🔎 The Mystery Girl by Carolyn Wells | Classic Detective Audiobook 🎧

Step into a world of intrigue and suspense with Caroline Wells's captivating mystery, The Mystery Girl. In this tale, Wells introduces us to an enigmatic young woman whose sudden arrival unsettles a quiet community and stirs questions no one can easily answer. Who is she? And why does she guard her secrets so fiercely? As whispers of doubt and curiosity ripple through her surroundings, layers of deception and truth intertwine. Prepare to journey through puzzling encounters, veiled intentions, and the tantalizing promise of revelation as this classic detective story unfolds before you.

Chapter one, a president-elect.

Quite aside from its natural characteristics, there is an atmosphere about a college town, especially a New England college town, that is unmistakable. It is not so much actively intellectual as passively aware of and satisfied with its own intellectuality; the beautiful little town of Corinth was no exception. From its tree-shaded village green to the white-columned homes on its outskirts, it fairly radiated a satisfied sense of its own superiority. Not that the people were smug or self-conceited. They merely accepted the fact that the University of Corinth was among the best in the country, and that all true Corinthians were both proud and worthy of it. The village itself was a gem of well-kept streets, roads, and houses, and all New England could scarce show a better-groomed settlement. In a way, the students, of course, owned the place. Yet there were many families whose claim to prominence lay in another direction. However, Corinth was, by all accounts, a college town, and gloried in it.

The university had just passed through the throes and thrills of one of its own presidential elections. The contest of the candidates had been long, and at last the strife had become bitter. Two factions strove for supremacy. One, the conservative side, adhering to old traditions. The other, the modern spirit, preferring new conditions and progressive enterprise. Hard-waged and hard-won. The battle had resulted at last in the election of John Wearing, the candidate of the followers of the old school. Wearing was not an old fogy, nor yet a hidebound or narrow-minded back number, but he did put mental attainment ahead of physical prowess, and he did hold by certain old-fashioned principles and methods, which he and his constituents felt to be the backbone of the old and honored institution. Wherefore, though his election was an accomplished fact, John Wearing had made enemies that seemed likely never to be placated. But Wearing's innate serenity and acquired poise were not disturbed by adverse criticism. He was a man with an eye singled to his duty as he saw it, and he accepted the position of responsibility and trust simply and sincerely, with a determination to make his name honored among the list of presidents.

Inauguration, however, would not take place until June, and the months from February on would give him time to accustom himself to his new duties, and to learn much from the retiring president. Yet, it must not be thought that John Wearing was unpopular. On the contrary, he was respected and liked by everybody in Corinth. Even the rival faction conceded his ability, his sterling character, and his personal charm. And their chagrin and disappointment at his election was far more because of their desire for the other candidate's innovations than of any dislike for John Wearing as a man. Of course, there were some who candidly expressed their disapproval of the new president, but so far no real opposition was made, and it was hoped there would be none.

Now, whether because of the exigencies of his new position or merely because of the irresistible charms of Mrs. Bates, Wearing expected to make the lady his wife before his inauguration. And a good thing, his neighbor Mrs. Adams observed, John Wearing ought to have been somebody's good-looking husband long ago, but a bachelor president of Corinth is out of all reason. Who'd stand by his side at the receptions? I'd like to know for certain. Public receptions were dearly loved by the citizens of Corinth. And Mrs. Adams was one of the most reception-loving of all. As in all college towns, there were various and sundry boarding houses, inns, and hotels of all grades. But the boarding house of Mrs. Adams was without a dissenting voice acclaimed the most desirable and most homelike. The good lady's husband, though known as Old Salt, was by no means a seafaring man, nor had he ever been. Instead, he was a leaf on a branch of the Sultan stall family tree, and the irreverent abbreviation had been given him long ago, and had stuck.

"Yes, indeed," Mrs. Adams asserted. "We've never had a bachelor president of Corinth, and I hope we never will. Mrs. Bates is a nice, sweet-spoken lady, a widow of four years' standing. And I do say she's just the one for Dr. Wearing's wife. She has dignity, and yet she's mighty human."

Emily Bates was human, not very tall, a little inclined to plumpness, with fair hair and laughing blue eyes. She was of a cozy, homeloving sort, and her innate good nature and ready tact were unfailing. At first she had resisted John Wearing's appeal, but he persisted until she found she really liked the big, wholesome man, and without much difficulty learned to love him. Wearing was distinguished-looking rather than handsome, tall and well-made. He had a decided air of reserve which he rarely broke through, but which Emily Bates discovered could give way to confidences showing depths of sweetness and charm. The two were happily matched. Wearing was 42, and Mrs. Bates half a dozen years younger, but both seemed younger than their years, and retained their earlier tastes and enthusiasms. Also, both were bound up heart and soul in the welfare of the university. Mrs. Bates's first husband had been one of its prominent professors, and its history and traditions were known and loved by the cheery little lady.

Perhaps the only person in Corinth who was not pleased at the approaching nuptials of John Wearing and Emily Bates was Mrs. Payton, Wearing's present housekeeper, for it meant the loss of her position, which she had faithfully filled for 10 years or more. And this meant the loss of a good and satisfactory home, not only for herself, but for her daughter Helen, a girl of 18, who lived there also. Not yet had Wearing told his housekeeper that she was to be dethroned, but she knew the notice would come, knew too, that it was delayed only because of John Wearing's disinclination to say or do anything unwelcome to another. And Mrs. Payton had been his sister's school friend, and had served him well and faithfully. Yet she must go, for the incoming mistress needed no other housekeeper for the establishment than her own efficient, capable self.

It was a very cold February afternoon, and Mrs. Payton was serving tea in the cheerful living room. Emily Bates was present, an indulgence she seldom allowed herself, for she was punctilious regarding conventions, and Corinth people, after all, were critical. Though to be sure, there was no harm in her taking tea in the home so soon to be her own. The two women were outwardly most courteous, and if there was an underlying hostility, it was not observable on the part of either.

"I came today," Emily Bates said, as she took her teacup from the Japanese butler who offered it, "because I want to tell you, John, of some rumors I heard in the town. They say there is trouble brewing for you."

"Trouble brewing is such a picturesque phrase," Wearing said, smiling idly as he stirred his tea. "One immediately visions Macbeth's witches and their trouble brew."

"You needn't laugh," Emily flashed an affectionate smile toward him. "When the phrase is used, it often means something."

"Something vague and indefinite?" suggested Gordon Lockwood, who was Wearing's secretary and was as one of the family.

"Not necessarily," Mrs. Bates returned. "More likely something definite, though perhaps not very alarming."

"Such as what?" asked Wearing. "And from what direction? Will the freshmen make me an apple-pie bed, or will the seniors haze me? Do you think?"

"Be serious, John," Mrs. Bates begged. "I tell you there is a movement on foot to stir up dissension. I heard they would contest the election."

"Oh, they can't do that!" Lockwood stated. "Nor would anybody try."

"Alarmed?" Mrs. Bates. "I'm sure we know all that's going on, and I can't think there's any trouble brewing for Dr. Wearing."

"I've heard it too," vouchsafed Mrs. Payton. "It's not anything definite, but there are rumors and hints, and where there's smoke, there's bound to be fire. I wish you'd at least look into it, doctor."

"Yes," agreed Emily Bates. "Do look into it, John."

"But how can I?" Wearing smiled. "I can't go from door to door, saying, 'I've come to investigate a rumor, can I?' Oh, don't be absurd."

Mrs. Bates's plump little hands fluttered in protest and then fell quietly to rest in her lap. "You men are so tactless. Now," Mrs. Payton or I could find out all about it without anyone knowing we were making inquiry."

"Why don't you then?" asked Wearing, and Mrs. Payton gave a pleased smile as the guests bracketed their names. "I will if you say so."

"Emily spoke gravely. "That is what I wanted to ask you. I didn't like to take up the matter with anyone unless you directly approved."

"Oh, go ahead. I see no harm in it."

"But Dr. Wearing," put in Lockwood. "Is it wise? I fear that if Mrs. Bates takes up this matter, she may get in deeper than she means or expects to. And, well, you can't tell what might turn up."

"That's so, Emily. As matters stand, you'd best be careful."

"Oh, John, how vacillating you are! First, you say, 'Go ahead.' And then you say, 'Stop.' I don't mind your changing your opinions, but I do resent your paying so little attention to the matter. You toss it aside without thought."

"Dr. Wearing thinks very quickly," said Mrs. Payton, and Emily gave her a slight stare. It was hard for the housekeeper to realize that she must inevitably lose her place in his household, and the thought made her a little assertive while she still had opportunity.

"Yes, I know it," was the reply Emily gave, and went on, addressing herself to the two men. "Persuade him, Mr. Lockwood, not of his duty. He never misapprehends that, but of the necessity of looking on this matter as a duty."

"What a pleader you are, Emily," and Wearing gave her an admiring bow. "I am almost persuaded that my very life is in danger."

"Oh, you won't be good." The blue eyes twinkled, but the rosy little mouth took on a mutinous pout. "Well, I warn you, if you don't look out for yourself, I'm going to look out for you, and that, as Mr. Lockwood hints, may get you into trouble."

"What a contradictory little person it is. In an effort to get me out of trouble, you admit you will probably get me into trouble. Well, well, if this is during our betrothal days, what will you do after we are married?"

"Oh, then you'll obey me implicitly." And the expressive hands indicated with a wide sweep, total subjection.

"You'll find him not absolutely easy to manage," Mrs. Payton declared. And though Emily Bates said no word, she gave a look of superior managing power that brought the housekeeper's thin lips together in a resentful straight line. This byplay was unnoticed by large-minded John Wearing, but it amused Lockwood, who was an observer of human nature. Unostentatiously, he watched Mrs. Payton, as she turned her attention to the tea tray, and noted the air of importance with which she continued her duties as hostess.

"Bring hot toast, too," she said to the well-trained and deferential Japanese, "and a few more lemon slices. I see another guest coming." She smiled out through the window, and a moment later a breezy young chap came into the room.

"Hello, folkses!" he cried. "Hello, Aunt Emily!" He gave Mrs. Bates an audible kiss on her pretty cheek and bowed with boyish good humor to Mrs. Payton. "How do you do, Uncle Doctor? And how goes it, Lock?" He went on as he threw himself a little sprawlingly into an easy chair. "And here's the fair Helen of Troy!" He jumped up as Helen Payton came into the room.

"Why, Pinky!" she said. "When did you come?"

"Just now, my girl, as you noted from your oral lattice, and came running down to bask in the sunshine of my smiles."

"Behave yourself, Pinky," admonished his aunt, as she noted Helen's quick blush and realized the saucy boy had told the truth.

Pinkney Payne, college freshman and nephew of Emily Bates, was very fond of Dr. Wearing, his English teacher, and is also fond in his boyish way of his aunt, but he was no respecter of authority. And now that his aunt was to be the wife of his favorite professor, also the president-elect of the college, he assumed an absolute familiarity with the whole household. His nickname was not only an abbreviation, but was descriptive of his exuberant health and invariably red cheeks. For the rest, he was just a rollicking, carefree boy, ringleader in college fun, often punished, but bobbing up serenely again, ready for more mischief. Helen Payton adored the irrepressible Pinky, and though he liked her, it was no more than he felt for many others, and not so much as he had for a few.

"Tea, Mrs. Payton."

"Oh, yes, indeed, thank you. Yes, two lemon and three sugar. And toasts and cakes. Oh, what good ones! What a tuck! Alma Ma doesn't feed us like this."

"I say, Aunt Emily," after you are married, may I come to tea every day and bring the fellows?"

"I'll answer that. You may," said John Wearing, "and I'll revise the answer. You may, with reservations," Mrs. Bates supplemented. "Now, Pinky, you're a dear and a sweet, but you can't annex this house and all its affairs just because it's going to be my home."

"Don't want to, auntie. I only want you to annex me. You'll keep the same cook we have at present, won't you?" He looked solicitously at her over a large slice of toast and jam he was devouring.

"Maybe and maybe not," Mrs. Payton spoke up. "Cooks are not always anxious to be kept."

"At any rate, we'll have a cook, Pinky, of some sort," his aunt assured him. And the boy turned to tease Helen Payton, who was quite willing to be teased.

"I saw your beau today, Helen," he said.

"Which one?" she asked placidly. "Is there a crowd?"

"Well, I mean the Tyler person. He hangs out at Old Salt's. And by the way, Uncle President," yes, I am a bit previous on both counts, but you'll soon have the honor of being both president and my uncle. By the way, I say, Bob Tyler says there's something in the wind, a straw to show which way it blows."

"Perhaps," Wearing said. "Perhaps, sir, but it's blowing. Tyler says there's a movement on foot to make things hot for you if you take the presidential chair with your present intentions."

"My intentions?"

"Yes, sir. About athletics and sports in general. And what are my so-called intentions?"

"They say you mean to cut out sport?"

"Oh, Pinkney, you know better than that."

"Well, Dr. Wearing, some seem to think that's what you have in mind. If you declare your intentions now."

"Look here, Pinky. Don't you think I have enough on my mind in the matter of marrying your aunt without bringing in other matters till that's settled?"

"Going to be married soon?"

"Uncle Doc, we are as soon as your aunt will select a pleasant day for the ceremony. Then, that attended to, I can devote my mind and energies to this other subject. And meanwhile, my boy, if you hear talk about it, don't make any assertions. Rather, try to hush up the subject."

"I see. I see. And I will, Dr. Wearing. You don't want to bother with those things till you're a settled-down married man. I know just how you feel about it. Important business, this getting married, I dare say, sir."

"It is, and so much so that I'm going to take the bride-elect off right now for a little private confab. You must understand that we have much to arrange. Run along."

"Bless you, my children." Pinky waved a teacup and a sandwich benevolently toward the pair as they left the room and went off in the direction of the doctor's study.

The house was a large one with a fine front portico upheld by six enormous fluted columns. One of the most beautiful of New England doorways led into a wide hall. To the right of this was the drawing room, not so often used and not so well-liked as the more cozy living room. To the left as one entered, and where the tea-drinking group now sat. Behind these two rooms and hall ran a cross-hall with an outer door at the end, back of the living room, and a deep and wide window seat at the other end. Behind the drawing room, further back, beyond the cross-hall, on the living room side, was the dining room, and beside it, back of the drawing room, was the doctor's study. This was the gem of the whole house. The floor had been sunken to give greater ceiling height, for the room was very large and of fine proportions. It opened onto the cross-hall with wide double doors, and a flight of six or seven steps descended to its rug-covered floor. Opposite the double doors was the great fireplace with a high overmantel of carved stone. Each side of the mantle were windows, high and not large. The main daylight came through a great window on the right of the entrance, and also from a long French window that opened like doors on the same side. This French window giving on a small porch and the door that opened into the cross-hall of the house were the only doors in the great room, save those on cupboards and bookcases. On the other side of the room, opposite the French window, was a row of four small windows looking into the dining room, but these were high and could not be seen through by people on the sunken floor of the study. The whole room was done in sassafras walnut and represented the ideal abode of a man of letters. The fireside was flanked with two facing davenports. The wide window seat was piled with cushions. The French window doors were suitably curtained, and the high windows were of truly beautiful stained glass. The spacious table desk was in the middle of the room, and bookcases, both portable and built-in, lined the walls. There were a few good busts and valuable pictures, and the whole effect was one of dignity and repose rather than of elaborate grandeur. The room was renowned, and all Corinth spoke of it with pride. The students felt at a great occasion that brought them within its walls, and the faculty loved nothing better than a session therein. Casual guests were rarely entertained in the study. Only special visitors or those worthy of its classic atmosphere found welcome there. Mrs. Payton or Helen were not expected to use it, and Mrs. Bates had already declared she should respect it as the sanctum of Dr. Wearing alone.

The two made their way to the window seat, and as he arranged the soft cushions for her, Wearing said, "Don't, Emily, ever feel shut out of this room. As I live now, I've not welcomed the Pattons in here, but my wife is a different proposition."

"I still feel in awe of the place, John, but I may get used to it. Anyway, I'll try. And I do appreciate your willingness to have me in here."

"Then, if you want to be alone, you must put me out."

"I'll probably do that sometimes, dear, for I have to spend many hours alone. You know, I'm not taking the presidency lightly."

"I know it, you conscientious dear. But on the other hand, don't be too serious about it. You're just the man for the place, just the character for a college president. And if you try too hard to improve or reconstruct yourself, you'll probably spoil your present perfection. Well, nothing would spoil your present perfection, my Emily."

"I am too greatly blessed to have the great honor from the college. And you, too. Are you happy, John?"

"All happy." Wearing's deep blue eyes fastened themselves on her face. His brown hair showed only a little gray at the temples. His fine face was not touched deeply by time's lines, and his clear, wholesome skin glowed with health. If there was an instant hesitation before his reply came, it was nonetheless hearty and sincere. "Yes, my darling, all happy. And you?"

"I am happy if you are," she returned. "But I can never be happy if there is a shadow of any sort on your heart. Is there, John? Tell me truly."

"You mean regarding this trouble that I hear is brewing for me?"

"Not only that, I mean in any direction."

"Trouble, Emily, with you in my arms? No. A thousand times no. Trouble and I are strangers so long as I have you."

Chapter 2. Miss Mystery arrives.

Anyone who has arrived at the railroad station of a New England village after dark on a very cold winter night, the train late, no one to meet him, and no place engaged for board and lodging will know the desolation of such a situation. New England's small railroad stations are much alike. The crowds that alight from the trains are much alike. The people waiting on the platform for the arriving travelers are much alike. But there came into Corinth one night a passenger who was not at all like the fellow passengers on that belated train. It was a train from New York, due in Corinth at 5:40, but owing to the extreme cold weather and various untoward freezings occasioned thereby, the delays were many and long, and the train drew into the station shortly after 7:00. Tired, hungry, and impatient, the travelers crowded out of the train and stamped through the snow to the vehicles awaiting them or footed it to their nearby homes. The passenger, who was unlike the others, stepped down from the car platform, and holding her small suitcase firmly, crossed the track and entered the station waiting room. She went to the ticket window, but found there no attendant. Impatiently, she tapped her little foot on the old board floor, but no one appeared.

"Agent," she called out, rapping with her knuckles on the window shelf. "Agent, where are you?"

"Who's there? What do you want?" growled a surly voice, and a head appeared at the ticket window.

"I want somebody to look after me. I'm alone, and I want a porter, and I want a conveyance, and I want some information."

"Oh, you do? Well, I can't supply porters, nor yet conveyances, but information I may be able to give you."

"Very well, then," and a pair of big dark eyes seemed to pierce his very brain. "Then tell me where I can find the best accommodations in Corinth."

The now roused agent looked more interestedly at the inquirer. He saw a mere slip of a girl, young, slender, and very alert of manner. Her dark, grave little face was oval, and her eyes had a strange, uncanny way of roving quickly about and coming suddenly back, greatly disconcerting the stolid ticket agent. This agent was not unused to girls; a college town is often invaded by hordes of smart young women, pretty girls, and gay hoidens. Many Junes he had sold tickets or given information to hundreds of feminine inquirers, but none had ever seemed quite like this one.

"Best accommodations?" he repeated stupidly.

"You heard me, then. About when do you propose to reply?" Still, he gazed at her in silence, running over in his mind the various boarding houses, and finding none he thought she'd like.

"There's a rule of the railroad company that questions must be answered the same day they're asked," she said witheringly, and picking up her suitcase, she started for the door, feeling that anyone she might find would know more than this dummy.

"Wait, oh, I say, miss, wait a minute."

"I did," she said coolly, proceeding to the door.

"But, oh, hold on. Try Old Salt Adams. You couldn't do better."

"Where is it?" She deigned to pause a moment, and he replied quickly. "He's right outside. Hurry up out. You can catch him."

Here was something she could understand, and she hurried up out just in time to see an old man with a long white beard jump into his sleigh and begin to tuck fur robes about him. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, she quoted to herself, and then cried out, "Hey there, Santa Claus! Give me a lift. You engaged for our house?"

The man called back, and as she shook her head, he gathered up his reins. "Can't take anyone not engaged," he called back.

"Gidd up! Wait, wait! I command you!" The sharp, clear, young voice rang out through the cold winter air, and Old Sultanall Adams paused to listen.

"Oh ho," he chuckled. "You command me, do you? Now, I haven't been commanded for something like 50 years."

"Oh, don't stop to fuss," the girl exclaimed angrily. "Don't you see? I'm cold, hungry, and very uncomfortable. You have a boarding house. I won't board now. You take me in. Do you hear?"

"Sure, I hear, but, miss, we've only so many rooms, and they're all occupied or engaged."

"Some are engaged, but as yet unoccupied," the dark eyes challenged him. And Adams mumbled, "Well, that's about it. Very well, I will occupy one until the engager comes along. Let me get in."

"No, I can manage my suitcase myself. You get my trunk. Here's the check. Or will you send for that tomorrow?"

"Why wait? Might as well get it now. If so be, you're bound to bide. Afraid to wait in the sleigh alone?"

"I'm afraid of nothing," was the disdainful answer, and the girl pulled the fur robes up around her as she sat in the middle of the back seat. Shortly, Old Salt returned with the trunk on his shoulder and put it in the front with himself, and they started.

"Don't try to talk," he called back to her as the horses began a rapid trot. "I can't hear you against this wind."

"I have no intention of talking," the girl replied. But the man couldn't hear her. The wind blew fiercely. It was snowing a little, and the drift sent feathery clouds through the air. The trees coated with ice from a recent sleet storm broke off crackling bits of ice as they passed. The girl looked about at first curiously and then timidly, as if frightened by what she saw. It was not a long ride, and they stopped before a large house showing comfortably lighted windows and a broad front door that swung open even as the girl was getting down from the sleigh.

"For the land's sake!" exclaimed a brisk feminine voice. "This ain't Letty. Who in the earth have you got here?"

"I don't know," Old Salt Adams replied truthfully. "Take her along, mother, and give her a night's lodging."

"But where is Letty? Didn't she come?"

"Now, can't you see she didn't come? Do you suppose I left her at the station or dumped her out along the road? No, since you will have it, she didn't come. She didn't come." Old Salt drove on toward the barns, and Mrs. Adams bathed the girl go into the house. The landlady followed, and as she saw the strange guest, she gazed at her in frank curiosity.

"You want a room, I suppose," she began. "But I'm sorry to say we haven't one vacant."

"Oh, I'll take Letty's. She didn't come, you see, so I can take her room for tonight."

"Letty wouldn't like that."

"But I would, and I'm here, and Letty isn't. Shall we go right up?" Picking up her small suitcase, the girl started and then stepped back for the woman to lead the way.

"Not quite so fast, if you please. What is your name?" As the landlady's tone changed to a sterner inflection, the girl likewise grew dignified.

"My name is Anita Austin," she said coldly. "I came here because I was told it was the best house in Corinth."

"Where are you from?"

"New York City."

"What address?"

"Plaza Hotel."

By this time, the strange dark eyes had done their work. A steady glance from Anita Austin seemed to compel all the world to do her bidding. At any rate, Mrs. Adams took the suitcase, and without a further word, conducted the stranger upstairs. She took her into an attractive bedroom, presumably made ready for the absent Letty.

"This will do," Miss Austin said calmly. "Will you send me up a tray of supper? I don't want much and I prefer not to come down to dinner."

"Land sakes. Dinner's over long ago. You want some tea and bread and butter and preserves and cake?"

"Yes, thank you. That sounds good. Send it in half an hour."

To her guest, Mrs. Adams showed merely a face of acquiescence, but once outside the door, and released from the spell of those eerie eyes, she remarked to herself, "For the land's sake," with great emphasis, "Well, what do you know about that?"

Old Salt Adams cried, "When, after she had started him on his supper, his wife related the episode."

"I can't make her out," Mrs. Adams said thoughtfully. "But I don't like her, and I won't keep her. Tomorrow you take her over to Belton's, just as you say."

"But I thought her kind of interesting looking. You can't say she isn't that."

"Maybe so to some folks, not to me. And let come tomorrow, so that girl will have to get out of the room."

Meanwhile, that girl was eagerly peering out of her window. She tried to discern which were the lights of the college buildings, but through the still lightly falling snow she could see but little, and after a time she gave up the effort. She drew her head back into the room just as a tap at the door announced her supper.

"Thank you," she said to the maid who brought it. "Set it on that stand, please. It looks very nice." And then, sitting comfortably in an easy chair, robed in a warm dressing gown and slippers, Miss Anita Austin devoted a pleasant half hour to the simple but thoroughly satisfactory meal. This finished, she wrote some letters. Not many indeed, but few as they were, the midnight hour struck before she sealed the last envelope and wrote the last address. Then, prepared for bed, she again looked from the window and gazed long into the night.

"Corinth," she whispered, "Oh, Corinth, what do you hold for me? What fortune or misfortune will you bring me? What fortune or misfortune shall I bring to others? Oh, justice, justice, what crimes are committed in thy name?"

The next morning, Anita appeared in the dining room at the breakfast hour. Mrs. Adams scanned her sharply and looked a little disapprovingly at the short-skirted and slim-silken-legged new boarder. Anita, her dark eyes scanning her hostess with equal sharpness, seemed to express an equal disapproval of the country-cut gingham and huge white apron. Not at all obtuse, Mrs. Adams sensed this, and her tone was a little more deferential than she had at first intended to make it.

"Will you sit here, please, Miss Austin?" She indicated a chair next herself.

"No, thank you. I'll sit by my friend." And the girl slipped into a vacant chair next Salt and Stall Adams. Old Salt gave a furtive glance at his wife and suppressed a chuckle at her surprise.

"This is Mr. Tyler's place," he said to the usurper, "but I expect he'll let you have it this once."

"I mean to have it all the time."

"All the time is this one meal only," crisply put in Mrs. Adams. "I'm sorry, Miss Austin, but we can't keep you here. I have no vacant room."

The entrance of some other people gave Anita a chance to speak in an undertone to Mr. Adams. And she said, "You'll let me stay till Letty comes, won't you? I suppose you are boss in your own house." As a matter of fact, almost any phrase would have described the man better than boss in his own house. But the idea tickled his sense of irony, and he chuckled as he replied, "You bet I am. Here you stay, as long as you want to."

"You're my friend, then." And an appealing glance was shot at him from beneath long curling lashes that proved the complete undoing of Sultan Stall Adams.

"To the death," he whispered in mock dramatic manner.

"Anita gave a shiver. "What a way to put it," she cried. "I mean to live forever, sir."

"Doubtless," Old Salt returned placidly. "You're a freak, aren't you?"

"That isn't a very pretty way of expressing it, but I suppose I am." And a mutinous look passed over the strange little face. In repose, the face was oval, serene, and regular of feature. But when the girl smiled or spoke or frowned, changes took place, and the mobile countenance grew soft with laughter or hard with scorn. And scorn was plainly visible when a moment later Adams introduced Robert Tyler, a fellow boarder, to Miss Austin. She gave him first a conventional glance, then as he dropped into the chair next hers, and said, "Only too glad to give up my place. To a peach!" She turned on him a flashing glance that, as he expressed it afterward, wiped him off the face of the earth, nor could he reinstate himself in her good graces. He tried a penitent attitude, bravado, jocularity, and indifference, but one and all failed to engage her interest or even attention. She answered his remarks with calm, curt speeches that left him baffled and uncertain whether he wanted to bow down and worship her, or wring her neck.

Old Salt Adams took this all in. His amusement giving way to curiosity and then to wonder who was this person who looked like a young, very young girl, yet who had all the mental powers of an experienced woman. What was she and what her calling? The other boarders appeared. Those nearest Anita were introduced, and most of them considered her merely a pretty new guest. Her manners were irreproachable, her demeanor quiet and graceful. Yet, as Adams covertly watched her, he felt as if he were watching an inactive volcano. The meal over, he detained her a moment in the dining room.

"Why are you here, Miss Austin?" He said courteously. "What is your errand in Corinth?"

"I am an artist," she said, looking at him with her mysterious, intent gaze. "Or perhaps I should say an art student. I've been told that there are beautiful bits of winter scenery available for subjects here, and I want to sketch. Please, Mr. Adams, let me stay here until Letty comes."

A sudden twinkle in her eye startled the old man, and he said quickly, "How do you know she isn't coming?"

That in turn surprised Anita, but she only smiled and replied, "I saw a telegram handed to Mrs. Adams at breakfast. And then she looked thoughtfully at me, and oh well, I just sort of knew it was to say Letty couldn't come."

"You witch, you uncanny thing! If I should take you over to Salem, they'd burn you."

"I'll ride over on a broomstick someday and see if they will," she returned gleefully. And then along came Nemesis, in the person of the landlady.

"I'm sorry, Miss Austin," she began, but the girl interrupted her.

"Please, Mrs. Adams," she said pleadingly, "don't say anything to make me sorry, too. Now, you want to say you haven't any room for me, but that isn't true. So, you don't know what to say to get rid of me. But why do you want to get rid of me?"

Esther Adams looked at the girl, and that look was her undoing. Such a pathetic face, such pleading eyes, such a wistful, curved mouth. The landlady couldn't resist, and against her will, against her better judgment, she said, "Well, then stay, you poor little thing. But you must tell me more about yourself. I don't know who you are."

"I don't know myself," the strange girl returned. "Do we? Any of us know who we are? We go through this world strangers to each other, don't we? And also strangers to ourselves." Her eyes took on a far-away, mystical look. "If I find out who I am, I'll let you know." Then a dazzling smile broke over her face. They heard a musical ripple of laughter, and she was gone. They heard her steps as she ran upstairs to her room, and the two Adams's looked at each other.

"Daft," said Mrs. Adams, a little touched. "Poor child. I believe she has run away from home or from her keepers. We'll hear the truth soon. They'll be looking for her, perhaps," said her husband doubtfully. "But that isn't the way I size her up. She's nobody's fool, that girl. Wish you'd seen her give Bob Tyler his comeuppance."

"What she say?"

"Wasn't what she said so much as the look she gave him. He almost went through the floor. Well, she says she's a painter of scenery and landscapes. Let her stay a few days till I size her up."

"You size her up," returned his wife with good-natured contempt. "If she smiles on you or gives you a bit of taffy talk, you'll size her up for an angel."

"I'm not so sure she isn't quite the opposite."

Meanwhile, the subject of their discussion was arraying herself for a walk. Equipped with storm boots and fur coat, she set out to inspect Corinth. A jaunty fur cap with one long red quill feather gave her still more the appearance of an elf or gnome, and many of the Adams house boarders watched the little figure as she set forth to brave the icy streets. Apparently she had no fixed plan of procedure, for at each corner she looked about and chose her course at random. The snow had ceased during the night, and it was very cold with a clear, sunshiny frostiness in the air that made the olive cheeks red and glowing. Reaching a bridge, she paused and stood looking over the slight railing into the frozen ravine below. Long she stood until passers-by began to stare at her. She was unaware of this, absorbed in her thoughts, and oblivious to all about her.

Pinkney Payne coming along saw her and, as he would have expressed it, fell for her at once. "Don't do it, sister," he said, pausing beside her. "Don't end your young life on this glorious day. Self-harm is a mess at best. Take my advice and cut it out." She turned, ready to freeze him with a glance more icy even than the landscape. But his frank, roguish smile disarmed her.

"Freshman," she said patronizingly, but it didn't abash him.

"Yep. Pinkney Payne, if you must know. Commonly called Pinky."

"I don't wonder," And she noticed his red cheeks. "Well, now that you're properly introduced, tell me some of the buildings. What's that one?"

"Dormitories. And that pointing is the church."

"Really? And that beautiful colonnade one?"

"That's Dr. Wearing's home. Him as is going to be next Prexie. And that, and that." He replied to all her questions and kept his eyes fastened on her bewitching face. Never had Pinky seen a girl just like this. She looked so young, so merry, and yet her restless, roving eyes seemed full of hidden fire and tempestuous excitement.

"Where you from?" he said abruptly. "Where you staying?"

"At Mrs. Adams?" she returned.

"Is it a good house?"

"Best in town? Awful. Hard to get into. Always full up."

"Relative of hers?"

"No, just a boarder. I chanced to get a room someone else engaged and couldn't use."

"You're lucky. Met Bob Tyler?"

"Yes."

"You don't like him? I see that. Met Gordon Lockwood?"

"No."

"Who's he?"

"He's Dr. Wearing's secretary, but he's mighty worthwhile on his own account. I say, may I come to see you?"

"Thank you. No, I'm not receiving callers yet."

"Well, you will be soon, because I'm coming. I say, my aunt lives next door to Adams. May I bring her to call on you?"

"Not yet, please. I'm not settled."

"Soon you say the word, then. My aunt is Mrs. Bates, and she's a love. She's going to marry Dr. Wearing. So you see, with the right sort of people."

"There are no right sort of people," said the girl, and turning, she walked away.

Chapter 3. 13 buttons.

Apparently, Miss Austin's statement that there were no right sort of people was her own belief, for she made no friends at the Adams house, nor was this the fault of her fellow boarders. They were more than willing to be friendly, but their overtures were invariably ignored, not rudely, for Miss Austin seemed to be a girl of culture, and her manners were correct. But as one persistent matron expressed it, "You can't get anywhere with her." She talked to no one at the table, merely answering a direct question if put to her. She retained the seat next to Old Salt, seeming to rely on him to protect her from the advances of the others. Not that she needed protection exactly, for Miss Anita Austin was evidently quite able to take care of herself, but she was a mystery, and mysteries provoke inquiry. The house was not a large one, and the two score boarders, though they would have denied an imputation of curiosity, were exceedingly interested in learning the facts about Miss Mystery, as they had come to call her. Mrs. Adams was one of the most eager of all to know the truth, but as he did on rare occasions, Old Salt Adams had set down his foot, that the girl was not to be annoyed.

"I don't know who she is or where she hails from," he told his wife. "But as long as she stays here, she's not to be pestered by a lot of gossiping old hens. When she does anything you don't like, send her away. But so long as she's under my roof, she's got to be let alone." And let alone she was. Not so much because of Adams's dictum as because pestering did little good. The girl had a disconcerting way of looking an inquisitor straight in the eyes and then, with a monosyllabic reply, turning and walking off as if the other did not exist.

"Why?" said Miss Baskam aggrievedly, relating her experience. "I just said politely, 'Are you from New York or where, Miss Austin?' And she turned those big black eyes on me and said, 'Where?' Then she turned her back and looked out of the window as if she had wiped me off the face of the earth."

"She's too young to act like that," opined Mrs. Welby.

"Oh, she isn't so terribly young," Miss Baskam returned. "She's too experienced to be so very young."

"How do you know she's experienced? What makes you say that?"

"Why," Miss Baskam hesitated for words. "She's sort of sophisticated. You can see that from her looks. I mean, when anything is discussed at the table, she doesn't say a word, but you can tell from her face that she knows all about it. I mean, a matter of general interest, don't you know? I don't mean local matters. She's an intelligent girl."

"I know, but that doesn't make her out old. I don't believe she's 20."

"Oh, she is. Why, she's 25 or 27?"

"Never in the world. I'm going to ask her."

"Ask her," Miss Baskam laughed. "You'll get well snubbed if you do." But this prophecy only served to egg Mrs. Welby on, and she took the first occasion to carry out her promise. She met Anita in the hall as the girl was about to go out and smilingly detained her.

"Why so aloof, my dear?" she said playfully. "You rarely give us a chance to entertain you." As Mrs. Welby was between Anita and the door, the girl was forced to pause. She looked the older woman over with an appraising glance that was not rude but merely disinterested.

"No," she said with a curious rising inflection. "That somehow seemed meant to close the incident." But Mrs. Welby was not so easily baffled.

"No," she repeated smilingly, "and we want to know you better. You're too young and too pretty not to be a general favorite amongst us. How old are you, my dear child?"

"Just a hundred." And Miss Austin's dark eyes were so grave and seemed to hold such a world of wisdom and experience that Mrs. Welby almost jumped, too amazed to reply. She even let the girl get past her and out of the street door before she recovered her poise.

