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The Last Stroke: A Detective Story

by Lawrence L. Lynch · English · Gutenberg #35304 · 404,619 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Last Stroke: A Detective Story

Author: Lawrence L. Lynch


        
Release date: February 17, 2011 [eBook #35304]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35304

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST STROKE: A DETECTIVE STORY ***




Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)






THE LAST STROKE

_A DETECTIVE STORY_

BY LAWRENCE L. LYNCH

(E. MURDOCH VAN DEVENTER)

_Author of_ "_No Proof_," "_Moina_," _&c., &c._

LONDON:
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.




CONTENTS.


                              PAGE
CHAPTER I.
SOMETHING WRONG                  1

CHAPTER II.
FOUND                           12

CHAPTER III.
NEMESIS                         28

CHAPTER IV.
FERRARS                         39

CHAPTER V.
IN CONSULTATION                 52

CHAPTER VI.
"WHICH?"                        64

CHAPTER VII.
RENUNCIATION                    75

CHAPTER VIII.
TRICKERY                        90

CHAPTER IX.
A LETTER                       101

CHAPTER X.
THIS HELPS ME                  117

CHAPTER XI.
DETAILS                        127

CHAPTER XII.
"FERRISS-GRANT"                135

CHAPTER XIII.
THE "LAKE COUNTY HERALD"       148

CHAPTER XIV.
A GHOST                        157

CHAPTER XV.
REBELLION                      175

CHAPTER XVI.
"OUT OF REACH"                 185

CHAPTER XVII.
RUTH GLIDDEN                   196

CHAPTER XVIII.
SUDDEN FLITTINGS               208

CHAPTER XIX.
THROUGH THE MAIL               221

CHAPTER XX.
A WOMAN'S HEART                237

CHAPTER XXI.
"QUARRELSOME HARRY"            250

CHAPTER XXII.
IN NUMBER NINE                 269

CHAPTER XXIII.
TWO INTERVIEWS                 279

CHAPTER XXIV.
MRS. GASTON LATHAM             292

CHAPTER XXV.
THE LAST STROKE                301




THE LAST STROKE.




CHAPTER I.

SOMETHING WRONG.


It was a May morning in Glenville. Pretty, picturesque Glenville, low
lying by the lake shore, with the waters of the lake surging to meet it,
or coyly receding from it, on the one side, and the green-clad hills
rising gradually and gently on the other, ending in a belt of trees at
the very horizon's edge.

There is little movement in the quiet streets of the town at half-past
eight o'clock in the morning, save for the youngsters who, walking,
running, leaping, sauntering or waiting idly, one for another, are, or
should be, on their way to the school-house which stands upon the very
southernmost outskirts of the town, and a little way up the hilly
slope, at a reasonably safe remove from the willow-fringed lake shore.

The Glenville school-house was one of the earliest public buildings
erected in the village, and it had been "located" in what was
confidently expected to be the centre of the place. But the new and
late-coming impetus, which had changed the hamlet of half a hundred
dwellings to one of twenty times that number, and made of it a quiet and
not too fashionable little summer resort, had carried the business of
the place northward, and its residences still farther north, thus
leaving this seat of learning aloof from, and quite above the newer
town, in isolated and lofty dignity, surrounded by trees; in the
outskirts, in fact, of a second belt of wood, which girdled the lake
shore, even as the further and loftier fringe of timber outlined the
hilltops at the edge of the eastern horizon and far away.

"Les call 'er the 'cademy?" suggested Elias Robbins, one of the builders
of the school-house, and an early settler of Glenville. "What's to
hinder?"

"Nothin'," declared John Rote, the village oracle. "'Twill sound
first-rate."

They were standing outside the building, just completed and resplendent
in two coats of yellow paint, and they were just from the labour of
putting in, "hangin'" the new bell.

All of masculine Glenville was present, and the other sex was not
without representation.

"Suits me down ter the ground!" commented a third citizen; and no doubt
it would have suited the majority, but when Parson Ryder was consulted,
he smiled genially and shook his head.

"It won't do, I'm afraid, Elias," he said. "We're only a village as yet,
you see, and we can't even dub it the High School, except from a
geographical point of view. However, we are bound to grow, and our
titles will come with the growth."

The growth, after a time, began; but it was only a summer growth; and
the school-house was still a village school-house with its master and
one under, or primary, teacher; and to-day there was a frisking group of
the smaller youngsters rushing about the school-yard, while the first
bell rang out, and half a dozen of the older pupils clustered about the
girlish under-teacher full of questions and wonder; for Johnny Robbins,
whose turn it was to ring the bell this week, after watching the clock,
and the path up the hill, alternately, until the time for the first bell
had come, and was actually twenty seconds past, had reluctantly but
firmly seized the rope and began to pull.

"'Taint no use, Miss Grant; I'll have to do it. He told me not to wait
for nothin', never, when 'twas half-past eight, and so"--cling, clang,
cling--"I'm bound"--cling--"ter do it!" Clang. "You see"--cling--"even
if he aint here----" Clang, clang, clang.

The boy pulled lustily at the rope for about half as long as usual, and
then he stopped.

"You don't s'pose that clock c'ud be wrong, do yo', Miss Grant? Mr.
Brierly's never been later'n quarter past before."

Miss Grant turned her wistful and somewhat anxious eyes toward the
eastern horizon, and rested a hand upon the shoulder of a tall girl at
her side.

"He may be ill, Johnny," she said, reluctantly, "or his watch may be
wrong. He's sure to come in time for morning song service. Come, Meta,
let us go in and look at those fractions."

Five--ten--fifteen minutes passed and the two heads bent still over book
and slate. Twenty minutes, and Johnny's head appeared at the door, half
a dozen others behind it.

"Has he come, Johnny?"

"No'm; sha'n't I go an' see----"

But Miss Grant arose, stopping him with a gesture. "He would laugh at
us, Johnny." Then, with another look at the anxious faces, "wait until
nine o'clock, at least."

Johnny and his followers went sullenly back to the porch, and Meta's lip
began to quiver.

"Somethin's happened to him, Miss Grant," she whimpered; "I know
somethin' has happened!"

"Nonsense," said Miss Grant. But she went to the window and called to a
little girl at play upon the green.

"Nellie Fry! Come here, dear."

Nellie Fry, an a, b, c student, came running in, her yellow locks flying
straight out behind her.

"What is it, Miss Grant?"

"Nellie, did you see Mr. Brierly at breakfast?"

"Yes'm!"

"And--quite well?"

"Why--I guess so. He talked just like he does always, and asked the
blessin'. He--he ate a lot, too--for him. I 'member ma speakin' of it."

"You remember, Nellie."

Miss Grant kissed the child and walked to her desk, bending over her
roll call, and seeming busy over it until the clock upon the opposite
wall struck the hour of nine, and Johnny's face appeared at the door,
simultaneously with the last stroke.

"Sh'll I ring, Miss Grant?"

"Yes." The girl spoke with sudden decision. "Ring the bell, and then go
at once to Mrs. Fry's house, and ask if anything has happened to detain
Mr. Brierly. Don't loiter, Johnny."

There was an unwonted flush now upon the girl's usually pale cheeks,
and sudden energy in her step and voice.

The school building contained but two rooms, beside the large hall, and
the cloak rooms upon either side; and as the scholars trooped in, taking
their respective places with more than their usual readiness, but with
unusual bustle and exchange of whispers and inquiring looks, the slender
girl went once more to the entrance and looked up and down the path from
the village.

There was no one in sight, and she turned and put her hand upon the
swaying bell-rope.

"Stop it, Johnny! There's surely something wrong! Go, now, and ask after
Mr. Brierly. He must be ill!"

"He'd 'a sent word, sure," said the boy, with conviction, as he snatched
his hat from its nail. But Miss Grant only waved him away and entered
the south room, where the elder pupils were now, for the most part,
assembled.

"Girls and boys," she said, the colour still burning in her cheeks,
"something has delayed Mr. Brierly. I hope it will be for a short time
only. In the meantime, until we know--know what to expect, you will, of
course, keep your places and take up your studies. I am sure I can trust
you to be as quiet and studious as if your teacher was here; and while
we wait, and I begin my lessons, I shall set no monitor over you. I am
sure you will not need one."

The pupils of Charles Brierly were ruled by gentleness and love, and
they were loyal to so mild a ruler. With low whispers and words of
acquiescence, they took up their books, and Miss Grant went back to her
more restless small people, leaving the connecting door between the
north and south rooms open.

Mrs. Fry's cottage was in the heart of the village, and upon the
hillside, but Johnny stayed for nothing, running hither, hat in hand,
and returning panting, and with a troubled face.

"Miss Grant," he panted, bursting into her presence with scant ceremony,
"he aint there! Mrs. Fry says he came to school before eight o'clock. He
went out while she was combin' Nellie's hair, an' she aint seen him
since!"

Hilda Grant walked slowly down from her little platform, and advanced,
with a waving movement, until she stood in the doorway between the two
rooms. The colour had all faded from her face, and she put a hand
against the door-pane as if to steady herself, and seemed to control or
compose herself with an effort.

"Boys--children--have any of you seen Mr. Brierly this morning?"

For a moment there was an utter silence in the school-room. Then,
slowly, and with a sheepish shuffling movement, a stolid-faced boy made
his way out from one of the side seats in Miss Grant's room, and came
toward her without speaking. He was meanly dressed in garments
ill-matched and worse fitting; his arms were abnormally long, his
shoulders rounded and stooping, and his eyes were at once dull and
furtive. He was the largest pupil, and the dullest, in Miss Grant's
charge, and as he came toward her, still silent, but with his mouth half
open, some of the little ones tittered audibly.

"Silence!" said the teacher, sternly. "Peter, come here." Her tone grew
suddenly gentle. "Have you seen Mr. Brierly this morning?"

"Uh hum!" The boy stopped short and hung his head.

"That's good news, Peter. Tell me where you saw him."

"Down there," nodding toward the lake.

"At the--lake?"

"Yep!"

"How long ago, Peter?"

"'Fore school--hour, maybe."

"How far away, Peter?"

"Big ways. Most by Injun Hill."

"Ah! and what was he doing?"

"Set on ground--lookin'."

"Miss Grant!" broke in the boy Johnny. "He was goin' to shoot at a
mark; I guess he's got a new target down there, an' him an' some of the
boys shoots there, you know. Gracious!" his eyes suddenly widening,
"Dy'u s'pose he's got hurt, anyway?"

Miss Grant turned quickly toward the simpleton.

"Peter, you are sure it was this morning that you saw Mr. Brierly?"

"Uh hum."

"And, was he alone?"

"Uh hum."

"Who else did you see down there, Peter?"

The boy lifted his arm, shielding his eyes with it as if expecting a
blow.

"I bet some one's tried ter hit him!" commented Johnny.

"Hush, Johnny! Peter, what is it? Did some one frighten you?"

The boy wagged his head.

"Who was it?"

"N--Nothin'--" Peter began to whimper.

"You must answer me, Peter; was any one else by the lake? Whom else did
you see?"

"A--a--ghost!" blubbered the boy, and this was all she could gain from
him.

And now the children began to whisper, and some of the elder to suggest
possibilities.

"Maybe he's met a tramp."

"P'r'aps he's sprained his ankle!"

"P'r'aps he's falled into the lake, teacher," piped a six-year-old.

"Poh!" retorted a small boy. "He kin swim like--anything."

"Children, be silent!" A look of annoyance had suddenly relaxed the
strained, set look of the under teacher's white face as she recalled, at
the moment, how she had heard Mr. Samuel Doran--president of the board
of school directors--ask Mr. Brierly to drop in at his office that
morning to look at some specimen school books. That was the evening
before, and, doubtless, he was there now.

Miss Grant bit her lip, vexed at her folly and fright. But after a
moment's reflection she turned again to Johnny Robbins, saying:

"Johnny, will you go back as far as Mr. Doran's house? Go to the office
door, and if Mr. Brierly is there, as I think he will be, ask him if he
would like me to hear his classes until he is at liberty."

Again the ready messenger caught up his flapping straw hat, while a
little flutter of relief ran through the school, and Miss Grant went
back to her desk, the look of vexation still upon her face.

Five minutes' brisk trotting brought the boy to Mr. Doran's door, which
was much nearer than the Fry homestead, and less than five minutes found
him again at the school-house door.

"Miss Grant," he cried, excitedly, "he wa'n't there, nor haint been; an'
Mr. Doran's startin' right out, with two or three other men, to hunt
him. He says there's somethin' wrong about it."




CHAPTER II.

FOUND.


"I suppose it's all right," said Samuel Doran, as he walked toward the
school-house, followed by three or four of the villagers, "called"
because of their nearness, rather than "chosen"; "but Brierly's
certainly the last man to let any ordinary matter keep him from his
post. We'll hear what Miss Grant has to say."

Miss Grant met the group at the gate, and when she had told them all she
had to tell, ending with the testimony of the boy Peter, and the
suggestion concerning the target-shooting.

