Lily A. Long

“ It was the girl who had fled from the scene of Fullerton's murder, and so had swept for an instant across the field of Lyon's vision,--and it was not the frail and delicate invalid, Mrs. Broughton, nor yet the slow and stately Miss Wolcott. This was a young athlete, who ran with a grace, a sureness, that made the sight a joy and unforgettable. It was not until she had turned again and was clinging to his arm for protection that he fully realized what it meant that he should have identified the running girl whom he had so long been searching for with Kittie Tayntor. ”

“ By making you believe that you had shot Barker, by making you confess, he would forever turn the possibility of inquiry from himself. There would be no mystery to provoke backward inquiries along the past. And, if I may say so, you had made it easier for him to fix that idea in your mind because, as a matter of fact, you had harbored ideas of vengeance against Barker. The thought of killing him was not wholly alien to you. You had prepared the way for the impression Garney wanted you to have,--and he knew that fact. ”

“ When the last little envelope had curled up into filmy ash, he rose. She was standing erect before the fire, with a vitality and radiance in every line of her figure that made her like a different being. "Truly, women are beyond all understanding," thought Lyon, as he waited for her next word.
"Thank you," she said, and the simple phrase on her lips seemed like a pæan of thanksgiving. "Now,--one thing more. You know everything,--you are the only one who does. Will you tell Mr. Lawrence about these letters? He has always been a good friend, and--I should like to have him know!" ”

“ If Henry was in truth innocent, if the doctor was the guileless child of light that he seemed, if Miss Leslie had been involved in all this tangle by a cruel trick of Fate's, then certainly here was work waiting for him. He was no detective, but neither was this the ordinary melodrama of crime. It was rather a psychological problem, and it was just possible that he was better fitted to get at the truth of the matter than a professional who would have less human interest in the persons involved. ”

“ Whyte swept us out into the hall with one wave of her matronly arm. They must have that moment of complete understanding to themselves. We hovered at the foot of the stairs, waiting to speak again with Clyde, yet too upset in our minds to have any clear idea of what we could suggest or needed to ask. Mrs. Whyte, in a surge of emotion, caught Jean to her buxom bosom,--against which the child looked like a star-flower on a brocaded silk hillock. ”

“ Lyon knew the brooding type. If, for instance, she loved Lawrence, and if she felt that Fullerton stood between them, and particularly if she had any cause for bitterness against Fullerton which would make her feel that in slaying him she was an instrument of justice,--well, tragedies were happening every day that were no more difficult of belief. She was not an ordinary woman; and when a woman breaks through the lines of convention she will go farther than a man. She had had a grudge against Fullerton, she had prayed for his death, she had been on the spot when he was killed. ”

“ The doctor listened with the glimmer of a smile under his seriousness.
"We all do. It is the great human need." He twisted his face up inscrutably as he added: "I hope you will get your share."
"Thank you," said Burton. His heart sank suddenly. He hadn't wanted to be reminded of his own needs. "Am I to see Miss Underwood this morning?" he asked, facing the inevitable.
"She wishes to see you," said the doctor, somewhat hesitatingly, and a troubled look crossed his face. "She asked me to keep you; I'll tell her you are here." ”

“ Miss Thurston rose as she spoke, and in spite of her kindly tone in regard to Gene, I could see that the important part of the interview was over when Clyde passed out of our conversation.
"Of course I should not admit anything else," I answered, and she departed, leaving me impressed anew with the important part which women play in the affairs of men. Truly, sentiments may be stronger than ropes, and emotions more devastating than floods. And the woman who is all tenderness and quivering watchfulness for one man will be as indifferent as Nature to the sufferings of another. ”

“ Whether she struck the blow herself or not, it was clear that her connection with the affair was intimate. If she was the woman Donohue had seen in Fullerton's company when they left the Wellington together, it would seem that she had been agitated to the point of sobbing aloud as she walked beside him. Any emotion that could reduce Miss Wolcott to sobs must have been powerful. All this Lawrence knew as well as Lyon, but it was conceivable that he knew more. Had he been a witness of the murder, if not an actor in it? How had his cane come to be on the spot unless he had been there himself? ”

