion, were walking down Genesee Street toward Broad. Mr. Phrey, fortunately, was in the store beneath the studio, and leaned far across the counter looking into such eyes as he had never seen before, while Miss Wayne told him what she wanted.

“Certainly,” he said. “I will put in a cartridge at once. Are you in any particular hurry for the developed films?”

“Oh, no,” answered Miss Wayne nonchalantly. “Take your time, Mr. Phrey. I shall perhaps be a guest of the city for some time. My plans for the immediate future are in the air— I mean in the city magistrate’s head.”

The astonished photographer stared at the retreating figure, paying no attention to her male companions.

“Where the devil did that bundle of dizziness come from?” he asked himself; “If she walked up and down Genesee street Saturday night the mayor would have to call out the Fourth Battalion to clear the way.”

Oblivious of the commotion she had created in the breast of the seasoned photographer, Miss Wayne walked between her escorts up Genesee once more, and glanced at the clock in the tower.

“What a funny City Hall,” she said. “Is that clock right? I’ve just time to leave my camera and things in my room. Mr. Yale, will you get my suitcase and umbrella from the clerk?”

This was done, Miss Wayne carried her traps to her room herself, and rejoined her companions. In three minutes more they were in the city court.

Chapter 10

A Startling Admission.

IT was a barren enough interior. The wooden benches had done service for many years. The only person in evidence beside themselves was a doorman. They took seats in front. The first to enter after them was the stalwart chief.

“You didn’t run away, did you,” he said to the prisoner.

“Oh, no. I may, though, if I get frightened.”

A quizzical look came into the chief’s eyes. “That danger is not very imminent,” he remarked, and sat down by Blake.

A clerk came in, then a policeman. Per sons who had heard something of the arrest of Miss Wayne strolled in to have a look at her. There are always a few who make a practice of hearing all cases, whether interested personally or not. These are not as a rule very important persons in the world, and took the rear seats. Finally the rotund, great shouldered judge entered.

“Oh, I’m glad,” whispered Miss Wayne.

“Glad of what?” asked Blake. “You know what I said. He never has indigestion like Mr. Raymond.”

“By the way where is that gentleman?” asked Blake. “If he doesn’t appear there will be no case.”

“How sad!” murmured the prisoner.

At that moment Mr. Raymond, accompanied by Greenland, arrived. It was clear that the millionaire was suffering agonies of mind. Excitement and nervousness had him in their coils. He was pale, flustered, ill at ease, and evidently felt himself out of place. He glanced furtively around the court room, as if fearing to see any of his acquaintances, or have them see him. Then he nodded to the judge.

The chief of police at once left the bench and spoke to the judge. The magistrate lent an ear to all the chief had to say, all the time keeping his gaze fixed upon Miss Wayne.

“Miss Beverly Wayne to the bar,” he called, when the chief had finished and straightened his tall form.

“Come,” said Blake. He led Miss Wayne to the railing, and Yale followed. For the moment Yale’s part was absolutely that of a mute.

“Officer Blake, what is the charge against the prisoner?” asked the judge, looking at Beverly, instead of at Blake.

“No police charge, your honor. I made the arrest upon the demand of Mr. John Raymond. I did not see the prisoner engaged in any unlawful enterprise.”

“Is John Raymond in the room?”

Inasmuch as the judge had just returned Mr. Raymond’s salutation, the question was not flattering to the millionaire’s self esteem. Accompanied by Greenland he went forward.

“Your honor,” he said, “the prisoner refused to answer questions put to her in my house by Detective Blake concerning the theft of my daughter’s wedding presents.”

“A prisoner is not compelled to answer questions asked by the arresting officer, What is the charge?”

“Oh! Ah! I did not understand the law, your honor. The situation, then, is this. My—”

“We will get at the situation in good time, Mr. Raymond. What is the definite charge you make against the prisoner at the bar?”

“That she is in league with the robbers, or knows more about the robbery than she will tell. Her actions are suspicious.”

“Go ahead now, and expatiate.”

“Your honor, as you probably know, since it has been a matter of newspaper prominence for several days, the marriage of my daughter to Mr. George Greenland was to have been solemnized this morning. My daughter received a great many costly presents. The dining-room table, when the household retired last night, was loaded with silverware. This morning at half-past six a maid made the discovery that all the silver had been stolen.”

“What connects the prisoner with the robbery?”

“Why, circumstantially it would appear that she could tell something if she would. When the maid screamed I at once assembled the household, and this young lady, who was a guest of my daughter, but about whom we know nothing, was missing. When, in response to my butler’s telephone message to the chief of police, Detective Blake arrived, we discovered that the front door was locked and the key missing. After a time this young lady came in with the key. The detective asked her a few questions and she refused to answer.”

The magistrate leaned his elbows on the desk before him, and rested his chin in his cupped hands. He studied, with eyes that had long ago learned to pierce the armor of dissimulation, the beautiful prisoner at the rail.

“What was your objection to answering the detective’s questions?” he asked.

“I have been told that it is dangerous to answer a police officer’s questions. The answers, if the police want to get you, can be so twisted in court as to mean just the opposite to what you said.”

“’M. You are an experienced young woman, somewhere. Where do you live? Where is your permanent home?”

“New York.”

“I thought so. That may be good enough advice in New York, but in a small city like Utica we do not have the intricate and deep lying criminal strata to quarry that the New York police deal with. I judge from the phrasing of your reply that you are not averse to answering a judge.”

“She told me that, your honor,” said Blake.

“Miss Wayne, come up here and take the witness chair.”

The beautiful prisoner obeyed, and took a long step to her own advantage, for the judge now was close to the violet eyes, and he did not forego the pleasure of looking into them. The fearless and graceful stride with which Miss Wayne stepped to the witness-box won the chief’s approbation.

“That girl would walk to the electric chair in the same manner,” he whispered to Blake. “I almost hope she’s guilty.”

“Why?”

“Because I think she’d beat the game.”

“Now,” said the judge, swinging his chair to face the lady, and looking straight into her unflinching eyes, “answer me straight, and don’t put on any sidelines of talk. Yes or no will do unless there are necessary statements at length. One question, now, answered either way, will settle the business. Did you take those wedding presents?”

“I did.”

The audience stiffened. A grim smile appeared on Raymond’s face. Greenland shot a glance of triumph at Yale, who looked as though he felt an earthquake under him. The great shoulders of the judge heaved forward, and he rested one arm on the desk as he stared into Miss Wayne’s face, which was now full of suppressed laughter.

“Young lady, don’t fool with me,” he said. “You are not telling me the truth. How could you, a young girl, get away with a big dining-room tableful of-silver ware? It would weigh hundreds of pounds.”

“Oh, I didn’t get away with it— as you mean. I got away with it though. I didn’t steal the silver. I took it with my camera.”

The judge fell back in his chair as though he felt weak. Yale grew suddenly strong again. Half a smile showed on his face.

“That is a falsehood,” said Mr. Raymond. “This young lady arrived at my house at about five o’clock yesterday. There was not sufficient light at that hour to take a photograph. The silver was gone at half-past six this morning, and there was not light enough" then.”

“What have you to say to that?” the judge asked Miss Wayne.

“I took a flashlight picture at one o’clock this morning.”

“At one o’clock? Was the silver on the table then?”

“Of course. How could I have taken a flashlight of it otherwise?”

“Where is the picture you took?”

“It is undeveloped, on the reel, left with Mr. Phrey, on Broad Street.”

“Tell me how you came to take a flashlight of the wedding presents without asking permission.”

“It didn’t hurt anything, and there was no one to ask. Let me explain. Last evening Mr. Yale— that’s Mr. Yale, over there — Mr. Yale and I took a walk and a trolley ride, to get out of the way, knowing that Nance Raymond and her family would have a lot to do. We went to the Hotel Utica for supper, and got home somewhere around midnight. Everybody except Sims, the butler, was asleep.

“I went to bed, but lay awake thinking about Nance’s wedding, and the presents, and all that sort of thing. Then it occurred to me that a picture of the tableful of silver, just as it was, would be a nice thing for Nance and me to keep. You see, judge, amateur photography was ordered for me by my physician after I had fallen from a horse and had a long spell of nervous trouble. He forbade any more riding or yachting, but said I must have a fad that was not dangerous. Now it seems that photography is the most dangerous fad I could take up.”

“Go on with your story of what you did at one o’clock.”

“Well, all I did was to get up, put on a kimono, pick up my camera and a flash light, go down to the dining-room quickly, and take the picture. I found some boxes the presents had come in, and put one on top of another till I had a pile high enough to rest my camera on, instead of a tripod.”

“Did you turn on any light?”

“No. I have a small electric stick lamp that I use. It gives me all the light I want to make my arrangements.”

“You are sure all the silver was there?”

“Yes. I rearranged the pieces to bring the smaller ones forward and put the tall ones in the background.”

“But doesn’t a flashlight go off like a pistol? Wouldn’t it be likely to rouse the house?”

“Most of them do. I use a newly invented flashlight that makes very little noise, and leaves very little odor. It compares to the old flashlights as smokeless powder does to the old black powder.”

“You are a— you know a good deal for a girl. You are not an anarchist, I hope.”

“I am not even a socialist. But this isn’t a political meeting. So far as noise is concerned, everybody in the house was dog tired and a pistol shot wouldn’t wake ’em.”

“Well, so much for the flashlight. How now about the front door key?”

“Your honor,” said Blake, stepping forward, “I don’t wish to injure the young lady’s chances, or mar the effect her defense may have upon the court. But when I told her that in order to take her before a magistrate I must first put her under arrest, she told me to go ahead— that it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Were you ever arrested before?” asked the judge sharply. He could resist the violet eyes when there was duty to perform.

“Oh, yes,” said Beverly, tossing her red-gold head, “but I was never before so nice a judge as you.”

Then she laughed and showed her teeth of ivory-pearl.

Chapter 11

Was She Telling the Truth?

THE judge leaned forward again, and looked sternly at the prisoner.

“Are you telling me the truth?” he asked. “Well, of course. What else would I tell? I have been arrested two or three times.”

“On what charges?”

“Oh, the same old charge every time—  exceeding the speed limit.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” whispered the chief to Blake. “Do you own an automobile?” the judge asked. “Oh, no. I don’t own anything except what my aunt gives me. She owns two or three automobiles.”

“What is your aunt’s name?”

“Miss Charlotte Wayne.”

“An elderly lady?”

“Not so very, in years. She’s an in valid.”

“But you don’t seem to be very solicitous about your aunt’s welfare. She seems to be very generous to you. You do consider able traveling around away from her, do you not?”

“Yes. That’s the only way I can return her generosity. My aunt is rather odd. She fancies she is going to die every minute. She has doctors and nurses on the verge of neurasthenia all the time. Her attendants go around the house in slippers with cloth soles. They are all fogy-molly.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, they are pussy-footed kowtowers. They get paid for it, you know.”

The judge gazed at her earnestly.

“Tell me about that front door key,” he said after a silence that was felt. “What time did you leave Mr. Raymond’s house this morning?”

“About half past five, or a quarter to six.”

“What did you go out for?”

“To take some snap-shots.”

“But it was not light enough.”

“Well, I am not afraid in the dawn. I’d rather wait for the proper light than miss it, and I wanted a long walk, anyway.”

“Did you take any snap-shots?”

“To be sure I did. I took the statue of Baron von Steuben. Then I walked along the parkway and went up the hill in Roscoe Conkling Park, and took a picture of the big boulder with the bronze plate. And I took a snap-shot of some deer in their enclosure. Oh, I took several pictures.”

“Why did you carry away the front door key?”

“What else could I do with it? No one was up in the house. I expected to be back before anybody needed to use the front door. I didn’t know a hullaballoo was going to be raised about a robbery. I couldn’t leave the key in the lock outside the door, nor could I lock the door and leave the key inside. I couldn’t get out, or if out, I couldn’t lock the door on the inside. The only thing I could do was to lock the door and take the key with me.”

The judge leaned both elbows on the desk and rested his head. Perhaps it ached. Never, in all the years he had occupied the bench as city magistrate, had such a case, or such a prisoner, come before him. Was she telling the truth? Or was she the most fascinating liar in all the world? As an honest, adventurous girl, she was charming. As a beautiful criminal she was superb. He turned to Blake.

“When you examined the premises was there any evidence that the robbers had any other means of exit than the front door?”

“Your honor, there was no evidence that the robbers used the front door as a means of exit. A window of the dining-room was open. Outside, under that window, I discovered footprints in the grass and on the gravel carriage-path. The same footprints show near the gate. Miss Wayne may have let them in by way of the front door, but they assuredly left through the window.”

“Like love, under certain circumstances,” observed Miss Wayne. “I did not admit anybody by way of the front door.”

“Did you see the presents when you went out?”

“No. I did not go into that room.”

“Who discovered the loss?”

“A down-stairs girl,” answered Mr. Raymond.

“You do not suspect her?”

“Not at all, your honor. My servants are above suspicion.”

“You never had a tableful of silverware before?”

“Jewels have been left around. Nothing was ever stolen before.”

“Have you anything further to say about the prisoner? Her answers are straight enough, even though she has little regard for the sacred dignity of the court. At least she has not prejudiced her own case.”

“Well, I have this to say, your honor, that your pleasant conversation with Miss Wayne has revealed nothing. I am not surprised. I am old, and know the world. I never saw a more fascinating young woman in my life. But that is not to the point. I know nothing— my daughter really knows nothing— concerning Miss Wayne. Their acquaintance began at Smith’s College, and they have met nowhere else, so far as I know. I am still of the opinion that Miss Wayne is either an accomplice of the robbers, or is concealing information that might be useful.”

“Your honor,” said Beverly, “I swear I know nothing about the robbery.”

“A woman,” continued Mr. Raymond, “lightly regards the sanctity of an oath. I do not wish to humiliate this girl. She is still my daughter’s friend, and I have aroused a feeling of animosity in my daughter by the step I have taken. It is not the value of the presents that actuates me. But I am determined to have them back if I spend a million dollars and put every friend of my family in jail. And to prove my sincerity I will say right now that I will give fifty thousand dollars to the person furnishing the first evidence that leads to the detection of the thieves and the recovery of the stolen property. I want the girl kept within the jurisdiction of the court until further search is made.”

“Well, I can place Miss Wayne under bond. Can you furnish a bondsman?”

“He must own property in Utica, mustn’t he?”

“Not necessarily in Utica. In Oneida County.”

“Well, that’s all the same to me. I don’t know any one who can go my bail in Oneida County.”

“Your honor,” spoke up Yale, “my grandfather, Latimer Yale, died a short time ago, leaving me a farm and certain buildings on the west bank of West Canada Creek, this side of Trenton Falls. The property is in Oneida County, and is a farm of about two hundred acres. There is an old stone mill on the place, and the farm is called the Old Mill Farm. I was born in Utica. Will I serve as bondsman for Miss Wayne?”

“Can you prove title?”

“I can. The papers are in the hands of the surrogate.”

“The clerk will make out the papers. Next case! You may step down, Miss Wayne.”

“Thanks, your honor,” she said, with a flash of the violet eyes. The judge scarcely knew what the evidence in the next case was. He discharged a prisoner who confidently expected to spend three months in the Bleecker Street Jail. Oh, violet eyes!

Chapter 12

A Possible Clue.

HAVING executed the bond to the satisfaction of the court, Yale and his charge bowed to the judge, shook hands with Blake, and walked out of the court room, ignoring both Mr. Raymond and George Greenland.

When the pair had reached the entrance to the city hall, on Genesee Street, Yale was startled by a rippling laugh at his side. He himself was in no laughing mood.

“What a farce!” exclaimed Miss Wayne. “But isn’t it funny?”

Her bondsman glanced at her. Beautiful as he had thought her before, she was exquisite now, with her cheeks flushed, her lips parted in soft laughter, and her eyes sparkling with amusement. And yet somehow, in spite of her beauty, her mirth jarred on him.

“I assure you,” he said, in the newly acquired stern tones of a person who had assumed great responsibility, “that I see no farce about it, nor anything funny. Do you realize that I have pledged my only possession in the world upon your sense of honor?”

She stopped short on the city hall steps. “And now you begin to regret it. You think you will lose. And of course there al ways is that possibility. Let us go back. Withdraw your bond, and I will— what do they call it?— give myself into custody.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that,” he hastened to assure her. He was really alarmed. Her manner had suddenly changed, and horn the laughing beauty of a moment before she had be come an outraged Venus. Her eyes had grown darker, her lips were set close and firm, and anger sat enthroned upon the lovely face.

“You are too quick to take offense,” he went on. “Nevertheless, I do not think you quite realize the seriousness of the case.”

“I realize this, that I would go to prison for the rest of my life rather than cause you or any other man any uneasiness about my bond.”

“I spoke partly in jest. I did not mean to hurt you.”

“Your tone seemed to indicate a doubt of my truthfulness.”

“Would I have pledged the only bit of earth I own if I doubted you?”

“There is logic in that. Anyway I suppose I must obey you now, and not talk back. A bondsman is sort of a master, isn’t he?”

“Hardly that. He is responsible for the appearance in court of his charge when called upon.”

She remained silent while he led her across Genesee Street and into the Butterfield House. The morning was gone and lunch-time at hand. They took their seats at the same table at which their breakfast had been served.

In a city the size of Utica all news is everybody’s. The magnitude of the Raymond robbery, and its peculiar phases, made it a tad-bit. The loungers in the hotel lobby, and the diners at the tables, recognized Beverly Wayne as the prisoner of the morning, and Yale as her bondsman. All eyes were turned their way.

Some expressed pity, some gratification at the sureness of Utica justice, while the majority merely stared at the remarkable beauty of the suspected girl. She bore all scrutiny well, and seemed, in fact, to be oblivious of it. Yale was more self-conscious, and wished the whole business was over. While they ate they talked, as was natural.

“Now, Miss Wayne,” said Yale, “let us look things in the face. Inasmuch as your stay here is indefinite, don’t you think it would be well to notify your aunt of the situation?”

She looked at him with her eyes wide open, expressing the mild surprise of a schoolgirl.

“And kill the dear? I wouldn’t think of such a thing. She knows I’m all right.”

“Yes, but I don’t think you are quite all right. Your position is precarious, to say the least.”

“Oh, that! I wouldn’t worry my aunt about being arrested. And I’m not under arrest now. I’m all right as long as I’m with you.”

The words, and the glance from the violet eyes that accompanied it, silenced Yale. They ate in silence for a moment, and then she said: “I’ve got to stay in the city all the time, I suppose. Will you stay?”

“Well, the judge accepted country property as the pledge, and I suppose you are at liberty to go anywhere in the county. Still, I can’t think of many places you’d care to go. I propose to be with you till it is all over.”

“You mean that you don’t propose to let me get out of your sight while your farm is in danger.”

That was not what he had meant, but he turned red just the same. Another silence followed, during which Yale did some prodigious thinking. Not only was he responsible for the re turn of this girl to the court when she was wanted, but he was, he felt, owing to the peculiar circumstances, responsible for her welfare in the meantime. She was safe enough at the Butterfield House. No scandal had ever touched that famous old hostelry, reminiscent of General Daniel Butterfield, whose picture hangs near the windows in the lobby. But he could not very well stop at the same hotel without Causing tongues to wag. But he had all afternoon to settle that point, and nothing else to do.

“Suppose we take a motor ride around the town,” he said.

“Good! Just what I should like.”

“Very well. Here is your purse. From now on you will be my guest, except your hotel Bills. I won’t run the risk of your good name being any worse handled than it has been. Still, if you run shy of money, I'II lend you some.”

“I thought you were poor— that you had only the farm your grandfather left you.” “I didn’t say that— quite. It is the only real estate I own.”

“Oh, visions of stocks and bonds and gilt edge securities fill my brain. I’m finished— oh, there’s the ice cream. You don’t eat it? I love it. Well, you go get the buzzwagon and I’ll eat my cream and get my camera. I may take that, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes, take your camera. Take anything. Take an elephant.”

