Read Room Number 3, and Other Detective Stories Page 1

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  ROOM NUMBER 3

  AND OTHER DETECTIVE STORIES

  By ANNA KATHARINE GREENE

  AUTHOR OF

  "The Mystery of The Hasty Arrow," "The Golden Slipper," "That AffairNext Door," etc.

  A. L. BURT COMPANY

  Publishers New York

  Published by arrangement with Dodd, Mead & Company

  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BYANNA KATHARINE GREEN

  COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, BYTHE CROWELL PUBLISHING CO.

  COPYRIGHT, 1910, BYABBOTT & BRIGGS INC.

  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BYDODD, MEAD & COMPANY_As "Masterpieces of Mystery"_

  CONTENTS

  PAGE

  I ROOM NUMBER 3 3

  II MIDNIGHT IN BEAUCHAMP ROW 85

  III THE RUBY AND THE CALDRON 107

  IV THE LITTLE STEEL COILS 149

  V THE STAIRCASE AT HEART'S DELIGHT 181

  VI THE AMETHYST BOX 209

  VII THE GREY LADY 311

  VIII THE THIEF 339

  IX THE HOUSE IN THE MIST 369

  ROOM NUMBER 3

  I

  "What door is that? You've opened all the others; why do you pass thatone by?"

  "Oh, that! That's only Number 3. A mere closet, gentlemen," respondedthe landlord in a pleasant voice. "To be sure, we sometimes use it as asleeping-room when we are hard pushed. Jake, the clerk you saw below,used it last night. But it's not on our regular list. Do you want a peepat it?"

  "Most assuredly. As you know, it's our duty to see every room in thishouse, whether it is on your regular list or not."

  "All right. I haven't the key of this one with me. But--yes, I have.There, gentlemen!" he cried, unlocking the door and holding it open forthem to look inside. "You see it no more answers the young lady'sdescription than the others do. And I haven't another to show you. Youhave seen all those in front, and this is the last one in the rear.You'll have to believe our story. The old lady never put foot in thistavern."

  The two men he addressed peered into the shadowy recesses before them,and one of them, a tall and uncommonly good-looking young man ofstalwart build and unusually earnest manner, stepped softly inside. Hewas a gentleman farmer living near, recently appointed deputy sheriff onaccount of a recent outbreak of horse-stealing in the neighbourhood.

  "I observe," he remarked, after a hurried glance about him, "that thepaper on these walls is not at all like that she describes. She was veryparticular about the paper; said that it was of a muddy pink colour andhad big scrolls on it which seemed to move and crawl about in whirls asyou looked at it. This paper is blue and striped. Otherwise----"

  "Let's go below," suggested his companion, who, from the deference withwhich his most casual word was received, was evidently a man of someauthority. "It's cold here, and there are several new questions I shouldlike to put to the young lady. Mr. Quimby,"--this to the landlord, "I'veno doubt you are right, but we'll give this poor girl another chance. Ibelieve in giving every one the utmost chance possible."

  "My reputation is in your hands, Coroner Golden," was the quiet reply.Then, as they both turned, "my reputation against the word of anobviously demented girl."

  The words made their own echo. As the third man moved to follow theother two into the hall, he seemed to catch this echo, for heinvoluntarily cast another look behind him as if expectant of somecontradiction reaching him from the bare and melancholy walls he wasleaving. But no such contradiction came. Instead, he appeared to readconfirmation there of the landlord's plain and unembittered statement.The dull blue paper with its old-fashioned and uninteresting stripesseemed to have disfigured the walls for years. It was not only grimywith age, but showed here and there huge discoloured spots, especiallyaround the stovepipe-hole high up on the left-hand side. Certainly hewas a dreamer to doubt such plain evidences as these. Yet----

  Here his eye encountered Quimby's, and pulling himself up short, hehastily fell into the wake of his comrade now hastening down the narrowpassage to the wider hall in front. Had it occurred to him to turn againbefore rounding the corner--but no, I doubt if he would have learnedanything even then. The closing of a door by a careful hand--theslipping up behind him of an eager and noiseless step--what is there inthese to re-awaken curiosity and fix suspicion? Nothing, when the manconcerned is Jacob Quimby; nothing. Better that he failed to look back;it left his judgment freer for the question confronting him in the roombelow.

  Three Forks Tavern has been long forgotten, but at the time of which Iwrite it was a well-known but little-frequented house, situated justback of the highway on the verge of the forest lying between the twotowns of Chester and Danton in southern Ohio. It was of ancient build,and had all the picturesquesness of age and the English traditions ofits original builder. Though so near two thriving towns, it retained itsown quality of apparent remoteness from city life and city ways. This ina measure was made possible by the nearness of the woods which almostenveloped it; but the character of the man who ran it had still more todo with it, his sympathies being entirely with the old, and not at allwith the new, as witness the old-style glazing still retained in itsancient doorway. This, while it appealed to a certain class of summerboarders, did not so much meet the wants of the casual traveller, sothat while the house might from some reason or other be overfilled onenight, it was just as likely to be almost empty the next, save for thefaithful few who loved the woods and the ancient ways of theeasy-mannered host and his attentive, soft-stepping help. The buildingitself was of wooden construction, high in front and low in the rear,with gables toward the highway, projecting here and there above a stripof rude old-fashioned carving. These gables were new, that is, they wereonly a century old; the portion now called the extension, in thepassages of which we first found the men we have introduced to you, wasthe original house. Then it may have enjoyed the sunshine and air of thevalley it overlooked, but now it was so hemmed in by yards andoutbuildings as to be considered the most undesirable part of the house,and Number 3 the most undesirable of its rooms; which certainly does notspeak well for it.

  But we are getting away from our new friends and their mysteriouserrand. As I have already intimated, this tavern with the curious name(a name totally unsuggestive, by the way, of its location on a perfectlystraight road) had for its southern aspect the road and a broad expansebeyond of varied landscape which made the front rooms cheerful even on acloudy day; but it was otherwise with those in the rear and on the northend. They were never cheerful, and especially toward night werefrequently so dark that artificial light was resorted to as early asthree o'clock in the afternoon. It was so to-day in the remote parlourwhich these three now entered. A lamp had been lit, though the daylightstill struggled feebly in, and it was in this conflicting light thatthere rose up before them the vision of a woman, who seen at any timeand in any place would have drawn, if not held, the eye, but seen in herpresent attitude and at such a moment of question and suspense, struckthe imagination with a force likely to fix her image forever in themind, if not in the heart, of a sympathetic observer.

  I should like to picture her as she stood there, because the impressionshe made at this instant determined the future action of the man I haveintroduced to you as not quite satisfied with the appearances he hadobserved above. Young, slender but vigorous, with a face
whose detailsyou missed in the fire of her eye and the wonderful red of her young,fresh but determined mouth, she stood, on guard as it were, before ashrouded form on a couch at the far end of the room. An imperative _Keepback!_ spoke in her look, her attitude, and the silent gesture of oneoutspread hand, but it was the _Keep back!_ of love, not of fear, thecommand of an outraged soul, conscious of its rights and instinctivelyalert to maintain them.

  The landlord at sight of the rebuke thus given to their intrusion,stepped forward with a conciliatory bow.

  "I beg pardon," said he, "but these gentlemen, Doctor Golden, thecoroner from Chester, and Mr. Hammersmith, wish to ask you a few morequestions about your mother's death. You will answer them, I am sure."

  Slowly her eyes moved till they met those of the speaker.

  "I am anxious to do so," said she, in a voice rich with many emotions.But seeing the open compassion in the landlord's face, the colour lefther cheeks, almost her lips, and drawing back the hand which she hadcontinued to hold outstretched, she threw a glance of helpless inquiryabout her which touched the younger man's heart and induced him to say:

  "The truth should not be hard to find in a case like this. I'm sure theyoung lady can explain. Doctor Golden, are you ready for her story?"

  The coroner, who had been silent up till now, probably from sheersurprise at the beauty and simple, natural elegance of the woman caught,as he believed, in a net of dreadful tragedy, roused himself at thisdirect question, and bowing with an assumption of dignity far fromencouraging to the man and woman anxiously watching him, replied:

  "We will hear what she has to say, of course, but the facts are wellknown. The woman she calls mother was found early this morning lying onher face in the adjoining woods quite dead. She had fallen over ahalf-concealed root, and with such force that she never moved again. Ifher daughter was with her at the time, then that daughter fled withoutattempting to raise her. The condition and position of the wound on thedead woman's forehead, together with such corroborative facts as havesince come to light, preclude all argument on this point. But we'lllisten to the young woman, notwithstanding; she has a right to speak,and she shall speak. Did not your mother die in the woods? Nohocus-pocus, miss, but the plain unvarnished truth."

  "Sirs,"--the term was general, but her appeal appeared to be directedsolely to the one sympathetic figure before her, "if my mother died inthe wood--and, for all I can say, she may have done so--it was not tillafter she had been in this house. She arrived in my company, and wasgiven a room. I saw the room and I saw her in it. I cannot be deceivedin this. If I am, then my mind has suddenly failed me;--something whichI find it hard to believe."

  "Mr. Quimby, did Mrs. Demarest come to the house with Miss Demarest?"inquired Mr. Hammersmith of the silent landlord.

  "She says so," was the reply, accompanied by a compassionate shrug whichspoke volumes. "And I am quite sure she means it," he added, with kindlyemphasis. "But ask Jake, who was in the office all the evening. Ask mywife, who saw the young lady to her room. Ask anybody and everybody whowas around the tavern last night. I'm not the only one to say that MissDemarest came in alone. All will tell you that she arrived here withoutescort of any kind; declined supper, but wanted a room, and when Ihesitated to give it to her, said by way of explanation of her lack of acompanion that she had had trouble in Chester and had left town veryhurriedly for her home. That her mother was coming to meet her and wouldprobably arrive here very soon. That when this occurred I was to notifyher; but if a gentleman called instead, I was to be very careful not toadmit that any such person as herself was in the house. Indeed, to avoidany such possibility she prayed that her name might be left off theregister--a favour which I was slow in granting her, but which I finallydid, as you can see for yourselves."

  "Oh!" came in indignant exclamation from the young woman before them. "Iunderstand my position now. This man has a bad conscience. He hassomething to hide, or he would not take to lying about little thingslike that. I never asked him to allow me to leave my name off theregister. On the contrary I wrote my name in it and my mother's name,too. Let him bring the book here and you will see."

  "We have seen," responded the coroner. "We looked in the registerourselves. Your names are not there."

  The flush of indignation which had crimsoned her cheeks faded till shelooked as startling and individual in her pallor as she had the momentbefore in her passionate bloom.

  "Not there?" fell from her lips in a frozen monotone as her eyes grewfixed upon the faces before her and her hand went groping around forsome support.

  Mr. Hammersmith approached with a chair.

  "Sit," he whispered. Then, as she sank slowly into an attitude ofrepose, he added gently, "You shall have every consideration. Only tellthe truth, the exact truth without any heightening from yourimagination, and, above all, don't be frightened."

  She may have heard his words, but she gave no sign of comprehendingthem. She was following the movements of the landlord, who had slippedout to procure the register, and now stood holding it out toward thecoroner.

  "Let her see for herself," he suggested, with a bland, almost fatherly,air.

  Doctor Golden took the book and approached Miss Demarest.

  "Here is a name very unlike yours," he pointed out, as her eye fell onthe page he had opened to. "Annette Colvin, Lansing, Michigan."

  "That is not my name or writing," said she.