"She's uncanny," Mrs. Welby declared when telling Miss Baskam of the interview. "I give you my word when she said that she looked 100."

"Looked 100? What do you mean?"

"Just that. Her eyes seem to hold all there is of knowledge."

"Yes. And of evil."

"Evil? My goodness." Miss Baskam rolled this suggestion like a sweet morsel under her tongue. "Oh, I don't say there's anything wrong about the girl."

"Well, if her eyes show depths of evil, I should say there was something wrong." The episode was repeated from one to another of the exclusive clientele of the Adams House until, by exaggeration and imagination, it grew into quite a respectable arrangement of Miss Mystery, and branded her as a doubtful character, if not a dangerous one.

Before Miss Austin had been in the house a week, she had definitely settled her status from her own point of view. Uniformly correct and courteous of manner, she rarely spoke, save when necessary. It was as if she had declared, "I will not talk. If this be mystery, make the most of it." Old Salt apparently backed her up in this determination, and allowed her to sit next to him at table without addressing her at all. More. He often took it upon himself to answer a remark or question meant for her, and for this, he sometimes received a fleeting glance or a ghost of a smile of approval and appreciation. But all this was superficial. The Adamses between themselves decided that Miss Austin was more deeply mysterious than was shown by her disinclination to make friends. They concluded she was transacting important business of some sort and that her sketching of the winter scenery, which she did every clear day, was merely a blind. Though Mrs. Adams resented this and urged her husband to send the girl packing.

Old Salt demurred. "She's done no harm as yet," he said. "She's a mystery, but not a wrong one, as far as I can make out. Let her alone, mother. I've got my eye on her. I've got my two eyes on her, and I can see more."

And you can Why salt? That girl don't hardly sleep at all. Night after night, she sits up looking out of the window over toward the college buildings.

"How do you know?"

"I go and listen at her door," Mrs. Adams admitted without embarrassment. "I want to know what she's up to."

"You can't see her."

"No, but I hear her moving around restlessly and putting the window up and down."

And Miss Baskam, her room's cornerways on the ELL. She says she sees her looking out the window late at night most every night. Miss Baskam's a meddling old maid and I'd put her out of this house before I would the little girl.

"Of course you would. You're all set up because she makes so much of you."

"Oh, come now, Esther. You can't say that child makes much of me. I wish she would. I've taken a fancy to her."

"Yes, because she's pretty in a gypsy witch-like fashion. What men see in a pair of big black eyes and a dark sallow face?"

"I don't know. Not sallow, old Salt said reflectively. Olive rather, but not sallow."

"Oh, you!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. And with that cryptic remark, the subject was dropped.

Gordon Lockwood, secretary of John Wearing, had a room at the Adams House. But as he took no meals there save his breakfasts, and as he ate those early, he had not yet met Anita Austin. But one Saturday morning he chanced to be late, and the two sat at table together. An astute reader of humanity, Lach would at once become interested in the girl, and realized that to win her attention he must not be eager or insistent. He spoke only one or two of the most common places until almost at the close of the meal.

"Can I do anything for you, Miss Austin? If you would care to hear any of the college lectures, I can arrange it."

"Who are the speakers?" She turned her eyes fully upon him, and Gordon Lockwood marveled at their depth and beauty.

"Tonight," he replied, "Dr. Wearing is to lecture on Egyptian archaeology. Are you interested in that?"

"Yes," she said, "very much so. I'd like to go."

"You certainly may. Then just use this card." He took a card from his pocket, scribbled a line across it, and gave it to her. Without another word, he finished his breakfast, and with a mere courteous bow, he left the room.

Miss Austin's face took on a more inscrutable look than ever. The card still in her hand, she went up to her room. Unheeded the maid who was at her duties there, the girl threw herself into a big chair and sat staring at the card.

"The Egyptian temples," she said to herself, "Dr. John Wearing." The maid looked at her curiously as she murmured the words half aloud, but Miss Austin paid no heed.

"Go on with your work, Norah. Don't mind me," she said at last as the chambermaid paused inquiringly in front of her.

"I don't mind your being here until you finish what you have to do. And I wish you'd bring me a Corinth paper, please."

"There is one, isn't there?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. Twice a week." Norah disappeared and returned with a paper.

"Mr. Adams says you may have this to keep. It's the newest one." The girl took it and turned to find the college announcements. The Egyptian lecture was mentioned and in another column was a short article regarding Dr. Wearing and a picture of him. Long. The girl looked at the picture, and when the maid, her tasks completed, left the room, she noticed. Miss Austin, still staring at the fine face of the president-elect of the University of Corinth. After a time, she reached for a pair of scissors and cut out the portrait and the article which it illustrated. She put the clipping in a portfolio, which she then locked in her trunk, and the picture she placed on her dresser.

That night, she went to the lecture. She went alone, for Gordon Lockwood did not reappear, and no one else knew of her going.

"Shall I have a key, or will you be up?" she asked of Mrs. Adams as she left the house.

"Oh, we'll be up." The round, shrewd eyes looked at her kindly. "You're lucky to get a ticket. Dr. Wearing's lectures are crowded."

"Good night," said Miss Austin, and went away.

The lecture room was partly filled when she arrived, and her ticket entitled her to a seat near the front. Being seated, she fell into a brown study, or at least sat motionless and apparently in deep thought. Gordon Lockwood, already there, saw her come in, and after she was in her place, he quietly arose and went across the room, taking a seat directly behind her. Of this she was quite unaware, and the student of human nature gave himself up to a scrutiny of the stranger. He saw a little head, its mass of dark almost black hair, surmounted by a small turban-shaped hat of taupe-colored velvet with a curly ostrich tip nestling over one ear. Not that her ears were visible, for Miss Austin was smartly groomed, and her whole effect modish. She had removed her coat, which she held in her lap. Her frock was taupe-colored of a soft woolen material ornamented with many small buttons. These tiny buttons formed two rows down her back from either shoulder to the waistline, and they also formed a border around the sailor collar. They were perhaps, Lockwood decided, little balls rather than buttons, and he idly counted them as he sat watching her. He hoped she would turn her head a trifle, but she sat as motionless as a human being may. He marveled at her stillness and impatiently waited for the lecture to begin that he might note her interest.

At last Dr. Wearing appeared on the platform, and as the applause resounded all over the room, Lockwood was almost startled to observe Miss Austin's actions. She clasped her hands together as if she had received a sudden shock. She, if it hadn't seemed too absurd, he would have said that she trembled. At any rate, she was a little agitated, and it was with an effort that she preserved her calm. No one else noticed her, and Lockwood would not have done so, save for his close watching. Throughout the lecture, Miss Austin's gaze seemed never to leave the face of the speaker, and Lockwood marveled that Wearing himself was not drawn to notice her. But Wearing's calm gaze, though it traveled over the audience, never rested definitely on anyone face, and Lockwood concluded he recognized nobody.

"Miss Mystery," Gordon Lockwood said to himself, "I wonder who and what you are. Probably a complex nature, psychic and imaginative. You think it interesting to come up here and pretend to be a mystery, but you're too young and too innocent to be. I'm not so sure of the innocent, though. And as to youth, well, I don't believe you're much older than you look anyway. And you're confoundedly pretty, beautiful, rather. You've too much in your face to call it merely pretty. I've never seen such possibilities of character. You're either a deep one or your looks bely you."

Lockwood heard no word of the lecture, nor did he wish to. He had helped in the writing of it and almost knew it by heart anyway. But he was really intrigued by this mysterious girl and he determined to get to know her. He had been told, of course, of the futile attempts of the other boarders to make friends with her, but he had faith in his own attractiveness and in his methods of procedure. Pinky Payne, too, had told of the interview he had on the bridge. His account of the girl's beauty and charm had first roused Lockwood's interest and now he was making a study of the whole situation. Idly he counted the buttons again. There were 13 across the collar. The vertical rows he could not be sure of as the back of the seat cut off their view. 13. He mused, an unlucky number. And the poor child looks unlucky. There's a sadness in her eyes that must mean something. Yet there's more than sadness. There's a hint of cruelty, a possibility of desperate deeds. And then Lockwood laughed at himself to romance thus about a girl to whom he had not said half a dozen sentences in his life. Yet he knew he was not mistaken. All that he had read in Anita Austin's face he was sure was there. He knew physiognomy and rarely if ever was mistaken in his reading thereof.

After the lecture was over, Miss Austin went home as quickly as possible. Lockwood would have liked to escort her, but he had to remain to report to Dr. Wearing, who might have some orders for him. There were none, however, and after a short interview with his employer, Gordon Lockwood went home. As he went softly upstairs to his room in the Adams house, he passed the door of what he knew to be Miss Austin's room. He fancied he heard a stifled sob come from behind that closed door, and instinctively paused to listen a moment. Yes, he was not mistaken. Another sob followed, quickly suppressed, but he could have no doubt the girl was crying. For a moment, Lockwood was tempted to go back and ask Mrs. Adams to come and tap at the girl's door. Then he realized that it was not his affair. If the girl was in sorrow, or if she wanted to cry for any reason, it was not his place to send someone to intrude upon her. He went on to his own room, but he sat up for a long time thinking over the strange young woman in the house. He remembered that she had paid undeviating attention to the lecture, quite evidently following the speaker with attention and interest. He remembered every detail of her appearance, her pretty dark hair showing beneath her little velvet took the absurd buttons on the back of her frock.

"That will do, Gordon, old man," he told himself at last. "Better let her alone. She's a siren, all right, but you know nothing about her, and you've no reason to try to learn more."

And then he heard voices in the hall, low of tone, but angry of inflection.

"She threw it away."

"I tell you, she threw it away."

"There, there," came Mrs. Adams' placating voice. "What if she did? It was only a newspaper scrap. She didn't know it was of any value. But I want it. Norah has no business to throw away my things. She had no reason to touch it. It was on the dresser, standing up against the mirror frame. What do you suppose she did with it?"

"Never mind it. Tonight, tomorrow we will ask her. She's gone to bed, but I'm afraid she destroyed it."

"Probably she did. Don't take on. So, what paper was it? The Corinth Gazette? The new one?"

"I don't know. The one she brought me this afternoon. Well, if she has thrown it away, you can get another copy. What was in it that you want so much?"

"Oh, nothing special."

"Yes, it was." Mrs. Adams' curiosity was aroused now. "Come tell me what it was."

"Well, it was only a picture of Dr. Wearing, the man who lectured tonight. Such a fuss about that. My goodness. Why, you can get a picture of him anywhere, but I want it now." An obstinate note rang in the young voice.

Perhaps Miss Austin spoke louder than she meant to, but at any rate, Lockwood heard most of the conversation, and he now opened his door and said, "May I offer a photograph? Would you care to have this, Miss Austin?"

The girl looked at him with a white, angry face. "How dare you?" she cried. "How dare you eavesdrop and listen to a conversation not meant for your ears? Don't speak to me." She drew up her slender figure and looked like a wrathful pixie defying a giant, for Lockwood was a big man and loomed far above the slight, dainty figure of Miss Mystery. He smiled good-naturedly as he said, "Now, don't get wrathy. I don't mean any harm, but you wanted a picture of Dr. Wearing, and I have several of them. You see, I'm his secretary."

"Oh, are you his private secretary?"

"Yes, his confidential one, though he has few confidences. He's a public man, and his life is an open book."

"Oh, it is. The girl had recovered her poise, and with it her ability to be sarcastic, unknown to all men, I suppose."

"Known to all men," repeated Lockwood, thinking far more of the girl he was speaking to than of what he was saying. For again he had fallen under the spell of her strange personality. He watched her, fascinated, as she reached out for the picture and almost snatched at it in her eagerness. Mrs. Adams yawned behind her plump hand.

"Now you've got your picture. Go to bed, child," she said with a kind, motherly smile. "I'll come in and unhook you, shall I?"

Obediently, and without a word of good night to Lockwood, Anita turned and went into her room, followed by Mrs. Adams. The good lady offered no disinterested service. She wanted to know why Miss Austin wanted that picture so much, but she didn't find out. After being of such help as she could, the landlady found herself pleasantly, but definitely dismissed. Outside the door, however, she turned and reopened it. Miss Mystery, unnoticing the intruder, was covering the photograph with many and passionate kisses.

Chapter 4. A broken teacup.

"I'll tell her you're here, but I'm no way sure she'll see you." Mrs. Adams stood, her hand on the doorknob as she looked doubtfully at Emily Bates and her nephew.

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Bates in astonishment, and Pinky echoed, "Why not, Mrs. Adams?"

"She's queer." Mrs. Adams came back into the room, closed the door, and spoke softly. "That's what she is, Mrs. Bates. Queer. I can't make her out. She's been here more than a week now. And I do say she gets queerer every day. Won't make friends with anybody. Won't speak at all at the table. Never comes and sits with us of an afternoon or evening. Just keeps to herself. Now, that ain't natural for a young girl."

"How old is she?"

"Nobody knows. She looks like 19 or 20, but she has the ways of a woman of 40 as far as having her own ways concerned. Then again, she'll pet the cat or smile up at Mr. Adams like a child. I can't make her out at all. The boarders are all fearfully curious. That's one reason I take her part. They're a snoopy lot, and I make them let her alone."

"You like her then?"

"You can't help liking her, yet she is exasperating. You ask her a question, and she stares at you and walks off. Not really rude, but just as if you weren't there. Well, I'll tell her you're here anyway."

It was only by his extraordinary powers of persuasion that Pinky Payne had won his aunt's consent to make this call. And being Sunday afternoon, the recognized at-home day in Corinth, they had gone to the Adams house unannounced and asked for Miss Austin.

Upstairs, Mrs. Adams tapped at the girl's door. It was opened slowly, it would seem, grudgingly, and Anita looked out inquiringly.

"Callers for you, Miss Austin," the landlady said cheerily.

"For me? I know no one."

"Oh, now you come on down. It's Mrs. Bates and her nephew, Pinky Payne. They are best people."

"What makes you think I want to see your best people?"

"I don't say you do, but they want to see you. And oh, sure, now be a little sociable. It won't hurt you."

"Please say to Mrs. Bates that I have no desire to form new acquaintances and I beg to be excused from appearing."

"But do you know who she is? She's the lady that's going to marry Dr. Wearing, the new president. And Pinky Payne, her cousin, is a mighty nice boy." Mrs. Adams thought she detected an expression of wavering on the girl's face, and she followed up her advantage.

"Yes, he's an awfully nice chap and just about your age, I should judge."

"I'll go down," said Miss Austin briefly. And Mrs. Adams indulged in a sly smile of satisfaction. "It's Pinky that fetched her," she thought to herself. "Young folks are young folks the world over." Triumphantly, Mrs. Adams ushered Anita into the small parlor.

"Mrs. Bates," she said, "and Mr. Payne, Miss Austin." Then she left them, for Esther Adams had strict notions of her duties as a boarding house landlady.

"Mrs. Bates," Anita said, going to her and taking her hand.

"Yes, Miss Austin, I am very glad to know you." But the words ceased suddenly as Emily Bates looked into the girl's eyes. Such a depth of sorrow was there. Such unmistakable tragedy and a hint of fear. What could it all mean? Surely this was a strange girl.

"We have never met before, have we?" Mrs. Bates said almost involuntarily, for the girl's gaze was too intent to be given to a stranger.

"No," Anita said, recovering her poise steadily but slowly. "Not that I remember. We have burst forth the irresistible Pinky."

"I say, Miss Austin, please realize that I'm here as well as my more celebrated aunt. Don't you remember the morning I met you on the bridge, and you were just about to throw yourself over the parapet?"

"Oh, no, I wasn't." And a delightful smile lighted the dark little face. The lips were very scarlet, but it was unmistakably nature's own red, and as they parted over even and pearly teeth, the smile transformed Miss Austin into a real beauty. It disappeared quickly, however, and Pinky Payne then forward made it his earnest endeavor to bring it back as often as possible.

"Of course you weren't," agreed Mrs. Bates. "Don't pay any attention to that foolish boy."

"I'm a very nice boy if I am foolish," Pinky declared. But Miss Austin vaguely ignored him and kept her intent gaze fixed on Emily Bates.

"We thought perhaps you would go with us over to Dr. Wearing's for tea, Mrs. Bates said after an interval of aimless chat. It would, I am sure, be a pleasant experience for you. Wouldn't you like it?"

"Dr. Wearing's," repeated Anita, her voice low and tense, as if the idea was of more importance than it seemed.

"Yes, I may take you for the doctor is my fiancé. We are to be married next month."

"No!" cried the girl, with such a sharp intonation that Mrs. Bates was startled.

"Sure they are," put in Pinky, anxious to cover up any eccentricity on the part of this girl in whom he took an increasing interest. "They're as blissful as two young turtle doves. Come on, Miss Austin. Let's go over there. It's a duck of a house to go to and jolly good people there. The view from the study window is worth going miles to see."

"You're an artist."

"Yes, I sketch some," was the brief reply.

"All right. If you can find a prettier spot to sketch on this terrestrial globe than the picture by the Wearing study window, I'll buy it for you. Toddle up and get your hat." His gay good nature was infectious, and Anita smiled again as she went for her hat and coat.

The walk was but a short one, and when they entered the Wearing home, they found a cheery group having tea in the pleasant living room. Dr. Wearing was not present, and Mrs. Payton was pouring tea while Helen and Robert Tyler served it. The capable Itto had always Sunday afternoon for his holiday, and while Nogi, the Japanese second man, was willing enough, his training was incomplete, and his blunders frequent. He was a new servant, and though Itto had hopes of educating him, Mrs. Payton was doubtful about it. However, she thought soon the responsibilities of the Wearing ménage would be hers no longer, and she resolved to get along with the inexperienced Noi while she remained. Mrs. Payton was very regretful at the coming change of affairs. She had looked upon John Wearing as a confirmed bachelor, and had not expected he would ever marry. Now she declared he was marrying only because he thought it wiser for a college president to have a wife as a part of his domestic outfit. Helen disagreed with her mother about this. She said Dr. Wearing had begun to take a personal interest in the attractive Mrs. Bates before he had any idea of becoming president of the university. But it didn't matter. The wedding was imminent and Mrs. Payton had received due notice that her services would be no longer needed. It was a blow to her, and it had made her depressed and disconsolate, also a little resentful, even spiteful toward Emily Bates. The housekeeper greeted Miss Austin with a cold smile, and then disregarded her utterly. Helen was frankly curious, and met the newcomer with full intention of finding out all about her, for Helen Payton had heard of Miss Mystery from her friend and admirer Robert Tyler, who, however, did not report that the girl had snubbed him more than once. One or two other guests were present, and having been told of Mrs. Bates's arrival, Dr. Wearing and his secretary came from the study and joined the others at tea.

With a welcoming smile, John Wearing greeted his fiancée, and then Mrs. Bates turned to the girl she had brought.

"Miss Austin," she said, "let me present Dr. Wearing. John, Miss Anita Austin."

At that very moment, Helen Payton offered Wearing a cup of tea and he was in the act of taking it from her hand when Mrs. Bates made the introduction. The cup and saucer fell to the floor with a crash, and those nearest saw the doctor's face blanch suddenly white and his hand clench on a nearby chair. But with a sudden, desperate effort, he pulled himself together and gave a little laugh as he directed Nogi to remove the wrecked teacup.

"Pick up the four corners and carry it all off at once," he ordered, pointing to the small rug on which the cup had fallen, and Noi, a little clumsily, obeyed.

"Pardon the awkwardness, Miss Austin," he said, turning to smile at the girl. But even as he did so, his voice trembled, and he turned hastily away.

"What is it, John?" asked Emily Bates, going to his side. "Are you ill?"

"No, no, dear. It's—it's all right. That foolish teacup upset my nerves. I'll go off by myself for a few moments." Somewhat abruptly, he left the room and went back to his study. Listening intently, Mrs. Bates heard him lock the door on the inside.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning to Anita. "But I know you'll forgive Dr. Wearing. He is under so much strain at present, and a foolish accident like the broken teacup is enough to give him a nervous shock."

"I know," said the girl sympathetically. "He must be very busy and absorbed." She spoke, as she often did, in a perfunctory way, as if not interested in what she was saying. Her glance wandered, and she bit her red lower lip, as if nervous herself. Yet she was exceedingly quiet and calm of demeanor, and her graceful attitudes bespoke only a courteous, if disinterested, guest.

Gordon Lockwood immediately followed his chief and tapped at the locked study door.

"All right, Lockwood," Wearing recognized the knock. "I don't want you now. I'll reappear shortly. Go back to the tea-room."

Willingly, Lockwood went back, hoping to have a chance for conversation with Miss Mystery. She was chatting gay with Helen Payton, Pinky, and Mrs. Tyler. To Lockwood's surprise, Miss Austin was really gay and merry and quite held her own in the chaff and repartee. Yet, as Lockwood noted her more closely, his quick perception told him her gay was forced. The secretary's ability to read human nature was almost uncanny, and he truly believed the girl was making merry only by reason of her firm determination to do so. Why, he wondered.

Gordon Lockwood was a rare type of man. He was possessed of the most impassive face, the most immobile countenance imaginable. He never allowed himself to show the slightest excitement or even interest. This habit, acquired purposely at first, had grown upon him until it was second nature. He would not admit anything could move him, could stir his poise, or disturb his equanimity; he heard the most gratifying, or the most exasperating news, with equal attention, and equal lack of surprise or enthusiasm. Yet, though this may sound unattractive, so great was Lockwood's personality, so responsive and receptive his real nature beneath his outer calm, that all who really knew him liked him and trusted him. Wearing depended on him in every respect. He was more than a secretary to his employer. He was counselor and friend as well, and Wearing appreciated this and rated Lockwood high in his esteem and affection. Of course, with his insight, Gordon Lockwood could not be blind to the fact that both Mrs. Payton and her daughter would be pleased if he could fall a victim to the charms of the fair Helen, nor could he evade the conviction that Mrs. Payton herself had entertained hopes of becoming mistress of the Wearing home until the advent of Emily Bates had spoiled her chances. But these things were merely self-evident facts and affected in no way the two men concerned. The Paytons were treated with pleasant regard for both and that ended the matter so far as they were concerned. The subject had never been alluded to by Wearing or Lockwood but each understood. And when the doctor's marriage took place, that would automatically end the Payton's incumbency. And now Gordon Lockwood smiled patronizingly at himself as he was forced to admit an unreasonable, inexplicable interest in a slip of a girl with a dark, eerie little face and a manner grave and gay to extremes. For Anita was positively laughing at some foolishness of Pinky Payne's. Still, Lockwood concluded, watching her narrowly yet unobserved, she was laughing immoderately. She was laughing for some reason other than merriment. It verged on hysterical. He decided and wondered why. He joined the group of young people, and in his quiet but effective way, he said, "You've had enough foolery for the moment, Miss Austin. Come and talk to me." And to the girl's amazement, he took her hand and led her to a davenport on the other side of the room.

"There," he said, as he arranged a pillow or two. "Is that right?"

"Yes," she said and lapsed into silence. She sat looking off into vacancy and Lockwood studied her. Then he said softly, "It's too bad, isn't it?"

"Yes," Anita sighed. And then suddenly, "What do you mean? What's too bad?"

"Whatever it is that troubles you," the deep blue eyes met her own, but there was no sign of response or acquiescence on the girl's face.

"Goodbye," she said, rising quickly. "I must go."

"Oh no, don't go!" cried Pinky, overhearing. "Why, you've only just come."

"Yes, I must go," said Miss Mystery decidedly. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Bates, and thank you for bringing me. Good afternoon, Mrs. Payton," including all the others in a general bow of farewell. The strange girl went to the front door and paused for the attendant Nogi to open it. The door-tending assistant butler understood and he punctiliously waited until Miss Austin had buttoned her gloves and had given an adjusting pat to her veil after a fleeting glance in the hall mirror. Then he opened the door with an obsequious air and closed it behind her departing figure, but it was immediately flung open again by Pinky Payne, who ran through it and after the girl.

"Wait a minute, Miss Austin. How fast you walk. I'm going home with you. Please not," she said indifferently, scarcely glancing at him.

"Yep. Gotto getting near dusk and you might be kidnapped. Needn't talk if you don't want to."

"I never want to talk," was the surprising and crisply spoken retort.

"Well, didn't I say you needn't? Don't get wrathy. Don't eat now, as my old Scotch nurse used to say." But Miss Mystery gave him no look, although she allowed him to fall into step beside her, and the two walked rapidly along.

"How do you like the looks of the doctor?" Pinky asked, hoping to induce conversation.

"I scarcely saw him."

"Oh, you saw him, though you had small chance to get to know him. Perfect old brick, but a little on edge of late, approaching matrimony, I suppose. Did you notice his ruby stickpin?"

"Yes, it didn't seem to suit him at all."

"No, he's a conservative dresser. But that pin, it's a famous gem, was given him by his own class. I mean, his graduating class, but long after they graduated, and he had to promise to wear it once a week, so he usually gets into it on Sundays. It's a corking stone."

"Yes," said Miss Austin.

On reaching the Adams' house, the girl said a quick goodbye, and Pinky Payne found himself at liberty to go in and see the other members of the household, or to go home, for Miss Austin disappeared into the hall and up the staircase, with the rapidity of a dissolving view. Young Payne turned away and strolled slowly back to the Wearing home, wondering what it was about the disagreeable young woman that made him pay any attention to her at all. He found her the topic of discussion when he arrived.

"Of all rude people," Mrs. Payton declared, "she was certainly the worst."

"She was," Helen agreed. "I couldn't make her out at all, and I don't call her pretty either."

"I do," observed Emily Bates. "I call her very pretty and possessed of great charm."

"Charm? Scoffed Helen. "I can't see it. She isn't rude."

Pinky defended the absent. "I'm sure, Mrs. Payton, she made her adieu most politely. Why should she have stayed longer? She didn't know any of us."

"And perhaps she doesn't like any of us. That's it," Gordon Lockwood stated. "She doesn't like us. I'm sure of that."

"Well, why should she? If she doesn't want to, why shouldn't she?" countered Tyler. "She's so terribly superior. I can't bear her. She acts as if she owned the earth, yet nobody knows who she is or anything about her."

"Are we entitled to?" asked Lockwood. "Why should we inquire into her identity or history further than she chooses to enlighten us?"

"Where is Miss Austin?" asked Dr. Wearing, returning quite composed and calm.

"She went home," informed Mrs. Bates.

"Are you all right, John?"

"Oh yes, dear. I wasn't ill or anything like that. The awkward accident touched my nerves, and I wanted to run away and hide." He smiled whimsically, looking like a naughty schoolboy, and Emily Bates took his hand and drew him down to a seat beside her.

"What made you drop it, John?" she said with a direct look into his eyes. He hesitated a moment, and his own glance wandered. Then he said, "I don't know, Emily. I suppose it was a sudden physical contraction of the muscles of my hand and I couldn't control it." Mrs. Bates didn't look satisfied, but she did not pursue the subject. Then the discussion of Anita was resumed.

"How did you like her looks, Dr. Wearing?" Helen Payton asked.

"I scarcely saw her," was the quiet reply.

"Did you all admire her?"

"Some of us did. Mrs. Bates answered, "I do for one. Did you ever see her before, John?" Dr. Wearing stared at the question.

"Never," he declared. "How could I have done so?"

"I don't know. I'm sure," Mrs. Bates laughed. "I just had a sort of an impression."

"No, dear. I never saw the girl before in my life," Wearing reasserted.

"And you need never want to see her again," Robert Tyler informed him. "She's sulky, silly, and supercilious. She's a mystery, they say. But I say she merely wants to be thought a mystery to make a little sensation. I can't abide that sort." Helen Payton heard this with undisguised satisfaction, for she had quite enough girls in her life to be jealous and envious of without adding another to the list. Also, she especially wanted to retain the admiration of Robert Tyler, and was glad to know it was not newly endangered.

"Miss Austin is very beautiful," Gordon Lockwood declared in his usual way of summing up a discussion and announcing his own opinion as final. "Also, she is a mystery."

"I live in the same boarding house."

"So do I," put in Tyler, "and she snubs us both."

"She hasn't snubbed me," said Lockwood simply.

"Never mind, Oscar. She will return," Tyler and then laughed immoderately at his own would-be wit.

Chapter 5. The tragedy.

That same Sunday evening, the Wearing household dined alone. Oftener than not there were guests, but tonight there were only the two Paytons, Lockwood, and John Wearing himself. Itto the butler had holiday Sunday afternoon and evening, and Noi, the second and less experienced man, was trying his best to satisfy the exactions of Mrs. Payton as to his service at table. Helen Payton was in a talkative mood and commented valuably on the callers of the afternoon. Miss Austin, she meant little response, for her mother was absorbed in the training of the Japanese and the two men seemed indisposed to pursue the subject.

"Don't you think she's odd-looking?" Helen asked of Dr. Wearing.

"Odd-looking? He repeated. "I don't know. I didn't notice her especially. She seemed to me a rather distinguished type."

"Distinguished is the word," agreed Lockwood. "What about the lecture tomorrow night, doctor? Will Fessendon take care of it?"

"No, I must lecture myself tomorrow night. I'm sorry, for I'm busy with that book revision. However, I'll look up some data this evening, and I shall be ready for it."

"Of course you will," laughed Mrs. Payton. "You were never caught unready for anything."

"But it means some work," Wearing added as he rose from the table. He went into the study, followed by Lockwood, whose experience made him aware of what books his chief would need, and he began at once to take them from the shelves.

"Right," Wearing said, looking over the armful of volumes Lockwood placed on the desk, and seating himself in the swivel chair. "Bring me Marcus Aurelius, too, please."

"And Marshall, the classic touch."

"Lockwood smiled. "Yes, it adds dignity if one is a bit shy of material," Wearing admitted good-naturedly. "That's all, Lockwood. You may go if you like."

"No, sir. I'll stay until 11 or so. I'm pretty busy with the reports, and too, someone may call whom I can take care of."

"Good chap you are, Lockwood. I appreciate it. Very well then, don't bother me unless absolutely necessary." The secretary left the room and closed the study door behind him. This door gave on to the end of the cross hall, and the hall ended then in a roomy window seat, and also held a book rack and table, altogether a comfortable and useful nook, frequently occupied by Gordon Lockwood. The window looked out on the beautiful lake view, as did the great study window, and it also commanded a view of the high road on which stood not far away the Adams boarding house. Lockwood lodged there as being more convenient, but most of his waking hours were spent in his employer's home. A perfect secretary he had proved himself to be, for his prescience amounted almost to clairvoyance, and his imperturbability was exceedingly useful in keeping troublesome people or things away from John Wearing. So he determined to stay on guard lest a chance caller should come to disturb the doctor at his work. But Lockwood's own work was somewhat neglected. Try as he would to concentrate upon it, he could not entirely dismiss from his mind a certain mysterious little face whose meaning eluded him. For once Gordon Lockwood, reader of faces, was baffled. He couldn't classify the girl who was both rude and charming, both cruel and pathetic. For cruelty was what this expert read in the knowing eyes and firm little mouth of Miss Mystery. And because of this indubitable element in her nature, he deemed her pathetic, which shows how much she interested him. At any rate, he thought about her while his work waited. And then he thought of other things, for he had troubles of his own, had this supercilious young man, and troubles which galled him the more that they were sorted, money troubles. In fact, his whole nature revolted at the mere thought of mercenary considerations. But if one is short of funds, one must recognize the condition, distasteful though it be.

At 9:30, Nogi came with a tray bearing water and glasses. Under the watchful eye of Mrs. Payton, the Japanese tapped at the study door, and in response to the master's bidding, went in with his tray. He left it punctiliously on the table directed, and with his characteristic bow, departed again. At 10:30, Mrs. Payton and Helen went upstairs to their rooms, the housekeeper having given Noi strict and definite instructions, which included his remaining on duty until the master should also retire. And the night wore on, a clear, cold night, with a late-rising moon passed the full, but still with its great yellow disc nearly round. It shone down on what seemed like fairy land, for the sleet storm that had covered the trees with a coating of ice and had fringed eaves and fences with icicles had ceased and left the glittering landscape frozen and sparkling in the still, cold air. And when some hours later the sun rose on the same chill scene, its rays made no perceptible impression on the cold and the mercury stayed down at its lowest winter record. And so even the stalled Japanese Itto shivered and his yellow teeth chattered as he knocked at Mrs. Payton's door in the early dawn of Monday morning.

"What is it?" she cried, springing from her bed to unbolt her door.

"Grave news, madam," and the oriental bowed before her.

"What has happened?"

"Tell me. I'm not sure, madam, but the master."

"Yes. What about Dr. Wearing?"

"He is. He is asleep in his study. Asleep in his study. Itto, what do you mean, madam?"

"His bed is unslept in. His room door ajar. I looked in the study through from the dining room. He is there by his desk. Asleep?"

"Itto? You said asleep?"

"Yes, madam, but I do not know. And Nogi, he is gone. Gone? Where to?"

"That also I do not know. Will madam come and look?"

"No, I will not. I know something has happened. I knew something would happen. Itto, he is not asleep. He is—"

"Don't say it, madam. We do not know."

"Find out. Go in and speak to him."

"But the door is locked. I tried it. Locked."

"The study door locked and Dr. Wearing still in there?"

"How do you know?"

"I peeped from the dining room window and I could see him leaning down on his desk."

"From the dining room window? What do you mean?"

"The small little inside windows. Madam knows the study had been added to the Wearing house after the house had been built for some years. Wherefore the dining room, previously with a lake view from its windows, was cut off from that view. But the windows, three small square ones, remained and so looked into the new study. However, the study, a higher ceiling being desired, had its floor sunken 6 ft or more, which brought the windows far too high to see through from the study side, but one could look through them from the dining room. The original sashes had been replaced by beautiful stained glass, opaque, save for a few tiny transparent bits through which a persistent and curious-minded person might discern some parts of the study. The stained glass sashes were immovable and were there more as a decoration than for utility's sake. And it was through these panes that Itto had discovered the presence of Doctor Wearing in his study at the unusual hour of 7:00 in the morning. The Japanese, true to his tribal instinct, showed no agitation, and his calm demeanor helped to soothe Mrs. Payton. But as she hastily dressed herself, she decided upon her course of action. Her first impulse was to call her daughter, but she concluded not to disturb the girl. Instead, she telephoned to Gordon Lockwood and asked him to come over as soon as he possibly could. Old Salt took the message and transmitted it to the secretary.

"What's the matter over there?" asked Lockwood.

"Don't know. Mrs. Payton seemed all on edge as far as I could judge from her voice, but she only said for you to come over."

"All right, I'll go as soon as I can get dressed."

Once out of doors, Lockwood couldn't fail to be impressed with the beauty of the morning landscape, one of the most beautiful bits of New England's scenery. It was newly lovely in its sheath of ice. Lockwood's hasty steps crunched through the crusted snow, and he hurried over to the Wearing house. Itto opened the door for him, and Mrs. Payton met him in the hall.

"Something has happened to Dr. Wearing," she said at once. "He stayed in the study all night."

"Why? What do you mean?" asked the secretary.

"Just that his room door is still open and his bed hasn't been slept in. Also, Itto says he can see him in the study through the dining room window. I—I haven't looked. Why don't you go in?"

"The study door is locked."

"Locked. And Dr. Wearing still in there?"

"Yes. I think he must have had a stroke or something. Nonsense. He's just asleep. He's overworked of late anyway. Well, I'm glad you're here." And Mrs. Payton looked relieved. "You see about it, Mr. Lockwood, won't you?"

The secretary went first to the study door. He rapped and then he tried the door and then rapped again very loudly, but no response came and Lockwood returned to the dining room.

"Can you see through that glass?" he asked in surprise, noting the thick, leaded mosaic of pieces.

"Yes, sir. Through this corner," Itto directed him, and peering through, Lockwood discerned the figure of John Wearing. He sat at his desk, his body fallen slightly forward, and his head drooped on his breast.

