Introductory material (continued 5)

"I've got my father-in-law's blessing!" he announced.

"I congratulate you." The detective blinked. "Excuse me, but I was with the angels! Did you call me back just to tell me this?"

"No. I thought you ought to know that we were a pair of nuts this noon. Mr. Graham was holding pat hands in a poker game during the fire and robbery, and he was presiding at a lodge-meeting in Hambleton the night—the night before last!"

"With umpty-umph fellow-lodgers to prove it. Um. Touch 'em and they vanish!"

"What?"

"I mean, I'd like to find a prospect that would stay put for a while at least. As it is now, the moment I look sideways at any one he promptly trots out an alibi."

"Like I did to-day! I see. Trying for a detective, eh?"

"Very trying," said Peter Creighton. "Good night!"

He shut the door, and presently rejoined the angels.

XIX: Among Those Present

After that midnight report from Copley Varr, ten days passed without the occurrence of a single distinctive event. They were not empty days, however, for Peter Creighton, who continued patiently to cast hither and yon very much like an Indian brave seeking the trail of an enemy warrior.

The full scope of his investigation was not apparent to the naked eye, as Krech, who was chafing at the lack of developments and inclined to accuse his friend of masterly inactivity, discovered one afternoon. They were taking a stroll in the twilight at the detective's insistence, and met a roughly-dressed individual with a cap on the back of his head and a short pipe stuck in his mouth. He was loitering by the side of the road, and to Krech's surprise, Creighton excused himself and joined the man for a brief chat.

"Who's your rough-neck pal?" he demanded curiously as the detective came back and suggested a return home. "His face is familiar but I can't just place him."

"You once bought a painting from him when he was posing as an artist!" Creighton chuckled. "He reminded me of it just now; said you're the only connoisseur who ever really appreciated his work!"

"Gee Joseph! One of your men!"

"Fellow named Latimer."

"What is he doing around here?"

"Covering the tannery end of this affair. Latimer's an artist in more ways than one. When I told him what I wanted, he got two books on modern methods in tanning from the New York Public Library, studied them on the train coming up, and landed a job as easy as you please when Graham and Bolt started to replace the old hands who had left. Snappy work!"

"Gosh. And I thought you were investigating this case single-handed! You're a foxy guy at times, Creighton. Has Latimer learned anything useful?"

"Not to me, I'm sorry to say. The few facts he has turned up seem merely to darken the outlook for Charlie Maxon, that unfortunate prisoner-pent. He appears to be quite as bad an egg as Mr. Norvallis believes."

"Do you suppose Norvallis is making any progress with his case?" inquired Krech.

"He's sitting pretty with the voters!" said Creighton shortly. "By the way, neither Bolt nor Graham knows who Latimer is. Don't tell 'em."

"I won't," promised the big man.

He did, however, after the fashion of husbands, tell his wife that evening after dinner. They were standing together on the front steps of their host's house, having been persuaded with no great difficulty to lengthen their stay by at least another week, and Krech had just lighted a cigar to keep him company while he strolled over to the Varr home.

"You might have known Peter Creighton is never as idle as he looks," commented Jean Krech, when she had listened to the tale of Latimer. "He probably has a dozen more irons in the fire that you don't dream of. I suppose you're going over there now?"

"Uh-huh. There's always a chance he may have some news."

"Well, it's all right for you to drop in and ask," said Jean calmly. "But—don't linger, melove, don't linger!"

"Huh? What do you mean, don't linger? Why not?"

"You blind old goose! Has it ever struck you that Creighton is a rather lonely man?"

"Lonely?" Then the significance of her question suddenly hit him between the eyes. "Gee Joseph! Are you trying to promote a romance between him and Miss Ocky?"

"Precious little promotion is required," she corrected him. "It's as plain as the nose on your face how things are going." She laughed when her husband in his bewilderment reached up and felt of the promontory indicated. "Yes, it's very plain!"

"But they've only known each other a week or so!"

"What of it? They're old enough to know their own minds—both in the early forties. Neither of them has ever had a love-affair as far as we know; probably it hits them harder and quicker when they're like that!"

"Maybe you're right." Krech reflected deeply, and then nodded his head. "Suits me! I like her immensely, and of course he'd be a whole lot happier if he were married. Any man is."

"Oh, thank you!" cried his beautiful wife softly. She slipped a hand beneath his elbow and gave his massive arm an affectionate squeeze while her blue eyes twinkled up at his. "Is um itty-witty baby happy, then?"

"Shut up," commanded Mr. Krech with intense dignity. "Don't go cooing at me—not where any one might hear you, anyway!"

An unprejudiced observer of the trend of events at the house on the hill must have admitted that Mrs. Krech had considerable grounds for her romantic suspicions. Twice during the ten days aforementioned Creighton was obliged to go to New York and spend half a day on business that would not be denied, and each time he returned bearing books and candy and a vast quantity of assorted and exotic fruits for which Miss Ocky had expressed a casual longing and which the marts of Hambleton could not provide. On the first occasion he pretended they were for Lucy Varr, still confined to her room, but on the second he abandoned pretense.

Then there was the incident of the picnic, sponsored by Miss Ocky. They took their lunch and plunged into the wilderness of hills that lay to the north of Hambleton, their destination the cave that was reputed to have sheltered the legendary monk. It was Miss Ocky's suggestion that in the haunts of the old monk they might come upon some traces of the new, if that imaginative imitator had carried his masquerade to the extent of using his predecessor's quarters, and Creighton, without the flutter of an eyelash, agreed that nothing was more likely. They found the cave—or some cave—but nothing else. Their disappointment weighed lightly upon them, and the detective enjoyed the day with all the artless abandon of a schoolboy playing hooky.

Even more significant than the picnic was the pilau. Miss Ocky had described this supposedly delectable dish to Creighton at some length, and the next day was impelled to possess herself of the kitchen and compose a pilau such as she swore appeared daily on the tables of the first epicures of Constantinople. However that might be, affairs are approaching a crisis when a woman is seized with a desire to demonstrate her culinary accomplishments to a man.

The pilau was an amazing dish. At table with them during those days was a very pale, very thin young man with gold pince-nez, fair hair and a painfully self-effacing manner, who had been quartered on the house by Judge Taylor for the purpose of documenting a vast accumulation of papers in Simon Varr's study. He took a mouthful of the pilau, started slightly, and took a second to make sure his senses had not deceived him about the first. Ten minutes later, the closest approach to any emotion that he ever revealed was visible on his face as Creighton sent back his plate for a third helping.

If Miss Ocky noticed his tactless expression of awe—and she rarely missed anything so obvious—it probably did nothing to raise the young man in her esteem. She frankly disliked him.

"That Merrill!" she grumbled to Creighton when they were by themselves after dinner. "A perfect imposition on the part of Judge Taylor! Of course I couldn't very well refuse under the circumstances, but I'll be glad when we lose him!"

"He must have nearly finished his work," Creighton consoled her. "After all, he's harmless. Why does he annoy you?"

"I don't know," was the conclusively feminine reply. "He just does."

On the afternoon of the eleventh day after the death of Simon Varr, Creighton had a chat with Jason Bolt in the office of the tannery that was in no-wise remarkable except for the odd timeliness of the detective's farewell observation. Jason had asked him if he was satisfied with the progress made to date or whether he was discouraged by the present lull which so closely resembled stagnation. Could he say when the mystery might take some definite turn toward solution?

"Ask me when the millennium is coming and be done with it," said Creighton rather plaintively, wondering why so many people seemed to credit detectives with oracular powers. "If Norvallis has the right pig by the ear, Maxon may break down, turn State's evidence and hang his accomplice. That's one possibility. Another—we may as well face it—is that this case will go to swell the great army of unsolved mysteries." He hesitated, then added, "There's a third possibility, of course."

"What is it?"

"The chance that a break will come from some totally unexpected quarter when we've all but given up hope. I've seen that happen a score of times. There's no predicting it—no counting on it. But when it comes—then look out! A case that has been placid and smooth as a mill pond will suddenly develop the characteristics of a maelstrom!" He smiled encouragement at the troubled Jason. "If one starts in this case, we may reasonably expect that its gurgitations will yield us that missing notebook if nothing more."

He was on foot that afternoon by choice, for he had long held that a daily walk is the best exercise for a man whose profession does not in itself provide him with much physical activity. He preferred it to gymnasium stuff, too; a man can think deeply while walking with perfect safety, if he avoids traffic, whereas the hospitals are full of misguided gentlemen who have committed the error of thinking deeply on some other subject while engaged, say, in "skinning the cat."

He had much to make him thoughtful these days. He was not at all satisfied with the situation in this Varr case, though he refrained from revealing his pessimism to others, and was reluctantly coming to fear that Norvallis had indeed gotten the jump on him—and jumped in the right direction. The possibility irritated him. He wished to clear up this murder himself more than he had ever wished for anything in his life. Wasn't Miss Ocky waiting confidently for him to do just that?

The intrusion of her name into his thoughts turned them into a new channel. He knew now that before he dropped his personal supervision of this case, before he left Hambleton for New York to attend to matters which were pressing there, he would have to ask Miss October Copley one of the most important questions he had ever asked in the course of a career devoted mostly to inquisitions. The prospect gave him a shivery feeling up and down his spine!

