Genre Mystery & Crime. Page - 10

nt. I should say, in the neighborhood of one o'clock, but of course we can't be absolutely certain."

Gaunt had approached the body, and was passing his fingers lightly and thoroughly over it.

"No doubt about robbery being the motive?" he asked, as he worked.

"Oh, no," the Inspector put in, easily. "No weapon found, window open, tracks before window in the carpet and on the curtains, and Mr. Appleton's jewelry and money gone."

"I understand." Gaunt bent and sniffed the powder-blackened shirt about the wound. "Looks as if Mr. Appleton might have recognized, or thought he recognized, the thief, doesn't it, when he let him get as near as he did to shoot him, without attempting to get on his feet, or make any outcry?"

'"Maybe he did jump to his feet, and fell back again when he was shot?" suggested the Inspector, thoughtfully.

"Hardly, seeing the way he was clutching the arms of the chair. Even death didn't release that vise-like grip. He might have clutched his breast whe

dmirably patient person. Fully fifteen minutes elapsed before the return of the motor-cab was signalled unmistakably by the blatant bandbox bobbing back high above the press of traffic. And when this happened, Mr. Iff found some further business with the steamship company, and quietly and unobtrusively slipped back into the booking-office.

As he did so the cab stopped at the curb and the pretty young woman jumped out and followed Mr. Iff across the threshold--noticing him no more than had Mr. Staff, to begin with.

II

THE BANDBOX

In the playhouses of France, a hammering on the stage alone heralds the rising of the curtain to disclose illusory realms of romance. Precisely so with Mr. Staff, upon the door of whose lodging, at nine o'clock the next morning, a knocking announced the first overt move against his peace of mind.

At that time, Staff, all unconscious of his honourable peril, was standing in the middle of the floor of the inner room (his lodgings comprised two) an

exquisitely pure skin, and her tender blue eyes. On the other, he would have discovered a bright little creature, who would have fascinated and perplexed him at one and the same time. If he had been questioned about her by a stranger, he would have been at a loss to say positively whether she was dark or light: he would have remembered how her eyes had held him, but he would not have known of what color they were. And yet, she would have remained a vivid picture in his memory when other impressions, derived at the same time, had vanished. "There was one little witch among them, who was worth all the rest put together; and I can't tell you why. They called her Emily. If I wasn't a married man--" There he would have thought of his wife, and would have sighed and said no more.

While the girls were still admiring Francine, the clock struck the half-hour past eleven.

Cecilia stole on tiptoe to the door--looked out, and listened--closed the door again--and addressed the meeting with the irresistible

my first class and sat down. From the second I walked in the door, hushed conversations were severed as 40 eyes dug into me and trailed me as I slumped into the first empty desk I saw. I darted my eyes around, everybody avoided eye contact. I lined my pencils up on my desktop while the room sat in a still, thick silence.

They had to have heard about my dad's death, but I hoped the word hadn't gotten about regarding my ill-gotten gains. It shouldn't have; I didn't tell anybody. Still, if everybody knows, I'd need to hire a bodyguard just to hold off the ironic requests for loans. I tried to imagine how much bodyguards cost; I remembered reading somewhere that a legitimate executive security firm charges about a thousand dollars per day. I could get a bodyguard for 500 days, and then I wouldn't need one anymore. Spending all your money to keep people from getting your money -- that should have been a Twilight Zone episode. Hell, it probably was. By the hundredth episode they had to have been rep

pparently you don't know the way to the stairs," returned the other a trifle tartly. Looking at his keen, pallid and deeply lined face, the young doctor set him down as a rather irritable fellow, and suspected dyspepsia. "Everybody will be going to the beach," he added. "If you follow along you'll probably get there."

"Thanks," said Dick undisturbedly. It was a principle of his that the ill-temper of others was no logical reason for ill-temper in himself. In this case his principle worked well, for Haynes said with tolerable civility:

"You just came in this evening, didn't you?"

"Yes. I seem to have met the market for excitement."

By this time they had reached the large living-room, where they found Mrs. Johnston presiding with ill-directed advice over the struggles of her grey-bearded husband to insert himself into a pair of boots of insufficient calibre.