  "There is room below it for your name and that of your mother, but thespace is blank, do you see?"

  "Yes, yes, I see," she admitted. "Yet I wrote my name in the book! Or isit all a monstrous dream!"

  The coroner returned the book to the landlord.

  "Is this your only book?" he asked.

  "The only book."

  Miss Demarest's eyes flashed. Hammersmith, who had watched this scenewith intense interest, saw, or believed that he saw, in this flash thenatural indignation of a candid mind face to face with arrant knavery.But when he forced himself to consider the complacent Quimby he did notknow what to think. His aspect of self-confidence equalled hers. Indeed,he showed the greater poise. Yet her tones rang true as she cried:

  "You made up one plausible story, and you may well make up another. Idemand the privilege of relating the whole occurrence as I remember it,"she continued with an appealing look in the one sympathetic direction."Then you can listen to him."

  "We desire nothing better," returned the coroner.

  "I shall have to mention a circumstance very mortifying to myself," sheproceeded, with a sudden effort at self-control, which commanded theadmiration even of the coroner. "My one adviser is dead," here her eyesflashed for a moment toward the silent form behind her. "If I makemistakes, if I seem unwomanly--but you have asked for the truth and youshall have it, all of it. I have no father. Since early this morning Ihave had no mother. But when I had, I found it my duty to work for heras well as for myself, that she might have the comforts she had beenused to and could no longer afford. For this purpose I sought asituation in Chester, and found one in a family I had rather not name."A momentary tremor, quickly suppressed, betrayed the agitation whichthis allusion cost her. "My mother lived in Danton (the next town to theleft). Anybody there will tell you what a good woman she was. I hadwished her to live in Chester (that is, at first; later, I--I was gladshe didn't), but she had been born in Danton, and could not accustomherself to strange surroundings. Once a week I went home, and once aweek, usually on a Wednesday, she would come and meet me on thehighroad, for a little visit. Once we met here, but this is acircumstance no one seems to remember. I was very fond of my mother andshe of me. Had I loved no one else, I should have been happy still, andnot been obliged to face strangers over her body and bare the secrets ofmy heart to preserve my good name. There is a man, he seems a thousandmiles away from me now, so much have I lived since yesterday. He--helived in the house where I did--was one of the family--always attable--always before my eyes. He fancied me. I--I might have fancied himhad he been a better man. But
he was far from being of the sort mymother approved, and when he urged his suit too far, I grew frightenedand finally ran away. It was not so much that I could not trust him,"she bravely added after a moment of silent confusion, "but that I couldnot trust myself. He had an unfortunate influence over me, which Ihated while I half yielded to it."

  "You ran away. When was this?"

  "Yesterday afternoon at about six. He had vowed that he would see meagain before the evening was over, and I took that way to prevent ameeting. There was no other so simple,--or such was my thought at thetime. I did not dream that sorrows awaited me in this quiet tavern, andperplexities so much greater than any which could have followed ameeting with him that I feel my reason fail when I contemplate them."

  "Go on," urged the coroner, after a moment of uneasy silence. "Let ushear what happened after you left your home in Chester."

  "I went straight to the nearest telegraph office, and sent a message tomy mother. I told her I was coming home, and for her to meet me on theroad near this tavern. Then I went to Hudson's and had supper, for I hadnot eaten before leaving my employer's. The sun had set when I finallystarted, and I walked fast so as to reach Three Forks before dark. If mymother had got the telegram at once, which I calculated on her doing, asshe lived next door to the telegraph office in Danton, she would be verynear this place on my arrival here. So I began to look for her as soonas I entered the woods. But I did not see her. I came as far as thetavern door, and still I did not see her. But farther on, just where theroad turns to cross the railroad-track, I spied her coming, and ran tomeet her. She was glad to see me, but asked a good many questions whichI had some difficulty in answering. She saw this, and held me to thematter till I had satisfied her. When this was done it was late andcold, and we decided to come to the tavern for the night. _And we came!_Nothing shall ever make me deny so positive a fact. _We came_, and thisman received us."

  With her final repetition of this assertion, she rose and now stoodupright, with her finger pointing straight at Quimby. Had he cringed orlet his eyes waver from hers by so much as a hair's breadth, heraccusation would have stood and her cause been won. But not a flickerdisturbed the steady patience of his look, and Hammersmith, who had madeno effort to hide his anxiety to believe her story, showed hisdisappointment with equal frankness as he asked:

  "Who else was in the office? Surely Mr. Quimby was not there alone?"

  She reseated herself before answering. Hammersmith could see the effortshe made to recall that simple scene. He found himself trying to recallit, too--the old-fashioned, smoke-begrimed office, with its one longwindow toward the road and the glass-paned door leading into the hall ofentrance. They had come in by that door and crossed to the bar, whichwas also the desk in this curious old hostelry. He could see themstanding there in the light of possibly a solitary lamp, the rest of theroom in shadow unless a game of checkers were on, which evidently wasnot so on this night. Had she turned her head to peer into thoseshadows? It was not likely. She was supported by her mother's presence,and this she was going to say. By some strange telepathy that he wouldhave laughed at a few hours before, he feels confident of her wordsbefore she speaks. Yet he listens intently as she finally looks up andanswers:

  "There was a man, I am sure there was a man somewhere at the other endof the office. But I paid no attention to him. I was bargaining for tworooms and registering my name and that of my mother."

  "Two rooms; why two? You are not a fashionable young lady to require aroom alone."

  "Gentlemen, I was tired. I had been through a wearing half-hour. I knewthat if we occupied the same room or even adjoining ones that nothingcould keep us from a night of useless and depressing conversation. I didnot feel equal to it, so I asked for two rooms a short distance apart."

  An explanation which could at least be accepted. Mr. Hammersmith felt anincrease of courage and scarcely winced as his colder-blooded companioncontinued this unofficial examination by asking:

  "Where were you standing when making these arrangements with Mr.Quimby?"

  "Right before the desk."

  "And your mother?"

  "She was at my left and a little behind me. She was a shy woman. Iusually took the lead when we were together."

  "Was she veiled?" the coroner continued quietly.

  "I think so. She had been crying----" The bereaved daughter paused.

  "But don't you know?"

  "My impression is that her veil was down when we came into the room. Shemay have lifted it as she stood there. I know that it was lifted as wewent upstairs. I remember feeling glad that the lamps gave so poor alight, she looked so distressed."

  "Physically, do you mean, or mentally?"

  Mr. Hammersmith asked this question. It seemed to rouse some new trainof thought in the girl's mind. For a minute she looked intently at thespeaker, then she replied in a disturbed tone:

  "Both. I wonder----" Here her thought wavered and she ceased.

  "Go on," ordered the coroner impatiently. "Tell your story. Itcontradicts that of the landlord in almost every point, but we'vepromised to hear it out, and we will."

  Rousing, she hastened to obey him.

  "Mr. Quimby told the truth when he said that he asked me if I would havesupper, also when he repeated what I said about a gentleman, but notwhen he declared that I wished to be told if my mother should come andask for me. My mother was at my side all the time we stood theretalking, and I did not need to make any requests concerning her. Whenwe went to our rooms a woman accompanied us. He says she is his wife. Ishould like to see that woman."

  "I am here, miss," spoke up a voice from a murky corner no one hadthought of looking in till now.

  Miss Demarest at once rose, waiting for the woman to come forward. Thisshe did with a quick, natural step which insensibly prepared the mindfor the brisk, assertive woman who now presented herself. Mr.Hammersmith, at sight of her open, not unpleasing face, understood forthe first time the decided attitude of the coroner. If this womancorroborated her husband's account, the poor young girl, with herincongruous beauty and emotional temperament, would not have much show.He looked to see her quailing now. But instead of that she stood firm,determined, and feverishly beautiful.

  "Let her tell you what took place upstairs," she cried. "She showed usthe rooms and carried water afterward to the one my mother occupied."

  "I am sorry to contradict the young lady," came in even tones from theunembarrassed, motherly-looking woman thus appealed to. "She thinks thather mother was with her and that I conducted this mother to another roomafter showing her to her own. I don't doubt in the least that she hasworked herself up to the point of absolutely believing this. But thefacts are these: She came alone and went to her room unattended by anyone but myself. And what is more, she seemed entirely composed at thetime, and I never thought of suspecting the least thing wrong. Yet hermother lay all that time in the wood----"

  "Silence!"

  This word was shot at her by Miss Demarest, who had risen to her fullheight and now fairly flamed upon them all in her passionateindignation. "I will not listen to such words till I have finished all Ihave to say and put these liars to the blush. My mother _was_ with me,and this woman witnessed our good-night embrace, and then showed mymother to her own room. I watched them going. They went down the hall tothe left and around a certain corner. I stood looking after them tillthey turned this corner, then I closed my door and began to take off myhat. But I wasn't quite satisfied with the good-night which had passedbetween my poor mother and myself, and presently I opened my door andran down the hall and around the corner on a chance of finding her room.I don't remember very well how that hall looked. I passed several doorsseemingly shut for the night, and should have turned back, confused, ifat that moment I had not spied the landlady's figure, your figure,madam, coming out of one room on your way to another. You were carryinga pitcher, and I made haste and ran after you and reached the door justbefore you turned to shut it. Can you deny that, or that you steppedaside whi
le I ran in and gave my mother another hug? If you can and do,then you are a dangerous and lying woman, or I----But I won't admitthat I'm not all right. It is you, base and untruthful woman, who forsome end I cannot fathom persist in denying facts on which my honour, ifnot my life, depends. Why, gentlemen, you, one of you at least, haveheard me describe the very room in which I saw my mother. It isimprinted on my mind. I didn't know at the time that I took especialnotice of it, but hardly a detail escaped me. The paper on the wall----"

  "We have been looking through the rooms," interpolated the coroner. "Wedo not find any papered with the muddy pink you talk about."

  She stared, drew back from them all, and finally sank into a chair. "Youdo not find----But you have not been shown them all."

  "I think so."

  "You have not. There _is_ such a room. I could not have dreamed it."

  Silence met this suggestion.

  Throwing up her hands like one who realises for the first time that thebattle is for life, she let an expression of her despair and desolationrush in frenzy from her lips:

  "It's a conspiracy. The whole thing is a conspiracy. If my mother hadhad money on her or had worn valuable jewelry, I should believe her tohave been a victim of this lying man and woman. As it is, I don't trustthem. They say that my poor mother was found lying ready dressed andquite dead in the wood. That may be true, for I saw men bringing herin. But if so, what warrant have we that she was not lured there,slaughtered, and made to seem the victim of accident by thisunscrupulous man and woman? Such things have been done; but for adaughter to fabricate such a plot as they impute to me is past belief,out of Nature and impossible. With all their wiles, they cannot proveit. I dare them to do so; I dare any one to do so."

  Then she begged to be allowed to search the house for the room she sowell remembered. "When I show you that," she cried, with ringingassurance, "you will believe the rest of my story."

  "Shall I take the young lady up myself?" asked Mr. Quimby. "Or will itbe enough if my wife accompanies her?"

  "We will all accompany her," said the coroner.

  "Very good," came in hearty acquiescence.

  "It's the only way to quiet her," he whispered in Mr. Hammersmith's ear.

  The latter turned on him suddenly.

  "None of your insinuations," he cried. "She's as far from insane as I ammyself. We shall find the room."

  "You, too," fell softly from the other's lips as he stepped back intothe coroner's wake. Mr. Hammersmith gave his arm to Miss Demarest, andthe landlady brought up the rear.