He walked briskly up the short-cut through the woods and came out at the end of the kitchen garden, now associated with a grimmer business than the growing of vegetables. It was due to his swift pace that he was in the open, in plain view, before he noticed two figures seated on the big granite bowlder near the tomato-patch. He would have retreated to the obscurity of the trees and watched that interview if Miss Ocky had not spied him and risen instantly from her seat on the rock.

"Come here!" she called. "The very man we want!"

He walked over to them, and Miss Ocky's companion, a tall, handsome, fair-haired man, stood up to acknowledge the impending introduction. He looked pale and worn, more haggard even than that morning at the inquest.

"Mr. Creighton—Mr. Leslie Sherwood," said Miss Ocky quickly. "You haven't met each other yet, have you?"

"No, I haven't met Mr. Sherwood," acknowledged the detective, accenting the verb very slightly.

"But you've been on my track!" said Sherwood, smiling rather nervously. "My valet was shrewd enough to suspect the man who scraped an acquaintance with him and showed so much interest in discovering my whereabouts on the night of Simon Varr's murder! He followed his new acquaintance one afternoon and saw him report to you."

"You appear to be more fortunate than I in the intelligence of your followers," said Creighton rather glumly. "I'm glad, though, to have this matter brought into the open." He glanced at Miss Ocky and back to Sherwood. "May I speak frankly, or shall we adjourn to the house by our two selves?"

"I have nothing to conceal from Miss Copley," answered Sherwood, flushing slightly. "As a matter of fact, I've just been making a full statement to her of my actions that evening and she had just advised me strongly to consult you when you suddenly appeared."

"Excellent advice. I'll explain my curiosity first, though. During the course of my investigation I've had to poke up a lot of gossip and more or less ancient history, and some of it related to you. According to my information you were once—attentive—to Miss Lucy Copley. You left, and she married Simon Varr. You returned, and Simon Varr, who had not proved a kind husband, is presently murdered. I had already noted your agitation at the inquest, and without entertaining definite views, I still thought it advisable to learn what I could about you."

"Quite naturally," admitted Sherwood with a certain urbanity, though his color deepened. "I can see now that you had some reason to regard me askance. However, the fact that you are already so well posted in my affairs has its consoling virtues—it makes it easier for me to tell you more." He hesitated, looked toward Miss Ocky as if for encouragement, received it in a short nod and added slowly, "I may as well begin with a circumstance that would probably have crystallized your suspicions of me if you had learned it for yourself."

"What was that?" asked the detective a bit impatiently.

"I was present at the murder," said Sherwood.

XX: H. Antaeus Krech

Miss Ocky, who had heard the story already, sat down on the rock and calmly waited its continuance, but Creighton's eyes narrowed.

"You were present! At the murder!"

"In the background only, I assure you," amended Sherwood, and plunged rather desperately into his account. "It is a habit of mine to grab my hat and stick and take a short walk every evening before going to bed, and that was how I came to be out that night. I had no special objective, and—and because old memories had been stirred by my return I almost unconsciously cut across the fields near my house and headed for that path which leads to this garden. I used to do that twenty-two years ago when—when there used to be some one to meet me right by this rock! Somehow, I felt as if I wanted to—to look at a certain lighted window before I turned in. I don't expect you to understand—"

"I do, however! What time was all this?"

"Half-past ten, roughly. When I got here, the only light burning was in Simon's study—otherwise the house was in darkness, which seemed to me an ironic commentary on my foolish gesture! The study light went out almost immediately, but I lingered on. I sat down on a fallen log in the deep shadow of those trees—there, to the right of the path—and began to think back to old times. One discovery I made was that I hated Simon Varr more than ever after all these years. Damaging confession, I suppose?

"Twenty or thirty minutes must have passed. Then I heard a cautious step on the trail—and nearly fell off my log when a figure in the garb of a monk glided into the open. Rather weird! Sounds silly here, of course, but for a moment my hair stood on end. I had a notion that I was seeing a ghost!

"Before I recovered my wits, it—it happened! I had supposed Simon had gone to bed when his light went out, but now he appeared from around the corner of the house. It was obvious that he was stalking the monk. It was like watching a scene in a melodrama, and I couldn't have moved hand or foot to save my life. All of a sudden, Varr rushed him. I thought the fellow would run, but instead of that he waited. When Simon got close, the monk appeared to raise a sort of mask he wore. I heard Simon cry out something in a surprised voice, and then I saw a flash of steel as the monk threw up his arm and brought it down. Simon dropped to the ground and lay on his back—and the monk glided off down that trail before I realized that I had seen a murder!"

"Why didn't you chase him—holler—do something!" cried Miss Ocky.

"Couldn't seem to budge," said Sherwood briefly. He looked a little hurt. "If you think it was just cowardice you're jolly well mistaken! I had no sensation of fear at any time. You've heard the expression, 'rooted with amazement'? Well, I was it!

"I was still in that condition three minutes later, perhaps, when I heard another, heavier step on the trail. A man appeared, and from the way he walked I could tell he had been drinking. He staggered toward the body, but he was staring at the house and shaking his fist at it. He reeled off the cement path and almost stumbled over Simon before he saw him. He gave a cry, and stooped to look closer—then turned and bolted for dear life and vanished down the trail. He had been scared sober!

"I began to get back my senses. The first thing I thought of was my own position and what I should do. If I were called on to account for my presence there it would involve the mention of Lucy's name if I told the truth—and to save my neck I couldn't think of a plausible lie! There was none to explain my presence in Varr's kitchen garden at eleven o'clock at night!

"I felt under no obligation to give the alarm—it never once occurred to me that the second man wasn't tearing hell-for-leather to the police-station with his story! I did, however, feel that I could not leave Simon lying there with a knife in him while there was a possibility of his being still alive. It took all the nerve I had, but I walked out and took a careful look at him. I knew enough about anatomy to see at once that he had been stabbed through the heart and must have died instantly. Then I lost no time in getting away—"

"You kept to this cement path?"

"Yes; I had sense enough to leave no tracks in that soft earth. I got home without meeting any one, and I hoped I would never be drawn into the case.

"It gave me a jolt when I found the crime had not been reported by that second man. The inquest reassured me when it seemed as if everybody was at a loss to know who had committed the murder. They could remain at a loss for all of me, so long as I wasn't brought into the case—and Lucy! Then, the next morning, the papers had the news of Maxon's arrest! I haven't slept much since!"

"I'm hardly surprised," said Creighton dryly. "Your story does one thing to the Queen's taste—it corroborates Maxon's description of his movements that evening. He was drunk when he broke jail, he had an hour or so to kill before meeting Drusilla Jones, and he staggered up here with the tipsy notion of wrecking the garden to spite old Varr. He was sobered by what he found, as you noticed, but even then didn't have sense enough to see that his best bet was to go straight to the police. He claims he never stopped to think how black appearances against him would be. Would you be able to swear that he was the man you saw here after the murder?"

"Yes. I went to court when he was examined and remanded and I recognized him beyond a shadow of doubt."

"And I'm to understand you've kept silent simply out of consideration for Mrs. Varr?"

"That weighs a good deal with me," said Sherwood quietly. "I haven't enjoyed these past nine days, Mr. Creighton. When I couldn't stand it any longer, I came to Miss Copley to tell her of my difficulty."

"And I advised him to talk with you and be guided by your instructions," threw in Miss Ocky.

"What had I better do?" asked Sherwood hopelessly.

"Do! There's a man in the county jail with an ugly charge hanging over him that a word from you will lift—and you ask me what to do!" Creighton was scandalized. "Go to Norvallis—instantly! Tell him the truth and let him decide how much publicity must attend the liberation of Maxon. I don't think he will insist upon much!"

"You're right, Mr. Creighton—but not helpful."

"Helpful! What did you expect?" snorted the detective indignantly. "Did you think I'd encourage you to let Maxon rot in jail just to humor your quixotic notions about gossip and a woman's name? I sympathize with your difficulty, but that's as far as I can go. There are two things I've never done and never expect to do knowingly—let an innocent man suffer unjustly or a guilty one escape!"

"At this point there was loud applause from the gallery!" murmured Miss Ocky in her soft, amused drawl, and brought him to earth. "Go on, Leslie, and do your duty. It can't be helped."

"Very well," said Mr. Sherwood unhappily, and got off the rock. "Nothing more you want to ask me, is there?"

"N-no," answered the detective, a bit subdued by Miss Ocky's rebuke. "Yes—one thing. What did this confounded monk look like?"

"Well, I can't help you much there. I got the impression that he wore a mask—as Miss Copley did when she saw him on the trail. He was dressed from head to foot in black. He even wore black gloves; it was an odd thing that made me notice that. Have you ever seen a man straighten up from some completed task and stand looking down at it, nodding his head and rubbing his hands together as if to say, 'Well, there's a good job over and done with'? That's what this fellow did as he stood above Simon—"

"Oh!" gasped Miss Ocky, and collapsed limply on the bowlder, her face ashen. "Oh!"

"What is it?" snapped Creighton, wheeling upon her. "What is the matter?"

"It's all so ghastly—so—so cold-blooded!" she managed to stammer. "Don't mind me. I'm all right."

"Um," said Creighton, eyeing her doubtfully. "You come into the house and get a rest before dinner! Good-day, Mr. Sherwood!"

He carried his point without much difficulty. He hovered over Miss Ocky until he had her safely in the house and on her way to her room, and for once her militant spirit seemed burned out. He reproached himself bitterly for having let her listen to Sherwood, though nobody could have foreseen that the noodle-pated idiot would start embroidering his story with graphically gruesome tidbits! Why hadn't he kept his fat head shut? Serve him right if Norvallis jumped him next and put him in the jug for political prestige! For a few minutes Creighton was almost cheerful as he pondered that possibility.