"Sound asleep," said Lockwood, but his tone carried no conviction. Mrs. Payton well knew the man's disinclination to show any emotion and in spite of his calm, she was almost certain he shared her own belief that John Wearing was not merely asleep.

"We must get to him," Lockwood said after a moment's pause. "Can you get through one of these windows?" Itto, and unbolt the door?

"No, sir. These windows do not open at all."

"Not open? Why not?" Saved to remark the beauty of their color and design, Lockwood had never before noticed the windows, especially, and was genuinely surprised to discover that they could not be opened at all. "Of what use are they?" he mused aloud. "They give very little light."

"They were outside windows before the study was built," Mrs. Payton told him. "And when the stained glass was put in, it was merely for decoration, and the panes were not made movable."

"Well, we must get in," said Lockwood almost impatiently. "How shall we do it? Uito must know how."

"No, sir. There is no way. Unless the long window is unfastened, the long French window, really a double door, was on the other side of the study, exactly opposite the useless high windows that gave into the dining room. To reach it, one must go out and around the house. It is very bad snow." Itto shrugged.

"You heathen!" Lockwood exclaimed scornfully and himself dashed out at the front door and around to the side of the house. Mrs. Payton started to follow, but the secretary bade her go back lest she take cold. He reached the French window only to find it locked on the inside. He could not see in through its curtained panes, and impulsively he raised his foot and kicked through the glass at a point high enough to allow of his putting in a hand and turning back the latch. He went into the room, and after the briefest glance at the man by the desk, he went on and unbolted the door to the hall.

"Helen had joined her mother and Ito, and the three stood cowering on the threshold.

"He is dead," Gordon Lockwood said in a calm, unemotional way. "But not by a stroke. He has killed himself."

"How do you know?" Mrs. Payton cried, her eyes staring and her face white.

"Go away, Helen," Lockwood said. "Go back into the living room and stay away." And willingly the girl obeyed. "Come in, Mrs. Payton." Lockwood went on. "You must see him, though it will shock you. See, the flow of blood is dreadful. He stabbed or shot himself." Conquering her aversion to the sight, Mrs. Payton, from a sense of duty, drew nearer, and as Lockwood had said, the condition of the body was terrible indeed. Wounded apparently in the side of the head, Wearing had fallen forward in such a way that the actual wound was concealed, but the fact was only too apparent that he had bled to death. The blotter on the desk and many of the furnishings were crimsoned and there was a large and dark stain on the rug.

"He is positively dead," said Lockwood in a cool, even tone, "so I advise that we do not touch the body, but send at once for Dr. Greenfield. He will know best what to do."

"Oh, you cold-blooded wretch!" Mrs. Payton burst forth uncontrollably. "Have you no feelings whatever? You stand there like a wooden image when the best man in the world lies dead before you. And you," she turned on the irate butler, "you're another of those impassive, unnatural creatures. Oh, I hate you both!" The housekeeper ran from the room and was soon closeted with her daughter, who at least showed agitation and grief at the tragedy that had occurred. The two, she had called impassive, stood regarding one another.

"Who did it, master?" inquired the Japanese calmly.

"Who did it?" Lockwood stared at him. "Why, he did it himself, otherwise immovable." The Oriental shook his head in dissent, but Lockwood was already at the telephone, and heeded him not. Dr. Greenfield consented to come over at once, and Lockwood, going to the living room, advised the Paytons to have breakfast, as there was a terrible ordeal ahead of them.

"I'll have some coffee with you if I may," he went on. "Brace up, Helen. It's pretty awful for you, but you must try to be a brave girl." A grateful glance thanked him for the kindness, and Lockwood returned quickly to the study.

"What are you doing?" he said sternly, as he saw Itto bending over the dead man.

"Nothing, sir." And the butler straightened up quickly and stood at attention. "Leave the room and do not return here without permission."

Serve breakfast to the ladies. Where is Nogi? He is gone, sir. Gone where? That I do not know. Last night he was here. Now he is gone. I know no more. You don't know anything. Get out. Yes, sir.

Left to himself, Gordon Lockwood gazed thoughtfully about the room. He did not confine his attention to the bent figure of his late employer, nor even to the desk or its nearby surroundings. He wandered about looking at the windows, the floor, the furniture. One chair standing rather near the desk, he looked at intently. An expression of bewilderment came into his face, followed by a look of dismay. Then, after a cautious, almost furtive glance about him, he passed his hand quickly over the plush back of the chair, rubbing it hard with a scrubbing motion. Then he looked about the room even more eagerly and carefully and finally sat down in the same plush chair to await the doctor's arrival.

Helen Payton came timidly to the door to ask him to come to breakfast. "No, Helen," he answered, "My place is here until the doctor comes. Eat your breakfast, child, and try to throw off your distress. It will do you no good to brood over it. You can be of real help if you keep brave and calm, but it will be quite otherwise if you get hysterical." He did not see the adoring glance she gave him, nor did he realize how much effect his words had on her subsequent behavior, for Helen Payton was suffering from shocked nerves, and only Lockwood's advice would have been heeded by her. She returned to the dining room, saying quietly, "Gordon will come after a while. Let us eat our breakfast, mother, and try to be brave and strong."

It was not more than 15 minutes later that Lockwood joined them. He took his seat at the table, and as he shook out his breakfast napkin, he said, "Dr. Greenfield is there now." He says, "Dr. Wearing was stabbed, not shot." He says the instrument was round and pointed, not flat, like a knife. "Who did it?" asked Helen wide-eyed. "It must have been taking one's own life, Helen. For as you know, the room was locked. How could anyone get in or out, but how absurd to think of Dr. Wearing killing himself?" The girl looked more amazed than ever. "He never killed himself," stated Mrs. Payton. "Why, you know that man had everything to live for. Just about to be married, just about to be president of the college, full of life and enthusiasm, self harm, nonsense." "I'm only telling you what the doctor said, and you know yourselves. The room was all locked up." "Yes, that's so. Itto, leave the room." Mrs. Payton spoke sharply to the butler, who was quite evidently drinking in the conversation. "He must not hear all we say," she observed after the butler had disappeared.

"What's this about Nogi being gone?" asked Lockwood suddenly. "Yes, he's gone," Mrs. Payton said. "And I can't understand it. I didn't think he'd stay. He didn't like the duties at all. You know, he's just learning to be a butler, but queer, he went off like that. His wages are due for 3 weeks." "He'll be back then," summised Lockwood. "Now, what shall we do first? The faculty must be notified of this tragedy, and also Mrs. Bates must be told. Which of you two will go and tell Mrs. Bates about it?" "You go, Helen," said her mother after a moment's thought. "I ought to be here to look after the house, and anyway, dear, you can do it wisely and gently. Mrs. Bates likes you, and after all, it can be soon told." "Oh, I can't," cried Helen, dismayed at the thought of the awful errand. "Yes, you can." And Lockwood looked at her with a firm kindliness. "You want to be of help, don't you, Helen? Well, here's one thing you can do that will be of great assistance to your mother and to me. For on us too must fall most of the sad duties of this day. But what can I say? What can I tell her?" "Just tell her the facts as far as you know them yourself. She will guess from your own agitation that something has happened and then you will tell her as gently as you can. Be a true woman, Helen, and remember that though your news must break her heart, yet she'd far rather hear it from you than from some less sympathetic messenger." "I'll do it," said Helen, struggling bravely to keep her tears back. "That's a good girl. Run right along now, for ill news flies fast, and rumors may get to her before you reach there."

"Now, about that, noi," Lockwood said thoughtfully. "Call Itto back, please. Mrs. Payton, when did you see Nogi last?" the secretary asked of the butler. "When I came home last night, sir. Sunday is my holiday. I returned about 10:00. And as I found Nogi with his duties all properly done, and at his post, I went to bed. I found this morning that he had not been in his bed at all. His clothes are gone and all his belongings. I think he will not come back."

Chapter 6. An incredible case.

When Lockwood returned to the study, he found the medical examiner and Dr. Greenfield in consultation. The examiner was a large, pompousl looking man with an air of authority. He looked at Gordon Lockwood from beneath his heavy brows and demanded, "What do you know of this?" The younger man resented the tone, but he knew the question was justified, and so he replied respectfully, "Nothing more than you can see for yourself, sir. I broke in at that glass door being unable to get in any other way and I found Dr. Wearing as you see him now." "There was some other way though to get in and out." Examiner Marsh stated positively not. "Lockwood repeated. Don't contradict me. I tell you there must have been for this man was murdered." "Impossible, sir." And Lockwood's eyes met the examiner's with a gaze fully as calm and insistent as his own. "Very well then. How came he by his death?" "I am not the examiner," the secretary said, and he folded his arms and leaned against the corner of the great mantelpiece. "But since you ask me, I will repeat that there was no way of ingress into this room last night, and that necessarily the case is a self harm." "Just so, and granting that, will you suggest what may have become of the weapon that was used?" "What was the weapon?" Lockwood asked, not so disturbed by the question as the examiner had expected him to be. "That is what puzzles me," returned Dr. Marsh. "As you can clearly see, the wound was inflicted with a sharp instrument. The man was stabbed just below his right ear. The jugular vein was pierced and he bled to death. A plexus of nerves was pierced also, and this fact doubtless rendered the victim unconscious at once. I mean, as soon as the stab wound was made, though he may have been alive for a few minutes thereafter." Gordon Lockwood gazed imperturburably at the speaker. He had always prided himself on his unshakable calm, and now he exhibited its full possibilities. It annoyed Dr. Marsh, who was accustomed to having his statements accepted without question. He took a sudden dislike to this calm young man, who presumed to differ from his deductions.

"I must say," observed the mild manner of Dr. Greenfield, "I knew Dr. Wearing very well, and he was surely the last person I would expect to kill himself, especially at the present time, when he was looking forward to high honors in the college, and also expected to marry a charming lady." "That isn't the point," exclaimed Dr. Marsh impatiently. "The point is, if he killed himself, where is the weapon?" "I admit it isn't in view, and I admit that seems strange," Lockwood agreed, "but it may yet be discovered, while a way of getting into a locked room cannot be found." "All of which is out of your jurisdiction, young man," and Marsh looked at him severely. "The police will be here soon, and I've no doubt they will learn the truth, whatever it may be."

"What instrument do you deduce, Dr. Greenfield?" "That's hard to say," replied Greenfield slowly. "You see, the aperture it made is a perfectly round hole. Now, most daggers or ponyards are flat-bladed. I'm not sure a real weapon is ever round. The hole is much too large to have been made by a hatpin." "It is as big as a a slate pencil," suggested the examiner. "Yes, or a trifle larger, but not so large as a lead pencil." "A lead pencil could hardly accomplish the deed," Marsh mused. "A slate pencil might have, but that is a most unusual weapon." "How about a bill file?" asked Dr. Greenfield. "I knew of a man killed with one." "Yes, but where is the bill file?" asked Marsh. "There's one on the desk to be sure, but it is full of papers and shows no sign of having been used for a criminal purpose. If, as Mr. Lockwood insists this is a taking one's own life case. The victim positively could not have cleaned that file and restored the papers after stabbing himself." "He most certainly could not have done that," declared Dr. Greenfield. Marsh examined the file carefully. It was an ordinary affair consisting of a steel spike on a bronze standard. It would without doubt make an efficacious implement of murder, but it was difficult to believe it had been used in that way, for the bills and memoranda it contained were to all appearance, just as they had been thrust on the sharp point, and surely had they been removed and replaced, they would have shown traces of such moving. "Anyway," Dr. Greenfield said after another examination, "the hole in the side of wearing's neck seems to me to have been made with an instrument slightly larger than that file."

"Surely there are round stilettos, are there not?" "Yes, there are," said Lockwood. "I have seen them." "Where?" demanded the examiner, suddenly turning on him. "Why, I don't know." For once, the secretary's calm was a trifle shaken. "I should say in museums, or in private collections, perhaps." "Are you familiar with so many private collections of strange weapons that you can't remember where you have seen a round shaped blade?" Examiner Marsh stared hard at him and Lockwood became tacetern again. "Exactly that," he conceded. "I have sometimes somewhere seen a round-bladed stiletto, but I cannot remember where." "Better brush up your memory," Marsh told him.

And then the police arrived. The local police of Corinth were rather proud of themselves as a whole, and they had reason to be. Under a worthwhile chief, the men had been well-trained and were alert, energetic, and capable. Detective Morton, who took this matter in charge, went straight to work in a most business-like way. He examined the body of Jon Wearing, not as the medical men had done, but merely to find possible clues to the manner of his death. "What's this ring on his forehead?" he asked, looking at the dead man's face. "I don't know. That struck me as queer," said Greenfield. "What is it, Dr. Marsh?" The examiner peered through his glasses. "I can't make that out myself," he confessed frankly. Morton looked more closely. There was a red circle on Wearing's forehead that looked as if it had been put there of some purpose. A perfect circle. It was about 2 in. in diameter, and it was red and sunken into the flesh, as if it might have been done with a branding iron. "Not a very hot one, though," Morton remarked after suggesting this. "But surely somebody did it. I'll say it's the sign or seal of the murderer himself, for a dead man couldn't do it, and there's no sense in assuming that doctor wearing branded himself before committing taking one's own life." "Was it done before or after death?" He asked of the two doctors present. "Before, I should say," Dr. Greenfield opined. "Yes," concurred Marsh, "but not long before. I'm not sure it is a brand. Such a mark could have been made with, say, a small cup or tumbler." "But what reason is there in that?" Exclaimed Morton. "Even a lunatic murderer wouldn't mark his victim by means of a tumbler rim." Absorbedly, he picked up a tumbler from the water tray and fitted it to the red mark on Wearing's forehead. "It doesn't fit exactly," he said. "But it does almost."

"Rubbish," said Gordon Lockwood in his superior way. "Why would anyone mark Dr. Wearing's face with a tumbler?" "Yet it has been marked," Morton looked at the secretary sharply. "Can you suggest any explanation, however difficult of belief?" "No," Lockwood said, "unless he fell over on some round thing as he died. There's nothing here," said Morton, scanning the furnishings of the desk. "The ink stand is closed. And it's a smaller round anyway. There's no one of these desk fittings that could possibly have made that mark. Therefore, since it was made before death, it must have been done by the murderer." "Or by the self harm," Lockwood insisted firmly. Morton, looking at the secretary, decided to keep an eye on this cool chap who must have some reason for repeating his opinion of self harm.

"Now," the detective said briskly. "To get to business, I must make inquiries of the family. The household suppose I see them in some other room." "Yes," agreed Lockwood with what seemed to Morton suspicious eagerness. Why should the secretary be so obviously pleased to leave the study though to be sure it was a gruesome place just now? "Wait a minute," Morton said. "How about robbery? Has anything been missed?" Lockwood looked surprised. "I never thought to look," he said, assuming self harm. "Of course, robbery didn't occur to me." He looked around the room. "Nothing seems to be missing." "Stay on guard, Higgby," the detective said to a policeman, and then asked the secretary where he could interview the housekeeper and the servants.

Lockwood took Morton to the living room, and there they found Mrs. Bates as well as the two Payton. Though her eyes showed traces of tears, Emily Bates was composed and met the detective with an appealing face. "Do find the murderer," she cried. "I don't care how much that room was locked up. I know John Wearing never killed himself. Why would he do it? Did ever a man have so much to live for? He couldn't have taken his life." "I'm inclined to agree with you, Mrs. Bates," Morton told her. "Yet you must see the difficulties in the way of a murder theory. I'm told the room was inaccessible." "Is not that right, Mrs. Payton?" Flustered at the sudden question, the housekeeper wrung her hands and burst into tears. "Oh, don't ask me," she wailed. "I don't know anything about it." "Nothing indicative perhaps," and Morton spoke more gently, "but at least tell me all you do know. When did you see doctor wearing last?" "At the supper table last evening. Not after supper at all." "No, that is, I didn't see him. I am training a new servant, and I watched him as he took a tray of water and glasses into the study, but I didn't look in, nor did I see the doctor." "Did you hear him?" "I don't think I heard him speak. I heard a paper rustle and I knew he was there. The servant came right out again. Yes, my attention was all on him. I told him exactly what to do during the evening." "What were those instructions?" "To attend to his dining room duties, putting away the supper dishes and that, and then to stay about on duty until Dr. Wearing left his study and went to bed. This servant had done these things before, not these things. He arrived but a few days ago, and Itto the butler attended to the doctor. But Sunday afternoon and evening, Itto has off. So I began to train Noi, and this Noi has disappeared." "Yes, he is not to be found this morning, nor has his bed been disturbed. Then we may take it he left in the night or early morning. Now the doctors judge that Dr. Wearing died about midnight. We must therefore admit the possibility of a connection between the Japanese person's disappearance and the doctor's death." At this suggestion, Gordon Lockwood looked interested, whereas he had preserved a stony calm. His face now showed deep attention to the detective's words, and he nodded his head in agreement.

"You think so, too, Mr. Lockwood?" Morton asked in that sudden and often disconcerting way of his. "I don't say I think so," the secretary returned quietly. "But I do admit a possibility." "It would seem so," Mrs. Peyton put in. "If Nogi could have got into the study, but he couldn't. You know it was locked." "Impossible, Mr. Lockwood." "Yes," Gordon returned. "I heard Dr. Wearing lock his door." "When was that?" Asked the detective sharply. "I should say about 10:00." "Where were you then?" "Sitting in the window nook outside the study door." "Could you not then hear anything that went on in the study?" "Probably not. The walls and door are thick. They were made so for the doctor's sake. He desired absolute privacy and freedom from interruption or overhearing. No, I could not know what was taking place in that room, if anything was at that time." "At what time did you last see the doctor?" "After supper, I went with him to the study. I looked after his wants, getting him a number of books from the shelves, and selecting from his files such notes or manuscript as he asked for. Those are my duties as secretary. And then then he practically dismissed me, saying I might leave for the night, but I remained in the hall window until 11:00." "Why did you do this?" "Out of consideration for my employer. He was exceedingly busy, and if a caller came, I could probably attend to his wants and spare the doctor an interruption." "Did anyone call?" "No one. Yet, you remained until 11:00." "Yes, I was doing some work of my own, and it was later than I thought when I decided to go home, and you spoke to the doctor before leaving." "As is my custom, I tapped lightly at the door and said, 'Good night.' This is my rule when he is busy and if he makes no response or merely murmurs, 'Good night.' I know there are no further orders till morning and I go home." "Did he respond to your rap last night?" "I I cannot say. I heard him murmur a good night, but if he did, it was so low as to be almost inaudible. I thought nothing of it since he did not call out, 'Come in, Lockwood,' as he does when he wants me. I paid little attention to the matter and you reached home when something after 11." "It's but a few steps over to the Adams house where I live now," summed up the detective. "Here's the case. You, Mr. Lockwood, are not sure Dr. Wearing responded to your good night. You did not see or hear him when Nogi took in the water tray." "No, I did not." "Mrs. Payton did not see him then either, though she imagined she heard a paper rustle. Noi is gone. He cannot be questioned. So, Mr. Lockwood, the last person whom we know definitely to have seen Jon Wearing. Alive is yourself when, as you say, you left him at about uh what time?" "About 8 or 9," said Lockwood carelessly. "Yes, you left him and sat in the hall. Now we have no positive evidence that he was alive after that." "What?" Lockwood stared at him. "No positive evidence, I say. Noi went in, but no one knows what Nogi saw in there." "Come now, Detective Morton," Lockwood said coldly. "You're romancing. Do you suppose for a minute that if there had been anything wrong with Dr. Wearing when Noi went in with the water that he would not have raised an alarm?" "I suppose that might have easily have been the case. The Japanese are afraid of death. Their one idea is to flee from it. If that Japanese servant had seen his master dead, he would have decamped just as he did do. But Nogi was here when I went home. He handed me my overcoat and hat quite with his usual calm demeanor." "You must remember, Mr. Lockwood, we have only your word for that." Gordon Lockwood looked at the detective. "I will not pretend to misunderstand your meaning," he said slowly and with humor. "Shall I say a word at present in self-defense. Your implication is so absurd, so really ridiculous there is nothing to be said." "That's right." And Morton nodded. "Don't say anything until you get counsel. Now, Mrs. Bates, I'm mighty sorry to bother you, but I must ask you a few questions, and if I size you upright, you'll be glad to tell anything you can to help discover the truth." "That's so, yes," she returned. "Yes, of course, Mr. Morton. But I can't let you seem to suspect Mr. Lockwood of wrongdoing without a protest. Dr. Wearing's secretary is most loyal and devoted. Of that, I am sure." "Never mind that side of it just now. Tell me this, Mrs. Bates. Who will benefit financially by Dr. Wearing's death. To whom is his fortune willed? I take it you must know as you expected soon to marry him." "But I don't know," Emily Bates said a little indignantly. "Nor do I see how it can help you to solve the mystery to get such information as that. You don't suppose anybody killed him for his money, do you?" "What other motive could there be, Mrs. Bates? Had he enemies?" "No. Well, that is I suppose he had some acquaintances who were disappointed at his election to the college presidency, but I'd hardly call them enemies." "Why not? Why wouldn't they be enemies? It's my impression that election was hotly contested." "It was," Mrs. Payton broke in. "It was Mr. Morton. And if Dr. Wearing was murdered, which I can't see how he was, some of that other faction did it." "But that's absurd," Gordon Lockwood protested. "There was disappointment among the other faction at the result of the election, but it's incredible that they should kill Dr. Wearing for that reason." "The whole case is incredible," Morton returned. "What is it, Higgby? What have you found?" "The doctor," Higgby said coming into the living room. "They have just noticed that. Although there is a pinhole in Dr. Wearing's tie, there is no stick pin there." "Did he wear one?" "Of course he did," Mrs. Bates cried. "He had on his ruby pin yesterday." "He did so," echoed Mrs. Payton. "That ruby pin was worth an immense sum of money. That's why he was killed then robbery. He certainly wore that pin last night," said Lockwood. "Are you sure it's missing? Hasn't it dropped to the floor?" "Can't find it," returned Higgby. And then all the men went back to the study.

"Anything else missing?" asked Morton, who was deeply chagrined that he hadn't noticed the pin was gone himself. "How about money, Mr. Lockwood?" said Dr. Marsh. "Any gone that you can notice?" With an uncertain motion, Gordon Lockwood pulled open a small drawer of the desk. "Yes," he said. "There was $500 in cash here last night, and now it is not here." "Better dismiss the self harm theory," said Detective Morton with a quick look at the secretary.

Chapter 7, the volume of Marshall.

The medical examiner, Dr. Marsh, the detective Morton, and the secretary of the late John Wearing, Gordon Lockwood, looked at one another without any words having been spoken that might indicate a lack of harmony. There yet was a hint of discord in their attitudes. Dr. Marsh was sure the case was at taking one's own life. "You'll find the stiletto somewhere," he shrugged, "when held upon that point. To find the weapon is not my business, but when a man is dead in a locked room and dead from a wound that could have been self-administered, I can't see a murder situation." "Nor I," said Lockwood, "has the waste basket been searched for the thing that killed him." Acting quickly on his own suggestion, Gordon Lockwood dived beneath the great desk. Like a flash, Morton was after him. And though the detective was not sure, he thought he saw the secretary grasp a bit of crumpled paper and stuff it in his pocket. "Now look here. I'll make that search," Morton exclaimed, and almost snatched the waste basket from the others' grasp. "Very well." And Lockwood put his hands in his pockets and stood looking on as Morton fumbled with the scraps. He emptied the basket on the floor, but there were only a few torn envelopes and memoranda which were soon proved to be of no indicative value to the searchers. "I'll save the stuff anyway," Morton declared, getting a newspaper and wrapping in it the few bits of waste paper. "Did you take a paper from this basket and put it in your pocket?" The detective suddenly demanded. Lockwood, without moving, gave Morton a cold stare that was more negative than any words could be and was moreover exceedingly disconcerting. "Look here, Mr. Morton," he said. "If you suspect me of killing my employer, come out and say so. I know in story books the first one to be suspected is the confidential secretary, so accuse me and get it over with." The very impassivity of Lockwood's face seemed to put him far beyond and above suspicion. And the detective hastily mumbled, "Not at all, Mr. Lockwood. Not at all. But you don't seem real frank now, and you must know how important it is that we get all the firsthand information we can." "Of course, and I'm ready to tell all I know. Go on and ask questions." "Well then, what do you summize has become of that $500 and that ruby stick pin? Doesn't their disappearance rather argue against self harm?" Lockwood meditated. "Not necessarily. If they have been stolen, stolen? Of course they've been stolen since they aren't here. I don't see any safe." "No, Dr. Wearing had no safe. There has been little or no robbery in Corinth, and Dr. wearing rarely kept much money about. $500 is quite a sum. That was for housekeeping purposes. Whenever necessary, I drew for him from the bank that amount, and he kept it in that drawer until it was used up. He always gave Mrs. Payton cash to pay the servants and some other matters, as well as her own salary. His tradesman's bills were paid by check." "Was the money in bills?" "I invariably brought it to him in the same denominations. $200 in $5 bills, $200 in ones, and $100 in silver coins in paper rolls. Yes, it may have been injudicious to keep so large a sum in his desk drawer, but he always did. Though to be sure, he often paid out a great deal of it at once. Sometimes he would cash checks for someone or give some to the poor. Drawer never locked, always locked. But both the doctor and I carried a key. He was not so suspicious of me as you are, Mr. Morton." The speaker gave his cold smile.

"And as to the ruby pin, Mr. Lockwood," Morton went on, "Are you willing we should search your effects?" Lockwood started, and for a moment he almost lost his equipoise. "I am not willing," he said, after an instant's pause. "But if you say it is necessary, I suppose I shall have to submit." Morton looked at him uneasily. He had no appearance of a criminal. He looked too proud and haughty to be a culprit. Yet, might that not be sheer bravado? Discontinuing the conversation, Morton turned his attention to the table in the window in the hall where the secretary so often sat. He examined the impertinences, for the table was furnished almost like a desk, and he picked up a silver pen holder. It was round and smooth, and without chasing or marking of any sort, save for the initials G. L. "This yours?" He asked, and Lockwood nodded. "Descent. I ask you, Dr. Marsh." Morton turned to the examiner. "Whether that wound which is in Dr. Wearing's neck could have been made with this pen holder?" Startled, Marsh took the implement and carefully scrutinized it. Of usual length, it was tapering and ended in a point. The circumference of the larger end was just about the circumference of the wound in question. "I must say it could be possible," Marsh replied, his eyes alternately on the pen holder and on the dead man. "Yes, it is exactly the size and it is strong enough and sharp enough and it is round," summed up Morton. "Now, Mr. Lockwood, I make no accusation. I'm novice, and I know there's a possibility that this might have been the weapon used, and yet it might not have been used by you. But I will say that I have much to say to you yet, and I advise you not to try to leave town." "I have no intention of leaving town or of trying to do so," Lockwood asserted. "But," he went on, "would you mind telling me if I killed the man I was devoted to, how I left the room locked behind me?" "Those locked rooms bore me," said Morton. "I've read lots of detective stories founded on that plot. Invariably, the locked room proves to be vulnerable at some point. I haven't finished examining the doors and windows myself as yet." "Proceed with your examinations, then," said Lockwood. "If you can find a secret or concealed entrance, it's more than I can do." "More than you will do, perhaps, but not necessarily more than you can do. Don't forget that vanish Japanese," prompted Marsh. "I have small faith in orientals, and if there is a way to get in and out secretly, I'd question the Japanese person before I would Mr. Lockwood here." "So should I," declared the impassive secretary himself. "And another thing, don't forget, Morton, after the private secretary, the next person to be suspected is the butler. That is in fiction, which I gather you take as your manual of procedure." Lockwood's sarcasm drove Morton frantic, but he was too wise to show his annoyance. "I shall neglect no possible suspect," he said with dignity.

And then two men came from the police, who said they were photographers and desired to take some pictures at the chief's orders. Lockwood left them and went to the living room where the household and a few neighbors were assembled. "I'm glad to get out of that detective atmosphere," he said, relaxing in an easy chair. "It's bad enough to have the man dead without seeing and hearing those coldblooded police bungling over their clues and evidences." "Tell me a little of the circumstances," asked Mrs. Bates, who was present. "I can bear it from you, Gordon, and I must know." "Apparently, Dr. Wearing was sitting at his desk reading," Lockwood began with a far-away look, as if trying to reconstruct the scene. "He must have been reading Marshall, for the volume was open on the desk, and the pages were bloodstained." Mrs. Bates gave a little cry and shuddered, but Lockwood went unmovably on. "There were other books about, some open, some closed, but Marshall was nearest his hand, quite as if he were reading up to the last moment when the murderer came." Mrs. Bates breathed softly, her eyes wide with horror. "It couldn't have been murder," Lockwood said in a positive way. "You see, Mrs. Bates, it just couldn't have been. That Morton detective is trying to trump up a way the assassin could have entered that locked room, but he can't find any way. I know he can't, so it must have been taking one's own life. Much as we dislike to admit it, it is the only possible theory." "But they say there was robbery." Mrs. Payton put in. "The ruby pin is gone and the money from the drawer." "But perhaps," Gordon said, "they were taken by a robber who did not also murder his victim." "Noi now, of course," cried Helen Payton quickly. "I see it. I never could abide Noi with his stealthy ways. He stole the things and then he ran away." "And later, Dr. Wearing killed himself because of the robbery," exclaimed Emily Bates. "Oh no," Lockwood returned. "Certainly not for that. Indeed, the motive is the greatest mystery of all. We could perhaps imagine a motive for murder, whether it was robbery or some brute of the other faction or some old enemy of whom we know nothing but for self harm, though I am sure it was that, I can think of no motive whatever." "Nor I," said Mrs. Bates. "I knew him better than any of you. And I know I know for a certainty that he was a happy man, that he looked forward eagerly to his marriage with me, that he was happy in the thought of his presidency, that he hadn't a real trouble in the world." "The other faction," began Mrs. Payton. "No," said Mrs. Bates firmly. "He knew he was doing his duty, upholding the principles and tradition of his college, and the other faction did not worry him. He was too big-minded, too broad vision to allow that to trouble him." "I think you're quite right, Mrs. Bates," Lockwood agreed. "But granting it was taking one's own life. What do you think was the cause?" "That's just it," she declared. "I don't think it was taking one's own life. I know it couldn't have been. He was too happy, too good, too fine to do such a thing, even if he had had a reason. And then what did he do it with?" "Morton imagines a secret entrance of some sort," said Lockwood. "If there is one, the robber could have come in afterward and could have carried off the weapon." "Hush, Gordon," said Mrs. Bates sternly. "That's too absurd. If it had been taking one's own life, which it wasn't, why under heaven would a burglar coming in later take away the weapon to save himself?" "Said Lockwood shortly, "so he wouldn't be suspected of the greater crime." "Nonsense," said Mrs. Payton immediately. "I never heard such rubbish. And in the first place, there's no secret entrance to the study. I haven't swept and dusted and vacuum cleaned that place all these years without knowing that. Yes. And had the room redecorated and refitted, and oh, I know every inch of it, there's no possible chance of a secret entrance. Who built it and when and why? Not Dr. Wearing. His life's always been an open book. Never has he had any secret errands, any callers whom I didn't know, any matters on which he was silent or uncommunicative. Until his engagement to Mrs. Bates, he hadn't a ripple in his quiet life, and that he told me about as soon as it occurred." Mrs. Payton looked squarely at Dr. Wearing's fiance, as if to imply a complete knowledge of the courtship, as well as an intimate knowledge of the doctor's life. "That's true," Lockwood said. "He was a man without secrets. He was always willing I should open his mail, and there was never a letter that I did not know about." Yet, even as he spoke, the man remembered the crumpled paper he had taken from the waste basket, and he felt it in his pocket, though he made no sign.

"Oh, people, is my aunt here?" It was Pinky Payne who all excitement came running in. "I've just heard and I want to see Aunt Emily." "Here I am, dear. Come here, my boy." And she drew him down beside her on the sofa. "What do they say, Pinky? What's the talk in town?" Lockwood asked. "Oh, the place is in a turmoil. There are the wildest reports. Some say it's a that he killed himself, you know, and some say he didn't. Which was it?" The boy's lip quivered as he looked about at the silent people. "Tell him," Gordon begged Mrs. Bates and Lockwood told the principal details of the mystery. "Never a self harm. Never," Pinkney knee pain declared. "I know Doc wearing too well for that. Self harm means a coward. And he was never that. No, Aunt Emily. It was murder. Oh, how terrible. And the boy almost lost control of himself. You were at the bottom of it, auntie. I'm sure it was either one of those men you refused when you took up with Doc Wearing." "Why Pinkney? How dreadful of you. Don't say such a thing." "But I know it. If you'd heard Jim Haskell and Philip Leonard talk, I felt sure they meant to kill Dr. Wearing." "Pinky, I forbid you." "But it's true, Auntie. And if it's true, you want them shown up, don't you? Whichever one it was." "Hush, Pinky, hush." "Yes. Shut up, Pink." Lockwood spoke sternly. "What you suggest is highly improbable, but even if there's suspicion of such a thing, don't babble about it. That's the detective's work." "Yes. And who's your detective? Old blind as a bat Morton, I'll bet. Who can't see a hole through a ladder? I'll show him now." "Pinky, I beg of you." "Hush," said his aunt, losing her self-control. "There, auntie, dear, don't cry. I didn't mean to worry you, but something must be done." "Something will be done, Pinky," Lockwood assured him. "But I tell you right now, if you try to stick your inexperienced finger in this pie, you'll make trouble for us all from your aunt down. Now, behave yourself. Try to be a man, not a foolish boy." "That's what I'm doing. And I don't propose to lie down on the job either. I tell you, Gordon, I know a lot about detective work." "Cut it out, Pink," said Helen, and her words seem to have an effect on the irreressible youth. "To read detective stories is one thing. To solve a real life mystery is quite another." "That's right, Helen." And Lockwood nodded approval. "Many a person thinks he has a bit of detective instinct when all he has is curiosity and imagination." Helen, pleased at this appreciation, went on to lay down the law for Pinkney Payne. She was interrupted by the entrance of Morton, who wanted to learn more of the departed Japanese Noi.