  "Upstairs," ordered the trembling girl. "We will go first to the room Ioccupied."

  As they reached the door, she motioned them all back, and started awayfrom them down the hall. Quickly they followed. "It was around acorner," she muttered broodingly, halting at the first turning. "That isall I remember. But we'll visit every room."

  "We have already," objected the coroner, but meeting Mr. Hammersmith'swarning look, he desisted from further interference.

  "I remember its appearance perfectly. I remember it as if it were myown," she persisted, as door after door was thrown back and as quicklyshut again at a shake of her head. "Isn't there another hall? Might Inot have turned some other corner?"

  "Yes, there is another hall," acquiesced the landlord, leading the wayinto the passage communicating with the extension.

  "Oh!" she murmured, as she noted the increased interest in both thecoroner and his companion; "we shall find it here."

  "Do you recognise the hall?" asked the coroner as they stepped through anarrow opening into the old part.

  "No, but I shall recognise the room."

  "Wait!" It was Hammersmith who called her back as she was startingforward. "I should like you to repeat just how much furniture this roomcontained and where it stood."

  She stopped, startled, and then said:

  "It was awfully bare; a bed was on the left----"

  "On the left?"

  "She said the left," quoth the landlord, "though I don't see that itmatters; it's all fancy with her."

  "Go on," kindly urged Hammersmith.

  "There was a window. I saw the dismal panes and my mother standingbetween them and me. I can't describe the little things."

  "Possibly because there were none to describe," whispered Hammersmith inhis superior's ear.

  Meanwhile the landlord and his wife awaited their advance with studiedpatience. As Miss Demarest joined him, he handed her a bunch of keys,with the remark:

  "None of these rooms are occupied to-day, so you can open them withouthesitation."

  She stared at him and ran quickly forward. Mr. Hammersmith followedspeedily after. Suddenly both paused. She had lost the thread of herintention before opening a single door.

  "I thought I could go straight to it," she declared. "I shall have toopen all the doors, as we did in the other hall."

  "Let me help you," proffered Mr. Hammersmith. She accepted his aid, andthe search recommenced with the same results as before. Hope sank todisappointment as each door was passed. The vigour of her step was gone,and as she paused heartsick before the last and only remaining door, itwas with an ashy face she watched Mr. Hammersmith stoop to insert thekey.

  He, on his part, as the door fell back, watched her for some token ofawakened interest. But he watched in vain. The smallness of the room,its bareness, its one window, the absence of all furniture save thesolitary cot drawn up on the right (not on the left, as she had said),seemed to make little or no impression on her.

  "The last! the last! and I have not found it. Oh, sir," she moaned,catching at Mr. Hammersmith's arm, "am I then mad? Was it a dream? Or isthis a dream? I feel that I no longer know." Then, as the landladyofficiously stepped up, she clung with increased frenzy to Mr.Hammersmith, crying, with positive wildness, "_This_ is the dream! Theroom I remember is a real one and my story is real. Prove it, or myreason will leave me. I feel it going--going----"

  "Hush!" It was Hammersmith who sought thus to calm her. "Your story _is_real and I will prove it so. Meanwhile trust your reason. It will notfail you."

  He had observed the corners of the landlord's hitherto restrained lipssettle into a slightly sarcastic curl as the door of this room closedfor the second time.

  II

  "The girl's beauty has imposed on you."

  "I don't think so. I should be sorry to think myself so weak. I simplycredit her story more than I do that of Quimby."

  "But his is supported by several witnesses. Hers has no support at all."

  "That is what strikes me as so significant. This man Quimby understandshimself. Who are his witnesses? His wife and his head man. There isnobody else. In the half-hour which has just passed I have searcheddiligently for some disinterested testimony supporting his assertion,but I have found none. No one knows anything. Of the three personsoccupying rooms in the extension last night, two were asleep and thethird overcome with drink. The maids won't talk. They seem uneasy, and Idetected a sly look pass from the one to the other at some question Iasked, but they won't talk. There's a conspiracy somewhere. I'm as sureof it as that I am standing here."

  "Nonsense! What should there be a conspiracy about? You would make thisold woman an important character. Now we know that she wasn't. Look atthe matter as it presents itself to an unprejudiced mind. A young andsusceptible girl falls in love with a man, who is at once a gentlemanand a scamp. She may have tried to resist her feelings, and she may nothave. Your judgment and mine would probably differ on this point. Whatshe does _not_ do is to let her mother into her confidence. She sees theman--runs upon him, if you will, in places or under circumstances shecannot avoid--till her judgment leaves her and the point of catastropheis reached. Then, possibly, she awakens, or what is more probable, seeksto protect herself from the penetration and opposition of his friendsby meetings less open than those in which they had lately indulged. Shesays that she left the house to escape seeing him again last night. Butthis is not true. On the contrary, she must have given hi
m to understandwhere she was going, for she had an interview with him in the woodsbefore she came upon her mother. He acknowledges to the interview. Ihave just had a talk with him over the telephone."

  "Then you know his name?"

  "Yes, of course, she had to tell me. It's young Maxwell. I suspected itfrom the first."

  "Maxwell!" Mr. Hammersmith's cheek showed an indignant colour. Or was ita reflection from the setting sun? "You called him a scamp a few minutesago. A scamp's word isn't worth much."

  "No, but it's evidence when on oath, and I fancy he will swear to theinterview."

  "Well, well, say there was an interview."

  "It changes things, Mr. Hammersmith. It changes things. It makespossible a certain theory of mine which accounts for all the facts."

  "It does!"

  "Yes. I don't think this girl is really responsible. I don't believe shestruck her mother or is deliberately telling a tissue of lies to coverup some dreadful crime. I consider her the victim of a mentalhallucination, the result of some great shock. Now what was the shock?I'll tell you. This is how I see it, how Mr. Quimby sees it, and suchothers in the house as have ventured an opinion. She was having thisconversation with her lover in the woods below here when her mother camein sight. Surprised, for she had evidently not expected her mother to beso prompt, she hustled her lover off and hastened to meet theapproaching figure. But it was too late. The mother had seen the man,and in the excitement of the discovery and the altercation whichundoubtedly followed, made such a sudden move, possibly of indignantdeparture, that her foot was caught by one of the roots protruding atthis point and she fell her whole length and with such violence as tocause immediate death. Now, Mr. Hammersmith, stop a minute and grasp thesituation. If, as I believe at this point in the inquiry, Miss Demaresthad encountered a passionate opposition to her desires from this uprightand thoughtful mother, the spectacle of this mother lying dead beforeher, with all opposition gone and the way cleared in an instant to herwishes, but cleared in a manner which must haunt her to her own dyingday, was enough to turn a brain already heated with contending emotions.Fancies took the place of facts, and by the time she reached this househad so woven themselves into a concrete form that no word she now utterscan be relied on. This is how I see it, Mr. Hammersmith, and it is onthis basis I shall act."

  Hammersmith made an effort and, nodding slightly, said in a restrainedtone:

  "Perhaps you are justified. I have no wish to force my own ideas uponyou; they are much too vague at present. I will only suggest that thisis not the first time the attention of the police has been drawn to thishouse by some mysterious occurrence. You remember the Stevens case?There must have been notes to the amount of seven thousand dollars inthe pile he declared had been taken from him some time during the dayand night he lodged here."

  "Stevens! I remember something about it. But they couldn't locate thetheft here. The fellow had been to the fair in Chester all day andcouldn't swear that he had seen his notes after leaving the grounds."

  "I know. But he always looked on Quimby as the man. Then there is theadventure of little Miss Thistlewaite."

  "I don't remember that."

  "It didn't get into the papers; but it was talked about in theneighbourhood. She is a quaint one, full of her crotchets, butclear--clear as a bell where her interests are involved. She took anotion to spend a summer here--in this house, I mean. She had a room inone of the corners overlooking the woods, and professing to preferNature to everything else, was happy enough till she began to missthings--rings, pins, a bracelet and, finally, a really valuable chain.She didn't complain at first--the objects were trivial, and she herselfsomewhat to blame for leaving them lying around in her room, oftenwithout locking the door. But when the chain went, the matter becameserious, and she called Mr. Quimby's attention to her losses. He advisedher to lock her door, which she was careful to do after that, but notwith the expected result. She continued to miss things, mostly jewelryof which she had a ridiculous store. Various domestics were dismissed,and finally one of the permanent boarders was requested to leave, butstill the thefts went on till, her patience being exhausted, shenotified the police and a detective was sent: I have always wished I hadbeen that detective. The case ended in what was always considered ajoke. Another object disappeared while he was there, and it having beenconclusively proved to him that it could not have been taken by way ofthe door, he turned his attention to the window which it was one of herfreaks always to keep wide open. The result was curious. One day hespied from a hiding-place he had made in the bushes a bird flying outfrom that window, and following the creature till she alighted in hernest he climbed the tree and searched that nest. It was encrusted withjewels. The bird was a magpie and had followed its usual habits,but--the chain was not there, nor one or two other articles of decidedvalue. Nor were they ever found. The bird bore the blame; the objectsmissing were all heavy and might have been dropped in its flight, but Ihave always thought that the bird had an accomplice, a knowing fellowwho understood what's what and how to pick out his share."

  The coroner smiled. There was little conviction and much sarcasm in thatsmile. Hammersmith turned away. "Have you any instructions for me?" hesaid.

  "Yes, you had better stay here. I will return in the morning with myjury. It won't take long after that to see this thing through."

  The look he received in reply was happily hidden from him.

  III

  "Yes, I'm going to stay here to-night. As it's a mere formality, I shallwant a room to sit in, and if you have no objection I'll take Number 3on the rear corridor."

  "I'm sorry, but Number 3 is totally unfit for use, as you've alreadyseen."

  "Oh, I'm not particular. Put a table in and a good light, and I'll getalong with the rest. I have something to do. Number 3 will answer."

  The landlord shifted his feet, cast a quick scrutinising look at theother's composed face, and threw back his head with a quick laugh.

  "As you will. I can't make you comfortable on such short notice, butthat's your lookout. I've several other rooms vacant."

  "I fancy that room," was all the reply he got.

  Mr. Quimby at once gave his orders. They were received by Jake withsurprise.

  Fifteen minutes later Hammersmith prepared to install himself in thesedesolate quarters. But before doing so he walked straight to the smallparlour where he had last seen Miss Demarest and, knocking, asked forthe privilege of a word with her. It was not her figure, however, whichappeared in the doorway, but that of the landlady.

  "Miss Demarest is not here," announced that buxom and smooth-tonguedwoman. "She was like to faint after you gentlemen left the room, and Ijust took her upstairs to a quiet place by herself."

  "On the rear corridor?"

  "Oh, no, sir; a nice front room; we don't consider money in a case likethis."

  "Will you give me its number?"

  Her suave and steady look changed to one of indignation.

  "You're asking a good deal, aren't you? I doubt if the young lady----"

  "The number, if you please," he quietly put in.

  "Thirty-two," she snapped out. "She will have every care," she hastenedto assure him as he turned away.

  "I've no doubt. I do not intend to sleep to to-night; if the young ladyis worse, you will communicate the fact to me. You will find _me_ inNumber 3."

  He had turned back to make this reply, and was looking straight at heras the number dropped from his lips. It did not disturb her set smile,but in some inscrutable way all meaning seemed to leave that smile, andshe forgot to drop her hand which had been stretched out in an attemptedgesture.

  "Number 3," he repeated. "Don't forget, madam."