Fortunately for his peace of mind, Miss Ocky reappeared for dinner and impressed him as having entirely regained her composure. She was her usual gently mocking, always slightly cynical and amusing self. As the swift conversation flashed back and forth between them—past the apparently unconscious person of young Mr. Merrill—he gradually recovered his own equanimity and was quite himself again by the time he and Miss Ocky settled to coffee and cigarettes in the cozy corner of the veranda.

"Almost time for Mr. Krech to make his evening call," she suggested. "They dine earlier at the Bolts' than we do here."

"Queer thing about Krech," mused Creighton. "I've never seen him take so little interest in a case as he does in this. Usually he is at my heels from morning until night, spraying questions the way a machine-gun sprays bullets. Now he just blows in—and presently blows out."

"Oh!" said Miss Ocky. She sat up straight, scratched her chin meditatively with one slim forefinger, and darted him a look that he missed. "Mmph. Y-yes, that is queer."

"Of course he's devoted to his wife," continued the detective, "and I suppose that distracts a man from the pursuit of a mere hobby."

"Briefly," said Miss Ocky. "Briefly!"

"A charming woman ought not to be cynical—" Creighton broke off and raised his hand. "He's coming now; you can hear that car of Bolt's six miles on a quiet night! Shall we tell him about Leslie Sherwood?—the poor chap hasn't had anything so nourishing for a week."

"Swear him to secrecy," stipulated Miss Ocky.

Thus, when the big man appeared and dropped into a chair, he was duly pledged to discretion and informed of the fact that an eyewitness of the murder had turned up.

"My gosh!" he exclaimed when the details had been told. "Why, that just naturally blows Norvallis clean out of water! What'll he do if he loses Mr. Vote-getter Maxon?"

"Pinch Sherwood," chuckled Creighton. "That ought to net him even handsomer returns."

"Oh—no!" cried Miss Ocky, and turned white. "Oh, I think it is simply disgraceful that such things can happen in a civilized country! Bad enough to be the subject of gossip and suspected of a crime, but to be actually imprisoned on mere suspicion—"

"I was only joking," cut in the detective hastily. "Norvallis will make no such stupid blunder. I'm sorry to say there is a wide difference between what can be done to a mere workingman and what may be done to a country gentleman of position."

"So much the worse!" snapped Miss Ocky unappeased.

"This lets out Charlie Maxon," muttered Krech, and regarded his friend morosely. "Seems to me, Creighton, that every time this case takes one step forward, it slides back two. Jason Bolt is getting fearfully down in the mouth. When this news reaches him it will be the finishing touch."

"I had a talk with him this afternoon," said the detective, and flicked his cigarette over the veranda rail. "Reminded him that Rome wasn't built in a day and that murderers aren't always caught in a night, that the darkest hour is just before the dawn, and dropped a few other comforting thoughts in similar vein. I also mentioned that one never knew in a case of this kind when something might happen—"

"It's happening now!"

Krech hissed the words in a fierce whisper. His eyes had automatically followed the detective's glowing cigarette and had been attracted by something farther off, barely visible through the deepening dusk. Almost before Miss Ocky and Creighton could sense the meaning of his words, he had sprung to his feet and vaulted the veranda railing. Thanks to a downhill slope of the ground at this point the piazza floor was a full nine feet from the grass lawn, and they heard a hearty grunt as Krech alighted. Then he recovered his footing and sped with extraordinary swiftness for so large a man across the sward in the direction of that woods that edged it.

"What is it?" gasped Miss Ocky. "Oh—what is it?"

"The monk!" cried Creighton. "The monk!"

His glance, darting ahead of the speeding Krech, had discerned an unmistakable figure outlined against a clump of white birch as though the monk had deliberately chosen a background against which he would be most conspicuous to the group on the piazza. He was standing there motionless, apparently indifferent to the rushing menace of Krech, and through the detective's brain, searing it like a flame, shot the memory of something Sherwood had said, "I thought the fellow would run, but instead of that he waited!" He was waiting now!

"Krech!" cried the detective. "Careful—careful!"

His hands were on the rail of the veranda. It had not taken two seconds for him to size the situation and shout his warning, and those same seconds were occupied in getting out of his chair and dashing to the rail. He had one leg over this when two hands like steel clamps circled his right arm and gripped him fiercely.

"Please—oh, please!" stammered a frightened voice.

"Ocky!" he gasped in furious protest. "Leggo!"

He wrenched himself free and went sprawling over the rail, a wordless prayer in his heart that no broken legs or sprained ankles were to be his portion. He landed unhurt in a providential flowerbed, and struggled again to his feet to discover that both the monk and Krech had vanished.

There was a little-used trail which commenced near the birch-trees and ran sharply downhill to the small house that Miss Ocky had donated to her nephew and his bride. Creighton knew of its existence, and never doubted now that the monk had disappeared into it at the last moment with the impetuous Krech in full pursuit. He drew an electric torch from his hip-pocket as he raced for the dark entrance to the path, anxiety for his friend the paramount force that speeded his flying feet.

"Why did he try to jump him like that?" he thought. "If he had only used his head a bit! He could have sauntered into the house, out the back door, crept through the woods and taken the fellow in the rear. He has all the courage of a mad bull—and about as much sense."

This unkind summary of Krech's character was no sooner complete than Creighton himself was in the trail, plunging headlong down its sharp declivity with quite as much recklessness as his friend had shown, save the advantage of his flash. He played its powerful beam ahead of him as he ran and leaped, until twenty yards from the entrance he suddenly dug his heels hard into the rubble of the path to halt his wild career as the light showed him the body of a man lying face downward in the trail. Its bulk alone left no doubt of identity.

"Hell!" snapped the detective, and the one vicious word was the epitome of all that he felt.

With desperate haste he jammed the torch into a crotch of a small tree so that its rays illuminated the scene, then dropped to his knees beside the prone body of his friend, exerted all his strength and rolled it over on its back. His eager fingers, pressing, prodding, explored the still form throughout its length.

"No wounds—no broken bones," was his first relieved diagnosis. Then "Hello—here we are!" An angry red abrasion on the big man's forehead had caught his attention. He touched it, and smiled as it elicited a groan from the victim that sounded to Creighton like celestial music. "A crack on the head—knocked him out!" he muttered, then raised his voice. "I say, Krech—come to, old man, come to!"

The adjuration seemed to penetrate Mr. Krech's dazed faculties. His eyes opened, blinked once or twice, opened again and stared tranquilly up into Creighton's. His lips moved and words issued.

"A fall like that," he observed calmly, "would have killed an ordinary man."

"Thank heaven!" ejaculated the detective fervently. "Are you much hurt? What happened?"

"Tripped—came down with a dirty wallop and cracked my head on something awfully hard." He raised himself cautiously to a sitting position and glanced about him. "That chunk of granite there—doesn't it look to you as if it were freshly broken?"

"I guess it was only this big root!" said Creighton, and laughed aloud in his relief. Then his mirth abruptly gave way to surprise. "Hello," he said. "Hello—hello—hello!"

He had been looking around too, and now he picked up a loose end of stout wire that was attached at one extremity to a sapling. There could be no question as to what it was doing there. Until Krech's shin had snapped it, it had been stretched taut across the trail a foot above the ground.

"Gee Joseph!" exclaimed the big man, staring at the simple apparatus of destruction. "Clever little hellion, ain't he?" He stood up, moved his arms and legs tentatively and gave himself a shake.

"All right?" asked Creighton quickly.

"Never felt better in my life. Little shaking-up like that—good for a man. Who was the ancient johnnie that used to bounce up from the earth a bit stronger for every time he hit it?"

"Antaeus," suggested the detective absently.

"Uh-huh. H. Antaeus Krech—that's me." He added with more appropriate seriousness, "What became of our little playmate?"

"Search me," replied Creighton, still thoughtful. "I'm trying to figure out what was back of all this. It was a prearranged trap, of course. He showed himself deliberately, invited us to chase him, then arranged this wire to insure his get-away. But—why?"

"I can give you a good guess, Peter, my boy," said Krech slowly. "I think I have inadvertently saved your life."

"Huh? What's that?"

"Suppose you are getting too close to the truth of who killed Simon Varr—or suppose the murderer thinks you are, which comes to the same thing. He doesn't care for the idea—not a-tall. So he has a happy inspiration and plots this scenario as you have described it—only to draw an anticlimax. You were supposed to do the chasing. Naturally he couldn't foresee that your guardian angel, the unfortunate me, would come galloping down here and spring his trap.

"What if it had been you who was slumbering peacefully in the middle of the path instead of me? Would you ever have awakened again? Or would you now be sitting somewhere on a cloud talking it all over with Simon? How's that for a theory?"

"You think he'd have stuck a knife in me? I must admit there is a nasty air of plausibility about your sketch." The detective mused a moment. "There's one consolation if it's true; it's mighty complimentary—almost flattering—to my ability!"

He stood up and rescued his torch from its resting-place in the tree. As he took it down, its beam was deflected briefly along the trail, and in that instant he uttered a quick exclamation.

"Look there!" he snapped. "What's that?"