“I don’t know how to carry an elephant. I could take an elephant though, just as I took the wedding presents. Didn’t the judge look black. I could steal an elephant more easily than all that silver.”

“You could— ”

“Sure, an elephant is an easy problem. You pack him in his own trunk and ship him by express.”

She flirted a napkin at him and disappeared toward the stairs. Yale went to the desk, after paying the check, and asked where he could obtain a comfortable motor-car for a long drive.

“A friend of mine named Johnny Williams,” said the clerk, “owns a car that he won as a prize in a big puzzle contest promulgated by a New York magazine. At first he almost wept. Said he would rather have some shirts and stockings, for the chap had little money. But now he makes a fair living taking out parties who prefer a regular car to a taxi.”

“Can I get him?”

“I’ll get him, and then you may have him.”

Johnny Williams and his car could not have been far away. The hotel clerk telephoned. Yale had time to buy and light a cigar and reach the door, when the car hove in view and proved in every way satisfactory. Yale turned back to the stairs to wait for the appearance of the Lady of the Violet Eyes, and his mind reverted to her elephantine joke.

“Pack him in his own trunk and ship him by express!”

Did the minx mean any thing? Had she tried to give him a hint concerning the stolen wedding presents? Pack— in his own trunk, ship— by express? The shipping by express was clear enough, but whose trunk?

“His own trunk,” Beverly Wayne had said. Not Nancy’s. She would not steal—

“My Heaven!” He stood still at the foot of the stairs, looking up. But it was nothing that he saw that caused the ejaculation.

“His own trunk.”

Had George Greenland stolen Nancy’s wedding presents? Yale recalled his angry words in the dining-room when the postponement of the wedding was proposed. He had called the silver “junk.” The junk was worth thousands of dollars.

Yale knew nothing about his old schoolmate’s career for many years. But all thoughts of Greenland and the elephant problem left his mind when a vision appeared at the head of the stairs. How the girl managed to jam all the stuff she wore into one suitcase Yale could not imagine. She now had on something that set off her figure to a degree that made his blood leap.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Don’t I look nice in my new dress?”

“I— I guess so,” said Yale. “Come along. Our royal chariot is waiting for the queen.”

“How lovely you say it, Guardy. I am going to call you Guardy. Mr. Yale is too stiff and formal, and, besides, it makes me think of fussy and musty old professors and empty headed students. I am not long enough your acquaintance to call you Kenneth, although it is a beautiful name. Do you like Beverly?”

“Good Lord, yes, I more than like you,” blurted out Yale.

“I mean my name.”

“I like the first part. Beverly is sweet. But Beverly Ya—”

“Now, now, if I could snapshot language I’d take a picture of what you are saying. You would shed tears of shame some day. Is that our car? It’s fine! Who’s your good looking wealthy friend, Guardy? Is he married?”

“Now, look here. His name is Johnny Williams. It’s his car. I’ve hired it for the afternoon. I never saw him before in my life. He strikes me as a very susceptible young man. You behave yourself or you’ll have us shipwrecked. Don’t let him look into your eyes unless I’m driving.”

“Oh, how glad I am that you know how to drive,” she said demurely. By this time he had her in the rear of the machine.

“We don’t want to go to any particular destination, Williams,” said Yale. “Just tote us round and round. Go east as far as the Masonic Home, and west as far as the State hospital for the insane. That’ll do.”

“Both places,” remarked Beverly, as he took his place by her side, “are for those who are incompetent to take care of themselves, isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“In which one are you going to put me? My father was a Mason.”

“You’ll have me in the blind asylum if you look at me like that. Now pay attention to the things I am going to tell you. The park we are coming to is Steuben Park.”

“Oh.” The car rolled easily along the smooth Rutger Street pavement.

“See that house back in that private park? That was Roscoe Conkling’s home.”

“Goodness me,” cried Miss Wayne. “Did nobody of any account ever live in Utica except Roscoe Conkling and the Baron von Steuben?”

She snap-shotted everything he thought worthy of her attention, and the afternoon wore away very pleasantly. It was dusk when they returned to the Butterfield House, and Williams sat still, watching the figure of Miss Wayne as she tripped by Yale’s side into the hotel. When they reached the desk the clerk said:

“Mr. Yale, here is a message George Greenland left for you.”

The message read: Yale and Miss Wayne :—

Mr. Raymond is very ill and perhaps dying. He wants to see you both—  at once. Greenland.

Williams’s infatuation was fortunate. Yale caught him before he had left the curb.

Chapter 13

The Worst Yet.

"THEY were admitted by Sims. He evidently knew they were expected, for notwithstanding the bruskness with which they had left the house in the morning, and all that had passed since, he stood aside and bowed formally and respectfully. Greenland met them in the wide hall, his manner one of dejection, and his expression morose.

“What’s the trouble, George?” asked Yale.

“Come in here.” Greenland led the way to a cozy living room, and motioned the guests to chairs. He did not sit down himself, but paced to and fro with his hands in his pockets.

“There’s the devil to pay in this house,” he said. “Confound it, I wish I had insisted on the wedding taking place. All this da— ”

“What’s the matter with Mr. Raymond?” interrupted Yale, not caring to hear Greenland’s personal grievances.

“He’s sick!” answered Greenland savagely. “Devilish sick. May die. When we came home from the court Nance was feeling pretty good. Then the old fool had to go and blurt out all the proceedings. Nance went up in the air, and berated the old man like a virago. After that she fainted. Then Mrs. Raymond worked so hard over Nance, leaving the old man to himself, that his excitement became too much for him, and he had a spell.

“It develops now that Mr. Raymond has suffered for a long time with heart trouble, and nobody knew it but his physician. Well, they sent for Dr. Tuller, and some fool in the house told Mrs. Raymond and she fainted. Dr. Tuller said that he might die any minute. So we got him to bed.

“Then, Tuller wouldn’t see Mrs. Raymond because he was not her physician. So we had to telephone Dr. Hosman. They are both here now. Messages are carried from one room to another.

“Nance demands that all proceedings against Miss Wayne be stopped, and Raymond refuses. He consents to her remaining here as Nance’s guest, for Nance’s sake, and because he doesn’t trust you as her bondsman. He says you have the appearance of wealth, and would probably sacrifice a miserable farm on West Canada Creek for the sake of spiriting Miss Wayne away.

“Then he wanted to see both of you, and I went out on the trail. The judge didn’t know where you could be found. The chief didn’t know. I managed to get hold of Blake, and he said you were at the Butterfield House. There I was told that you had gone out in Johnny Williams’s car. So I left the note.”

“And now we are here,” replied Yale. “Does Mr. Raymond want to see us at once?”

“Not now. Tuller gave him a powerful opiate and says he will sleep till to-morrow morning.”

“How is Nance?” asked Beverly.

“Oh, she’s in bed moaning and crying ‘Bev, Bev,’ constantly.”

“And here I sit like a bump on a log,” said Miss Wayne. “She’s in her own room, I suppose.”

“Yes, but Dr. Tuller is with her now.”

“What do I care? She isn’t calling for Dr. Tuller, is she?”

Off came the lady’s hat and wrap, and flinging them on a bookstand, she vanished.

“Isn’t this— well, a fine kettle of fish,” grumbled Greenland. “If I’d insisted on the wedding this mornin’ we’d be half-way to Niagara Falls by now. Maybe there. I wouldn’t be dancin’ on one foot on a hot griddle like I am now. Damn a weddin’ anyway. I’ll go to a justice of the peace, or get married by the process of jumping over a broomstick.

“A lot of guests came and had to be sent away. But like mosquitoes, that never die before they get their poison into you, these guests got off their fool remarks about postponed weddings before I could shovel ’em out. Never heard' such a lot of blamed rubbish in my life.

“One knew that the firstborn of a postponed wedding always died young. Another had heard of a man who built a house for his bride, the wedding was postponed, and the man lost his job and the house. All that, sort of thing.

“We got rid of them at last, but think of the condition they left Nance in. Hang the presents. I can buy enough of that stuff.”

Just then a professional looking man entered the room and spoke to Greenland.

“Who is the combination of Venus and Aurora who takes the wheel out of the pilot’s hand?” he asked.

“You mean Miss Wayne?”

“What! The one who was haled before the judge this morning and put under bond?”

“The same, and here is her bondsman, Mr. Kenneth Yale.”

“Young man,” said the doctor, as he shook hands with Kenneth, “I wouldn’t be that girl’s bondsman for a million dollars. I’m a married man.”

“I’m not,” replied Yale, smiling.

“Good thing— for the wife you might have had. But I shouldn’t wonder— no, I shouldn’t be surprised— if you became one. Let me warn you. If you desire to remain single, don’t let that girl fall in love with you. If she wants you, she’ll get you, so just watch out.”

“You seem to know the young lady, doctor,” said Yale. “Know her? Never set eyes on her till a few minutes ago. Yet I’ve known her for two thousand years. Greek history is full of her.

“Her lute sent Roman soldiers to war filled with patriotism and love of her. Egypt would still be something of a nation if it hadn’t been for such as she. Persia rolled in the dust because men looked into eyes like hers and thought there were two suns.

“She came in, and ordered me out of the room. Said she’d take care of ‘Nance.’ And I went without a murmur. Aurora went to Miss Raymond’s bed. Nancy was rolling from side to side in a sort of frenzy — half delirium— calling ‘Bev, oh, Bev!’

“So that’s Bev, is it? Well, she said, ‘Here I am, Nance dear,’ and Nance dear looked up into her eyes, took both her hands, and smiled away into a baby sleep. By Skulls and Crossbones! Is she a witch?”

“Rather different from the usual pictures,” Yale remarked.

“Aye, and from the usual woman. Oh! Here’s Hosman. How is Mrs. Raymond, doctor.”

Dr. Hosman shook his head. “Pretty bad, but not incurable. If you can pull Raymond through I’ll answer for Mrs. Raymond. If Raymond dies we’ll have a double funeral.” “I don’t think Raymond will die. But I doubt if he ever is the same man again. I’ll be here at eight in the morning.” “I’ll meet you here. Together we may be able to save the family.” “Well?” said Yale, turning to Greenland, when the physicians had gone, “what about me? Raymond doesn’t want to see me now, and nobody else expressed a wish to.” “I suppose as Miss Wayne’s bondsman you’d prefer to stay.” “Not because I am her bondsman. I have no distrust of Miss Wayne. I shall take rooms at the Butterfield. Tell her I will send a messenger with her suitcase and other things. If anything happens let me know. I may take a run up to-morrow, or may not. I’ve got to go to the surrogate’s office on business.” Yale left, and, having reached 'the hotel again, proceeded to keep his promise. In the rush to catch Williams before he got away Yale had left Miss Wayne at the desk. At his call she had put the camera on the clerk’s desk and rushed to join him. Yale now obtained the camera, got the key to her room from the clerk, and brought from it her suitcase and umbrella. Fortunately she had left none of her clothing out of the suitcase except what she wore. A messenger was then sent to Raymond’s house with the things.

The next day he did not go to the Raymonds’. He slept late, having spent the evening at a theatre and over a supper afterward with a few members of the Academy class to which he and Greenland had belonged. After a leisurely breakfast he went to the surrogate’s office. His title to the farm on West Canada Creek was established, and with the title deed and all important papers in his pocket he renewed the insurance on the buildings, looked up the taxes, etc. He wandered about the lower part of the city till dinner-time and as evening fell darkly he returned to his hotel.

“Call for you—  Mr. Raymond’s—  something wrong,” said the clerk.

Yale sped to the telephone.

It was Nancy’s trembling voice that answered.

“Oh, Mr. Yale— that you, Mr. Yale—  this is Nance Raymond—  Come up here right away— right away— something terrible has happened to Beverly. We think she has drowned herself in the old Third Street reservoir near Roscoe Conkling Park. Oh, come quick! This house must be cursed!”

Those in the lobby stared as a streak of man went through the door.

Chapter 14

Yale Takes Hold

IF the evening before Yale had left the Raymond house in a state of turmoil and collapse, there is scarcely a word adequately to describe the condition in which he found it now. Sims, as usual, admitted him. But it was hardly the same Sims. He jerked the door open and stood staring at Yale with a face expressive of nothing.

“What’s the matter here? What’s this about Miss Wayne being drowned? Have they found her body?” demanded Yale, and Sims leaped backward, fearing the visitor would clutch his throat with his strong white hands that nervously gave evidence of his powerful agitation.

“N-no, sir,” stammered Sims.

“Has she been found alive, then?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Where is she? Speak, man!”

“I— I d-d-don’t know, sir,” stuttered the terrified butler. “Everything gone to Hades here, sir.”

“Where is Miss Raymond?”

“Ill, sir, in bed, and can’t be seen, sir.”

“Where is Mr. Raymond?”

“Had another heart spell, sir; is in bed, doped.”

“Where is George Greenland?”

“Somewhere, sir, looking.”

“My God! Do you want to drive me mad? Where is Mrs. Raymond?”

“In her room, sir. Perhaps she will see you.”

“Well, by the jumping Joss, somebody will see me! Go tell Mrs. Raymond I am here.”

Sims sped away as though the idea was a new one to him. That a man in Yale’s position, holding his peculiar relationship to Beverly Wayne, should want to see somebody after receiving a message to the effect that Beverly had been drowned in Utica’s drinking water, was beyond Sims’s stupefied intellect to grasp.

Yale paced up and down the hall, cursing the fates. The possibilities of the case were too horrible to permit him to remain calm. In that moment he realized fully that he loved Beverly Wayne.

Sims came back more composed.

“Mrs. Raymond is better, sir, and will see you at once. Do you know where her boudoir is? Shall I—”

But Yale had sped past him and was half-way up-stairs.

Mrs. Raymond sat in a large arm-chair, wrapped in a fur cloak, although the steam heat was on. She was in a huddled position, rocking to and fro. She saw Yale enter without moving her head.

“Isn’t this a terrible thing to happen to our house, Mr. Yale?” she moaned.

“Your house!” Yale felt small sympathy for the Raymond family just then. “Your house! What has happened to Beverly Wayne?”

“Who knows? Perhaps she has defeated justice. Perhaps—”

“Mrs. Raymond,” broke in Yale, thoroughly beside himself with anxiety, “I did not come here to listen to hysterical conjectures, and whatever has happened to your house has not been brought on by me. Miss Raymond telephoned me that Miss Wayne was probably drowned in the Third Street reservoir. Never mind your perhaps. What do you know?”

“Only that,” said the exhausted woman, pointing to something on the floor. Yale picked it up. It was a wrecked camera.

“Where did you get this?” he asked. He was showing scant mercy to a woman who was weak enough even at best.

“It was brought here by a man named Watson. He is a park attendant. Sit down, Mr. Yale. Walking around with that horrible telltale thing in your hands disturbs me.”

“It has no quieting effect on me, Mrs. Raymond. But I will sit down. Now com pose yourself and tell me all you know.”

“It is very little. This afternoon Miss Wayne expressed a desire to walk in Roscoe Conkling Park. Nancy was too ill to accompany her, so she went alone. It was, as you know, a very fine, bright afternoon. As usual, Miss Wayne took her camera along.

“She did not return at four, and we re marked upon her long absence. Nancy said that she was accustomed to long wanderings alone, and was not afraid in the woods even at night. We expected her back, of course, for dinner, which will not be before seven— if anybody wants it.

“But we were all prostrated when, just before you telephoned, in reply to Nancy’s call, Watson came, bringing that wrecked camera.”

“How long before I telephoned from the Butterfield House had Miss Raymond called for me?”

“She rang up about fifteen minutes before that.”

“Was Watson here then?”

“He had just gone.”

“Why didn’t you keep him here till I came?”

“Who could tell when you would come? Watson had to get back to work.”

“Well, let’s get on. What did Watson say? Where, in the park, did he find the camera?”

“Not in the park at all. He found it in Old Third Street near the reservoir.”

“How did he know it was Miss Wayne’s? What brought him here with it?”

“He said this: He had, during the after noon, seen Miss Wayne in different places in the park, taking snapshots. Of course, he knew it was Miss Wayne. Who would not? He saw her go across the west drive, and into a patch of woods that reach to Third Street. Later on, his duties took him to the border of the park, and he saw this black object in the road. It was covered with dust, and he would have paid little attention to it, he said, had it not been for the strap, which seemed new, and comparatively clean.”

“Well? He picked up the camera. Did he make any search for Miss Wayne?”

“No. The circumstances concerning Miss Wayne are public property, and Watson thought of suicide at once. He ran all the way here with the camera.”

“Did nothing but suicide enter any head in this house? Was foul play not thought of?”

“We spoke of it. But there was no one to do any thinking after Watson left, but me, and I was scarcely able to think to any purpose. Nancy’s efforts to extract more information from Watson exhausted her, and when he had gone she had just enough strength left to telephone to the Butterfield House, and then go to bed. I eliminated the possibility of foul play after I had gone over every phase of the situation.

“To begin with, Utica never has any of that kind of crime. I could conceive of no reason for any person wishing to harm the girl. If she was really an accomplice of the robbers, as my husband firmly believes, she has certainly been faithful to them and they would have no cause to do her an in jury. She has said not one word to betray them. If she is innocent, and knows nothing about the robbery, they would have no reason to put her out of Idle way and add another unnecessary as well as horrible crime to their record.”

“She may, after all, have become innocently possessed of their secret,” suggested Yale.

“No, I thought of that and rejected the idea. I believe that if Miss Wayne had any innocent knowledge of the robbery she would tell it rather than go through what she has. She would not be afraid to tell. The girl is not a coward.”

“But the smashed camera! Did that not suggest a struggle to any of you?”

“No, because it was found in a public road. Of course, I don’t think there is much traffic on Third Street, up that way, but one farm wagon would smash a camera.”

“Why should the camera be in the public road?”

“If Miss Wayne contemplated suicide she may have dropped the camera.”

“Where is Greenland?”

“He went away with Wasson. I sup pose he is at the reservoir now. But nothing can be done at night.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Yale, rising. “I shall find Miss Wayne, dead or alive, if it takes every able man in Utica to help me.”

He rushed out, half frantic. Of course, a force consisting of every able-bodied man in Utica would be so unwieldy that it would be useless. But Yale was in a desperate mood. It did not take him long to reach the park, and his boyhood memory stood him in good stead. He found Greenland at the water gate of the reservoir talking to the keeper.

“What do you know?” he demanded, ignoring greetings and introductions.

“Nothing definite, Yale,” replied Greenland gloomily. “Miss Wayne was seen standing on the bank of the reservoir taking a snapshot of the aerator. You know, this reservoir is the last of a chain, and as the water enters from the one above it is thrown high in the air by its own pressure, and falls in a spray. This is to purify it with the oxygen of the air. When the keeper looked again she was gone. He thought nothing of it till I reached here with Watson’s story.”

“What do you think?” asked Miss Wayne’s agitated bondsman.

“I think simply that she has run away,” answered Greenland.

“What do you think?” asked Yale of the keeper. “I don’t know anything about it. I told what I saw.”

Yale stood a moment in deep thought.

“Come and show me just where you saw Miss Wayne stand,” he said. The three walked along the high green bank of the reservoir, till Yale could hear the splashing of the spray as it fell from the fountain.

“Right here.”

“Now about where did Watson find the camera?”

Neither of his auditors knew, and without waiting for a reply Yale walked to the country road called Old Third Street. He stood and looked back toward the reservoir.

“Miss Wayne is not in that water,” he said with a finality that amazed the other two.

“How do you know that, Yale?” asked Greenland. “If Miss Wayne had leaped into the reservoir after being seen on the brink, her camera would have been left on the brink, not here. If she had been thrown in by enemies, the camera would have been thrown in with her, and not left here as a telltale.”

“Then you think she has run away?”

“I do not. I think she has met with foul play. There is nothing for us to do here. I am going down to see the chief.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” asked Greenland.

“No. Go back and take care of that houseful of incompetents. I’ll manage this affair myself. It is mine, not yours.”

He strode away, leaving Greenland peering after him in the increasing darkness, feeling exceedingly ill at ease.

