PAGE SIX
IThe1 The i
I RED |
j LAMP 1
▼ ■ |
i|| MARY ROBERI\RINRHART |||
Copyright by Geo. H. Dortn Compmsjr
WNU Serrice
“ “At the parlor organ,” she said pos
itively. “Or rather, above and behind
it, where it sits across the comer.
And after a while, I thought I saw
something there.”
“What sort of ‘something’?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said, and
shivered. “That is, it wasn’t really
anything. It was like a mist. I could
just tell there was something there,
and then Jock lifted up his head and
ihowled at it, and—l don’t even re
member getting upstairs, William.”
It is the remainder of Jane’s story
which seems worthy of consideration,
jin view of ber previous average of
hits. , /
: She went to sleep, sinking fathoms
deep into unconsciousness, but at
three o’clock she wakened, suddenly
and fully, and sat up in her bed. But
she was not in a bed at all. She was
in a boat, and Maggie Morrison also
was in it, lying at her feet. After a
time —she has no idea how long—the
vision faded, and she was still sitting
up in her bed.
Such details as I can draw from her
are as follows:
“Did you see Uncle Horace in the
same way?”
“Wakening out of a sleep? Yes.”
“Was there the same sort of light?”
“Not a light exactly. It doesn’t
come from anywhere. I can’t describe
jit exactly; the things I see are lumi
nous.”
She saw no rope on the body or in
the boat,, and there was no sign of in
jury on* fehe glri.
“She looked very peaceful,” says
Jane* and sets me to shuddering.
On oqs‘ point, however, she is en
tirely definite. She maintains that
there were pieces of cloth tied around
the- oarlocks of the boat “White
cloth,” she odds, as an afterthought
“Why elothP
“To keep the oars from making a
noise,” says my Jane, who has been
in a rowboat perhaps a half dozen
times in all her life! . . ,
We sat on the veranda while Halli
day came in with the boat; he had
been out, 1 daresay, on some scouting
business of his own, and I confess to
a sort of terror that by some unlucky
chance we might find the oarlocks of
this very boat, wrapped with white
cloth, “to keep the oars from making
a noise.” But they showed no stigma
of crime.
“Why,” I said to Jane, as Halliday
tied his boat and came with his splen
did stride up the runway, “why did
you come down here to look at our
boats, my dear?’
She showed a faint distress.
“I don’t know, William. I just had
a feeling that I had t» come.”
I have not asked her why she has
suppressed 1 this experience for so long
For she no more doubts that Maggie
Morrison was killed and thrown into
the sea from a boat with muffled oar
locks, than she doubts her own exist
ence. But coupled with that certainty
has been her dread of possible public
ity. and that ever present feeling of
hers that whatever power she has is
somehow shameful;
, My poor Jane:
July 27.
The blow has fallen again, and this
time almost at our very door. That
it is not murder is not due to any
lack of intention, but to weakness in
execution, i have spent a large por
tion of the day in urging Edith and
Jane to go back to> town; but without
result.
“Not unless .you* go/' Jane said firm
ly. and Edith and< I exchanged: glances. 1
As a matter of fact, last night’s
events have‘lfeft me in'a* more- precari
ous position: than before, and’ I feel
that any more on my part would only
precipitate matters. Greenougb has
given out a statement to the report
ers that an: early arrest may be ex
pected, and I do not for the life of
me* understand why he has not
pounced* already.
. I imagine- the only thing that has
saved me, so far, has been the single
fact that Peter Geiss knows I r was on
tiie- sloop the- night and* hour when
Halliday. was attacked. That puzzles
fiiffli . . .
To record last night’s strange affair
In sequence:
I could not sleep, a condition which
is growing chronic with me lately, and
at or about midnight I went down
stairs and outside. The night was ex
tremely dark; I paced back and for
ward along the drive, keeping at first
close to the Lodge, but gradually ex
tending my steps as I grew accus
tomed to the darkness.
After twenty minutes or so of this,
and at the extreme of my swing to
ward the other bouse,l heard some
sort of movement in that direction,
and stopped to listen. It was a cau
tious disturbance of the shrubbery,
and I swung In among the trees and
stood listening. It wps not xraptedt
[however, and I tqffigq to ctt frtefi 1
1 had, however, lost my way, and
for some brief time I floundered about.
At last I found the sun-dial, by strik
ing against it, and thus orienting my
self, turned about and struck back to
ward the Lodge.
I had not gone ten feet before I
heard the bell ringing.