"Sho!" broke in one of the men, as she was about to express her personal
opinion and her fears, "that's the top an' bottom of the hull business!
Brierly's regularly took with ashootin' at a mark. I've been out with
him two or three evenin's of late. He's just got int'rusted, and forgot
ter look at his watch. We'll find him safe enough som'e'res along the
bank; let's cut across the woods."

"He must have heard the bell," objected Mr. Doran, "but, of course, if
Peter Kramer saw him down there, that's our way. Don't be anxious, Miss
Grant; probably Hopkins is right."

The road which they followed for some distance ran a somewhat devious
course through the wood, which one entered very soon after leaving the
school-house. It ran along the hillside, near its base, but still
somewhat above the stretch of ground, fully a hundred yards in width,
between it and the lake shore.

Above the road, to eastward, the wooded growth climbed the gentle upward
slope, growing, as it seemed, more and more dense and shadowy as it
mounted. But between the road and the river the trees grew less densely,
with numerous sunny openings, but with much undergrowth, here and there,
of hazel and sumach, wild vines, and along the border of the lake the
low overhanging scrub willow.

For more than a fourth of a mile the four men followed the road, walking
in couples, and not far apart, and contenting themselves with an
occasional "hallo, Brierly," and with peering into the openings through
which they could see the lake shore as they passed along.

A little further on, however, a bit of rising ground cut off all sight
of the lake for a short distance. It was an oblong mound, so shapely, so
evenly proportioned that it had became known as the Indian Mound, and
was believed to have been the work of the aborigines, a prehistoric
fortification, or burial place.

As they came opposite this mound, the man Hopkins stopped, saying:

"Hadn't a couple of us fellers better go round the mound on t'other
side? Course, if he's on the bank, an' all right, he'd ort to hear
us--but----"

"Yes," broke in the leader, who had been silent and very grave for some
moments. "Go that way, Hopkins, and we'll keep to the road and meet you
at the further end of the mound."

They separated silently, and for some moments Mr. Doran and his
companions walked on, still silent, then--

"We ought to have brought that simpleton along," Doran said, as if
meditating. "The Kramers live only a quarter of a mile beyond the mound,
and it must have been near here--Stop!"

He drew his companions back from the track, as a pony's head appeared
around a curve of the road; and then, as a black shetland and low
phaeton came in sight, he stepped forward again, and took off his hat.

He was squarely in the middle of the road, and the lady in the little
phaeton pulled up her pony and met his gaze with a look of mute inquiry.
She was a small, fair woman, with pale, regular features and large blue
eyes. She was dressed in mourning, and, beyond a doubt, was not a native
of Glenville.

"Excuse my haste, ma'am," said Doran, coming to the side of the phaeton.
"I'm James Doran, owner of the stable where this horse belongs, and we
are out in search of our schoolmaster. Have you seen a tall young man
along this road anywhere?"

The lady was silent a moment, then--"Was he a fair young man?" she
asked, slowly.

"Yes, tall and fair."

The lady gathered up her reins.

"I passed such a person," she said, "when I drove out of town shortly
after breakfast. He was going south, as I was. It must have been
somewhere not far from this place."

"And--did you see his face?"

"No; the pony was fresh then, and I was intent upon him."

She lifted the reins, and then turned as if to speak again when the man
who had been a silent witness of the little dialogue came a step nearer.

"I s'pose you hav'n't heard any noise--a pistol shot--nor anythin' like
that, have ye, ma'am?"

"Mercy! No, indeed! Why, what has happened?"

Before either could answer, there came a shout from the direction of the
lake shore.

"Doran, come--quick!"

They were directly opposite the mound, at its central or highest point,
and, turning swiftly, James Doran saw the man Hopkins at the top of it,
waving his arms frantically.

"Is he found?" called Doran, moving toward him.

"Yes. He's hurt!"

With the words Hopkins disappeared behind the knoll, but Doran was near
enough to see that the man's face was scared and pale. He turned and
called sharply to the lady, who had taken up her whip and was driving
on.

"Madam, stop! There's a man hurt. Wait there a moment; we may need your
horse." The last words were uttered as he ran up the mound, his
companions close at his heels. And the lady checked the willing pony
once more with a look half reluctant, wholly troubled.

"What a position," she said to herself, impatiently. "These villagers
are not diffident, upon my word."

A few moments only had passed when approaching footsteps and the sound
of quick panting breaths caused her to turn her head, and she saw James
Doran running swiftly toward her, pale faced, and too full of anxiety
to be observant of the courtesies.

"You must let me drive back to town with you, madam," he panted,
springing into the little vehicle with a force that tried its springs
and wrought havoc with the voluminous folds of the lady's gown. "We must
have the doctor, and--the coroner, too, I fear--at once!"

He put out his hand for the reins, but she anticipated the movement and
struck the pony a sharp and sudden blow that sent him galloping townward
at the top of his speed, the reins still in her two small,
perfectly-gloved hands.

For a few moments no word was spoken; then, without turning her eyes
from the road, she asked:

"What is it?"

"Death, I'm afraid!"

"What! Not suicide?"

"Never. An accident, of course."

"How horrible!" The small hands tightened their grasp upon the reins,
and no other word was spoken until they were passing the school-house,
when she asked--

"Who was it?"

"Charles Brierly, our head teacher, and a good man."

Miss Grant was standing at one of the front windows and she leaned
anxiously out as the little trap darted past.

"We can't stop," said Doran, as much to himself as to his companion. "I
must have the pony, ma'am. Where can I leave you?"

"Anywhere here. Is there anything--any message I can deliver? I am a
stranger, but I understand the need of haste. Ought not those pupils to
be sent home?"

He put his hand upon the reins. "Stop him," he said. "You are quick to
think, madam. Will you take a message to the school-house--to Miss
Grant?"

"Surely."

They had passed the school-house and as the pony stopped, Doran sprang
out and offered his hand, which she scarcely touched in alighting.

"What shall I say?" she asked as she sprang down.

"See Miss Grant. Tell her privately that Mr. Brierly has met with an
accident, and that the children must be sent home quietly and at once.
At once, mind."

"I understand." She turned away with a quick, nervous movement, but he
stopped her.

"One moment. Your name, please? Your evidence may be wanted."

"By whom?"

"By the coroner; to corroborate our story."

"I see. I am Mrs. Jamieson; at the Glenville House."

She turned from him with the last word, and walked swiftly back toward
the school-house.

Hilda Grant was still at the window. She had made no attempt to listen
to recitations, or even to call the roll; and she hastened out, at sight
of the slight black robed figure entering the school yard, her big grey
eyes full of the question her lips refused to frame.

They met at the foot of the steps, and Mrs. Jamieson spoke at once, as
if in reply, to the wordless inquiry in the other's face.

"I am Mrs. Jamieson," she said, speaking low, mindful of the curious
faces peering out from two windows, on either side of the open door. "I
was stopped by Mr.--"

"Mr. Doran?"

"Yes. He wished me to tell you that the teacher, Mr. ----"

"Brierly?"

"Yes; that he has met with an accident; and that you had better close
the school, and send the children home quietly, and at once."

"Oh!" Suddenly the woman's small figure swayed; she threw out a hand as
if for support and, before the half-dazed girl before her could reach
her, she sank weakly upon the lowest step. "Oh!" she sighed again. "I
did not realise--I--I believe I am frightened!" And then, as Miss Grant
bent over her, she added weakly: "Don't mind me. I--I'll rest here a
moment. Send away your pupils; I only need rest."

When the wondering children had passed out from the school-rooms, and
were scattering, in slow-moving, eagerly-talking groups, Hilda Grant
stood for a moment beside her desk, rigid and with all the anguish of
her soul revealed, in this instant of solitude, upon her face.

"He is dead!" she murmured. "I know it, I feel it! He is dead." Her
voice, even to herself, sounded hard and strange. She lifted a cold hand
to her eyes, but there were no tears there; and then suddenly she
remembered her guest.

A moment later, Mrs. Jamieson, walking weakly up the steps, met her
coming from the school-room with a glass of water in her hand, which she
proffered silently.

The stranger drank it eagerly. "Thank you," she said. "It is what I
need. May I come inside for a little?"

Hilda led the way in silence, and, when her visitor was seated, came and
sat down opposite her. "Will you tell me what you can?" she asked
hesitatingly.

"Willingly. Only it is so little. I have been for some time a guest at
the Glenville House, seeking to recover here in your pure air and
country quiet, from the effects of sorrow and a long illness. I have
driven about these hills and along the lake shore almost daily."

"I have seen you," said Hilda, "as you drove past more than once."

"And did you see me this morning?"

"No."

"Still, I passed this spot at eight o'clock; I think, perhaps, earlier.
My physician has cautioned me against long drives, and this morning I
did not go quite so far as usual, because yesterday I went too far. I
had turned my pony toward home just beyond that pretty mill where the
little streams join the lake, and was driving slowly homeward when this
Mr. Doran--is not that right?--this Mr. Doran stopped me to ask if I had
seen a man, a tall, fair man----"

"And had you?"

"I told him yes; and in a moment some one appeared at the top of the
Indian Mound, and called out that the man was found."

"How--tell me how?"

Mrs. Jamieson drew back a little and looked into the girl's face with
strange intentness.

"I--I fear he was a friend of yours," she said in a strangely hesitating
manner, her eyes swiftly scanning the pale face.

"You fear! Why do you fear? Tell me. You say he is injured. Tell me
all--the worst!"

Still the small, erect, black-clad figure drew back, a look of sudden
understanding and apprehension dawning in her face. She moved her lips,
but no sound came from them.

"Tell me!" cried the girl again. "In mercy--oh, don't you understand?"

"Yes, I understand now." The lady drew weakly back in the seat and
seemed to be compelling her own eyes and lips to steadiness.

"Listen! We must be calm--both of us. I--I am not strong; I dare not
give way. Yes, yes; this is all I can tell you. The man, Mr. Doran,
asked me to wait in the road with the pony. He came back soon, and said
that we must find the doctor and the coroner at once; there had been an
accident, and the man--the one for whom they searched--was dead, he
feared."

She sprang suddenly to her feet.

"You must not faint. If you do, I--I cannot help you; I am not strong
enough."

"I shall not faint," replied Hilda Grant, in a hard strange voice, and
she, too, arose quickly, and went with straight swift steps through the
open door between the two rooms and out of sight.

Mrs. Jamieson stood looking after her for a moment, as if in doubt and
wonder; then she put up an unsteady hand and drew down the gauze veil
folded back from her close-fitting mourning bonnet.

"How strange!" she whispered. "She turns from me as if--and yet I had to
tell her! Ugh! I cannot stay here alone. I shall break down, too, and I
must not. I must not. Here, and alone!"

A moment she stood irresolute, then walking slowly she went out of the
school-room, down the stone steps, and through the gate, townward,
slowly at first, and then her pace increasing, and a look of
apprehension growing in her eyes.

"Oh," she murmured as she hurried on, "what a horrible morning!" And
then she started hysterically as the shriek of the incoming fast mail
train struck her ears. "Oh, how nervous this has made me," she murmured,
and drew a sigh of relief as she paused unsteadily at the door of her
hotel.

For fully fifteen minutes after Hilda Grant had reached the empty
solitude of her own school-room she stood crouched against the near
wall, her hands clenched and hanging straight at her side, her eyes
fixed on space. Then, with eyes still tearless, but with dry sobs
breaking from her throat, she tottered to her seat before the desk, and
let her face fall forward upon her arms, moaning from time to time like
some hurt animal, and so heedless of all about her that she did not
hear a light step in the hall without, nor the approach of the man who
paused in the doorway to gaze at her in troubled surprise.

He was a tall and slender young fellow, with a handsome face, an eye
clear, frank, and keen, and a mouth which, but for the moustache which
shadowed it, might have been pronounced too strong for beauty.

A moment he stood looking with growing pity upon the grieving woman, and
then he turned and silently tip-toed across the room and to the outer
door. Standing there he seemed to ponder, and then, softly stepping back
to the vacant platform, he seated himself in the teacher's chair and
idly opened the first of the volumes scattered over the desk, smiling as
he read the name, Charles Brierly, written across the fly-leaf.

"Poor old Charley," he said to himself, as he closed the book. "I wonder
how he enjoys his pedagogic venture, the absurd fellow," and then by
some strange instinct he lifted his eyes to the clock on the opposite
wall, and the strangeness of the situation seemed to strike him with
sudden force and brought him to his feet.

What did it mean! This silent school-room! These empty desks and
scattered books! Where were the pupils? the teacher? And why was that
brown-tressed head with its hidden face bowed down in that other room,
in an agony of sorrow?

Half a dozen quick strides brought him again to the door of
communication, and this time his strong, firm footsteps were heard, and
the bowed head lifted itself wearily, and the eyes of the two met, each
questioning the other.

"I beg your pardon," spoke a rich, strong voice. "May I ask where I
shall find Mr. Brierly?"

Slowly, as if fascinated, the girl came toward him, a look almost of
terror in her face.

"Who are you?" she faltered.