  The injunction seemed superfluous. She had not dropped her hand when hewheeled around once more in taking the turn at the foot of thestaircase.

  Jake and a very sleepy maid were on the floor above when he reached it.He paid no attention to Jake, but he eyed the girl somewhat curiously.She was comparatively a ne
w domestic in the tavern, having been aninmate there for only three weeks. He had held a few minutes'conversation with her during the half-hour of secret inquiry in which hehad previously indulged and he remembered some of her careful answers,also the air of fascination with which she had watched him all the timethey were together. He had made nothing of her then, but the impressionhad remained that she was the one hopeful source of knowledge in thehouse. Now she looked dull and moved about in Jake's wake like anautomaton. Yet Hammersmith made up his mind to speak to her as soon asthe least opportunity offered.

  "Where is 32?" he asked as he moved away from them in the oppositedirection from the course they were taking.

  "I thought you were to have room Number 3," blurted out Jake.

  "I am. But where is 32?"

  "Round there," said she. "A lady's in there now. The one----"

  "Come on," urged Jake. "Huldah, you may go now. I'll show the gentlemanhis room."

  Huldah dropped her head, and began to move off, but not beforeHammersmith had caught her eye.

  "Thirty-two," he formed with his lips, showing her a scrap of paperwhich he held in his hand.

  He thought she nodded, but he could not be sure. Nevertheless, heventured to lay the scrap down on a small table he was passing, and whenhe again looked back, saw that it was gone and Huldah with it. Butwhither, he could not be quite sure. There was always a risk in theseattempts, and he only half trusted the girl. She might carry it to 32,and she might carry it to Quimby. In the first case, Miss Demarest wouldknow that she had an active and watchful friend in the house; in theother, the dubious landlord would but receive an open instead of veiledintimation that the young deputy had his eye on him and was not to befooled by appearances and the lack of evidence to support his honestconvictions.

  They had done little more than he had suggested to make Number 3habitable. As the door swung open under Jake's impatient hand, thehalf-lighted hollow of the almost empty room gaped uninvitingly beforethem, with just a wooden-bottomed chair and a rickety table added to thesmall cot-bed which had been almost its sole furnishing when he saw itlast. The walls, bare as his hand, stretched without relief frombaseboard to ceiling, and the floor from door to window showed anunbroken expanse of unpainted boards, save for the narrow space betweenchair and table, where a small rug had been laid. A cheerless outlookfor a tired man, but it seemed to please Hammersmith. There was paperand ink on the table, and the lamp which he took care to examine heldoil enough to last till morning. With a tray of eatables, this ought tosuffice, or so his manner conveyed, and Jake, who had already suppliedthe eatables, was backing slowly out when his eye, which seeminglyagainst his will had been travelling curiously up and down the walls,was caught by that of Hammersmith, and he plunged from the room, with aflush visible even in that half light.

  It was a trivial circumstance, but it fitted in with Hammersmith's trendof thought at the moment, and when the man was gone he stood for severalminutes with his own eye travelling up and down those dusky walls in aninquiry which this distant inspection did not seem thoroughly tosatisfy, for in another instant he had lifted a glass of water from thetray and, going to the nearest wall, began to moisten the paper at oneof the edges. When it was quite wet, he took out his penknife, butbefore using it, he looked behind him, first at the door, and then atthe window. The door was shut; the window seemingly guarded by anoutside blind; but the former was not locked, and the latter showed,upon closer inspection, a space between the slats which he did not like.Crossing to the door, he carefully turned the key, then proceeding tothe window, he endeavoured to throw up the sash in order to close theblinds more effectually. But he found himself balked in the attempt. Thecord had been cut and the sash refused to move under his hand.

  Casting a glance of mingled threat and sarcasm out into the night, hewalked back to the wall and, dashing more water over the spot he hadalready moistened, began to pick at the loosened edges of the paperwhich were slowly falling away. The result was a disappointment; howgreat a disappointment he presently realised, as his knife-pointencountered only plaster under the peeling edges of the paper. He hadhoped to find other paper under the blue--the paper which Miss Demarestremembered--and not finding it, was conscious of a sinking of the heartwhich had never attended any of his miscalculations before. Were his ownfeelings involved in this matter? It would certainly seem so.

  Astonished at his own sensations, he crossed back to the table, andsinking into the chair beside it, endeavoured to call up his commonsense, or at least shake himself free from the glamour which had seizedhim. But this especial sort of glamour is not so easily shaken off.Minutes passed--an hour, and little else filled his thoughts than theposition of this bewitching girl and the claims she had on his sense ofjustice. If he listened, it was to hear her voice raised in appeal athis door. If he closed his eyes, it was to see her image more plainly onthe background of his consciousness. The stillness into which the househad sunk aided this absorption and made his battle a losing one. Therewas naught to distract his mind, and when he dozed, as he did for awhile after midnight, it was to fall under the conjuring effect ofdreams in which her form dominated with all the force of an unfetteredfancy. The pictures which his imagination thus brought before him werestartling and never to be forgotten. The first was that of an angry seain the blue light of an arctic winter. Stars flecked the zenith and sheda pale lustre on the moving ice-floes hurrying toward a horizon ofskurrying clouds and rising waves. On one of those floes stood a womanalone, with face set toward her death.

  The scene changed. A desert stretched out before him. Limitless, withthe blazing colours of the arid sand topped by a cloudless sky, itrevealed but one suggestion of life in its herbless, waterless,shadowless solitude. _She_ stood in the midst of this desert, and as hehad seen her sway on the ice-floe, so he saw her now stretchingunavailing arms to the brazen heavens and sink--No! it was not a desert,it was not a sea, ice-bound or torrid, it was a toppling city, massedagainst impenetrable night one moment, then shown to its awful full thenext by the sudden tearing through of lightning-flashes. He saw itall--houses, churches, towers, erect and with steadfast line, asilhouette of quiet rest awaiting dawn; then at a flash, the doom, thequake, the breaking down of outline, the caving in of walls, followed bythe sickening collapse in which life, wealth, and innumerable beatinghuman hearts went down into the unseen and unknowable. He saw and heheard, but his eyes clung to but one point, his ears listened for butone cry. There at the extremity of a cornice, clinging to a bendingbeam, was the figure again--the woman of the ice-floe and the desert.She seemed nearer now. He could see the straining muscles of her arm,the white despair of her set features. He wished to call aloud to hernot to look down--then, as the sudden darkness yielded to anotherilluminating gleam, his mind changed and he would fain have begged herto look, slip, and end all, for subtly, quietly, ominously somewherebelow her feet, he had caught the glimpsing of a feathery line of smokecurling up from the lower debris. Flame was there; a creeping devilwhich soon----

  Horror! it was no dream! He was awake, he, Hammersmith, in this smallsolitary hotel in Ohio, and there was fire, real fire in the air, and inhis ears the echo of a shriek such as a man hears but few times in hislife, even if his lot casts him continually among the reckless and thesuffering. Was it _hers_? Had these dreams been forerunners of somemenacing danger? He was on his feet, his eyes staring at the floorbeneath him, through the cracks of which wisps of smoke were forcingtheir way up. The tavern was not only on fire, _but on fire directlyunder him_. This discovery woke him effectually. He bounded to the door;it would not open. He wrenched at the key; but it would not turn, it washampered in the lock. Drawing back, he threw his whole weight againstthe panels, uttering loud cries for help. The effort was useless. Noyielding in the door, no rush to his assistance from without. Arousednow to his danger--reading the signs of the broken cord and hamperedlock only too well--he desisted from his vain attempts and turneddesperately toward the window. Though it might be impossible to h
old upthe sash and crawl under it at the same time, his only hope of exit laythere, as well as his only means of surviving the inroad of smoke whichwas fast becoming unendurable. He would break the sash and seek escapethat way. They had doomed him to death, but he could climb roofs like acat and feared nothing when once relieved from this smoke. Catching upthe chair, he advanced toward the window.

  But before reaching it he paused. It was not only he they sought todestroy, but the room. There was evidence of crime in the room. In thatmoment of keenly aroused intelligence he felt sure of it. What was to bedone? How could he save the room, and, by these means, save himself andher? A single glance about assured him that he could not save it. Theboards under his feet were hot. Glints of yellow light streakingthrough the shutters showed that the lower storey had already burst intoflame. The room must go and with it every clue to the problem which wasagitating him. Meanwhile, his eyeballs were smarting, his head growingdizzy. No longer sure of his feet, he staggered over to the wall and wasabout to make use of its support in his effort to reach the window, whenhis eyes fell on the spot from which he had peeled the paper, and hecame to a sudden standstill. A bit of pink was showing under one edge ofthe blue.

  Dropping the chair which he still held, he fumbled for his knife, foundit, made a dash at that wall, and for a few frenzied moments worked atthe plaster till he had hacked off a piece which he thrust into hispocket. Then seizing the chair again, he made for the window and threwit with all his force against the panes. They crashed and the air camerushing in, reviving him enough for the second attempt. This not onlysmashed the pane, but loosened the shutters, and in one instant twosights burst upon his view--the face of a man in an upper window of theadjoining barn and the sudden swooping up from below of a column ofdeadly smoke which seemed to cut off all hope of his saving himself bythe means he had calculated on. Yet no other way offered. It would befolly to try the door again. This was the only road, threatening as itlooked, to possible safety for himself and her. He would take it, and ifhe succumbed in the effort, it should be with a final thought of herwho was fast becoming an integral part of his own being.

  Meanwhile he had mounted to the sill and taken another outward look.This room, as I have already intimated, was in the rear of an extensionrunning back from the centre of the main building. It consisted of onlytwo stories, surmounted by a long, slightly-peaked roof. As the ceilingswere low in this portion of the house, the gutter of this roof was verynear the top of the window. To reach it was not a difficult feat for oneof his strength and agility, and if only the smoke would blow aside--Ah,it is doing so! A sudden change of wind had come to his rescue, and forthe moment the way is clear for him to work himself out and up on to theledge above. But once there, horror makes him weak again. A window, highup in the main building overlooking the extension, had come in sight,and in it sways a frantic woman ready to throw herself out. She screamedas he measured with his eye the height of that window from the slopingroof and thence to the ground, and he recognised the voice. It was thesame he had heard before, but it was not _hers_. She would not be up sohigh, besides the shape and attitude, shown fitfully by the light of thenow leaping flames, were those of a heavier, and less-refined woman. Itwas one of the maids--it was _the_ maid Huldah, the one from whom he hadhoped to win some light on this affair. Was she locked in, too? Herfrenzy and mad looking behind and below her seemed to argue that shewas. What deviltry! and, ah! what a confession of guilt on the part ofthe vile man who had planned this abominable end for the two personswhose evidence he dreaded. Helpless with horror, he became a man againin his indignation. Such villainy should not succeed. He would fight notonly for his own life, but for this woman's. Miss Demarest was doubtlesssafe. Yet he wished he were sure of it; he could work with so muchbetter heart. Her window was not visible from where he crouched. It wason the other side of the house. If she screamed, he would not be able tohear her. He must trust her to Providence. But his dream! his dream! Thepower of it was still upon him; a forerunner of fate, a picture possiblyof her doom. The hesitation which this awful thought caused him warnedhim that not in this way could he make himself effective. The woman hesaw stood in need of his help, and to her he must make his way. Thebustle which now took place in the yards beneath, the sudden shouts andthe hurried throwing up of windows all over the house showed that thealarm had now become general. Another moment, and the appalling cry--themost appalling which leaves human lips--of fire! fire! rang from end toend of the threatened building. It was followed by women's shrieks andmen's curses and then--by flames.

