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{\LARGE\strut{THE SECRET OF LONESOME COVE}}
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This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the \hyperlink{project-gutenberg-license}{Project Gutenberg License}
included with this eBook or online at
{https://www.gutenberg.org/license}.
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Title: The Secret of Lonesome Cove
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\noindent
Author: Samuel Hopkins Adams
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Release Date: June 05, 2011 {[}EBook \#36335{]}
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Language: English
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Character set encoding: UTF-8
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF LONESOME COVE ***
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Produced by Darleen Dove and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at {http://www.pgdp.net}.
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This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.
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{\tiny{BY}}
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SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
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{\footnotesize{FRANK E. SCHOONOVER}}
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{\scshape{{\footnotesize{Copyright 1912}}}}
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TO ONE UNKNOWN
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The only living being who possesses the secret of the
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strangely clad and manacled body found beneath the
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cliffs of Cornwall on April 30, 1909, this story, changed
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in the setting as he will understand, is blindly inscribed.
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CONTENTS}

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\hyperlink{chapter-ithe-body-on-the-beach}{CHAPTER I—THE BODY ON THE BEACH}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-iiprofessor-kent-makes-a-call}{CHAPTER II—PROFESSOR KENT MAKES A CALL}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-iiimy-lady-of-mystery}{CHAPTER III—MY LADY OF MYSTERY}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-ivan-inquiry}{CHAPTER IV—AN INQUIRY}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-vone-use-for-a-monocle}{CHAPTER V—ONE USE FOR A MONOCLE}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-vithe-retreat-in-order}{CHAPTER VI—THE RETREAT IN ORDER}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-viisimon-p-groot-does-business}{CHAPTER VII—SIMON P. GROOT DOES BUSINESS}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-viiireckonings}{CHAPTER VIII—RECKONINGS}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-ixchester-kent-declines-a-job}{CHAPTER IX—CHESTER KENT DECLINES A JOB}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xthe-invasion}{CHAPTER X—THE INVASION}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xihedgerow-house}{CHAPTER XI—HEDGEROW HOUSE}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xiithe-unbidden-visitor}{CHAPTER XII—THE UNBIDDEN VISITOR}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xiiiloose-ends}{CHAPTER XIII—LOOSE ENDS}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xivthe-lone-fisherman}{CHAPTER XIV—THE LONE FISHERMAN}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xvthe-turn-of-the-game}{CHAPTER XV—THE TURN OF THE GAME}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xvithe-meeting}{CHAPTER XVI—THE MEETING}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xviichance-sits-in}{CHAPTER XVII—CHANCE SITS IN}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xviiithe-master-of-stars}{CHAPTER XVIII—THE MASTER OF STARS}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xixthe-strange-tryst}{CHAPTER XIX—THE STRANGE TRYST}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xxin-the-white-room}{CHAPTER XX—IN THE WHITE ROOM}\par

\item[] \hyperlink{chapter-xxirewards}{CHAPTER XXI—REWARDS}\par
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CHAPTER I—THE BODY ON THE BEACH}

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{\noindent}
Lonesome Cove is one of the least frequented
stretches on the New England seaboard.
From the land side, the sheer hundred-foot
drop of Hawkill Cliffs shuts it off. Access
by water is denied; denied with a show of menacing
teeth, when the sea curls its lips back, amid
a swirl of angry currents, from its rocks and
reefs, warning boats away. There is no settlement
near the cove. The somber repute suggested by its
name has served to keep cottagers from building
on the wildly beautiful uplands that overbrood
the beach. Sheep browse between the thickets of
ash and wild cherry extending almost to the brink
of the height, and the straggling pathways along
the edge, worn by the feet of their herders, afford
the only suggestion of human traffic within half
a mile of the spot. A sharp-cut ravine leads down
to the sea by a rather treacherous descent.\par

Near the mouth of this opening, a considerable
gathering of folk speckled the usually deserted
beach, at noon of July sixth. They centered on a
dark object, a few yards within the flood-tide
limit. Some scouted about, peering at the sand.
Others pointed first to the sea, then to the cliffs
with the open gestures of those who argue vehemently.
But always their eyes returned, drawn
back by an unfailing magnetism, to the central
object.\par

From some distance away a lone man of a
markedly different type from the others observed
them with an expression of displeasure. He had
reached the cove by an arduous scramble, possible
only to a good climber, around the jutting elbow
of the cliff to the northward. It was easily
to be read in his face that he was both surprised
and annoyed to find people there before him. One
of the group presently detached himself and ambled
over to the newcomer, with an accelerated
speed as he drew nearer.\par

% ---File: 014.png

“Swanny!” he ejaculated, “if it ain’t Perfessor
Kent! Didn’t know you at first under them
whiskers. You remember me, don’t you? I used
to drive you around when you was here before.”\par

“How are you, Jarvis?” returned the other.
“Still in the livery business, I suppose?”\par

“Yes. What brings you here, Perfessor?”\par

“Holidays. I’ve just come out of the woods.
And as you have some very interesting sea currents
just here, I thought I’d have a look at them.
Nobody really knows anything about coast currents,
you know. Now my opportunity is spoiled.”
He indicated the crowd by a movement of his
head.\par

“Spoilt? I guess not. You couldn’t have come
at a better time,” said the local man eagerly.\par

“Ah, but you see, I had planned to swim out
to the eddy, and make some personal observations.”\par

“You was going to swim into Dead Man’s
Eddy?” asked the other, aghast. “Why, Perfessor,
you must have turned foolish. They ain’t a
man on this coast would take a chance like that.”\par

“Superstition,” retorted the other curtly. “On
a still day such as this there would be no danger
to an experienced swimmer. The conditions are
ideal except for this crowd. What is it? Has the
village gone picnicking?”\par

“Not sca’cely! Ain’t you heard? Another one’s
come in through the eddy. Lies over yonder.”\par

Professor Kent’s eyebrows went up, as he
glanced toward the indicated spot; then gathered
in a frown.\par

“Not washed up there, surely?” he said.\par

“Thet’s what,” answered Jarvis.\par

“When?”\par

“Sometime early this morning.”\par

“Pshaw!” said the other, turning to look at the
curving bulwark of rocks over which the soft
slow swell was barely breaking. “If it were the
other end of the cove, now, I could understand it.”\par

“Yes,” agreed Jarvis, “they mostly come in at
the other end, on this tide.”\par

“Mostly? Always.” The professor’s tone was
positive. “Unless my charts are wrong. But this—well,
it spoils at least one phase of my theory.”\par

“Theery!” exclaimed the liveryman, his pale
eyes alight. “You got a theery? But I thought
you didn’t know anything about the body, till I
told you, just now.”\par

“Oh, my ruined theory has reference to the currents,”
sighed the other. “It has nothing to do
with dead men, as such.”\par

“Neither has this,” was the prompt response,
delivered with a jerk of the thumb toward the
dark object.\par

“No? What is it then, if not a dead man?”\par

“A dead woman.”\par

“Oh! All the same, it shouldn’t have come in
on this section of the beach at all.”\par

“Thet ain’t half the strangeness of it, the way
it washed in. Lonesome Cove has had some queer
folks drift home to it, but nothing as queer as this.
Come and see for yourself.”\par

Still frowning, Professor Kent suffered himself
to be led to the spot. Two or three of the
group, as it parted before him, greeted him. He
found himself looking down on a corpse clad in
a dark silk dress and stretched on a wooden grating,
to which it was lashed with a small rope.
Everything about the body indicated wealth. The
dress was expensively made. The shoes were of
the best type, and the stockings were silk. The
head was marred by a frightful bruise which had
crushed in the right side and extended around behind
the ear. Blood had clotted thickly in the
short close-curled hair. The left side was unmarked.
The eyes were closed and the mouth was
slightly open, showing a glint of gold amid very
white and regular teeth. An expression of deadly
terror distorted the face. Professor Kent bent
closely over it.\par

“That’s strange; very strange,” he murmured.
“It should be peaceful.”\par

“But look at the hand!” cried Jarvis.\par

Here, indeed, was the astounding feature of
the tragedy; the aspect that brought Kent to
his knees, the more closely to observe. The body
lay twisted slightly to the right, with the left arm
extended. The left wrist was enclosed in a light
rusted handcuff to which a chain was fastened.
At the end of the chain was the companion cuff,
shattered, evidently by a powerful blow, and half
buried in the sand. As Kent leaned over the
corpse, a fat, powerful, grizzled man with a metal
badge on his shirt-front pushed forward.\par

% ---File: 018.png

“Them’s cast-iron cuffs,” he announced. “That
kind ain’t been used these forty years.”\par

“What kind of a ship ’ud be carryin’ ’em nowadays?”
asked some one in the crowd.\par

“An’ what kind of a seaman’d be putting of
’em on a lady’s wrists?” growled a formidable
voice, which Kent, looking up, perceived to have
come from amid a growth of heavy white whiskers,
sprouting from a weather-furrowed face.\par

“Seafaring man, aren’t you?” inquired Kent.\par

“No more. Fifty year of it, man an’ boy, has
put me in harbor.”\par

“That’s Sailor Smith,” explained Jarvis, who
had assumed the duties of a self-appointed cicerone.
“Not much about the sea and its ways, good
or bad, that he don’t know.”\par

“True for you,” confirmed several voices.\par

“Then, Mr. Smith, will you take a look at those
lashings and tell me whether in your opinion they
are the work of a sailor?” asked Kent.\par

The old hands fumbled expertly. The old face
puckered. Judgment came forth presently.\par

“The knots is well enough. The lashin’s a passable
job. What gits me is the rope.”\par

% ---File: 019.png

“Well, what’s wrong with the rope?”\par

“Nothin’ in pertic’ler. Only, I don’t know what
just that style of rope would be doin’ on shipboard,
unless it was to hang the old man’s wash
on.”\par

“Suppose we lift this grating,” Kent suggested.\par

At this the man with the badge interposed.
“Say, who’s runnin’ this thing, anyhow? I’m
sheriff here, an’ this body ain’t to be moved till a
doctor has viewed it.”\par

“Of course,” said Kent mildly; “but I thought
you might be interested to see, Mr. Sheriff,
whether a ship’s name was stamped somewhere on
this grating.”\par

“Well, I don’t want any amachure learning me
my business,” declared the official importantly.\par

Nevertheless, he heaved the woodwork up on
edge and held it so, while eager eyes scanned the
under part. Murmurs of disappointment followed.
In these Kent did not join. He had inserted a
finger in a crevice of the splintered wood and had
extracted some small object which he held in the
palm of his hand, examining it thoughtfully.\par

“Wot ye got there?” demanded the sheriff.\par

% ---File: 020.png

Professor Kent stretched out his hand, disclosing
a small grayish object.\par

“I should take it to be the cocoon of {\itshape{Ephestia
kuchniella}},” he announced.\par

“An’ wot does he do for a livin’?” inquired the
official, waxing humorous.\par

“Destroys crops. It’s a species of grain-moth.”\par

“Oh!” grunted Schlager. “You’re a bug collector,
eh?”\par

“Exactly,” answered the other, transferring
his trove to his pocket.\par

Thereafter he seemed to lose interest in the
center of mystery. Withdrawing to some distance,
he paced up and down the shore, whistling
lively tunes, not always in perfect accord, from
which a deductive mind might have inferred that
his soul was not in the music.\par

% ---File: 021.png

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Nearer and nearer to high-water mark his pacing
took him. Presently, though all the time continuing
his whistling, he was scanning the tangled
débris that the highest tide of the year had heaped
up, almost against the cliff’s foot. His whistling
became slow, lugubrious, minor. It sagged. It
died away. When it rose again, it was in march
time, whereto the virtuoso stepped briskly toward
the crowd. By this time the group had received
several additions, but had suffered the loss of
one of its component parts, the sheriff. Conjecture
was buzzing from mouth to mouth as to the
official’s sudden defection.\par

“Whatever it was he got from the pocket,”
Kent heard one of the men say, “it started him
quick.”\par

“Looked to me like an envelope,” hazarded
some one.\par

“No,” contradicted Sailor Smith; “paper would
have been all pulped up by the water.”\par

“Marked handkerchief, maybe,” suggested another.\par

“Like as not,” said Jarvis. “You bet that Len
Schlager figured it out there was somethin’ in it
for him, anyways. I could see the money-gleam
in his eye.”\par

“That’s right, too,” confirmed the old sailor.
“He looked just like that when he brought in
that half-wit pedler, thinkin’ he was the thousan’-dollar-reward
thief last year.”\par

% ---File: 023.png

“Trust Len Schlager to look out for number
one first, an’ be sheriff afterward,” observed some
one else.\par

Amidst this interchange of opinion, none of
which was lost upon him, Professor Kent advanced
and bent over the manacled corpse.\par

“Have to ask you to stand back, Perfessor,”
said Jarvis. “Len’s appointed me special dep’ty
till he comes back, and he says nobody is to lay
finger on hide ner hair of the corpse; not even
the doc, if he comes.”\par

“Quite right,” assented the other. “Sheriff
Schlager exhibits commendable zeal and discretion.”\par

“Wonder if he knowed the corpse?” suggested
somebody in the crowd.\par

“Tell you who did, if he didn’t,” said another
man.\par

“Who, then?”\par

“Elder Iry Dennett. Didn’t none of you hear
about his meetin’ up with a strange woman yestiddy
evenin’?”\par

“Shucks! This couldn’t be that woman,” said
Jarvis. “How’d she come to be washed ashore
from a wreck between last night and this morning?”\par

“How’d she come to be washed ashore from a
wreck, anyway?” countered Sailor Smith. “The’
ain’t been no storm for a week, an’ this body ain’t
been dead twenty-four hour.”\par

“It plumb beats me,” admitted Jarvis.\par

“Who is this Dennett?” asked Professor Kent.\par

“Iry? He’s the town gab of Martindale Center.
Does a little plumbin’ an’ tinkerin’ on the
side. Just now he’s up to Cadystown. Took the
ten-o’clock train last night.”\par

“Then it was early when he met this woman?”\par

“Little after sundown. He was risin’ the hill
beyond the Nook—that’s Sedgwick’s place, the
painter feller—when she come out of the shrubbery—pop!
He quizzed her. Trust the Elder for
that. But he didn’t get much out of her, until he
mentioned the Nook. Then she allowed she
guessed she’d go there. An’ he watched her go.”\par

“You say a man named Sedgwick lives at the
Nook. Is that Francis Sedgwick, the artist?”
asked Kent.\par

% ---File: 025.png

“That’s him,” said Sailor Smith. “Paints right
purty pictures. Lives there all alone with a Chinese
cook.”\par

“Well, the lady went down the hill,” continued
Jarvis, “just as Sedgwick come out to smoke a
pipe on his stone wall. Iry thought he seemed su’prised
when she bespoke him. They passed a few
remarks, an’ then they had some words, an’ the
lady laughed loud an’ kinder scornful. He seemed
to be pointin’ at a necklace of queer, fiery pink
stones thet she wore, and tryin’ to get somethin’
out of her. She turned away, an’ he started to
follow, when all of a sudden she grabbed up a
rock an’ let him have it—blip! Keeled him clean
over. Then she ran away up the road toward
Hawkill Cliffs. That’s the way Iry Dennett tells
it. But I ain’t never heard of a story losin’ anythin’
in the tellin’ when it come through Iry’s
lips.”\par

“Well, this corpse ain’t got no pink necklace,”
suggested somebody.\par

“Bodies sometimes gets robbed,” said Sailor
Smith.\par

Chester Kent stooped over the writhen face,
again peering close. Then he straightened up and
began pulling thoughtfully at the lobe of his ear.\par

He pulled and pulled, until, as if by that process,
he had turned his face toward the cliff. His
lips pursed. He began whistling softly, and tunelessly.
His gaze was abstracted.\par

“Ain’t seen nothin’ to make you feel bad, have
you, Perfessor?” inquired Temporary-Deputy-Sheriff
Jarvis with some acerbity.\par

“Eh? What?” said Kent absently. “Seen anything?
Nothing but what’s there for any one to
see.”\par

Following his fixed gaze, the others studied the
face of the cliff; all but Sailor Smith. He blinked
near-sightedly at the corpse.\par

“Say,” said he presently, “what’s them queer
little marks on the neck, under the ear?”\par

Back came Kent’s eyes. “Those?” he said smiling.
“Why, those are, one might suppose, such
indentations as would be made in flesh by forcing
a jewel setting violently against it, by a blow or
strong impact.”\par

“Then you think it was the wom—” began the
old seaman when several voices broke in:\par

% ---File: 027.png

“There goes Len now!”\par

The sheriff’s heavy figure appeared on the brow
of the cliff, moving toward the village.\par

“Who is it with him?” inquired Kent.\par

“Gansett Jim,” answered Jarvis.\par

“An Indian?”\par

“Gosh! You got good eyes!” said Jarvis.
“He’s more Indian than anything else. Comes
from down Amagansett way, and gets his name
from it.”\par

“H-m! When did he arrive?”\par

“While you was trapesin’ around up yonder.”\par

“Did he see the body?”\par

“Yep. Just after the sheriff got whatever it
was from the pocket, Gansett Jim hove in sight.
Len went over to him quick, an’ said somethin’
to him. He come and give a look at the body. But
he didn’t say nothing. Only grunted.”\par

“Never does say nothin’, only grunt,” put in
Sailor Smith.\par

“That’s right,” agreed Jarvis. “Well, the
sheriff tells me to watch the body. Then he says,
‘An’ I’ll need somebody to help me. I’ll take you,
Jim.’ So he an’ the Indian goes away together.”\par

% ---File: 028.png

Professor Kent nodded. He looked seaward
where the reefs were now baring their teeth
more plainly through the racing currents, and he
sighed. That sigh meant, in effect, “I wanted to
play with my tides and eddies, and here is work
thrown at my very feet!” Then he bade the group
farewell, and set off up the beach.\par

“Seems kinder int’rested, don’t he?” remarked
one of the natives.\par

“Who is he, anyway?” inquired another.\par

“Oh, he’s a sort of a harmless scientific crank,”
explained Jarvis, with patronizing kindliness.
“Comes from Washington. Something to do with
the government work.”\par

“Kinder loony, {\itshape{I}} think,” conjectured a little,
thin, piping man. “Musses and moves around
like it.”\par

“Is that so!” said Sailor Smith, who still had
his eyes fixed on the scarified neck. “Well, I ain’t
any too dum sure thet he’s as big a fool as some
folks I know thet thinks likelier of theirselves.”\par

Others, however, supported the little man’s diagnosis,
and there was some feeling against Sailor
Smith who refused to make the vote unanimous.\par

% ---File: 029.png

“No, sir,” he persisted sturdily. “That dude
way of talkin’ of his has got somethin’ back of it,
{\itshape{I’ll}} bet. He seen there was somethin’ queer about
thet rope, an’ he ast me about the knots, right off.
{\itshape{He}} knows enough not to spit to wind’ard, an’
don’t you forgit it! Wouldn’t surprise me none
if he was p’intin’ pretty nigh as clus up into the
wind as Len Schlager.”\par

Possibly the one supporter of the absent would
have wavered in his loyalty had he seen the trove
that Professor Chester Kent had carried unostentatiously
from the beach, in his pocket, after picking
it from the grating. It was the fuzzy cocoon
of a small and quite unimportant insect. Perhaps
the admiring Mr. Smith might even have come
around to the majority opinion regarding Professor
Kent’s intellectual futility, could he have
observed the absorbed interest with which the
Washington scientist, seated on a boulder, opened
up the cocoon, pricked it until the impotent inmate
wriggled in protest, and then, casting it aside
to perish, threw himself on his back and whistled
the whole of Chopin’s {\itshape{Funeral March}}, mostly off
the key.\par

% ---File: 030.png

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{\noindent\interlinepenalty \@M\normalfont\Huge\bfseries%
CHAPTER II—PROFESSOR KENT MAKES A CALL}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Between the roadway and the broad front
lawn of the Nook a four-foot, rough stone
wall interposes. Looking up from his painting,
Francis Sedgwick beheld, in the glare of the afternoon
sun, a spare figure rise alertly upon the
wall, descend to the road, and rise again. He
stepped to the open window and watched a curious
progress. A scrubby-bearded man, clad in
serviceable khaki, was performing a stunt, with
the wall as a basis. He was walking from east to
west quite fast, and every third pace stepping
upon the wall; stepping, Sedgwick duly noted,
not jumping, the change of level being made without
visible effort.\par

Now, Sedgwick himself was distinctly long of
leg and limber, but he realized that he would be
wholly incapable of duplicating the stranger’s
gracefully accomplished feat without violent and
clumsy exertion. Consequently, he was interested.
Leaning out of the window, he called:\par

“Hello, there!”\par

“Good afternoon,” said the stranger, in a quiet
cultivated voice.\par

“Would you mind telling me what you are doing
on my wall.”\par

“Not in the least,” replied the bearded man,
rising buoyantly into full view, and subsiding
again with the rhythm of a wave.\par

“Well, what {\itshape{are}} you doing?”\par

“Taking a little exercise.”\par

By this time, having reached the end of the
wall, he turned and came back, making the step
with his right leg instead of his left. Sedgwick
hurried down-stairs and out into the roadway.
The stranger continued his performance silently.
At closer inspection it appealed to the artist as
even more mysterious both in purport and execution
than it had looked at a distance.\par

“Do you do that often?” he asked presently.\par

The gymnast paused, poised like a Mercury on
the high coping. “Yes,” said he. “Otherwise I
shouldn’t be able to do it at all.”\par

% ---File: 032.png

“I should think not, indeed! Has it any particular
utility, that form of exercise?”\par

“Certainly. It is in pursuance of a theory of
self-defense.”\par

“What in the world has wall-hopping to do
with self-defense?”\par

“I shall expound,” said the stranger in professional
tones, taking a seat by the unusual method
of letting himself down on one leg while holding
the other at right angles to his body. “Do you
know anything of jiu-jutsu?”\par

“Very little.”\par

“In common with most Americans. For that
reason alone the Japanese system is highly effective
here, not so effective in Japan. You perceive
there the basis of my theory.”\par

“No, I don’t perceive it at all.”\par

“A system of defense is effective in proportion
to its unfamiliarity. That is all.”\par

“Then your system consists in stepping up on a
wall and diving into obscurity on the farther side,
perhaps,” suggested Sedgwick ironically.\par

“Defense, I said; not escape. Escape is perhaps
preferable to defense, but not always so practicable.
No; the wall merely served as a temporary
gymnasium while I was waiting.”\par

“Waiting for what?”\par

“For you.”\par

“You have distinctly the advantage of me,”
said Sedgwick, with a frown; for he was in no
mood to welcome strange visitors.\par

“To return to my theory of self-defense,” said
the other imperturbably. “My wall exercise serves
to keep limber and active certain muscles that in
the average man are half atrophied. You are familiar
with the ostrich?”\par

“With his proverbial methods of obfuscation,”
replied Sedgwick.\par

The other smiled. “That, again, is escape or
attempted escape. My reference was to other
characteristics. However, I shall demonstrate.”
He rose on one foot with an ease that made the
artist stare, descended, selected from the roadway
a stone of ordinary cobble size, and handed it to
Sedgwick.\par

“Let that lie on the palm of your hand,” said
he, “and hold it out, waist high.”\par

As he spoke he was standing two feet from the
other, to his right. Sedgwick did as he was requested.
As his hand took position, there was a
twist of the bearded man’s lithe body, a sharp
click, and the stone, flying in a rising curve,
swished through the leafage of a lilac fifty feet
away.\par

“How did you do that?” cried the artist.\par

The other showed a slight indentation on the
inside of his right boot heel, and then swung his
right foot slowly and steadily up behind his left
knee, and let it lapse into position again. “At
shoulder height,” he explained, “I could have done
the same; but it would have broken your hand.”\par

“I see,” said the other, adding with distaste,
“but to kick an opponent! Why, even as a boy
I was taught—”\par

“We were not speaking of child’s play,” said
the visitor coolly; “nor am I concerned with the
rules of the prize-ring, as applied to my theory.
When one is in danger, one uses knife or gun, if
at hand. I prefer a less deadly and more effective
weapon. Kicking sidewise, either to the front or
to the rear, I can disarm a man, break his leg,
or lay him senseless. It is the special development
of such muscles as the sartorius and plantaris,”
he ran his long fingers down from the outside of
his thigh round to the inside of his ankle, “that
enables a human being, with practise, to kick
like an ostrich. Since you found me exercising
on your property, I owe you this explanation. I
hope you won’t prosecute for trespass, Mr. Long-Lean-Leggy
Sedgwick.”\par

“Leggy!” The artist had whirled at the name.
“Nobody’s called me that for ten years.”\par

“Just ten years ago that you graduated, wasn’t
it?”\par

“Yes. Then I knew you in college. You must
have been before my class.”\par

The bearded one nodded. “Senior to your
freshman,” said he.\par

The younger man scrutinized him. “Chester
Kent!” said he softly. “What on earth are you
doing behind that bush?”\par

Kent caressed the maligned whiskers. “Utility,”
he explained. “Patent, impenetrable mosquito
screen. I’ve been off in the wilds, and am—or
was—going back presently.”\par

“Not until you’ve stopped long enough to get
reacquainted,” declared Sedgwick. “Just at present
you’re going to stay to dinner.”\par

“Very good. Just now you happen to be in my
immediate line of interest. It is a fortunate circumstance
for me, to find you here; possibly for
you, too.”\par

“Most assuredly,” returned the other with
heartiness. “Come in on the porch and have a
hammock and pipe.”\par

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{\centering
――――
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{\noindent}
Old interests sprang to life and speech between
them. And from the old interests blossomed the
old easy familiarity that is never wholly lost to
those who have been close friends in college days.
Presently Francis Sedgwick was telling his friend
the story of his feverish and thwarted ten years
in the world. Within a year of his graduation his
only surviving relative had died, willing to him
a considerable fortune, the income of which he
used in furtherance of a hitherto suppressed ambition
to study art. Paris, his Mecca, was first a
task-mistress, then a temptress, finally a vampire.
Before succumbing he had gone far, in a few
years, toward the development of a curious technique
of his own. Followed then two years of
dissipation, a year of travel to recuperate, and
the return to Paris, which was to be once more
the task-mistress. But, to his terror and self-loathing,
he found the power of application gone.
The muscles of his mind had become flabby. He
quoted to Kent, with bitterness, the terrible final
lines of Rossetti’s {\itshape{Known in Vain}}:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze\par}
{\vl After their life sailed by, and hold their breath,\par}
{\vl Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze\par}
{\vl Thenceforth their incommunicable ways\par}
{\vl Follow the desultory feet of Death?”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“‘When Work and Will awake too late,’” repeated
Kent. “But is it too late in your case?
Surely not, since you’re here, and at your task.”\par

“But think of the waste, man! Yet, here I am,
as you say, and still able to fight. All by virtue of
a woman’s laugh; the laugh of a woman without
virtue. It was at the Moulin de la Galette—perhaps
you know the dance hall on the slope of
Montmartre—and she was one of the dancers,
the wreck of what had once been beauty and, one
must suppose, innocence. Probably she thought me
too much absinthe-soaked to hear or understand,
as I sat half asleep at my table. At all events she
answered, full-voiced, her companion’s question,
‘Who is the drunken foreigner?’ by saying, ‘He
{\itshape{was}} an artist. The studios talked of him five
years ago. Look at him now! That is what life
does to us, {\itshape{mon ami}}. I’m the woman of it: that’s
the man of it.’ I staggered up, made her a bow
and a promise, and left her laughing. Last month
I redeemed the promise; sent her the first thousand
dollars I made by my own work, and declared
my debt discharged.”\par

A heavy cloud of smoke issued from Kent’s
mouth, followed by this observation: “That formula
about the inability to lift one’s self by one’s
own boot-straps fails to apply in the spiritual
world.”\par

“Right! You can pull yourself out of the ditch
that way; but afterward comes the long hillside.
Life has seemed all tilted on edge, at times, and
pretty slippery, with little enough to cling to.”\par

“Work,” suggested Kent briefly.\par

% ---File: 039.png

“Wisdom lurks behind your screen. Work is
the answer.”\par

“Good or bad, it’s the only thing. Which kind
is yours?”\par

“Presently you shall sit in judgment. Meantime,
suppose you account for yourself.”\par

Chester Kent stretched himself luxuriously. “A
distinguished secretary of state has remarked
that all the news worth telling on any subject can
be transmitted by wire for twenty-five cents. The
short and simple annals of the poor in my case
can be recorded within that limit. ‘Postgraduate
science. Agricultural Department job. Lectures.
Invention. Judiciary Department expert. Signed,
Chester Kent.’ Ten words—count them—ten.”\par

“Interesting, but unsatisfying,” retorted his
friend. “Can’t you expand a bit? I suppose you
haven’t any dark secret in your life?”\par

“No secret, dark or light,” sighed the other.
“The newspapers won’t let me have.”\par

“Eh? Won’t let you? Am I to infer that
you’ve become a famous person? Pardon the ignorance
of expatriation. Have you discovered a
new disease, or formulated a new theory of life,
or become a golf champion, or a senator, or a
freak aviator, or invented perpetual motion? Do
you possess titles, honors, and ribboned decorations?
Ought I to bat my brow against the floor
in addressing you? What are you, anyway?”\par

“What I told you, an expert in the service of
the Department of Justice.”\par

“On the scientific side?”\par

“Why—yes, generally speaking. I like to flatter
myself that my pursuit is scientific.”\par

“Pursuit? What do you pursue?”\par

“Men and motives.”\par

Sedgwick’s intelligent eyes widened. “Wait,”
he said, “something occurs to me, an article in a
French journal about a wonderful new American
expert in criminology, who knows all there is to
know, and takes only the most abstruse cases. I
recall now that the article called him ‘le Professeur
Chêtre Kennat.’ That would be about as near
as they would come to your name.”\par

“It’s a good deal nearer than that infernal
French journalist whom Wiley brought to my
table at the Idlers’ Club got to the facts,” stated
Kent.\par

% ---File: 041.png

“Then you are {\itshape{the}} Professor Kent! But look
here! The Frenchman made you out a most superior
species of highfalutin detective, working
along lines peculiarly your own—”\par

“Rot!” interjected Kent. “The only lines a detective
can work along successfully are the lines
laid down for him by the man he is after.”\par

“Sounds more reasonable than romantic,” admitted
the artist. “Come now, Kent, open up and
tell me something about yourself.”\par

“Only last month a magazine put that request
in writing, and accompanied it with an offer of
twenty-five hundred dollars—which I didn’t accept.
However, as I may wish to ask you a number
of leading questions later, I’ll answer yours
now. You remember I got into trouble my senior
year with the college authorities, by proving the
typhoid epidemic direct against a forgotten defect
in the sewer system. It nearly cost me my diploma;
but it helped me too, later, for a scientist in
the Department of Agriculture at Washington
learned of it, and sent for me after graduation.
He talked to me about the work that a man with
the true investigation instinct—which he thought
I had—could do, by employing his abilities along
strictly scientific lines; and he mapped out for me
a three-year’s postgraduate course, which I had
just about enough money to take. While I specialized
on botany, entomology, and bacteriology, I
picked up a working knowledge of other
branches; chemistry, toxicology, geology, mineralogy,
physiology, and most of the natural sciences,
having been blessed with an eager and catholic
curiosity about the world we live in.\par

“Once in the Department, I found myself with a
sort of roving commission. I worked under such
men as Wiley, Howard, and Merriam, and learned
from them something of the infinite and scrupulous
patience that truly original scientific achievement
demands. At first my duties were largely
those of minor research. Then, by accident
largely, I chanced upon the plot to bull the cotton
market by introducing the boll weevil into the
uninfested cotton area, and checked that. Soon
afterward I was put on the ‘deodorized meat’ enterprise,
and succeeded in discovering the scheme
whereby it was hoped to sell spoiled meat for
good. You might have heard of those cases; but
you would hardly have learned of the success in
which I really take a pride, the cultivation of a
running wild grape to destroy {\itshape{Rhus Toxicodendron}},
the common poison ivy. What spare
time I had I devoted to experimenting along mechanical
lines, and patented an invention that has
been profitable. Some time ago the Department
of Justice borrowed me on a few cases with a
scientific bearing, and more recently offered me
incidental work with them on such favorable
terms that I resigned my other position. The
terms include liberal vacations, one of which I am
now taking. And here I am! Is that sufficient?”\par

“Hardly. All this suggests the arts of peace.
What about your forty-horse-power kick? You
don’t practise that for drawing-room exhibitions,
I take it?”\par

“Sometimes,” confessed the scientist, “I have
found myself at close quarters with persons of
dubious character. The fact is, that an ingenious
plot to get rid of a very old friend, Doctor Lucius
Carter the botanist, drew me into the criminal
line, and since then, that phase of investigation has
seemed fairly to obtrude itself on me, officially
and unofficially. Even up here, where I hoped to
enjoy a month’s rest—Do you know,” he said,
breaking off, “that you have a most interesting
inset of ocean currents hereabouts?”\par

“Of course. Lonesome Cove. But kindly finish
that ‘even up here’. I recollect your saying that
you were waiting for me. Haven’t traced any
scientific crime to my door, have you?”\par

“Let me forget my work for a little while,”
pleaded his visitor, “and look at yours.”\par

Sedgwick rose. “Come up-stairs,” he said, and
led the way to the big, bare, bright studio.\par

From the threshold Chester Kent delivered an
opinion, after one approving survey. “You really
work, I see.”\par

“I really do. Where do you see it, though?”\par

“All over the place. No draperies or fripperies
or fopperies of art here. The barer the room, the
more work done in it.”\par

He walked over to a curious contrivance resembling
a small hand-press, examined it, surveyed
the empty easel, against which were leaning, face
in, a number of pictures, all of a size, and turned
half a dozen of them over, ranging them and
stepping back for examination. Standing before
them, he whistled a long passage from {\itshape{La
Bohème}}, and had started to rewhistle it in another
key, when the artist broke in with some impatience.\par

“Well?”\par

“Good work,” pronounced Kent quietly, and in
some subtle way the commonplace words conveyed
to their hearer the fact that the man who
spoke them knew.\par

“It’s the best there is in me, at least,” said Sedgwick.\par

Kent went slowly around the walls, keenly examining,
silently appraising. There were landscapes,
genre bits, studies of the ocean in its various
moods, flashes of pagan imaginings, nature
studies; a wonderful picture of wild geese settling
from a flight; a no less striking sketch of a mink,
startled as he crept to drink among the sedges; a
group of country children at hop-scotch on the
sands; all the varied subjects handled with a deftness
of truth and drawing, and colored with a
clear softness quite individual.\par

“Have you found or founded a new system of
coloring?” asked Kent as he moved among the little
masterpieces. “No; don’t tell me.” He
touched one of the surfaces delicately. “It’s not
paint, and it’s not pastel. Oh, I see! They’re all
of one size—of course.” He glanced at the heavy
mechanism near the easel. “They’re color prints.”\par

Sedgwick nodded. “Monotypes,” said he. “I
paint on copper, make one impress, and then—phut!—a
sponge across the copper makes each one
an original.”\par

“You certainly obtain your effects.”\par

“The printing seems to refine the color. For instance,
moonlight on white water, a thing I’ve
never been able to approach, either in straight oils
or water. See here.”\par

From behind a cloth he drew a square, and set
it on the easel. Kent whistled again, casual fragments
of light and heavy opera intermingled with
considerative twitches of his ear.\par

“It’s the first one I’ve given a name to,” said
Sedgwick. “I call it {\itshape{The Rough Rider}}.”\par

A full moon, brilliant amid blown cloud-rack,
lighted up the vast procession of billows charging
in upon a near coast. In the foreground a corpse,
the face bent far up and back from the spar to
which it was lashed, rode with wild abandon headlong
at the onlooker, on the crest of a roaring
surge. The rest was infinite clarity of distance
and desolation.\par

“{\itshape{The Rough Rider!}}” murmured Kent; then,
with a change of tone, “For sale?”\par

“I don’t know,” hesitated the artist. “Fact is,
I like that about well enough to keep.”\par

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars for it.”\par

“Five hundred! Man alive! A hundred is the
most I’ve ever got for any of my prints!”\par

“The offer stands.”\par

“But, see here, Kent, can you afford it? Government
salaries don’t make men rich, do they?”\par

“Oh, I’m rich enough,” said the other impatiently.
“I told you I’d made inventions. And I
can certainly afford to buy it better than you can
afford to keep it here.”\par

“What’s that?” asked the painter, surprised.\par

Kent repeated his final sentence, with slow emphasis.
“Do you understand what I mean?” he
asked, looking flatly into Sedgwick’s eyes.\par

“No, not in the least. Another suggestion of
mystery. Do you always deal in this sort of
thing?”\par

“Very seldom. However, if you don’t understand
so much the better. When did you finish
this picture?”\par

“Yesterday.”\par

“H-m! Has any one else seen it?”\par

“That old fraud of a plumber, Elder Dennett,
saw me working on it yesterday, when he was doing
some repairing here, and remarked that it
gave him the creeps.”\par

“Dennett? Well, then that’s all up,” said Kent,
as if speaking to himself. “There’s a streak of
superstition in all these New Englanders. He’d
be sure to interpret it as a confession before the
fact. However, Elder Dennett left this morning
for a trip to Cadystown. That’s so much to the
good.”\par

“He may have left for a trip to Hadestown for
all I care,” stated Sedgwick with conviction.
“What’s it all about, anyway?”\par

“I’ll tell you, as soon as I’ve mulled it over a
little. Just let me cool my mind down with some
more of your pictures.” He turned to the wall
border again, and faced another picture out.
“What’s this? You seem to be something of a
dab in black and white, too.”\par

“Oh, that’s an imaginary face,” said Sedgwick
carelessly.\par

“Imaginary face studied from various angles,”
commented Kent. “It’s a very lovely face, and
the most wistful I’ve ever seen. A fairy, prisoned
on earth by cockcrow, might wear some such expression
of startled wondering purity, I fancy.”\par

“Poetry as well as mystery! Kent, you grow
and expand on acquaintance.”\par

“There is poetry in your study of that imaginary
fay. Imaginary! Um-hum!” continued Kent
dryly, as he stooped to the floor. “I suppose this
is an imaginary hairpin, too.”\par

“My Chinaman—” began Sedgwick quickly,
when the other caught him up.\par

“Don’t be uneasy. I’m not going to commit
the {\itshape{bêtise}} of asking who she is.”\par

“If you did, I give you my word of honor I
couldn’t tell you. I only wish I knew!”\par

% ---File: 050.png

There was silence between them for a moment;
then the painter broke out with the air of one who
takes a resolution:\par

“See here, Kent! You’re a sort of detective,
aren’t you?”\par

“I’ve been called so.”\par

“And you like my picture of {\itshape{The Rough
Rider}}?”\par

“Five hundred dollars’ worth.”\par

“You can have that and any other picture in
my studio, except this one,” he indicated the canvas
with the faces, “if you’ll find out for me who
she is.”\par

“That might be done. We shall see. But
frankly, Sedgwick, there’s a matter of more importance—”\par

“Importance? Good heavens, man! There’s
nothing so important in this world!”\par

“Oh, is it as bad as that?”\par

A heavy knock sounded from below, followed
by the Chinaman’s voice, intermingled with boyish
accents demanding Sedgwick in the name of
the Western Union Telegraph Company.\par

“Send him up,” ordered Sedgwick, and the boy
arrived; but not before Kent had quietly removed
{\itshape{The Rough Rider}} from its place of exhibit.\par

“Special from the village,” announced young
Mercury. “Sign here.”\par

After the signature had been duly set down,
and the signer had read his message with knit
brows, the urchin lingered, big with news.\par

“Say, heard about the body on the beach?”\par

Kent turned quickly, to see Sedgwick’s face.
It was interested, but unmoved as he replied:\par

“No. Where was it found?”\par

“Lonesome Cove. Woman. Dressed swell.
Washed up on a grating last night or this morning.”\par

“It’s curious how they all come in here, isn’t
it?” said the artist to Kent. “This is the third this
summer.”\par