XXI: Twilight

Krech came to attention at the detective's exclamation and his eyes followed the ray of light from the torch as Creighton directed it to a point on the ground scarcely two yards from their feet. An oblong, flat package wrapped in brown paper lay in the trail. They dove for it together and Creighton secured it, properly enough, since the flash-light revealed his name on the face of it, scrawled in the same uncouth writing that they had seen before on the anonymous communication of the monk to Simon Varr.

"What's in it?" demanded Krech, and added a trifle anxiously, "It doesn't tick, does it?"

"That cropper you came evidently hasn't hurt your imagination," chuckled the detective as he loosened the coarse string about the package. "No, it isn't a bomb. It's—well, by golly, will you look at what it is!"

Very gingerly, holding it in the tips of his fingers, he lifted a red leather notebook from its nest of brown wrappings and showed it to Krech. The big man nearly dropped the torch which he had taken from his friend.

"Varr's notebook!" he cried. "It must be!"

"It is," confirmed Creighton, who had lifted one cover with the tip of a finger nail and glanced at the contents of a page. "Now, isn't this lovely! Who says we can't recover loot? The thief may have to hand it to us on a tray, but it's only results that count! Say, Krech—there goes your melodramatic theory of a plot to bump me off."

"I suppose so."

"He lured me down this trail so I'd find it, and to make sure I didn't miss it, he strung that wire where it would throw me with my face almost on the darn thing! You'd have seen it if you hadn't been knocked silly, and I'd have seen it if I'd been thinking of anything but you."

"He went to a lot of trouble that he could have spared himself for all of me!" grunted Krech, feeling his forehead. "I must look like the happy end of a barroom brawl. Why didn't he mail it?"

"By golly, I don't know. That's a mighty pertinent question, Mr. Krech. We'll get the answer when we get the crook, I expect. I'm not so fearfully surprised at getting back this notebook; did it ever strike you that there might be another explanation of its disappearance other than simple theft?"

"N-no. If there's another reason, I missed it."

"The dagger wasn't used to further the looting of Varr's desk. Just the contrary is the truth, I believe. The notebook was stolen to cover the theft of the dagger."

"Gee Joseph!" Krech whistled softly. "That checks up with the theory of an inside job! Creighton—who?"

"That's something I hope to find out pretty soon," replied the detective gravely. "Come on back to the house—and, listen! We lost sight of the monk. We hunted a while until you tripped and hurt your head, then we gave up the search and came home. Get it? Not another word!"

"Right," said the big man obediently.

There was no one on the veranda when they emerged from the woods. Two figures moved in the lamp-lit hall as they entered the house. Bates came up to greet them nervously, and young Merrill lurked in the offing looking curious.

"Is everything all right, sir?" asked the butler timidly.

"Perfectly all right. Where is Miss Copley?"

"Retired, sir. She left word for you that she would not be down again this evening."

The news that she had left a message for him was welcome. He had been troubled by the recollection of the cavalier fashion in which he had shaken off her hand on his arm, and he was uncomfortably certain that in his haste he had addressed her, as he thought of her, by her family nickname.

"Go tap on her door, please, Bates, and tell her that I am back with nothing to report. Wait—take Mr. Krech up with you and show him my room. He has a forehead he wants to bathe."

The butler went off, and Krech, after a mild protest, accompanied him. Creighton, when they were out of sight, beckoned Merrill to follow and went swiftly into the living-room.

"Find out at once if any one has been absent from the house during the past hour. Let me know."

"Done it already, sir. Thought you'd want it. Only one person I haven't had my eye on."

"Who?"

"Janet Mackay, sir. She went to town immediately after dinner to a movie."

"Janet Mackay! There is only one motion-picture theater?"

"Yes, sir."

"Go there at once. Check up on her. She's a regular patron—the ticket-girl should be able to tell you if she's been there. When you come back, signal to me, yes or no. Understand? Beat it!"

When Krech came down again he found Creighton sitting on the veranda, smoking a cigar and apparently more in the mood to think than to talk. It was nearly ten o'clock when a step sounded on the porch and Merrill sauntered into view.

"Pardon!" he said promptly, and vanished again.

But he had obeyed his instructions and sent Creighton a sign that started the detective's heart to thumping. Janet Mackay had not been to the theater. Here was a coil with collateral complications that were not pleasant to contemplate. His heart stopped thumping and made a dive for his boots as he wondered what Miss Ocky would say when she learned of his interest in Janet.

"I'm going to New York on the midnight," he said abruptly. "Will you run me to the station on your way home?"

"Sure. Unexpected, isn't it? What are you going for?"

"Mostly on account of this notebook." Creighton tapped the side-pocket of his coat in which he had placed his treasure, rewrapped and tied. "It must go to the chap in Brooklyn who does my finger-print work, and I don't care to trust it to the mail. I've another reason for going which I don't propose to tell you."

"Sus domesticus!" cried Mr. Krech proudly, then obligingly translated for his astonished companion. "Pig!"

"Oh. Well, if you feel so deeply about it I suppose I might toss you a hint. I'm going to New York to give something a chance to happen that might not happen if I stayed here. I'll be back to-morrow evening, late—which reminds me that I'd better catch young Merrill and leave a message for Miss Ocky. Bates has probably gone to bed."

He spent the night at his apartment in the city and surprised his staff by entering his office the next morning at nine sharp—surprised them pleasantly, it may be added, for they had come to be loyal friends no less than faithful helpers. He exchanged cheerful greetings with a very pretty young woman who left her typewriter and accompanied him into his private room.

"Something didding, Rose, I do believe." He seated himself at his handsome, flat-top desk. "Send Jimmy here. Get Kitty Doyle on the wire, tell her to pack a bag and stand by the telephone in case I need her."

A minute later he was smiling at the homely face of Jimmy Horton, his chief of staff.

"Got that notebook, Jimmy!" He slapped the brown package on his desk. "The story will have to wait. I want you to take this over to Martin yourself. Leave it there. Ask him to make every effort to bring out such prints as there may be on the covers. If he finds any, tell him to compare them with the assortment I sent him from Hambleton last week and see if any of them check. He is to telephone me his findings here, or wire them to me at Hambleton if I've gone back. Understand?"

"Perfectly. Does he mail you the book?"

"No. When he's through with it, you go back and get it. Be careful of it, Jimmy. If it comes to a choice of losing that book or losing your life, you hang on to the book."

"I get you!" grinned Jimmy. "Doesn't the recovery of this notebook technically end your commission? We're up to our ears in work here. Why are you going back to Hambleton?"

"Because—because I darn well choose to!" Creighton writhed inwardly as he felt his cheeks growing hot. "On your way, young man—you ought to be under the East River by this time!"

Nevertheless, a certain compunction helped him to put the Varr case, and even Miss Ocky, out of his mind for the balance of the morning while he laboriously worked through an accumulation of other matters that had been waiting for his personal attention. At one o'clock he went to the basement of the building for a hurried lunch in the rathskeller, leaving word of his whereabouts with Rose.

It was well that he did so. With the coffee came an extension telephone that was plugged in at his elbow, and a distant voice spoke clearly in his ear.

"Merrill speaking. I'm telephoning from the railroad station. You guessed right, sir. The woman has just left for New York. Seemed a bit low in her mind—been crying and was still sniffling. She's wearing a dark-gray cloth dress—black oxfords—small black hat with a green feather—black fur neck-piece—brown leather suit-case— What's that, sir? No, sir!" Mr. Merrill's voice was gently reproachful. "She's not wearing the suit-case; she's carrying it. Yes, sir. I thought she acted rather queer—nervous, unhappy and fidgety."

"And no doubt she is! Thank you, Merrill. Good work!"

Creighton hung up the receiver, shook his head at the waiter who came for the instrument, then called an uptown number. A woman's voice answered—bright, alert, faintly tinged with a soft brogue.

"Miss Doyle speaking."

"Hello, Kitty! Did you pack that bag? Good. I want you to meet the train from Hambleton arriving four-thirty. Janet Mackay is on it. You can't miss her—listen!" He rattled off Merrill's description of the woman's dress. "Shadow her, Kitty; follow her to Kamchatka if you have to. Keep your eyes and ears open. Use your own judgment in regard to scraping up an acquaintance if an opportunity offers. She's dour, and probably a bit suspicious. I can give you one useful tip about her—she talks in her sleep. Huh! That will be all from you, Miss Doyle; it doesn't matter how I know. Wire me any news as you get it to Hambleton. Have you plenty of money?"

"Couple of hundred, I'll telegraph if I need more."

"Right. Whatever happens, Kitty—stay with her!"

"Like a Siamese twin," the bright voice assured him. "Is there anything special I'm to try and find out?"

"Well, you know the nature of this case." Creighton hesitated. "A confession would be very useful—if you could get it!"

"Crumbs!" gasped Miss Doyle. "Did she do it?"

"I have no definite proof—yet. There's just enough evidence to warrant our taking a warm interest in her. This sudden departure from Hambleton may be—flight!"

"Oh-ho. And she chose her time while you were here, thus avoiding any embarrassing farewell scene with you! Quite so. Leave her to me, Mr. Creighton. I'll wire you from Liverpool or Buenos Aires or Paris—"

"Or Hoboken or Harlem!" he corrected her.

"Much more likely."

He sent away the telephone, ordered fresh coffee, lighted a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Two courses were open to him. He could put in the afternoon at the office and thereby clear up a lot of stuff for Rose and Jimmy, returning late to Hambleton as he had planned, or he could catch a train that would get him there just in time for dinner. Um.