  "She will hear, she will wake now," he thought, with his whole heartpulling him her way. But he did not desist from his intention to drophis eyes from the distraught figure entrapped between a locked door anda fall of thirty feet. He could reach her if he kept his nerve. A slowbut steady hitch along the gutter was bringing him nearer every instant.Would she see him and take courage? No! her eyes were on the flameswhich were so bright now that he could actually see them glassed in hereyeballs. Would a shout attract her? The air was full of cries as theyards filled with escaping figures, but he would attempt it at the firstlull--now--while her head was turned his way. Did she hear him? Yes. Sheis looking at him.

  "Don't jump," he cried. "Tie your sheet to the bedpost. Tie it strongand fasten the other one to it and throw down the end. I will be here tocatch it. Then you must come down hand over hand."

  She threw up her arms, staring down at him in mortal terror; then, asthe whole air grew lurid, nodded and tottered back. With incredibleanxiety he watched for her reappearance. His post was becoming perilous.The fire had not yet reached the roof, but it was rapidly underminingits supports, and the heat was unendurable. Would he have to jump to theground in his own despite? Was it his duty to wait for this girl,possibly already overcome by her fears and lying insensible? Yes; solong as he could hold out against the heat, it was his duty, but--Ah!what was that? Some one was shouting to him. He had been seen at last,and men, half-clad but eager, were rushing up the yard with a ladder.He could see their faces. How they glared in the red light. Help anddetermination were there, and perhaps when she saw the promise of thissupport, it would give nerve to her fingers and----

  But it was not to be. As he watched their eager approach, he saw themstop, look back, swerve and rush around the corner of the house. Someone had directed them elsewhere. He could see the pointing hand, thebaleful face. Quimby had realised his own danger in this prospect ofHammersmith's escape, and had intervened to prevent it. It was amurderer's natural impulse, and did not surprise him, but it addedanother element of danger to his position, and if this woman delayedmuch longer--but she is coming; a blanket is thrown out, then a danglingend of cloth appears above the sill. It descends. Another moment he hascrawled up the roof to the ridge and grasped it.

  "Slowly now!" he shouts. "Take time and hold on tight. I will guideyou." He feels the frail support stiffen. She has drawn it into herhands; now she is on the sill, and is working herself off. He clutchedhis end firmly, steadying himself as best he might by bestriding theridge of the roof. The strain becomes greater, he feels her weight, sheis slipping down, down. Her hands strike a knot; the jerk almost throwshim off his balance. He utters a word of caution, lost in the growingroar of the flames whose hungry tongues have begun to leap above thegutter. She looks down, sees the approaching peril, and hastens herdescent. He is all astrain, with heart and hand nerved for the awfulpossibilities of the coming moments when--ping! Something goes whistlingby his ear, which for the instant sets his hair bristling on his head,and almost paralyses every muscle. A bullet! The flame is notthreatening enough! Some one is shooting at him from the dark.

  IV

  Well! death which comes one way cannot come another, and a bullet ismore merciful than flame. The thought steadies Hammersmith; besides hehas nothing to do with what is taking place behind his back. His duty ishere, to guide and support this rapidly-descending figure now almostwithin his reach. And he fulfils this duty, though that de
adly "ping" isfollowed by another, and his starting eyes behold the hole made by themissile in the clap-board just before him.

  She is down. They stand toppling together on the slippery ridge with nosupport but the rapidly heating wall down which she had come. He looksone way, then another. Ten feet either way to the gutter! On one sideleap the flames; beneath the other crouches their secret enemy. Theycannot meet the first and live; needs must they face the latter. Bulletsdo not always strike the mark, as witness the two they had escaped.Besides, there are friends as well as enemies in the yard on this side.He can hear their encouraging cries. He will toss down the blanket;perhaps there will be hands to hold it and so break her fall, if nothis.

  With a courage which drew strength from her weakness, he carried outthis plan and saw her land in safety amid half a dozen upstretched arms.Then he prepared to follow her, but felt his courage fail and hisstrength ooze without knowing the cause. Had a bullet struck him? He didnot feel it. He was conscious of the heat, but of no other suffering;yet his limbs lacked life, and it no longer seemed possible for him totwist himself about so as to fall easily from the gutter.

  "Come on! Come on!" rose in yells from below, but there was no movementin him.

  "We can't wait. The wall will fall," rose affrightedly from below. Buthe simply clung and the doom of flame and collapsing timbers was rushingmercilessly upon him when, in the glare which lit up the whole dreadfulscenery, there rose before his fainting eyes the sight of MissDemarest's face turned his way from the crowd below, with all the terrorof a woman's bleeding heart behind it. The joy which this recognitionbrought cleared his brain and gave him strength to struggle with hislethargy. Raising himself on one elbow, he slid his feet over thegutter, and with a frantic catch at its frail support, hung for oneinstant suspended, then dropped softly into the blanket which a dozeneager hands held out for him.

  As he did so, a single gasping cry went up from the hushed throng. Heknew the voice. His rescue had relieved one heart. His own beattumultuously and the blood throbbed in his veins as he realised this.

  The next thing he remembered was standing far from the collapsingbuilding, with a dozen men and boys grouped about him. A woman at hisfeet was clasping his knees in thankfulness, another sinking in a faintat the edge of the shadow, but he saw neither, for the blood wasstreaming over his eyes from a wound not yet accounted for, and as hefelt the burning flow, he realised a fresh duty.

  "Where is Quimby?" he demanded loudly. "He made this hole in myforehead. He's a murderer and a thief, and I order you all in the nameof the law to assist me in arresting him."

  With the confused cry of many voices, the circle widened. Brushing theblood from his brow, he caught at the nearest man, and with one glancetoward the tottering building, pointed to the wall where he and the girlHuldah had clung.

  "Look!" he shouted, "do you see that black spot? Wait till the smokeblows aside. There! now! the spot just below the dangling sheet. It's abullet-hole. It was made while I crouched there. Quimby held the gun. Hehad his reasons for hindering our escape. The girl can tell you----"

  "Yes, yes," rose up from the ground at his feet. "Quimby is a wickedman. He knew that I knew it and he locked my door when he saw theflames coming. I'm willing to tell now. I was afraid before."

  They stared at her with all the wonder of uncomprehending minds as sherose with a resolute air to confront them; but as the full meaning ofher words penetrated their benumbed brains, slowly, man by man, theycrept away to peer about in the barns, and among the clustering shadowsfor the man who had been thus denounced. Hammersmith followed them, andfor a few minutes nothing but chase was in any man's mind. That part ofthe building in which lay hidden the room of shadows shook, tottered,and fell, loading the heavens with sparks and lighting up the pursuitnow become as wild and reckless as the scene itself. To Miss Demarest'seyes, just struggling back to sight and hearing from the nethermostdepths of unconsciousness, it looked like the swirling flight of spiritslost in the vortex of hell. For one wild moment she thought that sheherself had passed the gates of life and was one of those unhappy soulswhirling over a gulf of flame. The next moment she realised her mistake.A kindly voice was in her ear, a kindly hand was pressing a half-burnedblanket about her.

  "Don't stare so," the voice said. "It is only people routing out Quimby.They say he set fire to the tavern himself, to hide his crime and doaway with the one man who knew about it. I know that he locked me inbecause I--Oh, see! they've got him! they've got him! and with a gun inhis hand!"

  The friendly hand fell; both women started upright panting with terrorand excitement. Then one of them drew back, crying in a tone of suddenanguish, "Why, no! It's Jake, Jake!"

  * * * * *

  Daybreak! and with it Doctor Golden, who at the first alarm had riddenout post-haste without waiting to collect his jury. As he stepped to theground before the hollow shell and smoking pile which were all thatremained to mark the scene of yesterday's events, he looked about amongthe half-clad, shivering men and women peering from the barns andstables where they had taken refuge, till his eyes rested on Hammersmithstanding like a sentinel before one of the doors.

  "What's this? what's this?" he cried, as the other quickly approached."Fire, with a man like you in the house?"

  "Fire because I was in the house. They evidently felt obliged to get ridof me somehow. It's been a night of great experiences for me. When theyfound I was not likely to perish in the flames they resorted toshooting. I believe that my forehead shows where one bullet passed.Jake's aim might be improved. Not that I am anxious for it."

  "Jake? Do you mean the clerk? Did he fire at you?"

  "Yes, while I was on the roof engaged in rescuing one of the women."

  "The miserable cur! You arrested him, of course, as soon as you couldlay your hands on him?"

  "Yes. He's back of me in this outhouse."

  "And Quimby? What about Quimby?"

  "He's missing."

  "And Mrs. Quimby?"

  "Missing, too. They are the only persons unaccounted for."

  "Lost in the fire?"

  "We don't think so. He was the incendiary and she, undoubtedly, hisaccomplice. They would certainly look out for themselves. Doctor Golden,it was not for insurance money they fired the place; it was to cover upa crime."

  The coroner, more or less prepared for this statement by whatHammersmith had already told him, showed but little additionalexcitement as he dubiously remarked:

  "So you still hold to that idea."

  Hammersmith glanced about him and, catching more than one curious eyeturned their way from the crowd now rapidly collecting in alldirections, drew the coroner aside and in a few graphic words relatedthe night's occurrences and the conclusions these had forced upon him.Doctor Golden listened and seemed impressed at last, especially by onepoint.

  "You saw Quimby," he repeated; "saw his face distinctly looking towardyour room from one of the stable windows?"

  "I can swear to it. I even caught his expression. It was malignant inthe extreme, quite unlike that he usually turns upon his guests."

  "Which window was it?"

  Hammersmith pointed it out.

  "You have been there? Searched the room and the stable?"

  "Thoroughly, just as soon as it was light enough to see."

  "And found----"

  "Nothing; not even a clue."

  "The man is lying dead in that heap. She, too, perhaps. We'll have toput the screws on Jake. A conspiracy like this must be unearthed. Showme the rascal."

  "He's in a most careless mood. _He_ doesn't think his master andmistress perished in the fire."

  "Careless, eh? Well, we'll see. I know that sort."

  But when a few minutes later he came to confront the clerk he saw thathis task was not likely to prove quite so easy as his former experiencehad led him to expect. Save for a slight nervous trembling of limb andshoulder--surely not unnatural after such a night--Jake bore himselfwith very much the
same indifferent ease he had shown the day before.

  Doctor Golden surveyed him with becoming sternness.

  "At what time did this fire start?" he asked.

  Jake had a harsh voice, but he mellowed it wonderfully as he replied:

  "Somewhere about one. I don't carry a watch, so I don't know the exacttime."

  "The exact time isn't necessary. Near one answers well enough. How cameyou to be completely dressed at near one in a country tavern like this?"

  "I was on watch. There was death in the house."

  "Then you were in the house?"

  "Yes." His tongue faltered, but not his gaze; that was as direct asever. "I was in the house, but not at the moment the fire started. I hadgone to the stable to get a newspaper. My room is in the stable, thelittle one high in the cock-loft. I did not find the paper at once andwhen I did I stopped to read a few lines. I'm a slow reader, and by thetime I was ready to cross back to the house, smoke was pouring out ofthe rear windows, and I stopped short, horrified! I'm mortally afraid offire."

  "You have shown it. I have not heard that you raised the least alarm."