Chapter 15

Could It Be Possible?

WHEN Yale reached police headquarters the chief had gone home to dinner. A telephone message brought him to Pearl Street at once. It did not take Yale as long to tell his story as it had taken him to drag Mrs. Raymond’s from her.

“You say the camera was totally smashed?”

“Yes,” answered Yale. “Looks as if a train had run over it.”

“On Old Third Street, eh? Well, we’ll get right at it. What is your candid opinion?”

“I think Miss Wayne has met with foul play.”

“Murdered, do you mean?” asked the chief.

“Either that or abducted.”

“I am inclined to think she has run away.”

“She would not have left the camera behind.”

The chief laughed.

“She certainly would leave her camera. As a matter of fact, the camera being found as it was strengthens my belief that she has run away from you— and justice, if she had anything to fear. That girl is no fool, Mr. Yale. Leaving the camera was a shrewd trick to make you believe, and me, too, I suppose, that she had been attacked and carried off. Had anybody with brains enough to rob Raymond’s house as it was robbed attacked Miss Wayne that camera would not have been left in the road.”

“Well, whatever your theory may be,” said Yale rather impatiently, “are you going to do what you can to find her?”

“You may bet the nails in the heels of your shoes I am. That’s what I am here for. That’s what the city of Utica pays me my salary for. Whether Miss Wayne is in league with the Raymond robbers, or is their victim, or has got into any trouble unconnected with the robbery, we’ll do all we can to find her. Don’t worry about that."

“Thank you. Now— I cannot sit idle. I think a great deal of Miss Wayne, though I have seen her but little, and have known her little more than two days. More, I am responsible for her appearance before the magistrate when she is wanted. Still more, I feel a personal responsibility for her welfare. She is, as you know, friendless here, except for me.”

“Hardly,” said the chief, shaking Yale’s hand. “You may count me in.”

“Thank you again, chief. You think she is innocent, then?”

“Well, no, I don’t exactly say that. Raymond has enough foundation for his charge, circumstantial though it may be. But we don’t hate everybody who does wrong. There is a way to reclaim.”

“Find her first. Have you any objection to my making a search entirely independent of the police hunt?”

“Not at all. The more the merrier. We have no jealousy here. In fact, it would add to the romance of the thing if you did find her, alive and well. Good luck to you, Mr. Yale.”

Whatever the chief did Yale did not know. He did not even care. He knew the police force was competent, and the chief an efficient head. For himself, he went to the Butterfield House, obtained a room, sent an imperative message to Johnny Williams, who owned the prize automobile, and then went to bed and slept.

At daybreak Johnny Williams was at the door of the hotel in his machine. Yale was up and dressed.

“Had your breakfast?” he asked Williams at the curb.

“Cup coffee,” answered Williams. “Eat when we get back.”

“Oh, you will! Get out of that and come inside. There is no telling when we’ll get back. I am engaging you and your ma chine by the day until I’m through. What’s your price?”

Williams named what he thought was exorbitant, expecting Yale to beat him down. Out-of-town patrons usually did. Yale closed with him at once. They ate a hearty breakfast. Before starting Yale made sure that he had money enough for all probable purposes. He handed Williams a bill.

“Might come in handy. Do you carry a gun?”

“Loaded?”

“Yes.”

“Got it now?”

“Yes.”

“All right. We may be going into danger. Want to back out?”

“No.”

Williams was not a man to waste words.

“Now,” said Yale, as they lighted cigars, “I want to go up back of Roscoe Conkling Park along Old Third Street. It used to be Third Street when I was a boy. Suppose there is another Third Street somewhere, and there may have been then. Well, we’ll get along. That road that crosses Third back of the reservoir— I forget the name—  I ought to know it, but— ”

“Higby Lane,” said Williams promptly.

“That’s it. Go to that corner, and on the way pick up Watson, an employee of the park. I want to question him.”

The machine sped up Genesee Street to Oneida, up Oneida to Howard, east on Howard, past Johnson Park, and south again on Seymour Avenue, which led straight to the main entrance of the park. It did not take long to find Watson, and with him as an additional passenger Williams drove to Third, and up along that road between the reservoir and the park.

“There’s the spot where I found the camera,” said Watson.

The car came to a standstill. Yale got out and examined the ground.

“No great struggle here,” he reported, “yet— yes, it looks as if there was a mixup of some kind. Footsteps leading toward Higby Lane. Watson, when you saw Miss Wayne in the park taking pictures did she seem— seem unsettled any way? Upset? Nervous? Any load on her mind?”

“Lord bless you, no! She walked around like a queen. You’d think the park was her private grounds, sir.”

“Didn’t look like a girl who contemplated suicide?”

“Her? No.”

“But you told Mrs. Raymond and Miss Raymond that you thought Miss Wayne had jumped into the reservoir.”

“Not I, by jinks! If I’d thought that I’d have gone to the heads of the water company, not to Raymond’s. That was their idea. I expressed none. I answered questions.”

“Very well, Watson, thank you. I’ll go on now. I may run across a clue,” said Yale, getting into the car.

“He’s a cool one,” said Watson to himself, as he watched the automobile roll away.

But Yale was not as cool as he appeared. He was now convinced that Miss Wayne had met with foul play of some kind. The smashed camera still puzzled him, but that Beverly had either been killed or spirited away against her will was a theory deeply rooted in his mind.

The corner of Higby Lane and Third Street was soon reached, and Williams slowed down for orders. But Yale had none to give just then, and got out of the machine to examine the road.

“Here’s something, Williams,” he exclaimed.

“Piece of paper— picnic party,” replied Williams laconically.

About in the center of the intersection of the two roads something white showed in the dust. Yale picked it up.

“Piece of paper, eh?” he cried exultingly to Williams, holding up his prize. “Picnic party, eh? That’s a dainty little lace handkerchief, my friend, and here, embroidered in this corner, are the letters ‘B. W.’ Beverly Wayne, that means. She has been here. Now— which way did they take her?”

“Which way did she go?”

“She didn’t go. She was carried by force. Now, I wonder whether she dropped this bit of lace accidentally, in a struggle, or for the purpose of guiding pursuers.”

“Couldn’t guide anybody,” said Williams. “Right in the middle of two roads.”

“That’s so,” said Yale. “Williams, I’m glad I brought you.”

“I brought you,” returned Williams without a smile. “You pay, I drive.”

“We won’t argue about that. Who lives in that farmhouse?”

Not a great distance from the comer of Higby Lane and Third Street Yale saw a stone quarry, a farmhouse and outbuildings.

“Don’t know,” replied Williams.

“Drive along slowly. I’ll make inquiries at the house.” Yale walked ahead of the machine in the dusty road, scanning every foot of the way. But there was no information to be gained from the dry road. When he reached the gate that led to the farmhouse a man, looking more like a quarryman than a farmer, was coming out. He looked at Yale, who had stopped at the gate, and at the automobile which had stopped in the road. Then he touched the brim of his hat.

“Will you tell me who lives in that house?” asked Yale.

“William Jarratt. He owns the farm and the quarry, sir.”

“Is he at home?”

“No, he drove to the city. Mrs. Jarratt is at home.”

“Thank you. I will see Mrs. Jarratt.” Yale continued his walk to the house, and knocked at the door. In response to his imperative summons a buxom and good looking woman opened it.

“Are you Mrs. Jarratt?” asked Yale.

“I am. What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything of a material kind,” replied Yale, half smiling at the defensive attitude. Mrs. Jarratt seemed to be able to take care of herself. “I am in search of information concerning a young lady who is missing. She was seen yesterday afternoon about five o’clock, on the brink of the reservoir on Third Street. She had been taking snapshots, and her camera was found in the road. Were you where you could see— did you see—  yesterday, a young lady come from Third Street into Higby Lane?”

“I did,” answered Mrs. Jarratt very promptly.

“What was she like?”

“Well, she was tall, and well dressed, and had reddish hair— not auburn, but bright, golden red hair. Beautiful hair. So far as I could tell at the distance she was a beautiful girl.”

Yale was trembling. Mrs. Jarratt, with that coolness characteristic of women who live in remote places and depend largely upon themselves for protection and defense, was eying him from head to foot.

“Did she walk away?” asked Yale.

“No. I will tell you just what I saw. You seem very anxious. Is she a relative?”

“No, but I must find her.”

“Is she the girl who is suspected of helping rob Nancy Raymond of her wedding presents?”

“Y-yes,” stammered Yale. “But she is innocent.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about that. All I know is this. I had sent my youngest boy to a store, and he was so long getting back that I went to the gate to see if I could find him. While I stood at the gate a two-seated carriage— the kind they call a surrey— came along from that direction.”

Mrs. Jarratt pointed westward, as nearly as Higby Lane ran in that way.

“There were two men in the front seat, one driving,” she continued. "There was only one horse. Two women sat on the back seat. They stopped at Third, and all got out. The two men went into the woods. The women gathered a few late wild flowers. Yes, they picked some ferns, too. And we have— there, that one— a very late winter pear tree. They picked some pears— the branches go over the fence.

“Pretty soon the two men came back with the girl between them.”

“Carrying her? Was she unconscious, or was she struggling?” asked Yale.

“Bless, you neither. She walked along with her arms in the right and left of theirs.”

“Willingly? Was she talking? Laughing?”

“She wasn’t talking, that I could see, nor laughing. But she didn’t show any unwillingness to go. I thought the four had come after her and she had made an agreement to meet them.

“One woman got up in the front seat and took the reins. The other woman ran to meet the girl, threw, her arms around her, and kissed her. Then they helped the girl into the rear seat of the surrey, and the woman got in, and sat with her arm around the girl.

“The two men said something and went back into the woods. The carriage returned the way it came.”

“And you really think the girl went willingly?”

“Well, she went! She made no outcry, she didn’t struggle, and the woman who sat with her seemed very friendly.”

“How were these two women dressed?”

“Oh, they were dressed well enough. The rig was a country rig, but the women wore city clothes.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Jarratt.”

Yale turned away with a sickness at his heart that made him weak. Could it be possible? Was it true? Had his beautiful Beverly played him false, after all? He stood at the side of the car and gazed with aching eyes at Williams.

“Where now?” asked that disinterested party.

Chapter 16

A Clue to the Horrible

“WILLIAMS, where do you get to on this road?” asked Yale, pointing along Higby Lane in the direction Mrs. Jarratt had indicated.

“Well, you don’t get much of anywhere on this road. Get to anywhere you say. Cemeteries, Paris Hill, New Hartford, New York Mills, Utica. Say the word, governor.”

“I have learned that Miss Wayne, of whom I am in search, as you know, met some people here, and went away in a surrey with two women.”

“Skipped, eh? Gave you the heel?”

“What’s that?”

“Footprints point away from you, eh? Well, I’m ready for anything, from marbles to manslaughter, as long as you pay for it and it is in the game.”

This was a tremendously long speech for Williams, and his face glowed with the effort.

“Get to Genesee Street. I will decide as we go along,” directed Yale. The automobile moved off, and a glance backward showed Mrs. Jarratt on the front stoop watching the departure.

Yale kept a keen lookout as Williams drove slowly, not that the wheel tracks he saw led to anything, but, remembering the handkerchief, which he had in his pocket, he half expected to find some other token Beverly might have dropped as a guide. But he found nothing, and was no better off when the car reached Genesee Street than when he had left Mrs. Jarratt. He looked both ways along Genesee, and west on a road he did not remember.

“Williams,” he said, “if you had somebody in here who didn’t want to be seen, but wanted to get away from Utica, which way would you go?”

“Depends on where the party wanted to go.”

“Well, suppose the party didn’t know the roads and left it to you?”

“Well, we’ve turned our backs to the east. Woman said they came west. South, New Hartford, branch off. One way Washington Mills, Sauquoit. Take train. Other way, Clinton. Take another train. Go north, go through Utica. Take train at big Central station— Union Depot. Go west, New York Mills. No train. Go farther, Whitesboro. Take train on N. Y. C.”

“West they started, and we’ll continue west. Get on to Whitesboro.”

Yale made no further attempt to pick up clues in the road. His thoughts were bitter as he sat back in deep study. There was nothing in the clear, intelligently told story of Mrs. Jarratt to indicate foul play.

On the face of things there was every reason for suspicion that in some way Beverly had communicated with friends and that they had come promptly to her rescue. She had left him in the lurch— the only friend she seemed to have when she needed one most.

It was a bitter dose. She had fled, leaving him to pay the price. But it was not the price that made his heart feel sore. The loss of a farm, even an Oneida county farm of two hundred acres, was nothing compared to the hurt of feeling that the girl had played him for a fool. He loved her, even now, with all this flood of doubt and suspicion clouding her name. But she had floated his love. Her companions must be crooks. What else could he think?

The village of Whitesboro is four miles from Utica. There is a hotel on Main Street, with a side entrance on a street running at right angles to Main. By the time the car reached that comer it was noon.

“We’ll have a bite to eat, Williams,” said Yale.

“Lose time,” retorted Williams.

“No, we shall lose no time. Our search, I fancy, is to be a long one. We have a slippery gang to deal with. We may even now be miles off the right track. Did you ever read many detective stories, Williams?”

“All of ’em.”

“What do you think of the average detective in fiction?”

“Durn fool. Walks around right clue till it hits him in the face in last chapter.”

“What do you think of real detectives?”

“Worse. Sit still and let clues hunt ’em up.”

“You seem to be a wise guy, Williams, but you’d never make a good monologist on the stage. Accident and coincidence play a large part in everyday life, Williams, and almost all clues are found by accident. I have absolutely no clue except that Miss Wayne went away with two women. We can’t go hungry till our accident occurs. We will eat.”

They entered the hotel, and went to the dining-room. Dinner was being served, for in such places they eat dinner at noon. Their table was in a comer, and Yale sat so that he could see the entire dining-room, which had few diners. There was a door opening from the dining-room to the hotel parlor, and another from the dining-room to the bar.

When Yale and Williams were about half through their meal a man appeared framed in the bar-room doorway, and surveyed the room. His gaze rested upon Yale a moment, inconsequentially, and he disappeared. He was a thin man, not very tall, with short hair and a peculiar pallor. His eyes were small and rather shifty. He did not strike Yale favorably. Suddenly Yale leaned back in his chair and stared at Williams.

“Sick?” asked the chauffeur.

“Short hair!” said Yale.

“Barber,” responded Williams.

“Sickly pale face!”

“Consumption,” said Williams promptly.

“Both together!”

“Jail-bird.”

“Right. One of that kind just looked at me from that door, and went back. I’d like another peep at him.”

“Take one. Costs nothing.”

“Come on in. We’ll have a drink.”

“Don’t drink. Can’t drink and drive forty-horsepower. Wreck things.”

“Come along anyway. Take a cigar, sarsaparilla, anything.”

“Take a smoke.”

These two entered the hotel bar-room, and as they did so the gentleman they had come to see went out at the side door. Yale was now convinced that the meeting was no coincidence. He had never seen the man before, yet the man evidently knew him.

Yale had a glass of beer at the bar, and Williams a cigar. Yale treated the bartender and had a cigar himself.

“Automobiling?” asked the man, sipping his drink. “Fine day for a long ride.”

“I am not taking a long ride, just going around looking at places I used to know. I see some familiar faces, too, that I can’t place. Now, that man who just went out. I seem to know him, ought to know him, but I don’t. Who is he?”

“By smoke! If you know him you’ve been in bad company. I don’t know him, and from your looks I don’t think you ever did. I can easily believe that you want to know him, when you get the right line on him? What are you, Utica, County, State, or Secret Service?”

Yale smiled. “ I am not connected with any police or detective department. I really thought the man’s face was familiar.”

“The appearance of that man’s face,” said the bartender, “is familiar. I’ve seen him just once before, but I can spot ’em every time. That gent is an escaped State prisoner. He came here last night with another fellow, got off a Utica electric. Came in here, both of ’em, and had a drink. Later along comes a surrey with two women and— well, she was a girl, but not like ordinary girls.

“She was very beautiful, and had hair like a sunset and sunrise put together. She was ill, apparently. One woman stayed in the surrey, the other got out. The two women drank whisky sours, and tried to get the girl to drink, but she wouldn’t.

“They had some sandwiches, and the girl ate one in the carriage. The two women and girl drove off. I don’t know where the men went. And I don’t know where that fellow came from to-day.”

“Which way did the women go?” Yale inquired.

“Well, they started as if they were going north. They drove down Baker Street, which leads to a bridge over the river, and to a road— not a very good one— that runs into the main pike that goes up through Trenton Falls, and Remsen, to Booneville. I judge they went that way, although they could have gone round into Utica as well as not.”

“They did not go to Utica,” declared Yale, convinced that he was right. “I am for the north theory myself. They will leave the rig somewhere and take a train north. They will cross the St. Lawrence and get into Canada— if we don’t put a crimp in their plans. Come along, Williams.”

“Hope you get that girl,” said the bartender. “I’ve got my own ideas.”

“What are they?” asked Yale sharply, swinging back.

“What are they? What would they be? Two harpies that drink whisky sours. Lovely girl sick or drugged. Two bad men, one a jail-bird. Gosh! I thought you were on! You’re no detective, that’s one sure thing. If you want to save that girl from worse than death, get a move on. You won’t do it alone, either.”

Yale stood still, rooted to the bar-room floor by a horrible thought that had never entered his head. He turned so pale that the friendly bartender poured him a drink of brandy, and Williams gave it to him.

“Come, Williams,” said Yale. “By Heaven, I’ll have lives for this if what he says is true! ”

Chapter 17

A Verified Suspicion

THEY were soon in the car, Yale sitting, A as before, on the driving seat with Johnny Williams. The start was jerky, not like the former smooth moving off.

“What the devil is the matter with this machine?” growled Williams. “It never acts like this.”

Yale, who had driven a machine in New York, but who knew little about the mechanism, said nothing. They were moving, and that was enough for him. He glanced along the street, and saw the figure of the man with the short hair and prison pallor stop in a walk that led him from them, and turned back to look.

“I wonder,” he muttered to himself. But he felt that Williams knew his own car, and so said nothing further.

It was not a difficult matter to find the bridge the bartender had mentioned. In fact, Williams probably knew it well. They rumbled across that, and struck into a country road which would have been chosen by no one for a pleasure ride. But this was no joy ride that Yale was on. He cared not for the bumps and jolts, nor even for any possible damage to the car. For that he could easily pay. They left the valley of the Mohawk and climbed hills that were clothed with ever greens, and here and there a cluster of deciduous trees laid bare for the approaching winter.

And apparently they had run into that winter. The air became sharp and chill. Clouds obscured the sun, and there was the feel of an impending snowfall. They rose high over ridges of hills, and descended into valleys through which turbulent streams made their uproarious way. They crossed rustic bridges and modem viaducts. They swept around curves, and sent goats and sheep and chickens flying helter-skelter. Dogs rushed from farm-yards and barked at their swiftly revolving tires. And Williams sat, grim and steady, his hand on the steering wheel, his eye on the road before him.

Yale said little. There was, in fact, nothing to call for speech. They were on the road, the road they had intended to take; there was nothing to interest them, they saw no trace of the surrey of which they were in search, nor did they look for any. Yale had no hope that the gang would stop more than a few hours in any village until they reached the St. Lawrence, and the horse-drawn vehicle had more than a night and half a day the start. And if the horse was left behind, and the party took to the railroad the chase would be long and difficult and hazardous.

Their progress was slow for a car of the power that Johnny’s registered, and Yale began to chafe mentally at the delay.

“Can’t we hurry up a little, Williams?” he asked.

“Break down,” was the brief reply. The watchfulness made necessary by the unevenness of the road, and the many turnings, had plunged Williams back into his brevity of speech. Suddenly the car gave a hitch, slowed, went on again.

“S’things matter,” said Williams.

“I saw that— ” Yale was about to mention the man with the short hair. It was possible that he had tampered with the machinery in some way. But his desire for speed closed his lips again. He knew that if he lisped his suspicions Williams would stop the car and tinker with it, delaying than at least, and perhaps putting the machine out of order altogether.