(Note: A large bell on the kitchen
porch of the main house and used in
times before the telephone was in
stalled, to summon the gardener. It
is rung by pulling a rope attached to
it.)
It rang sharply twice and then ab
ruptly stopped, and the sudden si
lence seemed somehow ominous, like
the stillness after a shriek.
There were no lights in the main
house, and no further sounds came
from it. I daresay at such times one
does not think; one acts automatical
ly. I do not recall thinking at all,
but I do recall trying to feel my way
through the trees, and that I ran into
one and was partially stunned for an
instant.
The house was still completely dark
and silent. I felt my way with more
caution, skirted the shrubbery, and at
last found the railing leading up the
steps to the kitchen. Here I was on
safer ground, and I crossed the small
porch to the door with increasd con
fidence, only to stumble over some
thing and almost fall. I knew at once
what it I felt suddenly ill,
although my brain was as active as
ever in my life. But I found some
matches in my dressing-gown pocket,
and striking one bent over a figure
lying prone at my feet. It was young
Gordon, unconscious and bleeding
from a blow on the head, and securely
tied with a rope. I was still stooping
over him, fumbling for another match,
when a flashlight shone In my face,
fairly blinding me. It played on me
for a moment, and then on the boy
stretched on the floor and now slightly
moving.
“What’s happened?” said a voice
from behind it, and with relief I rec
ognized it as the doctor’s.
“He’s hurt,” I said, rising dizzily.
“Struck on the head, I think.”
“Open the door there and turn on
the lights. I’ll carry him in.”
I did as he told me, being still some
what unsteady, and as he laid the boy
on the floor and straightened I was
aware that bis eye®, as they rested on
!Se, were hostile and suspicious.
Immediately, however, he went to
work on the boy, examining him first
~ %?s'only stmined,” he said, and
examined the wound in the scalp care
fully. After thfrj qjjgssed
boy by that time moving about and
groaning, but still 'only partially con
scious. When the dressing was done
the doctor disappeared and returned
with a cushion. Keeping the boy
supine, he slipped it under his head.
Then he straightened.
“You’d better notify the old man,”
he said. “I’ll stay here, If you don’t
mind.”
And from the look he gave me, I
gathered that he had no Intention of
leaving me with the boy.
I made my way upstairs to the room
over the den, and knocked for some
time before I was heard. Then Mr.
Bethel called out, startled, and I asked
if I could come in. I heard him mak
ing heavy work of getting out of bed,
and finally he shot the bolt and open
ing the door an inch or two glared out
at me.
“What the devil’s the matter?”
“Nothing serious,” I said. “There’s
been a little trouble downstairs, and
we thought you’d better be told.”
“A fire!”
“Not a fire,” I reassured him, and
gave him a brief account of what bad
occurred.
He was not particularly gracious;
demanded to know what the boy was
doing outside at that hour, and seemed
to feel that, with a doctor already in
the house, his responsibility was
ended. As there was* actually nothing
he could do, I helped him back to his
bed and left him sitting on the side,
an unpleasant but helpless figure.
The boy was conscious when I went
back to the kitchen, staring around
him, and particularly concentrated on
the doctor and myself. He put his
hand to his head and felt the bandage.
“Where’d I get that?” he asked
thickly.
After a time he tried to get up, and
the doctor put him into a chair.
“Now, Gordon,” he said, “what hap
pened to you? Try and think.”
"He hit me,” he said finally. “The
dirty devil!”
“Who hit you?” f
But he was still too dazed for co
herent thought. He improved rapidly
after that, however, although he com
plained of severe headache. He be
came garrulous, too, as happens after
concussion, but out of his maunder
ings we were able to secure a fairly
connected story.
He had been unable to sleep, be
cause of certain noises in his room.
He had got up, and gone down to the
kitchen for something to eat. After
that, reluctant to go up to his room
again, he had wandered out onto the
kitchen steps and sat there. It was
then that he heard some one stealthily
approaching the house.
He listened, and finally he heard a
window of the old gun room next to
the laundry being raised. He stared
that way, and insists he saw a dark
figure there. The next moment it was
goi*e, and he was certain there was
some one in the house.
He had, apparently, turned to enter
the house and head off the intruder,
but was struck down in the doorway.
On the matter of ringing the bell he
was rather vague at first, not remem
bering that he had done so, but later
saying he had had his hand on the
rope, when the blow came,
liayward listened lo this intently.
July 27.
TWq CHATHAM XECORD. iPITTSPORQ. N. C.
Then he turned to me.
“And you were where, Porter?”
“By the sun-dI&L On the other aide
of it I had started toward home.”