“And it’s a corkerino!” said the boy. “Sheriff’s
on the case. Body was all chained up, they
say.”\par

“I’m sure they need you at the office to help
circulate the news, my son,” said Kent. “And I’ll
bet you this quarter, payable in advance, that you
can’t get back in half an hour on your wheel.”\par

% ---File: 052.png

With a grin the boy took the coin. “I got yer,”
he said, and was off.\par

“And now, Sedgwick,” said Kent decisively,
“if I’m to help you, suppose you tell me all that
you know about the woman who called on you last
evening?”\par

“Last evening? Ah, that wasn’t the girl of the
picture. It’s an interminable six days since I’ve
seen her.”\par

“No; I know it wasn’t she, having seen your
picture, and since then your visitor of last night.
The question is, who was it?”\par

“Wait! How did you know that a woman
came here last night?”\par

“From common gossip.”\par

“And where have you seen her since?”\par

“On the beach, at Lonesome Cove.”\par

“Lonesome Cove,” repeated Sedgwick mechanically.
Then with a startled glance: “Not the
dead woman!”\par

Kent nodded, watching him closely. For a
space of four heart-beats—one very slow, and
three very quick—there was silence between them.
Kent broke it.\par

% ---File: 053.png

“Do you see now the wisdom of frankness?”\par

“You mean that I shall be accused of having a
hand in her death?”\par

“Strongly suspected, at least.”\par

“On what basis?”\par

“You are the last person known to have seen
her alive.”\par

“Surely that isn’t enough?”\par

“Not of itself. There’s a bruise back of your
right ear.”\par

Involuntarily Sedgwick’s hand went to the
spot.\par

“Who gave it to you?” pursued Kent.\par

“You know it all without my telling you,” cried
Sedgwick. “But I never saw the woman before
in my life, Kent—I give you my word of honor!
She came and went, but who she is or why she
came or where she went I have no more idea than
you have. Perhaps not nearly so much.”\par

“There you are wrong. I’m depending on you
to tell me about her.”\par

“Not if my life hung on it. And how could
her being found drowned on the beach be connected
with me?”\par

% ---File: 054.png

“I didn’t say that she was found drowned on
the beach.”\par

“You did! No; pardon me. It was the messenger
boy. But you said that her body was found
in Lonesome Cove.”\par

“That is quite a different matter.”\par

“She wasn’t drowned?”\par

“I should be very much surprised if the autopsy
showed any water in the lungs.”\par

“But the boy said that the body was lashed to a
grating, and that there were chains on it. Is that
true?”\par

“It was lashed to a grating, and manacled.”\par

“Manacled? What a ghastly mystery!” Sedgwick
dropped his chin in meditation. “If she
wasn’t drowned, then she was murdered and
thrown overboard from a boat. Is that it?”\par

Chester Kent smiled inscrutably. “Suppose
you let me do the questioning a while. You can
give no clue whatsoever to the identity of your
yesterday’s visitor?”\par

There was the slightest possible hesitation before
the artist replied, “None at all.”\par

“If I find it difficult to believe that, what will
the villagers think of it when Elder Dennett returns
from Cadystown and tells his story, as he
is sure to do?”\par

“Does Dennett know the woman?”\par

“No; but it isn’t his fault that he doesn’t. He
did his best in the interviewing line when he met
her on her way to your place.”\par

“She wasn’t on her way to my place,” objected
Sedgwick.\par

“Dennett got the notion that she was. Accordingly,
with the true home-bred delicacy of our
fine old New England stock, he hid behind a bush
and watched.”\par

“Did he overhear our conversation?”\par

“He was too far away. He saw the attack on
you. Now, just fit together these significant bits
of fact. The body of a woman, dead by violence,
is found on the beach not far from here. The
last person, as far as is known, to have seen her
alive is yourself. She called on you, and there
was a colloquy, apparently vehement, between
you, culminating in the assault upon you. She
hurried away. One might well guess that later
you followed her to her death.”\par

% ---File: 056.png

“I did follow her,” said Sedgwick in a low
tone.\par

“For what purpose?”\par

“To find out who she was.”\par

“Which you didn’t succeed in doing?”\par

“She was too quick for me. The blow of the
rock had made me giddy, and she got away
among the thickets.”\par

“That’s a pity. One more point of suspicion.
Dennett, you say, saw your picture, {\itshape{The Rough
Rider}}. He will tell every one about it, you may
be sure.”\par

“What of it?”\par

“The strange coincidence of the subject, and
the apparent manner of the unknown’s death.”\par

“People will hardly suspect that I killed her
and set her adrift for a model, I suppose,” said the
artist bitterly; “particularly as Dennett can tell
them that the picture was finished before her
death.”\par

“Not that; but there will be plenty of witch-hangers
among the Yankee populace, ready to believe
that a fiend inspired both picture and murder
in your mind. Why, the very fact of your
being an artist would be {\itshape{prima facie}} evidence of a
compact with the devil, to some people. And you
must admit a certain diabolical ghastliness in that
painting.”\par

“Evidently some devil of ill fate is mixing up
in my affairs. What’s your advice in the matter?”\par

“Tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth,” suggested Chester Kent.\par

“Easily done. The question is whether you’ll
believe it.”\par

“If I hadn’t felt pretty sure of your innocence,
I shouldn’t have opened the case to you as I’ve
done. I’ll believe the truth if you tell it, and tell
it all.”\par

“Very well. I was sitting on my wall when the
woman came down the road. I noticed her first
when she stopped to look back, and her absurd
elegance of dress, expensive and ill fitting, attracted
my closer attention. She was carrying a bundle,
wrapped in strong paper. It seemed to be
heavy, for she shifted it from hand to hand.
When she came near, I spoke to her—”\par

“You spoke to her first?”\par

“Well, we spoke simultaneously.”\par

% ---File: 058.png

“Why should you speak to her, if she was a
stranger to you?”\par

“See here, Kent! You’ll have to let me tell
this in my own way, if I’m to tell it at all.”\par

“So long as you do tell it. What did she say to
you?”\par

“She asked me the time.”\par

“Casually?”\par

“Not as if she were making it a pretext to open
a conversation, if that is what you mean.”\par

“It is.”\par

“Certainly it wasn’t that. She seemed anxious
to know. In fact, I think she used the word ‘exact’;
‘the exact time,’ she said.”\par

“Presumably she was on her way to an appointment,
then.”\par

“Very likely. When I told her, she seemed relieved;
I might even say relaxed. As if from the
strain of nervous haste, you know.”\par

“Good. And then?”\par

“She thanked me, and asked if I were Mr.
Sedgwick. I answered that I was, and suggested
that she make good by completing the introduction.”\par

% ---File: 059.png

“She wasn’t a woman of your own class,
then?”\par

Sedgwick looked puzzled. “Well, no. I
thought not, then, or I shouldn’t have been so free
and easy with her. For one thing, she was painted
badly, and the perspiration, running down her
forehead, had made her a sight. Yet, I don’t
know: her voice was that of a cultivated person.
Her manner was awkward and her dress weird
for that time of day, and, for all that, she carried
herself like a person accustomed to some degree
of consideration. That I felt quite plainly. I
felt, too, something uncanny about her. Her eyes
alone would have produced that impression.
They were peculiarly restless and brilliant.”\par

“Insane?” questioned Kent.\par

“Not wholly sane, certainly; but it might have
been drugs. That suggested itself to me.”\par

“A possibility. Proceed.”\par

“She asked what point of the headland gave the
best view. ‘Anywhere from the first rise on is
good,’ I said. ‘It depends on what you wish to
see.’—‘My ship coming in.’ said she.—‘It will be
a far view, then,’ I told her. ‘This is a coast of
guardian reefs.’—‘What difference?’ she said, and
then gave me another surprise; for she quoted:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“‘And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond—\par}
{\vl Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.’”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“That’s interesting,” remarked Kent. “Casual
female wayfarers aren’t given to quoting {\itshape{The
House of Life}}.”\par

“Nor casual ships to visiting this part of the
coast. However, there was no ship. I looked for
myself, when I was trying to find the woman
later. What are you smiling at?”\par

“Nothing. I’m sorry I interrupted.”\par

“She walked away from me a few paces, but
turned and came back at once.\par

“‘I follow my star,’ she said, pointing to a
planet that shone low over the sea. ‘Therein lies
the only true happiness; to dare and to follow.’\par

“‘It’s a practise which has got many people
into trouble and some into jail,’ I remarked.\par

“‘Do not be flippant,’ she replied in her deep
tones. ‘Perhaps under that star you move on dim
paths to an unknown glory.’\par

“‘See here,’ I broke out, ‘you’re making me
uncomfortable. If you’ve got something to tell,
please tell it, kindly omitting the melodrama.’\par

“‘Remember this meeting,’ she said in a tone
of solemn command; ‘for it may mark an epoch
in your life. Some day in the future I may send
for you and recall to-day to your mind by what
I have just said. In that day you will know the
hidden things that are clear only to the chosen
minds. Perhaps you will be the last person but
one to see me as I now am.’”\par

Kent pulled nervously at the lobe of his ear.
“Is it possible that she foresaw her death?” he
murmured.\par

“It would look so, in the light of what has happened,
wouldn’t it? Yet there was an uncanny air
of joyousness about her, too.”\par

“I don’t like it,” announced Kent. “I {\itshape{do}} not
like it!”\par

By which he meant that he did not understand
it. What Chester Kent does not understand,
Chester Kent resents.\par

% ---File: 062.png

“Love-affair, perhaps,” suggested the artist.
“A woman in love will take any risk of death.
However,” he added, rubbing his bruised head
reminiscently, “she had a very practical bent, for
a romantic person. After her mysterious prophecy
she started on. I called to her to come back or I
would follow and make her explain herself.”\par

“As to what?”\par

“Everything: her being there, her actions, her—her
apparel, the jewelry, you know, and all that.”\par

“You’ve said nothing about jewelry.”\par

“Haven’t I? Well, when she turned—”\par

“Just a moment. Was it the jewelry that you
were going to speak of when you first accosted
her?”\par

“Yes, it was. Some of it was very valuable, I
judge. Wasn’t it found on the body?”\par

“No.”\par

“Not? Robbery, then, probably. Well, she
came back at a stride. Her eyes were alive with
anger. There came a torrent of words from her;
strong words, too. Nothing of the well-bred woman
left there. I insisted on knowing who she was,
and she burst out on me with laughter that was,
somehow, more insulting than her speech. But
when I told her that I’d find out about her if I
had to follow her into the sea, she stopped laughing
fast enough. Before I could guard myself
she had caught up a rock from the road and let
me have it. I went over like a tenpin. When I
got up, she was well along toward the cliffs, and
I never did find her trail in that maze of copses
and thickets.”\par

“Show me your relative positions when she attacked
you.”\par

The artist placed Kent, and moved off five
paces. “About like that,” he said.\par

“Did she throw overhand or underhand?”\par

“It was so quick I hardly know. But I should
say a short overhand snap. It came hard enough!”\par

“I do not like it at all,” said Kent again.\par

He wandered disconsolately and with half-closed
eyes about the room, until he blundered
into collision with a cot-lounge in the corner,
spread with cushions. These he heaped up, threw
his coat over them, stretched himself out with his
feet propped high on the mound just erected, and
closed his eyes.\par

% ---File: 064.png

“Sleepy?” inquired Sedgwick.\par

“Busy,” retorted his guest.\par

“Like some more pillows?”\par

“No; I’d like ten minutes of silence.” The
speaker opened one eye. “At the end of that time
perhaps you’ll think better of it.”\par

“Of what?”\par

“Of concealing an essentially important part of
your experience, which has to do, I think, with
the jewelry.”\par

At the end of the ten minutes, when Kent
opened both eyes, his friend forestalled him with
another query.\par

“You say that no jewels were found on the
body. Was there any other mark of identification?”\par

“If there was, the sheriff got away with it before
I saw it.”\par

“How can you be sure, then, that the dead
woman was my visitor?”\par

“Dennett mentioned a necklace. On the crushed
flesh of the dead woman’s neck there is the plain
impress of a jewel setting. Now, come, Sedgwick!
If I’m to help you in this, you must help
me. Had you ever seen that necklace before?”\par

“Yes,” was the reply, given with obvious reluctance.\par

“Where?”\par

“On the neck of the girl of my picture.”\par

Kent’s fingers went to his ear, pulling at the
lobe until that unoffending pendant stretched like
rubber. “You’re sure?” he asked.\par

“There couldn’t be any mistake. The stones
were matched rose-topazes; you mightn’t find another
like it in the whole country.”\par

Kent whistled, soft and long. “I’m afraid, my
boy,” he said at length, “I’m very much afraid
that you’ll have to tell me the whole story of the
romance of the pictured face; and this time without
reservation.”\par

“That’s what I’ve been guarding against,” retorted
the other. “It isn’t a thing that I can tell,
man to man. Don’t you understand? Or,” he
added savagely, “do you misunderstand?”\par

“No, I don’t misunderstand,” answered Kent
very gently. “I know there are things that can’t
be spoken, not because they are shameful, but because
they are sacred. Yet I’ve got to know about
her. Here! I have it. When I’m gone, sit down
and write it out for me, simply and fully, and send
it to my hotel as soon as it is done. You can do
that, can’t you?”\par

“Yes, I can do that,” decided Sedgwick, after
some consideration.\par

“Good! Then give me some dinner. And let’s
forget this grisly thing for a time, and talk of the
old days. Whatever became of Harkness, of our
class, do you know?”\par

Between them that evening was no further
mention of the strange body in Lonesome Cove.\par

% ---File: 067.png

\penalty-300%
\label{chapter-iiimy-lady-of-mystery}%
\hypertarget{chapter-iiimy-lady-of-mystery}{}%
\vspace*{50pt}\thispagestyle{empty}
{\noindent\interlinepenalty \@M\normalfont\Huge\bfseries%
CHAPTER III—MY LADY OF MYSTERY}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\itshape{Being a single autobiographical chapter from
the life of Francis Sedgwick, with editorial comment
by Professor Chester Kent.}}\par}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Dear Kent: Here goes! I met her first
on June 22, at three o’clock in the afternoon.
Some wonderful cloud effects after a hard
rain had brought me out into the open. I had
pitched my easel in the hollow, on the Martindale
Road, so as to get that clump of pine against the
sky. There I sat working away with a will, when
I heard the drumming of hoofs, and a horse with
a girl in the saddle came whizzing round the turn
almost upon me. Just there the rain had made a
puddle of thick sticky mud, the mud-pie variety.
As the horse went by at full gallop, a fine, fat,
mud pie rose, soared through the air, and landed
in the middle of my painting. I fairly yelped.\par

To get it all off was hopeless. However, I went
at it, and was cursing over the job when I heard
the hoofs coming back, and the rider pulled up
close to me.\par

“I heard you cry out,” said a voice, very full
and low. “Did I hurt you? I hope not.”\par

“No,” I said without looking up. “Small
thanks to you that you didn’t!”\par

My tone silenced her for a moment. Somehow,
though, I got the feeling that she was amused
more than abashed at my resentment. And her
voice was suspiciously meek when she presently
spoke again.\par

“You’re an artist, aren’t you?”\par

“No,” I said, busily scraping away at my copperplate.
“I’m an archeologist, engaged in exhuming
an ancient ruin from a square mile of
mud.”\par

She laughed; but in a moment became grave
again. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “I know I
shouldn’t come plunging around turns in that
reckless way. May I—I should like to—buy your
picture?”\par

“You may not,” I replied.\par

“That isn’t quite fair, is it?” she asked. “If I
have done damage, I should be allowed to repair
it.”\par

“Repair?” said I. “How do you propose to do
it? I suppose that you think a picture that can be
bought for a hundred-dollar bill can be painted
with a hundred-dollar bill.”\par

“No; I’m not altogether a Philistine,” she said,
and I looked up at her for the first time. Her
face—({\scshape{Elision and Comment by Kent}}: {\itshape{I
know her face from the sketches. Why could he
not have described the horse? However, there’s
one point clear: she is a woman of means.}})\par

She said, “I don’t wonder you’re cross. And
I’m truly sorry. Is it quite ruined?”\par

At that I recovered some decency of manner.
“Forgive a hermit,” I said, “who doesn’t see
enough people to keep him civilized. The daub
doesn’t matter.”\par

She leaned over from the saddle to examine the
picture. “Oh, but it isn’t a daub!” she protested.
“I—I know a little about pictures. It’s very interesting
and curious. But why do you paint it on
copper?”\par

I explained.\par

% ---File: 070.png

“Oh!” she said. “I should so like to see your
prints!”\par

“Nothing easier,” said I. “My shack is just
over the hill.”\par

“And there is a Mrs.—” her eyes suggested that
I fill the blank.\par

“Sedgwick?” I finished. “No. There is no one
but my aged and highly respectable Chinaman to
play propriety. But in the case of a studio, {\itshape{les
convenances}} are not so rigid but that one may look
at pictures unchaperoned.”\par

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do,” she answered,
smiling. “No, I’ll have to wait until—” A shadow
passed over her face. “I’m afraid I’ll have to give
it up.”\par

Chance settled that point then and there. As
she finished, she was in my arms. The girth had
loosened, and the saddle had turned with her. I
had barely time to twist her foot from the stirrup
when the brute of a horse bolted. As it was, her
ankle got a bit of a wrench. She turned quite
white, and cried out a little. In a moment she was
herself again.\par

“King Cole has been acting badly all day,” she
said. “I shall have a time catching him.” She
limped forward a few steps.\par

“Here, that won’t do!” said I. “Let me.”\par

“You couldn’t get near him—though, perhaps,
if you had some salt—”\par

“I can get some at my place,” said I, gathering
up my things. “Your horse is headed that way.
You’d better come along and rest there while
Ching Lung and I round up your mount.”\par

({\scshape{Comment by C. K.}}: {\itshape{Here follows more talk,
showing how young people imperceptibly and unconsciously
cement an acquaintance; but not one
word upon the vital point of how far the horse
seemed to have come, whether he was ridden out,
or fresh, etc.}})\par

At the bungalow I called Ching, and we set out
with a supply of salt. King Cole ({\scshape{Comment by
C. K.}}: {\itshape{Probably a dead-black horse}}) was coy for
a time, before he succumbed to temptation. On
my return I found my visitor in the studio. She
had said that she knew a little about pictures. She
knew more than a little, a good deal, in fact,
and talked most intelligently about them. I don’t
say this simply because she tried, before she went,
to buy some of mine. When I declined to sell she
seemed put out.\par

“But surely these prints of yours aren’t the
work of an amateur,” she said. “You sell?”\par

“Oh, yes, I sell—when I can. But I don’t sell
without a good bit of bargaining; particularly
when I suspect my purchaser of wishing to make
amends by a purchase.”\par

“It isn’t that at all,” she said earnestly. “I want
the pictures for themselves.”\par

“Call this a preliminary then, and come back
when you have more time.”\par

She shook her head, and there was a shadow
over the brightness of her face. “I’m afraid not,”
she said. “But I have enjoyed talking again with
some one who knows and loves the best in art.
After all,” she added with a note of determination,
almost of defiance, “there is no reason why
I shouldn’t sometime.”\par

“Then I may look for you again?” I asked.\par

She nodded as she moved out across the porch.
“If you’ll promise to sell me any print I may
choose. Good-by. And thank you so much, Mr.
Sedgwick!”\par

% ---File: 073.png

She held out her hand. It was a hand for a
sculptor to model, as beautiful and full of character
as her face. ({\scshape{Comment by C. K.}}: {\itshape{Bosh!}})
Afterward I remembered that never again in our
friendship did I see it ungloved. ({\scshape{Comment by
C. K.}}: {\itshape{“Bosh” retracted. Some observation in
that!}})\par

“Au revoir, then,” I said; “but you have the
advantage of me, you see. I don’t know what to
call you at all.”\par

She hesitated; then, with a little soft quiver of
her eyelids, which I afterward learned to identify
as an evidence of amusement, said, “Daw is a nice
name, don’t you think?” ({\scshape{Comment by C. K.}}:
{\itshape{False name, of course; but highly probable first
name is Marjorie.}}) “By the way, what time is
it?”\par

“Quarter to five, Miss Daw.”\par

She smiled at the name. “King Cole will have
to do his best, if I am to be back for dinner.
Good-by.” ({\scshape{Comment by C. K.}}: {\itshape{Good! The
place where she is staying is a good way off, assuming
a seven-thirty dinner-hour; say twelve to
fifteen miles.}})\par

% ---File: 074.png

That was the first of many visits, of days that
grew in radiance for me. It isn’t necessary for
me to tell you, Kent, how in our talks I came to
divine in her a spirit as wistful and pure as her
face. You do not want a love story from me; yet
that is what it was for me almost from the first.
Not openly, though. There was that about her
which held me at arms’ length: the mystery of
her, her quickly-given trust in me, a certain
strained look that came into her face, like the
startled attention of a wild thing poised for flight,
whenever I touched upon the personal note. Not
that I ever questioned her. That was the understanding
between us: that I should leave to her
her {\itshape{incognita}} without effort to penetrate it.\par

While I talked, I sketched her and studied her.
Young as she seemed, she had been much about
the world, knew her Europe, had met and talked
with men of many pursuits, and had taken from
all sources tribute for her mind and color for her
imagination. She had read widely, too, and had
an individual habit of thought. Combined with
all her cosmopolitanism was a quaint and profound
purity of standards. I remember her saying
once—it was one of her rare flashes of self-revelation—“I
am an anomaly and an anachronism,
a Puritan in modern society.” After her first
visit she did not ride on her horse; but came
across lots and through the side hedge, swinging
down the hillside yonder with her light dipping
stride that always recalled to me the swoop of a
swallow, her gloved hands usually holding a slender
stick.\par

All those sketches that you saw were but studies
for a more serious attempt to catch and fix her
personality. ({\scshape{Comment by C. K.}}: {\itshape{Couldn’t he
have given me in two words her height and approximate
weight?}}) I did it in pastel, and, if I
missed something of her tender and changeful
coloring, I at least caught the ineffable wistfulness
of her expression, the look of one hoping against
hope for an unconfessed happiness. Probably I
had put more of myself into it than I had meant.
A man is likely to when he paints with his heart
as well as his brain and hand. When it was done
I made a little frame for it, and lettered on the
frame this line:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“And her eyes dreamed against a distant goal.”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
It was the next day that she read the line. I
saw the color die from her face and flood back
again.\par

“Why did you set that line there?” she
breathed, her eyes fixed on me with a strange expression.
({\scshape{Comment by C. K.}}: {\itshape{Rossetti again.
The dead woman of the beach quoted “The House
of Life,” also.}})\par

“Why not?” I asked. “It seems to express
something in you which I have tried to embody
in the picture. Don’t you like it?”\par

She repeated the line softly, making pure music
of it. “I love it,” she said.\par

At that, I spoke as it is given to a man to speak
to one woman in the world when he has found
her. She listened, with her eyes on the pictured
face. But when I said to her, “You, who have all
my heart, and whose name, even, I have not—is
there no word for me,” she rose, and threw
out her hands in a gesture that sent a chill
through me.\par

“Oh, no! No!” she cried vehemently. “Nothing—except
good-by. Oh, why did you speak?”\par

I stood and watched her go. At the end of the
garden walk she stooped and picked a rose with
her gloved fingers, and as she disappeared in the
thicket at the top of the hill I thought she half
turned to look. That was five interminable days
ago. I have not seen her since. I feel it is
her will that I shall never see her again. And I
must! You understand, Kent, you must find her!\par

I forgot to tell you that when I was sketching
her I asked if she could bring something pink to
wear, preferably coral. She came the next time
with a string of the most beautiful rose-topazes
I have ever seen, set in a most curious old gold
design. It was that necklace and none other that
the woman with the bundle wore, half concealed,
when she came here.\par

To-day—it is yesterday really, since I am finishing
this at three {\scshape{A. M.}}—the messenger boy
brought me a telegram. It was from my love. It
had been sent from Boston, and it read:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“Destroy the picture, for my sake. It tells too
much of both of us.”\par}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
The message was unsigned. I have destroyed
the picture. Help me! ——F. S.\par

% ---File: 078.png

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CHAPTER IV—AN INQUIRY}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
“Am I running a Strangers’ Rest here?”
Francis Sedgwick asked of himself when
he emerged upon his porch the morning after
Kent’s visit.\par

The occasion of this query was a man stretched
flat on the lawn, with his feet propped up comfortably
against the stone wall. In this recumbent
posture he was achieving the somewhat delicate
feat of smoking a long, thin clay pipe. Except
for this plebeian touch he was of the most
unimpeachable elegance. His white serge suit
was freshly pressed. His lavender silk hose, descending
without a wrinkle under his buckskin
shoes, accorded with a lavender silk tie and lavender
striped shirt. A soft white hat covered his
eyes against the sun glare. To put a point to this
foppishness, a narrow silken ribbon, also pure
white, depending from his lapel buttonhole, suggested
an eye-glass in his pocket.\par

Sedgwick, who had risen late, having returned
to his house at daybreak after delivering his
manuscript at Kent’s hotel, regarded this sartorial
marvel with a doubt as to whether it might not
be a figment of latent dreams. Making a détour
across the grass, he attained to a side view of the
interloper’s face. It repaid the trouble. It was
a remarkable face, both in contour and in coloring.
From chin to cheek, the skin was white,
with a tint of blue showing beneath; but the central
parts of the face were bronzed. The jaw was
long, lean and bony. The cheek-bones were high;
the mouth was large, fine-cut, and firm; the nose,
solid, set like a rock.\par

At the sound of a footstep, the man pushed his
hat downward, revealing a knobby forehead and
half-closed eyes in which there was a touch of
somberness, of brooding. The artist remembered
having seen that type of physiognomy on the
Venetian coins of the sixteenth century, the likenesses
in bronze, of men who were of iron and
gold,—scholars, rulers, and poets. The eyes of
the still face opened wide, and fixed themselves
on Sedgwick, and the expression of melancholy
vanished.\par

% ---File: 080.png

“Good morning,” said the artist, and then all
but recoiled from the voice that replied, so harsh
and raucous it was.\par

“You rise late,” it said.\par

“I hear your opinion on it,” retorted Sedgwick,
a bit nettled. “Am I to infer that you have been
waiting for me?”\par

“You wouldn’t go far wrong.”\par

“And what can I do for you—before you
leave?” said Sedgwick significantly.\par

“Take a little walk with me presently,” said
the man in another voice, brushing the hat clear
of his face.\par

“Kent!” exclaimed the artist.\par

“Well, you appear surprised. What kind of
artist are you, not to recognize a man simply because
he shaves his beard and affects a false
voice?”\par

“But you’re so completely changed. And why
this disguise?”\par

“Disguise?” returned the other, astonished in
his turn. “I’m not in disguise.”\par

“Your clothes. They’re—well, except for being
offensive, I’d call them foppish.”\par

% ---File: 081.png

“Not at all!” protested the other warmly. “Just
because I’m a scientific man, is it to be assumed
that I ought to be a frump? I’m fond of good
clothes; I can afford good clothes; I wear good
clothes. It’s a hobby of mine; but I deny that it
is a weakness.”\par

“Of course not,” assented the other, somewhat
amused. “By the way, though, your socks and
tie don’t match.”\par

“They do, absolutely,” replied the other with
asperity.\par

“Perhaps in fact; but not in effect. In matching
smooth silk with ribbed silk, you should get
the latter one shade lighter.”\par

“Is that so?” said Kent with interest. “You’ve
told me something I never knew. I’ll remember
that. Now I’ll trouble you to tell me some more
things.”\par

“While taking that walk you spoke of?”\par

“That comes later. I’ve read your story.”\par

“Already?”\par

“Already! Do you know it’s ten o’clock? However,
it’s a good story.”\par

“Thank you.”\par

% ---File: 082.png

“As a story. As information, it leaves out
most of the important points.”\par

“Thank you again.”\par

“You’re welcome. Color, size, and trappings
of the horse?”\par

“I didn’t notice particularly. Black, I think;
yes, certainly, black. Rather a large horse.
That’s all I can tell you.”\par

“Humph! Color, size, and trappings of the
rider?”\par

“Reddish brown hair with a gloss like a butterfly’s
wing,” said the artist with enthusiasm; “deep
hazel eyes; clear sun-browned skin; tall—I
should say quite tall—but so—so feminine that
you wouldn’t realize her tallness. She was dressed
in a light brown riding costume, with a toque
hat, very simple, tan gauntlets, and tan boots;
that is, the first time I saw her. The next time—”\par

“Hold on! A dressmaker’s catalogue is no
good to me. I couldn’t remember it all. Was
she in riding clothes on any of her later visits?”\par

“No.”\par

“Any scars or marks?”\par

“Certainly not!”\par

% ---File: 083.png

“That’s a pity; although you seem to think
otherwise. Age?”\par

“We—ell, twenty, perhaps.”\par

“Add five. Say twenty-five.”\par

“What for?” demanded Sedgwick indignantly.\par

“I’m allowing for the discount of romance.
Did you notice her boots?”\par

“Not particularly; except that she was always
spick and span from head to foot.”\par

“Humph! Was it pretty warm the last week
she called on you?”\par

“Piping!”\par

“Did she show it?”\par

“Never a bit. Always looked fresh as a flower.”\par

“Then, although she came far, she didn’t walk
far to get here. There’s a road back of the hill
yonder, and a little copse in an open field where a
motor-car has stood. I should say that she had
driven herself there and come across the hill to
you.”\par

“Could we track the car?” asked Sedgwick
eagerly.\par

“No farther than the main road. What is the
latest she ever left here, when she arrived afoot?”\par

% ---File: 084.png

“Once she stayed till half past six. I begged
her to stay and dine; but she drew into herself
at the mere suggestion.”\par

“Half past six. Allowing for a half past seven
dinner, and time to dress for it, she would have
perhaps twelve to fifteen miles to go in the car.
That figures out with the saddle ride, too. Now,
we have, as your visitor, a woman of rather inadequate
description eked out by some excellent
sketches—young, passably good-looking (don’t
lose your temper, Sedgwick); passably good-looking,
{\itshape{at least}}; with command of some wealth; athletic,
a traveler, well informed. The name she
gave is obviously not her own; not even, I judge,
her maiden name.”\par

Sedgwick turned very white. “Do you mean
that she is a married woman?” he demanded.\par

“How could you have failed to see it?” returned
the other gently.\par

“But what is there to prove it?”\par

“Proof? None. Indication, plenty. Her visits,
in the first place. A young girl of breeding and
social experience would hardly have come to your
studio. A married woman might, who respected
herself with full confidence, and knew, with the
same confidence, that you would respect her. And,
my dear boy,” added Kent, with his quiet winning
smile, “you are a man to inspire confidence.
Otherwise, I myself might have suspected you of
having a hand in the death of the woman on the
beach.”\par

“Never mind the woman on the beach. This
other matter is more than life or death. Is that
flimsy supposition all you have to go on?”\par

“No. Her travel. Her wide acquaintance with
men and events. Her obvious poise.”\par

“All might be found in a very exceptional girl,
such as she is. Why shouldn’t she tell me, if she
were married?”\par

“Oh, don’t expect me to dissect feminine psychology.
There I’m quite beyond my depth. But
you’ll note she doesn’t seem to have told you any
slightest thing about herself. She’s let concealment,
like a worm i’ the bud, prey on {\itshape{your}} damask
cheek.”\par

“Confound your misquotations! It’s true,
though. But there might be many reasons.”\par

“Doubtless. Only, my imagination doesn’t seem
to run to them. And reverting to tangible fact,
as clenching evidence, there are her gloves, which
she always wore.”\par

“What about her gloves?”\par

“You never saw her left hand, did you?”\par

“Oh, I see. You mean the wedding-ring. Well,
I suppose,” continued Sedgwick, with a tinge of
contempt in his voice, “she could have taken off
her ring as easily as her gloves.”\par

There was no answering contempt in Chester
Kent’s voice as he replied, “But a ring, constantly
worn and then removed, leaves an unmistakable
mark. Perhaps she gave you greater credit for
powers of observation than you deserve. I’m
afraid, Frank, that she is a married woman; and
I’m sure, from reading between your lines, that
she is a good woman. What the connection between
her and the corpse on the beach may be, is
the problem. My immediate business is to discover
who the dead woman is.”\par

“And mine,” said Sedgwick hoarsely, “to discover
the living.”\par

“We’ll at least start together,” replied Kent.
“Come!”\par

% ---File: 087.png

Capacity for silence, that gift of the restful
gods, was possessed by both men. Intent, each
upon his own thoughts, they strode up the hillside
and descended into a byway where stood a
light runabout, empty. Throwing on the switch,
Kent motioned his companion to get in. Twenty
minutes of curving and dodging along the rocky
roads brought them to the turnpike, in sight of
the town of Annalaka. Not until then did Kent
offer a word.\par

“The inquest is set for eleven o’clock,” he said.\par

“All right,” said Sedgwick with equal taciturnity.\par

They turned a corner, and ran into the fringe
of a crowd hovering about the town hall. Halting
his machine in a bit of shade, Kent surveyed the
gathering. At one point it thickened about a man
who was talking eagerly, the vocal center of a
small circle of silence.\par

“Elder Dennett,” said Kent, “back from
Cadystown. You’ll have to face the music now.”\par

“I’m ready.”\par

“You’re ready for attack. Are you ready for
surprises?”\par

% ---File: 088.png

“No one is ever ready for surprise, or it
wouldn’t be surprise, would it?”\par

“True enough. One word of warning: don’t
lose your head or your temper if the suspicion
raised against you by Dennett is strengthened by
me.”\par

“By you!”\par

“Unfortunately. My concern is to get to the
bottom of this matter. There is something the
sheriff knows that I don’t know. Probably it is
the identity of the body. To force him into the
open, it may be necessary for me to augment the
case against you.”\par

“Ought I to be ready for arrest?”\par

“Hardly probable at present. No; go on the
stand when you’re called, and tell the truth, and
nothing but the truth.”\par

“But not the whole truth?”\par

“Nothing of the necklace. You won’t be questioned
about that. By the way, you have never
kept among your artistic properties anything in
the way of handcuffs, have you?”\par

“No.”\par

“I didn’t suppose you had. Those manacles
are a sticker. I don’t—I absolutely do {\itshape{not}} like
those manacles. And on one wrist only! Perhaps
that is the very fact, though—Well, we shall
know more when we’re older; two hours older,
say. Whether we shall know all that Mr. Sheriff
Len Schlager knows, is another question. I don’t
like Mr. Schlager, either, for that matter.”\par

“Dennett has seen me,” said Sedgwick in a low
voice.\par

Indeed, the narrator’s voice had abruptly
ceased, and he stood with the dropped jaw of
stupefaction. One after another of his auditors
turned and stared at the two men in the motor-car.\par

“Stay where you are,” said Kent, and stepped
out to mingle with the crowd.\par

No one recognized, at first, the immaculate
flannel-clad {\itshape{élégante}} as the bearded scientist whose
strange actions had amused the crowd on the
beach. A heavy solemn man addressed him:\par

“Friend of his?” he asked, nodding toward the
artist.\par

“Yes.”\par

“He’ll need ’em. Going to give evidence?”\par

% ---File: 090.png

“To hear it, rather,” replied Kent pleasantly.
“Where’s the body?”\par

“Inside. Just brought it over from Doctor
Breed’s. He’s the medical officer, and he and
the sheriff are running the show. Your friend
want a lawyer, maybe?”\par

The thought struck Kent that, while a lawyer
might be premature, a friend in the town might
be very useful.\par

“Yes,” he said; “from to-morrow on.”\par

“Meanin’ that you’re in charge to-day,” surmised
the big man shrewdly.\par

Kent smiled. “I dare say we shall get on very
well together, Mr.—” his voice went up interrogatively.\par

“Bain, Adam Bain, attorney and counselor at
law for thirty years in the town of Annalaka.”\par

“Thank you. My name is Kent. You already
know my friend’s name. What kind of man is
this medical officer?”\par

“Breed? Not much. More of a politician
than a doctor, and more of a horse trader than
either. Fidgety as a sandpaper undershirt.”\par

% ---File: 091.png

“Did he perform the autopsy at his own
house?”\par

“Him and the sheriff last evening. Didn’t
even have an undertaker to help lay out.”\par

The lobe of Kent’s ear began to suffer from repeated
handling. “The body hasn’t been identified,
I suppose?”\par

“Nobody’s had so much as a wink at it but
those two and Ira Dennett. He viewed the corpse
last night. That’s why I guess your friend needs
{\itshape{his}} friends and maybe a lawyer.”\par

“Exactly. Mr. Dennett doesn’t seem to be
precisely a deaf mute.”\par

Lawyer Bain emitted the bubbling chuckle of
the fat-throated. “It’s quite some time since Iry
won any prizes for silent thought,” he stated.
“You are known, hereabouts?” he added, after a
pause.\par

“Very little.”\par

“Gansett Jim, yonder, looks as if he kinder
cherished the honor of your acquaintance.”\par

Over his shoulder Kent caught the half-breed’s
glance fixed upon him with stolid intensity. A
touch on his arm made him turn to the other side,
where Sailor Smith faced him.\par

“Didn’t hardly know you, with your beard off,”
piped the old man. “Howdy, Professor! You’re
finickied up like your own weddin’.”\par

“Good morning,” said the scientist. “Are you
going inside?”\par

“No hurry,” said the other. “Hotter’n Tophet
in there.”\par

“I want a good seat; so I think I’ll go in at
once,” said Kent. “Sit with us, won’t you? Mr.
Sedgwick is with me.”\par

The ex-sailor started. “Him?” he exclaimed.
“Here?”\par

Kent nodded. “Why not?”\par

“No reason. No reason at all,” said the old
seaman hastily. “It’s a public proceedin’.”\par

“But you’re surprised to see him here?”\par

“There’s been quite a lot o’ talk—”\par

“Suspicion, you mean.”\par

“We—ell, yes.”\par

“People are inclined to connect Mr. Sedgwick
with the death of the woman?”\par

“What else can you expect?” returned the old
man deprecatingly. “Iry Dennett’s been tellin’
his story. He’s certain the woman he seen talkin’
to Mr. Sedgwick is the dead woman. Willin’ to
swear to it anywheres.”\par

“What about Gansett Jim? Has he contributed
anything to the discussion?”\par

“No. Jim’s as close-tongued as Iry is clatter-mouthed.”\par

“And probably with reason,” muttered Kent.
“Well, I’ll look for you inside.”\par

He returned to join Sedgwick. Together they
entered the building, while behind them a rising
hum testified to the interest felt in them by the
villagers.\par

Within, a tall wizened man, with dead fishy
eyes, stalked nervously to and fro on a platform,
beside which a hastily constructed coffin with a
hasped cover stood on three sawhorses. On a
chair near by slouched the sheriff, his face red and
streaming. A few perspiring men and women
were scattered on the benches. Outside a clock
struck eleven. There was a quick inflow of the
populace, and the man on the platform lifted up
a chittering voice.\par

% ---File: 094.png

“Feller citizens,” he said, “as medical officer I
declare these proceedings opened. Meaning no
disrespect to the deceased, we want to get through
as spry as possible. First we will hear witnesses.
Anybody who thinks he can throw any light on
this business can have a hearing. Then those as
wants may view the remains. The burial will
take place right afterwards, in the town buryin’-ground,
our feller citizen and sheriff, Mr. Len
Schlager, having volunteered the expenses.”\par

“That man,” said Sedgwick in Kent’s ear, “is
a great deal more nervous this minute than I am.”\par

“Perhaps he has more cause to be,” whispered
the scientist. “Here comes the first witness.”\par

A sheep-herder had risen in his place, and without
the formality of an oath told of sighting the
body at the edge of the surf at seven o’clock in
the morning. Others, following, testified to the
position on the beach, the lashing of the body
to the grating, the wounds, and the manacles.
Doctor Breed announced briefly that the deceased
had come to her death by drowning, and that the
skull had been crushed in, presumably, when the
waves hammered the body upon the reefs.\par

% ---File: 095.png

“Then the corpse must have come from a good
ways out,” said Sailor Smith; “for the reefs
wouldn’t catch it at that tide.”\par