"I am Robert Brierly. I had hoped to find my brother here at his post.
Will you tell me----"

But the sudden cry from her lips checked him, and the pent-up tears
burst forth as Hilda Grant, her heart wrung with pity, flung herself
down upon the low platform, and sitting there with her face bent upon
her sleeves, sobbed out her own sorrow in her heartbreak of sympathy for
the grief that must soon overwhelm him and strike the happy light from
his face.

Sobs choked her utterance, and the young man stood near her, uncertain,
anxious, and troubled, until from the direction of the town the sound of
flying wheels smote their ears, and Hilda sprang to her feet with a
sharp cry.

"I must tell you; you must bear it as well as I. Hark! they are going
to him; you must go too!" She turned toward the window, swayed heavily,
and was caught in his arms.

It was a brief swoon, but when she opened her eyes and looked about her,
the sound of the flying wheels was dying away in the distance,
southward.

He had found the pail of pure spring water, and applied some of it to
her hands and temples with the quickness and ease of a woman, and he now
held a glass to her lips.

She drank feverishly, put a hand before her eyes, raised herself with an
effort, and seemed to struggle mutely for self-control. Then she turned
toward him.

"I am Hilda Grant," she said, brokenly.

"My brother's friend! My sister that is to be!"

"No, no; not now. Something has happened. You should have gone with
those men--with the doctor. They are going to bring him back."

"Miss Grant, sister!" His hands had closed firmly upon her wrists, and
his voice was firm. "You must tell me the worst, quick. Don't seek to
spare me; think of him! What is it?"

"He--he went from home early, with his pistol, they say, to shoot at a
target. He is dead!"

"Dead! Charley dead! Quick! Where is he? I must see, I must. Oh! there
must be some horrible mistake."

He sprang toward the door, but she was before him.

"Go this way. Here is his wheel. Take it. Go south--the lake shore--the
Indian Mound."

A moment later a young man with pallid face, set mouth and tragic eyes
was flying toward the Indian Mound upon a swift wheel, and in the
school-room, prone upon the floor, a girl lay in a death-like swoon.




CHAPTER III.

NEMESIS.


"Mr. Brierly, are you strong enough to bear a second shock? I must
confer with you before--before we remove the body."

It was Doctor Barnes who thus addressed Robert Brierly, who, after the
first sight of the outstretched figure upon the lake shore, and the
first shock of horror and anguish, had turned away from the group
hovering about the doctor, as he knelt beside the dead, to face his
grief alone.

Doctor Barnes, besides being a skilled physician, possessed three other
qualities necessary to a successful career in medicine--he was prompt to
act, practical and humane.

Robert Brierly was leaning against a tall tree, his back toward that
group by the water's edge, and his face pressed against the tree's
rugged trunk. He lifted his head as the doctor spoke, and turned a
white, set face toward him. The look in his dark eyes was assurance
sufficient that he was ready to listen and still able to manfully endure
another blow.

The two men moved a few steps away, and then the doctor said:

"I must be brief. You know, do you not, the theory, that of these men,
as to the cause of this calamity?"

"It was an accident, of course."

"They make it that, or suicide."

"Never! Impossible! My brother was a God-fearing man, a happy man."

"Still, there is a bullet-hole just where self-inflicted wounds are
oftenest made."

Brierly groaned aloud. "Still," he persisted, "I will never believe it."

"You need not." Doctor Barnes sank his voice to a yet lower pitch. "Mr.
Brierly, there is a second bullet-wound in the back!"

"The back! And that means----"

"It means murder, without a doubt. No huntsman could so mistake his mark
in this open woodland, along the lake. Besides, hunting is not allowed
so near the village. Wait," as the young man was about to speak, "we
have no time to discuss motives now, or the possible assassin. What I
wish to know is, do you want this fact known now--at once?"

"I--I fear I don't understand. Would you have my brother's name----"

"Stop, man! Knowing that these men have already jumped at a theory, the
thought occurred to me that the work of the officers might be made
easier if we let the theory of accident stand."

He broke off, looking keenly at the other. He was a good judge of faces,
and in that of Robert Brierly he had not been deceived.

The young man's form grew suddenly erect and tense, his eye keen and
resolute.

"You are right!" he said, with sudden energy, as he caught at the
other's hand. "They must not be enlightened yet."

"Then, the sooner we are back where we can guard this secret, the safer
it will be. Come. This is hard for you, Mr. Brierly, I know, and I could
say much. But words, no matter how sincerely sympathetic, cannot lighten
such a blow as this. I admire your strength, your fortitude, under such
a shock. Will you let me add that any service I can render as physician,
as man, or as friend, is yours for the asking?"

The doctor hesitated a moment, then held out his hand, and the four
watchers beside the body exchanged quick glances of surprise upon seeing
the two men grasp hands, silently and with solemn faces, and then turn,
still silently, back to the place where the body lay.

"Don't touch that pistol, Doran," the doctor spoke, in his capacity of
coroner.

"Certainly not, Doc. I wanted to feel, if I could, whether those side
chambers had been discharged or not. You see," he added, rising to his
feet, "when we saw this, we knew what we had to do, and it has been
'hands off.' We've only used our eyes so far forth."

"And that I wish to do now with more calmness," said Robert Brierly,
coming close to the body and kneeling beside it.

It lay less than six feet from the very water's edge, the body of a
tall, slender young man, with a delicate, high-bred face that had been
fair when living, and was now marble-white, save for the blood-stains
upon the right temple, where the bullet had entered. The hair, of that
soft blonde colour, seen oftenest upon the heads of children, and rarely
upon adults, was thick and fine, and long enough to frame the handsome
face in close half rings that no barber's skill could ever subdue or
make straight. The hands were long, slender, and soft as a woman's; the
feet small and arched, and the form beneath the loose outlines of the
blue flannel fatigue suit in which it was clad, while slender and full
of grace, was well built and not lacking in muscle.

It lay as it had fallen, upon its side, and with one arm thrown out and
one limb, the left, drawn up. Not far from the outstretched right arm
and hand lay the pistol, a six-shooter, which the brother at once
recognised, with two of the six chambers empty, a fact which Mr. Doran
had just discovered, and was now holding in reserve.

The doctor, upon his discovery of the second bullet-wound, had at once
flung his own handkerchief over the prostrate head, and called for the
carriage robe from his own phaeton, which, fortunately for the wind and
legs of the black pony, had stood ready at his office door, and was now
in waiting, the horse tethered to a tree at the edge of the wood not far
away.

This lap robe Robert Brierly reverently drew away as he knelt beside the
still form, and thus, for some moments remained, turning his gaze from
right to left, from the great tree which grew close at the motionless
feet, and between the group and the water's edge, its branches spreading
out above them and forming a canopy over the body to a dead stump some
distance away, where a small target leaned, its rings of white and black
and red showing how often a steady hand had sent the ball, close and
closer, until the bull's eye was pierced at last.

No word was uttered as he knelt there, and before he arose he placed a
hand upon the dead man's shoulder with an impulsive caressing motion,
and bending down, kissed the cold temple just above the crimson
death-mark. Then, slowly, reverently, he drew the covering once more
over the body and arose.

"That was a vow," he said to the doctor, who stood close beside him.
"Where is--ah!" He turned toward the group of men who, when he knelt,
had withdrawn to a respectful distance.

"Which of you suggested that he had fallen--tripped?"

Doran came forward and silently pointed to the foot of the tree, where,
trailing across the grass, and past the dead man's feet, was a tendril
of wild ivy entangled and broken.

"Oh!" exclaimed Brierly. "You saw that too?"

"It was the first thing I did see," said the other, coming to his side,
"when I looked about me. It's a very clear case, Mr. Brierly.
Target-shooting has been quite a pastime here lately. And see! There
couldn't be a better place to stand and shoot at that target, than right
against that tree, braced against it. It's the right distance and all.
He must have stood there, and when he hit the bull's eye, he made a
quick forward step, caught his foot in that vine and tripped. A man will
naturally throw out his arm in falling so, especially the right one,
and in doing that, somehow as he lunged forward it happened."

"Yes," murmured Brierly, "it is a very simple theory. It--it might have
happened so."

"There wasn't any other way it could happen," muttered one of Doran's
companions. And at that moment the wheels of an approaching vehicle were
heard, and all turned to look toward the long black hearse, divested of
its plumes, and with two or three thick blankets upon its velvet floor.

It was the doctor who superintended the lifting of the body, keeping the
head covered, and when the hearse drove slowly away with its pathetic
burden, he turned to Doran.

"I'll drive Mr. Brierly back to town, Doran," he said, "if you don't
mind taking his wheel in charge;" and scarcely waiting for Doran's
willing assent, he took Richard Brierly's arm and led him toward his
phaeton.

The young man had picked up his brother's hat, as they lifted the body
from the ground, and he now carried it in his hand, laying it gently
upon his knees as he took his seat.

When the doctor had taken his place and picked up the reins he leaned
out and looked about him. Two or three horsemen were riding into the
wood toward them, and a carriage had halted at the side of the road,
while a group of schoolboys, headed by Johnny, the bell ringer, were
hurrying down the slope toward the water's edge.

"They're beginning to gather," the physician said, grimly. "Well, it's
human nature, and your brother had a host of friends, Mr. Brierly."

Robert Brierly set his lips and averted his face for a moment.

"Doran," called the doctor. "Come here, will you."

Doran, who had begun to push the shining wheel up the slope, placed it
carefully against a tree and came toward them, the doctor meanwhile
turning to Brierly.

"Mr. Brierly, you are a stranger here. Will you let me arrange for you?"

The other nodded, and then said huskily: "But it hurts to take him to an
undertaker's!"

"He shall not be taken there," and the doctor turned to Doran, now
standing at the wheel.

"Mr. Doran, will you take my keys and ride ahead as fast as possible?
Tell the undertaker, as you pass, to drive to my house. Then go on and
open it. We will put the body in the private office. Do not remonstrate,
Mr. Brierly. It is only what I would wish another to do for me and mine
in a like affliction." And this was the rule by which this man lived his
life, and because of which death had no terrors.

"I am a bachelor, you must know," the doctor said, as they drove slowly
in the wake of the hearse. "And I have made my home and established my
office in a cosy cottage near the village proper. It will save you the
ordeal of strange eyes, and many questions, perhaps, if you will be my
guest for a day or two, at least."

Robert Brierly turned and looked this friend in need full in the face
for a moment; then he lifted his hand to brush a sudden moisture from
his eye.

"I accept all your kindness," he said, huskily, "for I see that you are
as sincere as you are kind."

When the body of Charles Brierly had been carried in and placed as it
must remain until the inquest was at an end, and when the crowd of
sorrowing, anxious and curious people had dispersed, the doctor, who was
masterful at need, making Doran his lieutenant, arranged for the
securing of a jury; and, after giving some quiet instructions, sent him
away, saying:

"Tell the people it is not yet determined how or when we shall hold the
inquiry. Miss Grant, who must be a witness, will hardly be able to
appear at once, I fear," for, after looking to his guest's bodily
comfort, the doctor had left him to be alone with his grief for a little
while, and had paid a flying visit to Hilda Grant, who lived nearly
three blocks away.

When at length the little house was quiet, and when the doctor and his
heavy-hearted companion had made a pretence of partaking of luncheon,
the former, having shut and locked the door upon the elderly African who
served him, drew his chair close to that of his guest, and said:

"Are you willing to take counsel with me, Mr. Brierly? And are you quite
fit and ready to talk about what is most important?"

"I am most anxious for your advice, and for information."

"Then, let us lose no time; there is much to be done."

"Doctor," Robert Brierly bent toward the other and placed a hand upon
his knee. "There are emergencies which bring men together and reveal
them, each to each, in a flash, as it were. I cannot feel that you know
me really; but I know you, and would trust you with my dearest
possession, or my most dangerous secret. You will be frank with me, I
know, if you speak at all; and I want you to tell me something."

"What is it?"

"You have told me how, in your opinion, my poor brother really met his
death. Will you put yourself in my place, and tell me how you would act
in this horrible emergency? What is the first thing you would do?"

The doctor's answer came after a moment's grave thought.

"I am, I think, a Christian," he said, gravely, "but I think--bah! I
know that I would make my life's work to find out the truth about that
murder, for that it was a murder, I solemnly believe."




CHAPTER IV.

FERRARS.


Robert Brierly caught his breath.

"And your reason?" he gasped, "for you have a reason other than the mere
fact of the bullet-wound in the neck."

"I have seen just such deeds in the wild west and I know how they are
done. But this is also professional knowledge. Besides, man, call reason
to your aid! Oh, I expect too much. The hurt is too fresh, you can only
feel now, but the man shot by accident, be it by his own hand or that of
another, is not shot twice."

"Good heavens, no!"

"But when one who creeps upon his victim unawares, shoots him from
behind, and, as he falls, fearing the work is not completed, shoots
again, the victim, as you must see, receives the wound further to the
front as the body falls forward and partially turns in falling. Do you
see? Do you comprehend?"

"Yes." Brierly shuddered.