"What other servants are there?" he asked Mrs. Payton. "Only the two Japanese," she replied. "They do all the cooking and serving a table, all the cleaning of the house, and the rest my daughter and I attend to." "There is a chauffeur?" "Yes, but the garage is a few blocks away, and the chauffeur lives at home. You had no ghee but a short time only a few days. He came well recommended. He had very fine written recommendations but from people I did not know and too far away to inquire of. I took him on trial. He seemed honest and faithful. He seemed so. But he was silent and moody, a man one could scarcely understand. Can you imagine his killing his master granting the opportunity?" Mrs. Payton considered. "I can imagine it," she said. "But I shouldn't like to say I would suspect him of it. He was soft-footed and went about with a sort of stealthy manner, but I'm not prepared to say he was wrong in any way. Call in Itto, the other one." Itto came and stood solidly by. His impassive demeanor was not unlike that of Gordon Lockwood. "We wearing had sometimes remarked this in a chaffing way to his secretary." "You knew this noi?" asked Morton. "Only since he came here," answered the butler in perfect English. "You liked him?" "Neither yes nor he knew little of his duties, but he was willing to learn. He was respectful to me and friendly enough. I had no reason to dislike him." Morton didn't seem to get anywhere with this man. "Well, what do you think of his character?" he said. "Would you say he was capable of killing his employer?" "All men are capable of crime," said the Japanese person in a low, even voice. "But he could not kill Dr. Wearing and go away, leaving the study locked on the inside." "Why did he go away then?" "That I do not know. It may be he tired of the place here, but there was money due him." "Yes, that makes it hard to understand." Morton had an uncomfortable feeling that the Japanese were scornful of him and worse still that the other listeners were also. "You may go," he told Itto, and then turning to Lockwood, he said a little belligerently. "Who is in charge here? To whom do I make my report?" The question was like a bombshell. All was silent until Mrs. Bates said, "I suppose I am what might be called in charge. You may report to me." "To you, ma'am." Morton was clearly surprised. "Yes, as Dr. Wearing's a fianced wife and as his heir, I feel I am in authority and also I wish all reports made to me as I am the one most deeply interested in learning the identity of the murderer." "If he was murdered," supplemented Mrs. Bates, and Mrs. Payton broke in. "You needn't think, Mr. Morton that there's such a thing as a secret entrance or secret passage in this house for I know there is not yet there are other theories other possibilities." The detective said his heir a little less important than it had been. "Suppose now that Nogi had robbed and murdered his master when he carried in the water tray. Just suppose that and suppose that with his Japanese cunning he had devised a way to lock the door behind him. Or say he had gone out by the glass door and had locked that behind him." "How?" cried Pinkney, his eyes wide with excitement. "Say he had previously removed a pane of glass. They are not large panes. Say he reached through, locked the door inside the French window. I mean, and then had put in the pane, reported it, and gone away." "Gee," cried the boy. "That could be, of course, it could, and there are other ways it might have been accomplished. Now, we don't say that did happen, but what I want to know is who is at the head of this investigation. I can't feel that Mrs. Bates is." Mrs. Payton said a little sullenly. "She was not married yet, and therefore, as resident housekeeper, I feel rather in authority myself." "But you say you are the heir, Mrs. Bates," the detective inquired. "Perhaps I ought not to have told that," Emily Bates spoke regretfully. "But Dr. Wearing's lawyer will tell you. It is true. I am the principal heir. It is so designated in his will, which you will find in a secret drawer in his desk." "You know where this drawer is?" "I do. Later on, I will ask you to show us." "If you are the heir, there is no further question of your authority here." And Detective Morton left the room.

Chapter 8. Where is Nogi?

24 hours later. Cray, the district prosecuting attorney stood in the wearing study. The body of the master had been removed, and to Cray's regret, he had not seen it. before the imbalmer's work had removed the red ring on the forehead. "It was a sign," he said to Morton, who was moodily listening. "A sign like that left by the murderer always means revenge." "You agree to murder then?" Morton spoke eagerly. Glad to have his theory corroborated. "What else? Look here, Morton. It's got to be either murder or self harm, hasn't it?" "Yes." "Well, then to which of the two do the greater number of clues point? Sum up. For self harm, we have only the locked room argument. I admit I don't know how anyone could get in or out of this study, but as I say, that's the only sign of self harm. Now, for murder, we have the absence of the weapon, the robbery of the money and the ruby, and sign of a circle on the dead man's forehead. Wish I'd seen that. It wasn't burnt on, for it disappeared after the imbalmer took care of it. Oh, no. It wasn't as deep as a burn. More like an impression left by a ring of cold metal or the edge of a glass tumbler. Very strange and decidedly an important clue. For here's the queer part. The doctors declare the mark must have been made while the man was alive. Now, how can that be explained? Give it up. It's too much for me. But it was too small a circle to have been made by the tumbler on the water tray. I measured it. I know. That's why I think it was a sign of revenge. Suppose the motive was revenge. And the reason for revenge had something to do with a quarrel in which a small glass or cup figured. That's the idea. Though of course it needn't have been a glass or cup at all, but something with a ring-like edge. Thus there was a reason for the sign on the dead man's face. I see. though I never could have doped it out like that. Oh, I don't say it's exactly what happened, but there must have been something of the sort for what other hypothesis fits the case at all. We can't imagine doctor wearing branding his own forehead and then killing himself, can we?" "No." "And if he had, where's the branding iron to call it that? And where's the dagger?" "That's right." "Now, I propose to treat the matter as a murder case and look for the criminal first and then find out how he entered the locked room afterward." "Pooh, those locked rooms. You're way off, Morton. When you sneer at a locked room, it was locked. I mean, impenetraably locked. There is no secret passage. Of that, I'm sure. Your ingenious idea of removing and replacing a whole pane of glass was clever, I grant. But we've seen that not a pane has been lately repottied. They're all framed in old, dried, hard, and even painted putty." "I know it, but some other such way might have been devised. Can't think of any. We've examined all the window sashes and door frame. Oh well, so far as I can see, the room was absolutely unenterable. But notwithstanding, I'm going to work on a murder basis. Because inexplicable as that seems, there are even more insurmountable difficulties in the way of the self harm theory. Now, I suppose you've had the fingerprint expert in." "No, I haven't. Not yet." "Good lord. What kind of a detective are you? Well, get him and put him to work. What about footprints? Inside the room or outside?" "Either. But inside, I suppose, has been trampled by a score of people. You can't get footprints on a thick rug," the discomforted Morton grumbled. "Sometimes you can, and a polished floor will often show marks. What have you done anyway?" "There was enough to do, Mr. Cray," Morton flared back at him. "I have been busy every minute since I began, except"

For a few hours sleep. Over 24 hours since the alarm was given. You've put in at least 12. Then what have you done? A lot.

I found out to my own satisfaction that if it is a murder, Gordon Lockwood knows all about it. You suspect him, either of the deed or of guilty knowledge, and his motive? Money. That young man is overhead and ears in debt. To whom? To shops, jewelers, florists, restaurants, all the debts a gay young blade would incur. You amaze me, Morton. Lockwood isn't that sort, isn't he? You're deceived like everyone else by that icy calm of his. He stares hortily and appears above and beyond ordinary mortals. But he's deep. That's what he is, deep.

Well, how did he do it? With his pen holder, a smooth, sharp silver pen holder. And he took the money and the ruby. And how did he leave the room? Don't ask me that. That's his secret. But I have a notion he was in cahoots with that new Japanese person, the one that vermoose.

I theorize Morton waxed important as he noted the prosecutor's attention that the Japanese person had some grudge against wearing and it was he who branded his forehead and who contrived a way to leave the room locked behind him. Why? I read a story the other day where a key was turned from the other side of a door by means of a slender steel bar through the key handle and a string from the bar leading down and under the door. Once outside, the murderer pulled the string. The bar turned the key in the lock. The bar fell to the floor and he dragged it under the door by means of the string. Ingenious, but it implies a door raised from the floor. I know. And this one isn't. But it all goes to prove that there can be some way, some diabolically clever way to do the trick. And the Japanese are diabolically clever. And so is Lockwood. And if the two worked together, they could accomplish wonders. Then Lockwood with his wooden face could disarm suspicion. The Japanese person, let us say, couldn't. So Lockwood packed him off.

Interesting. But all theory to be proved or disproved then? Yes. But meantime, you are losing time on more practical investigation. Let's look outside for footprints. I mean, for anyone coming or going from this side entrance, the French window. Nobody comes or goes that way in this weather. The path isn't even shoveled. That's used mostly in summertime. Nevertheless, Cray opened the window door. Somebody has been here. Morton looked out and stared hard. How had he come to neglect a matter of such importance? There were two plainly visible lines of footprints in the snow, one quite obviously coming toward the house and one going away from it.

There's your murderer, said Cray quietly. Oh no, but Morton wriggled uneasily. It couldn't be. No murderer is going to walk through crusted snow to and from the scene of his crime, leaving definite footprints like those. That's no argument. He might have come here with no intent of crime, and afterward might have been so beside himself he couldn't plan safely. "Oh well, get what you can from them," said Morton pettishly. "I suppose you deduce a tall man with blue eyes and two teeth missing."

Don't be cheap, Morton. And on the contrary, I deduce a small man. They are small footprints and close together. The Japanese are small men, Morton. Well, these prints are more than 24 hours old, and they're not clear enough to incriminate anybody. They haven't changed an iota from the moment they were made. This cold snap has kept everything frozen solid. Look at the frost still on the panes, the icicles still on the window sashes, the ice coating still on all the trees and branches. In fact, it has grown steadily colder since night before last, and until it begins to thaw, we have these footprints as intact evidence. I will have them photographed. They are small, Morton agreed after further examination. And as you say, too close together for an ordinary-sized man. It looks like the Japanese person.

Beginning to wake up, are you? You've sure been asleep at the switch, Morton? Nothing of the sort, Mr. pray. But I ought to have help. I've had all I could tackle. Making the necessary first inquiries and getting the facts straightened out. That business could have waited better than these other things. Now there's Crims, the lawyer, arriving. Let's interview him, but not in the study. Keep that clear.

They met Crims in the hall and took him to the living room. The matter of the will was immediately taken up, and Mrs. Bates was asked to tell which desk drawer it was in. Accompanied by the lawyer and the secretary, Mrs. Bates indicated the drawer, and Lockwood opened it with his key. There were a few papers in it, but no will, nor could further search disclose any such document. Who took it? said Mrs. Bates blankly, but no one could answer her. The others came thronging in. Cra's urgent requests to keep out of the study being entirely ignored.

"I knew it," declared Mrs. Payton triumphantly. "Now I guess you won't be so cocky, Emily Bates. You or your authority." Mrs. Bates looked at her. "I am the heir," she said hortily. "I assert that, but I cannot prove it until the will is found. It isn't in your possession, Mr. Crims." "No, Dr. Wearing preferred to keep it himself." "I cannot understand its disappearance."

"A lot of paper has been burned in this fireplace," said Helen Payton, who was poking the ashes around. Morton hastened to look, for it seemed to him as if everybody was stealing his thunder. Nothing that can be identified, he said carelessly. "No," demmerred Cray. "At any rate, it looks as if some legal papers were destroyed. This bit of ash is quite evidently the remainder of several sheets folded together, but no definite knowledge could be gained outside the fact that much paper had been burned there. As no fire had been made since the discovery of the tragedy, it stood to reason the papers were burned by Dr. Wearing himself or by his midnight intruder, if there were such a one."

Well, Cray demanded of the lawyer, if no will can be found, then who inherits the property of Dr. Wearing and is it considerable? Yes, Dr. Wearing had quite a fortune. Crimin told them, "As to an heir, he has a distant cousin, a second cousin, who I suppose would be the legal inheritor in the absence of any will. But I know he made a will in Mrs. Bates's favor, and it included a few minor legacies to the members of this household and some neighbors." "I know it," Mrs. Bates said. "I'm perfectly familiar with all the bequests. But where is the will? It must be found. It can't have been burnt. We've no right to assume that those paper ashes are the will. But I confess. I fear it." Crims announced, his face drawn with anxiety. "I should be deeply sorry if it is so, for the cousin I speak of is a nay, a do well young man, and not at all a favorite of his late relative. His name is Maurice Tras, and he lives in St. Lewis. I suppose he must be notified in any case."

"Yes," said Gray. "That must be done. But please all go out of this room for the fingerprint experts and the photographers are coming. Soon and every moment you people stay here. You helped to cloud or destroy possible clues." Impressed by his sternness, they filed out and gathered in the living room. There they found a neighbor, Sultan Stall Adams, awaiting them.

"I came over," he said with scant preliminary greetings, "because I have something to tell. You in charge, Mr. Cray?" "Yes, Salt." "What do you know this?" "I was awake late night before last, the night Doc Wearing died, and I was looking out my window, and it was pretty light with the snow and the moonlight and all. And I saw a man, a small man, creeping along slylike, and I watched him. He went along past my house down toward the railroad tracks. He had a bag with him and a bundle beside. I wouldn't have noticed him probably, but he sculpted along so and seemed so fearful that somebody'd see him."

"No," said Gordon Lockwood calmly looking at the speaker. "Don't say it was and don't say it wasn't. But I went down to the station and the station master told me that that Japanese person of Wearing's went off on the milk train." "He did," cried Morton. "What time does that train go through?" "About 4." "The fellow passed my house. Long about 12, I should say, though I didn't look. And he must have waited around the station all that time till the milk train came along."

"Is the station master sure it was Nogi?" asked Mrs. Payton greatly excited. "Said he was. And there's mighty few Japanese people in Corinth. All told." "Of course it was Nogi," said Lockwood, and Morton snapped him up with, "Why are you so sure?" Lockwood treated the detective to one of his most disconcerting staires and said, "You, a detective, and asked such a simple question. Why, since there are but a very few Japanese in this town, and since one of them left on that milk train, and since all the rest are accounted for, and only Nogi is missing, it doesn't seem to me to require superhuman intelligence to infer that it was Noi who took his departure, and who was mixed up in the murder of Dr. John Wearing."

"Cried Morton, exasperated beyond all caution by the ironic tone of Lockwood. And unless you can explain some matters, sir, you may be considered mixed in the same despicable deed." "What matters?" Gordon Lockwood asked, but his already pale face turned a shade whiter. "First, sir, you have a large number of unpaid bills in your possession." The secretary's face was no longer white. The angry blood flew to it, and he fairly clenched his hands in an effort to preserve his usual calm, nor even then could he entirely succeed. "What if I have?" he cried. "And how do you know? You've searched my rooms." "Certainly," said Morton. "I warned you I should do so, but in my absence, the law is not always over ceremonious."

"Ah, Mr. Lockwood," Craig began. "Don't get excited." Gordon Lockwood almost laughed. For him to be told not to get excited. He who never allowed himself to be even slightly ruffled or perturbed. This would never do. "I'm not excited, Mr. Cray," he said. And he wasn't now. "But I am annoyed that my private papers should be searched without my knowledge." "Surely I might." "Never mind the amenities of life. Mr. Lockwood," Cray went on. "Your effects were searched on the authority of a police warrant. Now, regarding these bills, I have nothing to say. A man has a right to his unpaid bills, but he has not a right to steal $500 in cash and a ruby pin in order to be able to pay them."

This from Morton, and instead of replying to the detective in any way, Lockwood ignored the speech utterly, quite as if he had not heard it, and addressed Cray. "Was anything further found to incriminate me?" he asked. "Was there anything else to be found?" said Cray, catching at the implied suggestion. "That's for your sleuths to say. I know of nothing." "Well, there's your round sharp pen holder, and the fact that you had keys to all desk drawers. Also, the fact that only you and the Japanese person are known to have been in that part of the house that night. These things were not learned from the search of your rooms, but your pecuniary embarrassment, which was discovered, all go together to make a web of circumstances that call for investigation."

"Don't beat about the bush," exclaimed Lockwood, his lips set, and his eyes staring coldly at the district attorney. "I'd far rather be accused definitely than have it hinted that I am responsible for this crime, but we haven't sufficient evidence, Mr. Lockwood to accuse you definitely. That's why we must question you." "Sufficient. You haven't any evidence at all." "Oh, we have some." With a turn of his head, Cray summoned a man who stood at the hall door. The man came in and handed Cray a report. The attorney scanned the paper. "We find Mr. Lockwood fresh fingerprints on the chair which stood near Dr. Wearing's desk, facing the doctor's chair. In fact, as if someone had sat there talking to him."

"Did you?" "No, I never sat down and talked to him. I was always waiting on him in the matter of bringing books or taking letters for transcription. And in any case, I either stood or sat at my desk, never in that chair you speak of." "This man will take the fingerprints of all present," the attorney directed, and one and all submitted to the process. Old Salt Adams was greatly interested. "But you can't get the prince of friend Japanese person," he said, "likes not. He'd be of more importance than all of us put together. Me now I can't see where I come in."

Yet after time enough had passed to complete the processes it was learned that the fingerprints on the shiny black wood of the chair under discussion were indubitably those of Gordon Lockwood. Also, there were other prints there slightly smaller that Cray immediately assumed to be those of the missing Japanese. Lockwood looked more superilious than usual, if that were possible. "How can you identify the prince of a man not here?" he asked with an incredulous look. "Supposition not identification," said Craig gravely. "But we're narrowing these things down, and we may yet get identification."

"Get the Japanese person back," advised old Salt Adams. "That's your next move, Cray. Get him. Check up his fingerprints and all that. And best of all, get his confession. There's your work cut out for you."

"Find Dr. Wearing's will," Mrs. Bates lamented. "There's your work cut out for you. I am not unduly mercenary, but when I know how anxious Dr. Wearing was that I should inherit his estate. When I realized what it meant that he drew this will before our marriage, so urgent was his desire that all should be mine. You must understand that I do not willingly forgo at all in favor of a distant relative whom Mr. Crims tells us Dr. Wearing did not care for at all."

"I should say not," and Crims looked positive. "It will be an outrage if Mr. Traskque inherits the estate already willed to Mrs. Bates. I stand ready to do all I can to see justice done in this matter." "But justice, as you see it, can only result from finding the will," said Gray. "Yes," agreed Crims. "And the whole matter opens up a new train of thought. May not the distant cousin, this man Tras, be in some way responsible for the destruction of the will and the death of the deedent."

"It is a new way to look." Cray agreed with a thoughtful air and we will look that way. You rest assured we will at once get in touch with this cousin. You will give us his address and learn where he was and how employed on the night of Dr. Wearing's death. We still have to face the problem of an outsider's exit from a locked room. And though it seems more explicable in the case of a member of the household, yet a new suspect brings fresh conditions and perhaps fresh evidence which may show us where to look. At any rate, we must speedily find Mr. Maurice Tras.

Chapter nine. A love letter.

"Look here, Esther," said old Saul to his wife. "That's a mighty curious case over at Wearing's." "How you do talk? I should think that to you and me knowing and loving John Wearing as we did, you'd have no doings with the curious part of it. As for me, I don't care who killed him. He's dead, isn't he? It can't bring him back to life to hang his murderer. And to my mind, it's heathenish. All this detectiving and evidencing, or whatever they call it. Whom do they suspect now?"

"You?" Adams looked at his wife with a mild reproach. "Woman all over. No sense of justice, no righteous indignation. Don't you know the murderer must be found and punished?" "That is if it was a murder." "Of course it was. That blessed man never killed himself. And he about to marry Emily Bates, a lady if ever there was one."

"Well, now you listen to me, Esther. And whatever you do, don't go babbling about this. They say the Japanese person who Vamoose from the Wearing house made a line of foot tracks in the snow. The snow's crusted over, you know, and those footprints are about as clear now as when they were made." "Huh? Footprints. Corinth is full of footprints." "Yes, but these Listen, Esther, these lead straight from the Wearing house over to this house and back again."

"How can they?" Mrs. Adams looked mystified. "That Japanese didn't come over here." "You can't say that he didn't. And look here, Esther. Where's Miss Austin? What's she doing, Miss Austin?" "She's in her room. She hasn't been quite up to the mark for a day or two, and she's had her meals upstairs." "What's the matter with her?" "A slight cold, she says."

"I can't make her out, Salt. What's she doing here anyway?" "Don't pester her, my dear. How you and Baskam do love to pick at that girl. Why does she have to do anything?" "It's queer, though, and I hate a mystery." "Well, she is one. I grant you that. Have you told her about Dr. Wearing, though I dare say it wouldn't interest her, and I dare say it would. Why, that girl cut his picture out of the paper? And she did have one stuck up on her dresser till I looked at it sort of sharp like, and she put it away. Poor child. Can't even have a newspaper cutting if she wants it."

"You're a tyrant, Esther. Don't you ever try to boss me like that." The good-natured smile that passed between them proved the unlikelihood of this, and old Salt went on. "I wish you'd tell her wife about the tragedy. Seems like she ought to know." Mrs. Adams stared at him. "I'll tell her as a matter of course, but I don't know why you're so anxious about it."

"Good morning, Miss Austin," the good lady said. "Soon after better this morning. Yes, thank you. My cold is almost entirely well." The girl was sitting by the window in an easy chair. She had on a Japanese dressing gown of quilted silk embroidered with chrysanthemums and was listlessly gazing out across the snowcovered field opposite. The Adams house was on the outskirts of the little town and separated by a wide field from the Wearing place.

"Heard the news about Dr. Wearing?" Mrs. Adams said in a casual tone, but watching the girl closely. "No. What is it?" The words were simple and the voice steady. But Miss Austin's hands clutched the arms of the chair, and her face turned perfectly white. "Why? What ails you? You don't know the man, do you?" "I I heard him lecture, you know. Tell me, what is the the news?" "He's dead." Mrs. Adams spoke bluntly on purpose. She had felt in a vague way that this strange person, this miss mystery, had more interest in Dr. Wearing than she admitted, and the landlady was determined to find out. To her own satisfaction, she did find out, for the girl almost fainted. She didn't quite lose consciousness. Indeed, it was not so much a faint as such a desperate effort to regain her poise that it unnerved her.

"Now, now, Miss Austin, why do you take it so hard?" "He was a stranger to you, wasn't he?" "Yes. Yes, of course he was. Why are you so disturbed then?" "He was such a such a fine man." The girl's stifled sobs impeded her speech. "Well, somebody killed him." At that, Miss Austin seemed turned to stone. "Killed him?" she whispered in accent of terror. "Yes, or else he killed himself. They don't feel sure."

Mrs. Adams once embarked on the narrative, told all she knew of the circumstances, and in the exciting recital, almost forgot to watch the effect of the tale on her listener. But this effect was not entirely unnoted. At the partly open door, old Salt Adams stood, eavesdropping, but with a kindly anxious look on his face that boded no ill to anyone, and he noticed that the girl's attention was wandering. She was pitifully white, her face drawn and scared, and soon she exclaimed with a burst of nervous fury, "Stop! Please stop! Leave the room, won't you?" It was not a command, but an agonized intreaty. Mrs. Adams fairly jumped, and alarmed as well as offended, she rose, and started for the door, only to meet her husband entering.

"Go downstairs, Esther," he said gravely. "I want to speak to Miss Austin myself." Staring at one, then at the other, and utterly routed by this unbelievable turn of affairs, Mrs. Adams went. Old Salt closed the room door and turned to the trembling girl. "Miss Austin," he said kindly, "I like you. I want to help you, but I must ask you to explain yourself a little. The people in my house call you Miss Mystery. Why are you here? Why are you in Corinth at all?"

For a moment, the girl seemed about to respond to his kindly, gentle attitude and address. Then something stayed her, and she let her lovely face hardened to a stony blankness. As she replied, "It is a bit intrusive, but I have no reason not to tell. I am an art student, and I came here to paint New England winter scenery." "Have you done much?" "I haven't been here quite a week yet, and I've been picking out available bits, and for 2 days, I've had a cold."

"How did you get cold?" The voice was kind, but it had a definite note, as if desirous of an accurate answer. Miss Mystery looked at him. "How does anyone get cold?" she said, trying to smile. "Perhaps by sitting in a draft, perhaps by means of a germ. It is almost well now." "Perhaps by walking in the snow and getting one's feet wet," Mr. Adams suggested, and the girl turned frightened eyes on him. "Don't," she breathed. "Mr. Adams, don't." Her voice was pitious. Her eyes implored him to stop torturing her.

"Why, what's the harm in my saying that?" He went on inexurably. "You wouldn't go anywhere that you wouldn't want known, would you, Miss Mystery?" He spoke the last two words in a meaning way, and the great dark eyes faced him with the look of a stag at bay. Then again, by a desperate effort, the girl recovered herself and said coldly, "Please speak plainly, Mr. Adams. Is there a special meaning in your words?"

"There is, Miss Austin. Perhaps I have no right to ask you why, but I do ask you if you went over to Dr. Wearing's house late in the evening, night before last." "Sunday night, do you mean?" Miss Mystery controlled her voice, but her hands were clenched and her foot tapped the floor in her stifled excitement. "Yes, Sunday night." "No, of course I did not go over there at night. I was there in the afternoon with Mrs. Bates and Mr. Payne." "I know that. And you then met Dr. Wearing for the first time?" "For the first time," she spoke with downcast face. "The first time in your life?" "The first time in my life." But if ever a statement carried its own denial, that one seemed to. The long dark lashes fell on the white cheeks. The pale lips quivered, and if Anita Austin had been uttering deepest perjury, she could have shown no more convincing evidence of falsehood.

Yet old Salt looked at her benevolently. She was so young, so small, so alone, and so mysterious. "I can't make you out," he shook his head. "But I'm for you, Miss Austin. That is," he hedged, "unless I find out something definite against you. I feel I ought to tell you that you've enemies." "Yes," as the girl looked up, surprised. "You've made enemies in this house. Small wonder, the way you've acted. Now, why can't you be chummy and sociable?" "Like, chummy, sociable with whom?" "With all the borders. There's young Lockwood now and there's young Tyler." "Yes, yes, I know. I will, Mr. Adams. I will try to be more sociable."

"Now as to to Dr. Wearing. Why did he kill himself?" Old Salt eyed her narrowly. "We don't know that he did," he began. "But Mrs. Adams told me all the details," she shuddered. "And if that room he was in was so securely locked that they had to break in, how could it be the work of of another?" "Well, Miss Austin, as they found a bad wound in the man's neck, just under his right ear, a wound that produced instant unconsciousness and almost instant death, and as no weapon of any sort could be found in the room. How could it have been taking one's own life?"

"Which would you rather think it?" the strange girl asked, looking gravely at him. "Well, to me, I'm an old-fashioned chap. Self harm always suggests cowardice. And Doc Wearing was no coward that I'll swear." "No, he was not." "How do you know?" Miss Mystery started at the sudden question. "I heard him lecture, you know," she returned, and two, "I saw him in his home Sunday afternoon, and he seemed a fine man. A fine man."

"Well, Miss Austin," old salt rose to go. "I'm free to confess you're a mystery to me. I consider myself a fair judge of men. Yes, and of women. But when a slip of a girl like you act so strange I can't make it out. Now I happen to know." He paused at the panicstricken look on her face and lamely concluded, "Never mind. I won't tell." With which cryptic remark he went away.

"Well, what you've been saying to her?" demanded his agrieved spouse as the Adamses met in their own little sitting room. "Why, nothing," old Salt replied, and his troubled eyes looked at her pleadingly. "I don't think she's wrong, Esther." "Well, I do. And maybe a whole lot wrong. Why, Sultan Stall, Miss Baskam, says she saw Miss Austin trapesing across the field late Sunday night." "She didn't. I don't believe a word of it. She's a meddling old maid, a snooping busy body. there."

"Now you carry on like that because you're afraid we will discover something wrong about Miss Mystery. Look here, Esther," Adam spoke sternly. "You remember she's a young girl without anybody to stand up for her hereabouts. Now you know what a bobbery a few words can kick up. And we don't want that poor child's name touched by a breath of idol gossip that isn't true. I don't believe Liza Baskam saw her out on Sunday night. I don't even believe she thought she did." "Well, I believe it. Liza Baskam's no fool. She's worse. She's a nave and she hates little Austin and she'd say anything true or false to harm the girl. But Salt, she says she saw Miss Austin all in her fur coat and cap going cross lots to the Wearing house Sunday evening. Late, can she prove it? I don't know about that, but she saw her. How does she know it was Miss Austin? It might have been somebody who looked like her. You know those footprints? The Japanese persons? You can't say they're the Japanese persons."

"Miss Baskam says they're the Austin girls." Esther old Sultan Stall Adams rose in his wrath. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself to let that girl's name get into the Wearing matter at all. Even if she did go out Sunday night, if Miss Baskam did see her, you keep still about it. If that girl's wrong, it'll be discovered without our help. If she isn't, we must not be the ones to bring her into notice." "She couldn't be be implicated. Could she salt?" "No," he thundered. "Esther, you astound me. That Baskam woman has turned your brain. She's a viper. That's what she is." He stormed out of the room and getting into his great coat, tramped down to the village.

Gordon Lockwood was in his room. This was much to the annoyance of Callie, the impatient chambermaid who wanted to get her work done. Lockwood was himself impatient to get over to the Wearing house, for he had much to do with the mass of incoming mail, and the necessary interviews with reporters and other callers. Yet he tarried in his pleasant bedroom at Mrs. Adams, his door securely locked, and his own attitude one of stupidaction. For the hundth time, he reread the crumpled paper that he had taken from the study waste basket under the very nose of Detective Morton. Had that sleuth been a little more worthy of his profession, he never would have allowed the bare-faced theft. And now that Lockwood had it, he scarce knew what to do with it. And truly it was an astonishing missive, for it read, "Thus, my darling Anita, at the first glance of your brown eyes this afternoon, love was born in my heart. Life is worth living with you in the world." And yet that was all. The unfinished letter had been crumpled into a ball and thrown in the basket. Had another been started and completed. Had Anita Austin received it, and was that why she kept to her room for 2 days? Was she a he hated the word a vamp? Had she secretly become acquainted with John Wearing during her presence in Corinth, and had so charmed him that he wrote to her thus, or had they known each other before? What a mystery. There was not the slightest doubt of the writing. Lockwood knew it as well as he knew his own, and on top of all the other scraps in the waste basket, it must have been the last missive the dead man wrote, or rather the last he threw away. This meant he had been writing it on the Sunday evening. Then Lockwood reasoned, knowing the routine, if he had written another, which he completed and addressed, it would in natural course have been put with the letters for the mail, and would have been posted by Itto that next morning. What an oversight never to have asked Itto about that matter. It was an inviable custom for the butler to take all letters laid on a certain small table and put them in the pillar box early in the morning. Had Itto done this, it must be inquired into but far more absorbing was the actual letter before him, how could it be possible that John Wearing, the dignified scholar, the confirmed bachelor, should have loved this mystery girl. Yet even as he formulated the question, Gordon Lockwood knew the answer. He knew that from his own point of view, it would not be impossible or even difficult for any man with two eyes in his head to love that fascinating, enchanting personality, and as he pondered, he knew that he loved her himself. Yes, had loved her almost from the moment he first saw her. Certainly from the time he sat behind her at the lecture, and counted the queer little ball fringes in the back of her dainty gown. "Those fringes!" Lockwood gave a groan as a sudden thought came to him. He jumped up and with a determined air set about burning the inexplicable letter that John Wearing had written and thrown away. In the empty fireplace of the old-fashioned room, Lockwood touched a match to the sheet and burned it to an ash. Then he went over to the Wearing house.

It was an hour or so later that Callie reported to Miss Baskam. "Queer going on," the girl said, rolling her eyes at her eager listener, "Mr. Lockwood. Now he burned some papers. And Miss Austin, too, she burned some papers." "What's queer about that?" snapped Miss Baskam, who had hoped for something more sensational. "Well, it's sort of strange. They're both burning paper at the same time, and both so sly about it. Mr. Lockwood, he kept looking back at the fireplace as he went out of the door. And Miss Austin, she jumped like she was shot. When I come in suddenly and found her stooping over the fireplace, and too, Miss Baskam, whatever else she burnt, she burnt that picture she had of Dr. Wearing." "Did she have his picture?" "Yep. One Mr. Lockwood GV her after Norah carried off the one she cut out of a paper." "What in the world did that girl want of Dr. Wearing's picture?" "I don't know, ma'am. What they call hero worship, I guess. Just like I've got some several pictures of Harold Messenger, that man who plays caveman in the movies. My But he's handsome. And so Miss Austin burned a photograph of John Wearing." "Yes, ma'am. And you know they're kind of hard to burn. Anyways, she was a kneeling by the fireplace and the picture was smoking like everything. Let me help you, miss. I says, as polite as could be. And watch her think she snatched back and says, you let me loan. Get out of here or something like that. Oh, she was mad."

"All right. She has a high temper, hasn't she?" "Yes, there's no denying she has. Then again, she's sweet as pie and nice and gentle. She's a queer makeup. I will say there, Callie. That will do. Don't gossip." And Miss Baskam, sure she had learned. All the maid had to tell, went downstairs to tell it to Mrs. Adams. The landlady seemed less receptive than usual, being still mindful of her husband's admonitions. But Miss Baskam's story of the burnt photograph roused her curiosity to highest pitch.

"There's something queer about that girl," Mrs. Adams opined, and the other more than agreed. "Let's go up and talk to her," Miss Baskam suggested. And after a moment's hesitation, Mrs. Adams went. The landlady tapped lightly at the door, but there was no response. "Go right in," the other whispered. "And go in," they did. Miss Mystery lay on the couch, her eyes closed, her cheeks still wet with tears. She did not move and after a moment's glance to assure herself the girl was sound asleep. Miss Baskam audaciously opened one of the small top drawers of the dresser. Mrs. Adams gasped and frantically made motions of remmonstrance but swiftly fingering among the veils and handkerchiefs. Miss Baskam drew out a large roll of bills held by an elastic band. Anita Austin's eyes flew open and after one staring glance at the intrusive woman. She jumped from the couch and flew at her like a small but very active tiger. "How dare you?" she cried, snatching the money from Miss Baskam's hand, even as that elated person was unrolling it. And from inside the roll down on the painted floor fell a ruby stick pin.

Chapter 10. Who is Miss Mystery?

Mrs. Adams fell limply into a chair, her round eyes staring in horror. Miss Baskam had taken upon herself the role of dictator and with an accusing finger pointed at Miss Mystery, she said. "What have you to say for yourself?" "Nothing," replied Denita Austin coolly. "Except to insist that you leave my room." "Leave your room indeed. I am only too glad to. And I know where to go to." Miss Baskam's determined air as she strode out of the door gave a hint of her desperate intention and within 5 minutes she was out on the road toward the village. Mrs. Adams, still almost speechless with surprise and dismay, looked sorrowfully at Anita. Something in the girl's face stayed the kindly words the woman meant to say, and instead she broke out, "You must leave this house. What are you anyway? a thief and a murderer."

"Oh, don't." Anita put up her hand as if to ward off a physical blow. Then, as if the cruel words had stung her to a quickened sense of her own danger, she cried pitously. "Oh, Mrs. Adams, help me. Protect me, won't you? I don't know what to do. I'm all alone. So alone," she sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Esther Adams was uncertain what course to pursue. Should she protect this guilty girl, of whom she really knew nothing, or should she dismiss her at once from her house, in the interests of her other borders, who must be considered surely her first duty was to the others, the people she had known so long, and who looked upon her house as a home and a safeguard. "You must go," she said, though her voice wavered as she saw the pathetic face Anita raised to look at her. "Oh, don't send me away. Where could I go? Even the in people wouldn't take me." "Of course, they wouldn't go home. Haven't you a home? Who are you anyway? But I don't care who you are. You must get out of this house today this morning. Do you hear?"

Meanwhile, Miss Baskam, on her virtuous errand, had trotted quickly to the office of the prosecuting district attorney. There, however, she was told that Mr. Cray was over at the Wearing House, and she concluded to go there. Nor did this displease her. She longed to be in the limelight, and the tale she had to tell would surely give her the right to be there. Mrs. Payton received her coldly, for the two were not friends. "I came to see Mr. Cray, Miss Baskam," announced on important business. "Oh, very well. The housekeeper returned. Take a seat, and I'll ask him to see you." Miss Baskam waited in the living room, secure in her knowledge of the importance of her news. The attorney welcomed her cordially, for he saw at once that she brought news of value, and expressed in emphatic language, and interspersed with many and unfavorable personal opinions.

Liza Baskam told of the incident of finding the money and the ruby in Miss Austin's bureau draw. "Astonishing," commented Cray. "Who is she?" "Nobody knows. That's the queer part. We call her Miss Mystery." "Where did she come from?" "Nobody knows. She just appeared." "Don't the Adams know?" "No, they don't." "A young girl, you say?" "She appears to be very young, but you never can tell with those sly things. I dare say she makes herself look several years younger than she really is." "Did she know Dr. Wearing?" "How do I know?" "She came over to this house late Sunday night, for I saw her." "Good heavens, are you sure?" "Well, it was fairly light with the moon and the snow all over the ground, you know. And I saw her all wrapped up in her fur coat sneaking away from the house." "How late?" "Oh, after everybody had gone upstairs and the lights were all out at the Adams's." "You saw her come back?" "No, I didn't think much about it at the time. She's a crazy piece anyway."