“Nobody knows how the dead come to Lonesome
Cove,” said the sheriff in his deep voice.\par

There was a murmur of assent. The people
felt a certain pride in the ill-omened locality.\par

Elder Ira Dennett was the next and last witness
called. Somewhere beneath the Elder’s dry
exterior lurked the instinct of the drama. Stalking
to the platform, he told his story with skill
and fervor. He made a telling point of the newly
finished picture he had seen in Sedgwick’s studio,
depicting the moonlit charge of the wave-mounted
corpse. He sketched out the encounter between
the artist and the dead woman vividly. As he
proceeded, the glances turned upon Sedgwick
darkened from suspicion to enmity. Kent was
almost ready to wish that he had come armed,
when Dennett, with a final fling of his arm toward
the artist, stepped from the platform and resumed
his seat, amid a surcharged silence.\par

Then Sedgwick rose. He was white; but his
voice was under perfect control as he said, “I
presume I have the right to be heard in my own
defense?”\par

“Nobody’s accused you yet,” growled Schlager.\par

“Public opinion accuses me. That is not to
be wondered at, in view of what Elder Dennett
has just told you. It is all true. But I do not
know the woman who accosted me. I never saw
her before that evening. She spoke strangely to
me, and indicated that she was to meet some one
and go aboard ship, though I saw no sign of a
ship.”\par

“You couldn’t see much of the ocean from your
house,” said the medical officer.\par

“I walked on the cliffs later,” said Sedgwick,
and a murmur went through the court room; “but
I never found the woman. And as for throwing
her out of a ship, or any such fantastic nonsense,
I can prove that I was back in my house by a little
after nine o’clock that night.”\par

He sat down, coolly enough; but his eyes dilated
when Kent whispered to him:\par

“Keep your nerve. The probability will be
shown that she was killed before ten o’clock.”\par

Now, however, Doctor Breed was on his feet
again. “Form in line, ladies and gentlemen,” said
he, “and pass the coffin as spry as possible.”\par

At this, Sheriff Schlager stepped forward and
loosened the hasps, preparatory to removing the
cover. “The body has been left,” said he, slipping
the lid aside, “just as—” Of a sudden, his
eyes stiffened. A convulsive shudder ran through
his big body. He jammed the cover back, and,
with fingers that actually drummed on the wood,
forced the hasps into place.\par

“She’s come to life!” cried a voice from the
rear.\par

“No, no!” rumbled the sheriff. Whirling upon
the medical officer, he whispered in his ear; not
more than a single word, it seemed to the watchful
Kent.\par

The doctor turned ghastly. “Gents,” he said
in a quavering voice to the amazed crowd, “the
program will not be carried out as arranged. The—the—well,
the condition of the deceased is not
fitten—” He stopped, mopping his brow.\par

But Yankee curiosity was not so easily to be
balked of its food. It found expression in Lawyer
Adam Bain.\par

% ---File: 098.png

“That ain’t the law, Doc,” he said.\par

“I’m the law here,” declared Sheriff Schlager,
planting himself solidly between the crowd and
the coffin. One hand crept slowly back toward his
hip.\par

“Don’t pull any gun on me,” retorted the lawyer
quietly. “It ain’t necessary.”\par

“You heard Doc Breed say the body wasn’t
fitten to be viewed,” pursued the sheriff.\par

“That’s all right, too. But the doc hasn’t got
the final word. The law has.”\par

A quick murmur of assent passed through the
room.\par

“And the law says,” continued Bain, “that the
body shall be duly viewed. Otherwise, and the deceased
being buried without view, an order of
the court to exhume may be obtained.”\par

“Look at Breed,” whispered Kent to Sedgwick.\par

The medical officer’s lips were gray, as he
leaned forward to pluck at the sheriff’s arm.
There was a whispered colloquy between them.
Then Breed spoke, with a pitiful effort at self-control:\par

“Lawyer Bain’s point is correct; undoubtedly
correct. But the body must be prepared. It ought
to ‘a’ been looked to last night. But somehow I—we—Will
six citizens kindly volunteer to fetch
the coffin back to my house?”\par

Ten times six offered their services. The box
was carried out swiftly, followed by the variable
hum of excited conjecture. Quickly the room
emptied itself, except for a few stragglers.\par

% ---File: 100.png

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CHAPTER V—ONE USE FOR A MONOCLE}

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{\noindent}
Sedgwick, who had followed the impromptu
cortège with his vision, was
brought up sharply by the glare of a pair of eyes
outside the nearest window. The eyes were fixed
on his own. Their expression was distinctly
malevolent. Without looking round, Sedgwick
said in a low voice:\par

“Kent!”\par

No answer came.\par

“Kent!” said the artist a little louder.\par

“Huh?” responded a muffled and abstracted
voice behind him.\par

“See here for a moment.”\par

There was neither sound nor movement from
the scientist.\par

“An Indian-looking chap outside the window is
trying to hypnotize me, or something of the sort.”\par

This information, deemed by its giver to be of
no small interest, elicited not the faintest response.
Somewhat piqued, the artist turned, to
behold his friend stretched on a bench, with face
to the ceiling, eyes closed, and heels on the raised
end. His lips moved faintly. Alarmed lest the
heat had been too much for him, Sedgwick bent
over the upturned face. From the moving lips
issued a musical breath which began its career
softly as Raff’s {\itshape{Cavatina}} and came to an inglorious
end in the strains of {\itshape{Honey Boy}}. Sedgwick
shook the whistler insistently.\par

“Eh? What?” cried Kent, wrenching his
shoulder free. “Go away! Can’t you see I’m
busy?”\par

“I’ll give you something to think about. Look
at this face of a cigar-store Indian at the window.
No! It’s gone!”\par

“Gansett Jim, probably,” opined Kent. “Just
where his interest in this case comes in, I haven’t
yet found out. He favored me with his regard
outside. And he had some dealings with the sheriff
on the beach. But I don’t want to talk about him
now, nor about anything else.”\par

Acting on this hint, Sedgwick let his companion
severely alone, until a bustle from without
warned him that the crowd was returning. Being
aroused, Kent accosted one of the villagers who
had just entered.\par

“Body coming back?” he asked.\par

“Yep. On its way now.”\par

“What occurred in the house where they took
it?”\par

“Search me! Everybody was shut out by the
sheriff and the doc. They had that body to theirselves
nigh twenty minutes.”\par

At this moment the sheriff entered the hall,
followed by Doctor Breed, who escorted the coffin
to its supporting sawhorses. The meager physician
was visibly at the fag end of his self-control.
Even the burly sheriff looked like a sick man, as
he lifted aside the coffin lid and spoke.\par

“There was reasons, neighbors,” said he, “why
the corpse wasn’t suitable to be looked at. Nobody
had seen it since last night. We’ve fixed it
up as good as we could, and you’ll now please pass
by as quick as possible.”\par

In the line that formed Kent got a place behind
Elder Dennett, who had decided to take another
look for good measure, as he said. The look was
a productive one. No sooner had it fallen on the
face of the dead than Dennett jabbed an indicatory
finger in that direction and addressed the
sheriff:\par

“Hey, Len! What’s this?”\par

“What’s what?” growled Schlager.\par

“Why, there’s a cut on the lady’s right cheek.
It wasn’t there when I seen the corpse last night.”\par

“Ah, what’s the matter with your eyes?” demanded
the sheriff savagely. “You want to hog
the lime-light, that’s your trouble!”\par

This was evidently a shrewd lash at a recognized
weakness, and the Elder moved on amid
jeering comments. But Sedgwick, whose eyes
had been fixed upon Kent, saw a curious expression
flicker and fade across the long-jawed face.
It was exactly the expression of a dog that pricks
up its ears. The next moment a titter ran
through the crowd as a bumpkin in a rear seat
called out:\par

“The dude’s eyes ain’t mates!”\par

Chester Kent, already conspicuous in his spotless
white flannels, had made himself doubly so by
drawing out a monocle and deftly fixing it in his
right eye. He leaned over the body to look into
the face, and his head jerked back the merest
trifle. Bending lower, he scrutinized the unmanacled
right wrist. When he passed on his lips
were pursed in the manner of one who whistles
noiselessly.\par

He resumed his seat beside Sedgwick. His
eyes grew dull and melancholy. One would have
thought him sunk in a daze, or a doze, while the
procession filed past the unknown dead. His
monocle, which had dropped from his eye as he
turned from the coffin, dangled against his hand.
Chancing to look down at it, Sedgwick started
and stared. Kent’s knuckle, as seen through the
glass, stood forth, monstrous and distorted, every
line of the bronzed skin showing like a furrow.\par

The monocle was a powerful magnifying lens.\par

The sheriff’s heavy voice rose. “Any one here
present recognize or identify the deceased?” he
droned, and, without waiting for a reply, set the
lid in place and signaled to the medical officer.\par

“Feller citizens,” began the still shaking physician,
“we don’t need any jury to find that this
unknown drowned woman—”\par

“The deceased was not drowned.” Emerging
from his reverie, Chester Kent had leisurely risen
in his place and made his statement.\par

“N-n-not drowned!” gasped the medical man.\par

“Certainly not! As you must know, if you
made an autopsy.”\par

“No autopsy was necessary,” replied the other
quickly. “There’s plenty of testimony without
that. We’ve heard the witnesses that saw the
drowned body on the grating it washed ashore
on.”\par

“The body never washed ashore on that grating.”\par

A murmur ran through the crowd. “How do
you figure that?” called a voice.\par

“On the under side of the grating I found a
cocoon of a common moth. Half an hour in
the water would have soaked the cocoon through
and killed the insect inhabitant. The insect was
alive.”\par

“How’d the grating get there, then?”\par

“Dragged down from the high-water mark on
the beach. It was an old half-rotted affair such
as no ship would carry. Ask Sailor Smith.”\par

“That’s true,” said the old seaman with conviction.\par

“You’re an expert, Mr. Smith. Now, was that
grating large enough to float a full grown human
body?”\par

“Why, as to that, a body ain’t but a mite
heavier than the water. I should say it’d just
barely float it, maybe.”\par

“Exactly; but plus several pounds of clothing,
and some dead metal extra?”\par

“No.”\par

“The clothes would have been soaked, and
handcuffs weigh something,” said Kent calmly.\par

“There might have been extra spars under the
grating, that got pounded loose on the beach and
washed away,” propounded the medical officer
desperately.\par

“Look at the face,” said Kent with finality.
“This is a bad coast. Most of you have seen
drowned bodies. Did any one ever see an expression
of such terror and agony on the face of one
who came to death by drowning?”\par

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“No, by thunder!” shouted somebody. “He’s
right.”\par

Others took up the cry. Clamor rose and
spread in the room. The sheriff silenced it with
a stentorian voice. “What are you trying to get
at?” he demanded, facing Kent.\par

“The truth. What are you?”\par

Schlager’s eyelids flickered; but he ignored the
counter-stroke. “Look out it don’t lead you
where you won’t want to follow,” he returned,
with a significant look at Sedgwick.\par

“This is as far as it has led me,” said Kent, in
his clear even voice. “The body, already dead,
was dragged down and soaked in the sea, and
then lashed to the grating by a man who probably
is or has been a sailor.”\par

“Then the deceased met death on shore, and
presumably by violence,” said Lawyer Bain.\par

“It’s murder!” cried a woman shrilly. “Bloody
murder! That’s what it is!”\par

“Murder!” echoed a voice from the doorway.
Gansett Jim, his half-Indian, half-negro face
alight with fury, stood there pointing with stiffened
hand at Sedgwick. “Dah de murderer!”\par

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CHAPTER VI—THE RETREAT IN ORDER}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
No one moved in the court room for appreciable
seconds after that pronouncement.
As a flash-light photograph fixes an assemblage
poised, with eyes staring in one direction, thus the
half-breed’s words had cast a spell of immobility
over all. It was a stillness fraught with danger.
No man could say in what violent form it might
break.\par

First to recover from the surprise was the sheriff.
“You, Jim, set down!” he shouted. “If
there’s to be any accusin’ done here, I’ll do it.”\par

“I do it,” persisted the half-breed. “Blood is
on his han’. I see it.”\par

Involuntarily Sedgwick looked at his right
hand. There was a low growl from the crowd.\par

“Steady!” came Kent’s voice at his elbow.
“Mistakes like that are Judge Lynch’s evidence.”\par

“Whah was he the night of the killin’?” cried
Gansett Jim. “Ast him. Whah was he?”\par

% ---File: 110.png

“Where was you, if it comes to that?” retorted
the sheriff, and bit his lip with a scowl.\par

At that betrayal Chester Kent’s eyelids flashed
up, and instantly drooped again into somberness.\par

“This hearing is adjourned,” twittered the
medical officer. “Burial of the unknown, will
take place at once. All are invited.”\par

“Invitation respectfully declined,” murmured
Sedgwick to Kent. “I don’t know that I’m exactly
frightened; but I think I’d breathe easier in
the open country.”\par

“Well, I’m exactly frightened,” replied Kent in
the same tone. “I want to run—which would
probably be the end of us. Curious things about
those handcuffs, isn’t it?” he went on in a louder
and easily conversational voice.\par

During their slow progress to the door he kept
up a running comment, which Sedgwick supported
with equal coolness. The crowd, darkling
and undecided, pressed around them. As they
went through the doorway, they were jostled by
a sudden pressure, following which Kent felt a
touch on his shoulder. He turned to face the
sheriff.\par

% ---File: 111.png

“Better get out of town quick,” advised Schlager
in a half whisper.\par

“Thank you,” said Kent in a clear and cheerful
voice. “Where can I get some tobacco?”\par

“Sterrett’s grocery keeps the best,” said some
informant back of him. “End of the Square to
the right.”\par

“Much obliged,” said Kent, and strolled leisurely
to his car, followed by Sedgwick. As they
took their seats and started slowly through the
crowd, Sedgwick inquired earnestly:\par

“Do you crave tobacco at this particular moment
worse than you do the peace and loneliness
of the green fields?”\par

“Policy, my young friend,” retorted Kent. “I
wish I could think up a dozen more errands to do.
The more casually we get out of town, the less
likely we are to be followed by a flight of rocks.
I don’t want a perfectly good runabout spoiled
by a mob.”\par

Both of them went into Sterrett’s store, where
Kent earned the reputation from Sterrett of being
“awful dang choosy about what he gets,” and
came out into a considerable part of the populace,
which had followed. As they reëmbarked, the
sheriff put his foot on the running-board.\par

“Better take my tip,” he said significantly.\par

“Very well,” returned Kent. “There will be no
arrest, then?”\par

“Not just now.”\par

A peculiar smile slid sidewise off a corner of
the scientist’s long jaw. “Nor at any other time,”
he concluded.\par

He threw in the clutch, leaving Schlager with
his hand in his hair, and the crowd, which might
so easily have become a mob, to disperse, slowly
and hesitantly, having lacked the incentive of suggested
flight on the part of the suspects to be
spark to its powder. When the car had won the
open road beyond the village Sedgwick remarked:\par

“Queer line the sheriff is taking.”\par

“Poor Schlager!” said Kent, chuckling. “No
other line is open to him. He’s in a tight place.
But it isn’t the sheriff that’s worrying me.”\par

“Who, then?”\par

“Gansett Jim.”\par

“What did the sheriff mean by asking Gansett
Jim where he was the night of the murder?”\par

% ---File: 113.png

“Murder?” said Kent quizzically. “What murder?”\par

“The murder of the unknown woman, of
course.”\par

“I don’t know that there was any murder.”\par

“Oh, well, the death of the unknown woman,
then.”\par

“I don’t know that there was any unknown
woman.”\par

“Quit it! From what you do know, what do
you think the sheriff meant?”\par

“What do {\itshape{you}} think?”\par

“I think that Gansett Jim killed her and is trying
to turn suspicion on me.”\par

“Humph!”\par

“But if the sheriff knows where Gansett Jim
was at the time of the killing, he can’t suppose me
guilty. I wonder if he really does believe me
guilty?”\par

“If he does, he doesn’t care. His concern is
quite apart from your guilt.”\par

“It’s too much for me,” confessed the artist.\par

“And for me. That is why I am going back to
the village.”\par

% ---File: 114.png

“But I thought you were frightened.”\par

“If I stayed away from everything that alarms
me,” said Kent, “I’d never have a tooth filled or
speak to a woman under seventy. I’m a timid
soul, Sedgwick; but I don’t think I shall be in any
danger in Annalaka so long as I’m alone. Here
we are. Out with you! I’ll be back by evening.”\par

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CHAPTER VII—SIMON P. GROOT DOES BUSINESS}

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{\noindent}
To his surprise, Kent, turning into the village
Square, found the crowd still lingering.
A new focus of interest had drawn it to a
spot opposite Sterrett’s store, where a wagon,
decorated in the most advanced style of circus
art, shone brilliant in yellow and green. Bright
red letters across the front presented to public
admiration the legend:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
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SIMON P. GROOT\par}
{\vl SIMON PURE GOODS\par}
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{\noindent}
A stout projection rested on one of the rear
wheels. Here stood the proprietor of the vehicle,
while behind him in a window were displayed his
wares. It was evident that Simon P. Groot followed
the romantic career of an itinerant hawker,
dealing in that wide range of commodities
roughly comprised in the quaint term, “Yankee
notions.” Before the merchandizing voice came
to the new arrival’s ears as anything more than a
confused jumble, Kent was struck with the expansive
splendor of the man’s gestures, the dignity
of his robust figure, and the beauty of a
broad whitening beard that spread sidewise like
the ripples from a boat’s stem. Two blemishes
unhappily marred the majesty of Simon P.
Groot’s presence; a pair of pin-head eyes, mutually
attracted to each other, and a mean and
stringent little voice. Freed of these drawbacks,
his oratory might well, one could not but feel,
have rolled in any of our legislative chambers
more superbly and just as ineffectually as much of
the other oratory therein practised. That the Annalakans
were truly spellbound by it was obvious.
Indeed, Kent was at a loss to understand the depth
of their absorption until he had come within the
scope of the high-piping words.\par

“There, gentlemen and ladies,” Simon P. Groot
was saying, “there in that place of vast silences
and infolding shadows I met and addressed one
who was soon to be no more. ‘Madam,’ I said,
‘you are worn. You are wan. You are weary.
Trust the chivalry of one who might be your
father. Rest and be comforted as with balm.’
Standing by the roadside, she drooped like a flower.
‘There is no rest for me,’ said she in mournful
tones. ‘I must away upon my mission.’
‘Stay!’ I bade her. ‘Ere you go, but touch your
lips to this revivifying flagon. De Lorimer’s Life
Giving Tonic, free from intoxicants, poisons, and
deception, a boon to the blood, a balm to the
nerves, a prop to the flagging spirit.’ She looked,
she tasted, she drank. New color sprang to her
cheeks. Her form pulsated with joyous vigor.
‘Aged sir,’ said she, ‘I know not your name; but
if the blessings of a harried spirit are of avail,
your sleep will be sweet this night.’ Of this wonderful
balm, ladies and gentlemen of Annalaka,
I have still a few bottles left at the low price of
half a dollar each. Sickness flies before it.
Amalgamating at once with the blood, it clears
the precious life fluid of all impurities, and rehabilitates
man, woman, and child, body, soul and
mind.”\par

The shrill voice rose and fell, the wide beard
quivered with the passion of salesmanship, the
gaudy bottles on the shelf were replaced by half-dollars,
until the market flagged. Whereupon
again the orator took up his tale.\par

“Ever shall I give thanks for that inestimable
privilege, the privilege of having given cheer to
one on the brink of a dreadful doom. She vanished,
that fair creature, into the forest. I looked
at my watch—the unerring, warranted, sixteen-jeweled
chronometer which I shall presently have
the honor of showing to you at the unexampled
price of three-seventy—and saw that the hour was
exactly—for these timepieces vary not one fraction
of a second in a day—eight-forty-five. When
next I looked at the face of Father Time’s trustiest
accountant, it was to mark the hour of the
horrid shriek that shook my soul; precisely nine-thirty-one.
And later, when I heard the dread
news, I realized that my ears had thrilled to a
death cry.”\par

He looked about him with a face of controlled
emotion. His voice dropped to a throaty and
mesmeric gurgle.\par

“How frail,” he continued: “How frail and
uncertain is the life of mankind! Who of
these happy faces before me may not to-morrow
be bathed in tears for the loss of some
loved one? Best be prepared against the time of
sorrow. I show you here a unique collection of
framed mottoes, suitable alike for the walls of
the humblest home or the grandest palace. Within
these tasty frames are enshrined comforting
mortuary verses, delicately ornamented by the
hands of our leading artists, such poetry as distils
assuagement upon the wounded heart; and
these priceless objects of art and agents of mercy
I am distributing at the nominal charge of one
dollar each.”\par

Kent moved away, his chin pressed down upon
his chest. He went to the office of Lawyer
Adam Bain, and spent an hour waiting, with his
feet propped up on the desk. When the lawyer
entered Kent remarked:\par

“You rather put our two official friends in a
hole this morning.”\par

“Just a mite, maybe. But they’ve crawled out.
I guess I spoke too quick.”\par

“How so?”\par

“Well, if they’d gone ahead and buried the
body as it was, we could have had it exhumed.
And then we’d have seen what we’d have seen.”\par

“True enough. And you didn’t see it as it
was?”\par

“See what? Did you?”\par

Kent’s quiet smile sidled down from the corner
of his mouth.\par

“Suppose,” he said, “you give me the fullest
possible character sketch of our impulsive friend,
the sheriff.”\par

Half an hour was consumed in this process.
At the end of the time Kent strolled back to the
Square where Simon P. Groot had been discoursing.
There he found the ornate wagon closed,
and its ornate proprietor whistling over some
minor repairs that he had been making. An invitation
to take a ride in Kent’s car was promptly
accepted.\par

“Business first,” said Kent. “You’re a seller.
I’m a buyer. You’ve got some information that
I may want. If so, I’m ready to pay. Was any
of your talk true?”\par

“Yep,” replied Simon P. Groot austerely. “It
was all true but the frills.”\par

% ---File: 121.png

“Will you trim off the frills for ten dollars?”\par

“Fair dealing for a fair price is my motto;
you’ll find it in gilt lettering on the back of the
wagon. I will.”\par

“What were you doing on Hawkill Cliffs?”\par

“Sleeping in the wagon.”\par

“And you really met this mysterious wanderer?”\par

“Sure as you’re standing there.”\par

“What passed between you?”\par

“I gave her good evening, and she spoke to me
fair enough but queer, and said that my children’s
children might remember the day. Now,
I ain’t got any children to have children; so I
wouldn’t have thought of it again but for the
man that came inquiring after her.”\par

“When was that?”\par

“Not fifteen minutes after.”\par

“Did you tell the crowd here that?”\par

“Yep. I sold two dozen wedding-rings on the
strength and romance of that point. From my
description they allowed it was a painter man
named Sedgwick. I thought maybe I’d call in
and have him touch up the wagon a bit where
she’s rusty.”\par

“And you heard the woman cry out less than an
hour later?”\par

“That’s a curious thing. I’d have almost sworn
it was a man’s voice that yelled. It went through
me like a sharpened icicle.”\par

“All this was night before last. What have
you been doing meantime?”\par

“Drove over to Marcus Corners to trade yesterday.
There I heard about the murder and came
back here to make a little business out of it. I’ve
done fine.”\par

“You made no attempt to trace the woman?”\par

“Look here!” said Simon P. Groot after a spell
of thoughtfulness. “Your ten dollars is good,
and you’re a gent, all right; but I think I’ve
talked a little too much with my mouth around
here, and I’m afraid they might dig up this lady
and start something new and want me for a witness.
Witnessing is bad for business.”\par

“I’m safe,” said Kent.\par

“So far so good. Now, would it be worth five
dollars to you, likely, a relic of the murderer?”
suggested the old man.\par

“Quite likely.”\par

“Mum’s the word, then, for my part in it.
That next morning I followed her trail a ways.
You see, the yell in the night had got me interested.
It was an easy trail to follow for a man
that’s acquainted in the woods, and I used to be
a yarb-grubber. Do a little of it now, sometimes.
She’d met somebody in a thicket. I found the
string and the paper of the bundle she was carrying,
there. Then there was a fight of some sort;
for the twigs were broken right to the edge of the
thicket, and the ground stamped down. One or
both of ’em must have broken out into the open,
and I lost the trail. But this is what I found on
a hazel bush. Do I win the five on it?”\par

Kent’s eyes drooped, fixing themselves on a
small object which the other had laid on his knee.
His lips pursed. Nothing that could be interpreted
as an answer came from them. Simon P.
Groot waited with patience. Finally he said:\par

“That’s an awful pretty tune you’re whistlin’,
mister, but sad, and terrible long. What about
the five? Do we trade?”\par

The car came to a stop. Digging into his
pocket, Kent produced a bill which he handed
over, and still whistling the long-meter {\itshape{China}},
took possession of Simon P. Groot’s “relic”. It
was an embroidered silver star, with a few torn
wisps of cloth clinging to it.\par

% ---File: 125.png

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CHAPTER VIII—RECKONINGS}

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{\noindent}
“Facts that contradict each other are not
facts,” pronounced Chester Kent.\par

Fumes of tobacco were rising from three pipes
hovered about the porch of the Nook where Kent,
Sedgwick and Lawyer Bain were holding late
council. A discouraged observation from the
artist had elicited Kent’s epigram.\par

“Not all of them, anyhow,” said Bain. “The
chore in this case is to find facts enough to work
on.”\par

“On the contrary,” declared Kent, “facts in
this case are as plentiful as blackberries. The
trouble is that we have no pail to put them in.”\par

“Maybe we could borrow Len Schlager’s,” suggested
the lawyer dryly.\par

Kent received this with a subdued snort. “It
is remarkable that the newspapers haven’t sent
men down on such a sensational case,” he said.\par

% ---File: 126.png

“On the contrary to you, sir,” retorted Bain,
“so much fake stuff has come out of Lonesome
Cove that the papers discount any news from
here.”\par

“All the better. The only thing that worries
me more than the stupidity of professional detectives
is the shrewdness of trained reporters.
At least we can work this out in our own way.”\par

“We don’t seem to be getting much of anywhere,”
complained Sedgwick.\par

“Complicated cases don’t clear themselves up
in a day,” remarked Kent. “In this one we’ve
got opponents who know more than we do.”\par

“Schlager?” asked the lawyer.\par

“And Doctor Breed. Also, I think, Gansett
Jim. What do you think, Mr. Bain, is the mainspring
of the sheriff’s action?”\par

“Money,” said the lawyer with conviction.
“He’s as crooked as a snake with the colic.”\par

“Would it require much money to influence
him?”\par

“As much as he could get. If the case was in
the line of blackmail, he’d hold out strong. He’s
shrewd.”\par

% ---File: 127.png

“Doctor Breed must be getting some of it.”\par

“Oh, Tim Breed is Len’s little dog. He takes
orders. Of course he’ll take money too, if it
comes his way. Like master, like man.”\par

“Those two,” said Kent slowly, “know the identity
of the body. For good and sufficient reasons,
they are keeping that information to themselves.
Those reasons we aren’t likely to find out from
them.”\par

“Murderer has bribed ’em,” opined Bain.\par

“Possibly. But that presupposes that the sheriff
found something on the body which led him to the
murderer, which isn’t likely. How improbable
it is that a murderer—allowing, for argument,
that there has been murder—who would go as far
as to cover his trail and the nature of the crime by
binding the body on a grating, would overlook
anything like a letter incriminating himself!”\par

“What did the sheriff find, then, in the dead
woman’s pocket?”\par

“Perhaps a handkerchief with a distinctive
mark.”\par

“And that would lead him to the identity of the
body?”\par

% ---File: 128.png

“Presumably. Also to some one, we may assume,
who was willing to pay roundly to have that
identity concealed.”\par

“That would naturally be the murderer,
wouldn’t it?” asked Sedgwick.\par

“No. I don’t think so.”\par

“It looks to me so,” said the lawyer. “He’s
the one naturally interested in concealment.”\par

“I’m almost ready to dismiss the notion of a
murderer at all.”\par

“Why so?” demanded both the others.\par

“Because there was no murder, probably.”\par

“How do you make that out?” queried Bain.\par

“From the nature of the wounds that caused
death.”\par

“They look to me to be just such wounds as
would be made by a blow with a heavy club.”\par

“Several blows with a heavy club might have
caused such wounds. But the blows would have
had to be delivered peculiarly. A circle on the
skull, six inches in diameter, impinging on the
right ear, is crushed in. If you can imagine a man
swinging a baseball bat at the height of his shoulder,
repeatedly and with great force, at the victim’s
head, you can infer such a crushing in of the
bone. My imagination hardly carries me so far.”\par

“Beating down from above would be the natural
way,” said Bain.\par

“Certainly. No such blow ever made that
wound.”\par

“Then how was it made?” asked Sedgwick.\par

“Probably by a fall from the cliff to the rocks
below.”\par

“And the fall broke the manacle from the right
wrist?”\par

“The broken manacle was never on the right
wrist.”\par

“That’s merely conjecture,” said the lawyer.\par

“No; it’s certainty. A blow heavy enough to
break that iron, old as it is, must have left a mark
on the flesh. There was no mark.”\par

“Why should any one put one handcuff on a
woman and leave the other dangling?”\par

“Suppose the other was not left dangling?”\par

“Where was it, then?”\par

“On the wrist of some other person, possibly.”\par

“A man had chained the woman to himself?”
said Sedgwick incredulously.\par

% ---File: 130.png

“More probably the other way round.”\par

“That’s even more unbelievable.”\par

“Not if you consider the evidence. You will
remember that your mysterious visitor, while talking
with you, carried a heavy bundle. The manacles
were, I infer, in that.”\par

“But what conceivable motive could the dead
woman have in dressing herself up like a party,
going to meet a man, and chaining him to herself?”\par

“When you have a bizarre crime you must look
for bizarre motives. Just at present I’m dealing
with facts. The iron was on the left wrist of the
body; therefore, it was on the right wrist of the
unknown companion. It is natural to perform a
quick deft act like snapping on a handcuff, with
the right hand. Hence, presumably, your visitor
was the one who clamped the cuffs.”\par

“And the man broke off his?”\par

“Yes. But only after a struggle, undoubtedly.
If I could find a man with a badly bruised right
wrist, I should consider the trail’s end in sight.
You’ll make inquiries, will you, Mr. Bain?”\par

“I will, and I’ll keep an eye on Len Schlager
and the doc. Anything more now? If not, I’ll
say good night.”\par

After the lawyer had made his way into the
darkness, Kent turned to his host. “This affair
is really becoming a very pretty problem. Why
didn’t you tell me of your meeting with Simon
P. Groot?”\par

“Who?”\par

“The patriarch in the circus wagon.”\par

“Oh! I’d forgotten. Why, when I was trying
to trail the woman, I chanced upon him and
asked if he had seen her. He hadn’t.”\par

“He had. Also he heard a terrified cry shortly
after. The cry, he thought, was in a man’s
voice. Simon P. Groot isn’t wholly lacking in
sense of observation.”\par

“A man’s voice in a cry? What could that
mean?”\par

“Oh, any one of several hundred unthinkable
things,” said Kent patiently.\par

“Wait! She must have attacked some other
man, as she did me. She was going to a
rendezvous, wasn’t she? Then she and the man
she went to meet quarreled, and he killed her by
throwing her over the cliff.”\par

“And the handcuffs?”\par

Sedgwick’s hands went to his head. “That, of
course, is the inexplicable thing. But don’t you
think that was the way she met her death?”\par

“No.”\par

“Then what do you think?”\par

“Never mind that at present. The point is that
Simon P. Groot naturally supposed you to have
been mixed up in whatever tragedy there was going.
You’ve an unfortunate knack of manufacturing
evidence against yourself, Sedgwick. The
redeeming feature is that the sheriff can’t very
well use it to arrest you.”\par

“I don’t see why.”\par

Kent chuckled. “Don’t you see that the last
thing the sheriff wants to do is arrest anybody?”\par

“No, I don’t.”\par

“Why, he has the body safely buried, now.
You’ll remember that he was in a great hurry to
get it buried. Identification is what he dreaded.
Danger of identification is now over. If any one
should be arrested, the body would be exhumed
and the danger would return in aggravated form.
No; he wants you suspected, not arrested.”\par

“He is certainly getting his wish!”\par

“For the present. Well, I’m off.”\par

“Why don’t you move your things from the
hotel and stay here with me?” suggested Sedgwick.\par

“Getting nervous?” inquired Kent.\par

“It isn’t that; but I think I could make you
more comfortable.”\par

Kent shook his head. “Thank you; but I don’t
believe I’d better. When I’m at work on a case
I need privacy.”\par

“And so you stick to a public hotel! Queer notions
you have of privacy.”\par

“Not at all. A hotel is absolutely mine to do
with as I please, as long as I pay my bills. I’m
among strangers; I’m not interfered with. No
house, not even a man’s own, can possibly be so
private as a strange hotel.”\par

“Perhaps you’re right,” admitted the other,
with a laugh; then, lapsing into pronounced
gloom for the first time, he said, “It seems pretty
tough that I should be in all this coil and tangle
because a crazy woman happened by merest
chance to make a call on me.”\par

Kent’s pipe glowed in the darkness and silence
before he replied. Then he delivered himself as
follows: “Sedgwick”—puff—“try”—puff—“to
forget if you can”—puff—puff—“that stuff about
the crazy woman”—puff—puff—puff.\par

“Forget it? How should I? Why should I?”\par

“Because”—puff—“you’re absolutely on the”—puff—puff—“wrong
track. Good night.”\par

Slowly Kent climbed the road to the crest of
the hill; then stopped and looked back into the
studio, which had sprung into light as soon as
he left. Sedgwick’s figure loomed, tall and spare,
in the radiance. The artist was standing before
his easel, looking down at it fixedly. Kent knew
what it was that he gazed on, and as the lovely
wistful girl-face rose in his memory he sighed,
a little.\par

“I mustn’t forget that quest,” he said. “Poor
old Sedgwick!”\par

But, once in his room, the picture faded, and
there came before his groping mental vision instead
the spectacle of two dark figures, chained together
and battling, the one for life, the other
for some mysterious elusive motive that fluttered
at the portals of his comprehension like a half-remembered
melody. And the second struggling
figure, whose face was hidden, flashed in the
moonlight with the sheen of silver stars against
black.\par

% ---File: 136.png

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CHAPTER IX—CHESTER KENT DECLINES A JOB}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Sundayman’s Creek Road, turning
aside just before it gains the turnpike to
the Eyrie Hotel to evade a stretch of marsh,
travels on wooden stilts across a deep clear pool
fed by a spring. Signs at each end of the crossing
threaten financial penalties against any vehicle
traversing the bridge faster than a walk. Now,
the measure of a walk for an automobile is dubious;
but the most rigorous constable could have
found no basis for protest in the pace maintained
by a light electric car, carrying a short, slender,
elderly man, who peered out with weary eyes into
the glory of the July sunshine. At the end of
the bridge the car stopped to allow its occupant
a better view of a figure prostrate on the brink
of the pool. Presently the figure came to the
posture of all fours. The face turned upward,
and the motorist caught the glint of a monocle.
Then the face turned again to its quest.\par

“Are you looking for something lost?” asked
the man in the car.\par

“Yes,” was the reply. “Very much lost.”\par

“When did you lose it, if it’s not an impertinent
question?”\par

“Not in the least,” answered the other cordially.
“I didn’t lose it at all.”\par

“Ah!” The motorist smiled. “When was it
lost, then?”\par

Across the monocled face passed a shadow of
thoughtful consideration. “About four million
years ago, I should judge.”\par

“And you are still looking? I perceive that
you are an optimist,” said the elderly man.\par

“Just at present I’m a limnologist.”\par

“Pardon me?”\par

“A limnologist. Limnology is the science of
the life found on the banks of small bodies of
water. It is a fascinating study, I assure you.
There is only one chair of limnology in the
world.”\par

“And you, I presume, are the incumbent?”
asked the other politely.\par

% ---File: 138.png

“No, indeed! The merest amateur, on the contrary.
I’m humbly hoping to discover the eggs
of certain neuropterous insects. We know the
insects, and we know they lay eggs; but how they
conceal them has been a secret since the first
dragon-fly rose from the first pool.”\par

“Ah! You are an entomologist, then.”\par

“To some extent.”\par

“So was I, once—when I had more time. Business
has drawn my attention, though never my interest,
away from it. I’ve entirely dropped my
reading in the last year. By the way, were you
here in time to witness the swarm of {\itshape{antiopas}} last
month? Rather unusual, I think.”\par

“No, I missed that. What was the feature,
specially?”\par

“The suddenness of the appearance. You
know, Helmund says that—”\par

“Pardon me, who?”\par

“Helmund, the Belgian.”\par

“Oh, yes, certainly. Go on!”\par

The stranger went on at some length. He
appeared to be an interested rather than a learned
student of the subject. As he talked, sitting on the
step of his car, from which he had descended, the
other studied him, his quiet but forceful voice,
his severely handsome face, with its high brows,
harsh nose, and chiseled outlines, from which the
eyes looked forth, thoughtful, alert, yet with the
gaze of a man in pain. Presently he said courteously:\par

“If you are going back to the hotel, may I take
you along? I am Alexander Blair.”\par

“Thank you. I’ll be glad of a lift. My name is
Chester Kent.”\par

“Not the Professor Kent of the Ramsay case?”\par

“The same. You know, Mr. Blair, I’ve always
believed that you had more of a hand in Ramsay’s
death than I. Now, if you wish to withdraw
your offer of a lift—”\par

“Not at all. A man who has been so abused
by the newspapers as I, can stand a little plain
speaking. For all that, on my word, Professor
Kent, I had no hand in sending Ramsay on that
dirty business of his.”\par

The scientist considered him thoughtfully.
“Well, I believe you,” said he shortly, and got
into the machine.\par

% ---File: 140.png

“This meeting is a fortunate chance for me,”
said Blair presently.\par

“Chance?” murmured Kent interrogatively.\par

The car swerved sharply, but immediately resumed
the middle of the road.\par

“Certainly, chance,” said the motorist. “What
else should it be?”\par

“Of course,” agreed Kent. “As you say.”\par

“I said fortunate,” continued the other, “because
you are, I believe, the very man I want.
There is an affair that has been troubling me a
good deal. I haven’t been able to look into it
personally, because of the serious illness of my
son, who is at my place on Sundayman’s Creek.
But it is in your line, being entomological, and
perhaps criminal.”\par

“What is it?” asked Kent.\par

“An inexplicable destruction of our stored woolens
by the clothes moth. You may perhaps know
that I am president of the Kinsella Mills. We’ve
been having a great deal of trouble this spring,
and our superintendent believes that some enemy
is introducing the pest into our warehouses. Will
you take the case?”\par

% ---File: 141.png

“When?”\par

“Start to-night for Connecticut.”\par

Chester Kent’s long fingers went to the lobe
on his ear. “Give me until three o’clock this afternoon
to consider. Can I reach you by telephone?”\par

“Yes, at Hedgerow House, my place.”\par

“That is how far from here?”\par

“Fourteen miles; but you need not come there.
I could return to the hotel to conclude arrangements.
And I think,” he added significantly,
“that you would find the project a profitable one.”\par

“Doubtless. Are you well acquainted with this
part of the country, Mr. Blair?”\par

“Yes, I’ve been coming here for years.”\par

“Is there an army post near by?”\par

“Not within a hundred miles.”\par

“Nor any officers on special detail about?”\par

“None, so far as I know.”\par

Kent produced from his pocket the silver star
with the shred of cloth hanging to it. “This may
or may not be an important clue to a curious death
that occurred here three days ago.”\par

“Yes, I’ve heard something of it,” said the
other indifferently. “I took it to be mostly
gossip.”\par

“Before the death there was a struggle. This
star was found at the scene of the struggle.”\par

“It looks like the star from the collar of an
officer. I should say positively that it was from
an army or navy uniform.”\par