“Do you mean to say that, after that
bell rang, this man Gordon speaks of
had time to tie him and escape, before
you got here?”
“I’ve told you the facts. It isn’t a
simple matter to get here from the sun
dial, in the dark.” *
In spite of the doctor’s attitude and
my own fears, I cannot see today that
a dispassionate examination of the evi
dence would really involve me.
Gordon saw a man enter the gun
room window, and was attacked from
the kitchen by that man. It must be
perfectly evident to Greenough, on
hearing the doctor’s story, that had I
for any reason desired to make some
nefarious entrance into the house, 1
need not have resorted to a window.
I have keys to every door, and can
produce them.
Thomas, however, who seems to
have his own methods of acquiring in
formation, today tells a fact which, in
my ignorance of such matters, I had
not noticed last night. He states that
the doctor reports the boy as having
been tied In the same manner as poor
Carroway; in two half-hitches around
the wrists, a turn or two about the
body and arms, and ending in two half
hitches at the ankle.
The rope, It appears, was not
brought for the purpose, but had been
left lying on the top of Annie Coch
ran's laundry basket in the kitchen,
when she went home last night.
Later: Greenough and Doctor Hay
ward have driven past, on their way
to the main house. I have telephoned
to Halliday, and he is on hia way
here. I may need him.
July 28.
After ail, things passed off yester
day better than I had hoped. The
detective concedes that, while in
daylight it is a simple matter to reach
the main house from the sun-dial, it is
not an easy one at night. And I think
he was puzzled when I said:
“After all, the real mystery to me
Is how ffoctor Hayward, who says he
was passing on the main road in his
car, could reach the house so soon
after I did.”
“He had his car.”
“But he didn’t drive in. You left
h jjßmd hlWTfehoyff'lt. Evgp a}
-TTjiy re?r gpod tlmeT I had only
had time to light one - match and i|e
the boy, when
I imagine, and
me, that Whatever Greenough had in
when he came, the new element
thus introdufffed caused him to hesi
tft& And to add to his hesitation,
the doctor, from the breezy tftictubus
ness of his entrance, took to twitching
and gnawing his finger tips.
“I don’t suppose you are iutimatifig
that I knocked the boy down, Porter,”
he said, “but it sounds like it. As a
matter of fact, I didn’t even know
him; never saw him, to my knowl
edge, until last night.”
“I’m not intimating anything. I’m
in a peculiar position; that’s all. And
you have been considerably more than
intimating that I was where I had no
business to be last night. I had, you
see, exactly as much reason to be
there as you had. Rather more, I
imagine.”
j ! I was perhaps a trifle excited, but
; heaven knows I had a right to be.
“I know what you have in your
mind, Mr. Greenough, and I’m glad to
have thtp chance to lay my cards on
the table. Ask my wife why I was on
the float, the night Carroway was
killed in the bay. “She’ll tell you i!
was in bed, until she roused me and '
sent me down to the beach. Ask Pe
ter Geiss where I was at the hour
when Halliday was attacked; he can
i tell you. Ask the newspaper reporter
who told me, right here, about that
culvert under the road where Halli
day’s car overturned; and ask Halll
day himself about our excursion to
examine it, and my losing my foun
tain pen there. And then ask your
self if I would open the gun-room win
dow of the main house to make an en
trance when I have In this desk a key
to every door In the place.”
Greenough smiled dryly.
“That’s a pretty strong defense,
considering that you haven’t been ac
cused,” he said. “As a matter of fact,
we hadn’t found your fountain. pen.
Mr. Porter. I'm afraid we overlooked
something there!” . . , v
Since they have gone, I feel, al-
I though he has not said so, that Halli-
I day believes I have made a tactical
error. Nevertheless, I feel a great
sense of relief. I have at least, made
a hole in that web of circumstantial
evidence which has seemed to he clos
ing around me, and sent the detective
scurrying back to the center of it
again, to spin such new threads as he
is able.
(CONTINUED NEXT-WEEK)
Jews Fights For Cemetery
The Jews of Prague, Czechoslo
vakia, are putting up the fight of
their lives to save their cemetery in
the heart of that city—a cemetery
1,000 years old. It is one *of the most
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it holds ashes of many rabbis and
savants of the past. The city has
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gravevard is now almost in the cen
ter. Modern buildings have arision
on the edges of this sacred square
of the Jews, and it is with difficulty
that the tide of expansion can be
held back. The Jews are receiving
aid from abroad in their defensive:
fight. —The Pathfinder. i
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