He caught the train that was to get him there just in time for dinner. Bates, meeting him in the hall and relieving him of his bag, dashed his hopes forthwith.

"I'm afraid we weren't expecting you, sir," said the butler apologetically. "Miss Ocky is dining at Mrs. Bolt's. I'll have something ready for you in about half-an-hour, sir. Will that be all right, sir?"

"Fine, Bates; thank you."

"A judgment on me for my sins of omission!" he told himself philosophically. "I should have stayed on the job at the office."

He went and put his head in at the dining-room door, where Merrill had just commenced his solitary dinner. The young man signaled to him instantly that he had a communication to make. Bates had vanished to the upper floor with his bag, and when Creighton had assured himself that there was no one in the pantry, he stepped quickly to Merrill's side.

"I wanted to tell you that Miss Copley and the Mackay woman had a long talk in Miss Copley's room very late last night—or early this morning, rather. It was nearly four o'clock when Janet went to bed. They were talking about something very—well, fiercely. Almost quarreling. I couldn't make out the words. That's all, sir; I should really have reported this to you over the wire."

"So you should, my boy, so you should," muttered Creighton absently. "No harm done this time, fortunately."

He slipped away before the butler should return, and went out to the veranda to wait until something had been prepared for him. He was glad of the brief opportunity to be alone with his thoughts.

Merrill's latest bit of information was disturbing in the extreme—so disturbing that he had to force his mind to consider a possibility from which it shrank aghast. The two women had "talked fiercely." They had "almost quarreled." What about? A hypothetical answer came to him so ugly that it chilled him to the bone.

Granted that Janet Mackay, from motives yet obscure, had killed Simon Varr, had Miss Ocky somehow learned the truth and become an accessory after the crime? Swayed by her dislike of Simon and her friendship for her companion of a score of years, had she condoned a crime and helped a murderess to escape? What was that she had once said? "Janet and I are fearfully responsible for each other!"

Oof! He took out his handkerchief and vigorously rubbed at the moist palms of his hands.

He had sat in this very same spot the night before and worried over Miss Ocky's probable reaction to a theory of Janet's guilt, but he had not dreamed of anything so terrible as this. Ocky an accessory! Finished with his palms, he shifted the handkerchief to his brow.

An unwelcome memory stirred in him of the scene the evening before when he had leaped the piazza rail in pursuit of the monk. He could feel again her grip on his arm. Had she known that the black figure was Janet and sought to restrain him lest he catch her? Obvious! And he had ascribed that action to timidity or even—blatant ass!—to fear for his safety. Fear! As if October Copley knew the meaning of the word either for herself or any one else! "Afraid for his safety?" His cheeks were red as he spared a mirthless laugh for an egotistical idiot.

"Dinner is served, sir," announced Bates, appearing in his silent fashion around the corner of the house. "It is not very elaborate, I'm afraid, sir."

"It will be ample," Creighton assured him, and added a trifle bitterly, "I don't seem to have much appetite this evening."

XXII: A Cry in the Night

During the progress of that mournful meal his discomfort was vastly increased by the sudden reflection that he was now confronted with a most disagreeable necessity. He bit his lip and frowned, strongly tempted deliberately to sidestep a task so uncongenial.

No—he couldn't shirk it! Come what might, he would see this through and force himself to act in every respect as he would have acted were Ocky not involved. She was clean and straight herself, even if misguided loyalty to Janet had caused her momentarily to swerve from the narrow path of rectitude, and it would be no compliment to her if he were to scamp his job. Antagonists they might be in this contest of wits, but she was too sporting ever to want him to do aught but play the game for all that was in him.

"What time will Miss Copley be back?" he asked the butler.

"She said about ten, sir."

That would give him ample time for what he proposed to do. The dreary dinner ended, he went upstairs as though going to his room, but he did not get quite so far. The hall was empty. The house was still. He knew there was small chance of any one interrupting him while he worked.

Softly, he turned the knob of Miss Ocky's door, slipped inside and closed it again behind him. He crossed the room and drew the curtains of the French window before taking his torch from his pocket.

Then, tight-lipped, he set to work.

An hour passed before his search, swift, silent and sure, approached its end. He had found nothing to incriminate Janet Mackay, nothing to connect her departure with any guilty knowledge thereof on the part of Miss Ocky. He smiled contentedly at the result, exulting in his failure, then sobered suddenly as the light from his torch, playing over her desk, discovered to him a neat, leather-bound book with the word "Diary" stamped in gold across its top cover.

A diary! Why in thunder did people keep 'em? Ocky had got the habit from keeping notes for her books, he supposed. Silly things, always getting their owners into trouble! He glared at the innocent book a full minute before he reluctantly opened it and sought the entries for the past few weeks. There were not many, thank goodness; she was not a faithful diarist. He scanned them rapidly, gathering courage as it grew plain that there was nothing here the whole world might not read. Then he caught his breath and stood transfixed as one entry, dated three days back, sped its message to his brain.

"The usual talk with P. C. last night from balcony to balcony. He is amusing and very entertaining—amazingly kind and sympathetic despite his profession, which must tend to harden a man—though he will not admit it!" So much was in her bold, firm writing, but underneath a line had been added in fainter, more uncertain script. "Why couldn't we have met twenty years ago!"

Creighton shut the book quickly, flicked off his torch, stood motionless in the dark. His breast was a chaos of wild, conflicting emotions. There was rejoicing at what he had found, loathing for the way he had found it, terror of the problems it portended. That regretful line in her diary revealed some feeling for him, he felt sure, but what would become of that newborn sentiment when she learned that he had—

The raucous blare of a motor-horn from the direction of the driveway cut sharply through his abstraction. He leaped for the door and gained the hall in safety, then sauntered downstairs to find not one arrival but two. Miss Ocky had returned ahead of schedule, and a messenger on a motorcycle had come with a telegram.

"Telegram for Creighton."

"Right here." He scrawled a signature in the book, opened the wire and read it by his flash-light. "No answer."

He read it again as the boy putt-putted off into the darkness.

"We leave for Montreal to-night. Cheers. Can I have one on you? Address General Delivery, Montreal. K. Doyle."

He struck a match and held it to the corner of the yellow sheet. By the time it was burned and the charred fragments crunched beneath his heel, Miss Ocky had garaged the car and come around to the front steps.

"Hello," she said, rather wearily. "Never dreamed you'd be back already!"

"Couldn't stay away," he said lightly. "Have a nice time at the Bolts?"

"Rotten," answered Miss Ocky tersely. "My own fault—I've been low in my mind all day." She pulled off her driving gloves and waved with them toward the veranda. "Come and give me a cigarette."

"What has been worrying you?" he asked her quietly when they were settled in the cozy corner. "Anything serious?"

"Janet has gone. I shall miss her—terribly—after all these years. She insisted, though, and I had no right to refuse her."

"But she will miss you, too, surely."

"Possibly."

"She's going home to Scotland, I suppose?"

"N-no." Miss Ocky hesitated, then added calmly, "She is going to a sister in New Orleans."

"Oh," said Creighton, and it seemed to him that some one else must have uttered the word, so far away did it sound. "Very nice for her."

"Let's—forget her," suggested Miss Ocky.

There was no talk from balcony to balcony that night. Miss Ocky begged off on the plea of fatigue, and it was fairly evident that the plea was perfectly honest. She acted as if she were tired, she looked so, and Creighton, grimly comparing the fiction of New Orleans with the fact of Montreal, could no longer doubt that she had every reason to be tired, mentally and physically.

He was none too fit himself when he came down to breakfast the next morning after a miserable night's rest. He could scarcely eat anything. He rose from the table finally and sped into the front hall at the sound of a motorcycle, and when he accepted two wires from a messenger and dismissed him, his powers of resistance were pitifully inadequate to withstand the greatest shock he was ever to receive in all his life.

The first was a night-letter from Martin, the finger-print expert.

"Numerous prints on cover of took. Freshest superimposed on others are one of thumb top cover four of finger tips on bottom, made by number eight in collection you sent me. Characteristics distinctive. No possibility of error. Martin."

Number eight of the collection he had made! Made since the death of Simon Varr, then, and by some one in the household! Here was a tangible clue to the truth at last!

He took his memorandum book from his pocket and turned its pages with fingers that trembled slightly until he found the list that he had started with Betty Blake. Swiftly, his eyes went to number eight.

"No. 8. October Copley." That was the entry.

A full minute passed before he stooped and recovered the memorandum book which had slipped from his grasp, together with the second telegram. He shook his head impatiently in an effort to clear it of the stupor which numbed his brain.

Why should he be affected like this? he demanded angrily of himself. What was there here that couldn't be explained in the light of facts already known? It was no news to him now that Ocky was aiding Janet to escape the consequences of her crime, and it was plain enough what must have happened. She had found the notebook in Janet's possession, handled it cautiously and left those prints, then insisted upon its return to its rightful owners. That was all. His heart began to pound less violently, and presently he was opening the second telegram, which he saw at once was a straight wire from Kitty Doyle filed early that morning.

"Same compartment in sleeper. She had lower berth. Was very restless. Talked several times. Could only hear one sentence, repeated frequently. Miss Ocky, why did you do it, why did you do it? She wired Hotel Beauclerc Montreal for reservation. K. Doyle."

"Miss Ocky, why did you do it, why did you do it?"