“Positiveness is the greatest temptation and
snare that I have to fight against,” remarked
Chester Kent. “Otherwise I should say positively
that no officer, going to a dubious rendezvous,
would wear a uniform which would be certain to
make him conspicuous. Are you yourself an expert
in woolen fabrics, Mr. Blair?”\par

“I have been.”\par

“Could you tell from that tiny fragment
whether or not the whole cloth is all wool?”\par

Without replying, Blair gave the steering
handle a quick sweep, and the car drew up before
a drug store. He took the star and was gone a
few minutes.\par

“Not all wool,” he announced on his return.\par

“Exit the army or navy officer,” remarked
Kent.\par

% ---File: 143.png

“Why so?”\par

“Because regulations require all-wool garments—and
get them. What is the fabric?”\par

“A fairly good mixture, from the very elemental
chemical test I made. Something in the nature
of a worsted batiste, I should judge, from what I
could make out under the inferior magnifying-glass
that they loaned me.”\par

“Thank you, Mr. Blair. You’ve eliminated
one troublesome hypothesis for me. I’ll telephone
you before three o’clock. Good day.”\par

From the woolen manufacturer, Chester Kent
went direct to the Martindale Center library,
where he interviewed the librarian.\par

“Do you get the Agriculture Department publications?”\par

“Yes.”\par

“Have you a pamphlet issued by the Bureau
of Entomology, Helmund on {\itshape{The Swarm Phenomenon
in Lepidoptera}}?”\par

“Yes, sir. It was inquired for only yesterday
by Mr. Blair.”\par

“Ah, yes. He’s quite interested in the subject,
I believe.”\par

% ---File: 144.png

“It must be quite recent, then,” said the librarian.
“We haven’t seen him here for a long time
until two days ago, when he came and put in a
morning, reading on insects.”\par

“So, Mr. Alexander Blair,” said Kent, addressing
the last fence post on the outskirts of the town,
after a thoughtful walk, “that was a fatal break
on your part, that mention of Helmund. Amateurs
who have wholly dropped a subject since
years back don’t usually know publications issued
only within three months. That casual meeting
with me was well carried out, and you called it
chance. A very palpably manufactured chance!
But why am I worth so much trouble to know?
And why does Alexander Blair leave a desperately
ill son to arrange an errand for me at this particular
time? And is Hedgerow House, fourteen
miles distant and possessing just such an electric
car as a woman would use in driving round the
country, perhaps the place whence came Sedgwick’s
sweet lady of mystery? Finally, what connection
has all this with the body lying in Annalaka
burying-ground?”\par

Eliciting no reply from the fence post, Kent returned
to the Eyrie, called up Hedgerow House,
and declined Blair’s proposition.\par

Early that evening Francis Sedgwick came to
the hotel. The clerk, at first negligent, pricked
up his ears and exhibited unmistakable signs of
human interest when he heard the name; for the
suspicion attaching to the artist had spread swiftly.
Moreover, the caller was in a state of hardly
repressed excitement.\par

“Mr. Kent? I’m afraid you can’t see him, sir.
He isn’t in his room.”\par

“Isn’t he about the hotel?”\par

The clerk hesitated. “I ought not to tell you,
sir, for it’s Mr. Kent’s strict orders not to be disturbed;
but he’s in his special room. Is it anything
very important? Any new evidence, or
something of that sort?”\par

“That is what I want Mr. Kent to decide.”\par

“In that case I might take the responsibility.
But I think I had better take you to him myself.”\par

After the elevator had carried them to the
top of its run, they mounted a flight of stairs, and
walked to a far corner of the building.\par

“Nobody’s been in here since he took it,” explained
the clerk as they walked. “Turned all the
furniture out. Special lock on the door. Some
kind of scientific experiments, I suppose. He’s
very quiet about it.”\par

Having reached the door, he discreetly tapped.
No answer came. Somewhat less timidity characterized
his next effort. A growl of surpassing
savagery from within was his reward.\par

“You see, Mr. Sedgwick,” said the clerk. Raising
his voice he called, “Mr. Kent, I’ve
brought—”\par

“Get away and go to the devil!” cried a voice
from inside in fury. “What do you mean by—”\par

“It’s I, Kent, Sedgwick. I’ve got to see you.”\par

There was a silence of some seconds.\par

“What do you want?” asked Kent at length.\par

“You told me to come at once if anything
turned up.”\par

“So I did,” sighed Kent. “Well, chase that
infernal bell-boy to the stairs, and I’ll let you in.”\par

With a wry face the clerk retired. Kent
opened the door, and his friend squeezed through
into a bare room. The walls were hung and the
floor was carpeted with white sheets. There was
no furniture of any kind, unless a narrow mattress
in one corner could be so reckoned. Beside
the mattress lay a small pad and a pencil. Only
on the visitor’s subconscious self did these peculiarities
impress themselves, such was his absorption
in his own interests.\par

“It’s happened!” he announced.\par

“Has it?” said Kent. “Lean up against the
wall and make yourself at home. Man, you’re
shaking!”\par

“You’d shake, too,” retorted the artist, his
voice trembling.\par

“No; anger doesn’t affect me that way. Wait!
Now, don’t tell me yet. If I’m to have a report,
it must be from a sane man, not from one in a
blind fury. Take time and cool down. What do
you think of my room?”\par

“It looks like the abode of white silence. Have
you turned Trappist monk?”\par

“Not such a bad guess. This is the retreat of
my mind. I think against the blank walls.”\par

“What’s the game?” asked Sedgwick, interested
in spite of himself.\par

% ---File: 148.png

“It dates back to our college days. Do you remember
that queer freshman, Berwind?”\par

“The mind-reader? Yes. The poor chap went
insane afterward.”\par

“Yes. It was a weak mind, but a singularly
receptive one. You know we used to force numbers
or playing-cards upon his consciousness by
merely thinking of them.”\par

“I recollect. His method was to stand gazing
at a blank wall. He said the object we were
thinking of would rise before him visually against
the blankness. Did you ever figure out how he
managed to do it?”\par

“Not exactly. But his notion of keeping the
mind blank for impressions has its points. If
you throw off the clutch of the brain, as it were,
and let it work along its own lines, it sometimes
arranges and formulates ideas that you wouldn’t
get from it under control.”\par

“Sort of self-hypnosis?”\par

“In a sense. For years I’ve kept a bare white
room in my Washington house to do my hard
thinking in. When your affair promised to become
difficult for me, I rigged up this spot. And
I’m trying to see things against the walls.”\par

“Any particular kind of things?”\par

Kent produced the silver star from his pocket,
and told of its discovery. “The stars in their
courses may have fought against Sisera,” he remarked;
“but they aren’t going out of their way
to fight—to fight—to—to—” Kent’s jaw was
sagging down. His lean fingers pulled savagely
at the lobe of his long-suffering ear. “The stars
in their courses—in their courses—That’s it!”
he half whispered. “Sedgwick; {\itshape{what}} was it your
visitor said to you about Jupiter?”\par

“She didn’t mention Jupiter.”\par

“No, of course not. Not by name. But what
was it she said about the planet that she pointed
out, over the sea?”\par

“Oh; was that Jupiter? How did you know?”\par

“Looked last night, of course,” said Kent impatiently.
“There’s no other planet conspicuous
over the sea at that hour, from where you stood.
That’s not important; at least, not now. What
did she say?”\par

“Oh, some rot about daring to follow her star
and find happiness, and that perhaps it might lead
me to glory or something.”\par

A kind of snort came from Kent. “Where
have my brains been!” he cried. He thrust the
bit of embroidery back into his pocket. Then,
with an abrupt change of tone:\par

“Well, is your temper in hand?”\par

“For the present.”\par

“Tell me about it, then.”\par

“You remember the—the picture of the face?”
said Sedgwick with an effort.\par

“Nobody would easily forget it.”\par

“I’ve been doing another portrait from the
sketches. It was on opaque glass, an experimental
medium that I’ve worked on some. Late
this afternoon I went out, leaving the glass sheet,
backed against a light board, on my easel. The
door was locked with a heavy spring. There’s no
possible access by the window. Yet somebody
came in and smashed my picture to fragments.
If I can find that man, Kent, I’ll kill him!”\par

Kent glanced at the artist’s long strong hands.
They were clenched on his knees. The fingers
were bloodless.\par

% ---File: 151.png

“I believe you would,” said the scientist with
conviction. “You mustn’t, you know. No luxuries,
at present.”\par

“Don’t joke with me about this, Kent.”\par

“Very good. But just consider, please, that
I’m having enough trouble clearing you of a supposed
murder of your doing, to want a real one,
however provoked, on my hands.”\par

“Keep the man out of my way, then.”\par

“That depends. Anything else in your place
damaged?”\par

“Not that I noticed. But I didn’t pay much attention
to anything else. I came here direct to
find you.”\par

“That’s right. Well, I’m with you, for the
Nook.”\par

Locking his curious room after him, Kent led
the way to the hotel lobby, where he stopped only
long enough to send some telegrams. The sun
was still a few minutes short of its setting when
he and his companion emerged from the hotel.
Kent at once broke into a trot.\par

% ---File: 152.png

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CHAPTER X—THE INVASION}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Such ruin as had been wrought in Sedgwick’s
studio was strictly localized. The
easel lay on the floor, with its rear leg crumpled.
Around it were scattered the fragments of the
glass upon which the painter had set his labor of
love. A high old-fashioned chair faced the wreckage.
On its peak was hung a traveling cap. Lopping
across the back sprawled a Norfolk jacket
belonging to Sedgwick. Chester Kent lifted the
coat, and after a swift survey let it drop.\par

“Did you leave that there?” he asked.\par

“I hung it across the back of the chair,” answered
Sedgwick.\par

“North window closed?”\par

“Yes, as you see it now.”\par

“And west one open?”\par

“Nothing has been changed, I tell you, except
this.” Sedgwick’s hand, outstretched toward the
destroyed portrait, condensed itself involuntarily
into a knotty fist.\par

“The lock of the door hasn’t been tampered
with,” said Kent. “As for this open window,”
he leaned out, looking around, “any man gaining
access here must have used a ladder, which is unlikely
in broad daylight.”\par

“How about a pass-key for the door?”\par

“There’s a simpler solution nearer at hand, I
fancy. You didn’t chance to notice that things
have happened to the coat, as well as to the easel.”\par

“Then the invader went through the coat and,
not finding what he was looking for, smashed my
picture,” cried Sedgwick.\par

“Through the coat, certainly,” agreed Kent,
with his quiet smile. “Now hang it across the
chair back just as it was, please.”\par

Sedgwick took the Norfolk jacket from him.
“Why, there’s a hole through it!” he exclaimed.\par

“Exactly: the path of the invader.”\par

“A bullet!”\par

“Right again. Instead of murdering, as you
pine to do, you’ve been murdered. That the picture
was destroyed is merely a bit of ill fortune.
That you weren’t inside the coat when the bullet
went through it and cut the prop from your easel,
is a bit of the other kind. Hang up the coat,
please.”\par

Sedgwick obeyed.\par

“There,” said Kent viewing the result from
the window. “At a distance of, say, a quarter of
a mile, that arrangement of coat and cap would
look uncommonly like a man sitting in a chair before
his work. At least, I should think so. And
yonder thicket on the hillside,” he added, looking
out of the window again, “is just about that distance,
and seems to be the only spot in sight giving
a straight range. Suppose we run up there.”\par

Sound as was his condition, Sedgwick was
panting when he brought up at the spot, some
yards behind his long-limbed leader. As the scientist
had surmised, the arrangement of coat and
cap in the studio presented, at that distance, an
excellent simulacrum of the rear view of a man
lounging in a chair. Bidding the artist stay outside
the copse, Kent entered on hands and knees
and made extended exploration. After a few moments
the sound of low lugubrious whistling was
heard from the trees, and presently the musician
emerged leading himself by the lobe of his ear.\par

“Evidently you’ve found something,” commented
Sedgwick, who had begun to comprehend
his friend’s peculiar methods of expression.\par

“Nothing.”\par

“Then why are you so pleased with yourself?”\par

“That is why.”\par

“Because you’ve found nothing?”\par

“Exactly.”\par

“It seems an easy system,” observed the artist
sarcastically.\par

“So it is, to a reasoning being. I’m satisfied
that some one fired a shot from here. The marksman—a
good one—saw you, as he supposed,
jerk to the shot as if with a bullet through you,
and went away satisfied.”\par

“Leaving no trace behind him,” added Sedgwick.\par

“No trace that is tangible. Therein lies the evidence.”\par

“Of course you don’t expect me to follow
that.”\par

% ---File: 156.png

“Why not? Look at the ground in the
thicket.”\par

“What is there to be seen there, since you’ve
said there are no marks?”\par

“The soil is very soft.”\par

“Yes; there’s a spring just back of us.”\par

“Yet there’s not a footprint discernible on it.”\par

“I’ve got that part of the lesson by heart, I
think.”\par

“Use your brain on it, then. Some one designing
to make you his target, has been in this
thicket; been and gone, and left the place trackless.
That some one was a keen soft-footed
woodsman. Putting it in words of one syllable,
I should say he probably had the racial instinct of
the hunt. Does that flush any idea from the deep
and devious coverts of your brain?”\par

“Racial instinct? Gansett Jim!” said Sedgwick.\par

“Exactly. If I had found tracks all over the
place, I should have known it wasn’t he. Finding
nothing, I was naturally pleased.”\par

“That’s more than I am,” retorted the other.
“I suppose he’s likely to resume his gunnery at
any time.”\par

“Unless we can discourage him—as I expect
we can.”\par

“By having him arrested?”\par

“Difficulties might be put in our way. Sheriff
Len Schlager and the half-breed are in some sort
of loose partnership in this affair, as you know.
Gansett Jim honestly thinks that you had a hand
in the Lonesome Cove murder, as he believes it to
be. It isn’t impossible that the sheriff has subtly
egged him on to kill you in revenge.”\par

“Why does the sheriff want me killed?”\par

“Nothing personal, I assure you,” answered
Kent with mock courtesy. “I’ve already explained
that he will not arrest you. But you’re the suspect,
and if you were put out of the way every one
would believe you the murderer. There would be
a perfunctory investigation, the whole thing
would be hushed up, and the body in Annalaka
churchyard would rest in peace—presumably a
profitable peace for the sheriff.”\par

“Flat out, Kent, do you know who the dead
woman is?”\par

% ---File: 158.png

“Flat out, I don’t. But I’ve a shrewd guess
that I’ll find out before long.”\par

“From Gansett Jim?”\par

“No hope there. He’s an Indian. What I’m
going to see him about now is your safety.”\par

“Now? Where do you expect to find him?”\par

“In the village, I hope. It wouldn’t do for you
to come there. But I want you to go to the spot
where you met the circus-wagon man, and wait,
until I bring Jim.”\par

It was a long wait for the worried artist, in the
deep forest that bounded the lonely road along
Hawkill Heights. Ten o’clock had chimed across
the hill from the distant village, when he heard
footsteps, and at a call from Kent, stepped out into
the clear, holding the lantern above him. The
light showed a strange spectacle. Kent, watchful,
keen, ready as a cat to spring, stood with his eyes
fixed upon the distorted face of the half-breed.
Terror, rage, overmastering amazement, and the
soul-panic of the supernatural glared from the
blue-white eyeballs of the negro; but the jaw and
chin were set firm in the stoicism of the Indian.
In that strange racial conflict of emotions the
fiercer finer strain won. Gansett Jim’s frame
relaxed. He grunted.\par

“Good boy, Jim!” Chester Kent’s voice, at the
half-breed’s ear, was the voice of one who soothes
an affrighted horse. “I didn’t know whether you
could stand it or not. You see, you didn’t shoot
Mr. Sedgwick, after all.”\par

“Dun’no what you mean,” grunted Gansett
Jim.\par

“And you mustn’t shoot at him any more,”
continued the scientist. The tone was soft as a
woman’s; but Sedgwick felt in it the tensity of a
man ready for any extreme. Perhaps the half-breed,
too, felt the peril of that determination;
for he hung his head. “I’ve brought you here to
show you why. Pay good heed, now. A man
traveling in a wagon was met here, as he says, by
a woman—you understand—who questioned him
and then went on. He followed the trail through
the brush and found the signs of a fight. The
fight took place before the death. Here’s the lantern.
Take his trail from here.”\par

Without a word the half-breed snatched the
light and plunged into a by-path. After a few
minutes of swift going he pulled up short, in an
open copse of ash, and set the lantern on the
ground. Hound-like, he nosed about the trodden
earth. Suddenly he darted across and, seizing
Sedgwick’s ankle, lifted his foot, almost throwing
him from his balance. Sedgwick wrenched himself
free and, with a swinging blow, into which
he put all the energy of his repressed wrath,
knocked the half-breed flat.\par

“Hands off, damn you!” he growled.\par

Gansett Jim got to his feet a little unsteadily.
Expectant of a rush, his assailant stood, with
weight thrown forward; but the other made no
slightest attempt at reprisal. Catching up the lantern,
which had rolled from his hand, he threw
its light upon Sedgwick’s forward foot. Then he
turned away. Kent whistled softly. The whistle
had a purring quality of content.\par

“Not the same as the footprint, eh?” he remarked.\par

“Footprint too small,” grunted Gansett Jim.\par

“How many people; two?”\par

“Three.”\par

% ---File: 161.png

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% ---File: 162.png

“Three, of course. I had forgotten the circus-wagon
man. He came later. But, Jim, you see
it wasn’t Mr. Sedgwick.”\par

“What he follow for?” demanded the other
savagely.\par

“No evil purpose. You can take his trail from
the circus wagon and follow that, if you want to
satisfy yourself further that he wasn’t here. I’ll
let you have the lantern. Only, remember, now!
No more shooting at the wrong man!”\par

The half-breed made no reply.\par

“And you, Sedgwick. Here’s the destroyer.
Do you still want to kill him?”\par

“I suppose not,” replied the artist lifelessly.\par

“Since his design was only against your life
and not against your picture,” commented Kent
with a smile. “Well, our night’s work is done.”
Lifting the lantern, he held it in the face of the
half-breed. “Jim!”\par

“Huh?”\par

“When you really want to know who made
those footprints, come and tell me who the body
in Annalaka burying-ground is. A trade for a
trade. You understand?”\par

The eyes stared, immovable. The chin did not
quiver. Reaching for the lantern, Gansett Jim,
now nine of Indian to one of negro, turned away
from them to the pathway. “No,” he said stolidly.\par

As the flicker of radiance danced and disappeared
in the forest Sedgwick spoke. “Well, do
you consider that we’ve made a friend?”\par

“No,” answered Chester Kent; “but we’ve
done what’s as good. We’ve quashed an enmity.”\par

% ---File: 164.png

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CHAPTER XI—HEDGEROW HOUSE}

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{\noindent}
Answers to the telegrams Chester Kent
had despatched arrived in the form of
night letters, bringing information regarding the
Blairs of Hedgerow House: not sufficient information
to satisfy the seeker, however. Therefore,
having digested their contents at breakfast,
the scientist cast about him to supply the deficiency.
The feet of hope led him to the shop of
Elder Ira Dennett.\par

Besides being an able plumber and tinker, Elder
Dennett performed, by vocation, the pleasurable
duties of unprinted journalism. That is to say,
he was the semiofficial town gossip. As Professor
Kent was a conspicuous figure in the choicest
titbit the Elder had acquired in stock for many
years, and as the Elder had been unable to come to
speech with him since the inquest (Kent had
achieved some skilful dodging), there was joy in
the plumber-tinker’s heart over the visit. Unhappily,
it appeared that Kent was there strictly on
business. He did not wish to talk of the mystery
of Lonesome Cove. He wished his acetylene lamp
fixed. At once, if Elder Dennett pleased.\par

Glum was the face of the Elder as he examined
the lamp, which needed very little attention. It
lightened when his visitor observed:\par

“I’ve been thinking a little of getting an electric
car, to run about here in. There was a neat little
one in town yesterday.”\par

“Old Blair’s,” replied Dennett. “I seen you in
it. Known Mr. Blair long?”\par

“He offered me a lift into town, very kindly.
He was a stranger to me,” said Kent truthfully,
and with intent to deceive. “Who did you say he
was?”\par

“Gosh sakes! Don’t you know who Aleck
Blair is?”\par

“Blair? Blair?” said Kent innocently. “Is he
the author of Blair’s {\itshape{Studies of Neuropterae}}?”\par

Elder Dennett snorted. “He’s a millionaire,
that’s what he is! Ain’t you read about him in
the Fabric Trust investigations?”\par

% ---File: 166.png

“Oh, that Blair! Yes, I believe I have.”\par

Kent yawned. It was a well-conceived bit of
strategy, and met with deserved success. Regarding
that yawn as a challenge to his vocational
powers, the Elder set about eliminating the inhuman
indifference of which it was the expression.
Floods of information poured from his eager
mouth. He traced the history of the Blairs in and
out of concentric circles of scandal; financial, political,
social—and mostly untrue. Those in
which the greatest proportion of truth inhered
dealt with the escapades of Wilfrid Blair, the only
son and heir of the household, who had burned
up all the paternal money he could lay hands on,
writing his name in red fire across the night life
of London, Paris, and New York. Tiring of this,
he had come home and married a girl of nineteen,
beautiful and innocent, whose parents, the Elder
piously opined, had sold her to the devil, per Mr.
Blair, agent. The girl, whose maiden name was
Marjorie Dorrance—Kent’s fingers went to his
ear at this—had left Blair after a year of marriage,
though there was no legal process, and he
had returned to his haunts of the gutter, until retribution
overtook him, in the form of tuberculosis.
His father had brought him to their place on Sundayman’s
Creek, and there he was kept in semi-seclusion,
visited from time to time by his young
wife, who helped to care for him.\par

“That’s the story they tell,” commented the
Elder; “but some folks has got suspicions.”\par

“It’s a prevalent complaint,” murmured Kent,
“and highly contagious.”\par

Dennett stared. “My own suspicions,” he proceeded
firmly, “is that the young feller hasn’t got
no more consumption than you have. I think old
Blair has got him here to keep him out of the papers.”\par

“Publicity is not to Mr. Blair’s taste, then?”\par

“‘Not’s’ no word for it,” declared the human
Bureau of Information, delighted at this evidence
of dawning interest on the part of his hearer.
“He’s crazy against it. They says he pays {\itshape{Town
Titbits}} a thousand dollars a year to let young
Blair’s name alone. I don’t believe the old man
would hardly stop short of murder to keep his
name out of print. He’s kind o’ loony on the
subject.”\par

% ---File: 168.png

“You’ve been to his country place?”\par

“Only wunst. Mostly they have one o’ them
scientific plumber fellers from Boston.” The
Elder’s tone was as essence of gall and wormwood.
“Wunst I had a job there, though, an’ I
seen young Blair moonin’ around the grounds
with a man nurse.”\par

“Quite a place, I hear,” suggested Kent.\par

“Sailor Milt Smith is the feller that can tell
you about the place as it used to be. Here he
comes, up the street.”\par

He thrust his head out of the door and called.
Sailor Smith, sturdy and white, entered and greeted
Kent courteously.\par

“Mr. Dennett was saying,” remarked Kent,
“that you know something of the history of
Hedgerow House, as I believe they call it.”\par

“They call it!” repeated the old sailor. “Who
calls it? If you mean the Blair place, that’s
Hogg’s Haven, that is! You can’t wipe out that
name while there’s a man living as knew the
place at its worst. Old Captain Hogg built it and
lived in it and died in it. And if there’s a fryin’-pan
in hell, the devil is fryin’ bacon out of old
Hogg to-day for the things he done in that
house.”\par

“How long since did he die?”\par

“Oh, twenty year back.”\par

“And the house was sold soon after?”\par

“Stood vacant for ten years. Then this rich
feller, Blair, bought it. I don’t know him; but he
bought a weevilly biscuit, there. A bad house, it
is—rotten bad!”\par

“What’s wrong with it?”\par

“Men’s bones in the brick and women’s blood
in the mortar.”\par

“Was the old boy a cannibal?” asked Kent,
amused by the sea veteran’s heroics.\par

“Just as bad: slave-trader.”\par

“Have you ever been in the house?”\par

“Many’s the time, when it was Hogg’s Haven.
Only once, since. They do tell that the curse has
come down with the house and is heavy on the
new owner’s son.”\par

“So I’ve heard.”\par

The old white head wagged bodingly. “The
curse of the blood,” he said. “It’s on all that
race.”\par

% ---File: 170.png

“But that wouldn’t affect the Blairs.”\par

“Not Aleck Blair. But the boy.”\par

“How so?”\par

“Didn’t you know there was the same strain in
young Wilfrid Blair, as there was in old Captain
Hogg?”\par

“Hogg’s oldest sister was the grandmother of
this young feller’s mother, wasn’t she?” put in
Elder Dennett.\par

“That’s right. Wilfrid Blair’s great grandmother.”\par

“And a bad ’un, too, I guess,” continued the
Elder relishingly.\par

“Don’t you say it!” cried the old seaman. “The
curse of the blood was on her. Strange she was,
and beautiful, so my mother used to tell me; but
not bad. She came in at Lonesome Cove, too.”\par

“Drowned at sea?” asked Kent.\par

“They never knew. One day she was gone;
the next night her body came in. They said
in the countryside that she had the gift of second
sight, and foretold her own death.”\par

“Hum-m,” mused Kent. “And now the Blairs
have changed the name of the place. No wonder.”\par

% ---File: 171.png

“There’s one thing they haven’t changed, the
private buryin’-plot.”\par

“Family?”\par

“Hogg’s there, all right, an’ never a parson in
the countryside dared to speak to God about his
soul, when they laid him there. His nephew, too,
that was as black-hearted as himself. But the rest
of the graves has got no headstones.”\par

“Slaves?”\par

“Them as he kept for his own service an’ killed
in his tantrums. Nobody knows how many. You
can see the bend of the creek where they lie, from
the road, and the old willows that lean over ’em.”\par

“Cheerful sort of person the late Mr. Hogg
seems to have been. Any relics of his trade in
the house?”\par

“Relics? You may say so! His old pistols,
and compasses, guns, nautical instruments, and
the leaded whalebone whip that they used to say
he slept with. They’ve got ’em hung on the walls
now for ornyments. Ornyments! If they’d seen
’em as I’ve seen ’em, they’d sink the dummed
things in a hundred fathom o’ clean sea.”\par

“Sailor Smith was cabin-boy on one of the old
Hogg fleet one voyage,” explained Elder Dennett.\par

“God forgive me for it!” said the old man.
“There they hang; and with ’em the chains
and—”\par

“Isn’t that lamp finished yet?” demanded Kent,
turning sharply upon Elder Dennett.\par

Having paid for it—with something extra for
his curtness—he led the seaman out of the place.\par

“You were going to say ‘and handcuffs’,
weren’t you?” he inquired.\par

“Why, yes. What of that?” asked the veteran,
puzzled. Suddenly he brought his hand down
with a slap on his thigh. “Where was my wits?”
he cried. “Them irons on the dead woman’s
wrist—I knew I’d seen their like before! Slave
manacles! They must ‘a’ come from Hogg’s Haven!”\par

“Very likely. But that suspicion had better be
kept quiet, at present.”\par

“Aye, aye, sir,” agreed the other. “More devilment
from the old Haven? A bad house—a
rotten bad house!”\par

“Yet I’ve a pressing desire to take a look at it,”
said Chester Kent musingly. “Going back to Annalaka,
Mr. Smith? I’ll walk with you as far as
the road to Mr. Sedgwick’s.”\par

Freed of the veteran’s company at the turn of
the road, Kent sat down and took his ear in hand,
to think.\par

“Miss Dorrance,” he mused, “Marjorie Dorrance.
What simpler twist for a nickname than
to transform that into Marjorie Daw? Poor
Sedgwick!”\par

At the Nook he found the object of his commiseration
mournfully striving to piece together,
as in a mosaic, the shattered remnants of his work.
Sedgwick brightened at his friend’s approach.\par

“For heaven’s sake, come out and do me a
couple of sets of tennis!” he besought. “I’m no
sport for you, I know, particularly as my nerves
are jumpy; but I need the work.”\par

“Sorry, my boy,” said Kent, “but I’ve got to
make a more or less polite call.”\par

“Didn’t know you had friends in this part of
the world,” said Sedgwick in surprise.\par

“Oh, friends!” said Kent rather disparagingly.
“Say acquaintances. People named Blair. Ever
know ’em?”\par

% ---File: 174.png

“Used to know a Wilfrid Blair in Paris,” said
the artist indifferently.\par

“What kind of a person was he?”\par

“An agreeable enough little beast; but a rounder
of the worst sort. I won’t go so far as to
say that he shocked my moral sense in those days;
but he certainly offended my sense of decency.
He came back to America, and I lost track of him.
Is he the man you’re going to see?”\par

“No such luck,” said Chester Kent. “I never
expect to see Mr. Wilfrid Blair. Probably I
shan’t even be invited to his funeral.”\par

“Oh! Is he dead?”\par

“His death is officially expected any day.”\par

Sedgwick examined his friend’s expression
with suspicion. “Officially? Then he’s very ill.”\par

“No, he isn’t ill at all.”\par

“Don’t you think you overdo this business of
mystification sometimes, Kent?”\par

“Merely a well-meant effort,” smiled the other,
“to divert your mind from your own troubles—before
they get any worse.”\par

With which cheering farewell Kent stepped
out and into his waiting car.\par

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CHAPTER XII—THE UNBIDDEN VISITOR}

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{\noindent}
One of Kent’s Washington friends once
criticized the scientist’s mode of motoring,
as follows: “Kent’s a good driver, and a fast one,
and careful; but he can never rid himself of the
theory that there’s a strain of hunter in every
well-bred motor-car.”\par

Cross-country travel was, in fact, rather a fad
of Kent’s, and he had trained his light car to do
everything but take a five-barred gate. After departing
from the Nook, it rolled along beside Sundayman’s
Creek sedately enough until it approached
the wide bend, where it indulged in a bit
of path-finding across the country, and eventually
crept into the shade of a clump of bushes and hid.
Its occupant emerged, and went forward afoot until
he came in view of Hedgerow House. At the
turn of the stream he leaped a fence, and made
his way to a group of willows beneath which the
earth was ridged with little mounds. Professor
Chester Kent was trespassing. He was invading
the territory of the dead.\par

From the seclusion of the graveyard amid the
willows a fair view was afforded of Hedgerow
House. Grim as was the repute given it, it presented
to the intruder an aspect of homely hospitable
sweetness and quaintness. Tall hollyhocks
lifted their flowers to smile in at the old-fashioned
windows. Here and there, on the well-kept
lawn, peonies glowed, crimson and white. A
great, clambering rose tree had thrown its arms
around the square porch, softening the uncompromising
angles into curves of leafage and bloom.
Along the paths pansies laughed at the sun, and
mignonette scattered its scented summons to bee
and butterfly. The place was a loved place; so
much Kent felt with sureness of instinct. No
home blooms except by love.\par

But the house was dead. Its eyes were closed.
Silence held it. The garden buzzed and flickered
with vivid multicolored life; but there was no
stir from the habitation of man. Had its occupants
deserted it? Chester Kent, leaning against
the headstone of Captain Hogg of damnable
memory, pondered and wondered.\par

From the far side of the mansion came the
sound of a door opening and closing again. Moving
quickly along the sumac-fringed course of
the creek, Kent made a détour which gave him
view of a side entrance, and had barely time to
efface himself in the shrubbery when a light
wagon, with a spirited horse between the shafts,
turned briskly out into the road. Kent, well sheltered,
caught one brief sufficient glimpse of the
occupant. It was Doctor Breed. The medical officer
looked, as always, nerve-beset; but there was a
greedy smile on his lips.\par

Kent’s mouth puckered. He took a deep breath
of musical inspiration—and exhaled it in painful
noiselessness, flattening himself amid the greenery,
as he saw a man emerge from the rear of
Hedgerow House. The man was Gansett Jim.
He carried a pick and a spade and walked slowly.
Presently he disappeared in the willow-shaded
place of mounds. The sound of his toil came,
muffled, to the ears of the hidden man.\par

Cautiously Kent worked his way, now in the
stream, now through the heavy growth on the
banks, until he gained the roadway. Once there
he went forward to the front gate of Hedgerow
House. The bricked sidewalk runs, thence,
straight and true to the rose-bowered square porch
which is the mansion’s main entry. Kent paused
for the merest moment. His gaze rested on the
heavy black door. Heavier and blacker against
the woodwork a pendant waved languidly in the
faint breeze.\par

To the normal human being, the grisly insignium
of death over a portal is provocative of anything
rather than mirth. But Chester Kent, viewing
the crape on Hedgerow House, laughed as he
turned to the open road.\par

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CHAPTER XIII—LOOSE ENDS}

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{\noindent}
Meditation furrowed the brow of Lawyer
Adam Bain. Customarily an easy-minded
participant in the placid affairs of his
community, he had been shaken out of his rut by
the case in which Kent had enlisted him, and in
which he had, thus far, found opportunity for little
more than thought.\par

“Nobody vs. Sedgwick,” grumbled he. “Public
opinion vs. Sedgwick,” he amended. “How’s
a self-respecting lawyer going to earn a fee out
of that? And Len Schlager standing over the
grave of the {\itshape{corpus delicti}} with a warrant against
searching, so to speak, in his hand. For that matter,
this Professor Kent worries me more than
the sheriff.”\par

A sharp humming rose in the air, and brought
the idle counselor to his window, whence he
beheld the prime author of his bewilderment
descending from a car. A minute later the two
men were sitting with their feet on one desk, a
fairly good sign of mutual respect and confidence.\par

“Blair?” said Lawyer Bain. “No, I don’t know
him, not even to see. Took Hogg’s Haven, didn’t
he?”\par

“Then he doesn’t use this post-office?”\par

“No. Might use any one of half a dozen. See
here.” He drew a county map from a shelf.
“Here’s the place. Seven railroad stations on
three different roads, within ten miles of it. Annalaka
would be way out of his reach.”\par

“Yet Gansett Jim seems to be known here.”\par

“Oh; is it Blair that the Indian works for? I
never knew. Closer’n a deaf mute with lockjaw,
he is. Well, I expect the reason he comes here
occasionally is that it’s the nearest license town.\par

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{\noindent}
“Do you know most of the post-offices around
here?”\par

“There isn’t but one postmaster within twenty
miles that I don’t call by his first name, and she’s
a postmistress.”\par

“Then you could probably find out by telephone
where the Blair family get their mail.”\par

“Easy!”\par

“And perhaps what newspapers they take.”\par

“H’m! Yes, I guess so.”\par

“Try it, as soon as you get back.”\par

“Back from where?”\par

“Back from the medical officer’s place. I think
he must have returned by this time.”\par

“You want to see Tim Breed?”\par

“No; just his records. Burial permits, I suppose,
are a matter of public record.”\par

“Yes. All you’ve got to do is to go and ask
for ’em. You won’t need me.”\par

“Regrettable as his bad taste is,” said Kent with
a solemn face, “I fear that Doctor Breed doesn’t
regard me with that confidence and esteem which
one reads of in illuminated resolutions.”\par

“And you want me as an accelerator, eh?”
smiled the lawyer. “All right. It’s the Jane Doe
permit you’re after, I suppose.”\par

“Which?”\par

% ---File: 182.png

“Jane Doe. They buried the corpse from Lonesome
Cove under that name. Unidentified dead,
you know.”\par

“Of course! Of course!” assented Kent.\par

“If you’re looking for anything queer in the
official paper you won’t find it.”\par

“You’ve examined it yourself?”\par

“Yes.”\par

“Good! Nevertheless, I’d like to see the
record.”\par

Together they went to the medical officer’s
quarters. Doctor Breed had come in fifteen minutes
before. Without preliminary, Lawyer Bain
said:\par

“I want to see that Jane Doe certificate again.”\par

“Aren’t you afraid of wearin’ out the ink on it,
Adam?” retorted the other with a furtive grin.\par

“And I,” said Chester Kent in his suavest manner,
“venture to trouble you to show me the certificate
in the case of Wilfrid Blair.”\par

Something like a spasm shook the lineaments of
Doctor Breed’s meager face. “Blair!” he repeated.
“How did you know—” He stopped short.\par

“How did I know that Wilfrid Blair is dead?”
Kent finished for him. “Why, there has been
time enough, hasn’t there?”\par

The physician’s hands clawed nervously at his
straggling hair.\par

“Time enough?” he murmured. “Time
enough? I’m only just back from the Blair
place myself.”\par

“News travels faster than a horse,” observed
Kent.\par

“It don’t travel as fast as all that,” retorted the
medical officer, and shut his teeth on the sentence
as if he could have bitten the tongue that spoke it.\par

“Ah,” commented Kent negligently. “Then he
died within two hours or so?”\par

“This morning,” retorted the other. “It’s all
in the certificate.”\par

“All?” inquired Kent, so significantly that
Lawyer Bain gave him a quick look.\par

“All that’s your business or anybody else’s,”
said Breed, recovering himself a bit.\par

“Doubtless. And I’m to be permitted to see
this document?”\par

Breed pushed a paper across the table. “There
it is. I just finished making it out.”\par

% ---File: 184.png

“I see,” said Kent, giving the paper a scant
survey, “that the cause of death is set down as
‘cardiac failure’.”\par

“Well. What’s the matter with that?”\par

“Just a trifle non-committal, isn’t it? You see,
we all die of cardiac failure, except those of us
who fall from air-ships.”\par

“That record’s good enough for the law,” declared
the medical officer doggedly.\par

“Who was the attending physician?”\par

“I was.”\par

“Indeed! And to what undertaker was the permit
issued?”\par

“It was issued to the family. They can turn
it over to what undertaker they please.”\par

“Where is the interment to be?”\par

“Say, looky here, Mr. Man!” cried the physician,
breaking into the sudden whining fury of
hard-pressed timidity. “Are you trying to learn
me my business? You can go to hell! That’s
what you can do!”\par

“With your signature on my certificate?” inquired
the scientist, unmoved. “I won’t trouble
you so far, Doctor Breed. I thank you.”\par

% ---File: 185.png

Outside in the street, Lawyer Bain turned to
his client. “You didn’t look at the Jane Doe
paper at all.”\par

“No. I’m not so interested in that as in the
other.”\par

“Something queer about this Blair death?”\par

“Why, the fact that the attending physician and
the certificating officer are one and the same, that
there doesn’t appear to be any real cause of death
given, or any undertaker, and that the interment
is too private for Breed even to speak of with
equanimity, might seem so, to a man looking for
trouble.”\par

“Not another murder?” said the lawyer.\par

One side of Chester Kent’s face smiled. “No,”
said he positively, “certainly not that.”\par

“There has been a lot of scandal about young
Blair, I’m told. Perhaps they’re burying him as
quietly as possible just to keep out of the papers.”\par

“I shouldn’t consider his method of burial likely
to prove particularly quiet,” returned Kent.
“Of course I may be wrong; but I think not. The
most private way to get buried is in public.”\par

“Well, if a death was crooked I’d want no better
man than Breed to help cover it. By the way,
the sheriff has been away since yesterday afternoon
on some business that he kept to himself.”\par

“That also may mean something,” remarked
Kent thoughtfully. “Now, if you’ll find out about
that newspaper matter, I’ll go on over to Sedgwick’s.
You can get me there by telephone.”\par

In the studio Kent found Sedgwick walking
up and down with his hands behind his back and
his head forward.\par

“Why the caged lion effect?” inquired the
scientist.\par

“Some one has been having a little fun with
me,” growled Sedgwick.\par

“Apparently it was one-sided. What’s this on
the easel?”\par

“What would you take it to be?”\par

“Let’s have a closer look.”\par

Walking across the room Kent planted himself
in front of the drawing-board, upon which had
been fixed, by means of thumb-tacks, a square of
rather soft white paper, exhibiting evidence of
having been crumpled up and subsequently
smoothed out. On the paper was a three-quarter
drawing of a woman’s head, the delicate face beneath
waves of short curly hair, turned a little
from the left shoulder, which was barely indicated.
Setting his useful monocle in his eye, Kent
examined the work carefully.\par