"And what do you mean by a crazy piece?" "Why, she's queer, not like other folks. She won't have anything to do with any of us over there." "That doesn't make her out crazy." Miss Baskam shrugged impatiently. "I don't mean insane or demented. I only mean sly and secretive. She never speaks to anybody at the table. And though she makes eyes at Gordon Lockwood, she snubs Mr. Tyler, who is just as good a young man. They both admire her. Anybody can see that. But she treats them like the dust under her feet. not an adventurous then I don't know but I do know she's a thief or how did she get that money and the ruby perhaps Dr. Wearing gave them to her then she is a wrong one why should he give a strange girl such things if he was in love with her now look here Mr. Cray do try to show ordinary common sense Dr. Wearing was about to marry Mrs. Bates, a sweet, dear woman of suitable age. Is he going to have a little flippity jibbit coming to see him late at night for any romantic reasons?"

Cray hesitated to speak his mind, but he ruminated that he had heard of such things in the course of his life. Miss Baskam he thought was an unsophisticated old maid but there was certainly a new condition to be investigated and the case of Miss Anita Austin must be carefully considered. "Now Miss Baskam," he said diplomatically, "I'll have to ask you to keep this whole matter quiet for a time. You must see that we can't work successfully if we take the whole town into our confidence or even this entire household."

"Don't you try to bamboozle me, Steven Cray. I know your sort. You want to keep this matter quiet because you want to get that girl off scot-free. I know you men. Just because she has a pair of big dark eyes and a slim little shape, you are ready to hide her guilt and let her off easy. I won't have it. That girl stole those things or else she got them from poor John Wearing in a way no decent woman would."

"What are you talking about, Liza Baskam?" Mrs. Payton appeared in the doorway and though she asked the question, it was fairly evident that she knew the answer and had been listening. "Yes," she went on. "I've been listening at the door and I'm glad I did. First of all, I won't have Dr. Wearing's name introduced. And next, if there's a girl implicated in the matter, the whole truth about her has got to come out. I know the girl. She was here Sunday afternoon, and a more brazen-faced, bold-mannered chit I never want to see."

"She was here," asked the bewildered Cray. "You know her?" "I know all I want to know of her," Mrs. Payton declared. "Yes, she was here. Came over with Emily Bates and Pinky. Wouldn't condescend to be really one of us, but just acted offish and seemed to me about half-witted." "Don't be silly," put in Miss Baskam. "That's the last thing to say of her. Whatever that girl may be, she's got all her wits about her. I can see that for myself."

"Was doctor Wearing present when Miss Austin was here?" Asked Cray, thinking hard. "Yes," replied Mrs. Payton. "And that's a strange thing. When he first saw her unexpectedly, you know. He dropped his teacup." "Because of the meeting?" asked Cray. "I don't know," Mrs. Payton said. "He declared afterward he had never seen the girl before. But oh, I can't believe she came back here that night."

"Of course she didn't," Craig said. "How could she get in?" "Unless someone admitted her. There's the French window in the study," Mrs. Payton suggested uncertainly. "Dr. Wearing could have let her in that way." "But he didn't," Miss Baskam declared. "Land. I've known John Wearing all my life, and he's not the kind of man that had anything to do with flirtatious young women." Of a truth Liza Baskam had known Wearing for many years and had spent a number of them in desperate efforts to persuade him to renounce bachelorhood in her favor. Yet her words carried little weight with attorney Cray, who fancied that he knew men better than the insistent spinster possibly could.

"Miss Baskam," he said after further thought, "And Mrs. Payton, too. I'm going to ask you I am going to instruct you to keep this matter quiet until after the funeral of Dr. Wearing that occurs tomorrow and I want a day or so to look into this thing quietly. We would gain nothing by rushing matters. I will see Miss Austin of course and rest assured if she is guilty of any wrongdoing she shall not escape but it is a serious matter to accuse a suspect without giving any chance for explanation."

"There's no explanation of that ruby pin and all that money. That is not incriminating to that girl," Miss Baskam exclaimed. "Nevertheless, I am in authority, and I forbid you to discuss the connection of Miss Austin with the case at all." Craig knew how to impress belligerent women, and he even added a hint of their making trouble for themselves unless they obeyed his explicit command. He returned to the study where Gordon Lockwood was going over the morning's mail. The secretary was a busy man, for his late employer had had a number of diversified interests, and every male brought letters, cataloges, circulars, and newspapers that required careful attention. John Wearing had been a collector of rare books, and other curios, and was interested in several literary enterprises. To many of these correspondents, Lockwood could merely send a statement of the doctor's death, but others involved careful and wise judgment, and Lockwood conscientiously discharged his duties. The study had been put in order, and all traces of the tragedy had been removed. The books that had been on the desk, including the bloodstained copy of Marshall. Lockwood had, after consideration, restored to their places on the shelves. Although it gave him a thrill of horror, Lockwood had nerved himself to appropriate Wearing desk, for it meant far greater convenience in his work. He sat there as Cray entered and raised his impassive face to note the attorney's excitement.

"By Jove Lockwood," Cray exclaimed as he closed the door behind him. "There, Essa, new way to look, which seems to promise to straighten out a lot of things. Do you know that little piece over at your boarding house named Austin?" "I know her slightly. What about her?" From Lockwood's voice, no one would suspect that his heart was pounding desperately. "Well, she was here late Sunday night. What do you know about that?" "I don't know anything about it," returned Lockwood coldly. "And I don't believe it. For if she had been here, I should have known about it. I was here myself just outside the study door until 11:00."

"You don't mean later than that, do you?" "Don't know." "The Baskam spinster tells the story." "Then don't bank on it. With all due deference to Miss Baskam, I know she is not always a reliable source of information, but she says she saw the girl coming over here late that night." "She didn't. It's not true. What under the heavens would she have come for?" "What does any girl visit a man for?" Cray gave an unpleasant wink, and Lockwood, with difficulty, controlled an insane desire to spring at his throat. "And beside, she is even now in possession of the missing $500 and the ruby pin." "I don't believe it."

"See here, Mr. Lockwood, it doesn't matter to anybody whether you believe these things or not. Miss Austin has the valuables, and I'm going over there now to inquire how she got them. Also, it just occurs to me that those small footprints leading across the field are directed toward the Adam's house."

And may have been made by a woman as likely as by a hypothetical small-footed man. Those are Noi's footprints. How do you know? Common sense. Even if Miss Austin did come over here for any reason, she would have come by the street, not across the snowy field. Apparently, she chose the field. So, I'm going to ask her why.

All right, Cray, but you must admit you're illogical, inconsequent, and inconsistent. You think I killed Dr. Wearing? Because I have a sharp, round pen holder and owe some large bills. Then, because a gossiping old maid comes over here and babbles, you fly off at a tangent and accuse an unprotected girl of absurd and unbelievable crime. Oh, interested in the siren yourself, eh?

No, I'm not. If you mean Miss Austin, that is not personally. Few men could have told this lie with such a convincing manner. But Lockwood's flaggmatic calm stood him now in good stead, and his air of obvious indifference carried conviction. But he went on, "I am sorry for her. It's nobody's business who or what she is. Yet those women over at the Adams house are one and all possessed to find out something against her. I only want to advise you, Cray. If you talk to anybody over there, get old Salt himself. He's more fair-minded than his wife or the other women. Men are apt to be."

"Where a pretty girl is concerned," said Cray dryly, and Lockwood ground his teeth in rage as the attorney went away. His demand to see Miss Austin was listened to by old Salt Adams, who had seen him coming, and opened the door for him.

"Well, Craig," said the old man as he ushered him into the sitting room and shut the door. "I know what you're after, and I just want to say, go slow. That's all. Go slow."

"All right, Salt. Will you send Miss Austin down here? Also, I must interview her alone."

"Yes, I understand. But don't be led away now by circumstantial evidence. You know yourself. It isn't always dependable. Go along, Salt. Don't try to teach me my business."

"Have you talked to the girl?"

"Not a word. My wife has, but she didn't learn much." Adams went away.

And in a few moments, Anita Austin came into the room. A first glance showed Craig's experienced eye that the girl was what he called a siren. Her oval olive face was sad and sweet. The pale cheeks were not touched up with artificial color, and the scarlet lips were, even to his close scrutiny, also devoid of applied art. She wore a smart little gown of black taffeta with crisp chic frills of finely platted white orundandy. Whether this was meant as morning wear or not, Cray could not determine. The frock was fashionably short, showing thin silk stockings and black suede ties, but Miss Mystery seemed wholly unconscious of her clothes, and her great dark eyes were full of wondering inquiry as she looked at the attorney, and then a little diffidently offered a greeting hand. The little brown paw touched Craze with a pathetic, hopeful clasp, and he looked up quickly to find himself looking into a pair of hopeful eyes that, without a word, expressed confidence and trust. He shrugged his shoulders a trifle, and secretly admonished himself to keep a tight rein on his sympathy. Then, relinquishing the lingering hand, he sat down opposite the chair she had chosen to occupy.

"Miss Austin," he began and paused, for the first time in his life, uncertain what tack to take.

"Yes," she said, as the pause grew longer, and her soft, cultured voice helped him not at all. "How could he say to this lovely small person that he suspected her of wrongdoing?"

"Go on, Mr. Cray," she directed him, meantime, looking at him with eyes full of a haunting fear.

"What is it?" Craig had a sudden, insane feeling that he would give all he was worth for the pleasure of removing that look of fear. Then, commanding himself to behave, he said, "I am sorry, Miss Austin, but I must ask you some unpleasant questions."

"That's what I'm here for," she said with a ghost of a smile on her curved red lips. And smoothing down her taffeta lap, she demurely clasped her sensitive little hands and waited. Those hands bothered Cray, though they lay quietly. He felt that at his speech they would flutter in anxiety, even in fear, and he was loath to disturb them. "Because of this hesitancy, he plunged in more abruptly than he meant to do."

"Where do you come from, Miss Austin?"

"New York City," she said, a brighter look coming to her face, as if she thought the ordeal would not be so terrible after all.

"What address there?"

"One West 67th Street."

"You told someone else the Hotel Plaza?"

"Yes, I have lived at both addresses."

"Why?" The why was disconcerting. After all, Cray thought he was not a census taker. He gave up getting past history and said briefly, "Were you at Dr. Wearing's house Sunday evening?"

"Not evening," she returned, looking thoughtful. "I was there Sunday afternoon and went back again late in the evening to see Dr. Wearing in his study."

"Why do you say that?" she asked quietly, but a small red spot showed on either olive cheek.

"Because I must. How well do you—Did you know the doctor?"

"No doctor Wearing. Not at all. I never saw him in my life until I came here to Corinth."

"You are sure of that?"

"Almost sure. Oh, why yes, that is? I am quite sure. Yet you went over there Sunday evening and came back to this house in possession of Dr. Wearing's valuable pin and a large sum of money."

"Oh no, Mr. Cray, I didn't do any such thing."

"Then can you explain your possession of those articles?"

"You mean, I suppose, the roll of bills that Miss Baskam put into my top bureau drawer?"

"Miss Baskam put in the drawer?"

"Yes, that is. She must have done so. Or how else could they have been found there? You know yourself now, don't you, Mr. Cray, that I'm not a burglar or a bandit or a sneak thief. You know, I never went into Dr. Wearing's study and took those things. So, as I say, isn't it the only plausible theory that Miss Baskam, who found the valuables so readily, first put them there herself?"

Chapter 11.

"The spinster's evidence that matter can easily be settled," Cray said. And going to the door, he asked Mrs. Adams to send Miss Baskam to them. With an important air, the spinster entered the room, holding herself very erect, and even drawing aside her skirts as she passed Miss Austin, she took a seat on the other side of the room.

"Now, Miss Baskam," Cray began at once. "What made you think of looking in this lady's bureau drawer for that money?"

"I didn't look for it, Mr. Cray. I merely felt that she had done wrong, and I thought perhaps some evidence would be hidden away in her room."

"And a top drawer is the place a woman often hides things."

Cray gave a short laugh. "Rather clever of you, I admit, but Miss Austin says she did not put that money there herself. That it was a plant."

"A plant?" Miss Baskam looked puzzled at the word.

"Yes, she thinks some indisposed person put it there to implicate her falsely."

"Oh, I see. Well, Mr. Cray, let her say who did it and who could have got that money to do it with." The hard, old face took on a look that was almost malignant in its accusation. And little Anita Austin gave a low cry as she saw it and hid her face in her hands. "Take her away," she moaned. "Oh, take that woman away."

"You hear her?" Miss Baskam went on unrelentingly now, Mr. Cray. "I'm a bit of a detective myself, and while you've been down here talking to Miss Mystery, I've been searching her room more carefully, and I found a few more things of which I should like to tell you."

Craig was nonplussed. His sympathies were all with the poor little girl, who, clinging to the arms of her chair, seemed about to go to pieces nervously, but was bravely holding on to herself. Yet if the Baskam woman was telling the truth, he must beware of the poor little girl.

"I'm not sure you're within your rights," Miss Baskam, he began, but he was interrupted. "Rights? Indeed, the rights of this matter are above your jurisdiction. The blood of John Wearing calls from the ground. I am the instrument of justice that has been chosen by an overruling providence to discover the criminal. She sits before you. That girl, that mysterious, wicked girl is both thief and murderer."

"Oh no!" Anita cried, putting up her arm as if to ward off a physical blow. Then she suddenly became quiet, almost rigid in her composure. "That is a grave accusation, Miss Baskam," she said. "You must prove it or retract it."

Cra stared at the girl in astonishment. Her agonized cry had been human, feminine, natural, but this sudden change to stony calm, to icy hauteur was amazing and, to his mind, incriminating. Miss Baskam, however, was in no way daunted.

"Prove it I will," she said sternly. "In another drawer, Mr. Cray, I found the rolls of silver coin, exactly $100 worth, that we have been told were in the desk with the roll of bills, the ruby pin you know about. And so these thefts are proved. Now, as to the murder, I admit it seems impossible that a girl should commit the awful crime. But I do say that I have found the weapon with which it was done hidden in Miss Austin's room."

Again, that short, low cry, more like a hurt animal than a human being. And then Anita Austin, the girl of mystery, fell back into the depths of her chair and closed her eyes.

"You needn't faint or pretend to," admonished Miss Baskam brutally. "You're caught red-handed, and you know it, and you may as well give up."

"I didn't, I didn't," came in low moans. But the girl's bravery had deserted her. Limp and despairing, she turned her great eyes toward Cray for help. With an effort, he looked away from her pleading face and said, "What is the weapon? Where did you find it?"

"It is a stiletto, an embroidery stiletto, and I found it tucked down in the crevice between the back and seat of a stuffed chair in Miss Austin's room."

"Did you put it there?" She turned on the girl and fired the question at her with intentional suddenness. And though Anita uttered a scared, "No," it was a palpable untruth.

"She did," Miss Baskam went on. "You can see for yourself, Mr. Cray, she is lying. But even if she is, Miss Baskam, I must ask you to cease torturing her. I can't stand for such cruelty." Crazy manhood revolted at the methods of the older woman who was causing such anguish to the poor child she accused.

"You are not a legal inquisitor, Miss Baskam," he went on. "It is for me to establish the truth or falsity of your suspicions."

"Yes, you. You're like all the other men. If a girl is pretty and alluring, you would believe her statement that white is black. I believe no statements that cannot be proved to my satisfaction. Miss Austin, do you own an embroidery stiletto?"

"Yes," was the hesitating answer, and the dark eyes swept him a beseeching glance that made Miss Baskam fairly snort with scorn.

"Where is it?"

"I—I fear I must admit that it is just where Miss Baskam says it is, unless she has removed it."

"Tell me, Mr. Cray," and Miss Mystery suddenly resumed her most independent air. "Must I submit to this? I thought accused people were entitled to a—oh, you know—counsel, a lawyer, or somebody to take care of them."

"Wait, Miss Austin, you're not accused yet. That is not by legal authority."

"Oh, am I not then?" And she gave Miss Baskam a glance of unutterable scorn. "I have nothing to say."

"Nothing to say." The spinster almost shrieked. "Nothing to say."

"Of course she hasn't. She kills a man, takes his valuables, and then declares she has nothing to say."

"Now, now, Miss Baskam, be careful."

"Why did you put your stiletto in such a place, Miss Austin?"

"I don't know." The dark eyes gave him a gaze of childlike innocence. And Craig couldn't decide whether he was looking at a deep-dyed criminal or a helpless victim of unjust suspicion.

"And where did you get the money and the ruby pin?"

"I don't know. I mean, I don't know how they got in my room. This lady says she found them there. That's all I know about them." An indifferent shrug of the slim shoulders seemed to imply that was all Miss Mystery cared either.

And Cray asked, "Then if the valuables, the pin, and the money are not yours, you are of course ready to relinquish possession of them."

"Of course I am not. Since I am accused of stealing them, I propose to retain possession until that accusation is proved or disproved. Perhaps Miss Baskam wishes to take them herself."

"You know, Miss Austin," Mr. Cray spoke very gravely. "You are making a mistake in treating this matter flippantly. You are in danger, real danger, and you must be careful what you say. Do you want a lawyer?"

"I don't know." The girl suddenly looked helpless. "Do you think I ought to have one? Have you funds?"

"Yes, I am not a rich girl, but neither am I poor. However, I think I shall ask advice of someone before I decide upon any course."

"Of whom?"

"Perhaps no one can advise you better than I can."

"What is your advice, Mr. Cray?" The sweet face looked at him hopefully. The curved red lips quivered a little as the speaker added, "I am very alone."

Again, Miss Baskam sniffed. Unattractive herself, she resented with a sort of angry jealousy the appealing effect this girl had on men. She knew intuitively that Cray would sympathize with and pity the lonely girl.

"My advice is, Miss Austin, first that you dispel this mystery that seems to surround you. Tell frankly who you are, what is your errand in Corinth, how you came into possession of Doctor Wearing's ruby, and why you hid your stiletto, if it is merely one of your sewing implements."

Miss Mystery hesitated a moment and then said quietly, "Your advice is good, Mr. Cray, but unfortunately I cannot follow it. However, I am willing to state upon oath that I did not kill Dr. Wearing with that stiletto."

"I'm afraid your oath will be doubted," Miss Baskam intervened sharply. "And two, Mr. Cray, even if this girl did not strike the fatal blow, she well knows who did. She is in league with the Japanese Noi."

"That I am sure of," Nogi, exclaimed Anita.

"Yes, Nogi," Miss Baskam went on positively. "You came here only a day or two after he did. You have a Japanese kimono, and several Japanese ornaments adorn your room. You went to the Wearing house that night. Noi let you in and out. And though the Japanese doubtless committed the murder, you stole the money and the ruby, and then your partner in crime departed for parts unknown." Miss Baskam sat back in her chair with a look of triumph on her plain, gaunt face. Clearly she was rejoiced at her denunciation of the girl before her, and pleased at the irrefutable theory she had promulgated.

"And how did Miss Austin or the Japanese person either leave the room locked on the inside?" propounded Cray, his own opinions already swayed by the arraignment.

"That," said Miss Baskam with an air of finality, "I can't explain definitely, but I am sure it was an example of Japanese juggler. When you remember the tales of how the Japanese can do seemingly impossible tricks, can swallow swords and get out of locked handcuffs, it is quite within the realm of possibility that one could lock a door behind him and give it the appearance of having been locked from the inside."

Now Cray had already concluded that the door had been cleverly locked by someone, but he hadn't before thought of the cleverness of the Japanese. He rose almost abruptly and said, "I must look into some of these matters. Miss Austin, you need not attempt to leave town, for you will not be able to do so."

"I most certainly shall not attempt to leave, as you express it, if I am asked not to. But I may say that when I am entirely at liberty to do so, I propose to go away from Corinth." Her dignity gave no effect of a person afraid or alarmed for her own safety, merely a courteous recognition of Cray's attitude, and a frank statement of her own intentions.

Miss Baskam sniffed and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Cray. I'll see to it that this young woman does not succeed in evading justice if she tries to do so." At which Miss Mystery gave her a smile that was so patronizing, even amused, that the spinster was more irate than ever.

"And now, Miss Austin," the attorney said, "I'll take your fingerprints, please, as they may be useful in proving what you did not do." He smiled a little as the girl readily enough gave her consent to the procedure and he went on more gravely. "I will ask you for one of your shoes, one that you wore on Sunday."

Surprised into a glance of dismay, Miss Mystery rose without a word and went upstairs for the shoe. She returned with the dainty, pretty thing and merely observed, "I'd like to have it back when you are through with it." Putting the shoe in his overcoat pocket, Cray went away.

"Miss Baskam," Anita said, turning to her enemy. "May you never want a friend as much as I do now."

"The nerve of her," Liza Baskam muttered to herself as Miss Mystery went upstairs to her own room. "There's a very deep mystery here," Cray soliloquised as he returned to the Wearing house. "But I'm getting light on it."

Cray was far from lacking in ingenuity, and he proceeded at once to compare the fingerprints he had of Anita Austin with the prints on the small, black-framed chair that had been found drawn up to the desk chair of John Wearing. They were identical, and Cray mused over the fact that the girl was here that night. He decided, "There's no gain saying that." He called the butler to him.

"Itto," he began, "did you let in anyone late Sunday night after you came home?"

"No, sir," the imperturbable Japanese person declared, thinking the question foolish, as all the inquirers knew the details of his Sunday evening movements.

"Do you remember seeing this chair Monday morning?"

"Distinctly. I saw Mr. Lockwood smoothing its back."

"Smoothing its back? What do you mean?"

"I looked through from the dining room window to see if Mr. Lockwood was coming to breakfast and I perceived him carefully smoothing the plush of the little chair."

Sir Cray meditated. Here was a point of evidence. Lockwood was not the sort to absent-mindedly pore over a chair back. He was doing it on purpose. For what reason? What reason could be saved to erase some evidence? Cray examined the chair. It had a frame of shiny black wood, while seat and back were covered with a dark plush of a fine, soft quality. Cray drew his fingers across the back. They left a distinct trail of furrows in the fabric. Itto, watching, nodded his head gravely.

"Not fingerprints," Cray said to himself, "but maybe finger marks. Whose?"

"You surely saw this, Itto."

"Yes, sir. And Miss Payton also saw. She was then in the doorway asking Mr. Lockwood to come to breakfast."

Cray went in search of Helen and put the question to her suddenly. "What was Gordon Lockwood doing when you went to call him to breakfast Monday morning?"

"He was—I don't remember."

"Speak the truth, or it may mean trouble for you and him too."

"He was—He seemed to be dusting off a chair with a duster."

"No, just passing over it with his hand. That isn't dusting it."

"Well, I don't know what you call it. Perhaps he was merely pushing the chair into place."

"It isn't his custom to push the study furniture into place. He was erasing indicative marks on that plush chair back. That's what he was doing."

"Absurd!" Helen cried. "What marks could there be?"

"I don't know. Come and let us see." Cray took Helen to the study and asked her to sit in the chair. "Lean back," he directed. "Now get up." The girl obeyed, and there was plainly seen on the plush the faint but unmistakable imprint of the beaded design that adorned the back of the frock she wore.

"I told you so," Craig said in triumph. "That plush registers every impress, and when Lockwood rubbed it smooth, it was to erase a damaging bit of testimony."

"Rather far-fetched, Mr. Cray," said Gordon Lockwood himself, who had come in and had heard and seen the latter part of the detective's investigation.

"Not so very, Mr. Lockwood, when you learn that the fingerprints on the chair frame are your own, and those of a certain young person who is already under suspicion." Gordon Lockwood, as always under a sudden stress, became even more impassive, and his eyes glittered as he faced the attorney.

"Don't be too absurd, Mr. Cray," he advised coldly. "I suppose you mean Miss Austin. I prefer to have no veiled illusions, but the finding of her fingerprints on a chair in this room and mine also does not seem to me to be in any way evidence of crime."

"No." Craig gave him scorn for scorn. "Perhaps then you can explain Miss Austin's presence here that night."

"I don't know that she was here, and I most certainly could not explain any of her movements, but I do deny your right to assume her guilty from her presence."

"Ah, you tacitly admit her presence, then indeed, one can scarcely doubt it, when it is shown that this little shoe of hers," he took it from his pocket, "exactly fits the prints that cross the field of snow between here and the Adams' house to measure footprints after all this time." And Lockwood's lip curled.

"The prints are exactly as they were made, Mr. Lockwood. The unchanging cold weather has kept them intact. I tried this shoe, and the prints are unmistakable. Moreover, the short stride is just the measure of the natural steps of Miss Austin. The footprints lead from the Adams' house over here, and back again. The returning prints occasionally overlapped the ones that came this way, showing that the trip away from this house was made latest. Miss Austin was seen to come over in this direction. Well, none but a half-wit would be blind to the inevitable conclusions."

"None but a half-wit would read into this evidence what you pretend to see," retorted Lockwood, almost losing his calm.

"That's my business," Craig said sharply. "Now, Mr. Lockwood. Why did you smooth off that chair back? Careful now. Two witnesses saw you do it."

"I'm not denying it." Lockwood smiled in a bored, superior way. "But if I did it, I was and I'm unconscious of it. One often touches a piece of furniture in passing with no thought of doing so."

"That won't go down. Both the butler and Miss Payton saw you definitely and deliberately rub over the back of that chair. Why did you do it?" Cray was inexorable, but the impassive secretary merely shrugged his shoulders.

"I can't answer you, Mr. Cray. I can only repeat it must have been an unconscious act on my part, and it has no sinister significance. I may have been merely pushing the chair out of my way, you know."

"Look here, Mr. Lockwood, you are a man of honor. Do you upon oath declare that you did not purposely smooth that chair back for the reason that it showed some incriminating impress?"

"I am not under oath. I have stated that I did not do what you accuse me of and I have nothing further to say on the subject." Lockwood drew himself up and leaned with folded arms against the mantelpiece. Craig dropped the subject, but his snapping eyes and compressed lips seemed to show he had not finally dismissed it.

"At what time?" he said abruptly, "did Dr. Wearing lock his study door."

"About 10:00," the secretary replied.

"And you heard nothing from the room after that? No sound of voices, nobody coming in at the French window?"

"No," replied Lockwood. "Then we are forced to the conclusion that whoever entered did so very quietly, that it was with the knowledge and permission of Dr. Wearing himself, that the visitor was the person whose footprints lead straight to the door and whose fingerprints are on the chair that stood near the doctor's own chair. We are borne out in this view by the fact that the same person now possesses the money and the ruby pin which we know Dr. Wearing had in his room with him. And we know that the person is here in Corinth for unexplained reasons and is in fact so peculiar that she is known as Miss Mystery. Just why, Mr. Lockwood, are you arguing against these obvious inferences? And why do you undertake to free from suspicion one against whom everything is so definitely black?"

"Because," Lockwood spoke very quietly, but his jaw was set in a stubborn way. "The lady you call, Miss Mystery, is a young and defenseless girl without, so far as I know, a friend in this town. It is unfair to accuse her on the strength of this fantastic story, and it is unfair to condemn her unheard."

"Not unheard," said the attorney, "but what she says only incriminates her more deeply."

Chapter 12.

Maurice Trusque, heir. The funeral services of John Wearing were solemn and impressive. No reference was made to the manner of his taking off, save to call it mysterious, and the encomiums heaped upon him by the clergy and the college faculty were as sincere as they were well-deserved. There were two members of the great audience who were looked at with curiosity by many. One of these was Miss Mystery, the girl who, it was vaguely rumored, was in some way connected with the tragedy. To look at her, this seemed impossible, for a sweeter face or a gentler manner could scarce be imagined. Anita Austin sat near the front on one of the side aisles. She wore a gown of taupe-colored duvetyn and a velvet toque of the same color. Her olive face was pale, and now and then her small white teeth bit into her scarlet lower lip, as if she were keeping her self-control only by determined effort. A close observer might note that she paid no heed to the utterance of the able men who gave tribute to John Wearing's character, but her troubled eyes rested on the flower-covered casket, and the rising tears overflowed as she stifled an occasional sob, and then fairly clenching her hands in a determination to show no emotion. This strange girl would straighten up and stare blankly ahead of her, as if in utter oblivion of the scene. Directly behind her was Helen Payton, who had chosen that place with the intention of watching Miss Mystery. Mrs. Payton was by her daughter's side, but her whole attention was on the funeral services, and she thought of little else. Not far off was Gordon Lockwood, and with him were Mrs. Bates and her nephew Pinkney Payne. Of this trio, only the secretary let his gaze wander now and then to the sad little face that was rapidly becoming the dearest thing in life to him. As the church filled and the flower-centered atmosphere grew oppressive, Miss Austin let her coat fall from her shoulders, and Lockwood noted with a start that she wore the same gown she had worn to the lecture at which he first saw her. Again, he counted the queer little buttons that edged the sailor collar. He shook his head, and a great feeling of compassion filled his heart. "Poor child," he said to himself. "What does it all mean?"

The other magnet for strangers' eyes was Maurice Trusque, the relative of John Wearing, who had come from his home in St. Louis to take possession of his inheritance. For in the absence of any will, he had proved himself the next of kin and had gladly, even eagerly, taken the reins of government of the affairs and home of the dead man. He was the son of John Wearing's cousin, and though the two men had never met, the credentials and records brought by Maurice Trask left no possible doubt as to his heirship. Traskque was not prepossessing of appearance, though he was well-mannered and moderately well-dressed. His lack was that of sophistication, and he seemed ignorant of the finer conventions of life. He was what is known as a self-made man, and men of home manufacture require some sterling qualities to start with if they are to turn out a satisfactory product. These qualities Traskque didn't have, and a first glance at the sharp-featured face gave an impression of greed and shrewdness. There was also a slight air of bravado which was quite evidently caused by an uneasy feeling of inferiority. He seemed to say, "I am as good as you are," because his conviction of that fact needed some such assertion to bolster it up. In his seat as chief mourner, he was decorum itself. His black garb was very black, and if it betrayed a provincial cut or fit, such an effect was more in keeping with the man than correct apparel would have been. His grief might have seemed a trifle ostentatious to one who remembered he had never seen his cousin. But on the whole, Morris Trusque was accepted by those whose curiosity led to criticism as a satisfactory heir to the Wearing estate. Nor was this an inconsiderable matter, for John Wearing, beside his profession, had written several successful books, and possessed in all a goodly fortune. Moreover, there was no mystery about Trusque. His life was an open book, the lawyers had said. His family tree was of correct record and his claim to the estate clear and true. While as to that mink's Miss Mystery, nobody knew or could find out where she came from, what she was doing in Corinth, or who she was anyway. Clearly, she was mixed up with Dr. Wearing in some unconventional way. That is, if the reports were true that she visited him in his study without the knowledge of his household, no shadow of blame was attached to John Wearing for this, although it would seem that the man was old and wise enough to ward off an attack from such a small vampire. "That's what she is," Helen Payton concluded to herself as she mused on the girl who sat in front of her. "She just plain vamped poor Dr. Wearing and she got into the study, and now I can prove it."

After the funeral, the chief mourners went back to the Wearing home to discuss matters. Mrs. Payton had tea served in the living room for all who came, and many neighbors, drawn by curiosity, accepted her hospitality. Traskque, rubbing his hands involuntarily, slipped easily into his new role of host and rather overdid his part. "Yes," he would say, "yes. Yes, I learned from the addresses how fine a man my cousin was. Yes, yes, a noble character. Now, I can't expect to take his place in your community all at once. But I'll get there. I'll get there. And you'll all help me, won't you?" He beamed on them. "Yes, yes, you'll all help me to become one of the first citizens of Corinth, one of the first citizens of your lovely tree-deck town. Yes, yes." Plate and cup in hand, he moved around among his guests, a little awkwardly, but full of amiability and good cheer. His sentiment was quite evidently, "The king is dead. Long live the king," and he wanted to get settled on his throne at once.

But the cousin of John Wearing had another side to him. This was shown when later on he met a few people in the study. Cray was there by invitation, and Morton also. Lockwood and the two Paytons.

"Just a few words at the outset," Trask began, and he was noticeably more at ease in this executive session than he had been in the social atmosphere. "I want to maintain this household for a time, at least, as I find it. I shall be glad, Mrs. Payton, if you will continue to keep house for me, and I should like you, Mr. Lockwood, to remain as secretary, if you are willing. There is, of course, much to be done in settling the estate, and your knowledge would be invaluable. Also, if you will, Mrs. Payton, I'd like you to engage servants or keep the ones you have. In fact, please look after the house matters entirely, for here is what I want to do first. Find the man who killed my cousin. I never shall feel right in taking and using his home and his money, unless I do everything in my power to discover his murderer."

"It may be a case of self-harm," suggested attorney Cray, who was narrowly watching the speaker.

"No, sir. First place, as near as I can figure it out, my cousin was not the man to take his own life. Also, he was on the eve of taking a fine position as college president. Also, he was about to marry a beautiful lady. Why worry? And two, and this is to me the strongest argument against the self-harm theory. I've read lots of detective stories. You need an sniff, Mr. Cray. Those stories are often founded on fact, and many of them hinge on the mystery of a sealed room. Often a book starts out with a situation just like this. Man found dead, room locked up, no weapon about, murder or self-harm. And listen here. Invariably, the solution is murder. Yes, sir. Invariably. Why? 'Cause self-harm is a mighty scarce article. You don't find human nature putting an end to itself very often. That is not worthwhile human nature. You're taking one's own lives are weak men down and out as ignorant, half-baked chaps. Not fine, upstanding men such as John Wearing was. You know that, Mr. Cray."

"Yes," the attorney nodded. "That's certainly so, Mr. Trask. And anyway, if you're going to make investigations, you have to start on the theory of murder."

"Just that, exactly," Trask agreed. "Then if we run up against proof, actual proof of self-harm, why then we know where we're at." Lockwood looked at Traskque and listened to him with interest. He was a new type to the secretary, who, with all his knowledge of characterization, couldn't quite place him. At first, Lockwood had felt an instinctive dislike. The newcomer had been so patently pleased with his inheritance, and so evidently insincere in his mourning, but this sensible, straightforward insistence on avenging his cousin's murder, if it were murder, raised Trusk in Lockwood's estimation, and he concluded to remain as secretary for a time at least.

"You have the case in charge, Mr. Cray," Trask went on, "and I want you to push it. Push it, sir. Get help if you want. Get some hifalutin detective if that's the proper caper. But get results. Results. That's what I'm after. Here's my idea. Get busy and do all you can as quick as you can. Don't dawdle. Put things through and then if you can't find the criminal after due effort, then we'll give up the hunt. That's my idea. Do all you can and then quit."

"Very well, Mr. Trask," Craig replied. "I understand. And I'll do as you say. When you have the time to devote to it, I'll give you a history of the case."

"The time is now, Mr. Cray, and your history must be put in a nutshell. The circumstances of John Wearing's death, I know. Also, I know whom I suspect as the murderer. So, tell me your decisions to date."

"I fear we have made no decision, Mr. Trask. As a matter of fact, the evidence to date points in a most painful direction."

"What? You're deterred from justice because evidence points in a painful direction? My stars, Cray! Is that the way you detect in New England? But evidence may be false, and it is unwise to accuse without certainty."

"I have some certain evidence," said Helen Payton, and all turned to look at the girl, who spoke hesitatingly and in a low tone. "Yes, I wouldn't tell it, but I think I ought to. I just found it out today."

"Of course, you must tell it, Miss Payton," Trask said dictatorially. "Out with it."

"Well," Helen spoke to Cray. "You know, Mr. Lockwood rubbed off some marks from this chair the morning after—after we found Dr. Wearing."

"Yes, they were without doubt indicative marks. What do you know about them?" Cray looked at her earnestly, for he had great interest in that act of the secretary's.

"They were the marks made by the buttons on the back of the dress Miss Austin wore today."

For a moment, Gordon Lockwood's calm almost deserted him. It was but a fleeting instant, yet Cray's sharp eyes caught the look of utter dismay that crossed the impassive face of the secretary. Immediately the usual hauteur returned, and the grave eyes met Craze without a tremor.

"How do you know?" Cray was all alertness.