  "I'm afraid you're right. I lost my head like a fool. You see, I'venever lived anywhere else for the last ten years, and to see my home onfire was more than I could stand. You wouldn't think me so weak to lookat these muscles."

  Baring his arm, he stared down at it with a forlorn shake of his head.The coroner glanced at Hammersmith. What sort of fellow was this! Agiant with the air of a child, a rascal with the smile of a humourist.Delicate business, this; or were they both deceived and the man just agood-humoured silly?

  Hammersmith answered the appeal by a nod toward an inner door. Thecoroner understood and turned back to Jake with the seemingly irrelevantinquiry:

  "Where did you leave Mr. Quimby when you went to the cock-loft?"

  "In the house?"

  "Asleep?"

  "No, he was making up his accounts."

  "In the office?"

  "Yes."

  "And that was where you left him?"

  "Yes, it was."

  "Then, how came he to be looking out of your window just before the firebroke out?"

  "He?" Jake's jaw fell and his enormous shoulders drooped; but only for amoment. With something between a hitch and a shrug, he drew himselfupright and with some slight display of temper cried out, "Who says hewas there?"

  The coroner answered him. "The man behind you. He saw him."

  Jake's hand closed in a nervous grip. Had the trigger been against hisfinger at that moment it would doubtless have been snapped with somesatisfaction, so the barrel had been pointing at Hammersmith.

  "Saw him distinctly," the coroner repeated. "Mr. Quimby's face is not tobe mistaken."

  "If he saw him," retorted Jake, with unexpected cunning, "then theflames had got a start. One don't see in the dark. They hadn't got muchof a start when I left. So he must have gone up to my room after I camedown."

  "It was before the alarm was given; before Mr. Hammersmith here hadcrawled out of his room window."

  "I can't help that, sir. It was after I left the stable. You can't mixme up with Quimby's doings."

  "Can't we? Jake, you're no lawyer and you don't know how to manage alie. Make a clean breast of it. It may help you and it won't hurtQuimby. Begin with the old lady's coming. What turned Quimby againsther? What's the plot?"

  "I don't know of any plot. What Quimby told you is true. You needn'texpect me to contradict it!"

  A leaden doggedness had taken the place of his whilom good nature.Nothing is more difficult to contend with. Nothing is more dreaded bythe inquisitor. Hammersmith realised the difficulties of the situationand repeated the gesture he had previously made toward the door leadinginto an adjoining compartment. The coroner nodded as before and changedthe tone of his inquiry.

  "Jake," he declared, "you are in a more serious position than yourealise. You may be devoted to Quimby, but there are others who are not.A night such as you have been through quickens the conscience of womenif it does not that of men. One has been near death. The story of such awoman is apt to be truthful. Do you want to hear it? I have noobjections to your doing so."

  "What story? I don't know of any story. Women have easy tongues; theytalk even when they have nothing to say."

  "This woman has something to say, or why should she have asked to beconfronted with you? Have her in, Mr. Hammersmith. I imagine that asight of this man will make her voluble."

  A sneer from Jake; but when Hammersmith, crossing to the door I've justmentioned, opened it and let in Huldah, this token of bravado gave wayto a very different expression and he exclaimed half ironically, halfcaressingly:

  "Why, she's my sweetheart! What can she have to say except that she wasmighty fortunate not to have been burned up in the fire last night?"

  Doctor Golden and the detective crossed looks in some anxiety. They hadnot been told of this relation between the two, either by the girlherself or by the others. Gifted with a mighty close mouth, she hadnevertheless confided to Hammersmith that she could tell things andwould, if he brought her face to face with the man who tried to shoothim while he was helping her down from the roof. Would her indignationhold out under the insinuating smile with which the artful rascalawaited her words? It gave every evidence of doing so, for her eyeflashed threateningly and her whole body showed the tension of extremefeeling as she came hastily forward, and pausing just beyond the reachof his arm, cried out:

  "You had a hand in locking me in. You're tired of me. If you're not, whydid you fire those bullets my way? I was escaping and----"

  Jake thrust in a quick word. "That was Quimby's move--locking your door.He had some game up. I don't know what it was. I had nothing to do withit."

  This denial seemed to influence her. She looked at him and her breastheaved. He was good to look at; he must have been more than that to oneof her restricted experience. Hammersmith trembled for the success oftheir venture. Would this blond young giant's sturdy figure andprovoking smile prevail against the good sense which must tell her thathe was criminal to the core, and that neither his principle nor his lovewere to be depended on? No, not yet. With a deepening flush, she flashedout:

  "You hadn't? You didn't want me dead? Why, then, those bullets? Youmight have killed me as well as Mr. Hammersmith when you fired!"

  "Huldah!" Astonishment and reproach in the tone and something more thaneither in the look which accompanied it. Both were very artful andbetrayed resources not to be expected from one of his ordinarilycareless and good-humoured aspect. "You haven't heard what I've saidabout that?"

  "What could you say?"

  "Why, the truth, Huldah. I saw you on the roof. The fire was near. Ithought that neither you nor the man helping you could escape. A deathof that kind is horrible. I loved you too well to see you suffer. My gunwas behind the barn door. I got it and fired out of mercy."

  She gasped. So, in a way, did the two officials. The plea was sospecious, and its likely effect upon her so evident.

  "Jake, can I believe you?" she murmured.

  For answer, he fumbled in his pocket and drew out a small object whichhe held up before her between his fat forefinger and thumb. It was aring, a thin, plain hoop of gold worth possibly a couple of dollars, butwhich in her eyes seemed to possess an incalculable value, for she hadno sooner seen it than her whole face flushed and a look of positivedelight supplanted the passionately aggrieved one with which she hadhitherto faced him.

  "You had bought _that_?"

  He smiled and returned it to his pocket.

  "For you," he simply said.

  The joy and pride with which she regarded him, despite the protestingmurmur of the discomfited Hammersmith, proved that the wily Jake hadbeen too much for them.

  "You see!" This to Hammersmith, "Jake didn't mean any harm, onlykindness to us both. If you will let him go, I'll be more thankful thanwhen you helped me down off the roof. We're wanting to be married.Didn't you see him show me the ring?"
>
  It was for the coroner to answer.

  "We'll let him go when we're assured that he means all that he says. Ihaven't as good an opinion of him as you have. I think he's deceivingyou and that you are a very foolish girl to trust him. Men don't fire onthe women they love, for any reason. You'd better tell me what you haveagainst him."

  "I haven't anything against him _now_."

  "But you were going to tell us something----"

  "I guess I was fooling."

  "People are not apt to fool who have just been in terror of theirlives."

  Her eyes sought the ground. "I'm just a hardworking girl," she mutteredalmost sullenly. "What should I know about that man Quimby's dreadfuldoings?"

  "Dreadful? You call them dreadful?" It was Doctor Golden who spoke.

  "He locked me in my room," she violently declared. "That wasn't done forfun."

  "And is that all you can tell us? Don't look at Jake. Look at me."

  "But I don't know what to say. I don't even know what you want."

  "I'll tell you. Your work in the house has been upstairs work, hasn'tit?"

  "Yes, sir. I did up the rooms--some of them," she added cautiously.

  "What rooms? Front rooms, rear rooms, or both?"

  "Rooms in front; those on the third floor."

  "But you sometimes went into the extension?"

  "I've been down the hall."

  "Haven't you been in any of the rooms there,--Number 3, for instance?"

  "No, sir; my work didn't take me there."

  "But you've heard of the room?"

  "Yes, sir. The girls sometimes spoke of it. It had a bad name, andwasn't often used. No girl liked to go there. A man was found dead in itonce. They said he killed his own self."

  "Have you ever heard any one describe this room?"

  "No, sir."

  "Tell what paper was on the wall?"

  "No, sir."

  "Perhaps Jake here can help us. He's been in the room often."

  "The paper was blue; you know that; you saw it yourselves yesterday,"blurted forth the man thus appealed to.

  "Always blue? Never any other colour that you remember?"

  "No; but I've been in the house only ten years."

  "Oh, is that all! And do you mean to say that this room has not beenredecorated in ten years?"

  "How can I tell? I can't remember every time a room is repapered."

  "You ought to remember this one."

  "Why?"

  "Because of a very curious circumstance connected with it."

  "I don't know of any circumstance."

  "You heard what Miss Demarest had to say about a room whose walls werecovered with muddy pink scrolls."

  "Oh, she!" His shrug was very expressive. Huldah continued to look down.

  "Miss Demarest seemed to know what she was talking about," pursued thecoroner in direct contradiction of the tone he had taken the day before."Her description was quite vivid. It would be strange now if those wallshad once been covered with just such paper as she described."

  An ironic stare, followed by an incredulous smile from Jake; deadsilence and immobility on the part of Huldah.

  "Was it?" shot from Doctor Golden's lips with all the vehemence ofconscious authority.

  There was an instant's pause, during which Huldah's breast ceased itsregular rise and fall; then the clerk laughed sharply and cried with theapparent lightness of a happy-go-lucky temperament:

  "I should like to know if it was. I'd think it a very curiousquin--quin----What's the word? quincedence, or something like that."

  "The deepest fellow I know," grumbled the baffled coroner intoHammersmith's ear, as the latter stepped his way, "or just the mostsimple." Then added aloud: "Lift up my coat there, please."

  Hammersmith did so. The garment mentioned lay across a small table whichformed the sole furnishing of the place, and when Hammersmith raised it,there appeared lying underneath several small pieces of plaster whichDoctor Golden immediately pointed out to Jake.

  "Do you see these bits from a papered wall?" he asked. "They were tornfrom that of Number 3, between the breaking out of the fire and Mr.Hammersmith's escape from the room. Come closer; you may look at them,but keep your fingers off. You see that the coincidence you mentionedholds."

  Jake laughed again loudly, in a way he probably meant to expressderision; then he stood silent, gazing curiously down at the piecesbefore him. The blue paper peeling away from the pink made it impossiblefor him to deny that just such paper as Miss Demarest described had beenon the wall prior to the one they had all seen and remembered.[A]

  [Footnote A: Hammersmith's first attempt to settle this fact must havefailed from his having chosen a spot for his experiment where the oldpaper had been stripped away before the new was put on.]

  "Well, I vum!" Jake finally broke out, turning and looking from one faceto another with a very obvious attempt to carry off the matter jovially."She must have a great eye; a--a--(another hard word! What is it now?)Well! no matter. One of the kind what sees through the outside of thingsto what's underneath. I always thought her queer, but not so queer asthat. I'd like to have that sort of power myself. Wouldn't you, Huldah?"

  The girl, whose eye, as Hammersmith was careful to note, had hardlydwelt for an instant on these bits, not so long by any means as awoman's natural curiosity would seem to prompt, started as attention wasthus drawn to herself and attempted a sickly smile.

  But the coroner had small appreciation for this attempted display ofhumour, and motioning to Hammersmith to take her away, he subjected theclerk to a second examination which, though much more searching andrigorous than the first, resulted in the single discovery that for allhis specious love-making he cared no more for the girl than for one ofhis old hats. This the coroner confided to Hammersmith when he came inlooking disconsolate at his own failure to elicit anything further fromthe resolute Huldah.

  "But you can't make her believe that now," whispered Hammersmith.

  "Then we must trick him into showing her his real feelings."

  "How would you set to work? He's warned, she's warned, and life if notlove is at stake."

  "It don't look very promising," muttered Doctor Golden, "but----"

  He was interrupted by a sudden sound of hubbub without.

  "It's Quimby, Quimby!" declared Hammersmith in his sudden excitement.