“ And of course Henry would neither tell himself, nor thank Burton for telling, a piece of news that would be gossip and cause for laughter in a small town like High Ridge. It was unfortunate that Henry should have fixed his affections upon so unstable a creature as the pretty Miss Hadley, anyhow. Why couldn't he have had the judgment to choose some one like--well, like his sister Leslie, who would have walked by the side of the man she loved down into the valley of the shadow of death if need be? ”

“ How do ideas come to us? I thought I was wholly absorbed in Jean, and was conscious merely of a desire to soothe and calm her by taking things naturally, but now something seemed to nudge my attention and to urge, "Don't you see what that means? Don't you see? Don't you see?"
I did see--in a flash. That locket! It had not been out of my locked desk until I gave it to Jean, except once,--the night of Barker's murder. ”

“ Lyon felt as though he were trying to pick his way among live wires.
"Did you tell Olden this story?" he asked, remembering the curious interest which that inquisitive person had always seemed to take in Lawrence's affairs.
"Well, he got it out of me, I guess. He knew so much that he could easily pump the balance."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing much. He kept nodding his head, as though he knew it all beforehand. What do you make of it, anyhow?"
"The curiosity of an idle mind," said Lyon, lightly. "There are plenty of people who have an abnormal curiosity about anybody who is accused of crime. ”

“ I closed the door, not wishing to have Barker see me from the hall and turn back, and sat down by the desk under the gaslight to await his return. On the desk were a few circulars of the Western Land and Improvement Company which looked as though they had served the purpose of giving verisimilitude to Mr. Barker's office for a long time. I guessed the same theatrical and decorative mission in the display baskets of apples, sheaves of heavy-headed wheat, and samples of other grains and fruits which adorned the room--though somewhat dustily. ”

“ Underwood sputtered, wincing with pain as he spoke. "Good land, man, do you suppose a man with a sprained ankle who isn't going to be able to walk for the rest of his natural life, and then will have to go on crutches for a while, wants to sit down on one of those spindle-legged chairs that break if you look at them? Get me into the surgery. And Leslie, if you have an atom of filial feeling, you might show him the way instead of standing there like a classical figure of despair on a monument smiling at a bloody temple. ”

“ There is no game so trying to the nerves as a waiting game. Lyon was cool by temperament and self-controlled from experience, but he found it necessary to call on both his native and acquired composure to enable him to face the situation without wanting to do something, anything, to force Fate's hand. To wait, just to sit still and wait for Mrs. Broughton to recover, while all the time Lawrence was drawing nearer and nearer to the day that would blast his career even if he escaped with his life,--it was nerve-racking. ”

“ Underwood's tax list.
"He couldn't own that, could he?" asked the man, pointing dramatically at the tulip about which he had been building up the earth.
"You are a philosopher as well as a gardener."
"I?" The man stood up, and Burton saw that he was young, and that his face, in spite of its somberness, was intelligent and not unattractive. "Oh, I am a human being, like the rest of the impertinent race. I try to forget what I am, but I have no right to. You do well to remind me."
"Why do you wish to forget?" asked Burton curiously.
"Who that is human would not wish to forget? ”

“ Whyte, significantly.
But Miss Thurston took up his challenge (which I guessed was flung out for that purpose) with a fervor that transformed her.
"Money cannot buy knowledge," she cried. "To know how to control another's soul may be wicked knowledge,--I believe it is,--but it is knowledge nevertheless, and it is not at the command of your millionaires. Money cannot buy any of the best things in the world. It cannot buy love or loyalty or faith--or knowledge."
"You talk like Ellison," said Whyte, with good-humored contempt. ”

“ Miss Wolcott regarded him for a moment with an observant scrutiny which she made no attempt to disguise, and then she turned to her grandfather.
"It is time for your walk, Dandy," she said. She got him his overcoat, hat, and stick from the hall, and herself buttoned his coat up to his throat.
"You see how she spoils me," Mr. Wolcott said, with evident pride in his voice. "I'm old enough to look out for myself."
Edith did not speak. In grave silence she gave him his gloves, and watched him put them on while Lyon as intently watched her. ”