"I sat behind her at the funeral. She took off her coat and I couldn't help noticing a certain arrangement of buttons. It struck me because I noticed the marks on the chair back and they were just the same design."

"Absurd," Lockwood said quietly, but with a deep scorn in his tone. "As if you could identify the trimming on a lady's gown."

"But I did," Helen persisted, spurred by Lockwood's manner. "I noticed it on the chair, a clear pattern of the trimming of the collar and two rows down the back. And then I saw Mr. Lockwood rub it off of the chair back with utmost care. And today when I saw Miss Austin's dress, I recognized it at once. She was here that night. Mr. Lockwood knew it, and he erased the marks."

"Helen, don't be too ridiculous." Lockwood spoke now in a soft drawl that made Helen flush with anger.

"I'm not ridiculous, am I, Mr. Cray? It's evidence, isn't it? It proves that girl was here, doesn't it? And Gordon did rub it off. Itto saw him, too, and I saw him. He was rubbing the chair when I came to call him to breakfast. He can't deny it."

"I do deny it," Lockwood said quietly. "Miss Peyton is excited and doesn't remember accurately."

"Nothing of the sort," blazed Helen. "It's all true. Gordon won't admit it because—"

"Helen, hush." Gordon's look stopped her at once.

"Don't say things you'll regret, but I don't regret them," put in Cray. "All this is important, Mr. Lockwood. Do you deny obliterating these marks in question?"

"Of course I do," Lockwood smiled slightly. "If I was moving the chair or touching it when Miss Payton came to call me to breakfast, I don't remember it. At any rate, it was with no intention of removing evidence." Gordon Lockwood told these falsehoods with as calm an air as he would have shown in making truthful statements. He was not only deeply in love with Anita Austin, but he did not and would not believe her guilty of crime or of any connection with the crime. Wherefore he was ready and willing to tell any number of lies to save or shield her, and from his manner none could guess he was saying other than absolute truth.

"But look here," spoke up Maurice Trask. "This won't do, you know. Are you people accusing a girl of Dr. Wearing's murder?"

"A girl? Not accusation yet," Cray told him. "But we want to know more about the young lady in question. In fact, she's been dubbed Miss Mystery because so little is known about her."

"Miss Mystery, eh? And she came here to see the doctor the night he died?"

"She did not," Lockwood asserted calmly. "Had she done so, I should have known it."

"Of course you would," Trask looked at him shrewdly. "Of course, but the impress of her clothing was left on the chair back. Is that it?"

"That's it," said Helen sharply. "And when all other things prove her presence here that evening, I don't know why Mr. Lockwood so positively denies it. He must have a deep interest in the young lady." Helen's spitefulness was undisguised, and her mother looked pained and regretful. Both these women had hoped that Gordon Lockwood's affections might turn toward Helen, and the older one realized that such speeches as this would in no way further their plans. But Helen was thoroughly jealous of Miss Mystery for more reasons than one, and she let her unbridled tongue expose her feelings. Craig knew all this and therefore took Helen's statements with a grain of salt. And yet he soliloquised, "She would scarcely make up that rigmarole of the dress trimming. He fancied it was true. And why shouldn't it be? The evidence of Anita Austin's presence in John Wearing's study that fatal night was far too strong to be ignored. Moreover, the girl's possession of the money and the ruby pin had yet to be satisfactorily explained. It was unthinkable that anyone should have stolen these things and planted them in Miss Austin's bureau drawer."

"I'd like to see this young woman," said Trask suddenly. "I'm going over to see her now."

"Come along," invited Cray, who was a little impressed by the perspicuity of this stranger.

"I'm going too," declared Helen Payton. And as Lockwood couldn't keep away, they all went over to the Adams house. In the cozy sitting room they congregated, and Mrs. Adams went upstairs to summon Anita. She found the room locked when, in response to a repeated summons, the door was opened. Mrs. Adams faced a tearful, sad-faced girl who asked indifferently, "What is wanted?"

"You'll have to come downstairs. Mr. Cray is there and—and some others. They want to see you."

"I won't go down. I don't want to see anybody."

"I guess you'll have to." Mrs. Adams spoke a little crisply. "It's a—a summons. You've got to come."

"Oh." Miss Austin's manner changed. "Well, I will then. Wait till I bathe my face." Mrs. Adams came in, closed the door, and waited. She felt sorry for Miss Mystery, but she also felt suspicious of her. Perhaps the mystery would now be cleared up. The good woman was about to speak kindly to her strange boarder, but as she watched, she lost the desire to help her. For to Mrs. Adams' primitive notions, the girl was doing dreadful things. Having bathed her tear-stained face, Miss Mystery proceeded to powder it lightly, and horror of horrors, she added the merest flick of rouge to her pale cheeks. And not content with such baseness, she stooped to further degradation and touched her pale lips with some heathenish contraption that made them just a little redder. No, Mrs. Adams had no sympathy for a girl who would do such awful things, and she waited in a grim and stony silence. Then Miss Mystery fluffed out her pretty dark hair a little more over her ears, settled her sailor collar, with its row of tiny buttons for trimming, and with a critical glance at her shoes, signified her readiness to go downstairs. Still in disapproving silence, Mrs. Adams marched by her side, and they went together to face the visitors. The attitude of the girl as she entered the room was a triumph of perfection. Her beauty, which usually needed no artificial aid, was striking, and her large dark eyes rested on each in turn with an air of innocent wonder, quickly followed by a pathetic, beseeching little smile that touched the heart of several auditors, even though they deemed it disingenuous. Maurice Traskque, shrewd and calculating, sized her up, as he would have expressed it, and his sizing up was decidedly complimentary. So much so, in fact, that he almost concluded to take her part against all comers. "I'm for her," he said to himself. And yet, he added to the same confidant, "She's nobody's fool. That girl knows what she's about. And by jingo, if she wanted to kill a man, she could kill him. I'll say she could." It was Miss Austin's dress that caught everyone's eye. Not a person present among the visitors, but wanted to say, "Turn around. Oh, do." But the girl sank into a low chair beside Sultan Salt Adams, and quietly awaited developments.

"May I present Mr. Trask," Craig said a little awkwardly, for it was not easy to be casual under the glance of those pathetic eyes. Anita bowed courteously, if coldly, and then there was an embarrassing silence.

"Well," Trask remarked, "At last, you people are not very talkative. Guess I'll take the helm myself. Miss Austin, will you be good enough to get up and turn around?" The request was so simply made that almost without thinking of its strangeness, Anita did exactly as she was asked. Sure enough, there were two rows of buttons down the back of her bodice and another row across the sailor collar.

At a nod from Traskque, she sat down again, and then the storm broke.

"I told you so!" cried Helen Payton. "That's the very dress that made the marks on that chair back."

"Dare you deny, Miss Austin, that you were in Doctor Wearing's study that night he died?" The dark eyes of Miss Mystery opened wide in horror. She seemed fairly paralyzed with fright and glanced wildly from one face to another. Maurice Tras showed only frank admiration. He looked at the girl as if he had never before seen anyone so attractive. Gordon Lockwood's face betrayed no emotion of any sort. Had he been indifferent to Miss Mystery instead of loving her as he did, he could have shown no less expressive countenance, and all the others present showed definite and decided suspicion, scorn, and hatred, except one, old Salt, looked kindly at the agitated girl. He even held out a protective hand, and with a gentle inflection said, "Tell the truth, dear child. Did you know Dr. Wearing?" Slowly, Miss Mystery's eyes traveled around the room, looking at each face in turn, her own expression became more and more hard and stubborn. Then, seeing the kindness on the face of old Salt, she broke down utterly and sobbed out, "Oh, he's dead. He's dead. What shall I do?"

Chapter 13.

The truth eyebrows. Our Maurice Tras looked at Miss Mystery with rapidly growing interest and curiosity. She seemed so young and helpless, and she was so pretty and so pathetic that he immediately decided she could not be mixed up in any wrongdoing. He also decided, for he was a man

Of quick conclusions, that this was the girl for him. Having his new fortune, he wanted a wife to help him enjoy it, and where could he find a more utterly desirable girl than Miss Austin?

Straightforwardly, he asked, "Did Dr. Wearing make love to you? Did you love him?" The others looked aghast at these suggestions, and then Mrs. Adams said, "Yes, she did. I saw her one night kissing Dr. Wearing's picture."

Cray turned on Anita. "Did you love that man?" he asked sternly. "If you did, you surely didn't kill him."

"Of course she didn't kill him," old Salt put in. "Impossible to imagine such a thing. Speak up, little girl. Why did you kiss the picture of a man you had never seen?"

Several of those listening waited breathlessly for a response. Gordon Lockwood, for one, could scarce control his impatience to hear the answer, for only too well he remembered the letter he had found in the doctor's waste basket. The words were graven in his brain.

"Darling Anita, at the first glance of your brown eyes, love was born in my heart. Life is worth living with you in the world." If love at first sight had been born in the man's heart, must it not have found response in the girl's? Or even if not, could she have killed a man who felt thus toward her? Truly, she was a mystery, for the very fact that Wearing had fallen in love with her made possible, even plausible, her clandestine visit to him and her possession of the money and jewel. Could it be that the pretty little thing was merely a sly adventuress that she cajoled Wearing into giving her the valuables?

And then, no, Gordon Lockwood could not and would not believe any evil of the girl he loved. Even though she should admit her love for Wearing, he would not lose faith in her.

"Answer me," Cray demanded. "Answer this direct question directly. Did you love Dr. Wearing almost like one hypnotized?"

Miss Mystery gave a helpless glance at her inquisitor and murmured a low, almost inaudible, "Yes."

"Then why did you kill him?" Craig stormed at her.

"I—I didn't."

"You were there in his study the night he—he died."

"No, I wasn't."

"You were. It's been proved. You went over from this house across the snowfield, and you went in the study, and you sat on the plush chair near the desk, didn't you?"

The great dark eyes seemed unable to tear themselves from Craig's face. And again, the half-breathed whisper was, "Yes."

"I protest," said Traskque. "That girl shall not be tortured. Whether she's guilty or not, she's entitled to fairer treatment. You can't make her say those things that may be used against her. Quit it, Cray. I forbid it."

"That's right," Cray Lockwood said quietly. "You've no right to bait Miss Austin. You make her admit things through sheer fright." And it was true. Miss Mystery was trembling, and her face was white, save for the delicate flush on her cheeks and lips that she had placed there herself. Her great eyes, beneath their heavy dark brows, flew from one face to another, and she did not fail to notice the fact that every man in the room, Cray perhaps excepted, was in sympathy with her, while every woman was against her.

"This must have comforted her, for she looked about, a faint smile dawning in her eyes."

"Is that true?" she said. "May I be excused from this questioning until I can get counsel? I don't know what to say myself." Her pretty distress and helplessness again appealed to the masculine sympathy, and realizing this, she ignored the other sex.

A puzzled expression crossed the face of Mory's tr. "Who in the world can she be?" he thought. "That last flash of those eyes as she drew her heavy eyebrows into a straight line surely reminded me of somebody. By heavens, the Trudel brows again!" He scanned the oval little face. He shook his head in uncertainty, but again declared to himself, "The Trudedell eyebrows. Now look here, all of you."

Old Sultan stall Adams said, "I don't believe this child is guilty of anything really wrong. If she caught the fancy of Doctor Wearing, it may seem pretty awful to us old fogies. But a pretty girl like Miss Austin can't help charming the men folks. I don't want to discuss that. But I do say that it's no crime to go to see a man in the evening. And two, she may have had some errand we know nothing about."

"Did Dr. Wearing give you that money of his own free will, Miss Austin?"

"Yes," said Anita involuntarily, and then bit her lip as she added, "I told you he didn't give it to me."

"There, there. Don't say anymore. You only contradict yourself. I had no business to ask that. Now, Mr. Cray, from now on, I take Miss Austin under my personal care. I'll be responsible for her appearance when you want her," and he looked at his wife. "Mrs. Adams will back me up. She too will shelter and care for Miss Austin. Unless she is proved guilty."

"Esther Adams broke in. "In that case, wait until she is."

Old Salt said in his calm way, "I don't guarantee her innocence. I only want to prevent injustice to her."

"Have you funds to engage a lawyer, Miss Austin?"

Again, that frightened look made the girl seem anything but innocent. "Would I have to tell a lawyer? Everything?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, to be sure," Tras broke in. "But what of that? I'll bet you've nothing to tell him incriminating to yourself. You exaggerate your connection with this matter. I'll bet you were there that night on some perfectly innocent errand. At least so far as Dr. Wearing's death is concerned."

"Oh, I was," Anita said, and then, as quickly, "but I wasn't there at night. It was in the afternoon."

Lockwood groaned in spirit. Everything this girl said made her more of a procrastinator, even though she might be innocent of crime. Surely she was mixed up in the matter and must know who gave the fatal stab if she didn't do it herself. If only Nogi could be found! He, of course, was implicated.

"I'll get a lawyer for you if you'll let me, Miss Austin," Lockwood said, unable to resist his impulse to help her.

"I am a lawyer," said Maurice Trusque. "I here and now offer my services to Miss Austin. If you'll accept, my dear young lady, I promise to use my best efforts to do all that can be done for you."

"But do I have to tell you?" Again, Anita began perplexedly, her brows straight.

Tras gazed at her fixedly, and then he said, "That will be between us. You will decide when we talk things over what to tell me and what not." He spoke as to a fractious child, and his voice was kind and helpful, even though his inflections were not cultured.

Lockwood looked at him uneasily. Might not this man's kindness and assistance to the distressed girl lead her to feel such gratitude that it would be no hard matter for Tras to win more than gratitude? Lockwood was nervously sensitive to the interest Trusk took in Anita, and well knew his state of mind toward the little beauty, and instead of being lessened by the trend of suspicion toward Anita, Lockwood's own infatuation deepened with every glance he allowed himself at the lovely face. The countenance of Missy was ever changing. Now she was a wistful-eyed child, and in a flash she was an inscrutable young woman, only to change the next instant to a wrongly accused and innocent martyr.

Anyway, Lockwood told himself, he meant to win her, and if Tras stood in his way, Tras must be set aside. That was all. An indomitable will ought to be able to conquer the intensity of a self-made, unattractive man of Tras's type, and two, a love like his own, surging more fully every moment, must appeal to the girl, once he could get a chance to declare it. Lockwood was by no means a conceited man. But he had a true sense of value, and he knew that he was a fitter mate for Miss Mystery than Traskque, if the girl could know them both.

"I know a lawyer," Lockwood began. "Here in Corinth, might he not be a better man for you, Miss Austin, than a stranger in the town?"

"Just why?" Traskque said, his eyes coldly scanning Lockwood's face.

"Because he would have known Dr. Wearing, and all the circumstances," Lockwood concluded a little lamely.

"Not much of an argument," Tras dismissed the suggestion. "Also, I promised not to cost the lady as much as any other counsel would." This speech was accompanied by an admiring glance that was so nearly a smirk that Lockwood, with difficulty, kept his hands off Tras's throat.

"Mrs. Payton, who with Helen had sat almost wordless through the whole session, now rose to go." "Come, Helen," she said. "We are of no use here, and I'd rather take you away." Her implication that the presence of Miss Mystery was contaminating was too plain to be mistaken, and mother and daughter left the room.

"Well," Craig said, "I've pretty much made up my mind in this matter. I make no arrest now since you're going to be responsible, Mr. Adams, for Miss Austin's presence when desired. But I think I see it all. I think I can reconstruct the whole case, and I think there will be decided developments very soon."

"You do," was Tras's response to this speech, and as one by one all present rose to go, Tras remained and asked that he might see Miss Austin alone.

"Guess I'll stand by," said old Salt, and something in the grim but kindly old face made Truss give tacit consent.

Straightforwardly, the man set about his inquiries. "Now, first of all, Miss Austin," Tras said, "Where is your home?" An obstinate look came into her eyes, and she hesitated a moment. Then, with a sudden change of expression, she said, "Indianapolis."

"Address: 627 Jackson Street." Tras's eyebrows went up at this, and he gave her a searching look, but Miss Mystery showed no embarrassment.

"Sure of the number?" he said. "I know Indianapolis pretty well."

"I'm sure," was the cool reply, and Tras went on. "No doctor wearing before you came here?"

"No, never saw him before. Never, to my knowledge."

"You didn't kill him?" Anita only shook her head slowly, but Tras did not press her for a verbal answer. "Yet you were there that night. Now, it's useless to deny it, for the prince of those doodads on the back of that very frock you have on now were on the plush back of the chair you sat in. Young Lockwood smoothed them away. Lord knows why. He must suspect you, I should say, and tried to shield you that way."

"Could he?" asked Miss Mystery hopefully. "Could he shield you?"

"No, my child, he couldn't. But I can. You just trust yourself to me, and you'll have no trouble. No trouble at all. You've got Mr. Sultan stall here and me for friends. Something tells me you won't need anybody else. We'll pull you through."

Old Salt. Though accustomed to the nickname from the town's people, Mr. Adams didn't relish it from this stranger, and he merely said, "I'm Miss Austin's friend. Be sure of that."

"So," my Tras declared, "Now, little lady, you needn't tell all you know, but some things you must tell me."

"Anybody among your relatives named Trudell?"

Only a quick eye could have caught a fleeting look of dismay on her face as Anita promptly responded, "No, not that I know of."

"Falsehood number one," said Tras to himself. "What the deuce is she up to?" But aloud he only said, "All right, now why did you come to Corinth?"

"To sketch," said Anita glibly, and smiling at him. "I'm an artist, you see. I paint watercolors."

"Yes, I see. Now, just why did you hide that stiletto of yours?"

"I was frightened. I was afraid they would think I killed Dr. Wearing."

"Why did you fear that?"

"Oh, I don't know." She was almost flippant now. "Those detectives are so queer. They're likely to suspect anybody. And they said the weapon used was a round sharp instrument. So, so I hid the thing."

"You didn't use that to kill him?"

"Oh, no."

"What did you use?"

"I didn't kill him."

"Who did?"

"I think he killed himself, Mr. Adams."

Tras turned to the old man. "Please leave us two alone for a few moments. I ask you as a personal favor." Without a word, old Salt left the room.

"Now look here, Miss Austin," Tras said in a determined tone. "I know you killed that man as well as I know you're here. Also, I know why. Or at least, I don't know exactly why, but I have knowledge that will lead straight to a revelation of the whole affair. I know you are related to the Trudells, though perhaps you don't know that yourself. Now here's my proposition. I'm a lawyer, and I'm known as a shrewd one. Many a time I've made black appear white, and I can do it in your case, but if you'll marry me, I'll get you off. Wait a minute. Don't speak yet. I'm not badly looking. I'm kindhearted, and by my cousin's death, I'm a rich man. You may not love me yet, but I'll guarantee I can win your affection. I fell in love with you the very minute I saw you, and I want you for my wife. You needn't marry me now. Wait as long as you say, but give me your promise, and I'll clear you of all suspicion in this terrible affair. On the other hand..."

There was a pause, and then Anita said, "On the other hand, I shall tell what I know about you, and well, you know yourself what chance you will have then of getting off scot-free."

"A threat?" And Miss Mystery flung up her proud little head.

"No, don't misunderstand. Not a threat. But I admit, a bribe. Marry me, and I'll free you. Say no, and I don't have to do a thing. The law will do it all."

"You simpleton, do you suppose you can keep your secret once the law really begins to hound you? Cray is only just opening his eyes to your connections with the case. Lockwood has realized that you must be guilty, though he's trying hard not to believe it. Old Salt only befriends you because you're helpless and pretty, not because he thinks you're innocent any more than his wife does. The two Payton hate you for reasons of their own, probably because you snared Lockwood away from the lovely Helen. But none of those things will matter if you take up with my offer. I'll carry you through with flying colors. You'll be not only freed from suspicion, but eulogized and beloved by all who know you, and as my wife, you'll have a proud and enviable position."

Miss Mystery gave the speaker a look that not only took him in from head to foot, but seemed to penetrate his very soul, and in a quiet, even tone, she said, "Rather than marry you, I would face the electric chair."

The scorn in her voice, even more than the scathing words themselves, in rage tr. "Oh," he said with ill-repressed fury, "you would, would you? Have your own way then, Miss Mystery, and soon your mystery will be known, and you may have your desire, and face the electric chair."

The girl rose and stood waiting. "Go," she said without glance or gesture, and in a white heat of anger, Tras went.

"Now, deary," Mrs. Adams said, coming in. "I don't want you to tell me anything. My husband bids me befriend you, and I will so long as your case is uncertain. But if you're proved to be guilty, I—"

"Oh, don't fail me." And Miss Mystery threw herself into the other's arms. "I am so lonely and so friendless."

"Why are you—Where's your folks?"

Then Miss Mystery drew herself up with an attempted effort at dignity and said, "I'd like to go to my room now, please."

Upstairs she went slowly, and as she neared her own room, Lockwood met her in the hall. "Count me your friend," he said simply, and held out his hand.

"I will," she replied, putting her little hand in his, and then, with one deep glance, each knew of the other's love. Lockwood's was written plain on his face, and his eyes, usually so calm and cold, were lighted with the intensity of his passion. This Anita read, and her own response was quick and involuntary. Perhaps it was a rebound from the awful proposals of Maurice Tras. Perhaps it was a heart finding its mate. Perhaps, remembering Miss Mystery's ways, it was mere coquetry, but the glances were exchanged, and they knew.

Anita went on to her room, and throwing herself into a chair, sat long in thought. "What shall I do?" she asked herself over and over again. "What can I do if only I hadn't taken the money and the pin? Why did I do it? And he said, 'Trus doll.' How did he know? My eyebrows, I suppose. That awful man. And he'll tell. Oh, yes, he'll surely tell. And that will poison Gordon. His mind against me. Oh, was anybody ever in such trouble as I?"

A tap at her door announced the maid with a note. Alone again. Anita read it. It was from Lockwood and begged an interview. "Please let me see you alone," it said. "I don't know how best to manage it. Will you go for a walk with me now? There's time for a short stroll before dark."

Hurriedly, Anita flung on hat and coat and opened her door. Lockwood was on the stair. "Going out?" he said casually. "May I walk with you?"

"Please do," said Anita. And they started out together.

"I'm sorry enough to do anything that seems clandestine," said Lockwood as they walked. "But that feline, Lady Miss Baskam, is watching your every move, and I can't let her get anything to criticize you for." A grateful look rewarded him. And then Gordon went on, "Tell me, did I read your eyes right? Do you—can you care to know how I love you? How I have loved you from the moment I first saw you? Do you care, Anita? May I love you?"

"But you don't know me," she said in a soft little voice. "And you do know dreadful things about me."

"I don't care for any of those things. If they're dreadful, they're not true."

"Yes, they are true, some of them. And there are more dreadful things to know that you don't even suspect." Gordon. The last words spoken in the lowest, tenderest of voices completed Lockwood's infatuation. Had she not said that, he might have been deterred by her statements. But that softly breathed name stirred his pulses. And in the deepening dusk, he found her hand and said, "Anita, I want you. I love you. None of these things count. I know you are in no way guilty connected with this crime. If you are mixed up with it, it is through force of circumstances. And anyway, I don't care who or what you are. I love you. I believe in you, and I want you."

"But it's all so dreadful, and I can't tell."

"Don't tell anything you don't want to. But that man will tell—that terrible Traskque man." Lockwood didn't waver in his fidelity or loyalty, but it was a blow to learn that Tras knew something of Anita's secrets.

"I don't care," he said firmly. "I love you."

Chapter 14. A Proposal.

Morris Tras took up his reins of government with a firm hand. He left all housekeeping and domestic matters to Mrs. Payton, but the business affairs of Dr. Wearing, he concluded, to clean up as rapidly as possible. "It's astonishing," he said to Lockwood. "What a lot of varied interests my cousin had. This morning's mail brings all sorts of things from rare book catalogs to mining prospectuses. By the way, I think I shall have an auction of his rare books. Such things don't interest me, and I believe they have a big money value."

"Some of them have," Lockwood returned indifferently. He could not bring himself to like his new employer, but as he had agreed to stay with him for a time, he did his best to meet requirements.

"Take this lot now," and Trask indicated a bookcase full of old volumes of the classics. "They mean nothing to me. I can't read Latin or Greek, and wouldn't if I could. My good heavens, look at this one." Tras had taken down the volume that had been on Dr. Wearing's desk the night of his death. As he flipped over the pages, two were stuck together, and the ghastly red stains showed only too clearly that they were the spilled blood of the dying man. "Ah," he said, holding out the volume to Lockwood. "Burn that up. How could anyone have put it back on the shelf? Never let me see it again."

The secretary took it, noting that it was a copy of Marshall, to which Dr. Wearing had been greatly attached. Indeed, it had, to Lockwood's knowledge, been lying on the doctor's desk for a week or more before his death. Laying the stained volume aside in his own desk, Lockwood proceeded to assist in the examination of the books. He was not at all surprised to find Trask discarding the ones he would have retained and keeping the most worthless, though there was little that could really be called trash in the Wearing library.

"Where are the story books?" the new owner grumbled. "No detective stories, no spicy novels, no joke books. Dr. Wearing was serious-minded."

Lockwood reminded him he cared little for lighter reading. "He was a scholar."

"He sure was. To judge from these old, dry-as-dust fire—a lot of the pokey old stuff, and so make room for more entertaining books. You see, Lockwood, I hope, and I expect to get me a wife before long." Gordon's heart seemed to contract, for he divined what was coming.

"Yippy, that's so! Little old Maurice wants a wifey. And who do you suppose has caught my fancy? Who?" was the mechanical response. "Why, none other than the little Miss Mystery. Oh, yes. I know she is under a cloud, but I can get her off. I'm a bird of a lawyer, you know. And we'll fix up all that. Then I'll elevate that little non-entity to the elevated position of the Ms. of Maurice Tras. Hey, my boy, how's that?"

Had Lockwood's calm not been habitual with him, he could scarcely have maintained it through this scene. As it was, he was a boiling, seething furnace inside him. But his judgment told him that any exhibition of surprise or annoyance would only irritate the other man without doing any good. Moreover, if Tras were really a shrewd lawyer, and if he knew something that would make any trouble for Anita, and she had hinted that he did, then Lockwood argued he must keep friendly with Tras, at least until he found out more of the matter. So he said lightly, "Has the lady agreed?"

"Well, not yet. But I say, Lockwood, you're hit in that same direction, eh?"

"I admire Miss Austin very much."

"Yes. Well, you keep off. Do you hear?"

"I hear," said Lockwood, in his imperturbable way. But when Trask looked up and caught the cold stare of his secretary, he dropped the subject and returned to the books.

Since Dr. Wearing's death, Lockwood had formed the habit of going back to the Adams house for his luncheon. This, of course, in the hope of seeing something of Anita, and also because his new employer preferred it that way. At luncheon, Tras took occasion to eulogize Miss Austin. Helen Payton stood it as long as she could, and then broke out with, "I don't see what you can find to admire in that thin, sallow little thing. And besides, she is a wicked girl. I think she killed Dr. Wearing, but even if she didn't, she came over here to see him secretly late at night. And if that isn't wrongdoing, I don't know what is. But just because she puts up a helpless bluff, all the men fall for her."

"Jealous, Miss Payton?" And Trask looked at her shrewdly.

"No." Helen tossed her head. "I have no reason to be. That girl is nothing to me, and the sooner she gets out of Corinth, the better."

"If the police will let her go now, then, Miss Payton," Tras began in his most emphatic manner, "and Mrs. Payton, too, once for all, I will hear no word against Miss Austin in my house. Put any meaning you like into that, but remember it. One word against Anita Austin, and the speaker of it goes out of my door, never to return. Am I clear?"

"Clear? Yes, but I can tell you—"

"Hush, Helen," said her mother. "We want to stay here, don't we? Well, then, as Mr. Tras is evidently much in earnest, I insist that you obey his wishes, as I shall."

"That's right, Mrs. Payton. And if your daughter forgets my hints, I trust to you to keep her reminded. That's all about that."

In this fashion, Maurice Traskque settled every question that arose. His word was law, and he spoke no unnecessary words. The servants could obey or leave. The housekeeper had been told the same, and the secretary understood it, too.

Returning to the library after luncheon, Tras sat at the desk in deep thought. "Got to get the girl," he told himself. "Plenty to hold over her head, but she's skittish. That's plain to be seen. Also, she's in love with Lockwood. Got to get him out of town. Nothing doing while he's around." Now, how? Morton hinted of his being deeply in debt. If so, he's got some past history. Guess I can get something on him. Got to, whether I can or not. I wonder if the little girl did do the sticking. Hard to believe it. And yet that kid's got it in her. She sure has. And she's a TRelle. All right. Nobody ever had those beetling brows almost joining above those dark eyes in that level line. Why, if she's a TRelle? Good lord, I've got to marry her. I'll have to scare her into it. Now, Maurice, my boy, get in some of your finest work."

Clapping on his hat, he started for the Adam's house. As luck would have it, he met Anita and his secretary walking toward him.

"Playing truant?" he called out gayly to Lockwood.

"I'm just on my way to your house," Gordon returned coldly.

"You too, Miss Mystery?" And Tras gave her a wide smile.

"No, I'm going to the post office."

"Ah, I see. Then on your way, Lockwood, and I'll step along with Miss Austin." There was no good way out of this arrangement, so it obtained, and Trusk fell into step with the girl, as Lockwood turned off toward the Wearing house.

"Now, my dear young lady," Trusk began, unheeding her look of aversion. "You may as well understand me first as last. I've got the whip hand. Or, as that isn't a very graceful expression, let us say I hold the trumps. I know all about you, you see. I know why you went to the doctor's library that night, and I know what happened there."

"You don't," said Anita coolly. "You're bluffing, and I know it."

"No, I'm not bluffing. Not entirely, anyway. True, there are some things I don't know yet, but I soon will. Don't think you can keep anything from me. I'm going to take a week for investigation, also to give you your chance. If I find out what I fully expect to find out, I shall make it all public. How will you like that?"

A great fear showed in Anita's eyes, and she murmured brokenly, "Don't. Oh, Mr. Trusque, don't."

"Huh? Scared, are you? I thought you'd be. Now you know my price. You marry me. Promise to marry me, that is, and I'll get you through this thing with bells on. No shadow of suspicion shall remain attached to you or to anyone you care for."

"I heard you were not going to rest until you learned who killed Dr. Wearing," Anita temporized.

"Yes, yes, but that was before I saw you. Now I don't care if you have killed half the people in Corinth. I want you all the same. You've bewitched me. You, a silly little slip of a girl with no particular claim to beauty except your big mournful eyes and your peach of a mouth. I'll bring the smiles to that sad little face. Oh, Anita, I'm not a brute, and I do love you. So give up your foolish fancy for Lockwood, for it is only a passing attraction, and he hasn't any money, and he's deeply in debt. And oh, I'm a thousand times a better catch."

"If you knew how you damaged your cause by talking like that," the girl began, her eyes cold with scorn.

"Then I won't talk like that," Tras said humbly. "Only take me, Anita, and you can make me over to suit yourself. I'll do whatever you say. I'll read the books you want me to. I'll get cultured and refined and all that."

Anita almost laughed. "You are so funny," she said.

But this was a little too much for Tras's self-love. "Funny, am I?" he stormed. "Funny? You'll see how funny I am when I tell the police why you killed that man. You'll see if I'm funny when I refuse the evidence that might help you out. When I keep still instead of speaking out in meeting, you look here, Anita Austin. I hold you in the hollow of my hand. And don't you forget it. You've got a deep, dark secret. And though I don't know quite all of it, I'll know it soon. What? Mtrasque sets out to find out. He finds out. See, now do you want to tell me who you are or not? Want to tell me who your father was? Your mother was a Trudell. I'll bet on that."

Miss Mystery's face fell. Abject despair was written on every line of it. She glanced at Traskque, and his own determined expression showed her that she could hope for nothing from him, save on his own terms, and those terms were too hard for her. Just aware of loving Lockwood, just learning to know what love meant and how sweet it could be, just realizing too the awfulness of her own position, the dire necessity for secrecy, the terrible result of Tras's revelations should they be made altogether, Miss Mystery faced a dangerous crisis.

"You say you'll give me a week," she said at last, grasping at a hope of reprieve.

Trask looked at her with curiosity. "What good will that do? You better put yourself under my protection at once. Every day you lose is that much nearer a discovery."

"All right, I'll dare it. They won't—won't condemn me anyhow."

"Ho ho. Banking on your sex to save you. Well, honestly, I don't really think they'd send a pretty girl like you to the chair, but a trial would convict you in the eyes of the world. Even if 12 men were too soft-hearted to see you electrocuted, and there'd be imprisonment."

"Oh, hush, Mr. Tras. Have you no pity?"

"Plenty for the girl that is to be my wife, none for any other, and especially none for a girl who scorns me and throws me over for my own secretary. I'm a red-blooded man. I am, and you can't play fast and loose with me and get away with it."

"I don't mean to play fast and loose with you if by that you mean changing my mind. But I do ask for a few days to think it over. That's not unreasonable, is it?" Miss Mystery's little smile was cajoling, and Tras couldn't resist it.

"All right," he said, as he looked hungrily at her bewitching face. "Take a couple of days then, but only on condition that you don't let Lockwood make love to you. Promise me that for the 48 hours you won't see that man alone."

"How can I promise that?"

"You'll have to, whether you can or not."

"All right, I promise." He looked at her sternly, "And you'll keep that promise, or you'll be sorry. I haven't much opinion of your promises. You're not the sort to keep faith. But remember, I'm a power. Maurice Tras can do whatever he sets out to do. And if you forget that, you're mighty apt to regret it."

"I gave you a promise," Anita said, looking at him coldly. "And I fully intend to keep it. It's not such a very hard one to keep." Her lip curled, and though he guessed the tumult in her heart, there was no sign of it on her face.

Trusk accompanied her to the post office, and then, bidding him a careless good afternoon, Anita went into a large dry goods shop, and he made no attempt to follow her. He would have been interested, however, had he noted her proceedings, for she went straight to a telephone booth and called up the Wearing house. Ito answered, and when she asked to be connected with Mr. Lockwood, the butler gave the connection without question.

"Gordon," came the soft little voice. "This is Anita." And then she told him quickly but fully all that had passed between her and Trusk. "So you see," she concluded, "I do want these two days to think things out, and I mustn't see you alone, for he's sure to know of it."

"All right," Lockwood said. "We'll do our courting over the telephone. Let me see. I'll go downtown this evening and telephone you."

"No, that won't do. I can't talk to you in the Adams front hall. Here's a better plan. Tomorrow, when Mr. Tras goes out, you call me up there, and I'll go out to a pay station and call you up where you are now. And the day after tomorrow, the time will be up."

"Yes. And what are you going to do then?"

"I don't know," said the girl, her voice suddenly losing its brightness. "I'm going to think it out. Goodbye."

"Oh, wait a minute. I'll see you at dinner, shan't I?"

"Oh, yes, and this evening, I suppose, but only with others present." And after a few more words, Anita left the booth and walked slowly home.

When Tras returned to his library, he said to Lockwood, "Get busy on those old books at once, will you? I want the shelves cleared for some of my own books that I've sent for."

"Very well," returned the secretary, thinking of the probable difference between the expected books and those they would replace. "Do you mind, Mr. Traskque, if I take a few of these old ones myself? I'll pay you whatever price a first-class dealer sets on them."

"I'll take what you want. Without pay. I'm in a good humor today, Lockwood. Better take advantage of it. Help yourself from the shelves."

"Thank you. I'll not impose on your kindness and generosity." Nor did he, but among the few volumes he chose was the crimson-stained copy of Marshall's epics. Distasteful though it was, Lockwood looked at the book with a feeling of reverence and opened the volume at the page that had last held the interest of its owner's scholarly mind. The crimson stain completely obscured the print, but Lockwood gazed long at the defaced page.