So they bumped and hitched along till at last the rough road ran into a broader, smoother one, and Williams turned to the left. The car seemed to feel the difference, and ran with more smoothness. Yale was glad he had not mentioned the actions of the prison bird. They came to the foot of a long hill. On either side was forest. Not a house nor barn nor open space was visible.

“Let her out, old man,” said Yale. “Straight road, nothing in sight. What does forty horse-power care for a little hill?”

“Break down,” replied Williams. “Ain’t act’n’ right.”

“But we are scarcely moving. Let her out. I’ll pay for damages.”

“May kill you.”

“I’ll pay funerals— my estate will, any way.”

“Here goes.”

The machine shot forward, and gathered still greater momentum as it went. The trees flew backward. The road that slipped away under them looked as smooth as a board. Suddenly there was a tremendous upheaval, and the noise of an explosion. Yale went sailing off toward a clump of trees. Williams was pinned under the car, which turned completely over. Neither knew what had happened. Williams knew nothing at all from the moment the car fell on him. Yale struck the bole of a great pine, and fell to the ground, a bruised and crippled lump, unconscious.

Chapter 18

A Bad Time of It

WHEN Yale opened his eyes he saw  nothing. Nor did he remember what had happened to put him in his present case. What he did know, or at least what he felt sure of, was that every bone in his body was broken, every muscle was tom, and that he was bleeding from every vein and artery.

His condition was not quite so bad as that, but it was bad enough. He was bruised from head to foot. His body ached as he had never known it possible for the human frame to ache. He could scarcely move hand or foot. To make matters worse, he suffered from a terrible nausea. And there he lay in total darkness on grass and fallen leaves, not knowing whether he was blind or the night had fallen in sullen humor and sable sky. He tried to sit up, but fell back faith a groan of pain. The effort was like trying to pull out his backbone. He thought his spine must be injured. The night breeze, making the usual melancholy sound through the firs and cedars, added none to his comfort. His right foot pained him excessively. His head was dizzy. After lying quiet for some time his head grew clearer, but as his senses became more acute his pain increased.

But memory returned.

“I’ve done it,” he growled to himself. “Fool! I was in too much of a hurry. Why, they could go north to Baffin’s Bay while I’m lying here. Oh, what pain! I wonder where Williams is. Why doesn’t he come?”

For a time he lay there listening to the doleful sound of the wind among the ever greens, and then tried once more to sit up. It was again a useless as well as a painful effort. His back, he decided, must be broken.

“Williams!” he shouted, but it was a feeble cry. “Williams, here I am.”

And there he might stay till doomsday for all of Williams. He tried to peer into the blackness that surrounded him. If he could only see something, however little. But he could not.

“Gracious Heaven!” he muttered to himself. “Have I been stricken blind?”

And, with all his pain and misery, one of the uppermost thoughts in his mind was that never again could he look into Beverly Wayne’s violet eyes, He had the limited use of his hands, and fished a metallic match safe from a pocket. He managed, with great difficulty, to light a match. He saw the flame, and the trees nearest him, and the dim, dancing, reflected light of the bit of fire.

“Thank God, life is worth fighting for; I am not blind,” he sighed with relief, as he threw the match away and lay flat on his earthy bed.

The discovery that his sight was uninjured acted like a pacifier. He could stand the loss of an arm or leg. His income was assured, and although he did not rank with Raymond among millionaires, and in New York was actually small fry, he had enough and to spare. So, with his mind more at rest, and making lighter of his pains, but still unable to get up, he fell asleep.

It was broad daylight when he woke. The sky was clear, and the sun was trying to penetrate the thick foliage to the ground. Here and there a spear of sunlight did pierce through, but shade predominated. Still, lying on his back and looking up, Yale could see blue sky, the sun playing upon the upper branches of the trees, and he felt that life was his own again. He gathered himself for an effort and rose to a sitting posture.

“Ha! Spent the night on pine and fir. Nature’s own balm,” he exclaimed. “No wonder I’m better.”

He was so elated that he scrambled to his feet, stood erect, and was immediately overcome by so severe an attack of nausea and vertigo that he fell flat on his face. He lay there a full hour, and then once more his senses came back to him.

He realized that although there may have been no bones broken in his tremendous catapult against the tree, something was so clearly wrong that he must husband what strength he had and make no violent effort. Slowly he rose and put one foot in front of the other.

“By cracky! I can walk,” he cried joyfully. “Now we’ll go find Williams.”

Painfully he picked his way to the roadside, and saw, about forty feet away, the automobile, right side up, but looking a total wreck, standing out of the way of passing traffic.

He walked over to it, but there was no trace of Williams. He made as complete a search as he was able to, but saw nothing that added to his meager knowledge of what had happened. If Williams had not been injured, he had walked off and left him to his fate. If Williams had been killed, somebody had discovered what was left of him and taken it away. Yale knew nothing about the automobile turning turtle.

He stood, a helpless and pitiable mortal, by the side of the wrecked machine. He swayed on his feet, pains most excruciating shot through him, and he was in constant danger of falling again in a fit of vertigo. His right foot was so swollen that he could scarcely stand the pain when he trod on it. And now, what could he do? There was not a house in sight and his recollection of the region was so slight that he did not know how far the nearest one might be.

There appeared to be little travel on the road. It was not the season for fresh green vegetables. Therefore, farm-wagons would not appear going to the city at that hour. Other traveling, men to town or village on business, or women to shop, would come later. It was not, as his memory served him, a road that was much traveled at any time, however.

While the distance from Utica to Trenton Falls, the first village that had a station, was not too great for driving, there were few farmers along the line who had the time to spare, or the money to buy the horses, to drive twenty-eight miles for a visit to Utica, fourteen each way. The train did the business in a few minutes, and these were arranged to run at convenient hours.

Still, he knew there must be driving to and fro. What to do? Should he sit down and wait for the first comer, or make his poor, swollen feet carry him to some more hospitable spot? He was weak with hunger as well as bruises, and he felt a burning fever furnace-like within him. If this grew worse he might become delirious. Then what? He might, in his senseless condition, crawl off in the woods and die uncared for and in misery.

His soul revolted, and the innate courage of the man took hold. He would fight his way somewhere, pain or no pain. Then a new thought struck him, and he looked at the summit of the long hill the automobile had been climbing when the accident occurred.

“Well, I’ll be dinged,” he said. “I’m almost at my own doorstep.”

He knew that just beyond the brow of that hill the road took a turn to the right. The turn was more than a mere curve, and he remembered that a path through the very woods in which he had met his hurt made a short cut by being the base of a triangle, with the point of the turn in the road the apex. And right near where that path came out again upon the road stood the old farmhouse that had been his grandfather’s, and was now his.

He knew the place was now uninhabited, but knew that owing to his grandfather’s method of doing business the house ought to have comfortable beds, good furniture, and the means of making a fire. He knew that a short distance from the kitchen door there had been a deep well of cold water in his boyhood days, a stone well-curb, and little stone tower down which the bucket descended on a chain that reeled and unreeled on a wheel. His feverish lips and parched throat longed for a drink of that cold, pure water now.

Better than the choicest wine it would be to his taste in his present state. And, if the tenant who had just moved out, following his grandfather’s death at the Trenton Falls Hotel, where he had resided for the last three years of his life, had been careless, a chicken or two might inadvertently have been left behind, and he knew he could cook a chicken, although he never had. But standing there was not going to bring him sparkling cold water to drink, hot water in which to bathe his aching flesh, nor a bed to lie upon, to say nothing of roast chicken.

Strangely, in his ruinous condition he never thought of going back to Utica and receiving a doctor’s care. Not he. Kenneth Yale was tenacious of his formulated plans. He was, in a way, something like a bulldog, who, having once taken hold of a thing, will not let go, whether he wants that thing or not. Yale had started out on his own hook to find Beverly Wayne. He was not going to give up if the pursuit took him around the world.

“If I wait here till somebody comes along, he’ll carry me to Utica. There I will be chucked into a hospital. They will dose me, bundle me up in bandages, and keep me in bed a month. Nixy. I’ll beat that game. I’ll go home. I’ll spend a day and night m my own house. I’ll doctor myself. Then on, on, till Beverly Wayne tells me the whole truth with her own lips.”

The question as to how he was to obtain entrance to a house that was untenanted, and presumably locked, did not enter his head. He left the road, plunged into the wood, and eventually found the path. But traveling with a set purpose, for a distant goal, was a painful business, and his condition grew constantly worse. He stumbled on, overcoming frequent attacks of vertigo, his right foot so painful that if mere pain killed he would have died, and his tongue was swelled for need of water.

Suddenly he burst from the wood, and a well-known gable stared at him across a stubble-field.

It was his grandfather’s house— no, his own. How well he knew it now! He gave a glad, incoherent cry. The tramp through the thicket had been almost too much for him. But— the -old house was inhabited. Smoke curled from the kitchen chimney.

“Glory to God! Here’s breakfast in my own home,” he tried to shout. Then a blackness settled down upon his brain, and he fell flat on his face.

Chapter 19

A Dream and the Reality.

FROM out of a silver cloud the gold-red hair of Beverly floated down almost to him, so close that Yale could see the wealth of unminted gold mingled with the red fire that did not melt it. So close that the violet eyes looked into his and stirred him with a delirious happiness, and then turned to a mocking misery all his longings. They were very changeable, those violet eyes. At times they looked unutterable love. At other times they flashed and burned and grew dark with scorn or anger. And he was a prisoner, changing his wearisome position only so much as the heavy iron chains that bound him would permit.

But she of the changing eyes was not his only visitor. Sometimes the man with short hair and prison pallor would come to him, tower above him like a hateful giant, leer with half-closed eyes and scornful, angry lips, and plunge a knife into his right foot. Then, as the hateful man of a prison cell faded away Beverly would come on the wings of a zephyr, for she never walked, and pull out the knife and bandage the sore foot with ribbons of the dawn just like her hair.

After a time other phantasies assailed him, and a rumbling tone of thunder and total darkness told him that he was in one of the ante-chambers of the infernal regions.

One day he realized that instead of floating in space, as he had thought, he was on a bed. He felt the warm comfort of smooth, soft blankets. His right foot had no feeling in it, which surprised him, because it had constantly pained before. He realized that a bandage so covered his eyes that no light could reach them, and he had sense enough not to disturb it. He was entirely undressed, and wore a long night-shirt.

Where was he?

Vaguely he remembered the accident to the automobile, and knew that Williams had not come to his assistance when he lay stricken among the evergreens. He wondered at Williams acting like that.

He lay there perfectly still, trying to think out an explanation. That horrible tramp through the woods came back to him with a painful vividness. He remembered seeing the smoke from the kitchen chimney of his own home.

Was he in his own house now? Was he in some near-by farmhouse? Was he in a hospital? He could not tell. He moved his left foot, and felt no pain. He tried to move his right foot, and felt so little of anything that he did not know whether he had moved it at all.

Curling himself, he touched it, and found it a bundle of bandages. He lay thus for a long time. Then suddenly he became aware that some one was in the room. There was no noise, but a subtle instinct told him that a human being was at his bedside. The foot of the covers was lifted and a firm but gentle touch rested on the bandaged foot.

He knew when the Presence moved away. And when it returned. A strong arm, smelling of the farm, passed under his head, which was gently lifted as by a powerful lever under perfect control, and a glass was put to his lips. He drank— a bitter dose— and his head was laid upon the pillow again.

Almost immediately he went off into a sound sleep that had no visions.

When again he woke it was with eyes that saw, and he lay there marveling. The bandage was gone from his head. Above him giant rafters slanted from the peak to the side of the room. He was in an unfinished room in an attic. He had been in such a room when a boy, and the wide, thick beams were like friends he had known long ago.

His gaze roved. There was nothing the matter with his sight. At one side of the bed the beams of the outer wall were so close he could touch them. His eyes espied something like carving. He remembered that when he was twelve years old he had spent a summer on the farm with his grandfather and grandmother, and that his grandfather had given him a pocket-knife which had been the pride of his heart. He had slept in such a room as this, and one rainy day had occupied his time by carving his name in a beam. And there it was now, cut deep, in awkward letters: "KENNETH YALE."

He was in his own house, and in the room he had known as a boy.

Whose kind hands had ministered to his wants? Through a dormer window the morning sun streamed in upon his coverlet!

After a time the door of the room slowly opened and a man entered and walked with noiseless tread to the bedside.

“You iss pedder?” asked a pleasant voice.

“I am better, I suppose,” answered Yale. “I see I am in old Latimer Yale’s house.”

“Olt mans, he iss det. Young Mr. Yale, he own diss house now.”

“I knew it when I fell. How long ago was that?”

“You iss here two days.”

Yale shut his eyes and thought bitterly. It was not so much his own fate as the possibilities of Beverly’s. His anxiety for her so filled his mind that he never thought of informing his attendant that he was Kenneth Yale. Yet the fellow was a puzzle.

“Do you live here?” asked Yale.

“No, I lif along crik.”

“Did you see me fall, and bring me here?”

“No, I gome later. She dell you all apoud id. So. You lige some kruel?”

“Gruel? I feel more like tackling a barbecue. Haven’t I eaten anything?”

“Nod mudge.”

“What was the matter with my eyes?”

“Nodings. Pud we nod know id. She—  she do vat she dink pesd.”

The stranger was so hesitating with his answers that Yale knew he was holding back some sort of information, perhaps under orders. “Who bandaged my foot?” he asked.

“Foot? Oh, dass iss all righd.”

“Are you a German? You don’t look exactly like a German. Swede? Dane? Norwegian?”

“No, I vas American. Dass all righd.”

Yale looked at him and smiled. He was a splendid specimen of manhood, young, healthy, blond.

“I ged you some kruel.”

The man backed away, went out at the door and, to Yale’s surprise, locked it. The bolt made a rasping noise as though it had not been used in years. Yale closed his eyes and gave himself up to speculation. He was a prisoner in his own house, and his jailer was a man of foreign birth who did not live in the house. Yet the house must be occupied, for he distinctly recalled seeing smoke rising from the chimney just before he fell. Still he knew the place had no tenant who was paying rent.

The conundrum concerning the peculiarities of his situation occupied Yale’s mind several minutes. The man did not return with the gruel. Yale tried to rise. He could sit up without much difficulty, and with very little pain. He swung his feet off the bed and tried to stand. His left foot supported his weight, but an excruciating pain shot through the right one. He fell back upon the bed and covered himself with the blanket and a white coverlet. He heard some one at the door, the sound of a key being fitted in the lock, then the shooting back of the ancient bolt.

The door opened, and Yale uttered a cry of amazement. His dream was at least partly true. A beautiful girl with rich red lips and violet eyes and a somewhat paler face than usual entered with a steaming bowl.

“Beverly!” he cried, in his joy.

“Guardy, how do you feel? I’ve brought you something to make you strong. I’ll hold it while you eat.”

She sat on the edge of the bed with the hot bowl in her hands, and a towel to prevent the heat from scorching her tender skin. He almost choked.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Why,” she replied demurely, giving him one of those thrilling glances from her violet eyes, “I was here— when you came home.”

Chapter 20

How Beverly Came Home.

YALE’S hand shook awkwardly as he made several ineffectual attempts to convey the spoon filled with gruel to his mouth, and in his nervousness let some fall on the coverlet.

“Poor boy!” she said, with a smile and look of compassion that thrilled him, “Poor Guardy! He is so weak! Let me feed you. I love to feed children.”

She set the bowl on the bed, steadied the steaming spoon with her left hand, and fed him with her right.

“Who made this?” he asked suddenly. “It’s great!”

“I am surprised at your tactless question, sir. I made it myself.”

“Gee whiz! Did you find the stuff in the house?”

“No. I bought it— with your money. Mine was stolen.”

“Stolen?”

“Oh, yes; but that’s a mere bagatelle. The thing is that I am here.”

“I should say so. Tell me all about it.”

“Not until you have licked the bowl. I am paying high prices for things here—  out of your money.”

“If you say that again I’ll jump up and dance this game foot off me. I told you in the Butterfield House that you might have all the money you wanted.”

“I remembered, Guardy, and that made me feel free to take it. I’ll send Adolphus after a steak later.”

“Is Adolphus the blond beauty who came in here a while ago?”

“Yes. He and his ancient mother live in a small cottage on the creek.”

“West Canada?”

“Oh, I don’t know the West Canada from the East India. I don’t exactly see how a creek, almost big enough to be called a river, in the central part of New York State, comes to bear the name of West Canada Creek.”

“Well, you can search me. I didn’t name it.”

“No, you would probably have called it Yale River. Do you know that your grandfather was a wise old chap?”

“What’s that got to do with West Canada Creek?”

“Nothing. But it has a lot to do with the comforts in this house. This isn’t a farmhouse. This is a country villa.”

“So?”

“Indeed yes. Did it have hot water heating when you were a boy?” “Hot water nothing. I slept in this very room and broke the ice in the pitcher to wash in freezing water during the holidays I spent here.”

“Not in the summer vacations.”

“No, no, at Christmas time. In the summer I did my ablutions in the creek.”

“I thought people visited the country only in the summer.”

“Next winter— well, it’s almost here—  when the snow is three feet deep, and a silver crust has formed, I’ll take you for a sleigh ride under thick fur robes, with a team of horses strung with silver bells, and you will find a pleasure in the country with summer far away.”

“You dear Guardy! Let’s hope we will be able to do that next winter. Here, take this— the last.”

He swallowed the final spoonful of the gruel. She got up and put the bowl on an old oak dresser, and he watched her graceful form with a mind full of wonder. The mystery of her seemed to deepen with every fresh meeting. And this one, of all unexpected possibilities, was the greatest mystery of all.

“Now,” she said, resuming her seat on the bed, and taking one of his hands in hers, “I suppose you want to talk.”

“I do not, my dear Beverly. I want you to talk.”

A slight flush slowly mounted her cheeks, but her eyes flashed amusement into his.

“About you?”

“No. I know all about me. Tell me what happened to you. I know some of it. You met some friends or acquaintances and went away from Higby Lane and Third Street with two women in a surrey.”

“Is that what they say in Utica?” she asked, her face turning suddenly grave.

“I don’t know what they say in Utica. It is what a Mrs. Jarratt told me. She lives in a farmhouse near a stone quarry.”

“I rather think I saw her— at the farm gate. But I had never seen those women before, Guardy— oh, bosh with that Guardy! I must call you Kenneth now, and you must call me Beverly, always. We are married now, you know.”

“I am delighted to hear it. I can’t say that I remember the ceremony. Still, that’s a mere detail. I suppose you took advantage of my weakness. I’ll never forgive you, never— if you take back your words.”

“Listen here, brute man, I’ll take them back when we are out of our difficulties. It’s only make believe to smooth the way. Get it?”

“I’ve got you,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Now, now! Let me get through with my adventures. We are not out of the woods yet. I overheard Mr. Raymond, Mr. Greenland, and Mr. Blake talking.”

“Yes?” he said, his interest sharpening. “What about?”

“Mr. Raymond is convinced that you and I stole that silver.”

“You and I? Did he say that?” “Yes. He had one of his inspirations. Blake was at the house. This was about noon on the day— the day after we were in court.”

“The day you disappeared. Yes, go on, dear wife.”

“Now, none of that when we are alone. Wait till I reach that point and you will understand. Blake and George Greenland and Mr. Raymond had a confab about the robbery. Blake, I rather think, would like that fifty thousand dollar reward.”

“Undoubtedly. Nobody would turn his back on it.”

“And I've read of people being railroaded to make a police record.”

“I hardly think that could be the case in Utica.”

“A frog is a frog in a swamp or a lake. A policeman is a policeman no matter where you find him. I am not saying anything against Blake. But he is after that reward.

“Now, I am no eavesdropper. But I heard your name mentioned, and I— yes—  I listened. I am not ashamed, either. It developed that Mr. Raymond had got an idea crosswise in his head and it stuck like a fishbone in your throat.