"Brierly, this talk is hurting you cruelly. Let us drop details, or
postpone them."

"Not the essential ones. I must bear what I must. Go on, doctor. I quite
agree with you. It looks like a murder, and we must--I must know the
truth--must find the one who did the deed. Doctor, advise me."

"About----"

"How to begin, no time should be lost."

"That means a good detective, as soon as possible. Do you chance to know
any of these gentry?"

"I----No, indeed! I suppose a telegram to the chief of police----"

"Allow me," broke in Doctor Barnes. "May I make a suggestion?"

"Anything. I seem unable to think."

"And no wonder! I know the right man for you if he is in Chicago. You
see, I was in hospital practice for several years, and have also had my
share of prison experience. While thus employed I met a man named
Ferrars, an Englishman, who for some years has spent the greater part of
his time in this country, in Chicago, in fact. There's a mystery and a
romance attached to the man, or his history. He's not connected with
any of the city offices, but he is one of three retired
detectives--retired, that is, from regular work--who work together at
need when they feel a case to be worth their efforts. I think a case
like this will be certain to attract Ferrars."

"And he is your choice of the three?"

The doctor smiled. "The others are married," he said, "and not so ready
to go far afield as is Ferrars."

"You think him skilful?"

"None better."

"Then, do you know his address?"

Brierly got up and began to walk about, his eyes beginning to glow with
the excitement so long suppressed. "Because we can't get him here too
soon."

"I agree with you. And now one thing more. To give him every advantage
he should not be known, and the inquest should not begin until he is
here."

"Can that be managed?"

"I think so."

Brierly was now nervously eager. He seemed to have shaken off the stupor
which at first had seemed to seize upon and hold him, and his questions
and suggestions came thick and fast. It ended, of course, in his putting
himself into the doctor's hands, and accepting his plans and suggestions
entirely. And very soon, Dr. Barnes, having given his factotum distinct
instructions as regarded visitors, and inquiries, had set off, his
medicine case carried ostentatiously in his hand, not for the telegraph
office, but for the cottage, close by, where Hilda Grant found a home.

It was a small, neatly-kept cottage, and Mrs. Marcy, a gentle, kindly
widow, and the young teacher were its only occupants.

The widow met him at the door, her face anxious, her voice the merest
whisper.

"Doctor, tell me; do you think she will really be ill?"

"Why no, Mrs. Marcy; at least not for long. It has been a shock, of
course; a great shock. But she----"

"Ah, doctor, she is heart-broken. I--I think I surely may tell you. It
will help you to understand. They were engaged, and for a little while,
such a pitiful little while it seems now, they have been so happy."

The doctor was silent a moment, his eyes turned away.

"And now," went on the good woman, "she will be lonelier than ever. You
know she was very lonely here at first. She has no relatives nearer than
a cousin anywhere in the world, to her knowledge. And he has never been
to see her. He lives in Chicago, too, not so far away."

"Yes, surely he ought to visit her now, really. Just ask her if I may
come up, Mrs. Marcy. I--I'm glad you told me of this. Thank you. It will
help me."

Ten minutes later Doctor Barnes was hastening toward the telegraph
office, where he sent away this singular and wordy message:


     "Frank Ferrars, No. ... Street, Chicago--

     "Your cousin, Miss Hilda Grant, is ill, and in trouble. It is a
     case in which you are needed as much as I. Come, if possible, by
     first evening train.

     "WALTER BARNES."


"That will fetch him," he mused, as he hastened homeward. "Ferrars never
breaks a promise, though I little expected to have to remind him of it
within the year."

"Well," began Brierly, when he entered his own door. "Have you seen her?
Was she willing?"

"Willing and anxious. She is a brave and sensible little woman. She will
do her part, and she has never for one moment believed in the theory of
an accident."

"And she will receive me?"

"This evening. She insists that we hold our council there, in her
presence. At first I objected, on account of her weakness, but she is
right in her belief that we should be most secure there, and Ferrars
should not be seen abroad to-night. We will have to take Mrs. Marcy into
our confidence, in part at least, but she can be trusted. We will all be
observed, more or less, for a few days. But, of course, I shall put
Ferrars up for the night. That will be the thing to do after he has
spent a short evening with his cousin."

Brierly once more began his restless pacing to and fro, turning
presently to compare his watch with the doctor's Dutch clock.

"It will be the longest three hours I ever passed," he said, and a great
sigh broke from his lips.

But, before the first hour had passed, a boy from the telegraph office
handed in a blue envelope, and the doctor hastily broke the seal and
read--


     "Be with you at 6.20.

     "FERRARS."


When the first suburban train for the evening halted, puffing, at the
village station, Doctor Barnes waiting upon the platform, saw a man of
medium height and square English build step down from the smoking car
and look indifferently about him.

There was the usual throng of gaping and curious villagers, and some of
them heard the stranger say, as he advanced toward the doctor, who
waited with his small medicine case in his hand--

"Pardon me; is this doctor--doctor Barnes?" And when the doctor nodded
he asked quickly, "How is she?"

"Still unnerved and weak. We have had a terrible shock, for all of us."

When the two men had left the crowd of curious loungers behind them the
doctor said--

"It is awfully good of you, Ferrars, to come so promptly at my call. Of
course, I could not explain over the wires. But, you understand."

"I understand that you needed me, and as I'm good for very little, save
in one capacity, I, of course, supposed there was a case for me. The
evening paper, however, gave me--or so I fancy--a hint of the business.
Is it the young schoolmaster?"

The doctor started. It seemed impossible that the news had already found
its way into print.

"Some one has made haste," he said, scornfully.

"Some one always does in these cases, and the _Journal_ has a 'special
correspondent' in every town and village in the country almost. It was
only a few lines." He glanced askance at his companion as he spoke. "And
it was reported an accident or suicide."

"It was a murder!"

"I thought so."

"You--why?"

"'The victim was found,' so says the paper, 'face downward, or nearly
so.' 'Fallen forward,' those were the words. Was that the case?"

"Yes."

"Well, did you ever see or hear of a suicide who had fallen directly
forward and face downward, supposing him to have shot himself?"

"No, no."

"On the other hand, have you ever noted that a man taken unawares, shot
from the side, or rear, falls forward? If shot standing, that is. It is
only when he receives a face charge that he falls backward."

"I had not thought of that, and yet it looks simple and rational
enough," and then, while they walked down the quiet street running
parallel with Main, and upon which Mrs. Marcy's cottage stood, the
doctor told the story of the morning, briefly but clearly, adding, at
the end, "In telling this much, I am telling you actually all that I
know."

"All--concerning Miss Grant, too?"

"Everything."

The doctor did not lift his eyes from the path before them, and again
the detective shot a side glance from the corner of his eye, and the
shadow of a smile crossed his face.

"How does it happen that this brother is here so--I was about to
say--opportunely?"

"He told me that he came by appointment, but on an earlier train than he
had at first intended to take, to pass Sunday with his brother."

"Now see," mused Ferrars, "what little things, done or left undone,
shape or shorten our lives! If he had telegraphed to his brother
announcing his earlier arrival, there would have been no target
practice, but a walk to the station instead."

The doctor sighed, and for a few moments walked on in silence. Then, as
they neared the cottage he almost stopped short and turned toward the
detective.

"I'm afraid you will think me a sad bungler, Ferrars. I should have told
you at once that Robert Brierly awaits us at Mrs. Marcy's cottage."

"Robert Brierly? Is that his name? I wonder if he can be the Robert
Brierly who has helped to make one of our morning papers so bright and
breezy. A rising young journalist, in fact. But it's probably another of
the name."

"I don't know. He has not spoken of himself. Will it suit you to meet
him at once?"

"We don't often get the chance to begin as would best suit us, we
hunters of our kind. I would have preferred to go first to the scene of
the death, but I suppose the ground has been trampled over and over,
and, besides, I don't want to advertise myself until I am better
informed at least. Go on, we will let our meeting come as it will."

But things seldom went on as they would for long, when Frank Ferrars was
seeking his way toward a truth or fact. They found Mrs. Marcy at the
door, and she at once led them to the upper room which looked out upon
the side and rear of the little lawn, and was screened from inlookers,
as well as from the sun's rays, by tall cherry trees at the side, and
thick and clinging morning glory vines at the back.

"You'll be quite safe from intrusion here," she murmured, and left them
as she had received them at the door.

If Doctor Barnes had feared for his patient's strength, and dreaded the
effect upon her of the coming interview, he was soon convinced that he
had misjudged the courage and will power of this slight, soft-eyed,
low-voiced and unassertive young woman. She was very pale, and her eyes
looked out from their dark circles like wells of grief. But no tears
fell from them, and the low pathetic voice did not falter when she said,
after the formal presentation, and before either of the others had
spoken:

"I have asked to be present at this interview, Mr. Ferrars, and am told
that it rests with you whether I am admitted to your confidences.
Charles Brierly is my betrothed, and I would to God I had yielded to his
wish and married him a week ago. Then no one could have shut me out from
ought that concerns him, living or dead. In the sight of heaven he is my
husband, for we promised each other eternal faithfulness with our hands
clasped above his mother's Bible."

Francis Ferrars was a singular mixture of sternness and gentleness, of
quick decision at need and of patient considerateness, and he now took
one of the cold little hands between his own, and gently but firmly led
her to the cosy chair from which she had arisen.

"You have proved your right to be here, and no one will dispute it. We
may need your active help soon, as much as we need and desire your
counsel and your closer knowledge of the dead man now."

In moments of intense feeling conventionalities fall away from us and
strong soul speaks to strong soul. While they awaited the coming of the
doctor and Francis Ferrars, Hilda Grant and Robert Brierly had been
unable to break through the constraint which seemed to each to be the
mental attitude of the other, and then, too, both were engrossed with
the same thought, the coming of the detective, and the possibilities
this suggested, for underlying the grievous sorrow of both brother and
sweetheart lay the thought, the silent appeal for justice as inherent in
our poor human nature as is humanity itself.

But Hilda's sudden claim, her prayer for recognition struck down the
barrier of strangeness and the selfishness of sorrow, than which
sometimes nothing can be more exclusive, in the mind and heart of Robert
Brierly, and he came swiftly to her side, as she sank back, pallid and
panting, upon her cushions.

"Miss Grant, my sister; no other claim is so strong as yours. It was to
meet you, to know you, that I set out for this place to-day. In my poor
brother's last letter--you shall read it soon--he said, 'I am going to
give you something precious, Rob; a sister. It is to meet her that I
have asked you to come just now.' I claim that sister, and need her now
if never before. Don't look upon me as a stranger, but as Charlie's
brother, and yours." He placed his hand over hers as it rested weakly
upon the arm of her chair, and as it turned and the chill little fingers
closed upon his own, he held it for a moment and then, releasing it
gently, drew a seat beside her and turned toward the detective.

"Mr. Ferrars, your friend has assured me that I may hope for your aid.
Is that so?"

"When I have heard all that you can tell me, I will answer," replied
Ferrars. "If I see a hope or chance of unravelling what now looks like
a mystery--should it be proved a mystery--I will give you my promise,
and my services."

He had seated himself almost opposite Hilda Grant, and while he quietly
studied her face, he addressed the doctor.

"Tell me," he said, "all you know and have been told by others, and be
sure you omit not the least detail."

Beginning with the appearance of Mr. Doran at his office door, with the
panting and perspiring black pony, the doctor detailed their drive and
his first sight of the victim, reviewing his examination of the body in
detail, while the detective listened attentively and somewhat to the
surprise of the others, without interruption, until the narrator had
reached the point when, accompanied by Brierly, he had followed the
hearse, with its pitiful burden, back to the village. Then Ferrars
interposed.

"A moment, please," taking from an inner pocket a broad, flat
letter-case and selecting from it a printed card, which, with a pencil,
he held out to the doctor. "Be so good," he said, "as to sketch upon the
blank back of this the spot where you found the dead man, the mound in
full, with the road indicated, above and beyond it. I remember you used
to be skilful at sketching things."




CHAPTER V.

IN CONSULTATION.


When the doctor had completed his hasty sketch, he returned the card
upon which it was made, to the detective and silently awaited his
comment.

"It is very helpful," said Ferrars. "It would seem, then, that just
opposite the mound the lake makes an inward curve?"

"Yes."

"And that the centre of the mound corresponds to the central or nearest
point of the curve?"

The doctor nodded assent.

"Now am I right in thinking that anything occurring at this central
point would be unseen from the road?"

"Quite right. The mound rises higher than the road, and its length shuts
off the view at either end, that and the line of the road, which curves
away from the lake at the north end, and runs in an almost straight
direction for some distance at the other."

"I see." And again for a moment Ferrars consulted the sketch. Then--

"Did you measure the distance between the target and the spot where the
body was found?"

"No. It was the usual distance for practice, I should think."

"It was rather a long range," interposed Brierly. "I am something of a
shot myself and I noticed that."

Again the detective pondered over the sketch.

"By this time I dare say," he said presently, "there will be any number
of curious people in the wood and about that spot."