"I wonder," he said to himself, "if a cracked detective could get anything from this. There's that Stone Mercer is always raving over. I suppose he's terribly expensive. Yet this strange case might intrigue him. And yet there's Anita to be considered. If it should turn the tide against her."

Later that afternoon, Tras went out again, and Lockwood seized his chance. Calling Anita at the Adams house, he said, "Listen, dear, you needn't say anything but yes or no, and then no one will understand."

"All right," came the reply. "I've just about come to the conclusion I'll get a clever detective and put him on the case. I mean, a real detective. In fact, Fleming Stone."

"Oh, no." Anita's voice was one of utter dismay.

"Why not? I—I can't tell you this way, you said."

"So, I did. Well, here I'll ask questions. Don't you want me to do this?"

"No."

"Very emphatically. You'd rather I wouldn't."

"Very much rather."

"Because you fear ill effects to yourself?"

"Yes."

"You are sure you're not overestimating the danger of that?"

"I am sure."

"Then there's no more to be said. Goodbye." Lockwood hung up the receiver and turned around to see Trusque frowning at him. "So that's the way you and Miss Austin whipped the devil around the stump."

"That's the way," returned Lockwood coolly. "She promised not to see you alone."

"Is this how she keeps the letter of her promise and breaks it in spirit?"

"Leave her out of this. I called her up. She did not call me."

"All the same. Now, I gather from the interesting talk I overheard that Miss Austin does not wish to have Fleming Stone take up this case."

"You are at liberty to gather anything you choose."

"See here, Lockwood. You make a mistake when you try to antagonize me. I'd be a better friend to you than an enemy."

"I have no reason to want you for either." Lockwood was by no means impertinent. He merely spoke indifferently. Trask noted this and went on more suavely. "Now, my dear Lockwood, what I propose to do now is to employ Fleming Stone myself."

Lockwood was astounded. At first he was glad, for he felt sure Stone could solve the whole mystery, but then suppose it incriminated Anita, and though Lockwood was sure of her innocence, he was just enough so to realize that his certainty was largely because of his affection for her. Suppose Stone should prove her to be the criminal. It couldn't be, and yet he looked up to find Trask smiling broadly.

"You've the reputation of being of an impassive countenance, Lockwood, but to me your face is as an open book. However, it's only because you are up against a difficult problem. You want Stone to come, yet you're afraid he'll find out that Miss Austin is pretty deep in this murder mystery. But I've made up my mind, and I think you'll see that any attempt on your part to change my decision would look bad for Miss Austin."

"You let her name alone, Traskque, or I'll reason with you myself."

"Have you any real right to tell me to leave her name alone?"

"Yes, I have. Are you and she engaged?"

"So far as I am concerned, we are. Miss Austin prefers to wait until later to announce it, but I can answer for her to you in confidence."

"Oh, it's in confidence. All right. Don't fear. I'll breathe the news. For you see, I've made up my mind to marry Anita Austin myself. And if Fleming Stone proves that she is a murderess, I'll marry her all the same. She'll escape punishment. What woman doesn't?"

"Then look here." Lockwood's manner changed. "If you're going to get Stone anyway, why can't we work with each other and not at odds? Whatever else we think or feel, we both want to save Miss Austin all the trouble or distress we can. Let's be friends then and talk things over with Stone, and then I'm on. Then if we see things are going against her, shut him off."

"Well, yes, if we can."

"Of course we can. I have money enough for anything. Even to buy off Fleming Stone. No man's too big to be bought."

"I don't mean all this exactly as you do. But I do mean this. If Stone can solve the mystery and clear Anita, let him do it. If he finds her implicated, let it be understood by him beforehand. He is to cease investigations."

Tras thought a minute. "That goes," he said. "I agree."

Chapter 15. Fleming Stone Comes.

"Terrence."

"Yes, sir."

"We're off for New England."

"New England it is. Start this afternoon. Stay a few days, maybe a week, among the classic shades of Corinth."

"Corinth, it is." This somewhat laconic conversation was all that was necessary for Fleming Stone's assistant and general factotum to make preparations for the trip, achieve tickets, and arrive with his chief at the train gate at the proper time. Terrence McGuire, sometimes called Fibsy because of a certain tendency to loquacity, had begun as Stone's office boy, and by virtue of his general aptitude for detective work, and his utter devotion to Stone, had become a worthwhile and much appreciated assistant. Not only did the lad look after all details of their trips, as well as taking care of the offices, but many times his ingenious mind so stimulated or aided Stone's own that more often than not they were practically colleagues.

They had a compartment of themselves at the end of the car, and they were no sooner started than Stone began to discuss the case with the boy. "I don't know all the details, of course," he began, "but it's a setting after my own heart."

"Then I can guess it. Put in the wise Fibsy man dead in sealed room."

"You're a wizard. What made you think of that?"

"Cuz that's the problem you like best."

"F. Stone, wise me up some more."

"It's further interesting because the victim is a great and good man. In fact, the president-elect of the University of Corinth."

"My somebody didn't want him for president. That the idea?"

"Apparently not. Nothing in the letter about that. Who wrote the letter? The relative who inherits the whole estate. He do the job."

"No reason as yet to think so. But the criminal mustn't be guessed at. The point is the locked room. How was the killing done?"

"Stabbed. No weapon found and no way to get in or out of the locked room."

"Fine problem. Yes, if we don't find a secret stairway or a lying servant, such cases generally fizzle out that way."

"Fibs, you're a boy, Cassandra."

"What's that?" Stone explained, for it was his habit to supplement McGu's very scant education by bits of information now and then when time served.

"But there's a queer clause in the arrangement," Stone went on. "If we find the evidence leading in a certain direction, the chase is to cease."

"That won't do."

"Of course not. And I'll soon make that clear. But I can't think it will lead in the given direction, as that implicates a young girl. And rarely indeed have I found a criminal answering to that description."

"It isn't usual, but you know, F. Stone, since the war, girls are so independent and so cocky that there's no telling what they'll do."

"Me for the girl as a suspect."

"Fibsy, you're a fool."

"No, sir, I don't admit it. See here, sir. If they're so afraid Pishin will turn to that girl, there's reason for it. Yet, as you can guess, if she didn't do it, they want her skirts entirely cleared."

"Pretty good deduction so far, but we can't judge rationally until we know the facts."

The facts were told them when, some hours later, they sat alone with Maurice Tras in the room where John Wearing breathed his last. "I'm a plain man," Trusk said, for he didn't care to pose unduly before an astute detective. "I've come into this estate of my cousin's, my second cousin he was, and I started out with a firm determination to find the villain who killed him. But there is some cause for suspicion of the young lady I expect to marry. And here's the situation. If you can solve the mystery of Dr. Wearing's death and free that girl from any taint of blame, go ahead. But if your investigation leads to her, stop it. I want to marry her just the same, whether she killed anybody or not. But if she didn't do it, I want to know it."

"Can't you learn the truth from the young lady herself, if she is your fiancée?" asked Stone.

"Oh, she says she didn't do it, of course, but there's such an overwhelming mass of evidence, or apparent evidence, against her that it's the deepest sort of a mystery."

"Main facts first. Where was the body found?"

"In that desk chair, seated at his desk, as he often was, evenings, reading in a Latin book. So, you see, he wasn't looking for trouble."

"Found dead in the morning. Been dead all night."

"Yes, to both those questions, and locked in his room. Had to break in, and no weapon about, not a sign of any. Then that cuts out all taking one's own life idea."

"It does, and it doesn't. You may as well say the locked-up room cuts out all idea of a murder. But it must be one or the other. And isn't it more plausible to look for some way that the murderer could have gone away and left the room locked than to think up a way that the taking one's own life could have disposed of this weapon?"

"Yes, that's so. But I want you to investigate both possibilities. You see, if you could prove a taking one's own life, that would free Miss Austin at once. And if things go against her, I want you to—Oh, hang it. It's hard to put into words."

"I'll do that," said Fibsy. "If things go against Miss Austin, you want Mr. Stone to frame up taking one's own life and declare it the truth."

"Exactly that." And Tras looked relieved at the thought. All his cards were on the table. "I don't want Miss Austin suspected, but I do want to know if she's innocent."

"Any other suspects?" asked Stone.

"Not definite ones. There's the Japanese who absconded that same night. And of course, there's the secretary, Gordon Lockwood. I'd like to suspect him."

"All right. And he has a round silver pen holder that just fits the wound that killed Wearing, but it doesn't look like he did it. He never would have left the pen holder in evidence. And he would have arranged matters to look more like self-harm. Then, too, how could he lock the door behind him?"

"That question must be answered first of all," said Stone. "I'll examine the room, of course, but after the local police and detectives have done that, I doubt if I find anything enlightening. So far as I can see, this whole affair is unique, and I think we will find some surprising evidence, and soon. Tell me more of this Miss Austin. Who is she?"

"Nobody knows. In fact, they call her Miss Mystery because so little is known of her. She appeared here in Corinth from nowhere. She knew no one, and as she began to make acquaintances, somebody brought her over here. She met Dr. Wearing, and inside of 24 hours had so bewitched him that it would seem he had her visiting him in his study late at night. She said—"

At first, she wasn't here, but as she left the impress of her dress trimmings on that chair back, and as she has a ruby pin and a lot of money that were in the doctor's possession, it looks, one might say, a bit queer. Weren't the valuables planted on her? Put in fibsy? That's what she says. Or rather, that's one of the things she said. The girl contradicts herself continually. She says one thing one day and another the next.

Is she pretty? This from Fibsy. Pretty as the devil. And that's not so bad as a description. She has great big dark eyes with straight black brows that almost meet. She has a jaunty little face that can be roguish or scornful or merry or pathetic as the little rascal chooses. She has completely bowled me over and I'd be glad to have her on any terms and whatever her past history. But there it is. If she has a clean slate in this murder business, I want to know it. And if she hasn't, then I don't want anybody else to know it.

If you find Mr. Stone real evidence that Anita Austin killed John Wearing, or if she confesses to the deed, then you whip around and prove her taking one's own life, and I'll double your charge. You needn't do anything wrong, you know, just sum up that all indications point to self-harm and let it go at that. Nobody will arrest Miss Austin if you say that.

"You must be crazy, Mr. Trask," que returned Stone coldly. "I don't conduct my business on any such principles as those. I can't perjure myself to save your lady love from a just condemnation."

"You haven't seen her yet," Trask nodded his sagacious head. "Wait till you do."

"Give me all the points against her," the detective suggested.

"I will. I'd rather you knew them from me. Not that I'll color them. They're facts that speak for themselves, but other people might exaggerate them. Well, to begin with, this girl, a day or so after she arrived here, was seen kissing the picture of Doctor Wearing, which she had cut from a newspaper. I tell you this 'cause you'll hear it anyway, and the gossips think it shows a previous acquaintance between the two. But I hold that as girls have matinee idols and movie heroes, this girl might easily have adored the scholarly man, though she had never seen him."

"It is possible," Stone agreed, "but not very probable. She denies they were acquainted."

"Yes. Vows she never saw him until one night she went to his lecture soon after her arrival here. What is she in Corinth for, sketch?"

"She's an artist."

"Go on."

"Well, as I said, she must have come here that Sunday night for one. Of the borders at the house she lives in saw her cross the snowy field. Also, the footprints just fitted her shoes. Also, the tracks led right up on the side porch here to that long French window and led right back again to the Adams house."

Fibsy exploded. "Aren't you rubbing it in?"

"Well, that's what they tell me," Tras asserted doggedly. "And I want you to know it all, Mr. Stone, before the other people tell you a garbled version. Go on."

"Then they say the girl left marks of her dress trimming on that chair and Lockwood. The secretary rubbed them off next morning as soon as the body was discovered. We have the word of two witnesses for this episode."

"Who are the witnesses?"

"Itto, the Japanese butler, and Miss Payton, who lives in this house."

"Go on."

"Well, then, ever since the tragedy, Miss Austin has acted queer. Queer in all sorts of ways. She is sad and desolate one minute and saucy and independent the next. I can't make her out at all. And she is more than half in love with this Lockwood. I have to cut him out, you see. And I figure if you prove the case against Miss Austin, and if I agree to marry her, and hush up the whole matter, and make it seem May, taking one's own life—"

"You figure that she'll throw over the secretary for you?" cried Fibsy, his eyes aghast at the man's plan.

"Exactly that. You see, Mr. Stone, I don't try to deceive you. While I have a natural sorrow at my cousin's death, yet remember that I never knew him in life, and that while I want to avenge his death in any case but one, I do not want to if it implicates Anita Austin."

"I understand," said Stone, seemingly not so shocked at the conversation as his assistant was.

"There's another queer thing," said Tras. "They tell me that when the body was found, there was the impress of a ring on the forehead. A seal ring."

"Oh, no. Not a finger ring, but a circle about two inches across, a red mark, as if it had been made as a sign or symbol of some sort. It remained on the flesh until the embalming process took place that removed it. I didn't see it, but I'm told it was a clearly defined circle, quite evidently impressed with some intent."

"Sounds like a sign of a secret society," Fibsy suggested. But Stone paid no heed.

"Let's reconstruct the case," he said. "Wearing sat at his desk, his secretary outside in that hall."

"Yes, the Japanese, the other one, the one that disappeared, brought in water and then Dr. Wearing closed the door and locked it immediately."

"I don't know that. But anyway, no one that we know of saw him again alive. Noi is under no suspicion, for after he came out of the room, the doctor rose and locked the door. Lockwood can't be suspected, as he heard the door locked and couldn't get in. He is more or less suspected because of his pen holder, but much as I should like to think him the criminal, I know he isn't."

"You're very honest, Mr. Tras."

"Yes, because I want the truth."

"Can you get it?"

"I think so. You still eliminate taking one's own life?"

"I can't see how I can think it with no weapon. You say that death was instantaneous."

"Yes, the doctors agree that it was positively. He had no chance to hide or dispose of the instrument of death. And why should he? Taking one's own lives never make their death seem a murder. Though often a murderer tries to simulate self-harm. Yet that wasn't done in this case. Or the murderer would have left the weapon."

"That may be the very point he neglected. Now, how did the murderer get out?"

"Get busy, Fibs."

For nearly half an hour, the three men searched the room. Had there been any secret exit or any concealed passage, it must have been found. Fleming Stone's knowledge of architecture would not let him overlook anything of the sort, and Fibsy's alert eyes and quick wits would have found anything out of the ordinary.

"No way out," Stone concluded finally. "And no way of locking a door or window after departure from the room. Looks as if the murder theory was as untenable as the other. No chance of a natural death with a round hole in his jugular vein. No, sir. The doctors here won't stand for that. Try again."

"I shall. I don't know when I've had such a baffling, intriguing case, as this appears to be at first sight. It may resolve itself into a simple problem, but I can't think so now. Even if it were the work of your Miss Austin. How did she get in and out?"

"Oh, she got in. All right. Wearing let her in at the French window. Probably that's when he locked his door, but say she killed him. How did she get out and lock the room behind her? She couldn't. The window locks are bolts and could not be shot from outside. For the moment, I see no explanation. It is blank. Utter mystery."

"When can I see Miss Austin?"

"Too late tonight. Tomorrow morning will have to do. But she won't run away."

"The police won't let her yet. They can't hold her."

"They are doing so. They claim she was the last one to see the victim alive."

"Does she admit that?"

"Not she. She admits nothing. You'll get nothing out of that little sphinx."

"All right then, Mr. Trusque. If you finished your tale, suppose you leave me here to ruminate over this thing, and I'll go up to my room when I wish."

Tras went off to bed, and Stone and his young assistant sat and looked at each other.

"Up against it, F. Stone?"

"I certainly am, Fibs. And yet, the thing is so absolutely impossible that there must be a solution within easy reach. It can't be taking one's own life with the weapon gone. And it can't be murder with the room locked up. Now, as it must be either taking one's own life or murder, then it follows that either the weapon isn't gone or the room isn't locked up."

"Wasn't you mean?"

"Yes. Wasn't. But I don't yet think that anyone disturbed the conditions purposely. For why would the secretary take away the weapon to make it seem like taking one's own life? He would if he did it. He didn't do it. Trask sees that the man Trask is a sharp one. He sees all there is to see. And since there's practically nothing to see that solves the mystery, he sent for me. It would be a good one on me, Terrence, if I have to give the thing up as unsolvable."

"That won't happen, F. Stone. But I'm free to confess. I can't see any way to look."

The next morning, Maurice Tras went over to the Adams house and brought Miss Mystery back with him. She came willingly enough, and the interview with the detective took place in the room of the tragedy itself. Stone noticed that the girl showed no horror or distaste of the scene, and even sat in the chair he placed for her, which was the same plush-covered one that had received the telltale imprints.

Fleming Stone regarded Miss Austin curiously. Not only was her beauty all that Tras had described it, but there was an added quality of fineness, a trace of high mentality that naturally enough Maurice Trusque quite overlooked. At first glance, Stone's thought was, "That child commit murder? Never." But a few moments later, he was not quite so sure of his negation.

Fibsy just sat and looked at her. He had no occasion to speak unless addressed, so in silence he merely let his eyes feast on the pick and face with its ever-changing expressions. After casual questions, Stone said directly, "Did you know Dr. Wearing before you came to Corinth, Miss Austin?"

"No," she said a little hesitantly. "I had heard of him, but I had never before seen him."

"How had you heard of him?"

"There was much in the papers about his election."

"And that interested you?"

"Not specially," she said with a sudden accession of hauteur, and thereupon she became a most unsatisfactory witness. She listened to Stone's questions with an absent-minded air, answered in monosyllables, or by movement of her head. She even gave a side smile to Fibsy, which though it amazed him, also filled him with a strange, exultant joy, and made him her abject slave at once.

Stone went on drawing out a string of unimportant questions in a monotonous voice. And at length he said in the same unimportant way, "And when you saw Doctor Wearing that night, was there a red ring on his forehead?"

"No," said Miss Austin. And then, suddenly awakening to what she had done, she cried impetuously, "I mean, I don't know. I wasn't here."

Stone smiled gravely. "You were here," he said. "Now, let us talk about what happened during your visit."

An interruption was caused by a tap at the closed door. Impatiently, Traskque rose and went to the door. It was Itto bringing a telegram for Miss Austin. It had arrived at the Adams house and had been sent over. Miss Mystery read it with great difficulty, controlled her agitation as she quickly went to the blazing log fire and dropped the paper in.

"Skip over to the telegraph office and get a copy," said Stone quietly. And Fibsy obeyed.

"Then to Miss Austin's continued distress, Stone read the message aloud. It was from San Francisco, and it said, 'Better own up and tell the whole truth. I have annexed Carl.' It was signed merely 'A,' and apparently it was of dire import to its recipient. Miss Mystery sat silent and wide-eyed in desperation as she looked hopelessly from one to another.

"Don't you think," said Stone, not unkindly, "that you'd better follow A's advice and make a clean breast of the whole matter?"

Chapter 16. Miss Mystery's Testimony.

Miss Mystery looked from Stone's impassive face to Fibsy's eager, boyish countenance. Then she looked at Morris Traskque. The latter showed deepest sympathy and interest, but Tras also had a weary air, as if ready to interrupt any disclosures that might be damaging to the girl.

"First of all," Stone said, "who sent you that telegram from San Francisco?"

"I don't know." The calm little face was as expressionless as Stone's own, and she made her statement as straightforwardly as if it had been true.

"Miss Austin," Stone spoke severely now. "It's to your own advantage to adopt a more amenable manner. You will not help your cause by prevarication or evasion. Unless you will answer my questions truly, I must find out these things for myself. I can do it."

"If you can find out who sent that telegram, go ahead," she flared at him. "I tell you, I don't know who sent it, and I don't know who A is."

"I know who she is," said Fibsy. And then Anita's quick, startled glance proved to the boy that his little ruse was successful, and he had at least guessed the sex of the sender. A woman, the astute lad mused, and she has annexed Carl. Maybe Carl is another name for that escaped Japanese, but it's all so far away. How can they conduct operations between here and California?

"Miss Austin," Stone tried to win her confidence. "Believe me, I am most anxious to help you. Please tell me why you came over here that Sunday night. It is utterly useless to deny that you did come. Now tell me why."

Anita looked baffled, but after a moment's pause, she said, "Do you think I killed Dr. Wearing?"

"I know you didn't," broken Fibsy with enthusiasm. "Now come across, Miss Austin, and I'll bet you F. Stone can dope out the whole game. I know most of the circumstances already."

Stone smiled and followed up the small advantage he had gained. "You came over here late secretly across the snowy field. Dr. Wearing let you in."

"Yes," Anita breathed the word, and her starry eyes never left Stone's face. She seemed almost hypnotized. "Then you sat down in the chair you're in now, and he locked the door."

"Why did he do that?"

"I don't know."

"He didn't stop. You have no right to torment me like this. I have counsel. Mr. Tras, here is my lawyer. Let him tell me what to do." Her nerves were tense, and her little fingers were continually twisting round themselves. Her face was agonized, and Stone felt as if he were guilty of utter cruelty. But he must go on.

"Mr. Tras cannot tell what he does not know. Oh," he said coldly, "I am in authority. You must answer me. Did Dr. Wearing give you the money and the ruby pin?"

"Yes, he did."

"Why?"

"As gifts."

"Why does anyone give presents?"

"Because he loved you."

"Yes," Anita's voice dropped to a softer tone. Her eyes had a far-away look, and her sensitive little mouth quivered. "Yet you had known him but a few days. You had never seen him before you came to Corinth."

"Never? Isn't that a strange admission? How could he become so infatuated in so short a time?"

"Have you never heard of such a thing?" The face was almost roguish now, and the dark eyes showed a hint of smile. Stone was baffled. He gazed at this strange young person who was either fooling him to the top of her bent or was a helpless, harassed child.

"Was Dr. Wearing related to you?" he asked with a sudden new idea.

"Oh, no. He was no relation. I tell you, I never met him before I came here. And he gave you the valuables."

"He did. I'll swear to that, though I have no witness to prove it. And you accepted them? Accepted a large sum of money and a pin set with a precious stone from a man you scarcely knew. A man engaged to be married, a man of twice your own age. You must admit this calls for explanation."

"Why does it? Hadn't he a right to give me those things if he chose?"

"Wait a minute, Miss Austin. You loved him."

"Maybe."

"Then if you did, do you want his name stained? His memory blotted by an act that is, to say the least, questionable. But he did give them to me. Unless you can say more clearly why he did, so I'm not sure I can believe you. Did you ask for them?"

"Oh, no." Her disclaimer sounded true, but Stone began to think she was a consummate little actress, as well as a clever falsifier.

"Well," he said, after a short pause, "I may as well tell you, Miss Austin, that I am here to solve this mystery, that I am not at all satisfied that you are telling me the truth, that therefore I shall have to seek the truth elsewhere. I will tell you too that I don't want to implicate you, that I should much prefer to keep your name out of it all, but that you leave me no choice but to go ahead with my investigations wherever they may lead. A few more questions and you may go. What was Dr. Wearing doing when you came?"

"He—he was sitting at his desk." She looked troubled at Stone's speech and seemed half-inclined to be more friendly.

"You saw him through the French window before you came in?"

"Yes. The window has a silk curtain, but I saw him between the edge of the silk and the window sash."

"Was he reading?"

"No. There were books on the desk, but he was not reading."

"He rose and let you in."

"Yes. He had sent for you."

"No. That is yes. You spoke truly the first time. He did not send for you and you came of your own accord. Was he surprised to see you?"

"He didn't say so."

"What did he say? What was his first word?"

"Why, I don't know. He said, 'Anita, you,' or something like that. And kissed you."

"Yes." And then a sudden wave of crimson spread over the scared little face. It was evident she had not voluntarily made the admission. It had slipped out as her memory was busy with the scene.

"I won't stand it," she cried. "I can't stand it. Mr. Tras, save me from this terrible man."

Maurice Trusque, sitting near her, held out his hand, and Miss Mystery took it. It seemed to reassure her, and she said, "Remember, you're my lawyer. Don't let him question me anymore."

"Tell him things yourself, but he doesn't know things," said Stone gravely.

"Then let him make them up. I refuse to stand this persecution. I didn't kill that man."

"Wait a moment, Miss Austin," Stone feared. If he let her go now, he would lose his chance. "Since you are admittedly the last person who is known to have seen Dr. Wearing alive, you cannot avoid or evade the strictest questioning. You were here," he spoke very gravely, "late at night. Next morning he was found dead. There are no footprints in the snow but your own. There was no other way into the room. Therefore, you are responsible for his death. Or you know who is."

"Must I? Must I be convicted?" Her tone was heartbroken, her strained little face piteous in its appeal, but Stone did not believe in her. He had concluded she was entirely capable of pulling wool over her questioner's eyes, and he watched her keenly.

"I don't say you must," he returned deliberately.

"But I say you may never," declared Trusk. "You know what I told you, Mr. Stone, and you know that I refuse to accept your terms. I shall carry this matter through to the end. I do not say I think Miss Austin guilty of crime, but I do say she knows all about the death of Dr. Wearing, and she must be made to tell."

"Suppose I say he killed himself," she said.

"Will you believe me with your stiletto?" asked Stone quickly.

"Yes."

"And then you took the stiletto home and hid it."

"Yes."

"What for?"

"To shield his memory. Taking one's own life is a coward's act."

"Rubbish!" Fibsy exploded, unable to keep quiet any longer. "I say, Miss Mystery, you are a mystery. Why don't you tell what you know? It's up to you. Here you were with the victim shortly before his death. You probably know all about what happened. By the way, how did you get out?"

"Out the same way I came in and bolted that window door behind you."

"Oh, no."

"Well, you see, I see you are not to say another word, Miss Austin," Tras decreed. "I'm very sorry. I asked Mr. Stone to take up this case. However, I shall take you home now. Then I'll come back, and I hope I can persuade Mr. Stone to discontinue his work. If I'd had any idea of these disclosures you've made, I never should have engaged his services. Come, Anita. I will take you home. Mr. Stone, await my return. I shan't be long."

The two went, and Stone, pacing up and down the long room, said musingly, "All centers around that girl."

"Right?" said Fibsy, "but she didn't kill the man."

"The trouble is, Terrence, your saying that doesn't make it so."

"No, but it's being so makes me say it."

Gordon Lockwood came in, his face full of anxiety. "I'm glad to see you alone for a moment, Mr. Stone," he said. "I saw Tras taking Miss Austin home. Now tell me, please, can you get at the truth about that girl?"

"I haven't as yet. She's as great a mystery as the death of Dr. Wearing."

"She is. But I have every faith in her. She is the victim of some delusion."

"Delusion? Yes. I mean, she's under a mistaken sense of duty to somebody."

"Or state your meaning more definitely, will you?"

"I'm not sure that I can, but I'm positive."

"Ah, now, Mr. Lockwood, with this from Fibsy. You're positive. The young lady is an angel of light because you're head over heels in love with her. That's all right. And I don't blame you. But take it from me, you'll prove your case quicker, better, and more surely if you investigate the secret of Miss Mystery, then if you just go around babbling about her innocence and purity."

Lockwood looked at the boy, ready to resent his impudence. But Fibs' serious face and honest eyes carried conviction, and the secretary at once took him for an ally.

"You're right, Maguire," he said. "And I, for one, am not afraid of the result of a thorough investigation of Miss Austin's affairs."

"You've reason to be, though," Stone observed. "I can't be sure, of course, but many stray hints and bits of evidence, too, my mind point to Miss Austin's close connection with the whole matter."

"What is your theory as to the death, Mr. Stone?" Lockwood asked.

"Self-harm or murder. Honestly, I don't know. I'm quite ready to form an opinion when I get some real evidence. I'm through questioning Miss Austin. I shouldn't have let her go otherwise. I want next to do a lot of further questioning. And I'd very much like to get hold of that servant, Nogi."

"You think he's implicated?" Lockwood stared. "Why else would he run away? He must be found. He is probably the key to the whole situation."

"Guilty? Maybe and maybe not. If he and Miss Austin were in collusion—"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Stone, but I cannot have anything said in my presence that reflects on that young lady's good name. We are engaged to be married. That is, I consider myself bound to her and hope to win her full consent. But I understood. I thought Tras—Mr. Tras wants to marry her, but I hardly think his suit will succeed. The lady must decide, of course, but I have reason to hope."

"Gee, Mr. Lockwood, course she'll take you," Fibsy informed him. "Now, let's you and me get busy to find out Miss Mystery's mystery. You ought to know it if you're going to marry her. And two, you can't believe there's anything that can't stand the light."

"What can it be?" Lockwood asked helplessly. "How can a young girl like that have a real secret that so pervades and surrounds her whole life that she will give no hint of it? Who is she? What is she? Why is she here? I don't believe she came here merely to sketch in watercolors."

"No," agreed Stone. "If that were all, why the mystery about her home and family? I understand she has given several contradictory statements as to where she really lives."

"She has," assented Lockwood, "but may it not be just a twist of her humorous nature. I assure you, she is roguishly inclined."

"No, it isn't a joke," Fibsy said, frowning at the thought. "She's got a real secret, a mystery that means a whole lot to her and probably to other people."

"Well, F. Stone, I guess it's up to me to go out and seek her people." He sighed deeply. "I hate to leave the seat of war, but I got to do it. Nobody else could ever ferret out the antecedents and general family doings of Miss Mystery, but yours truly, and this is no idle boast. I'm going out for the goods, and I'll fetch home the bacon." He looked glum at the prospect, for it looked like no easy or simple matter that he proposed to undertake.

"You see," he went on, "that girl is stubborn, my but she's stubborn. You'll have a handful, Mr. Lockwood. But if so bees, you're willing to face the revelations. I'll go and dig them up."

"Where do you think you'll go?" Terrence asked Stone.

"To California, F.S., of course. Didn't that telegram come from there? All I've got to do is to find A and the Carl that she annexed. And there's your mystery of the young lady solved. But the death of the doctor, that's another thing."

"Do you really mean this?" Lockwood said, staring at Fibsy. "How can you find a needle in a haystack like that?"

"I can't, but I've got a— But it's so much simpler to get the information from Miss Austin herself."

"You call that simple?" Fibsy looked at him. "Well, it isn't. It's easier to go to Mars, I should say, than to get any real information out of that little scrap of waywardness."

"No, nothing can be learned from her," said Stone.

"Then shall I be off?" asked Fibsy.

"Wait 24 hours, my lad, and then if we're no further along, I suppose you'll have to go. Noi must be found."

"I'm glad Mr. Tras called you in, Mr. Stone," Lockwood said slowly. "But I do hope you won't associate any thought of Miss Austin with the crime. She could no more commit crime than a small kitten could."

"I fancy you're right," said Stone, half absent-mindedly, "but opinions as to what people can or can't do are of not much real use. Have you a theory?"

"Yes, I have a theory, but the facts don't fit it, and it seems as if they could not be made to yet. It's a good theory."

"You don't care to tell it to me?"

"Why, I'm willing to do so. My theory is that John Wearing committed taking one's own life, but I can't make any facts bear me out. You see, it's not only the absence of a weapon, but all absence of motive and even of opportunity. Surely he had opportunity in here alone."

"It can't be opportunity if he had no implement handy. And nothing can explain away the missing weapon and the locked room on the self-harm theory."

"What can explain the locked room on a murder theory?" Lockwood asked.

"I haven't thought of anything as yet. What book was Dr. Wearing reading that night?"

"There were several on his desk, but the one that was found nearest the body, the one stained with blood, is a copy of Marshall's Epigrams."

"May I see it, please?" Lockwood brought the book, and Fleming Stone examined it carefully. It was not a rare or finely bound edition. It seemed more a working copy or a book for reference. It was printed in Latin.

"He was fond of Marshall?" asked Stone.

"He was a reader of all the classics. He preferred them, of course, in their original Latin or Greek. He was also a modern linguist."

Stone opened the volume to the stained page, which was numbered 87. He studied it closely. "It's all Greek to me," he said, frowning. "Even though it's Latin, but I hope to read something on the page beside the printed text." However, the irregularly shaped red blur gave him no clue, and he returned the book to Lockwood.

"Had the doctor any private accounts?" the detective asked suddenly.

"Not that I know of," replied the secretary. "He was a man of singularly few secrets, and I was always at liberty to open all letters, and had free access to his desk and safe. I never knew him to hide or secrete a paper of any sort."

"No harm in looking," Stone said, and began forthwith to search the desk drawers and compartments. The search was fruitless until at length a small checkbook was found. And a curious revelation it gave them, for of its blank checks, but one had been torn out, and the remaining stub gave the information that it was a check for $10,000 drawn to the order of Anita Austin.

Those who looked at it stared incredulously. "It is dated," Stone said, "the date that Dr. Wearing died. It was—had this too been given to the strange young woman whom Stone was beginning to designate to himself by the title of adventurous?"

Was it possible that young girl who seemed scarce more than a child had somehow maneuvered to get all this from a man whom she had deliberately fascinated and infatuated? It was incredible. Yet, what else could be assumed?

Gordon Lockwood looked deeply distressed, his lips set in a tight line, and he said through his clenched teeth, "I don't care. Nothing can shake my faith in that girl. She is blameless, and only these misleading circumstances make you think otherwise, Mr. Stone."

The detective looked at him as one might regard a hopeless lunatic, but young Maguire's face was a study. He looked horror-stricken and then dazed. Then he had an inspiration apparently, for he smiled broadly, only to lapse again into a profound gloom.

"If it ain't the beatenest," he said at last. "What you make of it, F. Stone, I'm completely staggered for the moment."

"Fibs," the detective returned, "but these cumulative evidences of Miss Mystery's inquisitive disposition seem, I say, seem to lead to a suspicion of her undue influence over Dr. Wearing, at least as to obtaining money."

"Oh, she didn't!" Lockwood fairly groaned.

"Don't blame her. Perhaps Wearing fell a victim to her beauty and grace. And perhaps he urged these gifts upon her."

"Perhaps," Fibsy said. "Perhaps he threatened to kill her if she didn't accept his checks and coin and rubies. And maybe she had to kill him in self-defense."

"Self-defense?" Lockwood cried, grasping at any straw. "Could it have been that?"

"No," Stone said. "Be rational, man. Whatever made Anita Austin kill Dr. Wearing, it wasn't a case of self-defense."

Chapter 17. Planning an Elopement.

There was some sort of telepathy or some subconscious impulse that made Anita Austin open her bedroom door in response to a light tap, although she had resolved to talk to nobody just then. But when she saw Gordon Lockwood, she was glad she had, and without waiting for an invitation, he stepped inside the room and closed the door. He looked at her with a face full of compassion and love, but he spoke as one who must attend to an important business.

"Anita," he said, speaking very low, "the crisis has come. They have learned of the check Dr. Wearing gave you that night, and it is the last straw. Stone is already, I think, convinced of your guilt, and that young chap McGuire will get at the bottom of everything, I'm sure."

"Check? What do you mean?" Miss Mystery said with a blank look on her face.

"Don't equivocate with me, dear," Lockwood laid his hand gently on hers. "There's no time now to tell you of my love as I want to tell it. Now, we can only assume that it is all told, that we are engaged, and that we are to be married at once. We are going to elope."

"Anita, elope." She stared at him, but her eyes grew soft and her pale cheeks flushed.

"What do you mean? It isn't a pretty word." Gordon smiled. "But it's the only thing to do, you see. If you stay here, you'll be arrested. If you go, I go with you. So we both go, and that makes it an elopement."

"But Gordon, but Anita, answer me just one question. Do you love me?"

"Yes," with an adorable upward glance and smile.

"More than you love Dr. Wearing?" Their eyes met. Lockwood's usually inscrutable face was desperately eager, and his deep eyes showed smoldering passion. He held her by the shoulders. He looked steadily at her, awaiting her answer.

"Yes," she said at last, her lovely lips quivering.

"That's all I want to know," he whispered triumphantly as he kissed the scarlet lips and drew the slender form into his embrace.