“I should take it,” he pronounced at length, “to
be a sort of a second-hand attempt at a portrait.”\par

“You recognize it, though?”\par

“It bears a resemblance to the face of the
corpse at Lonesome Cove.”\par

“Pretty good likeness, for a thing done from
memory, I think.”\par

“Memory? Whose memory?”\par

“Well—mine, for instance.”\par

“Oh, no. That won’t do, you know. It isn’t
your style of drawing at all.”\par

“Setting up for an art critic, are we?”\par

“Aside from which you certainly wouldn’t be
using this sort of paper, when you’ve cardboard
to your hand.”\par

“So you’re not to be caught, I see,” said Sedgwick,
with a nervous laugh.\par

“Not in so plain a trap, at any rate. Where
did that precious work of art come from?”\par

% ---File: 188.png

“Heaven knows! Ching Lung found it lying
on the door-step, with a cobblestone holding it
down. I’d like to lay my hands on the artist.”\par

“You’d crumple him up as you did his little
message, eh?” smiled Kent.\par

“At least I’d have an explanation out of him.
It’s a fact though, that I lost my temper and threw
that thing into a corner, when Ching first handed
it to me. Then it occurred to me that it might be
well worth saving. Interesting little sketch, don’t
you think?”\par

“No.”\par

“What? You don’t find it interesting?”\par

“Profoundly. But it isn’t a sketch.”\par

“What would you call it, then?”\par

“A copy.”\par

“How can you tell that? You haven’t seen the
original from which it was made, have you?”\par

“No.”\par

“Then, what’s the basis?”\par

“Quite simple. If you had used your eyes on
it instead of your temper, you might have seen at
once that it is a tracing. Look for yourself, now.”\par

Taking the magnifying monocle that Kent
held out, the artist scrutinized the lines of the
picture.\par

“By Jove! You’re right,” said he. “It’s been
transferred through tracing-paper, and touched
up afterward. Rather roughly, too. You can
see where the copyist has borne down too hard
on the lead.”\par

“What’s your opinion of the likeness—if it is
the likeness which you suppose?” inquired Kent.\par

“Why, as I remember the woman, this picture
is a good deal idealized. The hair and the eyes
are much the same. But the lines of the face in
the picture are finer. The chin and mouth are
more delicate, and the whole effect softer and of
a higher type.”\par

“Do you see anything strange about the neck,
on the left side?”\par

“Badly drawn; that’s all.”\par

“Just below the ear there is a sort of blankness,
isn’t there?”\par

“Why, yes. It seems curiously unfinished, just
there.”\par

“If you were touching it up how would you
correct that?”\par

% ---File: 190.png

“With a slight shading, just there, where the
neck muscle should be thrown up a bit by the turn
of the head.”\par

“Or by introducing a large pendant earring
which the copier has left out?”\par

“Kent, you’re a wonder! That would do it,
exactly. But why in the name of all that’s marvelous,
should the tracer of this drawing leave out
the earring?”\par

“Obviously to keep the picture as near like as
possible to the body on the beach.”\par

“Then you don’t think it is the woman of the
beach?”\par

“No; I don’t.”\par

“Who else could it possibly be?”\par

“Perhaps we can best find that out by discovering
who left the drawing here.”\par

“That looks like something of a job.”\par

“Not very formidable, I think. Suppose we
run up to the village and ask the local stationer
who has bought any tracing-paper there within
a day or two.”\par

As the demand for tracing-paper in Martindale
Center was small, the stationer upon being called
on, had no difficulty in recalling that Elder Dennett
had been in that afternoon and made such a
purchase.\par

“Then he must have discovered something after
I left him,” said Kent to Sedgwick, “for he never
could have kept his secret if he’d had it then.”\par

“But what motive could he have?” cried the
artist.\par

“Just mischief, probably. That’s enough motive
for his sort.” Turning to the store-keeper
Kent asked: “Do you happen to know how Mr.
Dennett spent the early part of this afternoon?”\par

“I surely do. He was up to Dimmock’s rummage
auction, an’ he got something there that
tickled him like a feather. But he wouldn’t let on
what it was.”\par

“The original!” said Sedgwick.\par

“What does Dimmock deal in?”\par

“All kinds of odds and ends. He scrapes the
country for bankrupt sales, an’ has a big auction
once a year. Everybody goes. You can find
anything from a plough-handle to a second-hand
marriage certificate at his place.”\par

“We now call on Elder Dennett,” said Kent.\par

% ---File: 192.png

That worthy was about closing up shop when
they entered.\par

“Don’t your lamp work right, yet, Professor
Kent?” he inquired.\par

“Perfectly,” responded the scientist. “We have
come to see you on another matter, Mr. Sedgwick
and I.”\par

“First, let me thank you,” said Sedgwick, “for
the curious work of art which you left at my
place.”\par

“Hay-ee?” inquired the Elder, with a rising inflection.\par

“Don’t take the trouble to lie about it,” put in
Kent. “Just show us the original of the drawing
which you traced so handily.”\par

The town gossip shifted uneasily from foot to
foot. “How’d you know I got the picture?” he
giggled. “I didn’t find it, myself, till I got back
from the auction.”\par

“Never mind the process. Have you the original
here?”\par

“Yes,” said Elder Dennett; and, going to his
desk he brought back a square of heavy bluish
paper, slightly discolored at the edges.\par

% ---File: 193.png

“That’s a very good bit of drawing,” said
Sedgwick, as he and Kent bent over the paper.\par

“But unsigned,” said his companion. “Now,
Mr. Dennett, whom do you suppose this to be?”\par

“Why, the lady that stopped to talk with Mr.
Sedgwick, and was killed in Lonesome Cove.”\par

“Then why did you leave out this earring in
copying the picture?”\par

“Aw—well,” explained the other in some confusion,
“she didn’t have no earrings on when I
seen her. And it looks a lot more like, without it.”\par

“Your bent for gratuitous mischief amounts
to a passion,” retorted the scientist. “Some day
it will get you into deserved trouble, I trust.”\par

“I guess there ain’t no law to prevent my givin’
away a picture, if I like,” sulked the Elder.\par

“Perhaps you’d like to give away another one.”\par

Yankee shrewdness sparkled in the eye of Mr.
Dennett. “Mr. Sedgwick said that was a good
drawin’, and I guess he knows. I guess it’s worth
money.”\par

“How much money, would you guess?”\par

“Five dollars,” replied the other, in a bold expulsion
of breath.\par

% ---File: 194.png

At this moment, Sedgwick, who had been
studying the picture in the light, made a slight
signal with his hand, which did not escape Kent.\par

“Five dollars is a big price for a rough pencil
sketch,” said the scientist. “I’d have to know
more of the picture to pay that for it. Where
did you find it?”\par

“In this book. I bought the book at Dimmock’s
rummage auction.” He produced a decrepit,
loosely-bound edition of the {\itshape{Massachusetts
Agricultural Reports}}. “The picture was stuck in
between the leaves.”\par

“No name in the book,” said Kent. “The flyleaf
is gone. But here’s the date of publication:
1830.”\par

“That would be just about right,” said Sedgwick
with lively interest.\par

“Right for what?” demanded Dennett.\par

Before there was time for reply, Kent had
pressed a five-dollar bill into his hand, with the
words:\par

“You’ve made a trade.”\par

“Wait,” protested the Elder. But the sketch
was already in Sedgwick’s possession.\par

% ---File: 195.png

“It’s an Elliott,” said that gentleman. “I’m
sure of it. I’ve seen his sketches before—though
they’re very rare—and there’s an unmistakable
touch about his pencil work.”\par

“In that case,” said Kent suavely, “Mr. Dennett
will be gratified to know that he has sold for
five dollars an article worth fifty times that.”\par

They left him, groaning at his door, and went
to look up Dimmock, the rummage man. But
he was wholly unable to throw any light on the
former owner of the reports, in which the drawing
had been tucked away. There the investigation
seemed to be up against a blank wall.\par

“Isn’t it astounding!” said Sedgwick. “Here’s
a portrait antedating 1830, of a woman who has
just died, young. What was the woman I saw; a
revenant in the flesh?”\par

“If you ask me,” said Kent slowly, “I should
say, rather, an imitation.”\par

Further he would not say, but insisted on returning
to the Nook. As they arrived, the telephone
bell was ringing with the weary persistence
of the long-unanswered. To Kent’s query, Lawyer
Bain’s voice announced:\par

% ---File: 196.png

“I’ve been trying to get you for an hour.”\par

“Sorry,” said Kent. “Is it about the newspapers?”\par

“Yes,” said the lawyer. “I’ve got the information.”
And he stated that four newspapers went
regularly to Hedgerow House,—{\itshape{The New York
Star}} and {\itshape{Messenger}} and {\itshape{The Boston Eagle}} to
Alexander Blair, and {\itshape{The Boston Free Press}} to
Wilfrid Blair.\par

Over this information Kent whistled in such
melancholy tones that his host was moved to
protest.\par

“You’re on the track of something, and you’re
keeping it dark from me!”\par

“I’m not traveling the most brilliantly illuminated
paths myself, my young friend,” replied
Kent, and lapsed into silence.\par

The artist set the Elliott sketch beside the copy,
and compared them for a time. Then he fell to
wandering desolately about the studio. Suddenly
he turned, walked over to his friend, and laid a
hand on his shoulder.\par

“Kent, for the love of heaven, can’t you do
something for me?”\par

% ---File: 197.png

“You mean about the girl?”\par

Sedgwick nodded. “I can’t get my mind to
stay on anything else. Even this infernal puzzle
of the pictures doesn’t interest me for more than
the minute. The longing for her is eating the
heart out of me.”\par

“My dear Frank,” said the other quietly, “if
there were anything I could do, don’t you think
I’d be doing it? It’s a very dark tangle. And
first of all I have to clear you—”\par

“Never mind me! What do I care what people
think?”\par

“Or what she may think?”\par

Sedgwick’s head drooped. “I didn’t consider
that.”\par

“It may be the very center-point for consideration.”\par

“If there were only something to do!” fretted
the artist. “It’s this cursed inaction that is getting
my nerve!”\par

“If that’s all,” returned Kent slowly, “I’ll give
you something to do. And I fancy,” he added
grimly, “it will be sufficiently absorbing to take
your mind from your troubles for a time at least.”\par

% ---File: 198.png

“Bring it on. I’m ready!”\par

“All in good time. Meantime, here’s a little
test for your intelligence. Problem,” continued
Kent, with a smile: “when the bewildered medieval
mind encountered a puzzle too abstruse for
ordinary human solution, what was its refuge?”\par

“Magic, I suppose,” said Sedgwick after some
consideration.\par

“Good! You get a high mark. The medieval
mind, I may observe, was at times worthy of
emulation.”\par

“Explain.”\par

“I am seriously thinking, my dear young
friend,” said Kent solemnly, “of consulting an
astrologer.”\par

“You’re crazy!” retorted Sedgwick.\par

“I wish I were for a few hours,” said Kent
with entire seriousness. “It might help.”\par

“Well, that’s where I’ll be if you don’t find
something for me to do soon. So, come on, and
materialize this promised activity.”\par

“If you regard a trip to the Martindale Public
Library as activity, I can furnish that much excitement.”\par

% ---File: 199.png

“What are you going to do there?”\par

“Consult the files of the newspapers, and pick
out a likely high-class astrologer from the advertisements.”\par

“That has a mild nutty flavor; but it doesn’t
excite any profound emotion in me except concern
for your sanity.”\par

“You’ve said that before,” retorted Kent.
“However, I’m not sure I shall take you with me,
anyway.”\par

“Then that isn’t the coming adventure?”\par

“No; nothing so mild and innocuous.”\par

“Are you asking me to run some danger? Is
it to see {\itshape{her}}?” said Sedgwick eagerly.\par

“Leave her out of it for the present. There
is no question of seeing her now.”\par

The artist sighed and turned away.\par

“But the danger is real enough, and pretty
ugly.”\par

“Life isn’t so wholly delightful to me just at
present that I wouldn’t risk it in a good cause.”\par

“But this is a bigger risk than life. There’s an
enterprise forward which, if it fails, means the
utter damning of reputation. What do you say?”\par

% ---File: 200.png

“Kent,” said Sedgwick after a moment’s
thought, “I’m thirty-two years old. Ten years
ago I’d have said ‘yes’ at the drop of the question.
Perhaps I value my life less and my good
name more, than I did then. What’s the inducement?”\par

“The probable clearing up of the case we’re
on.”\par

“Is that all the information I get?”\par

“I’d rather not tell you any more at present.
It would only get on your nerves and unfit you
for the job.”\par

Again Sedgwick fell into thought.\par

“When I come to tackle it,” continued Kent,
“I may find that one man could do it alone.
But—”\par

“Wait. You’re going into it, are you?”\par

“Oh, certainly.”\par

“With, or without me?”\par

“Yes.”\par

“Why couldn’t you have said so at first and
saved this discussion?” cried his host. “Of
course, if you’re in for it, so am I. But what
about {\itshape{your}} reputation?”\par

% ---File: 201.png

“It’s worth a good deal to me,” confessed the
scientist. “And I can’t deny I’m staking it all
on my theory of this case. If I’m wrong—well,
it’s about the finis of my career.”\par

“See here, Chet!” broke out his friend. “Do
you think I’m going to let you take that kind of
a chance for me?”\par

“It isn’t for you,” declared the other with irritation.
“It’s for myself. Can’t you understand
that this is {\itshape{my}} case? You’re only an incident in it.
I’m betting my career against—well, against the
devil of mischance, that I’m right. As I told you,
I’m naturally timid. I don’t plunge, except on a
practically sure thing. So don’t get any foolish
notions of obligation to me. Think it over.
Meantime, do you care to run over to the library?
No? Well, for the rest of the evening I can be
found—no; I can not be found, though I’ll be
there—in room 571.”\par

“All right,” said Sedgwick. “You needn’t fear
any further intrusion. But when is our venture?”\par

“To-morrow night,” replied Kent, “Wilfrid
Blair having officially died, as per specifications,
to-day.”\par

% ---File: 202.png

\penalty-300%
\label{chapter-xivthe-lone-fisherman}%
\hypertarget{chapter-xivthe-lone-fisherman}{}%
\vspace*{50pt}\thispagestyle{empty}
{\noindent\interlinepenalty \@M\normalfont\Huge\bfseries%
CHAPTER XIV—THE LONE FISHERMAN}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Trout are a tradition rather than a prospect
in Sundayman’s Creek. Some, indeed,
consider them a myth. Hope springs eternal in
the human breast, however, and a fisherman, duly
equipped, might have been observed testing the
upper reaches of the stream on the morning of
July tenth. Although his rod and tackle were of
the best, his apparel was rough, not to say scrubby.
An old slouch hat was drawn down over his forehead,
and staring blue glasses sheltered his eyes
against the sun, which was sufficiently obscured—for
most tastes—by a blanket of gray cloud,
promising rain. Under arching willow, and by
promising rock, his brown hackle flickered temptingly,
placed by an expert hand. But, except for
one sunfish who had exhibited suicidal curiosity,
there was none to admire his proficiency. One individual,
indeed, had witnessed it, but without admiration—an
urchin angling under a bridge for
bullheads.\par

“W’at yer gittin’ with that rig?” he had inquired
with the cynicism of the professional.\par

“Oh, some snags, and an occasional branch,
and now and then a milkweed,” returned the angler
amiably.\par

“Well, you can’t fish below the nex’ bend,” the
urchin informed him. “Them folks that bought
Hogg’s Haven has wire-fenced off the creek.”\par

“I had just as lief get tangled in a wire fence
as any other kind,” replied the angler with cheery
pessimism, whipping his fly into a shaded spot
where a trout would surely have been lurking if
the entire {\itshape{salmo}} family hadn’t departed for the
Happy Fishing Grounds, several generations
back, in consequence of the pernicious activities
displayed by an acquisitive sportsman with an
outfit of dynamite in sticks.\par

“Suit yerself,” retorted the boy. “You won’t
get nothin’, anyhow.”\par

The rumble of a vehicle distracted his attention,
and he looked up to observe with curiosity a
carriage full of strangers pass across the bridge.
The strangers were all in black. The angler had
looked up, too; but immediately looked away
again, and turned to continue his hopeful progress
toward the bend. Not until he had rounded the
curve did he pause for rest. Beyond sight of the
youthful Izaak Walton, he waded out upon the
bank, produced a glass, and applied it to his eyes,
turning it upon the willow grove on the borders
of the Blair estate. The briefest of surveys satisfied
him, and he resumed his fishing and his waiting.
He was waiting for the funeral service of
Wilfrid Blair.\par

Notices in the Boston and New York papers
had formally designated the burial as “Private”.
That invaluable aid, Lawyer Adam Bain, who
seemed to have his fingers on the pulse of all the
county’s activities, had informed Kent that telegraphic
summons had gone out to a few near relatives,
and that the relatives, together with a clergyman,
were expected that morning. That is
why Chester Kent, a famous master of the art of
fly fishing, was whipping a “dead” stream.\par

For a patient hour longer his questing flies explored
unresponsive nooks and corners. At the
end of that time he sighted a figure coming from
Hedgerow House, and dodged into a covert of
sumac. The glass brought out clearly the features
of Alexander Blair, set, stern, and pale.
Blair walked swiftly to the willow thicket where
lay Captain Hogg and his unnamed victims,
looked down into the raw fresh excavation, and
turned away. Another man, issuing from the
house, joined him. From his gestures Alexander
Blair seemed to be explaining and directing. Finally
both returned to the house.\par

“Handling the whole business himself,” commented
Kent. “I like his courage, anyway.”\par

Half an hour afterward the little funeral procession
moved from the house. There was no
hearse. Six men carried the coffin. They were
all strangers to Kent, and their clothes gave obvious
testimony of city origin. Half a dozen other
men, and three women, heavily veiled, followed.
Kent thrust his glass into his pocket and lifted his
rod again. By the time the clergyman had begun
the service Kent was close to the obstructing
fence. He could hear the faint solemn murmur
of the words. Then came the lowering of the
casket. The onlooker marked the black and silver
sumptuousness of it, and thought of the rough
hemlock box that enclosed the anonymous body in
Annalaka churchyard. And, as his fly met the
water, he smiled a little, grim, wry smile.\par

It was over soon. The black-clad group drifted
away. One member paused to glance with curiosity
at the roughly clad angler making his way
up stream. For Kent judged it wise to absent
himself now, foreseeing the advent of one keener-eyed
than the mourners, whose scrutiny he did not
desire to tempt. Shortly Gansett Jim came to the
grave. Hastily and carelessly he pitched in the
earth, tramped it down, and returned. Carriages
rolled to the door of Hedgerow House, and rolled
away again, carrying the mourners to their train.
Not until then did Kent snug up his tackle and
take the road.\par

No sooner had he reached the hotel and
changed into dry clothes, than he made haste to
the Nook, and thus addressed Sedgwick. “Now
I’m your man for that tennis match.”\par

“Kent, I don’t like your looks,” observed his
friend, remarking the scientist’s troubled eyes.\par

% ---File: 207.png

“Don’t you? Where are the implements of
warfare?”\par

“Here they are,” said the other, producing
rackets and balls. “You look to me done up.”\par

“Well, the great game is always something of
a gamble, and being usually played for higher
stakes than money, is likely to get on one’s
nerves.”\par

“The great game?” repeated Sedgwick inquiringly,
giving the words Kent’s own emphasis.\par

“Yes. The greatest of all games. You know
the Kipling verse, don’t you?”\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“‘Go stalk the red deer o’er the heather.\par}
{\vl Ride! Follow the fox if you can!\par}
{\vl But for pleasure and profit together\par}
{\vl Afford me the hunting of Man.’”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“So, we’re man-hunting, then, to-night,” said
the artist quickly.\par

“Far from it,” replied Kent, with fervency.
“Let’s drop the subject for the time being, won’t
you? I’ve had a morning none too pleasant to
look back on, and I’ve got an evening coming
none too pleasant to look forward to. Therefore,
I shall probably give you the licking of your life
on the tennis-court.”\par

“As to the evening,” began Sedgwick, “while
I’m—”\par

“Frank,” cried Kent, “there’s a query trying to
dislodge itself from your mind and get put into
words. Don’t let it!”\par

“Why?”\par

“Because at one single question from you I’ll
either bat you over the head with this racket or
burst into sobs. It’s a toss-up which.” He
threw the implement in the air. “Rough or
smooth?” he called.\par

Kent played as he worked, with concentration
and tenacity, backing up technical skill. Against
his dogged attack, Sedgwick’s characteristically
more brilliant game was unavailing, though the
contest was not so uneven but that both were
sweating hard as, at the conclusion of the third
set, they sought a breathing space on the terraced
bank back of the court.\par

“That’s certainly a good nerve sedative,” said
the artist breathing hard; “and not such rotten
tennis for two aged relics of better days, like ourselves.”\par

“Not so bad by any means,” agreed his opponent
cheerfully. “If you had stuck to lobbing, I
think you’d have had me, in the second set. Wonder
how our spectator enjoyed it,” he added, lowering
his voice.\par

“What spectator? There’s no one here, but
ourselves.”\par

“Oh, I think there is. Don’t be abrupt about
it; but just take a look at that lilac copse on the
crest of the hill.”\par

“Can’t see any one there,” said Sedgwick.\par

“No more can I.”\par

“Then what makes you think there’s any one?”\par

“The traditional little bird told me.”\par

“Meaning, specifically?”\par

“Literally what I say. There’s the bird on that
young willow. You can see for yourself it’s trying
to impart some information.”\par

“I see a grasshopper-sparrow in a state of some
nervousness. But grasshopper-sparrows are always
fidgety.”\par

% ---File: 210.png

“This particular one has reason to be. She
has a nest in that lilac patch. A few minutes ago
she went toward it with a worm in her beak; hastily
dropped the worm, and came out in a great
state of mind. Hence I judge there is some intruder
near her home.”\par

“Any guess who it is?”\par

“Why it might be Gansett Jim,” replied Kent
in a louder voice. “Though it’s rather stupid of
him to pick out a bird-inhabited bush as a hiding-place.”\par

The lilac bush shook a little, and Gansett Jim
came forth.\par

“He went to Carr’s Junction,” said the half-breed
curtly.\par

“You found his trail?” asked Kent.\par

The other nodded. “This morning,” he said.\par

“Find anything else?”\par

“No. I kill him if I get him!” He turned and
vanished over the rise of ground back of the
court.\par

“Now what does that mean?” demanded Sedgwick
in amazement.\par

“That is Gansett Jim’s apology for suspecting
you,” explained Kent. “He is our ally now, and
this is his first information. What a marvelous
thing the bulldog strain in a race is! Nobody but
an Indian would have kept to an almost hopeless
trail as he has done.”\par

“The trail of the real murderer?” cried Sedgwick.\par

Kent shook his head. “You’re still obsessed
with dubious evidence,” he remarked. “Let me
see your time-table.”\par

Having studied the schedules that the artist
produced for him, he nodded consideringly.
“Boston it is, then,” he said. “As I thought.
Sedgwick, I’m off for two or three days of travel—if
we get through this night without disaster.”\par

% ---File: 212.png

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CHAPTER XV—THE TURN OF THE GAME}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Night came on in murk and mist. As the
clouds gathered thicker, Chester Kent’s
face took on a more and more satisfied expression.
Sedgwick, on the contrary, gloomed sorely at the
suspense. Nothing could be elicited from the director
of operations, who was, for him, in rather
wild spirits. The tennis match seemed to have
sweated the megrims out of him. He regaled his
chafing friend with anecdotes from his varied
career; the comedy of the dynamiter’s hair; the
tragedy of the thrice fatal telephone message at
the Standard Club; the drama of the orchid hunt
on Weehawken Heights. From time to time he
thrust a hand out of the window. Shortly after
midnight there was a splatter of rain on the roof.\par

“Good!” said Kent, stretching elaborately.
“Couldn’t be better. Life’s a fine sport!”\par

“Couldn’t be worse, I should think,” contradicted
Sedgwick.\par

% ---File: 213.png

“Depends on the point of view, my boy. No
longer can my buoyant spirit support your determined
melancholy—without extraneous aid. The
time has come for action. Be thankful. Get on
your coat.”\par

Sedgwick brightened at once. “Right-o!” he
said. “Get your lamps lighted and I’ll be with
you.”\par

“No lights. Ours is a deep, dark, desperate,
devilish, dime-novel design.”\par

“Ending, most likely, in the clutch of some
night-hawk constable for violation of the highway
laws.”\par

“Possibly. We’ve got to chance it. ‘Come
into the garden, Maud,’” chanted the scientist.\par

Sedgwick started. “I thought we were going
to motor somewhere. What about the garden?”\par

“About the garden? Why, somewhere about
the garden there must be, I should guess, certain
implements which we need in our enterprise.” He
executed a solemn dance-step upon the floor and
warbled,\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“‘Oh, a pickax and a spade, a spade,\par}
{\vl For and a shrouding sheet!’”\par}
\end{verse}
}

% ---File: 214.png

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
A sudden thought struck cold into the heart of
Sedgwick. “Be sensible, can’t you?” he exclaimed.
“What do you want with a pickax and
spade!”\par

“My wants are few and small. If you haven’t
a pick, two spades will do. In fact, they’ll be better.
I was merely sticking to the text of my
{\itshape{Hamlet}}.”\par

His shoulders slumped, his jaw slackened, and,
as his figure warped into the pose of the gravedigger
he wheezed out the couplet again. The
cold thought froze around Sedgwick’s heart. He
visioned the wet soil of Annalaka burying-ground,
heaped above a loose-hasped pine box, within
which went forward the unthinkable processes of
earth reclaiming its own.\par

“Good God! Is it {\itshape{that}}?” he muttered.\par

The mummer straightened up. “In plain prose,
do you possess two spades?” he inquired.\par

Speechless, Sedgwick went out into the dark,
presently returning with the tools. Kent took
them out and disposed them in the car.\par

“Get in,” he directed.\par

“If we had to do this, Kent,” said Sedgwick,
shuddering in his seat, “why haven’t we done it
before?”\par

The other turned on the power. “You’re on
the wrong track as usual,” he remarked. “It
couldn’t be done before.”\par

“Well, it can’t be done now,” cried the artist in
sudden sharp excitement. “It won’t do. Stop
the car, Kent!”\par

Kent’s voice took an ominously deliberate
measure. “Listen,” said he; “I am going through
with this—now—to-night. If you wish to withdraw—”\par

“That’s enough,” growled the artist. “No man
alive can say that to me.”\par

The car slowed up. “I beg your pardon,
Frank,” said Kent. “We’re both of us a little on
edge to-night. This is no time for misunderstandings.
What is on your mind?”\par

“Just this. Annalaka burying-ground is
watched. Lawyer Bain said as much. Don’t you
remember? He told us that the house next door
is occupied by an old sleepless asthmatic who
spends half her nights in her window overlooking
the graves.”\par

% ---File: 216.png

The car shot forward again. “Is that all?”
asked Kent.\par

“Isn’t it enough?”\par

“Hardly. We’re not going within miles of
Annalaka.”\par

“Then our night’s work is not—” Kent could
feel his companion’s revolt at the unuttered word,
and supplied it for him.\par

“Grave robbery? It is.”\par

“Where?”\par

“In a private burying-ground on the Blairs’
estate.”\par

“Wilfrid Blair’s grave? When was the funeral?”\par

“This morning. I was among those present,
though I don’t think my name will be mentioned
in the papers.”\par

“Why should you have been there?”\par

“Oh, set it down to vulgar curiosity,” said Kent.\par

“Probably you’d say the same if I asked you
the motive for this present expedition. I suppose
you fully appreciate the chance we are taking?”\par

“Didn’t I tell you that it was rather more than
a life-and-death risk?”\par

% ---File: 217.png

Something cold touched Sedgwick’s hand in
the darkness. His fingers closed around a flask.
“No, no Dutch courage for me. Where is this
place?”\par

“On Sundayman’s Creek, some fourteen miles
from the Nook as the motor-car flies.”\par

“Fourteen miles,” repeated Sedgwick musingly,
following a train of thought that suddenly
glowed, a beacon-light of hope. “And these
Blairs have some connection with the dead woman
of the cove, the woman who wore {\itshape{her}} jewels.”
His fingers gripped and sank into Kent’s hard-fibered
arm. “Chet, for the love of heaven, tell
me! Is she one of these Blairs?”\par

“No nonsense, Sedgwick,” returned the other
sternly. “You’re to act,—yes, and {\itshape{think}}—under
orders till the night’s job is done.”\par

There was silence for nearly half an hour,
while the car slipped, ghostlike, along the wet
roadway. Presently it turned aside and stopped.\par

“Foot work now,” said Kent. “Take the spades
and follow.”\par

He himself, leading the way, carried a coil of
rope on his shoulders. For what Sedgwick reckoned
to be half a mile they wallowed across
soaked meadows, until the whisper of rain upon
water came to his ears.\par

“Keep close,” directed his guide, and preceded
him down a steep bank.\par

The stream was soon forded. Emerging on
the farther side they scrambled up the other bank
into a thicker darkness, where Sedgwick, colliding
with a gnarled tree trunk, stood lost and waiting.
A tiny bar of light appeared. It swept across
huddled and half-obliterated mounds, marked
only by the carpet of myrtle—that faithful plant
whose mission it is to garland the graves of the
forsaken and the forgotten—shone whitely back
from the headstone of the old slave-trader, came
to a rest upon a fresh garish ridge of earth, all
pasty and yellow in the rain, and abruptly died.\par

“Too dangerous to use the lantern,” murmured
Kent. “Take the near end and dig.”\par

Delving, even in the most favorable circumstances,
is a fairly stern test of wind and muscle.
In the pitch blackness, under such nerve-thrilling
conditions, it was an ordeal. Both men, fortunately,
were in hard training. The heavy soil
flew steadily and fast. Soon they were waist deep.
Kent, in a low voice, bade his fellow toiler stop.\par

“Mustn’t wear ourselves out at the start,” he
said. “Take five minutes’ rest.”\par

At the end of three minutes, Sedgwick was
groping for his spade. “I’ve got to go on, Chet,”
he gasped. “The silence and idleness are too
much for me.”\par

“It’s just as well,” assented his commander.
“The clouds are breaking, worse luck. And some
one might possibly be up and about, in the house.
Go to it!”\par

This time there was no respite until, with a
thud which ran up his arm to his heart, Kent’s
iron struck upon wood. Both men stood, frozen
into attitudes of attention. No sound came from
the house.\par

“Easy now,” warned Kent, after he judged it
safe to continue. “I thought that Jim dug deeper
than that. Spade it out gently. And feel for the
handles.”\par

“I’ve got one,” whispered Sedgwick.\par

“Climb out, then, and pass me down the rope.”\par

As Sedgwick gained the earth’s level, the moon,
sailing from behind a cloud, poured a flood of radiance
between the tree trunks. Kent’s face, as
he raised it from the grave, stretching out his
hand for the cord, was ghastly, but his lips smiled
encouragement.\par

“All right! One minute, now, and we’re safe.”\par

“Safe!” repeated the other. “With that opened
grave! I shall never feel safe again.”\par

From between the earthen walls Kent’s voice
came, muffled. “Safe as a church,” he averred,
“from the minute that we have the coffin. Take
this end of the rope. Got it? Now this one. It’s
fast, fore and aft. Here I come.”\par

With a leap he clambered out of the excavation.
He took one end of the rope from Sedgwick’s
hand. “All ready to haul?” he inquired in matter-of-fact
tones.\par

“Wait. What are we going to do with this—this
{\itshape{thing}}?” demanded his co-laborer. “We can
never get it to the car.”\par

A low chuckle sounded from the shrubbery
back of them. The resurrectionists stood, stricken.\par

“An owl,” whispered Sedgwick at length.\par

% ---File: 221.png

“No,” replied Kent in the same tone. Then, in
full voice, and with vivid urgency, “{\itshape{Haul}}!”\par

Up came the heavy casket, bumping and grating.
Even through the rope Sedgwick felt, with
horror, the tumbling of the helpless sodden body
within. With a powerful effort Kent swung his
end up on the mound. The lantern flashed. By
its gleam Sedgwick saw Kent striving to force his
spade-edge under the coffin lid, to pry it loose.
The chuckle sounded again.\par

“That’s enough,” said a heavy voice, with a
suggestion of mirthful appreciation.\par

Sheriff Len Schlager stepped from behind a
tree. He held a revolver on Kent. Sedgwick
made a swift motion and the muzzle swung accurately
on him.\par

“Steady, Frank,” warned Kent anxiously.\par

“I’m steady enough,” returned the other.
“What a fool I was not to bring a gun.”\par

“Oh, no,” contradicted the scientist. “Of what
use is my gun? We’re in the light, and he is in
the shadow.”\par

“So you’ve got a gun on you, eh?” remarked
the sheriff, his chuckle deepening.\par

% ---File: 222.png

“I didn’t say so.”\par

“No; but you gave yourself away. Hands up,
please. Both of you.”\par

Four hands went up in the air. Kent’s face, in
the light, was very downcast, but from the far
corner of his mouth came the faintest ghost of a
whistled melody—all in a minor key. It died
away on the night air and the musician spoke in
rapid French.\par

“{\itshape{Attention! La ruse gagne. Quand lui donnerai
le coup de pied, battez-le á terre.}}”\par

“What’s that gibberish?” demanded Schlager.\par

“Very well,” said Sedgwick quickly, in the tone
of one who accepts instructions. “I’ll be still
enough. Go ahead and do the talking.”\par

“Better both keep still,” advised the deceived
sheriff. “Anything you say can be used against
you at the trial. And the penalty for body-snatching
is twenty years in this state.”\par

“Yes; but what constitutes body-snatching?”
murmured Kent.\par

“You do, I guess,” retorted the humorous sheriff.
“Steady with those hands. Which pocket,
please, Professor?”\par

% ---File: 223.png

“Right-hand coat, if you want my money,” answered
the scientist sullenly.\par

“Nothing like that,” laughed the officer. “Your
gun will do, at present.”\par

“I haven’t got any gun.”\par

“I heard you say it! Remember, mine is pointed
at your stomach.”\par

“Correct place,” approved Kent, quietly shifting
his weight to his left foot. “It’s the seat of
human courage. Well!” as Schlager tapped
pocket after pocket, without result, “you can’t say
I didn’t warn you. {\itshape{Now}}, Frank!”\par

With the word there was a sharp spat as the
heel of Kent’s heavy boot, flying up in the {\itshape{coup
de pied}} of his own devising, caught the sheriff
full on the wrist breaking the bones, and sending
the revolver a-spin into the darkness. As instantly
Sedgwick struck, swinging full-armed, and
Schlager went down, half-stunned.\par

“Pin him, Frank,” ordered Kent.\par

But Sedgwick needed no directions, now that
resolute action was the order of the moment. His
elbow was already pressed into the sheriff’s bull
neck. Schlager lay still, moaning a little.\par

% ---File: 224.png

“Good work, my boy,” approved Kent, who
had retrieved the revolver.\par

“Who clubbed me?” groaned the fallen man.
“I didn’t see no third feller. And what good’s it
going to do you, anyway? There you are, and
there’s the robbed grave. Exaggerated by assault
on an officer of the law,” he added technically.\par

“That is right, too, Kent,” added Sedgwick
with shaking voice. “Whatever we do, I don’t
see but what we are disgraced and ruined.”\par

“Unless,” suggested Kent with mild-toned malice,
“we rid ourselves of the only witness to the
affair.”\par

A little gasp issued from the thick lips of Len
Schlager. But he spoke with courage, and not
without a certain dignity. “You got me,” he admitted
quietly. “If it’s killin’—why, I guess it’s
as good a way to go as any. An officer in the discharge
of his duty.”\par

“Not so sure about the duty, Schlager,” said
Kent with a change of tone. “But your life is
safe enough, in any event. Pity you’re such a
grafter, for you’ve got your decent points. Let
him up, Sedgwick.”\par

Relieved of his assailant’s weight, Schlager undertook
to rise, set his hand on the ground, and
collapsed with a groan.\par

“Too bad about that wrist,” said Kent. “I’ll
take you back in my car to have it looked after as
soon as we’ve finished here.”\par

“I s’pose you know I’ll have to arrest you, just
the same.”\par

“Don’t bluff,” retorted the other carelessly. “It
wastes time. Steady! Here comes the rest of
the party.”\par

Across the moonlit lawn moved briskly the
spare alert figure of the owner of Hedgerow
House. His hand grasped a long-barreled pistol.
He made straight for the grove of graves. Within
five yards of the willows he stopped, because a
voice from behind one of them had suggested to
him that he do so.\par

“I also am armed,” the voice added.\par

Hesitancy flickered in Mr. Blair’s face for a
brief moment. Then, with set jaw, he came on.\par

% ---File: 226.png

“Two men of courage to deal with in a single
night. That’s all out of proportion,” commented
the voice with a slight laugh. “Mr. Blair; I really
should dislike shooting you.”\par

“Who are you?” demanded Mr. Blair.\par

“Chester Kent.”\par

“What are you doing on my property at this
hour?”\par

“Digging.”\par

“Ah!” It was hardly an exclamation; rather it
was a contained commentary. Mr. Blair had
noted the exhumed casket. “You might better
have taken my offer,” he continued after a pause
of some seconds. “I think, sir, you have dug the
grave of your own career.”\par

“That remains to be seen.”\par

“Schlager! Are you there?”\par

“Yes, Mr. Blair. They’ve broken my wrist and
got my gun.”\par

Mr. Blair took that under consideration. “It
doesn’t strike me that you are much of a man-hunter,”
he observed judicially. “Who are {\itshape{they}}?”\par

“Francis Sedgwick is the other, at your service,”
answered the owner of that name.\par

% ---File: 227.png

An extraordinary convulsion of rage distorted
the set features of the elderly man.\par

“You!” he cried. “Haven’t you done enough—without
this! I would come on now if hell
yawned for me.”\par

Stricken with amazement at the hatred in the
tone, Sedgwick stood staring. But Kent stepped
before the advancing man. “This won’t do,” he
said firmly. “We can’t any of us afford killing.”\par

“I can,” contradicted Mr. Blair.\par

“You would gain nothing by it. If one of us
is killed the other will finish the task. You know
what I am here for, Mr. Blair. I purpose to
open that coffin and then go.”\par

“No,” said the master of Hedgerow House;
and it was twenty years since his “no” had been
overborne.\par

“Yes,” returned Chester Kent quietly.\par

Mr. Blair’s arm rose, steady and slow, with the
inevitable motion of machinery.\par

“If you shoot,” pointed out Kent, “you will
rouse the house. Is there no one there from
whom you wish to conceal that coffin?”\par

The arm rose higher until the muzzle of the
pistol glared, like a baleful lusterless eye, into
Kent’s face. Instead of making any counter-motion
with the sheriff’s revolver, the scientist
turned on his heel, walked to Sedgwick, and
handed him the weapon. “I’m going to open the
coffin, Frank,” he announced. “That pistol of
Mr. Blair’s is a target arm. It has only one shot.”\par

“True,” put in its owner, “but I can score one
hundred and twenty with it at a hundred yards’
range.”\par

“If he should fire, Frank, wing him. And then,
whatever happens, get that casket open. That is
the one thing you {\itshape{must}} do—for me and yourself.”\par

“But he may kill you,” cried Sedgwick in an
agony of apprehension.\par

“He may; but I think he won’t.”\par

“Won’t he!” muttered the older man on an indrawn
breath. “I’d rather it was the other scoundrel.
But either—or both.”\par

Sedgwick stepped to within two paces of him.
“Blair,” he said with a snarl, “you so much as
{\itshape{think}} with that trigger finger, and you’re dead!”\par

“No, no killing, Frank,” countermanded Kent.
“In his place, you’d perhaps do as he is doing.”\par

% ---File: 229.png

“Don’t take any chances, Mr. Blair,” besought
the sheriff. “They’re desperate characters. Look
what they done to me!”\par

“There’s a testimonial,” murmured Kent, as he
picked up his spade, “for one who has always
worked on the side of law and order.”\par