For a few moments that sentence written in letters of fire danced madly before his eyes. Then it cleared away and left him gazing at the peaceful woods beyond the patch of velvet lawn. His face was expressionless, but his lips moved slowly.

"That's it. That's it, of course. It's been there all the time. I knew it. I was just afraid to face it. Now—I've got to."

He was standing on the veranda, but he had an odd sense that his brain had detached itself from his body and was floating high in the air, whence it had a comprehensive, bird's-eye view of the whole situation. The chief actors in the drama were there, and as his brain watched them they dissolved briefly into mist, then reformed slowly into a sort of allegorical tableau.

There was Miss Ocky, arrayed in the somber robes of a monk, a stained dagger held loosely in her fingers, an illusive, faintly mocking smile on her lips. There was a great figure in white, a bandage about its eyes, leaning negligently on a long, two-edged sword, its calm, sightless face turned toward the woman in black. There was Janet Mackay, gaunt and ugly, interposing her thin body between the two, a pitifully inadequate shield. They all appeared to be waiting for something, and presently it was evident that the attention of the two women was centered on the figure of a funny little man whose troubled eyes peered out from behind a huge pair of shell-rimmed glasses as he stood beside the goddess, hesitant, his hand stretched out to loose the bandage from the eyes of Justice.

The vision faded until only the funny little man was left. The watcher on high saw him turn and enter the house, calm and composed, putting two telegrams and a notebook into his pocket as he walked the length of the hall and into the pantry. His voice was placid when he spoke.

"Bates, fix me up a couple of sandwiches and a flask of black coffee. I've been a bit seedy lately and I'm going to try the effects of a long walk. I may not be back until quite late."

"Yes, sir. I'll have them in a few minutes, sir."

After an interminable wait of centuries, a neat package was forthcoming and he was at length able to leave the house and plunge into the woods, his destination the little cave in the hills where he and Miss Ocky had shared their picnic lunch. There he could be alone, secure from interruption, while two little devils, devised for the torment of man, donned the gloves and staged in the squared circle of his heart the age-old battle between love and duty.

It was a memorable fight, that. Love went down for the count of nine more than once, but more often it was the ugly little demon of duty that the end of a round left hanging on the ropes. Not until dusk had fallen was the referee able to hold up the arm of the victor.

It was ten o'clock when he limped wearily into the quiet house and slipped noiselessly to his room. His first glance was for his desk, where telegrams might be found if any had come. There were none, but a large white envelope, sealed but unaddressed, lay on the blotting-pad. He took it up and ripped it open. Two letters, stamped and ready for mailing, fell on the desk. He stared at them indifferently, then picked them up and thrust them in his pocket.

He sat down, determined to act while his decision was fresh, and drew writing materials toward him. It was a very simple note that he intended to write, and it was just that when he finally finished it, but six false starts lay in the trash-basket beside his desk. He read over the completed product.

"My dear Mr. Bolt—Pressure of business recalls me to New York early to-morrow morning before I can have an opportunity to see you. I am happy to say that Mr. Varr's notebook has been recovered, under circumstances which I hereby authorize Mr. Krech to describe to you. I will send it to you by messenger. I regret that I cannot name the thief, whose identity, in my opinion, will never be learned. I shall look forward to seeing you when I again visit Hambleton, which I hope to do after a short period of work and rest. Sincerely yours, Peter Creighton."

He stood up, holding the open letter in his hand. His head was heavy. Hardly conscious of what he was doing, he went to the French windows, pulled them open and stepped out on the balcony. Instantly, a low voice challenged him from the darkness.

"Mr. Creighton! I'm so glad! I thought you must be lost! I've been waiting here—! Please, will you do something for me?"

"I'm always ready for that, Miss Copley."

"I want you to come here. The door of my room is unlocked." The low voice grew even fainter. "I—I am very ill," said Miss Ocky.

XXIII: The Darkest Hour

Everything else faded from his mind at the emergency suggested by her last words.

He was with her in five seconds. In that time she had retreated from the balcony and was lying back in a deep, upholstered armchair near the open window, a soft woolen lap-robe over her knees and tucked about her feet. He leaned over her anxiously.

"You are ill? What is it?" he questioned her swiftly. "Let me go for the doctor!"

"No—please! It isn't a case for a doctor—yet. I must talk to you first." There was a straight-backed chair close by, as though she had placed it there for him, and she waved him to it. She did not continue until he had reluctantly seated himself on its edge, bending forward to watch her face in the dim light from a single lamp across the room. "I—there is something I must tell you. Do you remember saying one evening that a detective must occasionally be a father-confessor as well as—"

"Stop!" He interrupted her, aghast, his tortured nerves rebelling against this unexpected, fresh flagellation. "I want no confession from you—I won't listen—!"

"Please! You must let me have my way in this; I have a good reason for insisting on that." Her voice was low, quiet and determined. "I want to tell you that your search is ended. It was I who—"

"Don't say it!" he broke in hoarsely. "I know it already!"

"You—what?" Her eyes were large, incredulous. "You know that it was I who—who killed Simon Varr?" Amazed, she saw him nod his head, and flinched from the gesture as if it were a blow. "How did you learn that?"

"A score of things pointed to it from the first," he answered miserably. "I would have seen the truth long since if—if something else had not blinded me to it. This morning my eyes were finally opened—" he fumbled in his pocket with shaking fingers—"by these!"

Miss Ocky took the two telegrams, held them shoulder-high to the light, and read them wonderingly. She exclaimed sharply over the one from Kitty Doyle.

"'K. Doyle'! Who is that?"

"A clever woman detective accompanying Janet Mackay—not to New Orleans, but to Montreal! I already knew her destination before you attempted to mislead me."

"A detective following Janet!" Her tone was a vigorous protest. "Oh, you must call her back! It isn't fair to Janet! Promise me you will call her back!"

"I will, at once. Kitty Doyle's usefulness there—is ended!"

She had raised herself slightly in her eagerness; now she relaxed again with a sigh of relief. Creighton, a dull ache in his heart, waited for her to resume the conversation. He would not take the lead.

"So Janet talked in her sleep!" To his horror, Miss Ocky was speaking in her amused, faintly mocking accents as though nothing mattered less than this gruesome discussion of how she came to be exposed. "In a Pullman, too; how very indiscreet! I should have foreseen that and made her stick to day coaches. I knew her failing!"

"It was a paragraph in one of your books that revealed it to me," contributed Creighton gloomily. "You once described a bad night you spent due to your companion talking in her sleep. That enabled me to give my operative a tip."

"In one of my own books! The irony of fate, that! Please, Mr. Creighton, tell me why you happened to have Janet shadowed in the first place. What had she done to deserve this delicate attention? Is it possible that you suspected her?"

"I most certainly did." Chin cupped in both hands, his eyes fixed on the floor at his feet, he morosely supplied her with the salient features of the case as he had come upon them, from the discovery of the steel chip that pointed to an inside job to the moment when he learned that only Janet was missing from the house on the occasion of the monk's final appearance. "Then it developed that she hadn't been at the theater, as she was supposed to be. I argued from the return of the notebook that the case was drawing to a climax, so I went to New York to see if she would take advantage of my absence to slip away. When she did, it seemed pretty conclusive evidence of her guilt. I put Kitty Doyle on her track. Until this morning, the worst I thought of you was that your friendship for Janet had led you to condone her crime."

"Whereas the truth is exactly the reverse! Her friendship and my crime!" She gave a little shiver. "That chip from the dagger—interesting! It really started you on the right track, didn't it? I never knew I'd nicked the blade. Mmph. Extraordinary what trifles may affect our destinies! Funny, don't you think?"

Each word she uttered in that whimsical tone was like a needle pricking his heart. He threw out his hands protestingly, suddenly groaning the very phrase that Janet had used in her troubled dreams.

"Miss Ocky, why did you do it? Why did you do it?"

"Yes, I must tell you about that." Her reply was cool, matter-of-fact, and he did not see that she winced at the pain in his voice. "After all, I can plead extenuating circumstances. I'll make it short as possible; you can ask questions later if you wish. Meanwhile, please don't interrupt me or I'll lose track of my story.

"I had been away from here twenty-two years. When I came back ten weeks ago I discovered a situation that I had never dreamed existed. Lucy's letters had never been especially happy or cheerful, but neither had they contained anything to give me even an inkling of the truth. I did not know she was married to a human vampire, a sort of—of spiritual leech! Words can't tell you the difference between the Lucy I left and the Lucy I returned to! It hurt me—oh, it hurt me!

"You won't put down all that I say about Simon to personal prejudice because you have heard enough about him from others to realize how mean and selfish and—and psychically cruel he could be. He never beat Lucy, but that was simply because he specialized in a more refined type of cruelty—and if you want to know which of the two hurts a woman most, there are plenty of unfortunate wives who can tell you!

"Simon owed everything he had in the world to Lucy, for it was the money she brought to their marriage that enabled him to start his own tannery and gave him the opportunity to develop new processes that proved lucrative. Father disapproved of the match, but did not actively oppose it, and when he died shortly after, Simon's feet were on the road to fortune. Remember that, please!

"When I came home, I found he had completely broken Lucy's spirit and was deliberately trying to accomplish the same result in the case of his son. He had all but succeeded, too. Money seems to be the answer to practically every problem in this country to-day, so I was able to come to the boy's rescue. I told you one evening how I decided to put him on his feet, promote his elopement with Sheila Graham, who will make him an excellent wife—and incidentally put a spoke in Simon's wheel!