"I doubt it," replied Doctor Barnes. "I thought of that, and spoke to
Doran. Mr. Brierly was so well liked by all that it only needed a word
to keep the men and boys from doing anything that might hinder a
thorough investigation. Two men are upon the road just below the
school-house to turn back the thoughtless curious ones. It was Doran's
foresight," added the honest physician. "I suppose you will wish to
explore the wood near the mound?"

Ferrars laid aside the sketch. "As the coroner," he said, "you can help
me. Of course, you can have no doubt as to the nature of the shooting.
There could be no mistake."

"None. The shot at the back could not have been self-inflicted."

"Then if you can rely upon your constables and this man Doran, let them
make a quiet inquiry up and down the wood road in search of any one who
may have driven over it between the hours of----"

"Eight and ten o'clock," said Hilda Grant. "He," meaning her late
friend, "left his boarding place at eight o'clock, or near it, and he
was found shortly before ten."

Her speech was low and hesitating, but it did not falter.

"Thank you," said the detective, and turned again to the doctor.

"Next," said he, "if you can find a trusty man, who will find out for us
if any boat or boats have been seen about the lake shore during those
hours, it will be another step in the right direction. And now, you have
told me that you suspect no one; that there is no clue whatever." He
glanced from one to the other. "Still we are told that very often by
those who should know best, but who were not trained to such searching.
To begin, I must know something, Mr. Brierly, about your brother and his
past. Is he your only brother?"

"Yes. We lost a sister ten years ago, a mere child. There were no other
children."

"And--your parents?"

"Are both dead."

"Ah! Mr. Brierly, give me, if you please, a sketch of your life and of
your brother's, dating, let us say, from the time of your father's
death."

If the request was unexpected or unwelcome to Robert Brierly he made no
sign, but began at once.

"If I do not go into details sufficiently, Mr. Ferrars," he said, by way
of preamble, "you will, of course, interrogate me."

The detective nodded, and Brierly went on.

"My father was an Episcopalian clergyman, and, at the time of his death,
we were living in one of the wealthy suburbs of Chicago, where he had
held a charge for ten years, and where we remained for six years after
he gave up the pulpit. Being in comfortable circumstances, we found it a
most pleasant place of residence. My sister's death brought us our first
sorrow, and it was soon followed by the loss of our mother. We continued
to live, however, in the old home until my brother and I were ready to
go to college, and then my father shut up the house and went abroad with
a party of congenial friends. My father was not a business man, and the
man to whom he had confided the management of his affairs misarranged
them during his absence, to what extent we never fully knew until after
my father's death, when we found ourselves, after all was settled, with
something like fifteen thousand dollars each, and our educations. My
brother had already begun to prepare for the ministry, and I had decided
early to follow the career of a journalist."

"Are you the elder?" asked the detective.

"Yes." Brierly paused for further comment, but none came, and he
resumed. "It had been the intention of my father that my brother and I
should make the tour of the two continents when our studies were at an
end; that is, our school days. He had made this same journey in his
youth, and he had even mapped out routes for us, and told us of certain
strange and little explored places which we must not miss, such as the
rock temples of Kylas in Central India, and various wonders of Egypt. It
was a favourite project of his. 'It will leave you less money, boys,' he
used to say, 'but it will give what can never be taken from you. When a
man knows his own world, he is better fitted for the next.' And so,
after much discussion we determined to make the journey. Indeed, to
Charley it began to seem a pilgrimage, in which love, duty, and pleasure
intermingled."

He paused, and Hilda turned away her face as a long sighing breath
escaped his lips.

"Shortly after our return I took up journalistic work in serious
earnest, and my brother, having been ordained, was about to accept a
charge when he met with an accident which was followed by a long
illness. When he arose from this, his physicians would not hear of his
assuming the labours of a pastor over a large and active suburban
church, and, as my brother could not bear to be altogether idle, and the
country was thought to be the place for him, it ended in his coming
here, to take charge of the little school. He was inordinately fond of
children, and a born instructor, so it seemed to me. He was pleased with
the beauty of the place and the quiet of it, from the first, and he was
not long in finding his greatest happiness here."

His voice sank, and he turned a face in which gratitude and sorrow
blended, upon the girl who suddenly covered her own with her trembling
hands.

But the detective, with a new look of intentness upon his face, and
without a moment's pause, asked quickly.

"Then you have been in this place before, of course?"

"No, I have not. For the first three months Charley was very willing to
come to me, in the city. Then came a very busy time for me and he came
twice, somewhat reluctantly, I thought. Six months ago I was sent to
New Mexico to do some special work, and returned to the city on Tuesday
last." His voice broke, and he got up and walked to the window farthest
from the group.

While he had been speaking, Ferrars had scribbled aimlessly and a stroke
at a time, as it seemed, upon the margin of the printed side of the card
which bore the sketch made by Doctor Barnes; and now, while Hilda's face
was again turned away, the young man at the window still stood with his
back towards all in the room, he pushed the card from the edge of the
table, and shot a significant glance toward the doctor.

Picking up the card, Doctor Barnes glanced at it carelessly, and then
replaced it upon the table, having read these words--

"I wish to speak with her alone. Make it a professional necessity."

As Brierly turned toward them once more the detective turned to the
young girl. "I would like to hear something from you, Miss Grant, if you
find yourself equal to it."

Hilda set her lips in firm lines, and after a moment said steadily--

"I am quite at your service."

"One minute." The doctor arose and addressed himself to the detective.

"I feel sure that it will be best for Miss Grant that she talk with you
alone. As her physician, I will caution her against putting too great a
restraint upon herself, upon her feelings. While you talk with her,
Ferrars, Mr. Brierly and I will go back to my quarters, unless you bid
us come back."

"I do not," interposed the detective. "I will join you soon, and if need
be, you can then return, doctor."

At first it seemed as if Hilda were about to remonstrate. But she caught
the look of intelligence that flashed from his eyes to hers, and she sat
in silence while Doctor Barnes explained the route to his cottage and
murmured a low good-bye, while Brierly took her hand and bent over her
with a kind adieu.

"I may see you to-morrow," he whispered. "You will let me come, sister?"
The last word breathed close to her ear.

Her lips moved soundlessly, but he read her eager consent in her timid
return of his hand clasp and the look in her sad, grey eyes, and
followed the doctor from the room.

When Frank Ferrars had closed the door behind the two men, he wasted no
time in useless words, but, seating himself opposite the girl, and so
close that he could catch, if need be, her faintest whisper, he began,
his own tones low and touched with sympathy--

"Miss Grant," he said, "I already feel assured that you know how many
things must be considered before we can ever begin such a search as I
foresee before me. Of course it may happen that before the end of the
coroner's inquest some clue or key to the situation may have developed.
But, if I have heard all, or, rather, if there has not been some
important fact or feature overlooked, we must go behind the scenes for
our data, our hints and possible clues. Do you comprehend me?"

Hilda Grant had drawn herself erect, and was listening intently with her
clear eyes fixed upon his face, and she seemed with her whole soul to be
studying this man, while, with her ears she took in and comprehended his
every word.

"You mean," she answered slowly, "that there may be something in himself
or some event or fact in his past, or that of his family, which has
brought about this?" She turned away her face. She could not put the
awful fact into words.

"I knew you would understand me, and it is not to his past alone that I
must look for help, but to others."

"Do you mean mine?"

"Yes. You do understand!"

There was a look of relief in his eyes. His lips took on a gentler
curve. "I see that you are going to help me."

"If it is in my power, I surely am. Where shall we begin?"

"Tell me all that you can about Charles Brierly, all that he has told
you about himself. Will it be too hard?"

"No matter." She drew herself more erect. "I think if you will let me
tell my own story briefly, and then fill it out at need, by
interrogation, it will be easiest for me."

"And best for me. Thank you." He leaned back and rested his hands upon
the arms of his chair.

"I am ready to hear you," he said, and withdrew his full gaze from her
face, letting his eyelids fall and sitting thus with half-closed eyes.

"Of course," she began, "it was only natural, or so it appeared to me,
that we should become friends soon, meeting, as we must, daily, and
being so constantly brought together, as upper and under teachers in
this little village school. He never seemed really strange to me, and we
seemed thrown upon each other for society, for the young people of the
village held aloof, because of our newness, and our position, I suppose,
and the people of the hotels and boarding-houses found, naturally, a
set, or sets, by themselves. I grew up in what you might call a
religious atmosphere, and when I knew that he was a minister of the
gospel, I felt at once full confidence in him and met his friendly
advances quite frankly. I think we understood each other very soon. You
perhaps have not been told that he filled a vacancy, taking the place of
a young man who was called away because of his mother's illness, and who
did not return, giving up the school at her request. It was in April, a
year ago, that he--Charlie--took up the work, coming back, as I did,
after the summer vacation. It was after that that he began telling me
about himself a little; to speak often of his brother, who was, to his
eyes, a model of young manhood and greatly his intellectual superior."

She paused a moment, and then with a little proud lifting of her rounded
chin, resumed--

"I was not quite willing to agree as to the superiority; for Charles
Brierly was as bright, as talented and promising a young man, as good
and as modest as any I ever knew or hope to know, and I have met some
who rank high as pastors and orators."

"I can well believe you," he said, with his eyes upon her face, and his
voice was sincere and full of sympathy.

"We were not engaged until quite recently. Although we both, I think,
understood ourselves and each other long before. And now, what more can
I say? He has told me much of his school days, of his student life, and,
of course, of his brother's also. In fact, without meaning it, he has
taught me to stand somewhat in awe of this highly fastidious, faultless
and much-beloved brother, but I have heard of no family quarrel, no
enemy, no unpleasant episode of any sort. For himself, he told me, and I
believe his lightest word, that he never cared for any other woman; had
never been much in women's society, in fact, owing to his almost
constant study and travel. Here in the village all was his friends; his
pupils were all his adorers, young and old alike were his admirers, and
he had room in his heart for all. No hand in Glenville was ever raised
against him, I am sure."

"You think then that it was perhaps an accident, a mistake?" He was
eyeing her keenly from beneath his drooping lashes.

"No!" She sprang suddenly to her feet and stood erect before him. "No,
Mr. Ferrars, I do not! I cannot. I was never in my life superstitious. I
do not believe it is superstition that compels me to feel that Charles
Brierly was murdered of intent, and by an enemy, an enemy who has
stalked him unawares, for money perhaps, and who has planned cunningly,
and hid his traces well."




CHAPTER VI.

"WHICH?"


"Give me a few moments of your time, doctor, after your guest has
retired for the night."

For more than two hours after his parting with Hilda Grant, Ferrars had
talked, first with Robert Brierly alone, and then with the doctor as a
third party. At the end, the three had gone together to look upon the
face of the dead, and now, as the doctor nodded over his shoulders and
silently followed, or, rather, guided Brierly from the room and toward
his sleeping apartment, the detective turned back, and when they were
out of hearing, removed the covering from the still face, and taking a
lamp from the table near, stood looking down upon the dead.

"No," he murmured at last, as he replaced the lamp and turned back to
the side of the bier. "You never earned such a fate. You must have lived
and died a good man; an honest man, and yet----" He turned quickly at
the sound of the opening door. "Doctor, come here and tell me how your
keen eyes and worldly intelligence weighed, measured and gauged this man
who lies here with that look, that inscrutable look they all wear once
they have seen the mystery unveiled. What manner of man did you find
him?"

Doctor Barnes came closer and gazed reverently down upon the dead face.

"There lies a man who could better afford to face the mystery suddenly,
without warning, than you or I or any other living man I know. A good
man, a true Christian gentleman I honestly believe, too modest perhaps
to ever claim and hold his true place in this grasping world. That he
should be struck down by the hand of an assassin is past belief, and
yet----" He paused abruptly and bent down to replace the covering over
the still, handsome face.

"And yet," repeated the detective, "do you really think that this man
was murdered?"

"Ferrars!" Both men were moving away from the side of the bier, one on
either hand, and, as they came together at its foot, the speaker put a
hand upon the shoulder of the detective. "To-morrow I hope you will
thoroughly overlook the wood road beyond the school house, the lake
shore, from the village to the knoll or mound; and the thin strip of
wood between, and then tell me if you think it possible for any one,
however stupid or erratic of aim, to shoot by accident a man standing in
that place. There is no spot from which a bullet could have been fired
whence a man could not have been seen perfectly by that figure by the
lake side. The trees are so scattered, the bushes so low, the view up
and down so open. It's impossible!"

"That is your fixed opinion?"

"It is. Nothing but actual proof to the contrary would change it."

When they had passed from the room and the doctor had softly closed the
door, leaving the dead alone in the silence and the shaded lamp-light,
they paused again, face to face, in the outer office.

"Have you any suggestions as regards the inquest, Ferrars?" asked the
one.

"I have been thinking about that foolish lad, the one who saw poor
Brierly in the wood. Could you get him here before the inquiry? We might
be able to learn more in this way. You know the lad, of course?"

"Of course. There will be very little to be got from him. But I'll have
him here for you."