“He said you were too quick about offering your farm as pledge for my bond. He said there were not many farms up this way worth twice the amount of the bond, which you swore this farm was. And he insisted upon the point till George Greenland agreed with him.”

“Greenland did?”

“Aye, strongly.” Kenneth mused. His old suspicion returned, but he remembered that at the time it was born it was based upon her conundrum about the elephant, and he half believed that she knew something about the robbery.

“Go on,” he said. “What did they plan to do?”

“Blake said he could not arrest you without some evidence. He did not want to muddle the thing. He said that he would endeavor to connect you with the case.”

“He has my gratitude. You knew better.”

The strange girl looked long and earnestly into his eyes.

“I knew that you were not my partner,” she said.

“Wh— what— does that mean?” he gasped.

“Keep still, or I will never get my story of adventure told. Blake went away. The house became intolerable to me. I took my camera and went to Roscoe Conkling Park to get some pictures. I took several in the park, and found myself suddenly on the bank of a little lake with a fountain in it.”

“That’s the reservoir. The fountain is a spout to purify the water in the air.”

“How funny! And water gets stagnant in the air? I’m an ignorant goose, I suppose. Well, I snapshotted that fountain. Then I went back to the road, and stood looking back at the water. Then something happened.”

“Two men happened.”

“Just so. Is that more of Mrs. Jarratt’s information? She told the truth. A cloth was suddenly slapped over my face so that I could breathe only a stifling drug that took my senses away. They held me tight till I was quite helpless. All my will power was gone, but I still had a certain amount of muscular power. Not enough to make a fight, but enough to walk feebly.

“I knew when one held me and the other. took my camera. He threw it in the road and jumped on it. Then they each got on one side of me and walked me till we met two women with a carriage. They put me in, and the women took me away. The men disappeared.

“After we had driven about an hour we stopped at a hotel and I heard the women talking to a man. I didn’t see the man. I ate a sandwich. The woman who was sitting with me drank something that smelled of whisky and lemon. I was awfully sick and helpless then.

“But the effect of the drug wore off, and I began to take more notice of things. I realized that I was being taken away somewhere. We got into a rough road, a terrible road.”

“I know,” said Yale. “Williams and I—  but go on. This is your story.”

“Almost finished now. You remember, you told me, that evening before the robbery, that your farm was on West Canada Creek, and somewhere near Trenton Falls. Well, I pretended that I was still sick and helpless. I played those women all right. If they ever get their claws in my hair—  Bang!

“Well, one grumbled about the road and the jolting. The other said that pretty soon we would be in the main road, and turn left, toward Trenton Falls and Remsen. I didn’t know Remsen, but Trenton Falls struck a half familiar chord.

“I made up my mind to perform a circus trick right there, or die. I thought they might intend to kill me anyway, but couldn’t guess why. Well, the dear kind lady who was driving had a whip with which she belabored the poor horse. The other dear lady, having had her whisky, was relaxing.

“I made a jump to the front seat, snatched the whip, leaped over the dashboard on to the horse’s back, and raced him over rocks and ridges. Those women screamed something to scare devils out of their wits. First one went head first out of the surrey, and then the surrey itself was wrecked, and the other was dumped into the ditch I had chosen as her resting place.

“I rode on a while, then unharnessed from the wreck, and kept on to find your house. Luckily I called it Mr. Yale’s farm, and your grandfather’s name was Yale. If he had been your mother’s father I would have had some difficulty. “Well, you had described the place pretty well, and when I saw a vacant farmhouse and no animals, but an old stone mill, I knew it was yours. I put the horse out to grass, threw the harness up in a tree, broke a window, and got in. Very much to my surprise I found the house completely furnished.”

“My grandfather was a very old man,” said Yale, “and when he determined to give up farming and live in the hotel at Trenton Falls he rented the place as it was, all furnished. He had no use for the furniture, and got more rent.”

“Well, I was here. I— ”

“Why did you choose my house as a refuge?”

Again she gave that long, inexplicable look, from darkening eyes. “Because I knew you would come.”

“I am here, go on.”

“There isn’t much to tell. After waiting till I felt safe I went on a tour of discovery. I found a little old cottage on the creek, with a funny little old woman, and Adolphus, her son, whom you have seen. I told them I was house hunting— farm hunting, rather, and wanted to see Mr. Latimer Yale’s house, and asked where I could get the keys. Sure enough, Dolly had them.”

“Dolly?”

“Adolphus, you know. That isn’t his real name. I don’t know what it is. The old lady can’t speak intelligible English at all. Dolly came with me, and I liked the place. Why not? I went back with him, and he explained that I would take it.

“Well, there I was now in a pickle. What would a lone girl want of a farm? I had ,to invent a husband. And I had no money, and was hungry. So I told them—  Dolly acting as interpreter— that my husband would be along soon, and he would pay a deposit and also pay for what I wanted. “I bought some bread and eggs and butter and a little coffee and tea— oh, and some of the finest bacon! Then with my key I came back. I spent the night very comfy. In the morning while I was cooking my breakfast what did I see but you stumbling out of the woods and falling flat on your face.”

“Your husband.”

“Temporarily, my husband of convenience. Otherwise— well, no need of going into that. I dragged you here, and went after Dolly. He’s a good soul, Dolly is. Like a big ox, obeys orders and asks no questions. He did look funny, though, when I said we’d bring you up here.”

“And why did you? There are other rooms more convenient.”

“Plenty. But I didn’t know what had happened to you. And I— ”

“Yes,” he said, as she hesitated. “I was going to hide you if they came to arrest you— the police, I mean. To avoid unpleasant conjectures, I explained to Adolphus that you were my husband, and had enemies.

“He took it all with his imperturbable face, and perhaps he believes, perhaps not. Anyway, he is awfully good. He undressed you, and when I had gone through your pockets and found your money, and my handkerchief— by the way, how ever did you— ”

“That’s my story,” he interrupted. “Go on with yours.”

“Oh, that’s about all. I sent Dolly to buy things, and his mother told us what to do. He did the man’s work, and I the woman’s, and now, thank God, you are going to get well.”

“Yes, I am going to get well. You might, however, introduce me to myself. What is your husband’s name?”

“Owens. We are Mr. and Mrs. Owens, if anybody should ask you. Now tell me what happened to you. You got well bunged up.”

“My story will wait. It is only a trailer, anyway. We are partners in deceit, if not in crime. Some day we’ll be partners— ”

“This is a temporary makeshift that I believed was for the best. Please don’t take advantage.”

“But— won’t you kiss me, Beverly?”

“I will not!” Her violet eyes fairly blazed. “No man has ever kissed me, and no man ever will except my husband.” At that moment Adolphus entered.

“My mudder gomes. She sday mid you. He iss not midout prains now. Loogs pedder.” A withered crone followed him into the room.

Chapter 21

On Their Trail.

THE old woman, whose only appellation among them was “The Dame,” proved to be an excellent cook. With Yale’s money Adolphus was an extraordinary provider. Nobody could even guess where, in that hilly, forest covered region of scattered rural homes, with villages far apart, he found the good things he provided. But they lived well.

Yale finally got his story told, but it was not till the day was ending. They sat under a spreading maple bereft of leaves, on a stationary rustic bench that ran all around it.

“So it was my poor little handkerchief that gave you the clue and led you to seek information from Mrs. Jarratt?”

“Well, partly. I thought you had dropped it to guide me, or whoever came in pursuit.”

“But you thought, after Mrs. Jarratt had told her story, that I went willingly with the women.”

“Yes, I thought so; so did she.”

“Now you know better. And I did not drop my handkerchief purposely. I fancy that one of the men took my purse from my pocket when they put me in the surrey, and pulled the handkerchief out by accident. But what does all that matter, now that we are here, and safe?”

“We are here, and safe. But we must notify the chief of police of Utica where we are.”

“We shall do nothing of the kind.” She spoke with finality. Her tone indicated that she would brook no opposition.

“But we are innocent. We have nothing to fear. And if we continue to hide away it will only add to their suspicions.”

“Enough of that, Mr. Owens.”

He made a comical grimace.

“Helpless I lie, or sit, lugged from house to bench by a huge brute of a foreigner, who lifts me like a sack of meal, and I’m a henpecked husband without being married.”

“Yes, and you will continue to be. I am not going back until those stupid police have found some kind of clue to the real thieves.”

“And you think— ”

“That if they can make an easy case of us they will look no further. Why, think of the thing as it is. Here I am, a girl with no real home, and no firm friendships. My aunt lives in a hotel, and seldom in the same one very long. I have gone from pillar to post in search of pleasure, always welcome because— because I am I— and always criticised by the staid and good ones afterward. Who’ve you got to fight for you?

“You see? We are orphans indeed. Well, I’ll do the fighting if there is any to be done till you get solidly on your feet, and then I’ll hand the powder magazine over to you. But I’ll not go to jail for a crime I did not commit.”

At dinner, or, as Adolphus probably looked at it, supper-time, the stalwart blond carried Yale to the house very much as Yale had said, like a sack of meal. Still, with all his giant strength he was very gentle.

There was a dull sort of wonder in his eyes when he looked at Beverly. He knew that a lovely girl did not ride a harnessed horse without a wagon around the country looking at farms to let. He knew that husbands did not pop out of woods and fall down unconscious with swollen feet, bruised muscles, and a fever. Such things might occur at times, but there would always be a reason. So Adolphus wondered whether some other wife or husband had been left behind to mourn. But he never asked a question.

The old woman held a detached and impersonal position. She could not understand their speech, nor make them understand hers. The glamour and romance of life had long since passed from her ken, and if these two wanted to make fools of themselves it was none of her affair. That kind paid well, and she needed the money.

The next morning they gave Adolphus a list of things to purchase at the nearest village, and Yale wrote the names of two or three papers, New York and Utica, on a slip of paper. Adolphus managed to find one of the lot, a Utica paper of the day before.

Yale looked it over carefully, while Beverly sat with her chin in her hand waiting for him to speak.

“Here we are,” he said, turning the paper inside out. “Not even important enough for the first page.”

“Remember, this is news to us. Utica has been fed on the stuff for a week.” “True. Let’s see— ” He began to read.

"NO NEWS OF YALE.

“Beverly Wayne Still Missing.

“The mystery of the disappearance of Miss Beverly Wayne, suspected of complicity in the famous Raymond robbery, which stirred Utica to the very center a week ago, has not been solved, and seems no nearer solution than it was the day her wrecked camera was found between Roscoe Conkling Park and the Third Street reservoir.

“What adds to the inexplicable problem is the utter removal from the sphere of action and from the sight of all men, of Kenneth Yale, Miss Wayne’s bondsman.

“Johnny Williams, who is still unconscious in St. Luke’s Hospital, can give no information until' he recovers his senses, and the doctors express little hope that he will ever do that. He—”

“Poor Williams,” murmured Yale, interrupting himself. “ I must— ”

“Go on,” said Beverly imperatively. “See what it says about you. Williams will be cared for.”

Beverly was not heartless in Williams’s case. Her care was, however, concentrated in Yale.

“He was found, as our readers know, pinned under his overturned machine on the Trenton Falls road. Just what happened may never be known. The strange thing about the matter is, that according to the testimony of the manager of the hotel at Whitesboro, where Yale and Williams had their dinner on the day of the accident, Williams and Yale drove away together. Williams was found nearly dead, and Yale cannot be found dead or alive.

“Something has been said about a mysterious man and two women, who had a girl answering to the description of Miss Wayne. But as no such parties can be found, no action can be taken upon these rumors.

“The consensus of opinion is that, contrary to their statements to Mr. Raymond’s family and to Detective Blake, Yale and Miss Wayne were old acquaintances and were co-operatives in the great wedding present robbery. Efforts are being made to ascertain something of Yale’s history in New York, where he is said to be a habitue of what is called the ‘White Light District.’ ”

“Well, how do you like yourself?” asked Beverly. “Didn’t I tell you on the City Hall steps that the thing was a farce?”

Yale laughed lightly. “Oh, I don’t know. These young newspaper fellows have got to write something, of starve. Wait— here's something else:

“It was ascertained yesterday that the farm which Kenneth Yale pledged to back his bond for Miss Beverly Wayne is called ‘Old Mill Farm,’ and was inherited by Kenneth from Latimer Yale, his grandfather. The Old Mill Farm is the most valuable between Utica and Trenton Falls, and is situated just north of the Holland Woods.”

“They will come here! We shall be discovered after all,” cried Beverly in consternation.

“But what can you expect?” asked Yale with a frown. “We couldn’t hide forever here or anywhere else. Your aunt will demand some sort of information as to your whereabouts, and I have business to look after.”

“Now you are cross,” said Beverly. “It’s only sick men that are being nursed who are nice.”

“Because you women can boss us around then,” retorted Yale with a laugh. “Now, look here, Mrs. Owens, we are going back to Utica.”

“Mr. Owens, we are not!”

How far this pretty little quarrel would have gone is hard to conjecture. An interruption, in the shape of Adolphus, took place. He came into the dining-room, where they were sitting, and walked straight to Yale. “You gome,” he said, lifting the near-six-footer with ease. “You go oop. Laty go hite, too. Mans loog ad house from drees.”

“Oh, my Lord! ” exclaimed Beverly, starting up. “They have found us, oh, our enemies. That newspaper did the trick. I mustn’t leave it here.”

With the paper in her hand she followed Adolphus and his burden.

Chapter 22

What Now?

THE farmhouse was supplied with green shutters. Those on the first and second floor were of the slatted kind, called by many people blinds, and those in the dormer window of the attic room were solid, with small half moons cut in them to let in two rays of light in the daytime, but no sun. This was to keep the attic cool-in summer.

Adolphus, knowing his business as thoroughly as though he had been engaged in secreting fugitives from justice all his life, laid Yale on the bed, and went to the window to draw the shutters.

“See anybody, Adolphus?” asked Miss Wayne.

“See man looging. There.”

Phlegmatically he closed the barriers to the light, and the refugees were in almost total darkness.

Beverly laughed. “Cimmerian, I call it,” she said. “I’m going to look out through a half moon. I’ve often seen the man in the moon, but never expected to look at a man through a moon.”

She went to the darkened window and placed her eyes at the opening in the left shutter. For a moment there was total silence. Then she uttered an exclamation.

“By— Good Lord! Adolphus, help Mr. Owens here. Kenneth— it’s George Greenland.”

“The devil it is! Why should he come spying— but then he sympathizes with Raymond. Is he skulking?”

“Sneaking, I call it. Pussyfooting, I’ve heard it called. He keeps pretty well to cover.”

Adolphus assisted Yale to the window.

“What can the fellow want?” he growled, one eye glued to the hole. “Why doesn’t he come out like a man and fight?”

“Here he comes,” whispered Beverly, though why the whisper is hard to tell. Greenland was too far away to hear anything less than a shout. “He is walking to the kitchen door.”

“He will scare the old woman into letting him in,” said Yale.

“My mudder no can sgare,” quoth Adolphus. “My mudder’s fadder an’ my fadder vas soldiers. I vas soldier one time. My mudder knog him on de het mid a broom.”

“I’m going to listen,” said Beverly. “You stay here, Kenneth. You are too clumsy to do sleuth work.”

Noiselessly she left the room and obtained an advantageous position over the kitchen on the floor below, at a trap that was reached by a ladder. This portion of the house was only one story and attic, and the space above the kitchen was used to store bacon, dried apples, and other products of the farm for winter use. She could hear, but could not see, the meeting at the door between Greenland and the old woman.

She heard Greenland’s knock.

The old dame shuffled across the bare floor of the kitchen, and jerked the door wide open.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” said Greenland in his politest voice, and Beverly could almost see him take off his hat and bow. “I am in search of a man named Yale, who lives on a farm, or did live on a farm, along this way. It was called the Old Mill Farm, and I see an old mill along the creek. I made bold to knock at your door to ask if this is Old Mill Farm.”

“Na!”

Whether the old dame was saying no in her language, or just hurling defiance at an unwelcome visitor, Beverly could not. tell. She heard a footstep in the upper hall and knew that the reserves were moving to the aid of the old woman.

“But I must find my friend Yale,” persisted Greenland. “I am convinced that this is his place. I will— ”

“Na! Na!” said the guttural voice of Dolly’s mother.

“Oh, I must insist. The law, woman, the law!”

“NA! NA! NA!” came a loud yell, and then Beverly heard a whacking sound and Greenland began to curse.

“You damned, old harridan! You wretched old witch! I’ll choke you to death! ”

Then a heavy voice broke in: “My mudder, her too olt for fight. Me, yes.”

Then the sound of a fist against a face, and Greenland yelled. But it was over, and Beverly heard the door slammed shut and locked. She sped back to Yale.

“Let me see him go,” she said, half stifled with suppressed laughter. “Oh, Kenneth, we could never have better guardians than these.”

They saw Greenland leave the vicinity of the house and walk toward the creek. He was wiping his face with his handkerchief, which was red.

“He tried to force his way in,” Beverly explained. “Dolly did nothing that was not right.”

“I believe,” said Yale, when Greenland was out of sight, “that he stole that silver himself. He wasn’t over eager that morning, except to have the marriage take place. Remember?”

“I wonder.”

They saw no more of Greenland, and by noon had recovered from the effects of his visit. They ate dinner in the attic room, with the shutters open for air and light.

“Let’s go outside,” suggested Beverly. “Do you feel like it? Dolly doesn’t mind carrying you down.”

“I don’t mind being carried down. But a sudden alarm, such as we had this morning, is disastrous. Your Dolly is as gentle as he can be, but picking up a man my size necessarily jars. I think I’ll take a snooze.”

“All right, Mr. Owens. I’ll help the old dame get supper, and we’ll have a pleasant evening together. I wish we had some games to play.”

“I’d rather talk to you. I couldn’t see the pips on the ten of diamonds sitting across a table from your eyes.”

“Good-by, Mr. Owens. A sentimental husband is a thing to be deplored.”

She left him, and he threw himself on the bed. His foot hurt considerably, and shooting pains made his legs twitch. His head ached, too, and sleep came grudgingly. He had left his bed too soon. He lay some time thinking of the wretched fix lie was in, and cursed the hour he landed in Utica.

“No, that won’t do,” he said to himself. “In that case I would not have met Beverly. Not to have met Beverly would be the same as never having lived. So beautiful, so good, so true. How could I— dolt—  how could I ever have harbored a single suspicion against her— Mrs. Owens— my lovely provisional wife.”

Smiling at the odd conceit, he dropped off to sleep, and woke in an hour much refreshed.

With the aid of a chair he hobbled to the window to see if Beverly was in sight. He loved to watch her unconscious grace when she was ignorant of his scrutiny. But Beverly was not so self-conscious that this made any difference. But there was a difference now. With an armful of the last yellow flowers, her hat pushed back on her red-gold hair, and talking vividly to one who seemed an acquaintance and a friend, Miss Wayne was swinging across the field diagonally from the road. She and her male companion were approaching the house. Kenneth stared at this couple like a man who had received a death stroke.

“My God!” he exclaimed within himself. “Is she false, after all, or have all my conjectures fallen into wreck? I am a fool, or I am betrayed by Beverly.”

The man with whom Beverly was chatting gaily, who seemed to be feasting upon her marvelous beauty, was the man with short hair and the prison pallor. The two passed from Yale’s sight on their way to the farmhouse door.

Chapter 23

“What is He After?”

IT required considerable effort for Yale to compose himself sufficiently to form any plan of procedure. During the first moments of shock and renewed suspicion there seemed no possibility of any action on his part that would be of any avail.

He could not escape. His method of locomotion, hobbling along with one foot almost unable to sustain any weight, was not the gait that would take him safely away from that hiding place or enable him to find another. The only thing he could think of was to take a leaf out of Beverly’s book and play the spy. Anything was justifiable.

First he looked around for some sign of Adolphus. But while Yale slept, and Beverly roamed, Adolphus had disappeared for reasons of his own. But, Yale reflected, the old dame was as good as any man and better than most. At least her presence would deter the intruder from offering Beverly any harm, if he had come for that purpose.