"I began to study my brother-in-law, and the more I learned about him the more shocked and fascinated I became. Satisfied with the lion's share of the income from the tannery, he refused to develop the business so that Jason's modicum might increase to reasonable proportions. He had always hated Jason since the panic of 1907 when he had to borrow money from him and give him a small interest in the business.

"He hated his manager, Graham, too, because he was beginning to be troublesome. Graham felt that his long and faithful services deserved some greater reward than a small raise in salary, and the one thing Simon could not bear to do was to reward a man according to his deserts! He decided to discharge Graham—but that did not prevent him from threatening Copley with the ruin of Sheila's father if he did not discontinue his attentions to the girl! Pretty?

"I was interested in the working conditions at the tannery, conditions that were unsanitary, primitive—obscene! I met the Maxon person in a grocery, as I told you, but it was before the strike, not after. He told me things, and even with a liberal discount for exaggeration, they were pretty bad.

"It was then I decided to take a hand in Simon's family and business affairs! I have a queer sense of humor at times, and it rather amused me to think of myself as a deputy of Destiny! And—and it just so happened that I was in a position to play fast and loose with no regard for possible consequences to myself.

"I opened my campaign by promoting that strike! I persuaded Maxon, a born agitator, to talk the men into doing it, and I provided him with money so they should not be broken by hardship. Afterwards I found he hypothecated this fund and spent it on a dance-hall girl, so I was obliged to send more money later, in a letter signed by the monk, to a more responsible treasurer! I was a little shocked when Maxon was accused of murder, but my spirit rejoiced at the thought of him in jail! Snake!

"The strike only brought out Simon's worst qualities of stubbornness and vindictiveness. He ordered a closed shop, and suspended a lot of innocent, needy clerks without pay. Except that it goaded him to fury, a pleasant achievement to contemplate, I had to write off my strike as a flash in the pan.

"I chanced to discover that Simon's heel of Achilles was his fear of death, so my next scheme was a pious plot to frighten him into behaving like a human being and a good citizen. I had known the legend of the monk all my life, of course, and it was while telling it to Janet one day that I was struck with the idea of employing it to my own ends—though I afterwards pretended to Simon that I first heard of it from Sheila Graham.

"The next time I went to New York I purchased the costume and a pair of large boots from a theatrical supply store. I made a mask myself, and wired the cowl to stay up so that it would give the impression of a tall man. The large boots, of course, were to give a wrong idea of the man's size in case I left tracks.

"Sometimes I kept the outfit in the bottom of a trunk in that closet, there, but more often it was hidden in a cubbyhole of my little house down the hill. There is a very ancient and disreputable typewriter in the attic, there, too, and I used that to write my messages on. I concealed that, by the way, under a loose piece of flooring just as a precaution, though I did not think then that a police case would ever grow out of what I was doing!

"I set the first fire in the tannery, and it fizzled out. Then I wrote my first note to Simon and waylaid him in the trail. I slipped off the disguise in the woods, ran to overtake him and pretended I, too, had seen a 'ghost'. The next day I brought him that historical book and read him the legend, and I had real hopes of humanizing him when I saw how scared he was!

"I followed up this jolt by firing the tannery again, hoping that its destruction would necessitate the building of modern and proper quarters for the men to work in. I was nearly caught that time—Simon had the cunning to order his watchman to make double rounds!

"That night brought things to a sudden head. I had escaped from the tannery yard, run up into the woods and shed my disguise, and came back to stand on the hill and watch the fire.

"It was than that Leslie Sherwood spoke to me and made no bones about expressing his hatred of Simon Varr. I was curious to know why he was so bitter, and I had a sneaking notion that it might have something to do with the way Leslie had suddenly deserted Hambleton and abandoned my sister to his only admitted rival. It did! I asked him to tell me the story back of it and he willingly complied.

"It appears that Simon clerked for a time in a local bank of which Leslie's father was the president, and while there had discovered old Mr. Sherwood guilty of serious defalcations. Sherwood was too deeply involved to extricate himself short of stupendous good luck and years of effort, so Simon cunningly stored away his knowledge against a day when it might come in useful. Blackmail.

"The occasion arrived quickly. Lucy was obviously attached to Leslie, if not secretly engaged to him. Simon went to Leslie and told him he must withdraw with no word of explanation to Lucy under penalty of having his father exposed as a thief! Leslie was knocked galley-west, of course. He went to his father, found that Simon had told the truth, had a row with the old gentleman and departed forthwith, stricken to his soul.

"I don't criticize Leslie for acting that way. He was obeying the queer standards of behavior we have set up in the West. Actually, it never once occurred to him that to kill a blackmailer of that type rather than permit him to ruin a woman's life might be a very righteous deed! I see you wince, Mr. Creighton! Please remember I have lived in the East long enough to imbibe some of its philosophy. I don't consider one human life so much more important than the happiness of many other people!

"Simon's death warrant was nearly signed that night, though he was to have one more chance. I left Leslie and came home, and I won't even try to describe my feelings when I realized how that monster had used his power to sneak into this house and destroy Lucy's happiness!

"The dagger on the table caught my eye and I remembered its inscription. 'I Bring Peace'. Suggestive—very suggestive; I thought of the peace it would bring to a number of persons if any one had the courage to—to play Destiny. I thought of Leslie's expression when he told me he still loved Lucy devotedly, and of hers when she heard the news of his return. There were two more people who would find happiness if Simon were removed.

"I took the dagger, but of course that was dangerous by itself, so I slipped into the study, pried up the roll-top cover of Simon's desk and pouched a notebook that looked as if it must be valuable. Then I had still another idea—it seemed a good one then! The house was still, except for Bates snoring in the pantry. I went out on the piazza and forced the lock of one of the living-room windows with the dagger. Mmph! Wish I'd noticed that nick! I thought I was only leaving evidence of a burglary!

"The next evening I had a snappy talk with Simon. I told him that the death of old Sherwood—who succeeded in rehabilitating his fortunes before he died—had taken that particular curse off Leslie, and that Leslie had told me everything. Simon merely asked me what I was going to do about it. I suggested divorce—his last chance!—and he turned it down. Just from meanness and malice, he turned it down. Blame me for anything you please, but don't sympathize with Simon; he asked for it!

"I knew a detective was coming on the morrow and I wasn't anxious to take more chances than I had to. The hour was striking—!

"Don't look at me like that! I won't go on with that part of it! Harrowing and gruesome, and not at all important.

"I'm afraid I didn't take either the police or you very seriously. More fool I! As I examined my position it seemed to me that I had left absolutely no clue, that I was secure from every suspicion. Mmph. I forgot Janet!

"She and I never had secrets from each other until this affair of Simon Varr. I had discussed him with her and she understood just what a blot on society he was, but I had not confessed to playing Destiny! After the murder, however, she learned of the monk who had been threatening Simon. She knew I detested him, she knew all my points of view, and her old mind began to work. Janet's mind is like the mills of the gods; it grinds slowly but exceeding fine.

"She watched me, questioned me slyly, and presently began a search for proof of her suspicions. She found the notebook in the back of one of my bureau drawers, and then she found the disguise in the house below the hill. She knew the truth!

"She has a Scotch conscience, which appears to be a terrible affliction! She was horrified at her discovery, almost sickened, but her loyalty to me rose above every other consideration. If she had only come to me—! But she didn't; she elected to follow certain impulses of her own conception.

"The most important thing, according to her strict notions, was that the stolen property should be returned to its rightful owners. In wondering how best to do that, she evolved the crazy scheme of appearing in the monk's costume some time when I was with you. She could leave the notebook for you to find and at the same time provide me with a perfect and impervious alibi in case suspicion was ever directed my way!

"You know how it worked out. It's a miracle she didn't kill poor Mr. Krech! He looked very cunning in his bandage this evening!

"Of course, Janet gave herself away to me! When she came home late that night I had it out with her—and sent her away! I admired her loyalty and spirit, but she was entirely too dangerous to have around! I think Scotch consciences jump at odd angles like cats and detectives!

"That brings the story to date, Mr. Creighton. You know everything else, and the next move is yours." She leaned back and regarded him quietly, her little mocking smile on her lips. "What is the usual procedure? Do you make the arrest yourself? Or do you call the police? What a triumph you will enjoy over Norvallis!"

He did not reply in words. The answer lay on the floor beside his foot, where he had dropped the note to Jason Bolt which he had brought with him in his hurried dash to her side. He picked it up and gave it to her.

When she had read it, she let it drop in her lap. There was no mockery in her expression at that moment, though she could not forego a whimsical little taunt.

"That isn't practicing what you preach, Mr. Creighton!"

"I—I could not find the strength," he muttered hoarsely.

She made no verbal response to that, but her eyes blessed him. After a moment she forced one uncertain question from trembling lips.

"Will you tell me wh-why?"

"Yes. I've a confession to make, too, Miss Ocky." He nerved himself to this ordeal. "I—I searched your room last evening while you were at the Bolts. Looking for proof against Janet. Will you forgive me?" He waited for her quick nod. "I found nothing, but I did see your diary on that desk—and glanced at it."

"Ah!" said Miss Ocky, her cheeks stained a deep crimson.