"Twenty-five years of service in the life-savin' corps an' ain't let to go out now without these der-r-r-ratted contrapt

and, illogically enough, his presence in the street gave Mrs. Drabdump a curious sense of security, as of a believer living under the shadow of the fane. That any human being of ill-odor should consciously come within a mile of the scent of so famous a sleuth-hound seemed to her highly improbable. Grodman had retired (with a competence) and was only a sleeping dog now; still, even criminals would have sense enough to let him lie.

So Mrs. Drabdump did not really feel that there had been any danger, especially as a second glance at the street door showed that Mortlake had been thoughtful enough to slip the loop that held back the bolt of the big lock. She allowed herself another throb of sympathy for the labor leader whirling on his dreary way toward Devonport Dockyard. Not that he had told her anything of his journey beyond the town; but she knew Devonport had a Dockyard because Jessie Dymond--Tom's sweetheart--once mentioned that her aunt lived near there, and it lay on the surface that Tom had gone t

nd that the train was not scheduled to stop before reaching the Grand Central Station.

Garth knew that, too. Therefore he could not understand why his conductor stooped and with an air of confidence opened the vestibule door and raised the trap. Garth started, for, as if the engineer were an accomplice and had received some subtle signal, the brakes commenced to grind while the train lost its speed rapidly.

The slender man grasped Garth's arm, and, as the train stopped, leapt with him to the right of way and hurried him into the shadows at the foot of the embankment. Any men the inspector might have had on the train had been outwitted.

He saw ahead the red and green lights of an open draw-bridge. He understood now, and marvelled at the simplicity of the trick. Certainly it would not have occurred to the inspector to post his men at the Harlem River where express trains were seldom detained at night. Yet it had been only necessary to send some small boat to loiter in the draw at the proper

too, my lady, afore Aaron, who now lies with the worms, laid me out with a flat-iron. Men's fit for jails only, as I allays says."

"A nice opinion you have of our sex," remarked Archie dryly.

"I have, sir. I could tell you things as would make your head waggle with horror on there shoulders of yours."

"What about your son Sidney? Is he also wicked?"

"He would be if he had the strength, which he hasn't," exclaimed the widow with uncomplimentary fervor. "He's Aaron's son, and Aaron hadn't much to learn from them as is where he's gone too," and she looked downward significantly.

"Sidney is a decent young fellow," said Lucy sharply. "How dare you miscall your own flesh and blood, Widow Anne? My father thinks a great deal of Sidney, else he would not have sent him to Malta. Do try and be cheerful, there's a good soul. Sidney will tell you plenty to make you laugh, when he comes home."

"If he ever does come home," sighed the old woman.

"What do you mean by that?"

only two things in the window that interested him at all, and they were not both temptations. One was an old rosewood camera, and Pocket was interested in cameras old and new; but the thing that tempted him was a little revolver at five-and-six, with what looked like a box of cartridges beside it, apparently thrown in for the price. A revolver to take back to school! A revolver to fire in picked places on the slow walks with a slow companion which were all the exercise this unfortunate fellow could take! A revolver and cartridges complete, so that one could try it now, in no time, with Guy and Vivian at the end of their garden in St. John's Wood Park! And all very likely for five bob if one bargained a bit!

Pocket took out his purse and saw what a hole the expenditure of any such sum would make. But what was that if it filled a gap in his life? Of coure it would have been breaking a school rule, but he was prepared to take the consequences if found out; it need not involve his notion of dishonour. Stil

lain the matter to his mother and sister? For they might return before he did, and would be sure to ask innumerable questions.

And the girl--would she go with him? If not, what should he do with her? And about her dress? Was it such as his "friend" could wear to one of Mrs. Parker Bowman's exclusive dinners? To his memory, it seemed quiet and refined. Perhaps that was all that was required for a woman who was travelling. There it was again! But he had not said she was travelling, nor that she had just returned from abroad, nor that she was a musician. How could he answer such questions about an utter stranger, and yet how could he not answer them, under the circumstances?

And she wore no hat, nor cloak. That would be a strange way to arrive at a dinner How could she accept? He was settling his coat into place when a queer little bulge attracted his attention to an inside pocket. Impatiently he pulled out a pair of long white gloves. They were his sister's, and he now remembered she had given the