There was, however, so little sign of this in his friendly manner that Yale’s wonder grew to overwhelming and compelling pro portions. He would see, listen, and learn for himself what it all meant. It was painful traveling, but he managed to leave his attic room, and descended the dark, narrow stairs to the bedroom floor.

This was in itself a revelation to him, for the rooms he peeped into as he passed the open doors were furnished far above the style he remembered in the days of his former visits. Grandfather Yale had grown to have luxurious tastes in his latter days. He not only went down the narrow stairs from the attic to the second story, but part way also down the front stairs that led to the hall. There he ensconced himself with many a grimace of pain, and almost immediately heard Beverly’s voice.

“Of course,” she was saying, “neither my husband, Mr. Owens, nor myself knows what valuation the present owner, Mr. Yale, puts on either house or furniture.”

“In a case of this kind,” responded the visitor, speaking gently, with a voice that seemed to have no volume, “the company is very particular. Now when old Mr. Yale was alive, even though he did not live on the place, he could put what valuation he liked on anything here, and it would be accepted by the company.” “Oh,” said Beverly, with the innocence of a child, “and do you mean that young Mr. Yale, the present owner, has increased the valuation?”

“On the furniture, but not on the house. Of course, suddenly to increase the valuation on an old frame house, without having built any additions, would attract attention. People, however, are always buying new furniture, and the amount of the policy changes. My position with the company is what they call appraiser, or inspector of household goods. When Mr. Yale— Mr. Kenneth Yale— increased the face of his policy five hundred dollars, naturally the company wanted to know what there was in the house to represent that value.”

“Naturally the company would,” Yale heard Beverly say, and her remark was followed by a quiet little laugh. Oh, she was superb, this temporary Mrs. Owens. Yale could have kicked himself for letting even the shadow of a doubt cross his mind. But what was the game?

Yale had attended to the insurance on the house and barns, keeping the valuation at what it had been. He had made sure the taxes were paid up to date, and that no lien stood against the property. But, so far as he knew, there was no insurance on the furniture of any kind. He had never thought of it, much less raised the amount.

He felt like creeping down to the living room in which the two were talking and at tacking the liar where he was. But wise reflection showed him the absurdity of this. In his present crippled condition he was no match for any one. It would be impossible to make it clear to the old dame that a man who had accompanied Beverly into the house as a friend was to be hammered and thrown out as an enemy, so long as he did nothing wrong.

He was doing, or planning something wrong now. But Yale could not imagine what it was, and what chance had he of telling the old woman who could not under stand a word he said? Whatever the game was, it must be played as it started, between Beverly and the stranger, until something developed.

“Mr. Owens, I presume, is not at home,” the stranger now said. There was a peculiar undertone to his speech, a lurking irony, that made Yale clench his fist and swear under his breath. He knew the fellow was well enough aware that he was talking to Beverly Wayne. He questioned whether he had not seen Yale’s face at the attic window. At any rate, with both Beverly and Yale missing from Utica, it would be natural enough for the false appraiser to conjecture that if Beverly was in Yale’s house, Yale was not far away. But still he could do nothing.

“My husband is not in the house,” Beverly answered with perfect composure. “He is somewhere about the farm, or at the mill. It was, in fact, the mill, that determined his choice. Mr. Owens is a machinist, and is thinking of utilizing the mill and a large portion of the land for the manufacture and trying out of war aeroplanes.”

“You are not farmers, then. I thought so, from your appearance. Well now, Mrs. Owens, I trust you will pardon me for this seeming rudeness. If the furniture were yours I would accept your inventory. But as it belongs to Yale, I must make my own.”

“Consider yourself free to do anything you wish,” Beverly answered. “And as I can be of no assistance to you I will excuse myself. I am quite busy with my up-stairs work.”

“Don’t let me detain you, Mrs. Owens. I will make my visit as short as possible.”

Yale crept back to the floor above. She came slowly up, nothing in her manner giving the slightest hint of agitation. When she saw him she put her finger to her lip. Then he saw the effort she was making to remain unconcerned. He made a turn as if to go up the narrow stairs to the attic room he had left. She touched his arm, and shook her head, and beckoned him to follow her. Without a word, or a sign of reluctance, he did so. She led him along the upper hall to a small door that gave upon the loft over the kitchen from which vantage ground she had heard the ignominious defeat of Greenland.

Yale marveled again. This girl who, a week before, had never heard of Old Mill Farm, knew more about his grandfather’s house than he knew himself. He could not remember this dark hole that smelled of bacon and dried apples and turnips and farm soil sticking to the roots of cabbages.

“He won’t find you here,” she whispered. “Who is he, do you suppose?”

“He is no insurance appraiser,” replied Yale, also whispering. “He had something to do with your abduction. He was at Whitesboro— ”

“Hush! He will be ransacking the house. I am not afraid— now. He hasn’t come to do anything this time, but to look over the ground. You didn’t increase the furniture insurance, did you?”

“There is none that I know anything about.”

“I must go. I’ll manage to keep an eye on him. There is a key in the door to this place. I’ll lock the door and put the key in my pocket.”

The intruder could have reached the loft from the kitchen, but Yale knew the fellow was too shrewd to give his game away by any such child’s play.- Beverly went out, and Yale heard the lock of the little door click. Now he could hear nothing, do nothing, without risking a contretemps that might be dangerous. He could not hear any voices, but the shuffling of the old woman around the kitchen made an agreeable noise. If she could not understand what was said to her, she had wonderfully sharp ears, and by listening to her pottering around Yale could keep himself assured of Beverly’s safety. But what did— what could— the fellow want? If he was in search of Yale he had gone about it in a clumsy fashion. If he knew that Yale was in the house, he had shown a remarkable nerve in coming there alone. It was impossible, so far as Yale could see, that the fellow should have any knowledge of his present physical condition. He heard another step beside the old dame’s, and listened intently to what went on below. “Fine day, auntie,” began the insurance appraiser.

“Got a fine, clean kitchen here.”

“Na!”

“Boss out around the buildings, I suppose?”

“Na!”

“Where can I find him, then?”

“Na! Na!”

“Your conversation is illuminating. I want to find Mr. Owens.”

“Na!”

“Crescendo, then diminuendo. Thanks, old lady.”

“Have you finished” asked Beverly. “On this floor. Yale has some pretty fine old furniture here. I don’t think I shall interfere with his valuation. It is low enough.”

“I’m sure he ought to appreciate your kindness. I know my husband, Mr. Owens, would.”

“I’ll just take a look around up-stairs.” And he did. He went into every bed room.

Unlike most of the farmhouses in that vicinity, this old homestead of the Yales had been brought up to date in modern comforts. A great tank had been erected near the creek, to which a windmill pumped water. This was piped to, and through, the house, and all but the attic and loft was heated by a hot water plant. A bedroom had been transformed into a tiled bathroom, with hot and cold water. Old Grandfather Yale must have developed at seventy some Sybaritish tendencies. Or, as an investment, for renting at a good figure, he may have thought the outlay would more than repay itself. The appraiser went into the bathroom, and opened his eyes. Here was luxury for a farmhouse. But, as Beverly had told Yale, this was no longer a farmhouse. It was a country villa. But, if the appraiser was in search of Kenneth Yale he might as well have searched the, well. That relic of old farm days still stood, for water that is tanked and piped will never taste like that which springs from the crevices of the rock forty feet below the surface of the earth. But the curiosity of the man was well developed, at least. He peered into every closet. He went up to the attic, and after being there some time came down.

“Who sleeps in the raftered room at the top of the house?” asked the careful appraiser of the lovely Mrs. Owens.

“Adolphus, our hired man. He is the son of the cook. You saw her in the kitchen.”

“She seems to be a very uncommunicative sort of person.”

“She cannot understand English.”

“Where is Adolphus, may I ask?”

“Gone to Utica to buy himself some Sunday clothes.”

“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Owens?”

“Well, we hardly seem to be living here even now. We came, oh, about three weeks ago. We have purchased no farmstock as yet. We buy everything we need.”

“You surely have a horse and carriage.”

“No, my husband has an automobile. He taught Adolphus to run it, and the man has it now.”

“Ah! Well, I will bid you good day, Mrs. Owens. I thank you for your courtesy.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She saw him depart, and hastened to release Yale from his hiding place. He was weak from suffering, and she almost fainting from suppressed excitement. They supported each other to a room.

“What can it mean? What is he after? What do you know about him?” she gasped, sinking into a chair.

“Kenneth, we must leave this house.”

Chapter 24

What’s Afoot Now?

"AND you never— think now, our lives may depend on it— did you never see that man before?” asked Yale.

“Never, Kenneth. I am sine of that.”

“Nor heard his voice?”

“Never. I could never have heard that voice and forgotten it.”

“Do you know the kind of voice it is?”

“Why— hoarse— he speaks with an evident effort.”

“Yes, but a short time ago the effort was greater. That man hasn’t been out of jail a month, and he has escaped at that.”

“Kenneth! You know him, then!”

“No, I don’t know him, but I have seen him and learned something about him I thought you knew. When you told me your experiences after you had been put in the surrey you said that at a village hotel you heard one of the women talking to a man, but you did not see the man.”

“That is so, Kenneth. But it was not this man. The voice I heard was full and hearty.”

“Well, there were two men there, and our appraiser was one of them.”

“How did you learn this?”

“Didn’t I tell you that Williams and I stopped at the hotel in Whitesboro, and I learned that you had been there?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, the man at the hotel and I agreed that this fellow was a jailbird. We saw him there— he was evidently there to spy on me, and I believe he tampered with the automobile and brought on the wreck. Now, could you not identify either of the men who seized you at the reservoir?”

“Honestly, no, Kenneth. I did not see them at all before the attack. They were not on the road. They must have rushed out of the woods in the park.” “They did, undoubtedly. Well, more will come out of this. I am eager to learn what the next move will be.”

“We must leave this house, Kenneth.”

“Mrs. Owens, we will stay in our own home.”

“Mr. Owens, we shall do nothing of the kind. Do you think I want to be murdered in my bed?”

“That’s as good a place to be murdered as any other. But seriously, Beverly, I do not think the gang mean to commit murder. At first they might have had it in mind. The wrecking of Williams’s car would indicate it. But something has changed their plans.”

“Have we unconsciously played into their hands, do you think?”

“We may be playing their game for them. But I can’t see what good it would do for us to leave here now. We could easily be traced. A man with a bandaged foot, who can scarcely hobble, is not forgotten along the way.” “That’s true enough.”

“And you! Do you suppose that you could go ten miles without fifty people knowing how you look?”

“That’s so,” she said. “And if we hire a conveyance, that would give us away.”

The tables were turned. Their former argument about leaving the Old Mill Farm had been reversed.

But they remained. As night came on the weather grew chill, the sky was clouded, and there was every promise of a night for deeds that needed darkness. The old woman shuffled about getting their evening meal, and Adolphus was still absent.

“I wonder where our friend Dolly is,” said Beverly, when they sat at the table. “He has been gone a long time.”

“Went to some village, I suppose. He has been very faithful. Perhaps he needed a day off.”

“I hope he won’t come back drunk.”

By the time supper was over there was an evident change in the old woman. So far as a phlegmatic, leathery faced old crone could show nervousness, the mother of Dolly showed it. She kept looking at the dining-room clock, and running to the kitchen door, all the time muttering something in her native tongue.

“She is anxious about Dolly,” said Beverly. “I know the signs.”

“But what could happen to him?” asked Yale. “To my mind Adolphus is about as safe from attack as a man could be. He has no money, and wears no jewelry, and if his slight connection with us has awakened any desire to get rid of him in the minds of the robber gang, one blow of his mighty fist would knock a dozen like our insurance appraiser silly.”

“I know, but a pistol shot— or a stab in the back— ”

“You are giving way to morbid fears. I don’t believe that at this time there is any murder intended. Just what the game is we’ll have to wait and see. And the place to wait is here. My foot is getting constantly better, and if they give me a few more days I’ll be able to kick ’em with it.”

But Beverly, brave and calm as she had been in the presence of the appraiser, was now suffering from the reaction. But she was game. There could be no better pal for any man in an adventure. They sat at the table long after they had finished eating, and Yale smoked a pipe Adolphus had bought, with some tobacco, on his first trip to a village after Yale had eaten his first bowl of gruel. And it had been Beverly, not Yale, who had thought of this solace for the injured man.

“Why doesn’t the old dame come and clear away the dishes?” asked Beverly. “Do you hear her?”

“I don’t,” replied Yale, “but now you call attention to the tomblike silence of the kitchen, I recall that about ten minutes ago I heard the kitchen door open and shut.”

“But she has been doing that ever since it got dark.”

“True, Mrs. Owens. But after each visit to the door I heard her shuffling footsteps. I remember now, that I did not hear that gentle step the last time, nor have I seen Dolly’s maternal ancestor.”

“Goodness!” cried Beverly, jumping up from her chair. “Have we been deserted at the first blush of danger?”

She hurried to the kitchen and returned with a white face, but not a frightened one.

Distinctly, Mrs. Owens Was angry.

“She’s gone! The old ape has deserted us. I believe it was a put up job between them. First Dolly went, and now she’s vanished. Her hat is gone and her old rabbit skin cloak.”

“She is probably anxious about her child,” suggested Yale, smoking contentedly away.

“Kenneth! Can it be that they are in league with the gang?”

“Hardly. Dolly doesn’t look like a robber, and the old woman would be a very weak link in the chain.”

“A very strong one, I think. She knows how to hold her tongue— who can tell if she understands English or not? Spies have pretended not to understand before now.”

Yale moved uneasily. “There is reason in what you say, Beverly. But you found them in a cottage of their own on the creek.”

“Yes, but who knows if it is their own, or how long they have been there?”

“An unanswerable question at present. But wasn’t it the old woman who gave you the ointment and liniment to rub on my foot, and the bandages?”

“Through Dolly she gave me the liniment and the ointment, and the herb medicine we made you drink. Dolly told me, in a cumbersome sort of way, that his mother was an herb doctor. Witch, I call her now. The bandages I made myself by tearing one of your bed sheets into strips.”

“So far, the old dame looms up with conspicuous honesty ashine. And where did you get the key of this house?”

“Oh, yes, I am forgetting that. Dolly and his mother, being the nearest neighbors, probably had the duty of showing the house to prospective tenants.”

“It is not likely, that if they were newcomers, traveling light for a convenient getaway, they would have the key.”

“Your arguments seem to dispose of my suspicions,” said Beverly. “But now I feel anxious lest harm has come to Dolly.”

“But tell me, my dear girl with the sunshine hair, who would want to harm Adolphus? He didn’t strike me as being a man to indulge in feuds, jealous quarrels over girls, or any sort of scrap.”

“But suppose some one wanted to harm us and so wanted to keep Dolly away? Suppose our insurance appraiser was an advance guard, or spy, and that some sort of devilment is planned for to-night— here—  against us?”

Yale looked at her soberly and pulled harder on his pipe.

“You are a cool reasoner, Mrs. Owens,” he said. “And perhaps you are right.”

Chapter 25

Deeds In The Dark.

THE mystery of the night deepened. Hours passed, and neither Adolphus nor the old dame returned. One of two things was now certain. They had deserted, probably from fear, or harm had come to them. Beverly and Yale talked over the possibilities.

“Confound it, I’m a dashed fine hero in a situation like this,” he said. “Here I sit nursing a game foot that won’t let me walk a yard without cursing with pain. Confound that short-haired scoundrel— I’ll wring his neck if I ever get the chance.”

“It is pretty certain now that Adolphus and his mother are not coming back,” said Beverly. “And we have not even a weapon. You didn’t have a pistol, did you?” “No. I never thought of it. I’ve never carried one of the things.”

“I wish you had been a little more of a coward,” she answered. “You might have thought of it.”

“I’m coward enough. For Heaven’s sake don’t get it into your head that I’m one of the brave ones.”

“I’ll get anything in my head that I want there. And you are not a coward.”

“Didn’t I faint with pain as soon as I got out of the woods?”

“But you got out of the woods. A bullet, a knife, or an automobile wreck makes no distinction of persons. Either will kill a brave man as quickly as a coward. Well, we must plan for the night. Shall we sit up and wait?”

“No, I’m not much in favor of the waiting and watching game. Have you ever seen a cat crouching at a mouse-hole?”

“Many a time.”

“Did you ever see the mouse come out and get caught?”

“No, now that you bring that important detail to my mind, I never have.”

“Just so. When you sit up to watch and wait for somebody to do a certain thing he does something else, or nothing at all. As I said before, I do not believe murder is intended for you or me. This is a sparsely settled place and we could be picked off by a pop-gun from the trees. No, if murder had been intended that jailbird would not have come here to-day.”

“But he was certainly after something.”

“He either wanted to spot me, or to get the plan of the house.”

“To rob it? There are no silver wedding presents here.”

“I can’t go so deep as to tell what they wanted of the house plan. Perhaps they didn’t want it at all.”

“Here’s a question! Suppose that man had seen you instead of me? He would not have dared to say that about a furniture insurance policy.”

“No. In that case he might have been your aunt’s agent looking for you to prevent you from eloping with me.”

“Nonsense! As if I would.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No. Positively no. Now look here, Mr. Owens. We are married people. And married people don’t talk about eloping—  at least with each other.”

“Yes, but this kind of married life is like buckwheat cakes with the buckwheat left out.”

“All fat in the pan, I suppose. Well, it will have to serve. And if we are not going to watch and wait, I’m for bed. Are you going to your attic?”

“I am not. I am going to sleep on the next floor. There are five bedrooms, if I remember.”

“Four. I fancy the big bathroom was a bedroom when you were a boy.”

“Which is your room? I'll take the one next to it, when I’ve smoked another pipe.”

“It’s a trick! You want me to have my good rest, and you are going to sit up.”

“Not very long. For a wonder my foot is quite easy, and I shall enjoy the luxury of another smoke.”

“Very well. Call me if anything happens.”

“Don’t lie awake all night thinking about it.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Mrs. Owens.”

After she had gone Yale refilled his pipe, lighted it, and then put out the lamp. He was not very expert at this, for never, since his youthful days, had he been without gas or electric light. He sat in the intensely dark room smoking slowly, listening for any warning sound, and thinking of the utter strangeness of the situation.

Suddenly he heard a noise. It was not a loud noise. It could easily, in fact, have been made by a rat. But somehow Yale did not think of rats. He stiffened his muscles, and listened with a great intensity of strain. What he wanted to hear was a human voice. But he heard nothing that sounded like speech. Now it seemed as though some one was trying to open a window of the very room in which he sat. He peered in the direction he knew the windows were, but could distinguish nothing. The darkness was so absolute that the whitest object could not shade it lighter.

Kenneth had not told the truth when he had told Beverly that he was in any way cowardly. All his life, from his boyhood sports to his manly enterprises, he had been noted for his daring. He had a life-saving medal, which he did not wear, earned by leaping from the deck of a friend’s yacht in Long Island Sound, diving under an overturned cabin sloop and bringing back to life and the possibility of happiness a child who had been imprisoned there. The parents were rescued while Yale was out of sight. He had been a first class man in college athletics. He had shot big game. But never in conversation did he revert to any of these things.

And now he cursed himself for a helpless lump of mud. Some one, with evil intent, was forcing an entrance to his house, and he sat with his leg on a separate chair, as fit to fight as a sick cat. He leaned over, felt the table, and put his pipe on that. Then he slowly and carefully swung his swollen, but somewhat improved, foot to the floor. He gripped the back of the chair and stood up. He could remember nothing in the room that would serve as a weapon except the chair itself. A chair in powerful arms is no mean weapon, provided the other fellow has no gun. But if—  It was scarcely probable that midnight visitors of this kind would go unarmed. Yale took hold of the chair-back with both hands.

The noise increased. The first attempts having aroused no commotion within, the person who wanted to enter grew more courageous, or at least used less caution. The fastenings of the windows were old in age and fashion. A knife-blade would open any one of them. The click of the blade against the bronze catch could be distinguished. Yale could have called out. This might have driven the intruder away. Or, on the other hand, if the entering party was composed of several, and they knew that only a girl and a nearly helpless man were there to defend the house, they might throw all secrecy to the winds and rush him. He had no idea of waking Beverly. Time enough for that if he found himself defeated, and her in danger.