"You must know more," she began. "And—and I can't tell you. Oh, Gordon." She hid her face on his broad shoulder, and he gently stroked her hair as he said, "Don't tell me anything now, dearest. Don't ever tell me unless you choose. And anyway, I know it all. I know you had never known the doctor before. And I'll tell you how I know. I found in his scrap basket a note to you. A note to me. Fresh terror showed in the dark eyes. Yes, don't mind. No one else ever saw it. I burned it. But it said, 'Darling Anita, since you came into my life, life is worth living.' Or something like that."

"When—when did he write that?"

"Sometime on that fatal Sunday. I suppose after he met you in the afternoon and before you came that evening. Remember, sweetheart, if ever you want to tell me all about that late visit to him, do so. But if not, I never shall ask or expect you to. But that's all in the future. Our dear future which we shall spend together. Together. Anita, are you glad?"

"Oh, so glad," and the soft arms crept around his neck, and Miss Mystery gave him a kiss that thrilled his very soul.

"Will you take care of me, Gordon?"

"Take care of you, my little love. Take care of you? Just give me the chance. You seem to have a pretty big chance right now." A smiling face reached up to his. "But she seemed suddenly to recollect something about a check. He didn't give me a check."

Lockwood laid a hand over her mouth. "Hush, dearest. Don't tell me things that aren't—aren't so. I saw the stub, a check for $10,000 made out to Anita Austin and dated that very Sunday. Now, hush. As she began to speak, we've no time to talk these things over. I tell you, the police are on your track. They will come here. They will arrest you. Try to get that in your head. I'm going to save you first, for your own sweet sake, and also for my own."

"But Gordon, wait a minute. Do you believe I killed John Wearing?"

Lockwood looked at her. "Don't ask me that, Anita. And truly, I don't know whether I believe it or not. I know you have told falsehoods. I know you were there that night. I know of his letter to you, of the check and of the ruby pin and the money. But I—no, I do not know that you killed him. There are many other theories possible. There's no—"

"But my darling, it all makes no difference. I love you. I want you whatever the circumstances or conditions of your life or your deeds. I love you so that I want you even if you are a criminal, for in that case I want to protect and save you. Now don't tell me you did or didn't kill the man, for," he gave her a whimsical smile, "I couldn't believe you in either case. I've not much opinion of your veracity, and two, it's too big a matter to talk about now. Of course I don't believe you killed him, you, my little love. And yet the evidence is so overpowering that I believe you did kill him. There, how's that for a platform? Now, let all those things be and get ready to go away with me. I tell you, we're going to elope and mighty quickly, too. The difficulty is to get away unseen, but it must be done. Pack a small handbag, a very small one. I'll plan our way out, and if we can make a getaway under the noses of Stone and his boy, we'll soon be all right. I have a friend who will motor us to a nearby town where a dear old minister who has known and loved me from boyhood will marry us."

"Doesn't he know about—about me?"

"My little girl, leave all the details of this thing to me. Don't bother your lovely head about it. It will be all right. Trust me, if we can escape."

"Is it right for me to go? Ought I stay? And what do they call it? Give myself up?"

"Anita."

"If I didn't love you so, I'd scold you hard. Now you obey your future lord and master and get ready for a hurry-up wedding. I'm sorry that you can't have bridesmaids and choir boys, but you'll pardon me, I know, if I remind you that that isn't my fault."

Miss Mystery looked up and broke into laughter. Truly, she was a mystery. Her gaiety was as spontaneous and merry as if she had never heard of crime or tragedy.

Lockwood gazed at her curiously, and then nodded his handsome head as he said, "You'll do, Anita. You're a little bit of all right. But in a moment, her mood changed."

"Gordon, we can't," she said slowly. "We never can get away from this house, let alone the detectives."

"Miss Baskam is on continual watch."

"And Mrs. Adams, I know, dear. That's it. I thought if you could manage that part, I'd see to evading the Stone faction. Can't you think up a plan?"

"Love will find a way," she whispered, and unable to resist the inviting smile, Gordon again caught her in his arms and held her close in an ecstasy of possession.

"You are so sweet," he murmured with an air of saying something important. "Oh, my little girl, how I love you. The moment I first saw you, when was that?"

"That night at—at the doctor's lectures. I sat behind you. I changed my seat to do so, and I counted the buttons on your dear little gray frock. That was one way I discovered your presence in the study that night." He spoke gravely now. "And there was another way. I heard you talking. Yes, I heard your blessed voice. Remember, I loved you then. And I heard Wearing talking to you. I could make out no word. I didn't try, but now I wish I had, for it might help you."

"I wish you had, Gordon," she returned solemnly. "It would have helped me. But you can tell me, dear. Tell me all the conversation."

"Surely you trust me now."

"I trust you. But oh, as you say, there's no time. It's a long story, a dreadful story."

"I don't want to tell you, then you shan't. I've promised you that, you know. Not until you want to tell me. Will I ask for a word of it now?"

"Here's another thing." And Anita blushed deeply. "If we go away, as you say, what about—about money?"

Lockwood stared at her. "I have money," he said. "Why do you ask that?"

"But—but the awful detective people said you you were terribly in debt."

"Brave little girl to say that. I know you hated to—Well, my darling, those precious bills that those precious detectives dug up in my desk are old bills that were owed by my father. His name was the same as mine, the same as yours. How queer."

"Oh, not a unique instance. Anyway, those bills I am paying off as I can. I'm not legally responsible for them, but I want to clear my dad's name and all that. Now all that can wait while I take unto me a wife and arrange for her comfort and convenience. But is there now—remember I'm not prying—is there anyone whose permission you must ask to marry me?"

"No, I'm 21. That's of age in any state."

"Why, you aged person? I deemed you about 18."

"Do you mind?"

"No, you goosey. But your mother now."

"Oh, my mother. She doesn't care what I do. And your father?"

"Forgive me, but I have to ask."

"My father is dead."

"Then come along. Let's begin to get ready to go. Wait a minute."

"Gordon, to get married. Must I—must I tell my real name?"

His eyes clouded a trifle. "Yes, dear heart," he said very gently. "Yes, you must."

"Then I can't get married, Gordon." Miss Mystery sat down and folded her little hands in her lap. Her whole attitude that of utter despair.

"But sweetheart, no one need know except the minister and witnesses, and you."

"Yes. And I—Oh, I can't marry you anyway. I can't marry anybody. I can't tell who I am. Oh, let them take me away and let them arrest me, and I hope they'll convict me."

"And hush, my precious girl. Hush." Lockwood took her in his arms, and let her stifle her sobs on his breast. He was bewildered. What was the truth about this strange child? For in her abandonment of grief, Anita seemed a very child, a tortured, irresponsible soul whose only haven was in the arms now around her.

"You will go with me anyway, Anita," he said, with an air of authority. "I must take care of you. We will go as I planned. The minister I told you of is a great and good man. He will advise you."

"Oh, no. I don't want to talk to a minister."

"Yes, you do. And his wife is a dear good woman. They will take you into their hearts and home, and then we can all decide what to do. At any rate, you must get away from here. Come now, pack your bag. And would you mind, Anita, if I ask you not to take the—the money and the ruby pin?"

"But he gave them to me! I tell you, Gordon, John Wearing gave me those of his own free will because of his affection for you. Yes, for no other reason. I will keep the pin anyway. I will."

"Anita, have you any idea how you puzzle me? How you torture me? Well, take what you like. Will you get ready now, and I will let you know as soon as I can how and when we can start."

A loud rap was followed by an immediate opening of the door, and Mrs. Adams came into the room. She stared at Lockwood but made no comment on his presence there.

"Miss Austin," she began, "I do not wish you to stay in my house any longer. I have kept you until now because my husband was so sorry for you and refused to turn you out. Nor am I turning you out, but I wish you would leave us alone, Mr. Lockwood."

Gordon started to speak, but Anita interrupted him. "Go, please," she said quietly, and Lockwood obeyed.

"I cannot blame you, Mrs. Adams," Miss Mystery said. "I dare say you have to consider your other boarders, and I thank you for your kindness and forbearance you have shown me so far." The tears were in the big dark eyes, and even as they moved Mrs. Adams to sympathy, she also wondered if they were real. A girl who would redden her lips would be capable of any deceit and duplicity, Esther Adams reasoned. But she went on calmly, "I come now, Miss Austin, to tell you that Mr. Tras is downstairs and wants to see you. He wants you to go to his house to stay. The Paytons are there, of course, and he offers you the shelter of his roof and protection until this dreadful matter is settled up. Mr. Tras."

Anita looked her amazement. "Yes, now, silly. You very well know he is mad about you, and he hopes to get you freed and then marry you."

"Oh, he does," it was the old, scornful Miss Mystery who spoke. "Well, will you please tell him from me now? Don't you be too haughty, miss. You're mighty lucky to have a home offered you."

"Yes, that's quite true. Well, Mrs. Adams, will you go down then? And say, I'll be down in a moment or two. Give me time to freshen my appearance a bit."

"Yes, with paints and powders and cosmetics," Esther Adams grumbled to herself as she went down the stairs. As a matter of fact, she quite misjudged the girl. Very rarely did Anita resort to artificial aid of that sort. But when she so desired, she used it as she would any other personal adornment.

"She's coming down," Mrs. Adams announced as she returned to Traskque, and they waited. But when the minutes grew to a quarter of an hour, and then nearly to a half, Mrs. Adams again climbed the stairs to hasten proceedings. This time she found the room empty. The absence too of brushes and combs, the disappearance of a small suitcase, and the fact that her hat and coat were gone, all pointed unmistakably to the assumption that the girl had fled.

"Well," Mrs. Adams reported, "She's lit out bag and baggage."

"Gone!" exclaimed Traskque in dismay. "Well, she isn't in her room. Her trunk is locked and strapped, and her suitcase is missing. Her hat and coat are gone too, so you can make your own guess. But Maurice Tras didn't stay there to make his guess. He went back home as—"

fast as he could and told Fleming Stone the news.

"Run away, has she?" said Stone. "I rather looked for that."

"You did, and took no steps to prevent it. You're a nice detective. You are."

"Well, if you're so smart, where'd she go?"

"Where's Lockwood?" was Stone's laconic response.

"Lockwood!" exclaimed Traskque. "Wherever he is, he hasn't run off with Anita Austin. If he has by Jove, I'll break every bone in his body."

"You'll have to catch him first," smiled the detective.

"I'll catch him. I'll set you to do it. And lookie here. If she's gone off with that man, you can go ahead and catch her. Catch them both. And then go ahead and prove her guilty."

"Is she? Is she?"

"You bet she is. And I know it."

"How do you know?"

"I'll tell you. I know her eyebrows."

"So, do I know her eyebrows, but they don't tell me she's a murderer."

"Well, they tell me that. It's this way. Her eyebrows are not only heavy and dark, but they almost meet over the bridge of her nose. Darling nose."

Put in Fibsy, who was interested in Anita, but not in Tras's deductions.

"Does your knowledge of physioamy tell you that those meeting eyebrows are a sign of a criminal?" Asked Stone.

"Nothing of that sort. But they are the truestelle brows. The truestelle brows."

Stone raised his own. "Sounds like a proprietary article. Not artificial, are they?"

"Now see here, Mr. Stone. I'm in no mood to be guideed. Those eyebrows are frequently seen in the Trudell family. My grandfather's brother married a Trusell."

"Your grandfather's brother married a truedell and your own grandfather didn't."

"No, I haven't."

"Those brows? Well, you're not entitled to them, having no truudel blood in your veins. But that girl has indeed. Interesting, is it not?"

"Oh, come off that line of talk. FS," said Fibsy, knitting his brows, which were not TR's delion.

"I'm seeing a cracker light, the brother of your grandfather now, Mr. Tras. He was named wearing of course Henry Wearing. My grandfather was James Wearing. And this Henry Wearing, he was the father of Dr. John Wearing."

As Fibsy said this, Stone sat upright and gazed hard at Tras.

"Yes, John Wearing's father was Henry, and my grandfather was Henry's brother, James. That's how I'm related. And being the only one, that's why I'm the heir here. But don't you see, Dr. Wearing's mother was a truedell and Miss Austin is a relative of hers a connection of the Trusell family somehow," exclaimed the now excited Fibsy.

"And she found out about it and came here and yes," Tras said, "and tried to get some money from John Wearing on the ground of relationship."

"What relation could she be? Maybe a niece of Dr. Wearing or a cousin. Maybe the same relation to Dr. wearing's mother that I am to his father. Then that would explain his giving her money and the pin and maybe she burnt the will and then she—"

"But it complicates everything," said Stone, who was thinking quickly. "However, if Miss Austin is connected with the Trusell family, it gives us a way to look to learn her history."

"Well, learn it," said Trask abruptly. "I'm not afraid of losing my inheritance, for I'm in the direct wearing line and she can't be."

Chapter 18. Miss mystery no longer.

Tras, helped along by Fleming Stone, investigated the family tree of the wearings, but they ran up against a blank wall. As far as they could learn, Dr. Wearing never had brother or sister. His mother, who was a Truselle, had also been an only child.

"But of course, Miss Mystery could be of the Trusel family and could, as Tras observed, be the same relation to John Wearing's mother that Tras was to John Wearing's father. Which relation was that of second cousin?"

"It gives a reason for the girl's presence here," Stone said. "And as it's the only reason we can think of, it must be followed up."

"And I'll follow it up," Tras said. "If I once get hold of that girl, where can she be, Mr. stone."

"Not very far away, I think, as all the stations and routes out of town are watched. She'd have trouble to leave Corinth."

"She could get out in a motor car."

"Who'd take her?"

"Lockwood, of course."

But just then, Gordon Lockwood came into the wearing study, his usual calm was entirely gone, his eyes wildly staring and his voice quivered as he said, "She's gone. Anita's gone."

"Yes, I know it. I thought you went with her," and Stone stared in turn.

"No, I didn't," Lockwood said quite unnecessarily. "Find her, Mr. Stone. You can, can't you?"

"I can find her," said Fibsy. "If you'll tell me one thing, Mr. Lockwood right straight out."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you anything. I'm afraid."

"You're afraid she's killed herself," said Fibsy calmly. "Well, you tell me this. Are you two or you know?"

The boy blushed and Stone smiled a little as he said, "Mcuire is a bit shy of romantic matters."

"He means are you and Miss Austin lovers."

"We are," said Lockwood emphatically. "She is my fiance."

"All right," said Fibsy. "Then I'll find her."

"She hasn't done anything rash in that case," he wagged his wise little head.

"Where is she?" Stone asked, confident that the boy could tell. He knew of Fibsy's almost clairvoyant powers of divining truth in certain situations.

"Want her here?" he asked laconically.

"Yes, I'll get her."

Snatching his cap, he darted from the house, but he was closely followed by Maurice Tras. Lockwood would have stopped Traskque, but Stone said, "Let him go. This thing is coming to a crisis. Tras will help it along."

Fibsy went toward the Adams house, but stopped at the house next door to it. This was the home of Emily Bates ringing that lady's doorbell. Fibsy asked to see her.

"Mrs. Bates," he said politely while Tras listened. "We want to see Miss Austin, please."

"Anita," said Mrs. Bates fluridly. "Why, she she isn't."

"Oh yes, she is here," said the boy patiently rather than rudely. "We have to see her, you see."

"Here I am," said Miss Mystery, coming in from the next room. "I think," she said, turning to Mrs. Bates. "I think, as you advised me, I'll tell all."

"Don't tell it here," cried Fibsy. "Please, Miss Austin, don't spill your yarn here."

"Oh, I mean, don't don't dulge." The unusual word nearly choked. The excited boy, who always, in moments of strong emotion, lapsed into careless English, but who tried not to.

"Now look here, Maurice Tras put in. Here's where I take hold. Miss Austin, you have told your story to Mrs. Bates."

"Yes," said Anita, looking very sad but determined. "Then you tell it to me. I'm heir to the wearing estate, and so I have a right to know all you know about the family."

His knowing look proved to Anita that he assumed also her right to be clased with the family, and she looked at him in astonishment.

"You know," she cried.

"Yes, I know." He spoke very sternly. "And I insist upon a private interview with you before you tell your story to anyone else."

"You shall have it then," she said, and her eyes grew grave. "Mrs. Bates, will you and Terrence leave us alone for 10 minutes? That will be long enough, and then I'll go to see Mr. Stone if necessary."

"Now look here," Tras said as the door closed after the others. "I know who you are."

"I don't believe it." And Miss Mystery looked at him straight from beneath the trudel brows.

"Well, anyway, I know you are a Truedell connection."

"Yes, I am. Go on."

"I don't know just what branch," he went on a little lamely, "but it's a branch strong enough to hold me and also to interfere with this airship of yours."

"Can't be. There's no TRelle so close to John wearing as I am."

"You think so? Then listen."

As Miss Mystery told him her story, the man's face fell. He sat almost petrified with astonishment. And when she had finished the short but amazing recital, he said, "My heavens, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know what to do. If you tell, I of course you do. And if you don't tell, then John Wearing's name is left unstained. There is no shadow of stain on John Wearing's name."

"What do you mean? Now look here, Miss Austin. You keep quiet about all this, will you? I'll call off those sleuths, and I'll arrange to close up and cover up the whole matter. Then you marry me. There's only a distant cousinship between us, and I'll put up the biggest memorial to wearing you ever heard of."

"Omit the clause about my marrying you," she returned. "And I may agree to your plans. I haven't quite decided what to do. And beside Mr. TR ask who killed my doctor wearing—"

"Never mind who killed him. Call it taking one's own life. It must have been anyway—no, I'm not sure it was—oh, I don't know what to do."

"Times up," called Fibsy through the closed door. "And I say miss Austin you take my tip and come along and tell your story to Fstone it'll be your best bet in the long run."

Perhaps it was the boy's speech, perhaps it was the gleam of disappointed greed that Anita saw in Traskque s eyes. But she rose with a sudden decision and said as she opened the door, "That's just what I'll do. Come with me, Mrs. Bates. Or would you rather not?"

"Oh, I can't," said Emily Bates. "Don't ask me, Anita, dear."

"No, you stay here. I'll come back soon."

And so Miss Mystery again walked across the snow-covered field to the wearing house, this time to remove all occasion for using her nickname.

"You found her," said Stone, as the trio came into the study where he and Lockwood still sat.

"Yes," said Fibsy. "I just thought, where would a poor hunted kid go? And I said to myself, she'd go to the nearest and nicest lady's house she knew of. And of course, that was Mrs. Bates's. And sure enough, there she was. And she's going to tell all."

Fibsy was melodramatic by nature, and his gesture indicated an important revelation.

"I am," said Anita quietly. She went straight to Lockwood's side, and he took her hand calmly, and led her to a seat on the wide Davenport, then sat beside her, her hands still in his, she told her story.

"I am of Trudel blood," she began, "as Mr. Trask summised, but also I am of wearing blood. Dr. John Wearing was my father."

No one spoke. The surprise was too great. In his wildest theories, Fleming Stone had never thought of this. Fibs great astonishment was permeated with the quick conviction.

"Then she didn't kill him." Gordon Lockwood was conscious of a rapturous reassurance that he had no rival as a lover. Traskque, already knowing the truth, sat glooily realizing he was not the heir.

Anita, her beautiful face sad yet proud to acknowledge her ancestry, went on. "This is his story. When John Wearering was 20 years old he met a young woman, an actress who so infatuated him that he married her. They were absolutely uncongenial and unfitted for one another and after a few weeks they agreed to separate. There was no question of divorce. They merely preferred to live apart. He sent her money at stated intervals, but he pursued his quiet, studious life, and she her life of gaity and sport. She was a good woman. She is a good woman. She is my mother."

Another silence followed this disclosure. "Is she had said not was," and John, wearing her father, Gordon Lockwood, held her hand closely. He was content to listen. Whatever she could say could not lessen his love and adoration.

"I tell you this for her sake. And my father's also. There is no stigma to be attached to either. They were merely so utterly opposite in character and disposition that they could not live together. As I said, after a few weeks they separated, and my father did not know of my birth. My mother would not let him know lest he come back to her. She was a light-hearted, carefree girl and while she loved me, she did not love my father. Later on, when I was about four, I think she caused a notice of her death to be sent to my father. This was because she wanted to sever all connection and take no chance of ever meeting him again. She was at that time a successful actress and earned all the money she wanted. She adored me. She had no love affairs. She lived only for me and her art. Though a good actress, she was not widely renowned. And in California, where she had chosen to make her home, she was liked and respected. The climate just suited her love of ease, freedom, and indolence. As a New England life of busy activity would have been impossible to her. I want you to understand my mother. She was, she is a mere butterfly, caring only for trifles and simple gaity. Her home is charming. Her personality, that of a delightful child, but her temperament is one that cannot stand responsibilities and chafes at demands. However, all that matters little. The facts are that John, wearing, learning of his wife's death, devoted himself utterly to his books and his study. When my mother saw in the papers he was about to marry, she was appalled. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't let him marry another woman. Unaware of her existence, she couldn't raise a question of divorce, for she knew that would tend to reflect unpleasantly on his past, and two, at last she was beginning to feel as if she might like to resume her position as his wife, now that he was prominent and wealthy, she told me the whole story, of which I had been utterly ignorant, and she sent me here. I was to see Dr. Wearing and use my own judgment as to when and how I should tell him all this. I came here with a feeling of dislike and resentment toward a father who had been no father to me. Mother exonerated him to be sure, but it was all such a surprise to me that I accepted the errand in a spirit of bravado and was prepared to make trouble if necessary. But when I saw John wearing, when I realized that splendid man was my father, I knew that all my love, all my allegiance was his and that my mother was as nothing to me compared with my wonderful father, except for what Mr. Tras calls the trused brows. I look exactly like my mother. Also, she resumed her maiden name of Anita Austin after they separated. So, you may imagine the shock when Dr. wearing first heard the name and first saw the living image of his wife whom you must remember he supposed dead. But I had my mission to perform. And so I came here that Sunday night."

The audience sat motionless. Lockwood holding her hand felt every tremor of her emotion as the girl told her story. Fleming Stone realizing that he was hearing the most dramatic revelation of his career listened avidly. Fibsy with staring eyes and open mouth clenched his fists in enthralled interest in Maurice. Traskque heard it all with ever growing conviction that he must give up his supposed inheritance.

As Anita began to tell of that Sunday night, the situation became even more tense.

"I came to the French window and tapped lightly. Dr. Wearing let me in and I sat by him in that plush chair. The conversation I had with my father I shall not detail. It is my most sacred and beloved memory. We were as one in every way. We loved each other from the first word. We proved to be alike in our tastes and pursuits. Oh, if he could have lived, I told him of my mother and myself, and he was crushed. I wanted to spare him. But what could I do? He had to know. Although the knowing meant the ruining of his career, he said at once he could not take the presidency of the college with the story of his past made public, nor could he honorably suppress it. He couldn't marry Mrs. Bates, nor could he install my mother as mistress here. He had done no real wrong in making that early and ill-advised marriage, but it seemed to him a blot on his scutchin, and an indelible one. He would sit and brood over these fearful conditions. Then suddenly he would realize my existence aresh and rejoice in it. He loved me at once and deeply and I adored him. Never father and daughter I am sure crowded a lifetime of affection into such a few moments."

Bravely Anita went on not daring to pause to think. Her hand tightly clasped in lockwoods trembled, but her voice was steady, for it was her opportunity to clear her father's name, and she must neglect no slightest point.

"At last he told me I must go away, and he would think out what he could do. He gave me the money, for he was afraid I hadn't sufficient cash with me, and he gave me the ruby pin, saying I must keep it forever as my father's first gift to me. With infinite gentleness he ba me goodbye and softly opened the glass door for me. I went away and he closed the door. I went home to the Adams house making of course those footprints in the snow. It was a very cold night. I remember the clear shining stars. But I thought of nothing but my father, my splendid, wonderful father. And I hoped, oh how I hoped, that some way would be found that he and I could spend our lives together. I didn't know what he would do, but I prayed to God that some way out might be found. The rest, you know, of the manner of my father's death, I know nothing at all. Of noi, I have no knowledge. I kept all this secret at first because I hoped to shield my father's name better that way. But I think now it's better told. I couldn't live under the weight of such a secret. One more word as to my mother. She has had an admirer for many years named Carl Melrose. She has kept him at a distance, but as you know from the telegram she sent me, she has already either married him or promised to. Also, she advised me to tell the whole truth. I have done so."

Unheeding the others, Lockwood put his arm around the exhausted girl as she fell over toward him. His wonderful calm helped her, and his gentle yet firm embrace gave her fresh courage to endure the strain.

"Thank you, Miss Austin." And Stone spoke almost reverently. "You have shown marvelous wisdom and bravery, and I congratulate you on your entire procedure. You are an exceptional girl, and I am proud to know you."

This was a great deal for Fleming Stone to say, and Anita acknowledged it with a grateful glance. Fibsy, his eyes streaming with unchecked tears, came over and knelt before her.

"Oh, Miss Austin," he sobbed. "Oh, Miss Anita."

Tras alone remained unmoved and sat with folded arms and frowning face. But little attention was paid him, and Stone said thoughtfully, "Our problem of the mystery of Dr. Wearing's death is as great as ever."

"It is," agreed Lockwood, "but I am sure now, Mr. stone that it was a taking one's own life. The motive is supplied for I knew Dr. Wearing so well. I knew the workings of his great and good mind, and I am sure that he felt there was no other course for him. I can see just how he decided that the exposure of all this would react against the reputation of the college. That the sensation and scandal that would fill the papers would harm the standing of the University of Corinth and that and that alone caused his decision. I know him so well that I can tell you that never never would he take his life to save himself. Trouble or sorrow, but for others sake, and I include Mrs. baits. He made the sacrifice. I can see, and I'm sure of what I say, how he realized that the press and the public would forgive and condone a dead man when if he lived, the brunt of the whole matter would fall on his beloved college, and on the woman he loved and respected. Now, as I feel sure he forsaw, such of this story as must be made public, will have far less weight and prominence than if he were alive. I know all this is so for I knew John Wearing as few people knew him."

A grateful glance from John Wearing's daughter thanked him for this tribute.

"That $10,000 check," said suddenly, for his mind was still concerned with the financial side.

"I think that must have been sent to my mother," said Anita. "She, as I told you, returned to the use of her maiden name, and during our interview, my father told me he should write her at once and send her money. I feel sure he did do so."

"Without doubt," Lockwood said, "And if so, the letter would have been mailed with the collection next morning. The returning voucher will show. Also, the letter he wrote, my mother will corroborate all I have told you," said Anita. And both her assertion and Gordon's later came true.

"I felt Anita said by way of further explanation that Mrs. Bates ought to know all. So when Mrs. Adams practically put me out of her house, and I had no wish to accept Mr. Tras's invitation to come over here, nor she smiled affectionately at Lockwood. Could I fall in with your crazy plans? I just went next door and told Mrs. Bates all about it. She was very dear and sweet to me. And now, if you please, I will go back there. I am weary and exhausted. I cannot stand anymore. But when you want me, I can be found at Mrs. Bates. I leave all matters to be decided or settled in the hands of Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Stone. Fibsy, dear, will you escort me home?"

With a suddenly acquired dignity, Fibsy rose and stood by her side, and in a moment the two went away together.

When the boy returned, the others were absorbed in the discussion of the mysterious death of Jon Wearing.

"I'm inclined to give it up," Fleming Stone said, thinking deeply.

"Don't do it, Fstone," Fibsy said earnestly. "It's better to find out. You never have gave up a case."

"No."

"Well, Fibs, which way shall we look?"

A strange embarrassment came over the boy's face, and then he said diffidently, "Say, gentlemen, could I be left alone in this room for a little while, I don't say I can find out anything, but I do want to try."

The lapse into careless enunciation told Stone how much in earnest his young colleague was, and he rose, saying, "You certainly may, my boy. The rest of us will have a conference in some other room."

As to what part of Miss Austin's story must be made public. Left to himself, Fibsy went at once to the bookcase that held the defaced copy of Marshall that John Wearing had been reading the night he died, opening the volume at the bloodstained page, the unlettered boy eagerly read the lines, tried to read them rather, and groaned in spirit because he knew no Latin. Small wonder that he was nonplusted, for this was all he read.

Marshall's epigs liber epig 18th quavvicina plutipsis porter columnus at madet acidu lubricus lapis in yugul kosaund forunest cu Guulatis Akis.

His chin in his hands he poured over the Latin in utter despair and rising started for the door. Then he paused, "I must do it myself," he murmured. "I must."

So he hunted the shelves until he found a Latin dictionary. He was not entirely unversed in the rudiments of the language for stone had directed his education at such odd hours as he could find time for study. And so, after some hard and laborious digging, Fibsy at last gathered the gist of the Latin stanza. His eyes shone, and he stared about the room.

"It ain't possible," he told himself. "And yet, gee, there ain't nothing else possible." He rose and looked out at every window. He noted carefully the catches. He paced from the desk to the small rear windows of the room and back again. "It's the only thing," he reiterated, "the only thing. Oh, gee, what a thing."

He went in search of Stone and found the three men shut in the living room, and with them was Noi. Stone's persevering efforts by advertisements and circulars had at last succeeded, and the impassive and non-committal Japanese was there, and quite willing to tell all he knew.

Fibsy interrupted his story. "Go back," he directed, "to the beginning. Let me hear it all."

"It's okay, FS. I was attending to my dining room duties," Nogi said. "And I had taken the water tray to the study. I was weary and hoped the master would soon retire. So, I occasionally peeped through the small window from the dining room. I saw a lady come and make a visit, and then I saw her, and I heard her go away. Then I hoped the master would go to bed. But no, he was very busy. He wrote letters. He burned some papers. He moved about much. He was restless, disturbed. Then he sat at his desk and read his book."

"This one," cried Fibsy, excitedly, waving the marshall.

"I think so. One like that anyway."

"This was the one. Go on then."

"Oh, it was strange. Then the master got up, went to the small window at the back of the room. Which one?"

"The one by the big globe, and he opened it. But for a moment, did he put his hand out?" Fibsy cried.

"Yes, I suppose to see if it rained. Yes, he put his hand out for a moment, then he closed the window and locked it," asked Fibsy.

"It locks itself with a snap catch. Then, ah, here is the strange thing. Then he went back, sat at his desk, and in a moment he fell over, and the blood spurted out."

"Didn't he stab himself?" Fibsy asked.

"I don't know. He didn't seem to do anything but scratch his ear, and over he fell."

"Such a sight! I was afraid, and I ran away fast."

"All very well," said Stone. "But what became of the weapon?"

"I know." Fibsy almost screamed in his excitement. "Oh, F, Stone, I know."

"Well, tell us, Terrence. But steady now, my boy, don't get too excited."

"No, sir. And the lad grew suddenly quiet. But I know. Wait just a minute, sir. Where are the photographs of the house that the detectives took the day after?"

"I'll get them," Lockwood said, and left the room. He returned and Fibsy found a magnifying glass and looked carefully at certain pictures.

"It proves," he said solemnly. "F. Stone, you have solved your greatest case." It was characteristic of the boy that although the solution was his own, his deference to Stone was sincere and unself-conscious. "Please, he said, I don't know Latin, but you will find the explanation of Dr. Wearing's death on that red stained page. He was reading Marshall as we know, and he pointed to the epig on the page in question. As he read that, he found a way out."

The grave statement was impressive, and Stone took the book.

"Shall I translate or read the Latin aloud?" he asked the others.

"Wait a minute. I'll get a marshall in English," Lockwood said. "Out of consideration for Tras's possible ignorance of the dead language."

"What number is the epig?" he asked, returning.

Stone told him and Lockwood found the place and passed the English version to Stone aloud. The detective read this translation:

Book 4 Epig 18. On a youth killed by the fall of a piece of ice. Just where the gate near the portico of a gripper is always dripping with water, and the slippery pavement is wet with constant showers, a mass of water congealed by winter's cold, fell upon the neck of a youth who was entering the damp temple, and when it had inflicted a cruel death on the unfortunate boy, the weapon melted in the warm wound it had made. What cruelties does not fortune permit? Or where is not death to be found if you the waters turn cut throats.

"And so you see," Fibsy broke the ensuing silence. "He decided to stab himself with an icicle. And he did. He did." He repeated triumphantly. "He went to that window back by the big globe and got one. And here is the proof. Look through the glass."

FS stone did so. And without doubt, the fringe of icicles that hung from that particular window sash showed one missing. It was the very window that Noi stated wearing had opened and had put his hand out of for a moment. Clearly he had broken off an icicle strong and firm on that freezing night had returned to his chair and inspired by the story of the youth under the portico of a gripper had stabbed his own jugular vein with the sharp round point and had fallen unconscious. The icicle melting in the wound had disappeared and death had followed in a moment or two.

They went to the study and noi was made to imitate the movements he saw Dr. were wearing make it left no doubt of the exact facts and the mystery was solved.

"Do you suppose he meant to make it seem a murder?" asked Stone thoughtfully.

"He did not," defended Lockwood. "That is, he did not mean to implicate anybody. He was a man amanable to sudden suggestion and apt to follow it. I am certain the idea came to him. As he read his book and in the impulse of the moment he rose got the implement and did the deed. It was like him to read that book after his talk with his daughter. He often resorted to reading for a time to clear his mind for some important decision. Had he not read that very page, he would in all probability not have taken his life at that time."

"There can be no doubt of it all," said Stone. "Fibsy, the credit of the discovery is yours. You did a great piece of work."

Fibsy blushed with delight at Stone's praise, which he cared for more than anything else in life. But he said, "Or I just chanced on it. But I found out another thing. While I was working on that translating business, the telephone rang. I answered, but somebody took it on an extension, so I hung up. But I was waiting quite a few minutes. And what do you think? I happened to rest my forehead on the telephone transmitter. And the red ring," cried Stone.

"Of course, of course," Fibsy repeated, poking around for a Latin dictionary, a pasta looking glass, and there on me noble forehead, I saw a red ring about 2 in across. It's gone now."

"Yes," Stone said, "without doubt, Dr. wearing was telephoning or perhaps was answering a call and he rested his head on the instrument."

"He often did that," said Lockwood, "but I never noticed a ring left."

"In life," Stone said, "it would disappear quickly, but if it happened just before he died, Rigger Mortis would preserve the mark."

Anyway, it must have been that the solution of the mystery, so indubitably the true one, was accepted by the police. The matter was given as little publicity as possible, for Anita and Mrs. Bates, the two most deeply concerned both wished it so. No stigma of cowardice rested on John Wearing's name for all who knew him knew that his act was the deed of a martyr to circumstances and was prompted by a spirit of loyalty to his college and unwillingness to let his own misfortunes in any way redowned to its disparagement. He trusted they felt sure that the truth would never be discovered and that the tragedy of his death would preclude blame or censure himself he never thought of in his unselfish life or equally unselfish death.

Tr force resigned all claim to the estate and Anita and her mother arranged matters between themselves. The assumption was that John Wearing's will, which he burned, had been made in Mrs. Bates's favor, but on learning of his nearer heirs, he destroyed it.

"Anita wearing," Lockwood murmured softly, when at last they were alone together.

"I love the name," she said. "And it is really mine. But it will be yours so short a time, it's scarcely worthwhile to use it," Gordon returned.

"It will be a short time, won't it, sweetheart?"

"Yes, indeed. I want to go away from Corinth forever. I love my father's memory, but I can't stand these scenes. I am tired of mystery in name, and indeed I just want to be Anita Lockwood."

Whereupon Gordon lost his head entirely.

You have now shared in the suspense and revelation of Carolyn Wells, the mystery girl, where appearances deceive, and truth lies beneath carefully crafted shadows. Through twists of suspicion and sharp turns of discovery, the tale reminds us that mystery thrives in the unknown and the unexplained. As the final secrets are unveiled, the lingering echoes of doubt give way to clarity, yet leave us reflecting on the delicate balance between trust and deception. Thank you for joining us on Classic Detective Mysteries, where timeless stories of intrigue continue to keep the mind searching for answers.