“ Garney, do you know anything to Eugene Benbow's discredit?"
He looked at me with an intentness that I found was habitual with him, as though he weighed my words before he answered them.
"You don't mean trivial faults?"
"No. I mean anything serious."
He shook his head. "No. He is an exceptionally fine fellow in every way. High-spirited and honorable. I suppose his sensitiveness to his family honor, as he conceives it, may be called a fault, since it has unbalanced him to the extent of leading him into a crime." ”

“ They all hang together. What do you think, Mr. Burton?"
"I agree with you that they all seem to hang together."
"But not that Henry would seem to be the responsible person?"
"As to that, I am hardly in a position to express an opinion," he said quietly. He had been examining the curiously knotted cord that had been wound about the unfortunate Mr. Hadley.
The knots rather than the cord itself were what attracted his attention. They were peculiarly intricate,--the knots of a practiced weaver. What was more, they had the same peculiar twist that the woven withes of lilac had had. ”

“ Never think it, my boy! There is nothing in all the universe so heaven-wide and free as this room. I know now how a man feels when his reprieve comes."
"But your reprieve hasn't come yet," said Lyon quietly. "That is exactly the point. Do you see any way yet in which I can help it to come?"
Lawrence looked at him silently, smilingly, and shook his head.
"Then it makes no difference in your attitude," pursued Lyon, "that Mrs. Broughton--and not anyone else--is shown to be the woman who was with Fullerton that evening?"
"It makes no difference," said Lawrence, quietly. ”

“ Burton shrugged his shoulders, put his hat back at the customary angle, and set off for Watson's.
He had not wished to arrive at Watson's too early, but now he suddenly had a panic fear that he might be too late. He hurried on, trying to guess his way through an unfamiliar part of the town, and wondering what Henry had done with the watchman who was supposed to keep him in sight. Had he drugged him or tied him up as Hadley had been tied, or merely and effectively killed him? Nothing less would excuse the man's failure to keep the watch set. ”

“ He felt that he must probe it, and so he answered with a view to keeping the subject going.
"We hear of the mysteries that are solved, but there are many more that drop from the notice of the public because they remain mysteries forever."
"Is it not possible that there may be a woman connected with the mystery?" asked Olden with a sudden hardening of his voice.
Lyon smoked deliberately a moment.
"With nothing known and everything to guess, it is difficult to say of anything that it is not possible," he answered.
"Has Lawrence's name never been connected with a woman? Is there no gossip?" ”

“ On that Monday,--that eventful and ever-to-be-remembered Monday,--I saw as I approached that Barney was holding forth in the spell-binding manner I knew, to another listener,--a young fellow, I thought at first. But as I came up, his listener emptied a chatelaine purse upon Barney's tray, and my surprised glance from the jingling shower of silver to the face of the impetuous donor showed me that it was a young girl,--a gallant, boyish-faced girl, whose eyes were shining into Barney's with the enthusiasm of a hero-worshipper. ”

“ Also, it seems that I precipitated a quarrel between Ben and Selby about the price of his work. Taking these things together, how far am I responsible for Selby's death?"
The doctor turned to look at him questioningly. "Don't blame yourself for things you only touch at that distance," he said abruptly. "If the little gods use us as instruments to carry out their plans, we have to take that lot with the rest. Perhaps there is justice in their schemes. We all have to take our chances in this skirmishing that we call life,--and death isn't the worst that might happen." ”

“ A huge bunch of long-stemmed roses, still in the florist's box, was filling the cell with color and fragrance.
"Who sent them?" asked Lyon suspiciously.
"Devil a card or a scrap of writing with them."
"Oh, then it's merely because you have become a celebrity," said Lyon, indifferently. "Silly women are always sending flowers to the principals in any murder case."
"Bad luck to you, you're jealous," cried Lawrence. ”

“ Whyte, defensively. "Whenever he finds Gene here with Katherine, or finds that he has taken her out walking, or anything like that, he just stands and glowers."
"Perhaps he is jealous," said Whyte, with a subdued chuckle.
"He has no right to be jealous. If Katherine enjoys Gene's society, she has a perfect right to choose it. Not that there is anything of that sort between them! Katherine is not old enough to be Gene's mother, but she is older, and she would never allow anything of that sort to happen. Besides, if she had wanted Kenneth Clyde, she could have had him years ago." ”