The sash slid up. Almost holding his breath Yale stood with all his mental faculties alert and concentrated upon that sound and the spot from which it came. He could now almost see with his ears, so intensified had his sense of hearing be come because it was not possible to use his sight. He seemed to know when the visitor thrust in a hand to make sure the way was clear. He could visualize the head that was moving in the open square of the window. He could tell when a leg was thrown across the sill into the room.

And yet he waited, for it was not the time to strike. He knew that in all probability he would have but the chance of getting in one blow. For the clumsiness of his weapon, and the darkness, made it a problem what the result of that blow would be. If in the first blow he knocked out his man, there would be left to him a chance to meet another. If his first blow failed a knife or pistol might end his fighting forever.

With tight lips he stood till he heard the breathing close to him, sensed the nearness of another human being. He swung the chair with all his might, and it crashed against something that went down under it. But curses, rather than blows, came from the victim. And loud curses.

“Ho, ho!” he shouted. “I’ll have you for this.”

He shouted so loud that Yale wondered. It was possible, of course, and circumstances made it seem probable, that the burglar, or would-be murderer, or whatever he was potentially, knew that Adolphus was away. Yale forgot that he ever had a sore foot. He bent, swung the chair again, and more loud curses were the result.

“Blast you,” he said, swinging the chair again, “I’ll—”

A blinding electric torch flashed in his face, and the shock to his eyes made him recoil. There was a mocking laugh, a shout, and then all was silence and the darkness of the tomb once more.

Chapter 26

Midnight Intruders.

YALE began feeling in his pockets for a match. Suddenly he stiffened, and reached for the chair. He heard another noise, this time inside the room, and away from the window. He prepared to strike again.

“Kenneth, are you here?” came the anxious voice of Beverly. “I heard a noise that sounded like a window opening. Are you here, Kenneth?”

Her voice was soft, and low, scarcely more than a whisper, and so welcome and dear to Yale that he could have shouted.

“I am here, Beverly. Wait till I get a light.”

He found his match, and soon the big lamp on the dining-room table was alight. It was a very white face, with somewhat paler lips than usual, that he found turned toward him. She had thrown some of her clothes on, and over these had improvised a wrap of a comfortable from her bed. She had drawn on her stockings, but wore no shoes.

“What was it?” she asked. “Some one came.”

“Yes, some one came in that window,” he answered, pointing to the raised sash. “But he’s gone, I hope, with a sore head.”

“But you had nothing with which to fight! And your foot— ”

“Oh, my foot went into the discard. I forgot all about my foot. I knocked him down with this chair, although in the darkness I don’t suppose I got in a very terrible blow.”

He turned the chair upside down and examined the legs and the edges of the seat.

“I don’t see any blood. Guess it wasn’t a very hard knock.”

All the time she was looking at him strangely, with eyes wide and brilliant.

“But Kenneth! It couldn’t have been that window I heard. My room is so situated that I doubt if I could have heard this window. I fancied the noise was on the other side of the hall, in the living room.”

“I heard nothing there, Beverly,” said Yale. “And I am sure I heard nothing here. When you knocked him down didn’t you make more noise than he did opening the window?”

“Why, yes, and he made more noise cursing than I did knocking him down. Did you hear that?”

“No, Kenneth. I heard no voice at all.”

“This is a matter for investigation,” said Yale. “I’ll put this window down and take the lamp to the living room.”

He pulled down the sash, picked up the lamp, and started. Beverly followed.

“You stay here,” he told her. “There may be another one.”

“Very well, if there is I’ll be at your side. I’ll hold the lamp while you do the fighting.”

“Then there might be something doing,” he said. “Come along, brave one.”

“Oh, don’t call me brave. Why, all the time I was listening to that noise my teeth were chattering.”

“Mine would have chattered if I’d dared let them,” answered Yale.

They crossed the hall, Yale carrying the lamp, and Beverly opened the door of the living room. “Why, I left— ”

“Ha!” This explosion came from Yale, and was the forerunner of a greater one that did not come from him, but which he produced. It was natural enough that by this time his nerves had become pretty tightly strung. Beverly gasped “Oh, Kenneth!” and stared as though she was horrorstricken. For, as they entered the living room from the hall, Yale described the form of a man going through a window.

In a flash of time he had hurled the lighted lamp at the retreating figure. It vaulted through the air an avenging comet, went through the window, and caught the unlawful visitor in the small of his back. He fell headlong, howled in terror, not knowing what had struck him that could give out that brilliant flash and then leave him flat on the ground in total darkness.

But a spark remained, the oil of the lamp leaked out, and then, with a loud report the whole thing went up in a spurt of flame. In the light of this that lasted but a moment, they saw two men racing toward the road. Then the oil blazed up, but that was a petty illumination the unappreciative audience soon extinguished.

“Two of them, Kenneth!” whispered Beverly, bending close to him. “I wonder if there are any more.”

“I fancy not,” he answered. “I’ve been figuring on two right along. One of those fellows looked as much like our insurance appraiser as the dancing light could permit. Now we’ve lost a lamp.”

“There are others, Kenneth. Come in.”

She was standing inside the dark living room, holding an empty pail, which had contained water, and he, who had taken it from her hand and drenched a great square rug he had seized from the floor and thrown over the blazing oil, was outside. He clambered in through the window and closed it. The night was very chill.

“Have you a match, Kenneth?”

“Yes, I guess so.” He had, and soon the lamp in the living room was doing duty in place of the one destroyed.

“What an adventure,” said Beverly, sit ting down and drawing the blanket close around her. “You have vanquished two miscreants to-night, Mr. Owens. Don’t tell me again that you are a coward.”

“Don’t tell me that your teeth chatter with fright, Mrs. Owens.”

She laughed merrily.

“I am not so sure— I’m not so sure—” began Yale.

“Heavens! You don’t suppose there are any more!”

“No, but I was wondering. When I knocked the fellow down in the dining-room he let out a terrible bawl. Now I see that it was some sort of a call to the other chap. Well, I’ll bet one has a sore head, and the other a ruined coat, as souvenirs of this night’s work.”

“But what did they come here for?” asked Beverly with emphasis.

“Search me. I have my money in my pocket. They didn’t get that.”

“I wonder.”

“Well, it’s no good sitting there like a squaw in a blanket wondering. Go back to bed. I’ll have another smoke.”

“Do you feel faint?”

“Faint? No. I feel bully. My foot’s sort of asleep, but that’s such a fine improvement on the pain that I’ll let him sleep. Wish I had a bottle of beer.”

“I’ll tell you what! I’ll make some tea.”

“In that rig?”

“Oh, no. See if there is any fire in the kitchen stove, will you?”

“If there isn’t I’ll get one going.”

And he did. Meanwhile, Beverly went to her room, from which she reappeared properly clothed. Yale had water on the fire, which was boiling gaily. In a short time they sat at the kitchen table with their tea and some little cakes Adolphus had discovered at a store, rather stale, but clean, having spent all their days in an airtight tin.

“This married life is wearin’, Mrs. Owens.”

“The incidents of married life are incalculable, Mr. Owens,” she beamed back at him.

“You make very good tea, Mrs. Owens.”

“I couldn’t have done it unless you built a very good fire, Mr. Owens.”

This inconsequential clack was the reaction from the short but hard strain on their nerves. By the time they were finished it was two o’clock.

“No more excitement this morning, Mrs. Owens. Go back to bed.”

“Goodness, I’m as far from sleep as the poles are apart. Let’s sit up.”

“No! You will go back to your room. Do you want to dim the light of those violet eyes?”

“You gump! My eyes are blue. Good night, Mr. Owens.”

“Good night, Mrs. Owens.” Yale felt no need of sleep after his lunch, and setting the living room lamp on the dining-room table, he refilled his pipe, and sat down in an arm-chair to browse on mystery.

He surely had food enough for thought. The night had not been so strenuous but that he could think of Beverly and what all this meant to her. He was in his inherited house— on his own ground. Her position was, to say the least, anomalous. Now even the shadowy protection afforded by the old dame was gone. But he would soon make that right. As his wife—

Then the mystery of Greenland’s visit, without cause or effect, came uppermost. He dismissed that as inconsequential. The two midnight marauders occupied his attention longer. But, as he grew drowsy, finally, and his pipe went out, his head sank, his chin rested on his breast, and he dreamed again of Beverly.

And the dawn found him sitting thus.

Chapter 27

The Black Bag

THERE was no early rising at the Old Mill Farm that morning. True, the first sun rays that entered the dining-room windows disturbed Yale, and he left his uncomfortable position in the chair and lay down on a lounge in the living room without undressing.

Beverly, exhausted by the excitement of the night’s adventures, slept profoundly far into the brilliant winter morning. Yale was the first to be astir, and, disliking to rouse Beverly, proceeded to build the kitchen fire and make coffee. There was bread, bacon and potatoes, and the odor of camp cooking soon mounted the stairs to Beverly.

“Whatever are you doing?” she wanted to know when she appeared. Yale stood by the stove enveloped in smoke of a none too delicate perfume.

“Making breakfast. Bacon, potatoes, coffee,” he replied. “Did you parboil the bacon?”

“No. Do you?”

“I do, or I can’t eat it. You’ve burnt the potatoes. Hey, your coffee is boiling. Don’t you know that coffee must not boil? I’ll get breakfast. What time did you get up?”

“Haven’t been down, really. Slept in a chair till daylight, and polished off my snooze on the living room lounge,” said Yale. “Have you seen anything of Adolphus or the old dame?”

“Nor hide nor hair.”

“It’s very strange.” Yale walked away with a troubled face. He left the house by the kitchen door, and made a detour around the outbuildings. When he returned the smoke had been blown out of the kitchen through open windows, and an appetizing breakfast was on the table.

“It’s worse than strange,” he said, as though continuing an uninterrupted conversation.

Beverly looked at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “What is?”

The disappearance of the old woman and Adolphus. It is disastrous.”

“You mean?”

“I mean that we cannot remain here without them. So long as the sop of a woman’s presence was thrown to propriety, and Adolphus, her son, was also here, there was some sort of reason in it. But now we must think of other arrangements. I’ve been studying the question ever since I woke.”

“So that’s why you let the coffee boil and burned the potatoes. Well, there is much in what you say, but I don’t see any solution any more than you do. We have no friends to whom we can sneak, two people suspected of robbery, and say, ‘Here we are, hide us; we are wanted by the police.’ ”

It was the hardest puzzle Yale had ever attempted to solve. He ate slowly, trying hard to think of a way out of their trying position, when a heavy fist banged on the kitchen door.

Yale started up and Beverly turned a shade paler. Before Kenneth could reach the door it was flung open, and the chief of police of Utica, followed by Detective Blake, came in.

“You are rather hard on your friends,” said the chief, surveying the room with his calm, keen scrutiny.

“Never sent an invitation for a week end,” added Blake. “How do you do, Miss Wayne, or is it— ”

“I am still Beverly Wayne,” she said, rising from her chair.

“What’s the news about Williams?” asked Yale, who had mastered his misgivings and was determined to face whatever was to come with his usual fortitude.

“Williams got the worst of the whole deal,” answered the chief. “He is in St. Luke’s Hospital, and has not spoken a lucid sentence since he was taken there.”

“Who took him there?”

“A farmer, driving along the road before sunset, saw him lying under his machine. The farmer was a powerful chap, and man aged to wiggle the machine a bit, got Williams out and carried him to Utica. It was a friendly act, but if he had taken him to the nearest house and called a local doctor the result might have been better.”

“Well, so it might. This is the nearest house to the scene of the accident, and I came here. I have spoken several lucid sentences. I am sorry for Williams, though. I hope he is getting good care. I will pay for it.”

“He will get that whether you pay for it or not. Now, Yale, of course you realize that this is no social visit. Certain bits of in formation have come to me and I am forced to take official action. I hope the information is wrong and that I am mistaken. Nevertheless, I am the chief of police, and both of you are suspected of being thieves.”

“We know that,” said Beverly. “We read it in a newspaper.”

“Now,” said the chief, “let me ask a few questions before we go any further. There was a big bay, bony horse in the picture. Blake and I have made an inspection of your buildings and have found no horse.”

“We had no feed for a horse and sent him away.”

“Sent him away. There must be a third party in this business. Is it the big blond fellow who looks like a Swede?”

“Dolly!” gasped Beverly, looking at Yale in astonishment.

“There was such a man,” Yale replied, “but I don’t know that he is a Swede. He had been here from the time I arrived until last evening— or no. Yesterday afternoon he went away. Last night his mother left.”

“Where did they go?”

“We have no idea, except that they did live in a little cottage on the creek.”

“Why did they go?”

“Of their reason for leaving us we have no idea, either. They left us at a deuce of a time, for we were visited by burglars in the night.”

“So? Tell us about it. No. Begin at the beginning and tell us how it is that two people of your apparent standing in the world, of unimpeachable intelligence, have become so tangled up in this mess. You are living here under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Owens. A guilty thing in itself. My information from New York is to the effect that Yale was employed in a position with a good salary, which he relinquished a short time ago.”

“I had other plans,” explained Yale. “I inherited more than this farm from my grandfather.”

“And did not need to steal,” added Beverly in defiance, but this was the first time she had heard of any other legacy.

“Well, begin, Miss Wayne, you will tell your story first. Yale, perhaps you’d better go upstairs.”

“Oh, our stories don’t meet until the adventures on the road were over.”

“Well, stay if you like. You are not compelled to say anything to incriminate yourself.”

“I don’t intend to.”

Beverly occupied about twenty minutes telling the story of how she was attacked at the reservoir, and made a vivid tale of her experiences.

“You see,” she concluded, “your hypothesis about the Mr. and Mrs. Owens business is all wrong. That was the only thing I could do. I did not know the old woman and Dolly. I had overheard Mr. Raymond and Mr. Blake and Mr. Greenland speaking in the library in Utica and knew that Mr. Yale was suspected of the robbery. Now, here he was, unconscious, wounded and in a feverish delirium. I would have done any thing— sacrificed more than I did— I would have sacrificed my life— rather than leave him alone, or give him up to the police.”

“Because you love him?”

“Because I know he is innocent.”

“Permit me to admire you,” said the chief. “Now, Yale, yours.”

Yale’s adventures, like Beverly’s, have been told in the foregoing pages, and repetition would be unnecessary. Both police officers listened attentively.

“Miss Wayne,” said the chief, when Yale had finished, “you say you rode the horse here after spilling the two women and wrecking the surrey.”

“Yes, that is the truth.”

“Did you— either of you— see anywhere about the premises a black bag?”

“Bag? Black bag?” repeated Beverly. “There is no black bag here.”

“My information points to a black bag. Now, of course, being two innocent and injured parties, you cannot object to our making a search.”

“Not at all. Go as far as you like,” answered Yale. “Please consider yourselves my guests. Remember, this is my house.”

“Come ahead, Blake,” directed the chief, and the ransacking of the house began.

“Kenneth, what is this new horror?” asked Beverly, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward with her chin in her hands, to stare at him. “I know you didn’t bring any black bag here.” “I don’t see how you could have brought one, either. There is some big trick being played.” They waited, not with any too commendable patience, listening to the heavy tread of feet in different parts of the house, doors being opened and slammed, and furniture moved about. Suddenly they heard an exclamation, and the footsteps joined on the stairs. In another moment the chief appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying a big black leather bag. He sat it on the table and opened it. The contents were a massive silver candelabra, a solid silver tea-pot, milk pitcher, spoon-holder and sugar bowl.

“I’m sorry.” The chief’s jaws snapped together. “We have wasted time in too much talk. Kenneth Yale, and Beverly Wayne, I arrest you in the name of the law for the crime of conspiracy and robbery. Blake, take charge of Miss Wayne.”

Filled with an amazement that left them speechless, Yale and Miss Wayne made no attempt to resist. They stared at the condemnatory evidence that glistened at them from the open mouth of the black bag. They made no request to get hats or any thing else.

Yale’s right foot was bandaged, and he wore his left shoe. In this way, not even locking the house, the two prisoners were led to an automobile. In absolute silence they made the run to Utica, and were ushered into the police headquarters on Pearl Street. But neither of them gave a sign of weakening. Some what disheveled, and sadly in need of a complete change of clothing, Beverly was more beautiful than ever.

“A wild woman,” said Blake to the chief.

“She would be another Joan of Arc in case of need and opportunity,” was the reply. “And he’s a cut off the same piece of goods. Damn! I’d like to know the truth.”

“Don’t you think you do?”

“No. We are farther from the truth than we were the day after the confounded robbery. I’m sorry the court is not sit ting.”

Chapter 28

A Sunday Behind Bars

THE chief was not half so sorry the court was not sitting, as Beverly and Yale found themselves in an hour or two. It was Saturday. The city magistrate had opened court at the usual time, disposed of the few unimportant cases from the cells in the basement of the police headquarters, and had adjourned hearings till Monday morning. He had then gone out of town in his automobile to forget for a time the cares of a continual battle against crime and evil.

The magnitude and importance of the case left the chief of police no option in the disposal of his prisoners. His personal belief, no matter what it might be, could not batter down the solid wall of official responsibility. He had arrested Yale and Miss Wayne under circumstances that almost proved their guilt of the Raymond robbery. So it was impossible to admit them to bail. Could he, as chief of police, have assumed the responsibility, there was no one ready to come forward and offer bail for the two unfortunates.

Beverly was put in one cell, and Yale in another. The jaws of the laws had closed upon them, and the digestive process would begin at once. But the police and matron did them one favor. They sent for fresh clothing for both prisoners. They slept little. Their hours were filled with miserable forebodings. Yale thought of a lawyer, but believed that they were not necessary in a preliminary hearing before an examining magistrate. But what a turmoil of troubled thoughts crowded his brain! There was no getting away from the fact that the chief had discovered the bag of silverware in his house. He knew he had not taken it there. Beverly had been there before him. Had she— could it be possible — that, after all, she was in league with the robbers and this was her share of the booty? How had the chief learned about the black bag? How had he known about Adolphus?

Yale thought of Greenland. Greenland had come spying and had met the old woman’s broomstick, and Dolly’s fist. Had he given information? But how had Greenland learned anything about the black bag?

Now, Yale’s love for Beverly was of the kind that would withstand any assault. But he was of keen intelligence, and there were too many mysteries in the case for him to be blind to the possibilities. How could he be blind when he had seen the silverware in the black bag?

Their meals were served from the Butterfield House, and Yale paid. No one visited them. The chief and Blake kept away, not because they felt any animosity toward their two important prisoners, but because, being kind hearted men both, and knowing that there was nothing they could do to alleviate the condition of the prisoners, they believed their presence might aggravate the misery of the two suspects.

But the misery of Yale and Beverly was mental, rather than physical. The cells were clean, and as up-to-date and comfortable as cells are made. A bath, hot or cold, and a shower bath, made the difference between old and new. Their food was of the best. The change of clothing had added to their comfort. As prisoners they were not badly off.

As free American citizens in love with each other they passed a long, uneventful, and dreary Sunday. Beverly passed the day in deep thought, and she would have been less than a woman had she not shed a few tears. Not enough were shed, however, to dim the brilliance of the violet eyes that were to do heroic duty in the court-room on Monday.

So passed Sunday, and during that night Beverly got some few hours’ sleep. Exhausted nature will have her demands considered, and Morpheus was merciful. On Monday morning they met in the corridor of the police building, each in the custody of an officer.

“Good morning, Kenneth,” said Beverly.

“You look rather seedy for a New York gentleman.”

“It is clear that you paid little attention to your mirror, this morning,” replied Yale.

“Come,” said the chief.

He led the way across the stone-paved courtyard, and Blake brought up the rear, There were other prisoners, but they could wait. The grim gray wall of the City Hall frowned down upon them. Beverly thought of Mary Queen of Scots, and Marie Antoinette, and smiled. She was ready to meet the city magistrate with the battery of her violet eyes.