"Do so. And the lady, the one who drove the pony; you will call her, I
suppose?"

"Certainly."

"That is all, I think. If you can drive me to the spot very early,
before we breakfast even, I would like it. You need not stop for me. I
can find my way back, prefer to, in fact. You say it is not far?"

"Little more than half a mile from the school-house."

"Then--good night, doctor."

Doctor Barnes occupied a six-room cottage with a mansard, and he had
fitted up the room originally meant to be a sitting-room, for his own
sleeping apartment. It was at the front of the main cottage, and back of
it was the inner office where the body lay, the outer office being in a
wing built out from this rear room and opening conveniently outward, in
view of the front entrance, and very close to a little side gate. A
porch fitted snugly into the angle made by the former sitting-room and
this outer office, and both of these rooms could be entered from this
convenient porch. Robert Brierly occupied the room opposite that
assigned the detective with the width of the hall between them, and the
doctor, although Ferrars did not know this, had camped down in his outer
office.

Half an hour after he had parted from the doctor, Frank Ferrars, as he
was called by his nearest and most familiar friends, opened the door
upon the corner porch and stepped noiselessly out. When he believed
that he had found an unusual case--and he cared for no others--he
seldom slept until he had thought out some plan of work, adopted some
theory, or evolved a possibility, or, as he whimsically termed it, a
"stepping stone" toward clearer knowledge.

He had answered the doctor's summons with little thought of what it
might mean, or lead to, and simply because it was from "Walt." Barnes.
Then he had heard the doctor's brief story with some surprise, and an
inclination to think it might end, after all, in a case of accidental
shooting, or self-inflicted death. But when he looked into the woeful
eyes of lovely Hilda Grant, and clasped the hand of the dead man's
brother, the case took on a new interest. Here was no commonplace
village maiden hysterical and forlorn, no youth breathing out dramatic
vows of vengeance upon an unknown foe. At once his heart went out to
them, his sympathy was theirs, and the sympathy of Francis Ferrars was
of a very select nature indeed.

And thus he had looked at the beautiful refined face of the dead man, a
face that told of gentleness, sweetness, loyalty, all manifest in the
calm dignity of death. Not a strong face, as his brother's face was
strong, but manly with the true Christian manliness, and strong with the
strength of truth. Looking upon this face, all thought of
self-destruction forsook the detective, and he stood, after that first
long gaze, vowed to right this deadly wrong in the only way left to a
mortal.

But how strange that such a man, in such a place, should be snatched out
of life by the hand of an assassin! He must think over it, and he could
think best when passing slowly along some quiet by-way or street. So he
closed his door softly, and all unconscious that he was observed from
the window of the outer office, he vaulted across the low fence,
striking noiselessly upon the soft turf on the further side; and, after
a moment of hesitation, turned the corner and went down Main Street.

Past the shops, the fine new church, the two hotels, one new and one
old. Past the little park and around it to the street, terraced and tree
planted, where the more pretentious dwellings and several modish new
houses, built for the summer boarder, stood. It was a balmy night. Every
star seemed out, and there was a moon, bright, but on the wane.

Ferrars walked slowly upon the soft turf, avoiding the boards and stones
of the walks and street crossings. Now and then he paused to look at
some fair garden, lovely in the moonlight, or up at the stars, and once,
at least, at a window, open to the breezes of night and revealing that
which sent Ferrars homeward presently with a question on his lips. He
paced the length of the terraced street, and passed by the cottage
where Hilda Grant waked and wept perchance, and as he re-entered his
room silently and shadow-like, he said to himself--

"Is it fate or Providence that prompts us to these reasonless acts? I
may be wrong, I may be mistaken, but I could almost believe that I have
found my first clue."

And yet he had heard nothing, and yet all he had seen was a woman's
shadow, reflected fitfully by the waning moon, as she paced her room to
and fro, to and fro, like some restless or tormented animal, and now and
then lifted her arms aloft in despair? in malediction? in triumph? in
entreaty?--which?

In spite of his brief rest, if rest it was, Ferrars was astir before
sunrise: but, even so, he found the doctor awake before him, and his
horse in waiting at the side gate.

They drove swiftly and were soon within sight of the Indian Mound.

"Show me first the place where the body was found," Ferrars had said to
his guide as they set out, and when the two stood at this spot, which
some one had marked with two small stakes, and the doctor had answered
some brief questions regarding the road through the fringe of wood, the
mound, and the formation of the lake shore further south or away from
the town, the detective announced his wish to be left alone to pursue
his work in his own way.

"Your guest will be astir early if I am not much mistaken," he said.
"And you have Miss Grant to look after, and may be wanted for a dozen
reasons before I return. I can easily walk back, and think you will see
me at the breakfast hour, which you must on no account delay."

Two hours later, and just as the doctor's man had announced breakfast,
the detective returned, and at once joined the two in the dining-room.

He said nothing of his morning excursion, but the doctor's quick eye
noted his look of gravity, and a certain preoccupation of manner which
Ferrars did not attempt to hide. Before the meal was ended Doctor Barnes
was convinced that something was puzzling the detective, and troubling
him not a little.

After breakfast, and while Brierly was for the moment absent from the
porch where they had seated themselves with their cigars, Ferrars
asked--

"Where does the lady live who drove Mr. Doran's black pony yesterday. Is
it at an hotel?"

"It is at the Glenville, an aristocratic family hotel on the terrace.
She is a Mrs. Jamieson."

"Do you know her?"

"She sent for me once to prescribe for some small ailment not long ago."

"Has she been summoned?"

"She will be."

"If there was any one in the woods, or approaching the mound by the road
from the south, she should have seen them, or him; even a boat might
have been seen through the trees for some distance southward, could it
not?"

"Yes. For two miles from the town the lake is visible from the wood
road. Ah! here comes Doran and our constable."

For half an hour the doctor was busy with Doran, the constable, and a
number of other men who had or wished to have some small part to play in
this second act of the tragedy, the end of which no one could foresee.
Then, having dispatched them on their various missions, the doctor set
out to inquire after the welfare of Hilda Grant; and Robert Brierly, who
could not endure his suspense and sorrow in complete inaction, asked
permission to accompany him, thus leaving the detective, who was quite
in the mood for a little solitude just then, in possession of the porch,
three wicker chairs and his cigar.

But not for long. Before he had smoked and wrinkled his brows, as was
his habit when things were not developing to his liking, and pondered
ten minutes alone, he heard the click of the front gate, and turned in
his chair to see a lady, petite, graceful, and dressed in mourning,
coming toward him with quick, light steps. She was looking straight at
him as she came, but as he rose at her approach, she stopped short, and
standing a few steps from the porch, said crisply--

"Your pardon. I have made a mistake. I am looking for Doctor Barnes."

"He has gone out for a short time only. Will you be seated, madam, and
wait?"

She advanced a step and stopped irresolute.

"I suppose I must, unless," coming close to the lower step, "unless you
can tell me, sir, what I wish to know."

"If it is a question of medicine, madam, I fear----"

"It is not," she broke in, her voice dropping to a lower note. "It is
about the--the inquiry or examination into the death of the poor young
man who--but you know, of course."

"I have heard. The inquest is held at one o'clock."

"Ah! And do you know if the--the witnesses have been notified as yet?"

"They are being summoned now. As the doctor's guest I have but lately
heard him sending out the papers."

"Oh, indeed!" The lady put a tiny foot upon the step as if to mount, and
then withdrew it. "I think, if I may leave a message with you, sir," she
said, "I will not wait."

"Most certainly," he replied.

"I chanced to be driving through the wood yesterday when the body was
discovered near the Indian Mound, and am told that I shall be wanted as
a witness. I do not understand why."

"Possibly a mere form, which is nevertheless essential."

"I had engaged to go out with a yachting party," she went on, "and
before I withdraw from the excursion I wish to be sure that I shall
really be required. My name is Mrs. Jamieson, and----"

"Then I can assure you, Mrs. Jamieson, that you are, or will be wanted,
at least. My friend has sent a summons to a Mrs. Jamieson of the
Glenville House."

"That is myself," the lady said, and turned to go. "Of course then I
must be at hand."

She nodded slightly and went away, going with a less appearance of haste
down the street and so from his sight.

When she was no longer visible the detective resumed his seat, and
relighted his cigar, making, as he did so, this very unprofessional
comment--

"I hate to lose sight of a pretty woman, until I am sure of the colour
of her eyes."

And yet Francis Ferrars had never been called, in any sense, a "ladies'
man."




CHAPTER VII.

RENUNCIATION.


Ferrars had predicted that nothing would be gained by the inquest, and
the result proved him a prophet.

Peter Kramer, the poor half-wit who had given the first clue to the
whereabouts of the murdered man, was found, and his confidence won by
much coaxing, and more sweets and shining pennies, the only coin which
Peter would ever recognise as such. But the result was small. Asked had
he seen the teacher, the reply was, "Yep." Asked where, "Most by Injun
hill." Asked what doing, "Settin' down."

"Had he heard the pistol fired?" asked the doctor.

"Un! Uh! Heard nawthin."

"And whom did you see, Peter, besides the teacher?"

Again the look of affright in the dull eyes, the arm lifted as in
self-protection, and the only word they could coax from his lips was,
"Ghost!" uttered in evident fear and trembling.

And this was repeated at the inquest. This, and no more, from Peter.

Mrs. Fry, Charles Brierly's landlady, told how the dead man had appeared
at breakfast, and her testimony did not accord with the statement of her
little daughter.

"Miss Grant has told me of my little girl's mistake," she said. "Mr.
Brierly was down-stairs unusually early that morning, and he did not
look quite as well as usual. He looked worried, in fact, and ate little.
He was always a small eater, and I said something about his eating even
less than usual, I can't recall the exact words. Nellie of course, did
not observe his worried look, as I did, and quoted me wrong. Mr. Brierly
left the house at once after leaving the table. I did not think of it at
first, but it came to me this morning that as he did not carry any books
with him, he must of course have meant to come back for them, and----"
She paused.

"And, of course," suggested the coroner, "he must have had his pistol
upon his person when he came down to breakfast? Is that your meaning?"

"Yes, sir."

The weapon, found near the dead man's hand as it had doubtless fallen
from it, was there in evidence, as it had been picked up with two of the
chambers empty.

That it was not a case of murder for plunder was proven, or so they
thought, by the fact that the dead man's watch was found upon his
person; his pockets containing a small sum of money, pencils, knives,
note book, a small picture case, closed with a spring, and containing
Hilda Grant's picture, and a letter from his brother.

Hilda Grant's brief testimony did not agree with that of Mrs. Fry.

"She saw her lover, alive, for the last time on the evening before his
death. He was in good spirits, and if there was anything troubling him
he gave no sign of it. He was by nature quiet and rather reserved," she
said.

"Yes, she knew his habit of sometimes going to the lake shore beyond the
town to practice at target-shooting, but when he did not appear at his
post at nine o'clock, she never thought to send to the lake shore at
first, because he usually returned from his morning exercise before nine
o'clock; and so her first thought had been to send to Mrs. Fry's."

When the doctor and Robert were about to leave the scene of the murder,
among other instructions given to Doran had been this:

"Don't say anything in town about Mr. Brierly's arrival; you know how
curious our people are, and we would have a lot of our curiosity lovers
hovering around my place to see and hear and ask questions. Just caution
the others, will you?"

Doran held an acknowledged leadership over the men with whom he
consorted, and the group willingly preserved silence. Later, when Doctor
Barnes explained to Ferrars how he had kept the curious away from his
door, and from Brierly, he thought the detective's gratification because
of this rather strange, just at first, and in excess of the cause.

"You couldn't have done a better thing," Ferrars had declared. "It's
more than I had ventured to hope. Keep Brierly's identity as close as
possible until the inquest is called, and then hold it back, and do not
put him on the stand until the last."

After Mrs. Fry, the boy Peter and Hilda Grant had been questioned,
Samuel Doran took the witness chair, telling of his summons from Miss
Grant, of the separation of the group at the Indian Mound, of his
meeting with Mrs. Jamieson, of the discovery made by his two companions
and of all that followed. And then Mrs. Jamieson was called.

She had entered the place accompanied by an acquaintance from the
Glenville, and they had taken, from choice, as it seemed to them, seats
in the rear of the jury, and somewhat aloof from the place where Hilda
Grant, Mrs. Marcy, and Mrs. Fry sat. Robert Brierly would have taken his
place beside Hilda, but the detective interposed.

"Owing to the precautions of the doctor and Mr. Doran, the fact of your
relationship has not leaked out. It appears that Mrs. Fry was not
informed of your coming until the evening before, or Thursday evening,
and she seems to be a very discreet woman. After the inquest you will be
free to devote yourself to Miss Grant. Until then, it is my whim, if you
like, to keep you incog."

Of course Brierly acquiesced, but more than once he found himself
wondering why this should seem to Ferrars needful.