“ Who that is human would not wish at times that he were a tulip, blooming in perfect beauty, and so doing all that could be asked of him? Or an oak, like that one, fulfilling its nature without blame and without harm?"
"Are you Ben Bussey?" Burton asked on a sudden impulse, remembering the name of the young man whom the hotel clerk had mentioned as being the subject of popular stories. This young man was certainly queer enough to give rise to legends. ”

“ Lyon got away from him and went up to the little back bedroom which had come to seem so homelike in the short week he had been there. Kittie's curtains were both down--of course. Her faithfulness to their code even to this disastrous end struck him as pathetic.
"Dear little girl," he murmured, and blew a kiss across the night to her. One can venture so much more in the night than in the unsympathetic blaze of common day. ”

“ The man who left the house was not you."
"Who was it?" he asked, very low.
"It was the man who had your latchkey to the library door. It was the man who picked up the De Senectute which you had been reading and passed it on to Chapman the next day. It was the man who knew how to hypnotize you in your sleep and make your brain believe what he wished it to believe. It was the man who had just shot Barker from his inner office and who impressed upon your dormant brain the scene he had just been through and made you believe you had acted his part in it. It was Allen Garney." ”

“ Ben was getting too confident, and therefore reckless."
"It was the check you gave him that made him reckless. Of course he is insane. Such a long, brooding course of revenge for a boyish quarrel is clear proof of insanity. But the insanity might have remained latent for years if he had not been crossed. No, you can't get out of it. You will have to reconcile yourself to being regarded as a benefactor."
"Well, perhaps I can stand it, mixed in with some other memories I shall have to take away with me," said Burton grimly. Leslie had not appeared, and he knew what was yet before him. ”

“ You must have been the first man there. I was close behind you, I think. I was not far behind you when you came down Hemlock Avenue."
Then suddenly Lyon understood. It was quite as though Lawrence had said, "I hope you will not consider it necessary to mention that a minute or two after the time of the murder you saw a woman running in terror from the spot and going into a house where I call." He had quite forgotten the running girl for the moment. Now the sudden bringing together of the two ideas staggered him.
"There are things that once said can never be unsaid," said Lawrence. ”

“ Probably there is no man living who does not have some political ambition. Certainly Clyde had it. With his wide interest in public matters, his natural power over men, and his ancestry and associations, I knew that nothing but the shadow of fear at his elbow had kept him out of the political game, and I was therefore not surprised when, a few days after the Barker tragedy had ceased to occupy the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the newspapers, that space was given up to announcing that Kenneth Clyde had consented to accept the reform party's nomination. ”

“ Burton made an early call the next day at the house on Rowan Street. Leslie Underwood was in the garden when he came up, and he stopped for a moment at the gate to enjoy the picture she made. It would be impossible for any one with sensibilities not to enjoy a painted picture of a beautiful girl bending before a bed of pansies, her summer gown of blue lawn making an effective contrast to the green grass upon which its folds rippled, and her hair bare to the sun. ”

“ Olden had shown no signs of physical feebleness, yet Lyon felt a hurt about him that prompted him to a show of cheerfulness beyond his habit with a stranger, and the success of his curtain code had put him into an elated mood.
"What do people generally gossip about?"
"Their friends, don't they? And their enemies; and the delinquencies of both."
"That's all right," said Olden, quickly. "Tell me about your friends and their delinquencies."
"I haven't many here. I'm a stranger myself, comparatively. The man in Waynscott I care most for, and admire most, and am sorriest for, is Arthur Lawrence." ”

“ The police are very close on his heels. I confess it looks dubious that he will get very far."
Jean laughed out suddenly and clapped her hands together.
"Why, of course he will escape! After they have come to know about each other!" she exclaimed. "Nothing else would be possible, now!"
Whyte and I exchanged glances. As a matter of fact, we would all like to live in a rose-colored world, where things would happen of necessity as they do in properly constructed fairy tales, but it takes the confidence of a Jean to announce such faith in the face of unsympathetic Experience. ”