Chapter 29

The Hearing Begins.

NOT since he had sat as examining magistrate in the case of the murder of a young school-teacher near Utica had the city judge worn so stem and uncompromising a countenance as the one he carried into the grim old courtroom in which justice had been administered for more than half a century. He looked at nobody, not even the chief. But perhaps he had seen the chief before that particular moment. That he did not come unprepared to plunge at once into the inquisition was proven by the papers he carried in his hand.

He took his seat, and the clerk rapped for order, made the usual announcement of the opening of court, and thundered a command for everybody in the room to be seated. The city magistrate sat with his head bowed over the papers he had brought with him. The courtroom was filled, for from one end of the county to the other had spread the news of the arrest of Beverly and Yale.

“Two bad ones, and slick as devils,” was the consensus of opinion from Boonville on the north, to Sangerfield on the south, and from Utica, on the eastern boundary, to the village of Cleveland on Oneida Lake.

Monday’s papers gave columns of fact and fancy, and just cold falsehood, and, thousands of lips chuckled over the swiftness of Oneida County justice. Ugly women rejoiced that the officials of Utica were moved by a sense of righteousness, and not by an appreciation of beauty. Red-gold hair and violet eyes—  Psh! A common New York thief! The judge’ll find her out.

And so, at ten o’clock on Monday morning, all the county hung upon the news that was beginning to trickle from the City Hall. The judge looked up, swept the crowded courtroom, and let his glance rest on the stalwart, silent chief.

“Is the prisoner Beverly Wayne in the room?”

“She is here, your honor.”

“Is the prisoner Kenneth Yale in the room?”

“He is here, your honor.”

“Is George Greenland in the room?”

“He is here, your honor.” This last was undoubtedly a surprise to the majority of those present. Greenland’s name had not hitherto been connected with the robbery at all. There was an uneasy movement, and the clerk sharply ordered silence.

“Is Mr. Raymond in the room?”

“He is here, your honor.”

Now there was a stir in the centre of the room. A big, blond man, wearing a black suit that had seen much wear, rose from his seat on a bench.

“I iss come, honorable,” he announced.

A half suppressed titter surged across the room. The judge looked at this courageous interrupter of the court proceedings sternly.

“Who are you?”

“Me? I iss Adolphus. She name me dat, de lofely one.”

The judge quickly twitched a page from the manuscript before him and glanced at it.

“Are you the man who attended the prisoner, Kenneth Yale, during the period of his delirium?”

“I don’ know vat you say mid so much words. I do chores for de laty, carry de mans up and town, make fires, so.”

“Sit down.”

Adolphus plumped into his seat. For mystery and perfect self-possession, he was the man of the hour.

“Beverly Wayne,” began the judge, taking up now the topmost document before him, “your story, told to the chief and Detective Blake, is that you were attacked on Old Third Street, between Roscoe Conkling Park and the reservoir, by two men, drugged or chloroformed, that your camera was smashed, and that you were taken to a surrey that was waiting at the corner of Third Street and Higby Lane.”

“That was what I told the chief, and that is what happened.”

“You further stated that the surrey was in charge of two women, and that they took you away in the surrey.”

“That is true, your honor.”

“Now, tell in your own words how you escaped from these women. But wait a minute. Before you do that look about the courtroom. Is there a man here whom you can identify as one of your captors?”

“It is no good looking around. I didn’t see the men. I could not identify them.”

“How about the women?” Beverly surveyed the room carefully, her splendid calm unruffled by the rude gaze of the crowd.

“I do not see either of the women,” she replied.

“Now go ahead and tell us how you escaped from them.”

“Well, I just dumped them. You know, judge, I have been accustomed riding since I was a little girl. I have won blue ribbons for owners of fine horses.”

“I can believe that,” said the magistrate, favoring himself with a look at the violet eyes. “But this wasn’t a fine horse. It was an old skate.”

“It was a big bay horse, very bony. But he had some ginger in him, even if he lacked oats. Well, I sat with one woman on the rear seat. She had taken a whisky sour, whatever that is, in a village on the way, and was sleepy. The other was driving. I jumped into the front, snatched away the whip, lashed the horse and ran him over the roughest ground I could find. And that was some rough going, judge.

“Well, the woman who was sleepy was thrown out. Then the surrey broke down and the other one dropped and I cut loose. I mounted the horse and rode to Mr. Yale’s farm.”

“Why did you choose to go there?”

“For more than one reason. The place was vacant, and would serve as a hiding place for a time. And I knew that sooner or later he would come there.”

“Yes, but you stated that you knew from an overheard conversation that Yale was suspected of the Raymond robbery.”

“I didn’t suspect him, and having been a recipient of your honor’s clear-sighted justice, I had no fears for him.”

She looked straight into the magistrate’s eyes as she spoke.

He never blinked nor blushed. “Did you see a black bag in the surrey?”

“I did not.”

“Did you carry a black bag into Yale’s house?”

“I certainly did not.”

“When did you see the black bag first?”

“When the chief of police brought it to the kitchen.”

“Why did you assume the name of Mrs. Owens, and give Yale the title of husband? Was it to defeat the ends of justice?”

“Not exactly. You see, so far as the ends of justice were concerned they were far away from me. I knew that Mr. Yale was suspected, and unable just then to protect himself, and so I did what I could to protect him.

“I had told Adolphus, or whatever his name is, that I was farm-hunting. When I went for him to help me with Mr. Yale, I knew that in order to remain there and not arouse comment, he must be known as my husband.”

“You were aware, of course, that you were defying public opinion.”

“Your honor, I have been nearly all over the civilized world, a good deal of the time alone. I have never done wrong, nor have I suffered wrong— until now. I have fought my way as a man fights his. I have defied public opinion, if you choose to put it that way. I have always found public opinion carrion in its taste. It will feast on its own conceived rottenness and overlook the true motive that underlies an fiction. I am not a slave to public opinion. I have no action in my life to recall with shame.”

“And I arrested that girl,” whispered the chief to Blake. “She is superb.”

“She is royal,” admitted Blake. “But who the devil stole the wedding presents?”

Chapter 30

Who Got the Reward.

THE judge rustled the leaves of the manuscript, which, in fact, was a resume of the case which the chief had got into his honor’s hands before midnight on Saturday, and which the judge had conscientiously studied all day Sunday.

“Yale,” he said, looking sternly at the man with the bandaged foot, “why did you seek your own house as a hiding place?”

“I didn’t,” replied Yale. “I had no more thought of hiding than you have at this moment. I left the Whitesboro Hotel with Williams in his automobile. Somebody had evidently tampered with the machine, and we were wrecked. I lay all night in the woods unconscious.

“In the morning Williams was not to be found, and I was suffering tortures. I knew my house was the nearest. I knew I would find water and a way to heat it. I went through the woods on a path I remembered, and when in sight of the place fell unconscious. I was not fleeing from justice. I was in search of Beverly Wayne.”

“Because you believed she had skipped her bond?”

“No, because I believed she had been abducted.”

“Why? Had you deduced any reason for the abduction of Miss Wayne?”

“I believed that she knew, or the robbers believed she knew, something that would convict them.”

“But according to Miss Wayne’s testimony, in which I can find no flaw, she knows nothing about the robbery.”

“I believe that now, and cannot understand why the robbers should want to steal her away.”

“And they seemed to have an unreasoning hatred of the camera.”

“I can’t understand that, either.”

“Do you know how that black bag got into your house? I am willing to admit that a man who was borne in unconscious did not carry it.”

“I have absolutely no idea. George Greenland visited the place, and was roughly received by Adolphus and his mother. Why, after showing that faithfulness they deserted us at night, when we were to be visited by robbers, I can’t imagine. But the man is here, and perhaps your honor can get something out of him.”

“We’ll come to that. Chief, from what source did you receive the information that a big blond man drove a big bay bony horse into Yale’s farmyard the day after the Raymond robbery, and had in his wagon a big black bag?”

“I received the information from a man who gives his name as Edward Smith, says he lives in the village of Prospect, near Trenton Falls, and his story goes on that he was driving toward Utica and saw the big blond man drive into Yale’s farmyard. He said that the contents of the bag were of soft metal, not steel or iron.”

“He had a sharp ear, that Edward Smith. Where is he now?”

“I don’t know, just at this moment.”

The magistrate looked alarmed, and then vexed. “But you knew, didn’t you, chief, that this Smith might prove a very important witness?”

“I did know it, but I wasn’t going to give it away to him. He came to me early on Saturday morning and made specific inquiries about the reward of fifty thousand dollars Mr. Raymond has offered for the first clue or evidence that leads to the apprehension and conviction of the thieves. Instead of holding him in custody I wrote down his information, and let him go.”

“Were you not afraid that he would escape if this investigation did not turn out his way?”

“No. It has turned out his Way so far except that both Miss Wayne and Yale were in the house, and he said nothing about that. Moreover, one of my best men is about twenty feet behind him no matter where he goes, and there is no danger of his escaping.”

“Good. Where is that man—  Adolphus, come here.”

The big blond strode with heavy feet and imperturbable face to the bench. “What is your name?”

“Vell, de laty, she call me Adolphus.”

“I know, but what is your real name?”

“Karl.”

“Karl what?”

“No, Karl Wenn.”

“Don’t dare fool with me!” thundered the judge. “Don’t spring gags about what and when on this court. What is your name?”

“Yah! You mak foolishness yourselluf! I tells you my name iss Karl Wenn! Vat I care about diss court?”

“I’ll— ”

“Don’t get mad, judge,” said the chief, smothering a laugh. “I have heard the name among a certain set of foreigners near Trenton Falls. They are Bohemians or something— glass workers in the new factory.”

“How do you spell it?”

“W— E— N— N.”

“Oh. Now, Karl Wenn, did you drive that big bay bony horse into Mr. Yale’s farmyard?”

“No.”

“Did you carry a black bag in there?”

“No.”

“Why did you leave the Yale house on Friday?”

“Ha! I gif dem split heads ven I catch ’em. Tamn!”

“Tell us.”

“Vell, I go vor to veed dem horse ant my chickens. My mudder, she sday all de time mid dem mans ant womans. Vell, I am in de parn mit de horse, ant two mans gome in, knock me town, ant tie my hants ant legs.”

“Yes, go on.”

“Den dey tage me out ant trow me in de woods.”

“Yes?”

“Well, my mudder gets avraid by me bein’ away, ant gomes to look. She ton’t find me. She sday all night in de shandy ant finds me in de mornin’.”

“Go sit down.”

The judge, amid a silence that was painful, studied the manuscript before him.

“From whom did you get the information that the two prisoners were in Yale’s farmhouse?” the judge now asked the chief.

“From George Greenland.”

“George Greenland!”

“George Greenland to the bar!” thundered the clerk.

Greenland, looking far from happy, walked before the judge.

“You visited Yale’s place and tried to enter the house. What was your object?”

“Mr. Raymond’s arguments had convinced me that Yale was a party to the robbery. Naturally, I believed he would go to his own place, since that was his primary object in leaving New York. I hung about until I was sure Miss Wayne was there. I did not see Yale. I did try to get inside the kitchen, and nearly had my head broken by an old hag with a broomstick, and my face almost smashed in by Karl Wenn.”

“Did you know anything about the black bag?”

“I did not, sir.”

“Now,” said the judge, “somebody put that black bag in that house, and I am going to know who did it. There is some queer mystery in this case that seems baffling but which will be simple enough when we find the key. Mr. Raymond!”

Mr. Raymond rose and moved slowly down the aisle toward the judge. But the strong man who had controlled thousands of workers and millions of money had vanished. He had aged ten years in a week. His face was seamed and furrowed, and he tottered. An expression of pity came upon Beverly’s face, and upon Yale’s.

“Mr. Raymond,” began the judge kindly, “you have heard all this testimony. Produce that bag.”

The chief nodded to a policeman, who brought forward a bag.

“Mr. Raymond, do you identify these articles as some of Miss Raymond’s wedding presents?”

“I can easily identify the candelabra, your honor. I was partly instrumental in its purchase. A little girl whom my daughter had taken as a protégée—  I need not go into details, your honor. The little girl was poor, and wanted to give Nancy something. I helped the thing along and we purchased this candelabra.”

“Now,” said the magistrate, with his most judicial air, which had chilled the heart of more than a few people in that courtroom during his magistracy, “we have advanced so far in this investigation: these pieces of silver are part of the booty stolen from Mr. Raymond’s house. In some mysterious manner they, in this black bag, were conveyed to Yale’s house on Old Mill Farm. Why, does not yet appear.

“On Friday night the house was visited by at least two burglars, one of whom was knocked down by Yale with a chair. Now, who were these burglars? How did they know the silver was in the house? How was this small portion separated from the rest, and why? Also, why are these new burglars freshly injected into the case? Were they after this silver or did they expect to find money?”

“Neither!” The clear, ringing, bell-like tone leaped from the lips of Beverly Wayne. Her radiant face, in its wreath of unfastened hair, was turned toward the judge, and her splendid arm was outstretched and a white finger pointed.

“You may be a judge and may be able to read minds and faces,” she continued. “But I am a girl who has fought. I have trampled on schemes as subtle as this, and will trample on this one now.

“Those men who broke into the house did not come to steal. This silver was put in that house to be found by the police so that Kenneth Yale and I would Be arrested. An application has been made for the reward of fifty thousand dollars. With Kenneth and me convicted on this circumstantial evidence the man called Edward Smith would claim the— ”

There was a commotion at the door, and a man showing great eagerness and waving a large envelope in his hand made his way to the rail. It was Mr. Phrey, the Broad Street photographer.

“Your honor,” he said, “may I interrupt the proceedings of the court?”

“Does what you have to say bear on the Raymond robbery?”

“I think it solves the mystery, sir.”

“Proceed.”

“Your honor, on the morning following the robbery Miss Wayne brought me her camera. She wanted a new reel of film and wished to leave the old one to be developed. She said she was not in a hurry, and I forgot all about the films. But when I heard of the arrest of Miss Wayne and Mr. Yale I bethought me of them, and this morning I began to develop them.

“There is one, which I have here, that is important. Your honor will remember that Miss Wayne testified at her former hearing that during the night of the robbery she took a flashlight picture of the wedding presents.”

“I remember that statement.”

“Here is the flashlight she took. Regard it with care. It is a remarkably clear flashlight picture. There is the tableful of silver. Now, if your honor looks close, you will see, crouching on all fours, under the serving table near the buffet, the figure of a man with a scared face. You will also see, peering from behind a portiere, another frightened face. Those men, I believe, are the robbers, disturbed, but not deterred, by Miss Wayne’s entrance to the room.”

“Ha! Hand me that film!”

“I have some prints,” said Mr. Phrey. He handed one to the judge, one to the chief, one to Beverly and one to Wayne. All four studied the picture.

“Oh, oh,” said Yale. “Your honor, that man under the serving table is the man I saw at Whitesboro, the man with the short hair and prison face.”

“And by all that’s great,” cried the chief, with more excitement than he had shown in twenty years, “that fellow peeking from behind the curtain is Edward Smith, the one who gave me the information and who wants the fifty thousand dollars reward. See the game? He could afford to lose these few pieces of silver to convict Yale and Miss Wayne and get the big money.”

“You are both wrong,” cried Mr. Raymond, “or else you are both right and I am the victim of rascals in whom I trusted. Prison face? Bosh! Edward Smith? Bosh! Damn them! Why these are Dick Whipple, who lives on Oneida Street, and his brother, Jim Whipple, who works for him.

“In order to have my house fit for the wedding of my daughter I resolved to have the downstairs rooms redecorated. I had seen Whipple’s sign, and, as he was a near neighbor, being close to the Parkway and Boulevard, I employed him and his brother James. James did have short hair and a peculiar complexion. They finished work about four o’clock on the day before the robbery, and of course, saw most of the presents, knew the plan of the house, and the habits of the household.”

“This Dick Whipple has not long been a resident of Utica, I suppose,” said the judge.

“No,” answered the chief, “and his name is not Dick Whipple at all, neither is it Edward Smith. I didn’t know him, but I know the chap with the short hair. His name is Pete Mennish, and he was sentenced to ten years in Auburn prison one year ago, and escaped about a month since. He lived in Rome.

“It is all over, your honor. These men are not far away, nor the women. They worked the plan of which Mr. Raymond was a victim. They do decorate interiors, and having located their booty, go and take it. I’ll have the four of them before to-morrow night, and all the wedding presents will be in Mr. Raymond’s house by Wednesday evening.”

“This accounts for the smashed camera and the attack on Miss Wayne,” said the judge. “The robbers feared that Miss Wayne saw them, or that she had taken them in the picture. What they did not know was that Miss Wayne had exchanged films at Mr. Phrey’s place of business. Mr. Phrey, you have the thanks of the court. Prisoners are discharged with the good will and hope of the court that the future will bring them happiness.”

“My child, my child,” sobbed Mr. Raymond, crushing Beverly to his bruised old breast, “can you ever forget and forgive the stupid cruelty of an old fool?”

“Sure,” said Beverly, laughing with eyes full of tears. “It’s all over. Let bygones be bygones and dead dogs be buried. Let’s all go home and tell Nance all about it.”

And Mr. Raymond, young and strong again, led Beverly, Yale, and Greenland to his automobile outside.

The reunion at Raymond’s house has nothing to do with the story.

THE CHIEF made good his word. Before Tuesday had come to a close the two interior decorators and their wives had been placed behind bars.

On Wednesday two long coffin shaped boxes containing the wedding presents arrived at Raymond’s house.

“And now, since everything is as it should be, and Yale and Beverly have forgiven us for our foolish suspicions,” said Greenland, “I am going to be married next week, and they are going to stay to the wedding.”

“We have one of our own to take care of,” added Yale. “We are two waifs upon the turbulent stream of life and desire a rest from whirlpools and rapids. We are going to be married, eh, Bev?”

“Why not make it double—  an order for four instead of two?” suggested Greenland.

“They can’t,” said Nancy, “though it would be lovely and delightful. One of the contracting parties must live in the county where the licenses are issued.”

“Don’t worry. Beverly and I will get our license. I am a resident of the county, and my home is Old Mill Farm, on West Canada Creek. And— ”

“It will be our home afterward, too,” said Beverly. “I am sick of hitting the high places. A rocking chair for Sister Beverly from now on.”

They all laughed and Mr. Raymond did some writing.

“This will be honored at the Oneida County Bank to-morrow,” he said, handing a check for fifty thousand dollars to Beverly, who almost fainted as she protested.

“Take it? Of course you will take it. It is yours. You have earned it. In every Utica paper my offer of a reward for the first reliable clue has been printed. You furnished that clue when you took the flashlight picture. Now I’m going to have one good sleep. This is a happy house once more.”

It was, indeed, a happy house. Mrs. Raymond lay on a couch near her husband to soothe her exhausted nerves. Greenland and Nancy resumed the thread of an uninterrupted courtship that had been so near disaster.

Yale and Beverly had business of their own. Their short, swift courtship, was of the passionate, whirlwind order, as might be expected, and yet it was tempered by the repression natural to such self-contained natures. They were not as sentimental as Nancy nor as sulky as Greenland. The world was theirs and they enjoyed it all.

Beverly made a deposit of her fifty thousand dollars for future investment. Then they went together to visit Williams at St. Luke’s Hospital, and found him so much improved that the doctors felt certain of his speedy recovery. Next Yale gave an order for two automobiles.

“But why two?” asked Beverly. “It isn’t like horseback riding. Can’t we ride together?”

“We will, my red-headed friend. One of these is for Williams, whose other machine was smashed in our service.”

“In mine, you mean.”

“Well, that’s mine, too.”

“Oh! boss! But don’t you call me a redhead.”

“I’ll flatter your vanity no more. There I was worshipping your violet eyes, and you told me they were blue. I thought your hair was auburn, but now I’m sure it’s red. Come along and see the color of a diamond. I’ll treat you to an engagement ring at Broadbent’s.”

And they tramped gaily down Genesee street together.

The End

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30