Mrs. Jamieson came quietly to the witnesses' chair, and took her place.
There was a little stir as she came forward, for, while she had been for
some weeks in Glenville, and had driven much about its pretty country
roads and lanes, she had gone, for the most part, more or less closely
veiled in fleecy gauzes of black or white. Afoot she was seldom seen
beyond the grounds about the family hotel.

To-day, however, the lady had chosen to wear a Parisian looking gown of
dull black silk and a tiny capote of the same material rested upon her
blonde and abundant hair, while only the filmiest of white illusion
veiled, but did not hide, the pretty face from which the blue eyes
looked out and about her, gravely but with perfect self-possession.

She told of her morning drive, and while so doing, Ferrars, sitting a
little in the rear of the coroner, slipped into his palm a small card
closely written upon both sides. Upon one side was written, "Use these
as random shots."

And when she spoke of the man whom she had seen going into the wood near
the mound, the doctor interposed his first question.

"Can you describe the person at all? His dress, his bearing?"

"Not distinctly," she replied. "He was going from me and his face, of
course, I could not see. In fact, as I have before stated, my pony was
fresh, and required my attention. Besides, there was really no reason
why I should look a second time at the back of a strange person whom I
passed at some little distance. As I seem to recall the figure now, it
was that of a rather tall, fair-haired man. I can say no more."

"And at what hour was this?"

"It must have been nearing eight o'clock, I fancy, although being out
for pleasure I took little notice of the hour."

No further interruptions were made until she had finished the story of
the morning's experience, of her meeting with Doran and the others, of
the drive to the village, and of her message to Miss Grant.

"Did you know Miss Grant?"

"Only as I had seen her at church, and upon the street or in the
school-yard. We had never met, prior to that morning."

"And Charles Brierly? Did you know him?"

"Only by sight. I know few people in Glenville outside of my ho--of the
Glenville House."

Both the doctor and Ferrars noted the unfinished word broken off at the
first syllable. To the one it was a riddle; to the other it told
something which he might find useful later on.

"Mrs. Jamieson," resumed the coroner, after consulting the detective's
card, "how far did you drive yesterday before you turned about upon the
wood road?"

For a moment the lady seemed to be questioning her memory. Then she
replied.

"The distance in miles, or fractions of miles, I could not give. I
turned the pony about, I remember, at the place where the road curves
toward the lake, at the old mill, near the opening of the wood."

"Ah, then you could see, of course, for some distance up and down the
lake shore?"

"I could!"

There was a hint of surprise in her coldly courteous reply.

"And at that point did you see anything, any one in the wood, or along
the lake?"

"I certainly saw no person. But--yes, I do remember that there was a
boat at the water's edge, not far from the place where I turned
homeward. It was a little beyond, or north of me."

"Did you observe whether there were oars in the boat?"

"I saw none, I am quite sure," the lady replied, and this ended her part
in the inquiry.

But now there were some youthful, eager and valuable new witnesses, and
their combined testimony amounted to this:

When the body of their beloved teacher had been brought home and the
first hour of excitement had passed, three boys, who had been among
Charles Brierly's brightest and most mischief loving and adventurous
pupils, had set out, a full hour in advance of the elder exploring
party, and had followed the lake shore and the wood road, one closely
skirting the lake shore, another running through the sparse timber and
undergrowth about half way up the shallow slope, and the third trotting
down the road beyond; the three keeping pretty nearly parallel, until
the discovery, by the lad upon the shore, of the boat drawn out of the
water, and in the shade of a tree. This had brought the others down to
the lake and then caused them to go hastily back. Meeting the party of
men, who were not far behind them, the boys had turned back with them,
and now there was a crowd of witnesses to corroborate the story of the
boat.

It stood, they all affirmed, in the shade of a spreading tree, so as
that no sun rays had beaten upon it, and its sides were still damp from
recent contact with the water, while it stood entirely upon the land.
Two oars, also showing signs of contact with the lake, were in the
little boat, blade ends down, and it was evident that its late occupant
had disembarked in haste, for, while the stake by which the boat had
been secured, stood scarcely three feet away, and the chain and padlock
lay over the edge of the little craft, there had been no effort to
secure it, and the oars had the look of having been hastily shipped and
left thus without further care.

When the matter of the boat had been fully investigated, the coroner and
Ferrars conferred together for some moments, and during these moments
Mrs. Jamieson and her companion exchanged some whispered words.

Through some mistake, it would seem, these two had been given places
which, while aloof from the strange men, and almost in the rear of the
jurors, brought them facing the open door of the inner room, where, in
full view, the shrouded body of the murdered man lay, and from the first
the eyes of the two seemed held and fascinated by the sight of the long,
still figure outlined under the white covering.

"Is it possible," whispered the lady witness, "that we must sit here
until the end, face to face with that!" She was trembling slightly, as
she spoke. "It is making me nervous."

"And no wonder," murmured her friend. "But it must be almost over. I--I
confess to some curiosity. This is such a new and unusual sensation, to
be here, you know."

"Ugh!"

Mrs. Jamieson turned away, for the coroner was speaking.

"There is one point," he said, "upon which our witnesses differ, and
that is the mental condition of the deceased during the twenty-four
hours preceding his death. Another witness will now speak upon this
matter. Mr. Robert Brierly, the brother of Charles Brierly, will now
testify."

As Robert Brierly came out from the rather secluded place he had
heretofore occupied, at the suggestion of the detective, all eyes were
fixed upon him. There could be no doubt of his relationship to the
deceased. It was the same face, but darker and stronger; the same tall
form, but broader and more athletic. The eyes of this man were darker
and more resolute than those of his dead brother; his hair was browner,
too, and where the face of the one had been full of kindliness and
gentle dignity, that of this other was strong, spirited and resolute.
But, beyond a doubt, these two were brothers.

There was a stir as Brierly made his way forward, paused before the
coroner and faced the jury; and then, as his eyes fell upon the two
figures in the rear of that body he made a sudden step forward.

"Doctor!" he called quickly, "you are needed here! A lady has fainted!"

For a moment all was forgotten, save the white face that had fallen back
upon her friend's shoulder, and that seemed even whiter because of the
black garments, and beneath the halo of fair blonde hair.

"It was that," explained the friend, who proved to be a Mrs. Arthur,
pointing toward the shrouded figure in the inner room. "She has been
growing more and more nervous for some time."

Robert Brierly was the first at her side, but, as the doctor took his
place and he drew back a pace, a hand touched his arm.

"Step aside," whispered Ferrars, "where she cannot see you." And without
comprehending but answering a look in the detective's eye, he obeyed.

Mrs. Jamieson did not at once recover, and the doctor and Ferrars
carried her across the hall and into the room lately occupied by
Brierly. As Mrs. Arthur followed them, it seemed to her that the
detective, whom of course she did not know as such, was assuming the
leadership, and that half a dozen quick words were spoken by him to the
doctor, across her friend's drooping head.

"She must be removed immediately," said the doctor a moment after. "Let
some one find a carriage or phaeton at once." Then, as Ferrars did not
move from his place beside the bed where they had placed the unconscious
woman, he strode to the chamber door, said a word or two to Doran, who
had followed them as far as the door, and came back to his place beside
the bed.

Before Mrs. Jamieson had opened her eyes a low wagonette was at the
door, and when the lady became conscious and had been raised and given a
stimulating draught, she was lifted again by Ferrars and Doctor Barnes
and carried to the waiting vehicle, followed by Mrs. Arthur.

"Kindly take the place beside the driver, madam," directed the doctor.
"My friend will go with the lady and assist her; it will be best. It is
possible that she may faint again." And so they drove away, Mrs. Arthur
beside Doran, the driver; and Mrs. Jamieson, still pallid and tremulous,
leaning upon the supporting shoulder of Ferrars, silent and with closed
eyes.

As he lifted her from the wagonette, and assisted her up the steps and
within the door, however, the lady seemed to recover herself with an
effort. She had crossed the threshold supported by Ferrars on the one
side, and leaning upon her friend's arm upon the other, and at the door
of the reception room she turned, saying faintly:

"Let me rest here first. Before we go upstairs, I mean." Then,
withdrawing her hand from her friend's arm, she seemed to steady
herself, and standing more erect, turned to Ferrars.

"I must not trouble you longer, now, sir. You have been most kind." Her
voice faltered, she paused a moment, and then held out her hand. "I
should like very much to hear the outcome," she hesitated.

"With your permission," the detective replied quickly, "I will call to
ask after your welfare, and to inform you if I can." He turned to go,
but she made a movement toward him.

"That poor girl," she said, "I pity her so. Do you know her well, sir?"
She was quite herself now, but her voice was still weak and tremulous.

"You have not heard, I see, that she is my cousin."

"No. I would like to call upon her. Will you ask her if I may?" He
nodded and she added quickly, "And call, if you please, to-morrow."

Robert Brierly told his story almost without interruption; all that he
knew of his brother's life in the village; of his own; of his coming
earlier than he was expected, and of his firm belief that his brother
had been made the victim of foul play. Possibly killed by mistake,
because of some fancied resemblance; for his life, which had been like
an open book to all his friends, held no secrets, no "episodes," and
enemies he never had one. In short, he could throw no light upon the
mystery of his brother's death. Rather, his story made that death seem
more mysterious than at first because of the possibilities that it
rendered at least probable.

But this evidence had its effect upon a somewhat bucolic jury. That
Charles Brierly had been shot by another hand than his own had been very
clearly demonstrated, for his brother would have no doubt whatever left
upon this point; while he little knew how much the judicious whispers
and hints uttered in the right places, and with apparent intent of
confidence and secrecy, had to do with the shaping of the verdict, which
was as follows:


     "We, the jury, find that the deceased, Charles Brierly, died from a
     bullet wound, fired, according to our belief, by mistake or
     accident, and at the hands of some person unknown."


And now came the question of proof.

"It must be cleared up," said Robert Brierly to the detective. "I am
not a rich man, Mr. Ferrars, but all that I have shall be spent at need
to bring the truth to light. For I can never rest until I have learned
it. It is my duty to my dead brother, father, mother--all."

And late that night, alone in his room he looked out upon the stars hung
low upon the eastern horizon and murmured--

"Ah, Ruth, Ruth, we were far enough asunder before, and now--Ah, it was
well to have left you your freedom, for now the gulf is widening; it may
soon, it will soon be impassable." And he sighed heavily, as a strong
man sighs when the tears are very near his eyes and the pain close to
his heart.




CHAPTER VIII.

TRICKERY.


As was quite natural, the three men, thrown so strangely and
unexpectedly together at the doctor's cottage, sat up late after the
inquest, and discussed the strange death of Charles Brierly in all its
bearings. As a result of this they slept somewhat late, except the
detective, who let himself out of the house at sunrise, and lighting a
cigar, set off for a short walk, up one certain street, and down
another. He walked slowly, and looked indolently absorbed in his cigar.
But it was a very observant eye that noted, from under the peak of his
English cap, the streets, the houses, and the very few stray people whom
he passed. It was not the people, though, in whom he was chiefly
interested. Ferrars was intently studying the topography of the town, at
least of that portion of it which he was then traversing with such
seeming aimlessness.

From the doctor's cottage he had sauntered north for several blocks,
crossed over, until he reached the upper or terraced street, and
followed it until he had reached the southern edge of the village and
was in sight of the school-house not far beyond. Turning here he crossed
a street or two, and was nearing the house where the dead school teacher
had lived, when he saw the front door of the house open, and a woman
come out and hasten away in the direction in which he was moving. She
hurried on like one intent upon some absorbing errand, and, knowing the
house as the late home of Charles Brierly, and the woman as its
mistress, Ferrars quickened his steps that he might keep her in sight,
and when she turned the corner leading directly to the doctor's cottage
he further increased his speed, feeling instinctively that her errand,
whatever its nature, would take her there.

He was not far behind her now, and he saw the doctor standing alone upon
the side porch, saw the woman enter at the side gate, and the meeting of
the two.

Mrs. Fry, with her back towards him, was making excited gestures, and
the face of the doctor, visible above her head, changed from a look of
mild wonder to such sudden anxiety and amazement that the detective
halted at the gate, hesitating, and was seen at that instant by the
doctor, who beckoned him on with a look of relief.

"Look here, Ferrars," he began, and then turned to assure himself that
Brierly had not arisen, and was not observing them from the office
window. "Come this way a few steps," moving away from the porch and
halting where the shadow of the wing hid them from view from within the
main dwelling. "And now, Mrs. Fry, please tell Mr. Grant what you had
begun to tell me. I want his opinion on it. He's not a bad lawyer."

"A good detective'd be the right thing, I think," declared the woman.
"It's about Mr. Brierly's room, sir. He had a small bedroom, and another
opening out from it, where he used to read and study. You know how they
were, doctor!"

The doctor nodded silently.

"Well, last night, you remember, when you brought this gentleman and his
brother to my place to look at the rooms. You or he decided not to go up
then, but told me to close the rooms, and he would come
to-morrow--to-day--that would be."

"Yes, yes!" said the doctor, impatiently, "we remember all that, Mrs.
Fry."