"I found something there that interested me—made me—happy! A line wishing we had met twenty years ago. Will you tell me what you meant by that? I'm afraid to trust my own interpretation." He paused, but she remained silent. "Anyway, I echo the wish! But twenty years is not a lifetime. If you tell me what I want to hear, we can still have many years—to forget Simon and think only of our own happiness—"

"Oh, stop! Stop!" She flung out a hand imploringly and drew back from him, her face ashen. "Oh, what a fool I've been—what a wicked little fool! I saw this coming—I never should have let it happen—oh, I should have hit you over the head—k-killed you, too!—anything but let this go on! But I d-didn't have the s-trength either! I wanted my bit of happiness—I wanted to be cared for like—like that by some one—by—by you above all! And now—and now—!" She broke off on a sob.

"But, Ocky! What is it, dear? We have the future—"

"That's just what we haven't got!" she gasped. "Oh, don't you understand? Haven't you guessed why I have done all these things, why I was able to play Destiny without fear of the consequences to myself, why I called you in to-night to hear my confession?" She drew a sobbing breath, "I told you I was very ill. Peter, I—I'm dying!"

Softly though it was spoken, the word crashed upon his ears like a thunderclap. He sprang to his feet, shaken and bewildered.

"Ocky! What are you saying? Are you telling me the truth? What is the matter with you?"

"Yes. It's the truth. Sit down—please! Don't get silly ideas into your head about a doctor. Give me credit for some sense!" She managed to smile, and gallantly pitched her voice to a note of lightness. "As for what's the matter—well, we needn't wander off into pathology, need we? I think we'll dispense with an ante-post-mortem, if there is such an animal! I contrived to tie some of my little innards into bowknots once when I was h-hunting hippopotamusses in the Himalayas, I guess.

"Months afterwards, I came down with a pain—a pain such as I could not have believed a human being could experience and survive, I went to a doctor in Paris, and he told me there was no hope. A few months later I had a second attack. When I was able to travel, I went to a new man in Rome. He said the next attack would be the—last.

"Then I came home. I wanted to see Lucy again, and if this stupid business of dying had to be gone through I wanted to do it here in this old house. I wanted a few weeks or months of peace and quiet and h-happiness." Her voice broke, then steadied again. "Golly—what a fizzle!" She shivered. "This afternoon I got my—notice! How I wished you were here! I came up to my room, burned that diary—you snooped just in time, Peter!—and wrote two letters. I didn't dare leave the house to mail them. I might have dropped in the—ah!"

Swift as a flash of lightning it had come. Beyond that one moan she fought silently, lips tight, one hand clutching at her side, through seconds that seemed eternities to the man watching helplessly. At last the spasm passed and speech returned to her.

"That's—just a preliminary twinge!" she whispered between her teeth. "Peter—there's something beyond the stars! You believe that, don't you?"

"My dear—my dear!"

"That's all right, then." She looked at him long. "I wonder if you'll ever forgive me for hurting you like this. Try, won't you, Peter?" Her eyes were luminous with unshed tears. "Will you get me a glass of—water. On the table by my bed." She waited as he eagerly fetched it, grateful that he could do even this much. "Thanks. Now, a handkerchief—over there on the bureau." Again she waited, this time until he was across the room by her dressing-table. Then she raised the glass and spoke softly. "I'm glad I took this from your hands—Peter!"

She had not thought him capable of such quickness. Not a drop had passed her lips before he was upon her with the leap of a frightened deer. A vicious sweep of his hand sent the glass from her fingers out the window and through the moonlit night, to fall harmless on the lawn.

"Ocky—what were you doing?" he demanded almost furiously.

"Peter—what have you done?" she retorted. "That was all I had—all I had! Oh, that was a cruel of you! Why do you want me to suffer? Could you not let me die in peace?"

"You aren't going to die!" he cried. "Listen—how long will it be before another of those attacks comes on?"

"I—don't know. Several hours, p-perhaps." She stared at him open-eyed. "Wh-what are you going to do?"

"Local doctor, for temporary relief. To-morrow, the best diagnosticians—and surgeons if necessary—in New York." He was alert, now, coolly capable, free of the stupor of grief and despair. His face was grimly defiant as he added, "We'll see how much those gentlemen in Rome and Paris really know!"

"Oh—it's useless, Peter. And—and I can't live! They'll h-hang me! Peter, there's something I haven't told you. I hadn't stopped to think until lately that an unsolved crime leaves so much ugly suspicion in its wake! Innocent people—suspected all their lives! I couldn't die with that on my soul so—so this afternoon I wrote a full confession and mailed it to Norvallis—"

"Oh—that!" he said contemptuously. He reached into his pocket, plucked forth two letters and dropped them in her lap. "There!"

"Peter!" She stared at them. "Where on earth—? I couldn't go to town s-so I gave them to young Merrill to post. And he—he—"

"Is one of my men, introduced by Judge Taylor at my request! I'm glad you picked him, Ocky! He placed them on my desk, as in duty bound." He hesitated, eyeing her dubiously. "I'm going for that doctor—Joliffe, the chap your sister has had. I liked his looks. First, though, I suppose I'll have to rouse Bates to mount guard over you!"

"No-no—not that! Whatever happens, let that be our secret!"

"You must promise me not to do anything foolish while I'm gone." He took one of her hands and clasped it tightly in both of his. "Ocky, keep your nerve, dear! I'm going to get you out of this—get you out somehow! Leave it to me, dear, and stop worrying. Now, promise me!"

"There's another thing, Peter; I ought to tell you while we have this opportunity to talk. Mr. Krech knows I—I did it!"

"Krech! Krech! How in thunder—"

"I don't know, but he does. It would have been funny last n-night if it hadn't been so tragic! He got me alone for a few minutes and began to drop hints; said you were practically certain of the criminal and that if he were the murderer he would do almost anything desperate to prevent himself from being caught, only he admitted he couldn't think of anything!"

"Will wonders never cease! However, we needn't bother our heads about Krech—I'd trust him with my life. Can't waste any more time on him now. Promise me, Ocky!"

"It's—no—use—"

"Promise me!"

"I—I promise, Peter!"

He bent and kissed her almost fiercely—and was gone.

XXIV: Beyond the Stars

The next two hours for Peter Creighton were more like a nightmare than a nightmare itself. First he aroused Bates and startled the old man with the news of Miss Ocky's illness, and ordered him to call Lucy Varr and suggest that she go immediately to her sister. He could not bear the thought of Ocky sitting there alone with hideous memories of the past and fearful doubts of the future. Then he ran to the garage, jumped in the car and drove madly through the night to the home of Doctor Joliffe. The physician was an elderly and experienced man long-practiced in the art of turning out promptly for these midnight emergencies, and he was pulling on his trousers almost before the door-bell had ceased to ring, but to the anguished gaze of the detective he resembled nothing more than a languid snail with white whiskers. It seemed as if they would never get back to the house.

They finally did, and Joliffe took competent charge of the situation. Creighton, banished peremptorily, went into his room, extinguished the lamp, and sat down on the edge of his bed in the dark to await a verdict from the doctor. At each side of him his fingers gripped the corner of the mattress tensely.

He had not waited thus above fifteen minutes when he heard a familiar, heavy tread in the hall outside. His door was unceremoniously flung open and the space filled by a huge form.

"Creighton—you in here?"

"Hello, Krech. What are you doing here at this hour?"

"Haven't been sleeping well lately. Got up to smoke a cigar, looked out my bedroom window and saw this house lighted up. What's doing?"

"Miss Copley is seriously ill—perhaps—dying."

"The deuce!" ejaculated Krech, startled. He fumbled in his pocket, produced a match and struck it. "Mind if I light the lamp?" But the flickering flame of the match showed him a face so white and drawn that he caught his breath in sudden realization of the truth. He abandoned his idea of lighting the lamp and fumbled his way to a chair near the foot of the bed. "So—you know!" he said quietly.

"Yes," admitted the detective wearily. "But how did you?"

"I tumbled to it the night you went to New York," answered Krech, his voice anything but happy. "I didn't go home after I left you at the station. Came back here. You hinted something might happen if you went away and gave it a chance, and I didn't see why it shouldn't happen right away. I hoped the monk would turn up again; had a notion that my head would feel better if I could once get my hands on that wire-stretching humorist.

"I kept carefully out of sight in the woods and settled down at a point where I could watch both the kitchen garden and the spot where we'd last seen the monk. I waited three hours. If patience and perseverance make a good detective I was the best in the world that night.

"The reason I waited so long was that I was interested in a lighted window—Miss Ocky's. She was keeping pretty late hours, talking to Janet Mackay, I recognized her tall, thin shadow as it occasionally fell on the blinds, and you know I had already suggested that there was something dubious about Janet because of her acquaintance with Charlie Maxon.

"That light didn't go out until three in the morning. A few minutes later I saw some one slip out the back door of the house and hurry across the garden to the trail. Janet! It was brilliant moonlight, you'll remember, and I recognized her at once.

"I followed her, keeping a cautious distance behind. Lost her once when she vanished from the trail into the woods, but she came back a minute or two later with a bundle under her arm that she had retrieved from some hiding-place. After that she took a bypath leading downhill in the direction of that poisonous little brook which runs through those meadows after passing the tannery.

"I watched her as she knelt down on the bank of the stream, weighted her bundle with a couple of rocks and hove it as far out as she could into the water. She stood watching the bubbles break above the spot where it disappeared, then turned and marched away erect as a grenadier and calm as a cucumber.

"I let her go, of course. My interest was centered in that stuff she had sunk, and I scurried around until I found a long pole. Then I started dredging operations that would have been a credit to De Lesseps himself—and brought ashore that bundle.