He worked the blade craftily under the lid and
began to pry. The cover gave slightly. Mr.
Blair’s pistol sank to his side. “I should have shot
before warning you,” he said bitterly. “Violating
graves is, I suppose, your idea of a lawful and orderly
proceeding.”\par

The rending crackle of the hard heavy wood
was his answer. Kent stooped, and struggled up
bearing a shapeless heavy object in his arms. The
object seemed to be swathed in sacking. Kent let
it fall to the ground, where it lopped and lay. “All
right,” said he, with a strong exhalation of relief.
“I knew it must be. And yet—well, one never is
absolute in certainty. And if I’d been wrong, I
think, Frank, we could profitably have used that
gun on ourselves. You can drop it, now. Come
over here.”\par

Courageous though Sedgwick was, his nerves
were of a highly sensitive order. He shuddered
back. “I don’t believe I can do it, Chet.”\par

“You must. As a witness. Come! Brace up!”\par

Setting the bull’s-eye lantern down, Kent produced
a pocket-knife. Sedgwick drew a long
breath, and walking over, crouched, steeling his
nerves against the revelation that should come
when the cords should be cut and the swathings
reveal their contents. “If I keel over, don’t let me
tumble into the grave,” he said simply, and choked
the last word off from becoming a cry of horror
as he beheld his friend drive the knife-blade to the
hilt in the body, and then whip it across and
downward with a long ripping draw under which
the harsh cloth sang hideously.\par

“Open your eyes! Look! Look!” cried Kent
heartily.\par

A strong trickle of sand flowed out of the rent
in the sack and spread upon the ground.\par

“That is all,” said Kent.\par

Relief clamored within Sedgwick for expression.
He began to laugh in short choking spasms.\par

“Quiet!” warned Mr. Blair, in a broken tone
of appeal. “You’ve found out the secret. God
knows what you’ll do with it. But there are innocent
people in the house. I see a light stirring
there now. We—I must do what I may to shelter
them.”\par

A glimmer shone from the ground floor of one
of the wings. Thither Mr. Blair ran, calling out
as he went. When he returned, his face was like
a mask.\par

“Now,” said he, “what is this matter? Blackmail?”\par

Kent’s face withdrew, as it were, behind his
inscrutable half smile. “Peace, if you will,” said
he. “A truce, at least.”\par

“I should like to know just how much you
know.”\par

“An offer. I will tell you whenever you are
ready to tell me all that you know. I think we are
mutually in need of each other.”\par

“I wish you were at the bottom of that pit,”
retorted the other grimly. “You and your scoundrel
of a friend with you.”\par

“Thank you for myself,” said Sedgwick. “If
you were twenty years younger I would break
every bone in your body for that.”\par

% ---File: 232.png

“Steady, Frank,” put in Kent. “Judge no man
by his speech who has been through what Alexander
Blair has been through to-night. Mr. Blair,”
he added, “you’ve refused my offer. It is still
open. And as an extra, I will undertake, for Mr.
Sedgwick and myself, that this night’s affair shall
be kept secret. And now, the next thing is to
cover the evidence. Spades, Frank.”\par

The two men took up their tools.\par

“I’ll spell you,” said Alexander Blair.\par

While the sheriff, mourning softly over his
fractured wrist, sat watching the house in case of
alarm, the scientist, the painter, and the trust
magnate, sweating amid the nameless graves,
hurriedly reinterred the sack of clean sand which
bore the name of Wilfrid Blair.\par

“And now,” said Chester Kent, petting his blistered
palms, as the last shovelful of dirt was
tamped down, “I’ll take you back with me, Mr.
Sheriff, to Sedgwick’s place, and do the best I can
for you till the morning. About six o’clock we’ll
find you unconscious below the cliffs where you
fell in the darkness. Eh?”\par

Despite his pain the sheriff grinned. “I guess
that’s as good as the next lie,” he acquiesced.
“You fight fair, Professor.”\par

“Then answer me a fair question. What were
you doing at Hedgerow House to-night?”\par

“Why, you see,” drawled the official, “I saw
you fishin’ that stream, and it come to my mind
that you was castin’ around for more than trout
that wasn’t there. But I didn’t hardly think you’d
come so soon, and I was asleep when the noise of
the spade on the coffin woke me.”\par

“Bad work and clumsy,” commented Kent with
a scowl. “Come along. My car will carry three.
Sedgwick can sit on the floor. Good night, Mr.
Blair. All aboard, Frank.”\par

There was no answer.\par

“What became of Sedgwick?” demanded Kent.\par

“He was here half a minute ago; I’ll swear to
that,” muttered the sheriff.\par

Kent stared anxiously about him. “Frank!
Frank!” he called half under his breath.\par

“Not too loud,” besought Alexander Blair.\par

The clouds closed over the moon. Somewhere
in the open a twig crackled. Sedgwick had disappeared.\par

% ---File: 234.png

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CHAPTER XVI—THE MEETING}

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{\noindent}
Hope had surged up, sudden and fierce, in
Sedgwick’s heart, at the gleam of the
candle in Hedgerow House. He was ready for
any venture after the swift climax of the night,
and his hope hardened into determination. Faithfully
he had taken Kent’s orders. But now the
enterprise was concluded, to what final purpose he
could not guess. He was his own man again, and,
perhaps, behind that gleam from the somber
house, waited the woman—his own woman. Silently
he laid his revolver beside his spade, and
slipped into the shadows.\par

He heard Kent’s impatient query. He saw him
as he picked up the relinquished weapon and examined
it: and, estimating the temper of his
friend, was sure that the scientist would not stop
to search for him. In this he was right. Taking
the sheriff by the arm, Kent guided him through
the creek and into the darkness beyond. Mr.
Blair, walking with heavy steps and fallen head,
made his way back to the house. Sedgwick heard
the door close behind him. A light shone for a
time in the second story. It disappeared. With
infinite caution, Sedgwick made the détour,
gained the rear of the house, and skirting the
north wing, stepped forth in the bright moonlight,
the prescience of passion throbbing wildly
in his breast.\par

She sat at the window, head high to him, bowered
in roses. Her face was turned slightly away.
Her long fine hands lay, inert, on the sill. Her
face, purity itself in the pure moonlight, seemed
dimmed with weariness and strain, a flower glowing
through a mist.\par

With a shock of remembrance that was almost
grotesque, Sedgwick realized that he had no name
by which to call her. So he called her by the
name that is Love’s own.\par

She did not change her posture. But her lips
parted. Her lids drooped and quivered. She was
as one in a lovely dream.\par

He stepped toward her and spoke again.\par

% ---File: 236.png

“You!” she cried; and her voice breaking from
a whisper into a thrill of pure music: “{\itshape{You!}}”\par

There was, in the one syllable, so much of terror
that his heart shivered; so much of welcome
that his heart leaped; so much of joy that his
heart sang.\par

Bending, he pressed his lips on her hands, and
felt them tremble beneath his kiss. They were
withdrawn, and fluttered for the briefest moment,
at his temples. Then she spoke, hurriedly and
softly.\par

“You must go. At once! At once!”\par

“When I have just found you?”\par

“If you have any care for me—for my happiness—for
my good name—go away from this
house of dread.”\par

“What?” said Sedgwick sharply. “Of dread?
What do you do here, then?”\par

“Suffer,” said she. Then bit her lips. “No!
No! I didn’t mean it. It is only that the mystery
of it—I am unstrung and weak. To-morrow
all will be right. Only go.”\par

“I will,” said Sedgwick firmly. “And you
shall go with me.”\par

% ---File: 237.png

“I! Where?”\par

He caught her hand again and held it to his
heart. “To\par

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he whispered.\par

“Don’t!” she begged. “Not that! It brings
back that week too poignantly. Oh, my dear;
please, please go.”\par

“Listen,” he said. “Heart of my heart, I don’t
know what curse hangs over this house; but this
I do know, that I can not leave you here. Come
with me now. I will find some place for you to-night,
and to-morrow we will be married.”\par

With a sharp movement she shrank back from
him.\par

“Married! To-morrow!” The words seemed
to choke her. “Don’t you know who I am?”\par

Fear chilled his mounting blood as Kent’s
analysis of the probabilities came back to him.\par

“If you are married already,” he said unsteadily,
“it—it would be better for me that Kent had
let him shoot.”\par

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“Who?” she cried. “What has been passing,
here? You have been in danger?”\par

“What does it matter?” he returned. “What
does anything matter but—”\par

“Hark!” she broke in, a spasm of terror contracting
her face.\par

Footsteps sounded within. There was the
noise of a door opening and closing. Around the
turn of the wing Alexander Blair stepped into
view. His pistol was still in his hand.\par

“Still here, sir?” he inquired with an effect of
murderous courtesy. “You add spying to your
other practises, then.” He took a step forward
and saw the girl. “My God! Marjorie!” he cried.\par

Sedgwick turned white, at the cry, but faced
the older man steadily.\par

“I fear, sir,” he said, “that I have made a terrible
mistake. The blame is wholly mine. I beg
you to believe that I came here wholly without
the knowledge of—of your wife—”\par

“Of whom?” exclaimed Blair; and, in the same
moment, the girl cried out, “Oh, no, no. Not
that!”\par

“Not?” exclaimed Sedgwick. “Then—”\par

% ---File: 240.png

“Marjorie,” interrupted Mr. Blair, “do you
know this man?”\par

“Yes,” she said quietly.\par

“Since when?”\par

“Since two weeks.”\par

“And he has come here before?”\par

“No.”\par

“Then why do I find him here with you to-night:
this night of all nights?”\par

“He is not here with me,” said she, flushing.\par

“I came from—from where you saw me,” began
Sedgwick, “on a reckless impulse. Believe
me, sir—”\par

“One moment! Marjorie, I think you had best
go to your room.”\par

The girl’s soft lips straightened into a line of
inflexibility. “I wish to speak to Mr. Sedgwick,”
she said.\par

“Speak then, and quickly.”\par

“No; I wish to speak to him alone. There is
an explanation which I owe him.”\par

“And there is one which he owes you,” retorted
Blair. “As he seems to have been too cowardly
to give it, I will supply his deficiencies. In order
that there may be no misunderstanding, let me
present Mr. Francis Sedgwick, the murderer.”\par

A low cry, the most desolate, the most stricken
sound that Sedgwick had ever heard from human
lips, trembled on the air. Before he could gather
his senses to retort and deny, she had drawn herself
to her feet—and the rose-bowered window
framed only emptiness. Sedgwick whirled upon
the other man. “Of course,” he said with deceptive
calmness; “you know that you lie.”\par

“I know that I speak truth,” retorted Mr. Blair
with so profound a conviction that the other was
shaken.\par

“Is it possible that you really believe it?” he
exclaimed.\par

“So possible that, but for the scandal, I would
do what I can not invoke the law to do, and exact
life for life. And to crown all, I find you with
my son’s wife—”\par

“Your son’s wife!” The cry burst from Sedgwick’s
lips.\par

“—in the dead of night, at a rendezvous,” concluded
Blair.\par

“That is a lie,” said Sedgwick very low, “for
which I shall kill you if you dare repeat it even to
your own thoughts. It was no rendezvous. Is
your mind so vicious that you can’t believe in
innocence? Stop and think! How could it have
been a rendezvous, when I came here, as you
know, for another purpose?”\par

“That is true,” said the other thoughtfully.
“That still remains to be explained.”\par

“By you,” returned the artist. “You speak of
your son’s wife. To carry out the farce of the
sham burial, shouldn’t you have said his
‘widow’?”\par

“The widow of a day—as you well know,” answered
Mr. Blair bitterly.\par

“As I do {\itshape{not}} know, at all. But I think I begin
to see light. The rose-topazes on the dead woman’s
neck. {\itshape{Her}} topazes. That helps to clear it
up. The dead woman was some past light-o’-love
of Wilfrid Blair’s. She came here either to reassert
her sway over him or to blackmail him. He
gave her his wife’s jewels. Then he followed her
to the cliffs and killed her, perhaps in a drunken
frenzy. And you, Mr. Alexander Blair, to save
your son, have concealed him somewhere, bribed
the sheriff and the medical officer, contrived this
false death and burial, and are now turning suspicion
on a man you know to be innocent further to
fortify your position. But what damnable lie
have you told {\itshape{her}}?”\par

During this exposition, Alexander Blair’s
face was a study in changing emotions. At the
close his thin lips curled in the suggestion of a
sardonic grin.\par

“I leave you to the company of your theory,
sir,” said he, and the door closed sharply after
him.\par

Three hours later, wet and bedraggled, but with
a fire at his heart, the night-farer came to his
home and roused Kent from slumber on the
studio couch.\par

“And where have you been?” demanded the
scientist.\par

“She was in the house. I’ve seen her.”\par

“Exactly what I wished to prevent. I don’t
think you’ve done yourself any good.”\par

“Any good,” groaned his friend. “She left me
believing that I am the murderer of the unknown
woman.”\par

% ---File: 244.png

“Indeed! You’ve done worse, even, than I
had feared. Tell me.”\par

In brief outline, Sedgwick told of the moonlight
interview. Kent gripped at his ear lobe, and
for a time sought silently to draw clarification of
ideas from it.\par

“Do you know,” he said at length, “I wouldn’t
wonder if Blair really thought you the murderer.”\par

“I would,” declared Sedgwick savagely. “He
knows who murdered that woman. It was his
own son, whom he pretended to bury, for a
blind.” And the artist proceeded to outline
eagerly his newly developed idea.\par

“That’s an interesting theory,” said Chester
Kent slowly. “A very interesting and ingenious
theory. I’ll admit to you now that something of
the sort occurred to my mind early in the development
of the mystery, but I forsook it because
of one fact that rather militates against its probability.”\par

“What is that?”\par

“The fact,” replied Kent with a slow smile,
“that Wilfrid Blair was dead before his father
ever learned of the tragedy of Lonesome Cove.”\par

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CHAPTER XVII—CHANCE SITS IN}

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{\noindent}
Suit case at his side, Chester Kent stood
on the platform of the Martindale Center
station, waiting for the morning train to Boston.
Before him paced Sedgwick, with a face of
storm.\par

“This is something I must do for myself,” the
artist declared, with that peculiar flatness of obstinacy
which goes with an assertion repeatedly
made. “Not you, nor any other man, can do it
for me.”\par

“Not you, nor any other man, should attempt it
at all, now,” retorted the scientist.\par

“That’s the view of the pedant,” cried Sedgwick.
“What do you know of love?”\par

“Nothing, except as a force obstructive to reason.”\par

“But, Chet, I {\itshape{must}} see her again,” pleaded
Sedgwick; “I must—”\par

“Exhibit that tact and delicacy which you displayed
at your last meeting,” broke in Kent
curtly. “Asking a woman to marry you, on the
day of her husband’s burial!”\par

“It wasn’t her husband’s burial.”\par

“She supposed it was.”\par

Sedgwick checked his nervous pacing. “Do
you think so? You believe she wasn’t a party to
that ghastly fraud?”\par

“Certainly not. She attended the funeral ceremony
in good faith. In my belief the real circumstances
of Blair’s death are as unknown to her as
they are to—to you.”\par

“Assuming always that he is dead. Your confidence
being so sound, it must be based on something.
How did he come to his death?”\par

“If I knew that, I shouldn’t be going to Boston
to consult an astrologer.”\par

“Have you still got astrology on the brain?”\par

“Hopelessly,” smiled Kent.\par

“Luck go with you. And I—”\par

“Yes: and you?” queried Kent, as the other
hesitated.\par

“I am going back to Hedgerow House,” concluded
the artist obstinately.\par

% ---File: 247.png

“If I were employed to work on this case,”
observed Kent dispassionately; “if it were a mere
commission, undertaken on money terms, I
should throw it up right here and now.” He
took a long strong pull at the extension end of his
ear, and whistled a bar or two of {\itshape{Pagliacci}}. “Do
you know room 571 at the Eyrie?” he asked abruptly.\par

“No. Yes; I do, too. That’s your temple of
white silence, isn’t it?”\par

“Correct. Humor me thus far. Walk up to
the hotel. Give this card to the clerk. Get the
key. Go to that room at once. Lie down on
your back with your eyes open, and think for
one hour by the watch. If at the end of that
time, you still believe you’re right, go ahead.
Will you do it?”\par

“Agreed. It’s a bargain. But it won’t change
my mind.”\par

“A bargain’s a bargain. It won’t need to,”
said Kent coolly. “By that time, if I have any
understanding of Mr. Alexander Blair, he will
have put your Lady of Mystery on the morning
train which leaves for Boston by one of the other
roads. If not—why, you may take your chance.”\par

“Tricked!” said Sedgwick. “Well, I owe you
too much to go back on my agreement. But—see
here, Kent. She’s going to Boston. You’re
going to Boston. You can easily find out where
the Blairs live. Go to her for me and find—”\par

“Heaven forbid!” cried Kent piously.\par

“Why?”\par

“Haven’t I told you that I am a timid creature
and especially about females? Over seventy I
like ’em, and under seven I love ’em. Between,
I shun ’em. I’ll do anything for you but that, my
boy,” he concluded, as the train came rumbling
in.\par

“Then I shall have to follow, and look her up
myself,” returned his friend. “I’ll wire you before
I come. Good-by.”\par

“By the way,” said Kent, leaning out from the
car step upon which he had swung himself,
“don’t be disturbed if you miss that drawing
which we bought from Elder Dennett, at a bargain.”\par

% ---File: 249.png

“Miss it? Why, where is it?”\par

“In my suit case.”\par

“What’s it doing there?”\par

“Why, you see, if it’s a sketch for a finished
portrait by Elliott, as I suspect, some of the art
people in Boston might recognize it. Good luck!
I hope {\itshape{not}} to see you soon; too soon, that is!”\par

Chance and a deranged railway schedule conspired
against the peace of mind of the shy and
shrinking Kent. Outside of Boston a few miles
is a junction and a crossing. Here Kent’s train
was held up by some minor accident. Here, too,
the train from the north on the other road stopped
for orders. Thus it was that Kent, stepping out
to take the air, found himself looking into an
open Pullman window, at a woman’s face framed
in deepest black: a young face, but saddened and
weary, whose unforgettable appeal of wistfulness
had looked out upon him from the canvas in
Sedgwick’s studio.\par

“Mrs. Blair!”\par

For once in his life, Chester Kent’s controlled
tongue had broken the leash. Immediately he
would have given a considerable sum of money
to recall his impulsive exclamation. He was in
an agony of shyness. But it was too late. The
girlish face turned. The composed eyes scanned
a serious-looking man of indeterminate age, clad
in the cool elegance of light gray, and obviously
harassed by some catastrophic embarrassment.\par

“I beg p-p-pardon,” stuttered the man. “Are
you Mr. Blair? I’m Mrs. Kent.”\par

At this astonishing announcement, amusement
gleamed in the woman’s eyes, and gave a delicate
up-twist to the corners of the soft mouth.\par

“I don’t recognize you in your present attire,
Mrs. Kent,” she murmured.\par

“No. Of course not. I—I—meant to say—that
is you know—” Kent gathered his forces,
resolved desperately to see it through, now. “I’m
M-M-Mrs. Blair and I suppose you’re Mr. Kent.”\par

The soft music of her laughter made Kent
savage. “Damn!” he muttered beneath his
breath; and then went direct to the point. “There
are things I want to speak to you about. I wish
to get on your car.”\par

“Certainly not,” replied she decisively. “I do
not know you.”\par

% ---File: 251.png

“I am a friend of Francis Sedgwick’s.”\par

The warm blood flushed her cheeks rose-color,
and died away. Her lips quivered. So much
of mute helpless misery did her face show, that
Kent’s embarrassment vanished.\par

“Try to believe me,” he said earnestly, “when
I tell you that I wish only to save both of you
misunderstanding and suffering. {\itshape{Needless}} misunderstanding
and suffering,” he added.\par

“It is too late,” she said hopelessly.\par

“Forgive me, but that is foolish. Your mind
has been led astray. Sedgwick is absolutely
blameless.”\par

“Please,” she begged in a half whisper, “I
can’t listen. I mustn’t listen. I have tried to
make myself believe that he acted in self-defense.
But, even so, don’t you see, it must stand forever
between us?”\par

“Now, what cock-and-bull story has Alexander
Blair told her?” Kent demanded of his mind.
“How much does she know, or how little?”\par

The jar and forward lurch of the car before
him brought him out of his reverie.\par

“Can I see you in Boston?” he asked hurriedly.\par

% ---File: 252.png

She shook her head. “Not now. I can see
no one. And, remember, I do not even know
you.”\par

Kent cast about rapidly in his mind, as he
walked along with the car, for some one who
might be a common acquaintance. He mentioned
the name of a very great psychologist at Harvard.
“Do you know him?” he asked.\par

“Yes. He is my mother’s half-brother.”\par

“And my valued friend,” he cried. “May I
get him to bring me?” He was almost running
now beside the window.\par

“Yes,” she assented. “If you insist. But I
will hear no word of—of your friend.”\par

“I understand. Agreed,” called Kent. “To-morrow
morning, then.”\par

And he walked, whistling a melancholious
theme, to the platform. Another whistle answered
his. It was that of his train, disappearing
around the curve a mile down the track.\par

Belated, but elated, Kent, after some inquiries,
reached his destination by an intricate exchange
of trolley lines, and went direct to Cambridge.
He found his friend, one of the finest and profoundest
philosophers of his time, sitting in a
closed house over a game of that form of solitaire
appropriately denominated “Idiot’s Delight.”\par

“Very soothing to the mind,” murmured the
professor, after welcoming his guest. “So many
matters turn out wrong in this world that one
finds relief in a problem which usually turns out
right.”\par

“I’ve a little problem of my own which may
or may not turn out right,” said Kent, “and I
want your help.”\par

“It is long since you have done me the honor
to consult me,” said the old scholar, smiling.
“Not, indeed, since the instance of the cabinet
member who was obsessed with a maniacal hatred
of apples.”\par

“Without you, I should never have so much as
approached the solution of Mr. Carolan’s recall,”
returned Kent. “But this present affair calls for
aid, not advice.”\par

“Either is equally at your service,” replied the
philosopher courteously.\par

Kent outlined the case to him.\par

“You see,” he said, “there is an obvious connection
between the unknown body on the beach,
and the Blair tragedy.”\par

“Poor Marjorie!” exclaimed the old man.
“For her marriage I blame myself, largely. When
Marjorie Dorrance was left an orphan, I was her
nearest relative of an age and position such as to
constitute a moral claim of guardianship. She
visited here when she was eighteen; came like a
flood of sunlight into this house. A beautiful
vivid girl, half-child, half-woman; with a beautiful
vivid mind. For her mother’s sake, if not for
her own, I should have watched over her, and
warded her against the danger of an ‘advantageous’
marriage, such as is always imminent in the
set which she entered. Ah, well, I live among
the dust and cobwebs of my own dim interests—and
when I returned from one of my journeys
into the past, I found that Marjorie was engaged
to that wretched creature. Now, he is dead. Let
be. I have seen little of her in late years. God
grant the life with him has not crushed out of her
all her sweetness and happiness.”\par

“While I am no judge of women,” said Kent
judicially, “I should venture to aver that it
hasn’t. But about calling on her—my being a
stranger, you see—and in the first days of her
widowhood—social conventions, and that sort of
thing.”\par

The old scholar made a sweeping gesture of
surprising swiftness, suggesting incongruously
the possession of great muscular power. The
cards flew far and wide, from the stand.\par

“Mist and moonshine, my dear sir! Moonshine
and mist! Marjorie is one of those rare
human beings who deal honestly with themselves.
Her husband’s death can be nothing but
a welcome release. She feels no grief; she will
pretend to none. Not even to herself. I will take
you to her to-morrow.”\par

“Blair ill-treated her?” asked Kent.\par

“Oh, ill-treatment! That is a wide term. I
believe that the poor weakling did his best to
keep faith and honor. But ropes of mud are
strong. Those with which he had bound himself
drew him resistlessly back to the sewers.
Hers was but a marriage of glamour, at best.
And, at the first scent of foulness in her nostrils,
it became only a marriage of law. Society does
her the justice to believe her faithful to him, and
praises the devotion with which, since his breakdown
and retirement, she has given up her world
to devote herself to his care. Essentially the
girl is Puritan in her concepts of duty.”\par

“Does she know anything of the manner of
Blair’s death?”\par

“No one knows much of it, from what I understand,
unless it be Alexander Blair. One of
the family, who went to Hedgerow House for
the funeral, called upon me, as a courtesy due to
Mrs. Blair’s nearest relative. Alexander Blair,
he said, was reticent; his dread of publicity is
notorious. But from what he, the relative, could
ascertain, the affair was substantially this: On
the evening before the woman’s body was found,
Wilfrid Blair, who had been exhibiting symptoms
of melancholia, left the house secretly. No
one saw him go; but, about the time that he left,
the unknown woman was seen in the vicinity of
Hedgerow House.”\par

“By whom?”\par

% ---File: 257.png

“By a half-breed Indian, a devoted servant of
the family, who was practically young Blair’s
body-servant.”\par

“Gansett Jim! That helps to explain.”\par

“Whether or not Wilfrid Blair had arranged
a meeting with this woman is not known. As
you know, she was found with her skull crushed,
on the sea beach. Blair was afterward discovered
by his half-breed servant, mortally injured,
and was brought home to die.”\par

“That is Alexander Blair’s version of the
tragedy?”\par

“As I understand it.”\par

“Well, it’s ingenious.”\par

“But untrue?”\par

“In one vital particular, at least.”\par

“Are you at liberty to state what it is?”\par

“Wilfrid Blair never was brought home.”\par

“Ah? In any case, Alexander Blair is striving
to conceal some scandal, the nature of which I
have no wish to guess. By the way, I should
have added that he suspects a third person, an
artist, resident not far from his place, of being
his son’s assailant.”\par

% ---File: 258.png

“Francis Sedgwick.”\par

“You know the man?”\par

“It is on his behalf that I am acting,” replied
Kent.\par

“My informant, however, inclines to the belief
that Alexander Blair is wrong: that Wilfrid
Blair killed the woman and then inflicted mortal
wounds upon himself. Perhaps you would better
see my informant for yourself.”\par

“Unnecessary, thank you. Mr. Blair is not
telling quite all that he knows. Nevertheless, the
theory which he propounds as to his son’s assailant,
is natural enough, from his point of view.
Although,” added Kent thoughtfully, “it will
be most unfortunate if it leads him to distrust
Mrs. Blair.”\par

“Marjorie? Am I to infer that her good name
is involved?” demanded the old man.\par

“Hardly her good name. Mr. Blair believes—if
I correctly follow his mental processes—that
Francis Sedgwick met his son on the night of the
tragedy, by chance or otherwise, and that in the
encounter which he believes followed, Wilfrid
Blair was killed. Unfortunately, some color of
motive is lent to this by the fact that Sedgwick
had fallen desperately in love with Mrs. Blair.”\par

“Impossible! Marjorie is not the woman to
permit such a thing.”\par

“Without blame to her, or, indeed, to either
of them. She also believes, now, that Sedgwick
killed her husband.”\par

“And—and she was interested in your
friend?” asked the old scholar slowly.\par

“I fear—that is, I trust so.”\par

“You trust so? With this horror standing between
them!”\par

“It must be cleared away,” said Kent earnestly.
“Circumstantial evidence is against Sedgwick:
but, I give you my word, sir, it is wholly impossible
that he should have killed your niece’s husband.”\par

“To doubt your certainty would be crassly
stupid. And are you hopeful of clearing up the
circumstances?”\par

“There I want your aid. The night of the
tragedy a person wearing a dark garment embroidered
with silver stars, was on Hawkill
Heights. I have reason to believe that this person
came there to meet some one from the Blair
place; also, that he can tell me, if I can find
him, the facts which I lack to fill out my theory.
It is to run him down that I have come to Boston.”\par

“A man wearing a dark garment embroidered
with silver stars,” said the philosopher. “Surely
a strange garb in this age of sartorial orthodoxy.”\par

“Not for an astrologer.”\par

“Ah; an astrologer! And you think he came
from Boston?”\par

“I think,” said Chester Kent, drawing some
newspaper clippings from his pocket; “that somewhere
among these advertisements, taken from
the newspapers which are subscribed for at
Hedgerow House, he is to be found.”\par

“There I ought to be able to help. Through
my association with the occult society I have investigated
many of these gentry. Great rascals,
most of them.”\par

“Whom would you consider the most able of
the lot?”\par

The old man set a finger on one of the clippings.
“Preston Jax,” said he, “is the shrewdest
of them all. Sometimes I have thought that he
had dim flashes of real clairvoyance. Be that as
it may, he has a surprising clientele of which he
makes the most, for he is a master-hand at cozening
women out of their money. More than once
he has been in the courts.”\par

“Probably he is my man. Anyway, I shall
visit him first, and, if I find that his office was
closed on July fifth—”\par

“It was, and for a day or two thereafter as I
chance to know, because one of the occult society’s
secret agents was to have visited him, and
could not get an appointment.”\par

“Good! I shall see you, then, to-morrow, sir.”\par

“Clarity of vision go with you, amid your
riddles,” said his host with a smile, shuffling the
cards which Kent had gathered up for him.
“Here is my all-sufficient riddle. Watch me now,
how I meet and vanquish the demon mischance.”
He turned up a card. “Ah,” said he with profound
satisfaction, “the seven of spades. My
luck runs in sevens.”\par

% ---File: 262.png

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\label{chapter-xviiithe-master-of-stars}%
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{\noindent\interlinepenalty \@M\normalfont\Huge\bfseries%
CHAPTER XVIII—THE MASTER OF STARS}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Ten o’clock of the following morning
found the Harvard professor formally
presenting his friend, Chester Kent, to Mrs. Wilfrid
Blair, at the house of the cousin with whom
she was staying.\par

“My dear,” said the old gentleman, “you
may trust Professor Kent’s judgment and insight
as implicitly as his honor. I can give no
stronger recommendation, and will now take my
leave.”\par

Kent resisted successfully a wild and fearful
desire to set a restraining hold upon the disappearing
coat tails, for embarrassment had again
engulfed the scientist’s soul. He seized himself
by the lobe of the ear with that grip which
drowning men reserve for straws. And—to continue
the comparison—the ear sank with him beneath
the waves of confusion. Mrs. Blair’s first
words did not greatly help him.\par

% ---File: 263.png

“Have you an earache, Professor Kent?” she
inquired maliciously.\par

“Yes. No. It’s a habit,” muttered the caller,
releasing his hold and immediately resuming it.\par

“Isn’t it very painful?”\par

“Of course it is,” said he testily; “when I forget
to let go in time—as I frequently do.”\par

“As you are doing now,” she suggested.\par

Kent bestowed a final yank upon the dried
fount of inspiration, and gave it up as hopeless.\par

“I don’t know exactly how to begin,” he complained.\par

“Then I will help you,” said she, becoming
suddenly grave. “You are here to speak to me
of some topic, wholly distinct from one forbidden
phase.”\par

“Exactly. You make it difficult for me by that
restriction. And I rather like difficulties—in reason.
Let me see. Have you lost any jewels lately,
Mrs. Blair?”\par

The girl-widow started. “Yes. How did you
know?”\par

“You have made no complaint, or published
no advertisements for them?”\par

% ---File: 264.png

“I have kept it absolutely secret. Father Blair
insisted that I should do so.”\par

“They were valuable, these jewels?”\par

“The rings were, intrinsically, but what I most
valued was the necklace of rose-topazes. They
were the Grosvenor topazes.”\par

“A family relic?”\par

“Not my own family. My husband’s mother
left them to me. They came down to her from
her grandmother, Camilla Grosvenor.”\par

“You speak that name as if it should be recognizable
by me.”\par

“Perhaps it would, if you were a New Englander.
She was rather a famous person in her
time. C. L. Elliott painted her—one of his finest
portraits, I believe. And—and she was remarkable
in other respects.”\par

“Would you mind being more specific? It
isn’t mere curiosity on my part.”\par

“Why, my uncle could have told you more.
He knows all about the Grosvenors. My own
knowledge of Camilla Grosvenor is merely family
tradition. She was a woman of great force
of character, and great personal attraction, I
believe, though she was not exactly beautiful.
When she was still under thirty she became the
leader of a band of mystics and star-worshipers. I
believe that she became infatuated with one of
them, a young German, and that there was an
elopement by water. This I remember, at least:
her body washed ashore on the coast not very
far from Hedgerow House.”\par

“At Lonesome Cove?”\par

“Yes. The very name of it chills me. For my
husband it had an uncanny fascination. He used
to talk to me about the place. He even wanted to
build there; but Mr. Alexander Blair wouldn’t
listen to it.”\par

“Would you know the face of Camilla Grosvenor?”\par

“Of course. The Elliott portrait hangs in the
library at Hedgerow House.”\par

Kent took from under his coat the drawing
purchased from Elder Dennett.\par

“That is the same,” said Mrs. Blair unhesitatingly.
“It isn’t quite the same pose as the finished
portrait. And it lacks the earring which is in the
portrait. But I should say it is surely Elliott’s
work. Couldn’t it be a preliminary sketch for the
portrait?”\par

“Probably that is what it is.”\par

“Can you tell me where it came from?”\par

“From between the pages of an old book. It
must have been carelessly thrown aside. The book
has just been sold at an auction in Martindale
Center, and the drawing found by a man who
didn’t appreciate what it was. I bought it from
him.”\par

“That’s rather wonderful, isn’t it?”\par

“There are more wonders to come. Tell me
how your necklace was lost, please.”\par

“I don’t know. On the afternoon of July fifth
I left Hedgerow House rather hurriedly. My
maid, whom I trust implicitly, was to follow with
my trunks, including my jewel case. She arrived,
a day later, with part of the jewels missing, and
a note from Father Blair saying that there had
been a robbery, but that I was to say nothing
of it.”\par

“July fifth,” remarked Kent with his lids
dropped over the keen gaze of his eyes. “It was
the following morning that the unknown body
was found on the beach near Mr.—near the
Nook.”\par

Her face showed no comprehension. “I have
heard nothing of any body,” she replied.\par

“Did none of the talk come to your ears of a
strange woman found at Lonesome Cove?”\par

“No. Wait, though. After the funeral, one of
the cousins began to speak of a mystery, and Mr.
Blair shut him off.”\par

“Your necklace was taken from that body.”\par

Her eyes grew wide. “Was she the thief?”
she asked eagerly.\par

“The person who took the necklace from the
body is the one for whom I am searching. Now,
Mrs. Blair, will you tell me, in a word, how your
husband met his death?”\par

Her gaze did not falter from his, but a look of
suffering came into her eyes, and the hands in her
lap closed and opened, and closed again.\par

“Perhaps I can save you by putting it in another
form. Your father-in-law gave you to understand,
did he not, that Wilfrid Blair met and
quarreled with—with a certain person, and was
killed in the encounter which followed?”\par

% ---File: 268.png

“How shall I ever free myself from the consciousness
of my own part in it?” she shuddered.
“Don’t—don’t speak of it again. I can’t bear it.”\par

“You won’t have to, very long,” Kent assured
her. “Let us get back to the jewels. You would
be willing to make a considerable sacrifice to recover
them?”\par

“Anything!”\par

“Perhaps you’ve heard something of this
man?”\par

Drawing a newspaper page from his pocket,
Kent indicated an advertisement outlined in blue
pencil. It was elaborately “displayed,” as follows:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
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{\itshape{Your Fate is Written in the Heavens}}\par}
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{\vl {\scshape{Consult The}}\par}
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\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\vl {\footnotesize{Past, Present and Future are Open Books to His Mystic Game—Be Guided Aright in}}\par}
{\vl {\LARGE\strut{Business, Love \& Health}}\par}
{\vl {\footnotesize{Thousands to Whom he has pointed Out the Way of the Stars Bless Him for His Aid}}.\par}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
{\vl {\scshape{Consultation by Appointment}}\par}
{\vl {\LARGE\strut{Preston Jax}}\par}
{\vl {\footnotesize{Suite 77 Mystic Block, 10 Royal Street}}\par}
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{\noindent}
Mrs. Blair glanced at the announcement.\par

“Some of my friends have been to him,” she
said. “For a time he was rather a fad.”\par

“But you haven’t ever consulted him, yourself?”\par

“No, indeed.”\par

“That is well. I want you to go there with me
to-day.”\par

“To that charlatan? Why, Professor Kent, I
thought you were a scientific man.”\par

“Translate ‘science’ down to its simplest terms
in Saxon English,” said Kent.\par

“It would be ‘knowing’, I suppose.”\par

“Exactly. When I think a man knows something
which I wish to know but do not know, I
try to possess myself of his knowledge, whether
he is microscopist, astrologer, or tinsmith. To
that extent I am a scientist.”\par

“And you expect the stars to tell us something
about my lost topazes?”\par

“They seem to have had some influence on the
career of the original owner,” said Kent, with his
half smile. “And one star has already lighted up
the beginning of the trail for me.”\par

% ---File: 270.png

“I can’t understand your motives,” she said.
“But I know that I can trust you. When do you
wish me to go?”\par

“I have an appointment for us at high noon.”\par

As the clock struck twelve, Kent and Mrs. Blair
passed from the broad noonday glare of the street
into the tempered darkness of a strange apartment.
It was hung about with black cloths, and
lighted by the effulgence of an artificial half-moon
and several planets, contrived, Kent conjectured,
of isinglass set into the fabric, with arc lights behind
them. A soft-footed servitor, clad throughout
in black, appeared from nowhere, provided
chairs, set a pitcher of water beside them, and
vanished silently. A faint, heavy, but not unpleasant
odor as of incense, hovered in the air.
The moon waxed slowly in brightness, illumining
the two figures.\par

“Very well fixed up,” whispered Kent to his
companion. “The astrologer is now looking us
over.”\par

In fact, at that moment, a contemplating and
estimating eye was fixed upon them from a “dead”
star in the farther wall. The eye beheld a girl
whose delicate but vivid loveliness was undimmed
by the grisly trappings of mourning which a
Christian civilization has borrowed from barbarism
to belie its own Christianity withal, rested
a moment, and passed, with more of scrutiny, to
her companion.\par

Preston Jax did not, as a rule, receive more
than one client at a time. Police witnesses travel
in pairs, and the Star-master was of a suspicious
nature. Only an extraordinary fee, and the cultured
languor of the voice which requested
the appointment over the telephone, had induced
him to relax his rule. Now, however, his uneasiness
was appeased. He beheld a gentleman
clad in such apparel as never police spy nor investigating
agent wore; a rather puzzling “swellness”
(the term is culled from Mr. Jax’s envious
thoughts), since it appeared to be individual,
without being in any particular conspicuous.
Mr. Jax, an adept in extracting information,
wondered if he could persuade the visitor to disclose
his tailor to the stars; for he was, himself,
in light vacational moments at Atlantic City and
in the Waldorf-Astoria something of a “dresser”.
One point, however, the connoisseurship
of the Star-master could hardly approve: the
monocle displayed in his visitor’s left eye, though
it was reassuring to his professional judgment.
The visitor was obviously “light”.\par

Quitting his peep-hole, the Star-master pressed
a button. Strains of music, soft and sourceless,
filled the air (from a phonograph muffled in
rugs). The moon glow paled a little. There was
a soft rustle and fluctuation of wall draperies in
the apartment. The light waxed. The Star-master
stood before his visitors.\par

They beheld a man of undistinguished size
and form, eked out by a splendid pomposity of
manner. To this his garb contributed. All the
signs of the zodiac had lent magnificence to the
long, black, loose robe with gaping sleeves, which
he wore. Mrs. Blair noted with vague interest
that it was all hand embroidered.\par

Pale and hard the face rose from this somber
and gorgeous appareling. It was a remarkable
face, small, calm, and compacted of muscles.
Muscles plumped out the broad cheeks; muscles
curved about the jaws; muscles worked delicately
along the club of a nose. The chin was just one
live, twitching muscle. Even the faint screwed
lines at the eye-corners suggested muscle. And,
withal, there lurked in the countenance a suggestion
of ingenuousness. The man looked like a
bland and formidable baby. He looked even more
like a puma.\par

