Genre Mystery & Crime. Page - 2

the powers of nature as were the plants or the animals. When the sun shone they were open-hearted and merry, at evening they became silent, and the night, which seemed to them so all-powerful, robbed them of their strength. And now the green light that fell through the reeds and drew out from the water strips of gold, brown, and black-green, smoothed them into a sort of magic mood. They were completely shut out from the outer world. The reeds swayed gently in the soft wind, the rushes murmured, and the long, ribbon-like leaves struck them lightly in the face. They sat on the gray stones in their gray leather garments, and the shaded tones of the leather melted into the shades of the stones. Each saw his comrade sitting opposite him as quietly as a stone statue. And among the reeds they saw giant fish swimming, gleaming and glittering in all colors of the rainbow. When the men threw out their lines and watched the rings on the water widen amid the reeds, it seemed to them that the motion grew and grew until t

--just enough to have made Connery believe, at first, that probably he had seen the man meeting some passenger at the station.

"You are--" Connery ventured more casually.

"In private employ; yes, sir," the man cut off quickly. Then Connery knew him; it was when Gabriel Warden traveled on Connery's train that the conductor had seen this chauffeur; this was Patrick Corboy, who had driven Warden the night he was killed. But Connery, having won his point, knew better than to show it. "Waiting for a receipt from me?" he asked as if he had abandoned his curiosity.

The chauffeur nodded. Connery took a sheet of paper, wrote on it, sealed it in an envelope and handed it over; the chauffeur hastened back to his car and drove off. Connery, order in hand, stood at the door watching the car depart. He whistled softly to himself. Evidently his passenger was to be one of the great men in Eastern finance who had been brought West by Warden's death. As the car disappeared, Connery gazed off to the Sound.

dozen times. Folding the paper into minute dimensionshe tucked it carefully inside his vest pocket and glanced sidewaysat Clymer. The banker hardly noticed his uneasy movements as hesat regarding Helen McIntyre standing in the witness box. Althoughpaler than usual, the girl's manner was quiet, but Clymer, a closestudent of human nature, decided she was keeping her composure bywill power alone, and his interest grew.

The Judge, from the Bench, was also regarding the handsome witnessand the burglar with close attention. Colonel Charles McIntyre, awealthy manufacturer, had, upon his retirement from active business,made the National Capital his home, and his name had become ahousehold word for philanthropy, while his twin daughters were bothpopular in Washington's gay younger set. Several reporters of localpapers, attracted by the mention of the McIntyre name, as well asby the twins' appearance, watched the scene with keen expectancy,eager for early morning "copy."

As the Assistant Distri

ice was sharpened as from anxiety. "Won't you come and see him about the petrol?"

He looked at her curiously. The smile had gone from her lips, and her face was pale. She was frowning, and in her eyes there showed unmistakable fear. She was not looking at him, and his gaze followed the direction of hers.

The driver had come out of the shed, the same dark, aquiline-featured man as had passed him on the bridge. He had stopped and was staring at Merriman with an intense regard in which doubt and suspicion rapidly changed to hostility. For a moment neither man moved, and then once again the girl's voice broke in.

"Oh, there is father," she cried, with barely disguised relief in her tones. "Come, won't you, and speak to him."

The interruption broke the spell. The driver averted his eyes and stooped over his engine; Merriman turned towards the girl, and the little incident was over.

It was evident to Merriman that he had in some way put his foot in it, how he could not imagine, un

rtainly, sir. The page is off duty. He sees to orders in the lounge, but I'll attend to you myself."

"What a hotel!" thought the murderer, solitary in the chilly lounge, and gave a glance down the long passage. "Is the whole place run by the hall-porter? But of course it's the dead season."

Was it conceivable that nobody had heard the sound of the shot?

Harder had a strong impulse to run away. But no! To do so would be highly dangerous. He restrained himself.

"How much?" he asked of the hall-porter, who had arrived with a surprising quickness, tray in hand and glass on tray.

"A shilling, sir."

The murderer gave him eighteenpence, and drank off the cocktail.

"Thank you very much, sir." The hall-porter took the glass.

"See here!" said the murderer. "I'll look in again. I've got one or two little errands to do."

And he went, slowly, into the obscurity of the Marine Parade.

IV

Lomax Harder leant over the left arm of the sea-wall of

s life. He might go on now and become a bad man, or he might cheapen and become an imitation desperado. In either event, his third man left him still more confident. His courage and his skill in weapons gave him assuredness and ease at the time of an encounter. He was now becoming a specialist. Time did the rest, until at length they buried him.

The bad man of genuine sort rarely looked the part assigned to him in the popular imagination. The long-haired blusterer, adorned with a dialect that never was spoken, serves very well in fiction about the West, but that is not the real thing. The most dangerous man was apt to be quiet and smooth-spoken. When an antagonist blustered and threatened, the most dangerous man only felt rising in his own soul, keen and stern, that strange exultation which often comes with combat for the man naturally brave. A Western officer of established reputation once said to me, while speaking of a recent personal difficulty into which he had been forced: "I hadn't been in anyth

at he was in the hands of the police. Garth noticed also as he entered the car that the passengers were not aware of the substitution. He resented the repugnance in the glances they turned on the mask. Simmons' attitude toward life became comprehensible. But, as the journey extended itself interminably, Garth grew restless. He realized he was in the position of a man entering a cavern without a light. He must feel his way step by step. He must walk blindly toward innumerable and fatal pitfalls.

At last the train paused for the change from locomotive to electric motor. Although he knew that normally no passengers would board it at this place, he gazed anxiously from the window. A man stood close to the track with the evident intention of entering the train. Garth saw him elude a brakeman, saw him grasp the railing and swing himself out of sight. A moment later the man walked into the car, stopped dead, and turned sharp, inquisitive eyes on the gray mask.

About the figure was a somber air, accentu