  But again he was mistaken. It was not the landlord, but his wife,wild-eyed, dishevelled, with bits of straw in her hair from somesheltering hayrick and in her hand a heavy gold chain which, as themorning sun shone across it, showed sparkles of liquid clearness atshort intervals along its whole length.

  Diamonds! Miss Thistlewaite's diamonds, and the woman who held them wasgibbering like an idiot!

  The effect on Jake was remarkable. Uttering a piteous cry, he boundedfrom their hands and fell at the woman's feet.

  "Mother Quimby!" he moaned. "Mother Quimby!" and sought to kiss her handand wake some intelligence in her eye.

  Meanwhile the coroner and Hammersmith looked on, astonished at theseevidences of real feeling. Then their eyes stole behind them, andsimultaneously both started back for the outhouse they had just left.Huldah was standing in the doorway, surveying the group before her withtrembling, half-parted lips.

  "Jealous!" muttered Hammersmith. "Providence has done our little trickfor us. She will talk now. Look! She's beckoning to us."

  V

  "Speak quickly. You'll never regret it, Huldah. He's no mate for you,and you ought to know it. You have seen this paper covered with the pinkscrolls before?"

  The coroner had again drawn aside his coat from the bits of plaster.

  "Yes," she gasped, with quick glances at her lover through the opendoorway. "He never shed tears for me!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I didn'tknow he could for anybody. Oh, I'll tell what I've kept quiet here," andshe struck her breast violently. "I wouldn't keep the truth back now ifthe minister was waiting to marry us. He loves that old woman and hedoesn't love me. He
ar him call her 'mother.' Are mothers dearer thansweethearts? Oh, I'll tell! I don't know anything about the old lady,but I do know that room 3 was repapered the night before last, andsecretly, by him. I didn't see him do it, nobody did, but this is how Iknow: Some weeks ago I was hunting for something in the attic, when Istumbled upon some rolls of old wall-paper lying in a little cubby-holeunder the eaves. The end of one of the rolls was torn and lay across thefloor. I couldn't help seeing it or remembering its colour. It was likethis, blue and striped. Exactly like it," she repeated, "just as shabbyand old-looking. The rain had poured in on it, and it was all mouldy andstained. It smelt musty. I didn't give two thoughts to it then, but whenafter the old lady's death I heard one of the girls say something inthe kitchen about a room being blue now which only a little while agowas pink, I stole up into the attic to see if those rolls were stillthere and found them every one gone. Oh, what is happening now?"

  "One of the men is trying to take the diamonds from the woman and shewon't let him. Her wits are evidently gone--frightened away by thehorrors of the night--or she wouldn't try to cling to what has brandedher at once as a thief."

  The word seemed to pierce the girl. She stared out at her formermistress, who was again being soothed by the clerk, and murmuredhoarsely:

  "A thief! and he don't seem to mind, but is just as good to her! Oh, oh,I once served a term myself for--for a smaller thing than that and Ithought that was why----Oh, sir, oh, sir, there's no mistake about thepaper. For I went looking about in the barrels and where they throw therefuse, for bits to prove that this papering had been done in the night.It seemed so wonderful to me that any one, even Jake, who is thesmartest man you ever saw, could do such a job as that and no one know.And though I found nothing in the barrels, I did in the laundry stove.It was full of burned paper, and some of it showed colour, and it wasjust that musty old blue I had seen in the attic."

  She paused with a terrified gasp; Jake was looking at her from the opendoor.

  "Oh, Jake!" she wailed out, "why weren't you true to me? Why did youpretend to love me when you didn't?"

  He gave her a look, then turned on his heel. He was very much subdued inaspect and did not think to brush away the tear still glistening on hischeek.

  "I've said my last word to _you_," he quietly declared, then stoodsilent a moment, with slowly labouring chest and an air of deepestgloom. But, as his eye stole outside again, they saw the spirit meltwithin him and simple human grief take the place of icy resolution. "Shewas like a mother to me," he murmured. "And now they say she'll never beherself again as long as she lives." Suddenly his head rose and he facedthe coroner.

  "You're right," said he. "It's all up with me. No home, no sweetheart,no missus. _She_ [there was no doubt as to whom he meant by thattremulous _she_] was the only one I've ever cared for and she's justshown herself a thief. I'm no better. This is our story."

  I will not give it in his words, but in my own. It will be shorter andpossibly more intelligible.

  The gang, if you may call it so, consisted of Quimby and these two, witha servant or so in addition. Robbery was its aim; a discreet and nonetoo frequent spoliation of such of their patrons as lent themselves totheir schemes. Quimby was the head, his wife the soul of this business,and Jake their devoted tool. The undermining of the latter's characterhad been begun early; a very dangerous undermining, because it had forone of its elements good humour and affectionate suggestion. Atfourteen he was ready for any crime, but he was mercifully kept out ofthe worst till he was a full-grown man. Then he did his part. The affairof the old woman was an unpremeditated one. It happened in this wise:Miss Demarest's story had been true in every particular. Her mother_was_ with her when she came to the house, and he, Jake, was the personsitting far back in the shadows at the time the young lady registered.There was nothing peculiar in the occurrence or in their behaviourexcept the decided demand which Miss Demarest made for separate rooms.This attracted his attention, for the house was pretty full and only oneroom was available in the portion reserved for transients. What wouldQuimby do? He couldn't send two women away, and he was entirely tooconciliatory and smooth to refuse a request made so peremptorily. Quimbydid nothing. He hemmed, hawed, and looked about for his wife. She was inthe inner office back of him, and, attracted by his uneasy movements,showed herself. A whispered consultation followed, during which she casta glance Jake's way. He understood her instantly and lounged carelesslyforward. "Let them have Number 3," he said. "It's all fixed for thenight. I can sleep anywhere, on the settle here or even on the floor ofthe inner office."

  He had whispered these words, for the offer meant more than appeared.Number 3 was never given to guests. It was little more than a closetand was not even furnished. A cot had been put in that very afternoon,but only to meet a special emergency. A long-impending conference wasgoing to be held between him and his employers subsequent to closing uptime, and he had planned this impromptu refuge to save himself a latewalk to the stable. At his offer to pass the same over to the Demarests,the difficulty of the moment vanished. Miss Demarest was shown to theone empty room in front, and the mother--as being the one less likely tobe governed by superstitious fears if it so happened that some rumour ofthe undesirability of the haunted Number 3 should have reached them--tothe small closet so hastily prepared for the clerk. Mrs. Quimbyaccompanied her, and afterward visited her again for the purpose ofcarrying her a bowl and some water. It was then she encountered MissDemarest, who, anxious for a second and more affectionate good-nightfrom her mother, had been wandering the halls in a search for her room.There was nothing to note in this simple occurrence, and Mrs. Quimbymight have forgotten all about it if Miss Demarest had not made acertain remark on leaving the room. The bareness and inhospitable aspectof the place may have struck her, for she stopped in the doorway and,looking back, exclaimed: "What ugly paper! Magenta, too, the one colourmy mother hates." This Mrs. Quimby remembered, for she also hatedmagenta, and never went into this room if she could help it.

  The business which kept them all up that night was one totallydisconnected with the Demarests or any one else in the house. A largeoutstanding obligation was coming due which Quimby lacked the money tomeet. Something must be done with the stolen notes and jewelry whichthey had accumulated in times past and had never found the will orcourage to dispose of. A choice must be made of what was salable. Butwhat choice? It was a question that opened the door to endlesscontroversy and possibly to a great difference of opinion; for in hisway Quimby was a miser of the worst type and cared less for what moneywould do than for the sight and feeling of the money itself, while Mrs.Quimby was even more tenacious in her passion for the trinkets and gemswhich she looked upon as her part of the booty. Jake, on the contrary,cared little for anything but the good of the couple to whom he hadattached himself. He wished Quimby to be satisfied, but not at Mrs.Quimby's expense. He was really fond of the woman and he was resolvedthat she should have no cause to grieve, even if he had to break withthe old man. Little did any of them foresee what the night really heldfor them, or on what a jagged and unsuspected rock their frail bark wasabout to split.

  Shutting-up time came, and with it the usual midnight quiet. All thedoors had been locked and the curtains drawn over the windows and acrossthe glass doors of the office. They were determined to do what they hadnever done before, lay out the loot and make a division. Quimby wasresolved to see the diamonds which his wife had kept hidden for solong, and she, the securities, concerning the value of which he hadcontradicted himself so often. Jake's presence would keep the peace;they had no reason to fear any undue urging of his claims. All this heknew, and he was not therefore surprised, only greatly excited, when,after a last quiet look and some listening at the foot of the stairs,Mr. Quimby beckoned him into the office and, telling him to lock thedoor behind him, stepped around the bar to summon his wife. Jake neverknew how it happened. He flung the door to and locked it, as he thought,but he must have turned the key too quickly, for the bolt of the lockdid not ente
r the jamb, as they afterward found. Meanwhile they feltperfectly secure. The jewels were brought out of Mrs. Quimby's bedroomand laid on the desk. The securities were soon laid beside them. Theyhad been concealed behind a movable brick at the side of the fireplace.Then the discussion began, involving more or less heat and excitement.

  How long this lasted no one ever knew. At half-past eleven no change ofattitude had taken place either in Quimby or his wife. At twelve theonly difference marked by Jake was the removal of the securities toQuimby's breast pocket, and of the diamond-studded chain to Mrs.Quimby's neck. The former were too large for the pocket, the latter toobrilliant for the dark calico background they blazed against. Jake, whowas no fool, noted both facts, but had no words for the situation. Hewas absorbed, and he saw that Quimby was absorbed, in watching herbroad hand creeping over those diamonds and huddling them up in aburning heap against her heart. There was fear in the action, fierce andovermastering fear, and so there was in her eyes which, fixed andglassy, stared over their shoulders at the wall behind, as thoughsomething had reached out from that wall and struck at the very root ofher being. What did it mean? There was nothing in the room to affrighther. Had she gone daft? Or----

  Suddenly they both felt the blood congeal in their own veins; eachturned to each a horrified face, then slowly and as if drawn by a powersupernatural and quite outside of their own will, their two heads turnedin the direction she was looking, and they beheld standing in theirmidst a spectre--no, it was the figure of a living, breathing woman,with eyes fastened on those jewels,--those well-known, much-advertisedjewels! So much they saw in that instant flash, then nothing! ForQuimby, in a frenzy of unreasoning fear, had taken the chair from underhim and had swung it at the figure. A lamp had stood on the bar top. Itwas caught by the backward swing of the chair, overturned and quenched.The splintering of glass mingled its small sound with an ominous thud inthe thick darkness. It was the end of all things; the falling of animpenetrable curtain over a horror half sensed, yet all the greater forits mystery.

  The silence--the terror--the unspeakable sense of doom which grippedthem all was not broken by a heart-beat. All listened for a stir, amovement where they could see nothing. But the stillness remainedunbroken. The silence was absolute. The figure which they had believedthemselves to have seen had been a dream, an imagination of theiroverwrought minds. It could not be otherwise. The door had been locked,entrance was impossible; yet doubt held them powerless. The moments weremaking years of themselves. To each came in a flash a review of everyearthly incident they had experienced, every wicked deed, every unholyaspiration. Quimby gritted his teeth. It was the first sound which hadfollowed that thud and, slight as it was, it released them somewhat fromtheir awful tension. Jake felt that he could move now, and was about tolet forth his imprisoned breath when he felt the touch of icy fingerstrailing over his cheek, and started back with a curse. It was Mrs.Quimby feeling about for him in the impenetrable darkness, and inanother moment he could hear her smothered whisper:

  "Are you there, Jake?"