With a rhythmical motion of arms and hands
he came forward, performed a spreading bow of
welcome, and drew back, putting his hand to his
brow, as if in concentration of thought. Marjorie
Blair felt an unholy desire to laugh. She glanced
at Professor Kent, and, to her surprise, found
him exhibiting every evidence of discomposure.
He fidgeted, fanned himself with his hat, mopped
his brow and palpably flinched under the solemn
regard of the mage.\par

“Stupid of me,” he muttered, in apology. “Gets
on one’s nerves, you know. Awesome, and all
that sort of thing, fussing with the stars.”\par

Preston Jax bestowed a patronizing smile upon
his visitor. Protectiveness, benign and assured,
radiated from him.\par

“Fear nothing,” said he. “The star forces respond
to the master-will of him who comprehends
them. Madam, the date, year, month and day
of your birth, if you please?”\par

“March 15th, 1889,” replied Mrs. Blair.\par

Propelled by an unseen force, a celestial globe
mounted on a nickeled standard, rolled forth.
The Star-master spun it with a practised hand.
Slowly and more slowly it turned, until, as it came
to a stop, a ray of light, mysteriously appearing,
focused on a constellation.\par

“Yonder is your star,” declared the astrologist.
“See how the aural light seeks it.”\par

“Oh, I say!” murmured he of the monocle.
“Weird, you know! Quite gets on one’s nerves.
Quite!”\par

“Sh-h-h-h!” reproved Preston Jax. “Silence
is the fitting medium of the higher stellar mysteries.
Madam, your life is a pathway between
happiness and grief. Loss, like a speeding comet,
has crossed it here. Happiness, like the soft
moon glow, has beamed upon it, and will again
beam, in fuller effulgence.”\par

With beautifully modulated intonations he proceeded,
while one of his visitors regarded him
with awestruck reverence, and the other waited
with patience—but unimpressed, so the orator
felt, by his gifts. His voice sank, by deep-toned
gradations into silence. The ray winked
out. Then the woman spoke.\par

“Is it possible for your stars to guide me to an
object which I have lost?”\par

“Nothing is hidden from the stars,” declared
their master. “Their radiance shines not alone
upon the broad expanses of existence, but also
into the smallest crevices of life. You seek jewels,
madam?” (Kent had let this much out, as
if by accident, in the morning’s conversation.)\par

“Yes.”\par

“Your birth stone is the bloodstone. Unhappy,
indeed, would be the omen if you lost one of those
gems.” (He was fishing and came forward toward
her, almost brushing Kent.)\par

“But I say,” cried Kent in apparently uncontrollable
agitation; “did your stars tell you that
she had lost some jewelry? Tell me, is that how
you knew?”\par

% ---File: 276.png

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% ---File: 277.png

In his eagerness he caught at the astrologer’s
arm, the right one, and his long fingers, gathering
in the ample folds of the gown, pressed nervously
upon the wrist. Preston Jax winced away. All
the excited vapidity passed from Kent’s speech at
once.\par

“The jewels which this lady has lost,” he said
very quietly, “are a set of unique rose-topazes. I
thought—in fact, I felt that you could, with or
without the aid of your stars, help her to recover
them.”\par

Blackness, instant and impenetrable, was the
answer to this. There was a subdued flowing
sound of drapery, as if some one were brushing
along the wall. Kent raised his voice the merest
trifle.\par

“Unless you wish to be arrested, I advise you
not to leave this place. Not by either exit.”\par

“Arrested on what charge?” came half-chokingly
out of the darkness.\par

“Theft.”\par

“I didn’t take them.”\par

“Murder, then.”\par

“My God!” So abject was the terror and misery
in the cry that Kent felt sorry for the wretch.
Then, with a certain dogged bitterness: “I don’t
care what you know; I didn’t kill her.”\par

“That is very likely true,” replied Kent soothingly.
“But it is what I must know in detail.
Find your foot lever and turn on the light.”\par

The two visitors could hear him grope heavily.
As the light flashed on, they saw, with a shock,
that he was on all fours. It was as if Kent’s word
had felled him. Instantly he was up, however,
and faced around upon Marjorie Blair.\par

“Who was she?” he demanded. “Your sister?”\par

Mrs. Blair was very pale, but her eyes were
steady and her voice under control as she answered:\par

“I do not know.”\par

“You must know! Don’t torture me! I’m a
rat in a trap.”\par

“I’m sorry,” she said gently, “that I can’t help
you. But I do not know.”\par

“You, then.” The Star-master turned upon
Kent. “What am I up against? How did you
find me?”\par

Thrusting his hand in his pocket the scientist
brought out a little patch of black cloth, with a
single star skilfully embroidered on it.\par

“Wild blackberry has long thorns and sharp,”
he said. “You left this tatter on Hawkill Cliffs.”\par

At the name, the man’s chin muscle throbbed
with his effort to hold his teeth steady against
chattering.\par

“At first I suspected an army officer. When I
found that the cloth was below grade, the only
other starred profession I could think of was
astrology. As the highest class astrologer now
advertising, you seemed likely to be the man.
When I found, first, that you were out of town on
July fifth, and, just now, by a somewhat rough
experiment, that you had suffered a wound of the
right wrist, I was certain.”\par

“What do you want?”\par

“A fair exchange. My name is Chester Kent.”\par

The Star-master’s chin worked convulsively.
“The Kent that broke up the Coordinated Spiritism
Circle?”\par

“Yes.”\par

“It’s ill bargaining with the devil,” observed
Preston Jax grimly. “What’s the exchange?”\par

% ---File: 280.png

“I do not believe that you are guilty of murder.
Tell me the whole story, plainly and straight, and
I’ll clear you in so far as I can believe you innocent.”\par

For the first time the seer’s chin was at peace.\par

“You want me to begin with this lady’s necklace?”\par

“Why, yes. But after that, begin at the beginning.”\par

“The topazes are cached under a rock near the
cliff. I couldn’t direct you, but I could show you.”\par

“In time you shall. One moment. As you realize,
you are under presumption of murder. Do
you know the identity of the victim?”\par

“Of Astræa? That’s all I know about her. I
don’t even know her last name.”\par

“Why Astræa?”\par

“That’s the way she signed herself. She seemed
to think I knew all about her, without being told.”\par

“And you played up to that belief?”\par

“Well—of course I did.”\par

“Yes, you naturally would. But if you had no
name to write to, how could you answer the letters?”\par

% ---File: 281.png

“Through personal advertisements. She had
made out a code. She was a smart one in some
ways, I can tell you.”\par

“Have you any of the letters here?”\par

“Only the last one.”\par

“Bring it to me.”\par

Obediently as an intimidated child, the astrologer
left the room, presently returning with a
plain sheet of paper with handwriting on one side.
Kent, who almost never made a mistake, had forgotten
in his absorption in the matter of the document,
the presence, even the existence, of Marjorie
Blair. He was recalled to himself, with a
shock, as he felt her shoulder touch his. Involuntarily
he whirled the sheet behind him.\par

“Let me see the rest of it, please,” she said
calmly enough.\par

Kent nodded. With drooping head, and chin a-twitch,
the Master of Stars stood studying them,
while they read the letter together. It was in two
handwritings, the date, address and body of the
letter being in a clear running character, while
the signature, “Astræa,” was in very fine, minute,
detached lettering. The note read:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“All is now ready. You have but to carry out
our arrangements implicitly. The place is known
to you. There can be no difficulty in your finding
it. At two hours after sundown of July the fifth
we shall be there. Our ship will be in waiting.
All will be as before. Fail me not. Your reward
shall be greater than you dream.\par

{\scshape{Astræa.}}”\par}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Kent looked askance at Mrs. Blair. She was
very white, and her sensitive lips quivered a little,
but she contrived, with an effort of courage which
he marked with a flashing access of admiration,
to smile reassuringly.\par

“Don’t fear for me,” she said. “We Dorrances
are of firm fiber.”\par

“So I see,” he said warmly. He folded and
pocketed the letter.\par

“Had you ever been to this place before?”
Kent asked of Jax.\par

“No.”\par

“Then how did you expect to find it?”\par

“She sent me a map. I lost it—that night.”\par

“What about the ship?”\par

“I wish you’d tell {\itshape{me}}. There wasn’t any ship
that I could see.”\par

% ---File: 283.png

“And the reference to all being as it was before?”\par

“You’ve got me again, there. In most every
letter there was something about things I didn’t
understand. She seemed to think we used to
know each other. Maybe we did. Hundreds of
’em come to me. I can’t remember ’em all. Sometimes
she called me Hermann. My name ain’t
Hermann. Right up to the time I saw her on the
Heights I was afraid she was taking me for somebody
else and that the whole game would be
queered as soon as we came face to face.”\par

“It seems quite probable,” said Kent with a
faint smile, “that you were taken for some one
else. Your personal appearance would hardly
betray the error, however.”\par

“Well, if I was taken for another man,” said
the puzzled astrologist, “why didn’t she say so
when she saw me?”\par

“What did she say when she saw you?”\par

“Why, she seemed just as tickled to set eyes
on me as if I were her Hermann twice over.”\par

“Exactly,” replied Kent with satisfaction.\par

“Well, how do you account for that?”\par

% ---File: 284.png

Passing over the query, the other proceeded:
“Now, as I understand it, you put yourself in
my hands unreservedly.”\par

“What else can I do?” cried Preston Jax.\par

“Nothing that would be so wise. So do not try.
I shall want you to come to Martindale Center on
call. Pack up and be ready.”\par

“But the police!” quavered Jax. “You said the
place was guarded, and I’d be pinched if I tried
to get out.”\par

“Oh, no,” retorted Kent, with a smile. “That
wouldn’t have been true, and I never lie. You
inferred that, and wrongly, from my little ruse to
keep you from running away. That you would
be arrested eventually, if you attempted escape
was true. It still is true.”\par

“I believe it,” replied Preston Jax fervently,
“with you on my trail.”\par

“Come, Mrs. Blair,” said Kent. “Remember,
Jax: fair play, and we shall pull you through
yet.”\par

In the taxi, Marjorie Blair turned to Kent.
“You are a very wonderful person,” she said—Kent
shook his head—“and, I think, a very kind
one.” Kent shook his head again. “Be kind to
me, and leave me to go home alone.”\par

Kent stopped the cab, stepped out and raised his
hat. She leaned toward him.\par

“Just a moment,” she said. “Perhaps I ought
not to ask; but it is too strong for me. Will you
tell me who the woman was?”\par

Kent fell back a step, his eyes widening.\par

“You don’t see it yet?” he asked.\par

“Not a glimmer of light. Unless she was some—some
unacknowledged member of the family.”\par

“No. Not that.”\par

“And you can’t tell me who she was?”\par

“Yes; but not just now. Try to be patient for
a little, Mrs. Blair.”\par

“Very well. Your judgment is best, doubtless.
Of course you know whose hand wrote the body
of that letter?”\par

“Yes; try not to think of it,” advised Kent.
“It isn’t nearly so ugly as it seems.”\par

She looked at him with her straight, fearless,
wistful glance.\par

“He had left me nothing to love,” she said
sadly; “but to find disgrace and shame even to
the end of his life! That is hard. That it should
have been my husband who gave the thing most
precious to me to another woman! But why did
he write the letter to Preston Jax for her to
sign?”\par

Chester Kent shook his head.\par

% ---File: 287.png

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CHAPTER XIX—THE STRANGE TRYST}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Midnight found Kent in the throes of
literary effort. He was striving to compose
a letter to Sedgwick that should, in turn,
compose the recipient’s perturbed feelings. It
concluded, with some acerbity:\par

“You’ve made a pretty complete idiot of yourself
once. Don’t try to eclipse your own record.”\par

By which he purposed to convey to the artist
the fact that his presence in Boston was neither
desirable nor advisable. As he was about to affix
his signature, a knock brought him to the door of
his hotel room.\par

“Letter for you,” announced the messenger
boy.\par

Kent signed the book and received a broad thin
envelope sealed in golden hued wax with the impress
of a star, and addressed in typewriting to
his own name.\par

% ---File: 288.png

“Confound all fools who sign their letters on
the outside!” said Kent, scowling at the seal.
“What has that planetary lunatic got to say that
won’t keep?”\par

What Preston Jax had to say was, first, in the
form of a very brief note; secondly, in the shape
of a formidable-looking document. The note began
“Esteemed sir,” concluded “Yours remorsefully,”
and set forth, in somewhat exotic language,
that the writer, fearing a lapse of courage
that might confuse his narrative when he should
come to give it, had “taken pen in hand” to commit
it to writing, and would the recipient “kindly
pardon haste?” Therewith, twenty-one typed
pages.\par

“Haste!” cried Chester Kent grievously. “Why,
he’s written me the story of his life!”\par

Indeed, at a cursory glance, it appeared so. The
initial paragraph opened, “I was born of poor but
honest parents.” Chester Kent groaned. A little
farther down the page the phrase, “Oh, that those
innocent days of my happy childhood might return!”
rose and smote him in the eyes. Chester
Kent snorted. A desperate leap landed him in the
midst of page five, where he encountered this
gem, “With these fateful words the kind old minister
laid a faltering hand upon my head. But
enough!”\par

“Quite enough!” agreed Chester Kent, and
kicked the Star-master’s document into a corner.\par

It fell in a crumpled heap with one sheet, curving
in upward protuberance, conspicuous to the
eye. On this sheet there was handwriting, and the
handwriting was the same as that of the note
Marjorie Blair had identified. Kent retrieved the
paper, laid it on his desk, selected a likely spot for
one more plunge, and dived into the turbid flood
of words. And behold! as he turned, so to speak,
the corner of the narrative, the current became
suddenly clear. The muddled eloquence fell
away; and the style crystallized into the tense
quick testimony of the prime actor in a drama,
intensely and shudderingly felt.\par

The reader ran through it with increasing absorption.
Then, pencil in hand, he attacked
the first part of the precious screed and emerged
from a scene of literary carnage with one brief
paragraph in hand and the slaughtered bodies of
many eloquent pages strewing the floor. That
one paragraph stated that Preston Jax, whose
real name was John Preston, had, after a rebellious
boyhood, run away to sea, lived two years
before the mast, picked up a smattering of education,
been assistant and capper for a magnetic
healer, and had finally formulated a system of
astrological prophecy that won him a slow but
increasing renown. The gist of the system was to
assign some particular and often imaginary star
to every subject, and, by a natural aptitude for
worming out secrets from the credulous, lead
them along the celestial paths of mysticism to a
point where he could reach their pocketbooks.
He had been specially successful with women.
One bit of his philosophy Kent had preserved
unaltered.\par

“They bite slower than men; but when they do
take hold, they swallow the hook so deep that
you’re lucky to get it back at all.”\par

An hour’s work with a pencil that should have
been blue resolved the document, under Kent’s
skilful and remorseless editorship, into its salient
elements. Obviously it was impossible to put it
into alien hands for copying. Kent ordered up a
typewriter and copied it himself. The duplicate
he enclosed in his letter to Sedgwick. The original
he put aside to sleep upon. Thus it ran:\par

“This Astræa affair looked good from the
first,” so began Preston Jax’s confession, as beheaded
and stripped down by its editor. “It
looked like one of the best. You could smell
money in it with half a nose. She bit first on one
of the occult ads—the number four of the old
series, a double-column with display in heavy-faced
italics and leaded out strong. That ad always
was a good woman-fetcher. Her first letter
came in on a Monday, I recollect. It was a big
mail. There were a lot of Curiositys and a couple
of Suspiciouses, and this was one of half a dozen
in the True Believers’ pile. Irene, my assistant,
had put the red pencil on it, when she sorted out
the mail, to show it was something special. But
don’t get her into this, Professor Kent. If you
do, it’s all off, jewels and all. Irene has always
been for the straight star business and forecast
game, and no extras or side lines. Besides, we
were married last week.\par

% ---File: 292.png

“What attracted Irene’s red pencil, and caught
me right away, was the style of the thing. The
handwriting was classy. The paper was elegant.
There was something rich about it all. This was
no Biddy, pinching out the missis’ stationery to
make a play with. She quoted poetry, swell
poetry. First off she signed herself ‘An Adept’.
I gave her the Personal, No. 3, and followed it
up with the Special Friendly, No. 5. Irene never
liked that No. 5. She says it’s spoony. Just the
same, it fetches them. But not this one. She
began to get personal and warm-hearted, all right,
and answered up with the kindred-soul racket.
But come to Boston? Not a move! Said she
couldn’t. There were reasons. It looked like the
old game—flitter-headed wife and jealous husband.
Nothing in that game, unless you go in for
the straight holdup. And blackmail was always
too strong for my taste. So I did the natural
thing; gave her special readings and doubled on
the price. She paid like a lamb.\par

“Then, blame if it didn’t slip out she wasn’t
married at all! I lost that letter. It was kind of
endearing. Irene put up a howl. It was getting
too personal for her taste. I told her I would cut
it out. Then I gave my swell lady another address
and wrote her for a picture. Nothing doing.
But she began to hint around at a meeting. One
day a letter came with a hundred-dollar bill in it.
Loose, too, just like you or me might send a two-cent
stamp. ‘For expenses’, she wrote, and I was
to come at once. Our souls had returned to recognize
and join each other, she said. Here is the
only part of the letter I could dig up from the
waste basket:\par

Here the specimen of handwriting that had
caught Kent’s eye was pasted upon the document.\par

“‘You have pointed out to me that our stars,
swinging in mighty circles, are rushing on to a
joint climax. Together we may force open the
doors to the past, and sway the world as we
sought to do in bygone days.’\par

“And so on and cetera,” continued the narrative.
“Well, of course, she was nutty, that is,
about the star business. But that don’t prove
anything. The dippiest star-chaser I ever worked
was the head of a department in one of the big
stores, and the fiercest little business woman in
business hours, you ever knew. It’s the romantic
in the sex that sets them skidding when it comes
to stars, and such like. And Astræa was not a
patch on some of them that has been paying me
good sane money for years. That was the letter
she first called me Hermann in and signed Astræa
to. Said there was no use pretending to conceal
her identity any longer from me. Seemed to
think I knew all about it. That jarred me some.
And, with the change of writing in the signature,
it all looked pretty queer. You remember
the last letter with the copperplate-writing name
at the bottom? Well, they all came that way
after this; the body of the letter very bold and
careless; signature written in an entirely different
hand. I took it to Chorio, the character-reader,
and he said so, too. What’s more, he
advised me to quit the game. Said there was
trouble back of that handwriting. Those character
fellows ain’t such fools, either!\par

“But hundred-dollar bills loose in letters mean a
big stake. I wrote her I would come, and I signed
it ‘Hermann’, just to play up to her lead. Irene
got on and threw a fit. She said her woman’s intuition
told her there was danger in it. Truth is,
she was stuck on me herself, and I was on her;
but we did not find it out until after the crash. So
I was all for prying Astræa loose from her
money, if I had to marry her to do it. She wrote
some slush about the one desperate plunge together
and then the glory that was to be ours.
That looked like marriage to me.\par

“You saw the last letter. It had me rattled,
but not rattled enough to quit. There was a
map in it of the place for the meeting. That
was plain enough. But the ‘our’ and ‘we’ business
in it bothered me. It looked a bit like a third person.
I had not heard anything about any third
person. What is more, I did not have any use for
a third person in this business. The stars forbade
it. I wrote and told her so, and said if there
was any outsider rung in, the stellar courses
would have a sudden change of heart. Then I
put my best robe in a bag and bought a ticket for
Carr’s Junction. You can believe that while I
was going through the woods I was keeping a
bright eye out for any third party. Well, he
was not there; not when I arrived, anyway.
Where he was all the time, I do not know. I
never saw him. But I heard him later. I can
hear him yet at night, God help me!\par

“She was leaning against a little tree at the edge
of the thicket when I first saw her. There was
plenty of light from the moon and it sifted down
through the trees and fell across her head and
neck. As neat a bit of stage-setting for my business
as I could have fixed up myself; and I am
some hand at that. You have seen my place, and
you know. I noticed a queer circlet around her
neck. The stones were like soft pink fires. I had
not ever seen any like them before and I stood
there trying to figure whether they were rubies
and how much they might be worth. While I was
wondering about it, she half turned and I got my
first good look at her face.\par

“She was younger than I had reckoned on, and
not bad to look at, but queer, queer! Something
about her struck me all wrong; gave me a sort of
ugly shiver. Another thing struck me all right,
though. That was that she had jewels on pretty
much all her fingers. In one of my letters to her
I gave her a hint about that: told her that gems
gave the stars a stronger hold on the wearer, and
she had taken it all in. She certainly was an easy
subject.\par

“A bundle done up in paper was on the ground
near her. I ducked back, very still, and got into
my robe. The arrangement in her letter was for
me to whistle when I got there. I whistled. She
straightened up.\par

“‘Come,’ she said. ‘I am waiting.’\par

“Her voice was rather deep and soft. But it
wasn’t a pleasant softness. Some way I did not
like it any better than I liked her looks. It was
too late to back out, though. I stepped out into
the open and gave her the grand bow.\par

“‘The Master of the Stars, at your command,’
I said.\par

“‘You are not as I expected to see you,’ she
said.\par

“That was a sticker. It might mean most anything.
I took a chance.\par

“‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘we all change.’\par

“It went. ‘We change as life changes,’ she said.
‘They never found you, did they?’\par

% ---File: 298.png

“From the way she said it I saw she expected
me to say ‘No’. So I said ‘No’.\par

“‘That was left for me to return and do,’ she
went on with a kind of queer joy that gave me the
shivers again.\par

“‘Yes,’ I agreed, wishing I knew what she was
driving at, but sticking to my text. ‘And here we
are.’\par

“‘Together,’ says she. ‘Isn’t it wonderful!
After all these years. The instant I saw your
statement in the newspaper I knew it was your
soul calling to mine across the ages.’\par

“You know, Professor Kent, I thought that
was so good I made a note of it for future business
use. While I was saying it over to myself
she gave me a jar:\par

“‘Our boat is at the shore,’ she said.\par

“In that last letter she mentioned a ship. And,
now, here was this boat business. (Afterward I
looked for a sign of either, but could not find any.
I thought perhaps it would explain the other part
of the ‘we’ and ‘our’.) If I was going to elope by
sea I wanted to know it, and I said as much.\par

“‘Are you steadfast?’ she asked.\par

% ---File: 299.png

“Well, there was only one answer to that. I
said I was. She opened her package and took out
a coil of rope. It was this gray-white rope, sort
of clothes-line, and it looked strong.\par

“‘What now?’ I asked her.\par

“‘To bind us together,’ she said. ‘Close, close
together, and then the plunge! This time there
shall be no failure. They shall not find one of us
without the other. You are not afraid?’\par

“Afraid! My neck was bristling. The woman
was proposing, as near as I could make out, that
we go out in a boat, tie ourselves together, and
jump overboard. She seemed to think it was an
encore to some previous performance.\par

“‘Go slow,’ I said, thinking mighty hard. ‘I
don’t quite see the point of this.’\par

“‘All, all is as it is foreordained in the stars;
the curve of the astral courses, the illimitable, unchangeable
curve that has made us what we are,
and shall draw us on and on to our mighty destiny.
You, you have pointed out the way.’\par

“That is what she gave me, waving her arms in
the air.\par

“Didn’t I curse myself for not remembering
what I had written her? No clue, except that the
poor soul was plumb dippy—too dippy for me to
marry at any price. It wouldn’t have held in the
courts. Yet, there might have been five thousand
dollars of diamonds on her. It was a tight place.
I wanted to duck the whole thing; but the rings
held me. I have always been dotty about diamonds.
I suppose she felt me weakening. Women
are queer, that way.\par

“‘You dare to break our pact?’ she says in a
voice like a woman on the stage. Then she
changed and spoke very gently. ‘You are looking
at these gewgaws,’ she said, and took a diamond
circlet from her finger. ‘What do these count
for?’ And she put it in my hand. Another ring
dropped at my feet. Mind, she was giving them
to me. I do not know if it would hold in law, she
being a lunatic; but I was going to take all I could,
on the chance, and watch for a getaway. The diamonds
had me hypnotized.\par

“‘These are as nothing compared to what we
shall have,’ she went on, ‘after the plunge. Wait!’\par

“She had dropped the rope, and now she went
into her paper parcel again, kneeling at my side.
I had stooped to look for the fallen ring, when I
felt her hand slide up my wrist, and then a quick
little snap of something cold and close. A bracelet,
I thought. And it was a bracelet!\par

“‘Forever! Together!’ she said, and stood up
beside me, chained to me by the handcuffs she had
slipped on my right wrist and her left. Never
you think your nerve is sound till you have felt
something like that. I thought mine was—and I
squalled aloud like a child at a ghost.\par

“‘Hush!’ she said, and her free arm pressed
across my mouth.\par

“‘How much to let me off?’ I asked as soon as
I could get breath. You see, it flashed on me that
it was a trap. You can never tell, in our line, when
the detectives may be after you, or what kind of
a game they’ll put up. I looked around for the
rest of the bunch to come and jump me, but I
didn’t see a thing. Her next words put me on.\par

“‘The stars! The stars!’ she whispered. ‘See
ours, how they light our pathway across the sea.
The sea that awaits us!’\par

“More breath came back to me. It wasn’t a
trap, then. She was only a crazy woman, that I
had to get rid of. I looked down at the handcuff.
It was of iron, and had dull rusted edges. A
hammer would have made short work of it; but
I did not have any hammer. I did not even have
a stone. There would be stones in the broken
land beyond the thicket. I thought I saw a way.\par

“‘Yes. Let’s go,’ I said.\par

“We set out. At the edge of the thicket was a
flattish rock with small stones near it. Here I
pretended to slip. I fell with my right wrist
across a rock, and caught up a cobblestone with
my left hand. At the first crack of the stone on
the handcuff I could feel the old iron weaken. I
got no chance for a second blow. Her hands were
at my throat. They bit in. Then I knew it was a
fight for my life.\par

“She was light; but she was strong like a panther.
If her dress bound her, I was as bad off in
my robe. At the first grip I was forced back into
a bush, and sprawled there, in a tangle of
branches and flying cloth. Somehow, I twisted
her fingers from my throat. We struggled out
into the moonlight again. I got a fair look at
her face, and I guess I went mad myself, with the
terror of it. The next thing I remember clearly
she was quiet on the ground and I was hammering,
hammering, hammering at my wrist with a
blood-stained stone. I do not know if it was her
blood or mine. Both, maybe, for my wrist was
like pulp when the iron finally cracked open and I
was free. I caught a glimpse of blood on her
temple. I suppose I had hit her there with the
stone. She looked dead.\par

“All I wanted was to think—to think—to think.
How could I think with her lying there? I crept
out of sight of her and kneeled down. Her star,
the star I had faked for hers, was shining in my
eyes like a cold glare. That very minute a wisp
of cloud blew across and wiped it out, and I heard
myself squeal again. I was pretty much dotty, I
guess.\par

“While I was trying to think she came alive.
She didn’t stir slow and moan like I have seen
men, in my sea days, when they were knocked
out. She was on her feet before I knew it, and
off at a dead run. The broken handcuff went
jerking and jumping around her as she ran. That
was an awful night full of awful things. But the
one worst sight of all—worse, even, than the finding
of her afterward—was that mad figure leaping
over the broken ground toward the cliff’s
edge.\par

“Even if I had tried to follow I never could
have caught her. And she was going straight for
her death. She dropped down out of sight into
a hollow and came up on the rise beyond. I yelled
to her to stop, for God’s sake to stop. Then I
held my breath to listen for her scream when she
went over. I never heard it.\par

“But I heard something else. I heard a man’s
voice. It was clear and strong and high. There
was death in it, I tell you, Mr. Kent, living horror
gripped at the throat that gave that cry.
Then there was a rush of little stones and gravel
down the face of the cliff. That was all.\par

“Beyond me the ground rose. I ran up on
it. It gave me a clear view of the cliff-top. I
thought sure I would see the man who had cried
out, from there. Not a sight of him! Nothing
moved in the moonlight. I thought he must
have gone over the cliff, too. I threw myself
down and buried my face.\par

% ---File: 305.png

“How long I lay on the ground I do not know.
The wisp of cloud had blotted out the woman’s
star, now, and by that I knew she was dead. But
the moon was shining high. It gave me light
enough to see my way into the gully, and I stumbled
and slid down through to the beach.\par

“I found her body right away. It lay with the
head against a rock. But there was no sign of the
man’s body, the man who had yelled. So I thought
perhaps he had not gone over the cliff, and I sat
and waited to see if he would come and care for
her. It was quite clear to me what I must do, if
he did not come. Perhaps my own brain was
queer from the shock and the beating she had
given me with her manacled wrist; but I felt that
before I went away from there I must conceal the
cause of her death, and everything about it that
I could. If it was known how she was killed,
they would be more likely to suspect me.\par

“I went back and got the rope. I got an old
grating from the shore. I dragged the body into
the sea and let it soak. I lashed it to the grating.
I stripped the jewelry from her. But I could not
take it. That would have made me a murderer.\par

% ---File: 306.png

“There is a rock in the gully that I marked.
Nobody else would ever notice it. Under it I hid
the jewelry. I can take you to it, and I will.\par

“I got on my coat and sunk my robe in a creek,
and got myself to the railroad station for a morning
train. And when I got home I married Irene,
and I am through with the crooked work forever.\par

“This is the whole truth. I did not kill her. I
do not know to-day who or what she is. I have
looked in the papers, and there is nothing, and
that is so strange that I would think it was all a
fearful dream, if it was not for my smashed-up
wrist. But if any human being knows more about
the death of Astræa, it must be the man who
shouted as she fell from the cliff, and who went
away and did not come back.\par

“And may God have no mercy for me if this is
not all a true statement, so far as I know the
truth.\par

“(Signed) {\scshape{Preston Jax}}, S-M.”\par

% ---File: 307.png

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\vspace*{50pt}\thispagestyle{empty}
{\noindent\interlinepenalty \@M\normalfont\Huge\bfseries%
CHAPTER XX—IN THE WHITE ROOM}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“{\scshape{Annalaka}}, July 15.\par

“{\scshape{To Hotel Eyrie}}, Martindale Center: Dust
571 and send up seven chairs. {\scshape{Chester Kent.}}”\par}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“Now I wonder what that might mean?”
mused the day-clerk of the Eyrie, as he
read the telegram through for the second time.
“Convention in the Room of Mystery, maybe?”\par

To satisfy his curiosity he went up to the room
himself. Its white bareness confirmed a suspicion
of long standing.\par

“Any man,” he remarked to the scrub woman,
“who would pay five a day for a room just to put
nothing at all in it, has sure got a kink in his
cogs.”\par

Nor did the personnel of the visitors who, in
course of the late afternoon, arrived with requests
to be shown to 571, serve to efface this
impression. First came the sheriff from Annalaka.
He was followed by a man of unmistakably
African derivation, who gave the name of
Jim and declined to identify himself more specifically.
While the clerk was endeavoring, with
signal lack of success, to pump him, Lawyer
Adam Bain arrived, and so emphatically vouched
for his predecessor as to leave the desk-lord no
further excuse for obstructive tactics. Shortly
afterward Alexander Blair came in, with a woman
heavily veiled, and was deferentially conducted
aloft. Finally, Chester Kent himself appeared,
accompanied by Sedgwick and a third man, unknown
to the clerk, pompously arrayed in frock
coat and silk hat, and characterized by a painfully
twitching chin.\par

“Who have come?” Kent asked the clerk.\par

That functionary ran over the list. “Looks
like something to do with the woman found in
Lonesome Cove last week,” he essayed hopefully.\par

Kent glanced out of the window. “It looks
like rain,” he observed, “and it looks like wind.
And it looks like a number of things that are anybody’s
business. Furthermore, I may mention
that we shall not need, in 571, ice-water, stationery,
casual messages, calling-cards, or any other
form of espionage.” He favored the wilting
clerk with a sunny smile and led his companions
to the elevator.\par

Sedgwick put a hand on his arm. “The woman
with Blair?” he asked under his breath.\par

Kent nodded. “I rather hoped that she
wouldn’t come,” he said. “Blair might better
have told her—so far as he knows.”\par

“Then he doesn’t know all?”\par

“No. And perhaps she would be content with
nothing else. It is her right. And she is a
brave woman, is Marjorie Blair, as Jax here can
testify. We have seen her under fire.”\par

“She is that,” confirmed the man with the
twitching chin.\par

“This, then, is the final clear-up?” asked Sedgwick.\par

“Final and complete.”\par

“Thank God! It will be a weight off my shoulders.”\par

“Off many shoulders,” said Kent. “Here we
are.”\par

Greetings among the little group, so strangely
and harshly thrown together by the dice-cast of
the hand of Circumstance, were brief and formal.
Only Preston Jax was named by Kent, with the
comment that his story would be forthcoming.
The seven guests seated themselves, the Blairs at
one end of the half-circle, Sedgwick and the
astrologer at the other. Kent, leaning against
the wall, fumbled uncertainly at his ear.\par

“I hardly know where to begin,” he said, his
eyes roving along the intent line. “Not that the
case isn’t perfectly clear; but there are certain
startling phases which—which—” He glanced
toward the Blairs.\par

Marjorie Blair smiled bravely at him. “Don’t
be alarmed for me, Professor Kent,” she said.
“What I most want is to have everything cleared
up—everything!”\par

“First, your jewels, then.”\par

Kent turned to Preston Jax, who handed him
a package. Opening it, Kent displayed the wonderful
Grosvenor rose-topazes, with a miscellaneous
lot of rings sparkling amid their coils.
With a cry, Marjorie caught up the necklace.\par

“Are all the remainder of the lost valuables
there, Mrs. Blair?” asked Kent.\par

% ---File: 311.png

She glanced carelessly at the rings. “I think
so. Yes. But this is what matters to me.”\par

“These are all that Preston Jax found on the
body.”\par

Alexander Blair leaned from his seat the better
to take Preston Jax, at the other end of the
crescent, under consideration.\par

“It was you who found the body?” he demanded.\par

“Yes,” said the astrologer uneasily.\par

“Were you alone when you found it?”\par

“Yes. No. I don’t know. There was a man
somewheres near. I heard him, but I never saw
him.”\par

“Was Mr. Francis Sedgwick with you that
night?” pursued Mr. Blair in measured tones.\par

“I never saw Mr. Sedgwick until to-day.”\par

There was a little soft sigh of relief from
where Marjorie Blair sat.\par

“That may or may not be true,” said Alexander
Blair sternly. “It is the word of a man
who has robbed a dead body, if, indeed, he did not
also kill—”\par

“Steady, Mr. Blair,” broke in Chester Kent.
“Perhaps, considering who is present, we would
better approach this in a somewhat calmer spirit.”\par

“I didn’t kill or rob any one.”\par

The words seemed to be jerked out from between
Preston Jax’s teeth by the spasmodic quiverings
of his chin.\par

“How came you by my daughter’s jewels, then,
if you did not take them from the body?”\par

“Who ever said I didn’t take ’em from the
body?” retorted the other. “I did take ’em. But
it wasn’t robbery. And what I want to know is,
how did they come to be on the body, anyhow?
What was that Astræa woman doing with your
daughter’s rings and necklace? Tell me that!”\par

“Wait a moment,” put in Kent. “Explain to
Mr. Blair, Jax, what your purpose was in taking
the jewels.”\par

“To hide ’em. I thought the less there was on
the body to identify it, the better chance I’d have
of getting away. I was so scared that I guess
I was half crazy, anyway. And now, I hear,
she never has been identified. Is that right?”\par

Sheriff Schlager half rose from his chair.
“Ain’t you told ’em, Professor Kent?”\par

% ---File: 313.png

Kent shook his head.\par

“Nor you, Mr. Blair?”\par

“No.”\par

“Then I don’t see why we can’t keep it
amongst ourselves,” said the sheriff. “Gansett
Jim’s tight as a clam. Nobody’ll ever get anything
out of him. And, Lord knows, the less
that’s known of it the better I’m suited. I ain’t
none too proud of my part in it.”\par

“There is no reason why it should ever be
known outside of this room,” said Kent, and, at
the words, Alexander Blair exhaled a pent-up
breath of relief. “But it is due to one person
here that she should know everything. The question
is how to make it clear in the best and—and
kindest way.”\par

“If it will make it easier for any one here to
speak,” said Marjorie Blair, “I can say that
I understand certain phases of my husband’s
past life, thoroughly. There is no need to spare
me on that ground.”\par

“But this pertains to a phase that you do not
understand at all.”\par

“Yes, I think so,” she persisted gently. “This
dead woman had some hold over my husband.
To maintain it she came to live near Hedgerow
House, and while she was blackmailing Wilfrid,
she got into communication with Mr. Jax.”\par

“Perhaps they were in collusion,” suggested
Lawyer Bain.\par

“Oh, no, no!” broke in Alexander Blair impatiently.
“You’re wide of the truth.”\par

“I understand,” persisted the young woman,
“that the woman persuaded or compelled Wilfrid
to write the letter to Mr. Jax, which she signed
Astræa. And that, when she went to keep the
rendezvous, she took my jewels, which, I suppose,
she forced poor Wilfrid to steal for her.
Am I not right, Professor Kent?”\par

“No. Far from it.”\par

“Why not?” cried Sedgwick eagerly. “She
certainly had the jewels on when she met me.
And the handcuffs must have been in the bundle.
I heard them clink.”\par

“Exactly; the handcuffs,” said Kent dryly.
“What use, to your mind, would a woman of
that sort have for manacles, in those circumstances?”\par

% ---File: 315.png

“Yes,” put in Adam Bain: “they fit in about
as nice as a pink silk hat at a funeral.”\par

“I know what use she had for ’em,” muttered
Preston Jax, caressing his wrist. “It’s simply a
case of crazy woman; isn’t it, Professor Kent?”\par

“No. Not if you mean that your assailant
was a crazy woman,” said Kent patiently.\par

“Then who, in heaven’s name, is or was Astræa?”
cried Sedgwick.\par

“Astræa is, I take it, a lady long since dead.
A very strange and interesting lady who adopted
that name for her own peculiar pursuits along
our friend Jax’s lines of interest.”\par

“They call themselves all sorts of things,” observed
the astrologer philosophically. “I had a
follower once that used to sign herself Carrie
Nation, and she wasn’t the real Carrie at all.
No name is sacred to ’em when they go dippy
over the stars.”\par

“Then the woman of Lonesome Cove borrowed
that name from some old record?” asked
Sedgwick.\par

“Follow me through a page of unwritten local
history,” said Chester Kent, straightening up.
“The beginning of this story goes back some seventy-five
years, when there lived, not far from
Hogg’s Haven, in a house which has since been
destroyed, an older sister of Captain Hogg, who
married into the Grosvenor family. She was,
from the evidence of the Grosvenor family historian,
who, by the way, has withheld all this
from his pages, a woman of the most extraordinary
charm and magnetism. Not beautiful, in
the strict sense of the word, she had a gift beyond
beauty, and she led men in chains. Her
husband appears to have been a weakling who
counted for nothing in her life after the birth of
her children. Seeking distraction, she flung herself
into mysticism and became the priestess of a
cult of star-worshipers, which included many of
the more cultivated people of this region. Among
them was a young German mystic and philosopher,
who had fled to this country to escape punishment
for political offenses. Hermann von
Miltz was his name.”\par

“That’s why she called me Hermann,” broke
in Preston, in an awed half whisper.\par

“Don’t jump to wild conclusions,” said Kent
smilingly. “Some of their correspondence is
still extant. She signed herself Astræa, in handwriting
similar to the signature of that note of
yours, Jax. There seems to have been no guilt
between them, as the law judges guilt. The bond
was a mystic one. But it was none the less fatal.
It culminated in a tragedy of which the details
are lost. Perhaps it was an elopement that they
planned; perhaps a double suicide, with the idea
that their souls would be united in death. There
are hints of that in the old letters in the historian’s
possession and in the library at Hedgerow
House. This much is known: The couple
embarked together in a small boat. Von Miltz was
never again heard of. Camilla Grosvenor’s body
came ashore in Lonesome Cove. She was the
Cove’s earliest recorded victim. The sketch which
that mischief-monger, Elder Dennett, left at your
door, Sedgwick, supposing it to be a likeness of
the unfortunate creature he had seen on the road
to your house, is a Charles Elliott sketch for the
portrait of Camilla Grosvenor.”\par

“My God!” Jax burst out, “was it a ghost I met
up with that night on Hawkill Heights?”\par

% ---File: 318.png

“As near a ghost as you are ever likely to encounter,
probably,” answered Kent.\par

“But, see here,” said Adam Bain, “I’m a lawyer.
The law doesn’t deal with ghosts or near-ghosts.
Are you trying to tell us, Professor Kent,
that the soul of this long-dead Astræa-Camilla
Grosvenor, came back to inhabit the body of the
Jane Doe of Lonesome Cove?”\par

“Not precisely that, either. Everything is
strictly within the limits of the law’s cognizance,
Mr. Bain, as you will see. Now I’m going to
make a long jump down to the present. If I fail
to keep the trail clear, anywhere, you are any of
you at liberty to interrupt me. First, then, I want
you to follow with me the course of a figure that
leaves Hedgerow House on the late afternoon of
July fifth. By chance, the figure is not seen, except
at a distance by Gansett Jim, who suspected
nothing, then. Otherwise it would have been
stopped, as it wears Mrs. Blair’s necklace and
rings.”\par

“Dressing the part of Astræa,” guessed Lawyer
Bain.\par

“Precisely. Our jeweled figure, in a dress that
is an old one of Mrs. Blair’s, and with a package
in hand, makes its way across country to the
coast.”\par

“To join me,” said Preston Jax.\par

“To join you. Chance brings the wayfarer face
to face with that gentleman of the peekaboo mind,
Elder Dennett. They talk. The stranger asks—quite
by chance, though the Elder assumed it was
otherwise—about the home of Francis Sedgwick.
At the entrance to Sedgwick’s place the pair met.
There was a curious encounter, ending in Sedgwick’s
demanding an explanation of the rose-topazes,
which he knew to be Mrs. Blair’s.”\par

“How did he know that?” demanded Alexander
Blair.\par

“Because I had worn them when I sat to him,”
said Marjorie Blair quietly.\par

“You sat to Sedgwick? For your picture?
Why didn’t you tell me of this?”\par

“No explanation was due you. It was a matter
of chance, our acquaintance. Mr. Sedgwick did
not even know who I was.”\par

“Nor who his other visitor was, I suppose!”
said Blair with a savage sneer.\par

% ---File: 320.png

“No,” said Sedgwick, “nor do I know to this
day.”\par

“The stranger,” continued Kent, “refused to
give Sedgwick any explanation, and when he
threatened to follow, stunned him with a rock,
and escaped. Some distance down the road the
wayfarer encountered Simon P. Groot, the itinerant
merchant. Sedgwick afterward met him and
made inquiries, but obtained no satisfaction.”\par

“Why was Mr. Sedgwick so eager to recover
the trail, if he had not murder in his mind?” demanded
Blair.\par

“You are proceeding on the theory that Sedgwick,
knowing who Mrs. Blair was, and who the
strange visitor was, deliberately killed the latter
for motives of his own. But Sedgwick can prove
that he was back in his house by nine o’clock, and
we have a witness here who was talking with the
wearer of the necklace at that hour. Jax, let us
have your statement.”\par

Holding the copy of the confession in his hand,
in case of confusion of memory, the Star-master
told of his rendezvous, of the swift savage attack,
of the appalling incident of the manacles, of
the wild race across the heights, and of the final
tragedy.\par

“I’ve thought and wondered and figured, day
and night,” he said, in conclusion, “and I can’t
get at what that rope and the handcuffs meant.”\par

“The handcuffs must have come from that
dreadful collection of Captain Hogg’s things, in
the big hallway at Hedgerow House,” said Marjorie
Blair.\par

“Yes,” assented Kent, “and the dim clue to
their purpose goes back again, I fancy, to the
strange mysticism of the original Astræa. The
disordered mind, with which we have to deal,
seems to have been guarding against any such
separation as divided, in death, Astræa from her
Hermann.”\par

“But, Chester,” objected Sedgwick, “you speak
of a disordered mind, and yet you’ve told us that
it isn’t a case of insanity.”\par

“Never,” contradicted Kent. “You’ve misinterpreted
what I said. In the early stages of the
affair I told you, if you remember, that a very
bizarre situation indicated a very bizarre motive.
What could be more bizarre than insanity?”\par

% ---File: 322.png

“Was it suicidal insanity, then?” asked Bain.\par

“Not in the ordinary and intentional sense.”\par

“Then it was the other man that killed her,”
said Preston Jax; “the man I heard yell, when
she went over. But what became of him?”\par

“Simon P. Groot spoke of hearing that man’s
scream, too,” confirmed Bain. “Have you got any
clue to him, Professor Kent?”\par

“The other man was Francis Sedgwick,” declared
Alexander Blair doggedly.\par

Chester Kent shook his head.\par

“I’ve got a witness against that theory, from
your own side, Mr. Blair,” said he. “Gansett Jim
at first thought as you do. In that belief he tried
to kill Mr. Sedgwick. Now he knows his mistake.
Isn’t that so, Jim?”\par

“Yeh,” grunted the half-breed.\par

“You were out through the countryside that
night trying to trace the wanderer.”\par

“Yeh.”\par

“And later when I showed you the footprints
at the scene of the struggle, you saw that they
were not Mr. Sedgwick’s?”\par

“Yeh.”\par

% ---File: 323.png

“You examined the cliff for footprints. Do
you think any one pushed or pursued the victim
over the brink?”\par

“No.”\par

“Whose were the footprints, that you found,
Jim?” demanded Alexander Blair.\par

The half-breed pointed, in silence, to Preston
Jax.\par

“Of course. His and—and the other’s. But
there were the marks of a third person, weren’t
there?”\par

“No.”\par

“There must have been,” insisted Mr. Blair.
“Are you positive?”\par

“Yeh.”\par

“Then did the other man, the man whom Jax
heard cry out, walk without leaving any trace?”\par

“There was no other man,” said Chester Kent.
“Don’t you understand, Mr. Blair,” he added with
significant emphasis, “the source of that cry in the
night, heard by Jax and Simon Groot?”\par

A flash of enlightenment swept Blair’s face.
“Ah-h-h!” he said in a long-drawn breath. Then:
“I was wrong. I beg Mr. Sedgwick’s pardon.”\par

% ---File: 324.png

Sedgwick bowed. Marjorie Blair’s hand went
out, and her fingers closed softly on the tense hand
of her father-in-law.\par

“No third person had any part whatsoever in
the drama which Jax has recounted to us,” pursued
Kent. “In the morning the body was discovered.
Sheriff Schlager was sent for. He
found in the pocket something that betrayed the
connection of the body with Hedgerow House.”\par

“A bit of writing-paper, with the heading still
legible,” said the sheriff.\par

“With this he accosted Gansett Jim, who after
a night-long search had come out on the cliff.
Jim, assuming that the sheriff knew all, told him
of the identity of the body. The sheriff saw a
chance for money in it—if I do you an injustice,
Schlager, you’ll correct me.”\par

“Go right ahead. Don’t mind me. I’ll take my
medicine.”\par

“Very well. Schlager adopted the ready-made
theory which Mr. Jax had prepared for him, so
to speak, that the body was washed ashore; and
arranged, with the connivance of Doctor Breed,
the medical officer, to bury it as an unknown.
For this perversion of their duty, Mr. Blair rewarded
them handsomely. As I understand it,
he dreaded any publicity attaching itself to
Hedgerow House and his family.”\par

“God knows I had suffered enough of that!”
murmured Blair.\par

“Let us hope it is now ended. To avoid this,
Mr. Blair was willing even to let the supposed
murderer, whom he believed to be Sedgwick, go
unscathed of justice. By chance, however, I saw
the body on the beach. The most important discovery
of all, I missed at that time very stupidly—the
more so in that I had a clue, in the character
of the assault upon Sedgwick—but I could not
overlook the fact that the corpse had not been
washed ashore. Moreover, the matter of the manacles
stimulated my interest. Not until the inquest,
however, did I realize the really startling
and unique feature of the case. There is where
you and Doctor Breed made your fatal error, Mr.
Sheriff.”\par

“That’s right. You saw the face when we lifted
the lid, I s’pose.”\par

“No. You were too quick in replacing it.”\par

% ---File: 326.png

“Then how did you get on to the thing?”\par

“From seeing the face after the body was returned
to the court room.”\par

“Hold on a bit,” interrupted Lawyer Bain. “I
remember there was a fuss about the corpse not
being publicly shown for identification. Some of
us insisted. The sheriff gave in. The coffin lid
wasn’t quarter off when Breed gave a yell and
clapped it on again, and they took the body back
to his house and shut themselves in with it for
half an hour before they took it to the hall again.
Naturally being suspicious, I looked at it pretty
close; but I didn’t see anything queer.”\par

“Possibly you didn’t notice a cut on the cheek?”
suggested Kent.\par

“Yes. Dennett spoke of it and the sheriff shut
him up. But what of it? It might have been done
in any one of a dozen ways.”\par

“But it wasn’t there when the body lay on the
beach.”\par

“In the rolling and tossing of the journey there
might easily be minor scarifications,” said Sedgwick.\par

“True. But, Frank, what did you suppose that
sudden shift on the part of the officers of the law
meant?”\par

“Perhaps that the body was not in fit condition
to be viewed.”\par

“In that case what could they have done to
make it more fit?”\par

“Nothing, I suppose. I didn’t consider that.”\par

“I rather opined,” said Lawyer Bain, “that
some one had changed bodies on ’em.”\par

“That’s what made you so cussed curious, was
it, Adam?” barked the sheriff.\par

“There was no exchange of bodies,” said Kent.
“But there was a change in the body itself.”\par

“What kind of a change?” asked Sedgwick.\par

“Has it ever occurred to you to think that,
after death, the hair grows fast?”\par

“I’ve heard it said,” said Lawyer Bain, “that
it grows faster than in life.”\par

“And that it grows, not only on the head, but
on the face as well?”\par

“The face! A woman’s face?” exclaimed Sedgwick.\par

“No; a man’s.”\par

“What man?”\par

% ---File: 328.png

“The man in the coffin.”\par

“Have you lost your mind, Chet? The body in
the coffin was that of the woman who met me at
the entrance to the Nook.”\par

“No. It was the body of the man who, dressed
in woman’s clothing, met you at the Nook, and
knocked you down with a stone flung overhand as
not one woman in a thousand could have thrown
it. That, in itself, ought to have suggested the secret
to me, long before I discovered it.”\par

“But how did you discover it?” inquired Sedgwick
in bewilderment; “since you didn’t see the
growth of beard on the dead face yourself?”\par

“By the cut on the cheek. You see, the sheriff
had failed to foresee that telltale beard. So, when
in deference to Mr. Bain’s protest against burial
without a formal view of the body, they opened
up the casket and saw the obvious change in the
face, there was nothing for the officials to do
but remedy their carelessness. They had the
body taken to the house, and did the best they
could. That cut on the cheek was a razor cut.
Having realized that much, I had to deal thenceforth
with the mystery of a dead man masquerading
as a woman, and being abetted in the deception
by the officers of the law—”\par

“Astræa a man!” broke in Preston Jax, his
chin in a spasm. “No wonder she—he put up such
a fight. Who was he?”\par

“My son, Wilfrid Blair,” said Alexander Blair.\par

Sedgwick took a swift involuntary step toward
Marjorie, but Kent was before him, setting a firm
hand on his shoulder.\par

“Not now, Frank,” he said. Then, turning to
the girl-widow, “You see, Mrs. Blair,” he said
very gently, “it isn’t so bad as you feared. There
was no other woman in the case, no disgrace, no
shame. You need feel nothing but pity for an unhappy
wrecked mind, for which death was the
happiest refuge.”\par

Marjorie Blair sat very still and white. “Let
me think!” she whispered. “Let me think!”\par

“But the man’s voice!” exclaimed Jax. “The
voice of the man on the cliff!”\par

“Wilfrid Blair’s,” said Kent. “In the final moment
he came to himself. At last he resumed his
voice. Up to then he had been, in voice, manner,
thought, purpose, unconsciously playing a part.”\par

% ---File: 330.png

“Astræa!” said Sedgwick and Jax in a breath.\par

“Yes. It was one of those strange and complete
assumptions of personality which puzzle the alienists.
Wilfrid Blair’s diseased mind had fastened
upon the strange history of his ancestress, and
brooded on it until he became convinced that
her spirit was reincarnated in himself. Undoubtedly
his striking likeness to the portrait of Camilla
Grosvenor powerfully aided the obsession.
There were her letters, in the library, to give color
to his unconscious imitation. As is common in
this form of dementia, he was secretive. But there
can be no doubt that from the time when he recognized
in Preston Jax’s advertisement, the call of
Astræa’s kindred soul, Hermann von Miltz, his
one overwhelming desire was to reenact the
drama of the last century, in his own assumed personality.
Jax has told us how cleverly and secretly
the plan for the double suicide was matured. This
obsession must have been of long standing.”\par

“We thought it melancholia,” said Alexander
Blair. “As you say, he had been very secretive.
Very silent, too. We kept Gansett Jim with him
as a sort of body-guard.”\par

% ---File: 331.png

Marjorie Blair got to her feet. She was ghost-white;
but her voice and eyes were steady, as she
faced Kent.\par

“I must understand this all,” she said. “Wilfrid’s
body is where?”\par

“In Annalaka churchyard.”\par

“Then who—what is buried in his grave at
Hedgerow House?”\par

“Nothing,” said Alexander Blair.\par

“A mock funeral!”\par

“My dear,” said the man—he seemed to have
grown suddenly old under the unspoken arraignment—“I
could not tell you what I thought the
truth. I thought then that Wilfrid had encountered
Mr. Sedgwick, and that—that there had
been a fight in which he was killed. Rather than
face the scandal of a murder trial, a scandal in
which the family name would have been dragged
through the mire of the public prints again, I
chose the part of deceit. I’d have bribed a hundred
officers of the law rather than have had you
dragged to the witness-stand, and have been compelled
to give testimony myself. There has been
enough of public shame in my life.”\par

% ---File: 332.png

“But you made me believe that Mr. Sedgwick
killed Wilfrid!” she accused.\par

“I believed it myself,” he retorted.\par

“But what basis had {\itshape{you}} for suspecting me of
the crime?” cried Sedgwick, turning to Marjorie
Blair. “You didn’t know of his visit to me in
women’s clothes. You knew nothing of the quarrel,
it seems, until just now. For what possible
reason, in your belief, should I have killed him?”\par

She flushed to her temples. “I—I—thought,”
she murmured, “that he might have known of our
acquaintance, and have misconstrued: that he
might have gone to find you, and attacked you,
and that you killed him. In self-defense, I mean.”\par

“Thank you for that last, at least,” said Sedgwick
rather bitterly. Then, as he saw her wince,
“Forgive me!” he added in a low tone. “But, to
be suspected by you, even though you were misled—”
He stopped, catching Kent’s frowning
glance.\par

“Who discovered that the burial was a false
one?” she asked, after a pause.\par

“Professor Kent,” said Blair. “He and Mr.
Sedgwick exhumed the coffin.”\par

% ---File: 333.png

“That was the night—” her eyes questioned
Sedgwick.\par

“That I found you at Hedgerow House. Yes,”
he said gently.\par

“And that my father-in-law charged you with
being my husband’s murderer.”\par

“My dear Mrs. Blair!” said Kent uncomfortably.
“Remember what justification he thought
he had.”\par

She considered a moment. “You are right,”
she said with an effort. “I don’t mean to be unjust.”
Her head dropped in thought. “Whatever
Wilfrid may have been,” she continued, after a
moment’s silence, “he was my husband. I bear
his name. And to leave him in a nameless grave is
to dishonor not him alone, but myself.”\par

“You would claim the body?” cried Alexander
Blair.\par

“What else is there for us to do?” she countered.\par

“And bring down upon us unavoidably the
publicity which we have escaped at so bitter a
price?” cried the elder Blair. “Have we not suffered
enough from the scandal of his life, that
we should be further involved in the scandal of
his death?”\par

“He’s right, miss. It won’t do,” said the sheriff
kindly.\par

“Silence is best,” said Sedgwick.\par

“What the papers would do with this,” opined
Preston Jax, “would be a plenty.”\par

“My advice is to let be,” proffered Lawyer
Bain.\par

“Yeh,” grunted the half-breed.\par

“Oh, are you all against me?” she cried. “Mr.
Kent, you, too? Do you think me wrong?”\par

“No,” said Kent.\par

“Will you drag our name, hers as well as mine,
in the mud?” cried the head of the house of Blair.\par

“No,” said Kent again.\par

“But how, then—tell me what you intend—”\par

“No,” said Kent, and with such absolute flat
finality that the others looked at him in blank silence.\par

The silence was broken by a tremendous sigh.
All eyes turned to Preston Jax, who had risen
and was leaning against the wall, his chin jerking
galvanically.\par

% ---File: 335.png

“Well?” said Kent.\par

“What about me?” asked the Star-master miserably.\par

Kent’s fingers twitched at his ear lobe. “Well,
what about you?” he repeated.\par

“What are you going to do with me?”\par

“You? Oh! You go back to Irene,” said Kent,
with his half smile. “That’s your sentence, if
Mrs. Blair approves.”\par

The astrologer drew a quick breath. The light
of a great relief softened his hard little eyes. A
startled look widened them as Marjorie Blair, her
own trouble forgotten for the moment, rose and
went over to him, the reflection of another’s happiness
shining in her face and making it doubly
lovely. A ring glinted in her outstretched hand.\par

“Take this,” she said softly, “for your Irene.
May you be very, very happy together!”\par

For the space of five seconds Preston Jax’s chin
was motionless. Then a minor cataclysm convulsed
it. Speech emerged from that facial quake,
in a half-stutter, half-blubber, wholly absurd and
laughter-provoking and heart-moving.\par

“Wh-wh-whut’ll I say? Whut’ll I do, to thank
you, ma’am? I—I—I’ll just tell you this. It’s me
for the straight-and-narrow from now on. And if
ever you or Professor Kent or any of you want an
A-1, special charted, extra-celestial star-reading
for self or friends, you—you—you c-c-c-come—”
He made a rush for the hallway, and the door
banged a period to his emotion.\par

“I think,” said Chester Kent gravely, “that lesson
will last.”\par

As Marjorie Blair stood smiling, soft-eyed, at
the door whence the overcome Star-master had
disappeared, Sedgwick started to pass. With
quick and unexpected tact, Alexander Blair drew
the sheriff and the lawyer aside, giving to the
young people their moment. She looked up at
Sedgwick with lifted eyebrows.\par

“Are you not going to speak to me?” she said
sorrowfully.\par

“What is there to say, except one thing—and
that I may not say now.”\par

“No, no!” she whispered, in affright. “But say
you forgive me.”\par

“You! For what?”\par

“For having believed, even for an instant, what
Father Blair said, that you were the murderer.”\par

Sedgwick smiled bravely. “That is all past.”\par

“And you’ll think of me at least kindly?”\par

“I’ll think of you with every beat of my heart,”
he said passionately.\par

Across her face passed the look of fairy wistfulness
that was all her own. “No,” she said, “it
would be better—for both of us—that you should
forget, for the time.”\par

He leaned over her:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“‘What shall assuage the unforgotten pain\par}
{\vl And teach the unforgetful to forget?’”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
he quoted very low.\par

“And yet,” she persisted, “it would be easier,
now that I am going away.”\par

“Going away! For long?”\par

She nodded with compressed lips. Sedgwick
turned very white.\par

“Oh, don’t look like that!” she faltered. “I
can’t bear it! Can’t you see that, after what has
happened, I must go? I must have time to forget.
There is so much to forget! Surely you can be
patient—and trust.”\par

% ---File: 338.png

Again he smiled at her, with a courage shining
through his pain that brought the quick tears to
her eyes.\par

“Yes. I can wait and trust—and love.” Again
he leaned to her:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“‘And think how she, far from me, with like eyes\par}
{\vl Sees, through the untuneful bough the wingless skies.’”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
He drew her gaze to his own, held it for the
space of a heart-beat, and was gone.\par

% ---File: 339.png

\penalty-300%
\label{chapter-xxirewards}%
\hypertarget{chapter-xxirewards}{}%
\vspace*{50pt}\thispagestyle{empty}
{\noindent\interlinepenalty \@M\normalfont\Huge\bfseries%
CHAPTER XXI—REWARDS}

\unskip\vskip 40pt\nobreak

{\noindent}
Summer had waned from the coast and
with it had passed the keenness of local interest
in the strangest victim of Lonesome Cove.
Even the indefatigable tongue of Elder Dennett
had almost ceased to clack on the topic, by the
fall of the first snow. Other subjects of absorbing
interest supervened during the long winter:
the wreck of the schooner yacht off Dead Men’s
Eddy; the coming of the new Presbyterian minister
at Martindale Center whose wife was reported
to be a suffragette; the mysterious benefaction
that had befallen old Mrs. Orcutt late in
February, enabling her to leave her home next to
Annalaka churchyard and take her asthma southward
in search of a cure; the rumor that Hedgerow
House was to be sold before summer.\par

“And young Blair’s body along with it, I expect,”
remarked the Elder malevolently. “Seems
to me, if I was a millionaire like Alexander Blair,
I wouldn’t sell my own flesh and blood, dead or
alive.”\par

Of Alexander Blair himself, nothing had been
seen in the neighborhood since mid-July, nor of
his daughter-in-law. Hedgerow House was in
charge of Gansett Jim as caretaker. Professor
Kent had left about the same time as the Blairs.
But Francis Sedgwick had stuck to the Nook,
studying first the cold grays and browns of November,
and later the wonderful blazing whites
and subtle blues of drift and shadow spread before
him in winter’s endless panorama, with the
same enthusiasm that he had devoted to October’s
riot of color. Though the work prospered,
the worker had paled. It was the opinion
of Martindale Center and Annalaka alike that the
“painter feller” was looking right peaky and piny,
like one whose conscience ached. But Sedgwick
had nothing worse than a heartache, and the
fates were making medicine for that.\par

Wind-borne on the blast of a mid-March gale,
Chester Kent dropped down at the door of the
Nook one wild afternoon, without warning. As
always, he was impeccably clad, though his stout
boots showed the usage of recent hard wear.
Leaving Austin that morning, with his light valise
slung to his shoulder, he had footed the fifteen
miles of soggy earth to Sedgwick’s place, in
a luxurious tussle against the wind. Throwing
open the door, he called his friend’s name.\par

Instantly the artist came loping down the stairs
and had him by the shoulders.\par

“I’ve got a caller up above,” he said after the
usual greetings and questionings were over.\par

“Yes? Have you gone in for local society?”\par

“Not exactly local. It’s Alexander Blair.”\par

“Hel-lo!” said Kent in surprise. “What brings
him?”\par

“Why, he came down to Hedgerow House to
look after certain books and papers, and ran over
here to make his {\itshape{amende honorable}} in form.
Chet, I hate being apologized to.”\par

“Of course. Every one does. Nevertheless,
it’s good exercise for Mr. A. Blair, Esquire.
Brings into action some muscles of his soul that
might otherwise have atrophied from disuse.”\par

“He’s the grim-jawed, hard-bitted Blair of old.
Just the same, he made his apology as handsomely
as need be. I’ll bring him down here.”\par

The fabric magnate descended from the studio
and greeted Kent briefly, then turned to his host.
“You will excuse me if I ask Mr. Kent to step
outside. I have some business with him.”\par

“Stay here,” said the artist. “I’ll go back to
my studio.” Which he did.\par

“When a man once declines employment with
me,” said Alexander Blair to Kent, “I never give
him a second chance. That rule I am going to
break. I need your assistance.”\par

“Honored, indeed!” murmured Kent.\par

“Will you accept the commission?”\par

“Not if it is like your former offer.”\par

“It is not. It is bona fide. Some one has been
tampering with my son’s grave.”\par

“You mean the grave at Hedgerow House?”\par

“Yes. Gansett Jim reports that there are signs
of recent digging. It looks as if ghouls had been
at work there, with the idea of getting the body
and holding it for ransom. They would have
had a fine surprise if they had got the coffin
out!”\par

% ---File: 343.png

“Because they’d have found no body in it, you
mean?”\par

“Certainly. But suppose they discovered that
there were no remains, nothing but a punctured
sand-bag. Do you see the potentialities of blackmail?”\par

“No.”\par

“Then you are stupider than I ever took you
for,” growled the magnate.\par

“Like most things, it depends on the point of
view. I don’t think that you are in any danger
of blackmail. But, if I understand the matter,
you want your mind relieved of anxiety on the
point. Very well, I’ll take the case.”\par

“That is settled, then,” said the older man
briskly. “Now, this being a strictly business deal,
we will discuss terms.”\par

“Oh, there is no room for discussion as to my
terms,” said Kent easily. “I make them and you
accept them, that’s all.”\par

Alexander Blair’s eyebrows drew down in a
heavy scowl.\par

“Do you know of an old lady named Orcutt
in Annalaka?” pursued the scientist.\par

% ---File: 344.png

“No.”\par

“She owns the house just next to Annalaka
churchyard, where your son was buried as Jane
Doe. She is a very worthy old lady. But she
suffers severely from asthma. In fact it keeps
her awake most of the night. So some interested
persons have subscribed money, and sent her
south to a sanatorium. I’d like to get you interested
in her case.”\par

“You wish me to subscribe?”\par

“Oh, more than that. I think it would be a
good idea if you were to assume the entire expense
of the proceedings.”\par

“You mean reimburse the subscribers?”\par

“Exactly.”\par

For a few seconds the millionaire studied
Kent’s candid face. “Very well,” he agreed.
“How much?”\par

“Sheriff Schlager can tell you. He is keeping
the accounts. You see, it was necessary to get
her out of the way. Her windows overlook the
churchyard.”\par

“So you took occasion to indicate before.”\par

“Repetition of a really relevant point is excusable.
She left, two weeks ago, very much
mystified but pathetically thankful, poor old
girl!”\par

“She has no monopoly on being mystified,” observed
Mr. Blair, with pursed lips.\par

“Probably she never will understand. That’s
where you have the advantage of her, for I think
you’ll see quite clearly the reason for her trip,
and the propriety of your footing the bills.”\par

“Go on.”\par

“When she was safely out of the way, and no
longer overlooking Annalaka churchyard by
night, from her window, Schlager, Adam Bain
and I paid a visit to the place. Technically, what
we did there amounts to grave robbery, I suppose.
But we covered our tracks well, and I don’t think
anybody will ever discover what has been done.”\par

“Well?” queried his hearer, with twitching
jaw.\par

“What lay, nameless, in Annalaka churchyard,”
said Kent gravely, “now rests in its own
place at Hedgerow House. The marks found by
Gansett Jim were made by us. So your alarm is
groundless. But I wish that you might have
heard the little prayer made by that simple country
lawyer over your son’s grave. Once in a
while I meet with a really, through-and-through
good man like Adam Bain, and then I have to
reconstruct my whole formula of the average
cussedness of human nature.”\par

Alexander Blair’s clenched hands went to his
temples in a singular gesture, and dropped again.
“What interest did Schlager and Bain have in the
matter?” he added in a low tone.\par

“Why, Schlager had done some dirty work for
you, and wanted to even accounts with his own
conscience. As for Bain, we needed a third man
we could trust. I asked him and got him. It
was no small risk for him. If you felt that his
risk is worth some reward, you might—”\par

“Yes, yes!” interrupted the other eagerly. “Do
you think a thousand—or perhaps more—”\par

Kent smiled. “By thinking hard I could think a
thousand,” he said. “But not more, in this case.
It wouldn’t be safe. Bain might not survive the
shock. Thank you very much, Mr. Blair.”\par

“And now,” said the older man, “I am still in
the dark as to your interest in the matter.”\par

% ---File: 347.png

“Mine? Why, for one thing, I dislike to leave
any affair unfinished. I have the satisfaction of
knowing now that this is forever settled and done
with. Besides there was a promise—practically
a promise—as near a promise as I often permit
myself to go, in a world of accidents, errors, and
uncertainties—made to Mrs. Blair. Is she back
from Europe?”\par

“She is at Hedgerow House.” Blair communed
with himself for a time, then said abruptly,
“By the way, do you think your friend Mr.
Sedgwick would come over to a pick-up dinner
before we leave?”\par

Kent’s face lighted up. “Ask him,” said he
heartily, “and see!”\par

“I will, as soon as I get home. Good day.”
Blair hesitated. He seemed to have difficulty in
going and embarrassment in staying. He
coughed and cleared his throat, looked over
Kent’s head and down at his feet; and finally got
himself into words.\par

“Kent,” he blurted, “I realize now why you
won’t take my money. I can always buy brains;
but I can’t buy the bigger better thing. It isn’t
in the market. Thank you!” He caught the
scientist’s hand in a swift hard grip, and strode
off down the road.\par

Chester Kent went back into the house with a
glow at his heart. He shouted up-stairs to Sedgwick,
“Go on with your work, Frank. I want to
loaf and invite my soul for an hour. Where’s
your reading matter?”\par

“Shelf in the corner,” answered the artist.
“You’ll find a few things in your line,—Darwin’s
{\itshape{Origin of Species}}, Le Conte’s—”\par

“The devil take Darwin!” cried Kent impiously.
“I want {\itshape{Bab Ballads}}, or {\itshape{Through the Looking-Glass}},
or something like that, really fit for an
aspiring intellect. Never mind. I’ll forage for
myself.”\par

Three minutes later he was stretched luxuriously
on the divan, with the window-shade pulled
down and the big electric chandelier glowing, immersed
in the joyous nonsense of {\itshape{Rhyme and
Reason}}. The wind alternately shouted profane
protests at the window because it couldn’t get in,
and then fell silent, waiting for an answer. In
one of these lulls Kent heard footsteps outside.\par

% ---File: 349.png

He dropped his book. The footsteps approached
the window. Then the gale rose again,
and the loose end of a garment flapped softly
against the glass. He half rose, listening. There
was silence outside.\par

“Have I fallen into another mystery?” groaned
Kent. “Is there no rest for the weary?”\par

The footsteps mounted the side porch. Kent
awaited a knock. None came.\par

“Odd!” he observed to his pillow. “Few people
find the outside of a door so fascinating that
they stand for two minutes in a wet gale admiring
it.”\par

Tiptoeing to the door, he threw it open. There
was a startled cry from without and an equally
startled grunt from within. Chester Kent and
Marjorie Blair stood face to face.\par

“I—I—I beg your pardon,” gibbered Kent,
whelmed instantly in a morass of embarrassment.
“I—I didn’t mean to frighten you.”\par

Feminine-wise she built up her self-possession
on the ruins of his. “I wonder,” she said with a
smile, “whether I’m the worse-frightened one of
us.”\par

% ---File: 350.png

“You see,” he said lamely, “it was so sudden,
your—your coming that way. I didn’t expect
you.”\par

“And for that reason you intend to bar me
from the house? It’s quite disgustingly wet out
here.”\par

With a muttered apology Kent stepped aside,
and she entered. Even amid his ill-ease he
could not but note how the girlish loveliness had
ripened and warmed, yet without forfeiting anything
of that quaint appealing wistfulness which
made her charm unique. But there glinted now
in her deep eyes an elfish spirit of mischief, partly
inspired by the confusion of the helpless male
creature before her, partly the reaction from the
mingled dread and desire of the prospective meeting
with Sedgwick; for she had come on a sudden
uncontrollable impulse to see him, and would
have turned and fled at the last minute had not
Kent surprised her. Perhaps there was a little
flavor of revenge for this, too, in her attitude
toward him.\par

“What a surprise to find you here, {\itshape{Mrs.}} Kent!”
she remarked sweetly. “Or are you calling youself
Mr. Blair nowadays? And how is your poor
ear?”\par

Chester Kent immediately seized that unoffending
member and clung to it with much the
lost and anguished expression of the pale martyr
in the once popular {\itshape{Rock of Ages}} chromo. His
tormentor considered him with malicious eyes.\par

“Did any woman ever say ‘Boo!’ to him suddenly,
I wonder?” she mused aloud.\par

Like a saving grace, there came into Kent’s
mind a fragment of {\itshape{The Hunting of the Snark}},
in which he had just been reveling. Said he
gravely:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“He would answer to ‘Hi!’ or to any loud cry\par}
{\vl Such as ‘Fry me’ or ‘Fritter my wig’!”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
She caught up the stanza:\par

{\advance\leftskip\parindentamount{}\advance\rightskip\parindentamount{}
\vs{1}
\begin{verse}
{\vl {\noindent}
“To ‘What-you-may-call-um’ or ‘What-was-his-name!’\par}
{\vl But especially ‘Thing-um-a-jig.’”\par}
\end{verse}
}

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
“So you know Lewis Carroll. How really
human of you!”\par

“It is better to be humane than human,” murmured
Kent, relinquishing his aural grip as he
began to touch bottom.\par

“Is that a plea? Very well. I shall be very
gentle and soothing. But, oh,” she burst out irrepressibly,
“may the kindly fates give me to be
among those present when you fall in love!”\par

Kent favored her with an elaborate bow.
“Your presence would be the one essential.”\par

“Really,” she approved, “you’re progressing.
I begin to feel repaid for my visit, already.”\par

This time Kent looked her in the eye. “You’re
not very demanding in the matter of returns for
your trouble,” he remarked. “To come through
all this wind and rain and then be content merely
to contemplate the outside of a door—that argues
an humble spirit. To be sure, however, it’s a
very good door; one of the most interesting features
of our local architecture, and may lead to—all
sorts of things.”\par

It was her turn to grow red.\par

“You haven’t asked me about Sedgwick,” he
continued.\par

“Is he well?” she inquired formally, but with
quickened breath.\par

% ---File: 353.png

“He is more than that. He is cured—and a
man. A man,” he added meaningly, “for any
woman to be proud of.”\par

There was a step on the floor above. Marjorie
Blair’s hand went to her heart.\par

“I didn’t know he was here,” she panted affrightedly.
“I came just to—look at the place.
Then I saw the light, and I wanted so to come
in; but I didn’t dare. I can’t see him now! I
must go! Don’t tell—”\par

Chester Kent raised his voice. “Frank!” he
called. “Come down here! Quick!”\par

Not twice in his life had Sedgwick heard that
tone in his friend’s voice. The bungalow shook
to his long tread across the floor. The studio
door opened and flew shut behind him. He took
the stairs at a leap, and on the landing stopped
dead.\par

“Marjorie!” he whispered.\par

She shrank back a little from the light in his
eyes.\par

“What do you do here?” he said very low.\par

Still she did not speak, but stood, tremulous,
her face half panic, half passion.\par

% ---File: 354.png

Unobtrusively Kent slid along the wall, like a
shadow, and vanished into the night.\par

“Where have you been?” Sedgwick asked the
woman of his love.\par

“Everywhere. Nowhere. What does it matter?”
she faltered. “I’ve come back.”\par

He went forward and took her hands in his;
cold little hands that clung as they touched.\par

“Why did you never write me?” he asked
gently.\par

“I don’t know. I couldn’t. Don’t ask me to
explain. It was just that I—I felt I must come
back to you as I had come to you first, unexpected
and without a word. Can you understand?”\par

“No,” he said.\par

“No; I suppose not. A man couldn’t.”\par

“Good God!” he burst out. “Do you realize
what it is to live in such a hell of uncertainty and
longing as I’ve lived in since you left; to wait,
and hope, and lose hope, and hope and wait again
for a word that never comes; to eat your heart
out with waiting?”\par

A slow wonderful smile trembled on her lips.
“My dear,” she said; “I have waited for you all
my life.”\par

Suddenly her arms were around him; her
cheek was pressed to his own; the breath of her
whisper was at his ear.\par

“Oh, forgive me! I will make it up to you,
my dear; my dearest!”\par

Out in the wind and the rain Chester Kent
drew in the deep breath of satisfied and rounded
achievement. He had beheld, against the wide
window-shade two shadows, which, standing motionless
for a moment, a few feet apart, had
drawn slowly together as by some irresistible
magnetism, and suddenly merged into one. The
unintentional eavesdropper nodded, in grave
gratulation to the house, then turned away.\par

“Finished!” he said. “{\itshape{C’est conclu. Finis.
Telos. Das Ende.}} And any or all other words
of whatever language, meaning a sound
conclusion!”\par

Half an hour later he entered, with due preliminary
stamping of mud from clogged feet. Instantly
Marjorie went over to him.\par

“Why, you’re wet as a rag!” she cried with
a sweetly unconscious assumption of proprietary
interest. “You must go and change at once!”
she added, patting his shoulder.\par

Kent reached for his ear, changed his mind
midway, and scratched his nose. “All right,” he
said meekly. Over his rather stern-set face there
came a singularly winning smile. “You two—”
he said: “that’s as it should be. That’s worth
everything.”\par

“No other congratulations will ever sound so
good as that, Chet,” said Sedgwick in a low
voice; “or so unselfish. You’ve had all the heat
and toil of the great game, and I have all the happiness.”\par

“Not quite all, I fancy,” returned Kent, smiling
at Marjorie.\par

She took his wet hand between her own. “But
it doesn’t seem quite fair,” she protested. “Frank
and I have found each other. But you, who have
fought our battle for us so splendidly, what reward
do you have?”\par

Chester Kent shook his head. “My dear,” he
said gently, “the great game isn’t played for
prizes.”\par

{\centering
THE END
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This is a novelization of the immensely successful play which ran
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The plot of this powerful novel is of a young woman’s revenge
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\begin{topic}[h!t]
{\noindent}
{\centerleft{Transcriber’s Note
}}
\par

\vs{1}
{\noindent}
Spelling and punctuation inaccuracies were silently corrected.\par

Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.\par

The author’s punctuation style is preserved.\par

Hyphenation has been made consistent.\par
\end{topic}

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*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF LONESOME COVE ***\par

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A Word from Project Gutenberg}

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Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe
to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.\par\bookmark[level=1,page=1]{CONTENTS}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-ithe-body-on-the-beach]{CHAPTER I—THE BODY ON THE BEACH}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-iiprofessor-kent-makes-a-call]{CHAPTER II—PROFESSOR KENT MAKES A CALL}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-iiimy-lady-of-mystery]{CHAPTER III—MY LADY OF MYSTERY}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-ivan-inquiry]{CHAPTER IV—AN INQUIRY}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-vone-use-for-a-monocle]{CHAPTER V—ONE USE FOR A MONOCLE}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-vithe-retreat-in-order]{CHAPTER VI—THE RETREAT IN ORDER}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-viisimon-p-groot-does-business]{CHAPTER VII—SIMON P. GROOT DOES BUSINESS}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-viiireckonings]{CHAPTER VIII—RECKONINGS}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-ixchester-kent-declines-a-job]{CHAPTER IX—CHESTER KENT DECLINES A JOB}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xthe-invasion]{CHAPTER X—THE INVASION}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xihedgerow-house]{CHAPTER XI—HEDGEROW HOUSE}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xiithe-unbidden-visitor]{CHAPTER XII—THE UNBIDDEN VISITOR}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xiiiloose-ends]{CHAPTER XIII—LOOSE ENDS}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xivthe-lone-fisherman]{CHAPTER XIV—THE LONE FISHERMAN}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xvthe-turn-of-the-game]{CHAPTER XV—THE TURN OF THE GAME}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xvithe-meeting]{CHAPTER XVI—THE MEETING}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xviichance-sits-in]{CHAPTER XVII—CHANCE SITS IN}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xviiithe-master-of-stars]{CHAPTER XVIII—THE MASTER OF STARS}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xixthe-strange-tryst]{CHAPTER XIX—THE STRANGE TRYST}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xxin-the-white-room]{CHAPTER XX—IN THE WHITE ROOM}
\bookmark[level=2,dest=chapter-xxirewards]{CHAPTER XXI—REWARDS}
\hbox{}
\end{document}

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