  "Yes; where are you?"

  "Here," said the woman, with an effort to keep her teeth from strikingtogether.

  "For God's sake, a light!" came from the hollow darkness beyond.

  It was Quimby's voice at last. Jake answered:

  "No light for me. I'll stay where I am till daybreak."

  "Get a light, you fool!" commanded Quimby, but not without a tremble inhis usually mild tone.

  Hard breathing from Jake, but no other response, Quimby seemed to take astep nearer, for his voice was almost at their ears now.

  "Jake, you can have anything I've got so as you get a light now."

  "There ain't nothing to light here. You broke the lamp."

  Quiet for a moment, then Quimby muttered hoarsely:

  "If you ain't scared out of your seven senses, you can go down cellarand bring up that bit of candle 'longside the ale-barrels."

  Into the cellar! Not Jake. The moving of the rickety table which his fathand had found and rested on spoke for him.

  Another curse from Quimby. Then the woman, though with some hesitation,said with more self-control than could be expected:

  "I'll get it," and they heard her move away from _it_ toward thetrap-door behind the bar.

  The two men made no objection. To her that cold, black cellar might seema refuge from the unseen horror centred here. It had not struck them so.It had its own possibilities, and Jake wondered at her courage, as hecaught the sound of her groping advance and the sudden clatter and clinkof bottles as the door came up and struck the edge of the bar. There waslife and a suggestion of home in that clatter and clink, and allbreathed easier for a moment, but only for a moment. The somethinglying there behind them, or was it almost under their feet, soon got itshold again upon their fears, and Jake found himself standingstock-still, listening both ways for that dreaded, or would it bewelcome, movement on the floor behind, and to the dragging sound of Mrs.Quimby's skirt and petticoat as she made her first step down thosecellar-stairs. What an endless time it took! He could rush down there ina minute, but she--she could not have reached the third step yet, forthat always creaked. Now it did creak. Then there was no sound for sometime, unless it was the panting of Quimby's breath somewhere over by thebar. Then the stair creaked again. She must be nearly up.

  "Here's matches and the candle," came in a hollow voice from thetrap-stairs.

  A faint streak appeared for an instant against the dark, thendisappeared. Another; but no lasting light. The matches were too damp toburn.

  "Jake, ain't you got a match?" appealed the voice of Quimby inhalf-choked accents.

  After a bit of fumbling a small blaze shot up from where Jake stood. Itssulphurous smell may have suggested to all, as it did to one, theimmeasurable distance of heaven at that moment, and the awful nearnessof hell. They could see now, but not one of them looked in the directionwhere all their thoughts lay. Instead of that, they rolled their eyes oneach other, while the match burned slowly out: Mrs. Quimby from thetrap, her husband from the bar, and Jake. Suddenly he found words, andhis cry rang through the room:

  "The candle! the candle! this is my only match. Where is the candle?"

  Quimby leaped forward and with shaking hand held the worn bit of candleto the flame. It failed to ignite. The horrible, dreaded darkness wasabout to close upon them again before--before----But another hand hadseized the candle. Mrs. Quimby has come forward, and as the match sendsup its last flicker, thrusts the wick against the flame and the candleflares up. It is lighted.

  Over it they give each other one final appealing stare. There's no helpfor it now; they must look. Jake's head turned first, then Mrs. Quimby,and then that of the real aggressor.

  A simultaneous gasp from them all betrays the worst. It had been nophantom called into being by their overtaxed nerves. A woman lay beforethem, face downward on the hard floor. A woman dressed in black, withhat on head and a little satchel clutched in one stiff, outstretchedhand. Miss Demarest's mother! The little old lady who had come into theplace four hours before!

  With a muttered execration, Jake stepped over to her side andendeavoured to raise her; but he instantly desisted, and looking up atQuimby and his wife, moved his lips with the one fatal word which endsall hope:

  "Dead!"

  They listened appalled, "Dead?" echoed the now terrified Quimby.

  "Dead?" repeated his no less agitated wife.

  Jake was the least overcome of the three. With another glance at themotionless figure, he rose, and walking around the body, crossed to thedoor and seeing what he had done to make entrance possible, cursedhimself and locked it properly. Meanwhile, Mrs. Quimby, with her eyes onher husband, had backed slowly away till she had reached the desk,against which she now stood with fierce and furious eyes, stillclutching at her chain.

  Quimby watched her fascinated. He had never seen her look like thisbefore. What did it portend? They were soon to know.

  "Coward!" fell from her lips, a
s she stared with unrelenting hate at herhusband. "An old woman who was not even conscious of what she saw! I'llnot stand for this killing, Jacob. You may count me out of this and thechain, too. If you don't----" a threatening gesture finished thesentence and the two men looking at her knew that they had come upagainst a wall.

  "Susan!" Was that Quimby speaking? "Susan, are you going back on menow?"

  She pointed at the motionless figure lying in its shrouding black likean ineffaceable blot on the office floor, then at the securities showingabove the edge of his pocket.

  "Were we not close enough to discovery, without drawing the attention ofthe police by such an unnecessary murder? She was walking in her sleep.I remember her eyes as she advanced toward me; there was no sight inthem."

  "You lie!" It was the only word which Quimby found to ease the shockwhich this simple statement caused him. But Jake saw from the nature ofthe glance he shot at his poor old victim that her words had struckhome. His wife saw it, too, but it did not disturb the set line of herdetermined mouth.

  "You'll let me keep the chain," she said, "and you'll use your wits, nowthat you have used your hand, to save yourself and myself from thecharge of murder."

  Quimby, who was a man of great intelligence when his faculties wereundisturbed by anger or shock, knelt and turned his victim carefullyover so that her face was uppermost.

  "It was not murder," he uttered in an indescribable tone after a fewminutes of cautious scrutiny. "The old lady fell and struck herforehead. See! the bruise is scarcely perceptible. Had she beenyounger----"

  "A sudden death from any cause in this house at just this time is fullof danger for us," coldly broke in his wife.

  The landlord rose to his feet, walked away to the window, dropped hishead, thought for a minute, and then slowly came back, glanced at thewoman again, at her dress, her gloved hands, and her little satchel.

  "She didn't die in this house," fell from his lips in his most oilyaccents. "She fell in the woods; the path is full of bared roots, andthere she must be found to-morrow morning. Jake, are you up to thelittle game?"

  Jake, who was drawing his first full breath, answered with a calm enoughnod, whereupon Quimby bade his wife to take a look outside and see ifthe way was clear for them to carry the body out.

  She did not move. He fell into a rage; an unusual thing for him.

  "Bestir yourself! do as I bid you," he muttered.

  Her eyes held his; her face took on the look he had learned to dread.Finally she spoke:

  "And the daughter! What about the daughter?"

  Quimby stood silent; then with a sidelong leer, and in a tone smooth asoil, but freighted with purpose, "The mother first; we'll look after thedaughter later."

  Mrs. Quimby shivered; then as her hand spread itself over the preciouschain sparkling with the sinister gleam of serpent's eyes on her broadbosom, she grimly muttered:

  "How? I'm for no more risks, I tell you."

  Jake took a step forward. He thought his master was about to rush uponher. But he was only gathering up his faculties to meet the new problemshe had flung at him.

  "The girl's a mere child; we shall have no difficulty with her," hemuttered broodingly. "Who saw these two come in?"

  Then it came out that no one but themselves had been present at theirarrival. Further consultation developed that the use to which Number 3had been put was known to but one of the maids, who could easily besilenced. Whereupon Quimby told his scheme. Mrs. Quimby was satisfied,and he and Jake prepared to carry it out.

  The sensations of the next half-hour, as told by Jake, would make yourflesh creep. They did not dare to carry a lamp to light the gruesometask, and well as they knew the way, the possibilities of a stumble or afall against some one of the many trees they had to pass filled themwith constant terror. They did stumble once, and the low cry Jakeuttered caused them new fears. Was that a window they heard flying up?No; but something moved in the bushes. They were sure of this andguiltily shook in their shoes; but nothing advanced out of the shadows,and they went on.

  But the worst was when they had to turn their backs upon the body leftlying face downward in the cold, damp woods. Men of no compassion,unreached by ordinary sympathies, they felt the furtive skulking back,step by step, along ways commonplace enough in the daytime, but begirtwith terrors now and full of demoniac suggestion.

  The sight of a single thread of light marking the door left ajar forthem by Mrs. Quimby was a beacon of hope which was not even disturbed bythe sight of her wild figure walking in a circle round and round theoffice, the stump of candle dripping unheeded over her fingers, and hereyes almost as sightless as those of the form left in the woods.

  "Susan!" exclaimed her husband, laying hand on her.

  She paused at once. The presence of the two men had restored herself-possession.

  But all was not well yet. Jake drew Quimby's attention to the registerwhere the two names of mother and daughter could be seen in plain blackand white.

  "Oh, that's nothing!" exclaimed the landlord, and, taking out his knife,he ripped the leaf out, together with the corresponding one in the back."The devil's on our side all right, or why did she pass over the spaceat the bottom of the page and write their two names at the top of thenext one?"

  He started, for his wife had clutched his arm.

  "Yes, the devil's on our side thus far," said she, "but here he stops. Ihave just remembered something that will upset our whole plan andpossibly hang us. Miss Demarest visited her mother in Number 3 andnoticed the room well, and particularly the paper. Now if she is able todescribe that paper, it might not be so easy for us to have our storybelieved."

  For a minute all stood aghast, then Jake quietly remarked: "It is nowone by the clock. If you can find me some of that old blue paper I oncechucked under the eaves in the front attic, I will engage to have it onthose four walls before daylight. Bring the raggedest rolls you canfind. If it shouldn't be dry to the touch when they come to see itto-morrow, it must look so stained and old that no one will think oflaying hand on it. I'll go make the paste."

  As Jake was one of the quickest and most precise of workers at anythinghe understood, this astonishing offer struck the other two as quitefeasible. The paper was procured, the furniture moved back, and atransformation made in the room in question which astonished even thoseconcerned in it. Dawn rose upon the completed work and, theself-possession of all three having been restored with the burning up ofsuch scraps as remained after the four walls were covered, they eachwent to their several beds for a half-hour of possible rest. Jake's wasin Number 3. He has never said what that half-hour was to him!

  The rest we know. The scheme did not fully succeed, owing to theinterest awakened in one man's mind by the beauty and seeming truth ofMiss Demarest. Investigation followed which roused the landlord to thedanger threatening them from the curiosity of Hammersmith, and it beingneck or nothing with him, he planned the deeper crime of burning up roomand occupant before further discoveries could be made. What became ofhim in the turmoil which followed, no one could tell, not even Jake.They had been together in Jake's room before the latter ran out with hisgun, but beyond that the clerk knew nothing. Of Mrs. Quimby he couldtell more. She had not been taken into their confidence regarding thefire, some small grains of humanity remaining in her which they fearedmight upset their scheme. She had only been given some pretext forlocking Huldah in her room, and it was undoubtedly her horror at her owndeed when she saw to what it had committed her which unsettled her brainand made her a gibbering idiot for life.

  Or was it some secret knowledge of her husband's fate, unknown toothers? We cannot tell, for no sign nor word of Jacob Quimby ever cameto dispel the mystery of his disappearance.

  And this is the story of Three Forks Tavern and the room numbered 3.