"Well, I'd had the rooms locked ever since I heard that he was dead."
Mrs. Fry was growing somewhat hazy as to her pronouns. "And I had the
key in my pocket. Then, well, after a while I lit the lamp in the
sittin' room so's it wouldn't seem so gloomy in the house, and went out
and sat on my side stoop, and after a little my neighbour on that side,
Mrs. Robson, came acrost the lawn--there aint no fence between, ye
know--and we talked for some time, and my little girl fell asleep with
her head in my lap."

"Don't be too long with the story," broke in the doctor. "I don't want
it to spoil Mr. Brierly's breakfast, for he needs it badly."

"Yes, sir. Well, just about that time--it must have been half-past
eight, I guess--and there was plenty of folks all along the street, a
boy came running across the lawn and right up to me.

"'If you please,' he says, touching his hat rim, 'Mr. Brierly, down to
the doctor's, forgot to get the key to his brother's room, and he sent
me to get it for him.' I s'pose I was foolish. I felt hurt, thinkin' he
couldn't trust me with his brother's things, an' so I jest hands out the
key and no questions asked."

A look of sudden alertness shot from the eyes of the detective, and he
arrested the doctor's evident impatience by a quick shake of the head
unperceived by the woman, who was addressing her narrative to the
doctor, as was natural.

"I s'pose," she went on, "that I shouldn't a' done it, but I didn't
scent anything wrong then. Mrs. Robson went home in a few minutes, and
then I roused my little girl up and took her in and put her to bed. She
was asleep again a'most as soon as her head touched the pillow, and the
night was so pleasant-like that I threw my shawl on my shoulders and
went out onto the front stoop. I felt sort o' lonesome in the house all
alone."

"Of course," commented Ferrars, seeing the dread of their criticism or
displeasure that was manifest in her face as she paused and looked from
one to the other. "One naturally would in your place."

"Yes, I suppose so," she went on, reassured. "Well, I hadn't been out
there two minutes when that same boy came running up the walk, all out
of breath, and says, sort of panting between words, 'Ma'am, the lady
that lives next the engine-house by the corner stopped me just now an'
asked me to come back here an' beg you to come down there quick! Her
little boy's got himself burned awful!'"

"Ah! I see!" Ferrars spoke low, as if to himself, and his face wore the
look of one who is beginning to understand a riddle. "You went, of
course?"

"Yes, I went."

"Go on with the story, please. Tell it all as you have begun. Let us
have the details," and he again nodded toward the doctor, who was
regarding him with profound surprise, and put a finger to his lip.

"My sister-in-law lives in the house by the engine-house," Mrs. Fry
hurried on, "and knowing how careless she is about keepin' things in the
house against such times, I ran back into my bedroom and got a bottle of
camphor and a roll of cotton batt. 'Run ahead, boy,' I says to the boy,
'an' tell her I am coming; I must lock up my doors and winders.' 'She's
in an awful hurry,' he says, 'cryin' fit to kill. I'll set right down
here and watch your house, ma'am; I can do no good there.' The boy spoke
so honest, and Mary's boy is such a dear little fellow, that I jest lost
my head complete, and ran off down the sidewalk. At the corner I looked
back. The boy was sittin' on the doorstep, an' I heard him whistlin';
someway it made me feel quite easy. But when I got to the house and
found them all in the sitting-room, and Neddy not hurt at all, but sound
asleep on the floor, I was so took back that I just dropped down on a
chair and acted like a wild woman. Instead of rushin' back that very
minute, I sat there and told how I had been tricked, and scolded about
that boy, an' vowed I'd have him well punished, and so on, until Mary
reminded me that I'd better get back home and see if the house was all
right, or if 'twas only a boy's trick."

"It looked like one, surely," was the detective's easy comment.

"That's what Mr. Jones said. He's my neighbour. He was just going home,
and we overtook him. Mary told him about the boy and he laughed and said
that some boys had played that sort of trick last summer two or three
times, sending people running across the town on some such fool's
errand. He thought maybe 'twas some boy that I had offended some way;
and then I thought about how crisp I was about givin' the boy Mr.
Brierly's key, and it made me feel sort of easier. But Mr. Jones went in
with us when we got to my house. We looked all around downstairs and
everything was all right. Nellie was fast asleep still, and not a thing
had been disturbed. Then we went upstairs, 'just for form's sake,' Mr.
Jones said, and looked in all the bedrooms, and even tried Mr. Brierly's
door. Everything seemed right, and so Mr. Jones and Mary went away, and
I went to bed. But someway I couldn't sleep sound. I felt provoked and
angry about that boy, and the more I thought of him, of his being a
stranger and all, the uneasier I got. Then I began to imagine I heard
queer sounds, and creaking doors, and, right on the heels of all that,
came a loud slam that waked Nellie, and made me skip right out of bed."

"A shutter, of course," said the doctor, as she paused for breath.

"Yes, a shutter, and I knew well that every shutter on my house was
either shut tight or locked open. I look to that every night, as soon
as it's lamp-lighting time; them downstairs I shut, them upstairs I
open, sometimes. I knew where that slammin' shutter was by the sound,
and it set me to dressing quick. I had opened the shutters on Mr.
Brierly's windows that very afternoon, thinking the rooms would not seem
quite so dreary and lonesome when his brother came to look through 'em
and they was locked open, I knew well! All the same, it was them
shutters, or one of 'em, that was clattering then, and I knew it."

"Were you alone in the house, you and your little girl?" asked Ferrars.

"All alone, yes, sir; and I took Nellie with me and went out into the
hall----"

"You mean downstairs?"

"Yes, sir. We sleep downstairs. Now, I thought I had seen that
everything was right when Mr. Jones and Mary was with me, but when we
went into that hall--Doctor--" turning again toward that gentlemen, for
she had addressed her later remarks to Ferrars,--"I guess you may
remember a shelf just at the foot of the stairs. It's right behind the
door, when it stands open, and that's why we hadn't seen it, or I hadn't
before. Well, I always set the lamp for Mr. Brierly's room--his bedroom
lamp, that is--on that shelf for him every morning, as soon as it had
been filled for the night's burning; and the morning he was killed I
had put it there as usual, and it had been there ever since. It was
there when Mr. Brierly and you two gentlemen called, after the inquest."

A queer little sound escaped the detective's throat, and again he
checked the doctor's impatience with that slight movement of the head.

"I don't call myself brave," the woman went on, "but I caught Nellie by
the hand--I was carrying my bedroom lamp--and ran up the stairs and
straight to Mr. Brierly's door. I don't know what made me do it, but I
stooped down to look through the keyhole, and there in the door was the
very key I had given to that boy to take to Mr. Brierly's brother."

"What did you do?" asked the doctor, breathlessly.

"I set down my lamp very softly, told Nellie in a whisper not to make a
noise, and then very carefully tried the key. It turned in the lock. I
didn't dare go in, but I locked the door, left the key in it, and went
downstairs and out at the front door. I went around the house and stood
under the window of that room. The side window shutter that I had
fastened back was swinging loose. I went back to the sitting-room,
locking the front door and the doors from the hall into the front room
and sitting-room, taking out the key of the front door, and leaving the
other keys in the locks, on my side. Then I lit the big lamp, pulled
down the curtains, fixed the side door so I could open it quick, and set
the big dinner bell close by it. I made Nellie lie down on the lounge
with her clothes on, and there I sat till morning. Before daylight I
went into the kitchen and moved about very softly to get myself a cup of
coffee, and a bite of breakfast for Nellie. I had been careful not to
let her see how I was scared, and she went sound asleep right away. As
soon as I thought you would be up I awoke my little girl, and left her
sitting upon the side stoop, while I came here to you. Mr. Brierly's
brother ought to be first to enter that room, and--if there was anyone
there last night--they're there yet."

"What room is that which I ought to enter, Mrs. Fry?" said a voice
behind them, and turning, all together, they saw Robert Brierly standing
at the edge of the porch where it joined the wall of the doctor's room.

"I was afraid of this," muttered Doctor Barnes. But the detective seemed
in nowise disconcerted. Neither did he seem inclined to listen, or allow
Brierly to listen to a repetition of Mrs. Fry's story.

"You are here just in time, Mr. Brierly," he said, briskly. "Mrs. Fry
believes that someone has paid a visit to your brother's room during the
night, and as she says, you are the one who should investigate, and I
think it ought to be done at once, if you feel up to it."

"I'll be with you in a moment," replied Brierly, promptly, and he went
indoors by way of the French windows which had given him egress.




CHAPTER IX.

A LETTER.


As Robert Brierly entered the house, the detective, now taking the lead
as a matter of course, turned toward Mrs. Fry.

"I see that you are anxious to get back home," he said to her. "And it
is as well that you go back in advance of us, for people are beginning
to move about. Wait for us at the side door." And then, as the woman
hastened away, he turned toward the doctor. "You need not feel uneasy
because of your guest, Doc.," he said, with his rare and fine smile.
"There are times when the physical man is in subjection to the spiritual
man, or the will power within him, if you like that better. Brierly has
already endured a severe mental strain, I grant, but he's not at the end
of his endurance yet. In fact, if he's the journalist, and I begin to
think so, he knows how to sustain mental strain long and steadily. You
don't fancy he could be persuaded to wait for meat and drink now, do
you?"

"My soul, man!" exclaimed Doctor Barnes, "how you do read a man's
thoughts! No! Brierly wouldn't stop for anything now. Nor you, either,
for that matter, What do you make of this?"

"I can tell you better in an hour from now, I hope. Here's Brierly. Now
then, gentlemen, try and look as if this was merely a morning walk. We
don't want to excite the curiosity of the neighbours."

There seemed little need of this caution, for they saw no one as they
crossed to the quiet street in which Mrs. Fry lived. But Ferrars, who
had fallen behind the others, had an observant eye upon all within
range, as if, as the doctor afterward declared, he held the very town
itself under suspicion.

Mrs. Fry awaited them at the side door, and unlocked the one leading to
the front hall and stairway at once.

"I hope one of you has got a pistol," she said, nervously, as they
approached the stairs.

"There's no one up there, Mrs. Fry," replied Ferrars. "Never fear." But
Mrs. Fry was not so positive. She closed the sitting-room door, all but
the merest crack, and stood ready to clap it entirely shut at the first
sound of attack and defence from the room above.

Meantime Robert Brierly, who had led the way upstairs, placed a firm
hand upon the key, turned it and softly opened the door. Then, for a
moment, all three stood still at the threshold, gazing within.

It was Francis Ferrars who spoke the first word, with his hand upon
Robert Brierly's shoulder, and his voice little more than a whisper.

"Go inside, Brierly, quickly and quietly." He gave the shoulder under
his hand a quick, light, forward pressure, and instinctively, as it
seemed, Brierly stepped across the threshold with the other two close at
his heels, and, the moment they were inside the room, Ferrars turned and
silently withdrew the key from the outer side, closed the door
cautiously, and relocked it from within.

"We will do well to dispense with Mrs. Fry, at least for the present,"
he said, coolly. "It's plain enough there has been mischief here. Mr.
Brierly, you saw this room last night, for a moment."

Robert Brierly, who had dropped weakly upon a chair, stopped him with a
movement of the hand.

"Mr. Ferrars," he said, "I realise the importance of a right beginning
here, and if you will undertake this case--I am not a rich man, you
understand--all I have is at your disposal. I could hardly bear to have
my brother's rooms searched by strange hands in my absence, but will it
not be wise that you should take the lead, and begin as you deem best?"

"Yes," replied the detective, "but your assistance will be helpful."

"Mrs. Fry is coming upstairs," broke in the doctor, who had been
standing near the door.

Ferrars sprang across the room, turned the key, and put his head out
through the smallest possible opening in the door.

"There's no one here, Mrs. Fry; and nothing missing, that we have
observed. It was, no doubt, a boyish trick."

He smiled amiably at the somewhat surprised woman.

"When Mr. Brierly has had time to look about a bit he will of course
report to you." And he closed the door in the good woman's astonished
face. "Better make no confidants until we know what we have to confide,"
he said, turning back to survey the room afresh. "Now let us have more
light here."

The room in which they were was dimly lighted, for the outer blinds of
its three windows had been closed, and all the light afforded them came
from the one nearest the front corner, where half the shutter was
swinging loosely at the will of the morning breeze. This light, however,
enabled them to see that the room was in some confusion, or rather,
that it was not in the same neat order in which they had seen it on the
previous day.

The writing desk, which later Mrs. Fry declared to have been closed, was
now open, and a portion of the contents of its usually neatly arranged
pigeon-holes was scattered upon the leaf.

"This," said Brierly, as they approached it, "was closed when I saw it
last night."

"I remember," Ferrars nodded, and sat down in the revolving chair before
the desk, and, without touching anything, ran his eye carefully over the
scattered papers, examined the pigeon-holes, the locks, and even the
fine coating of dust.

Upon a round table near the front window were some scattered books,
mostly of reference, a pile of unruled manuscript tablets, and a little
heap of written sheets. There was a set of bookshelves above the
writing-desk, and a wire rack near it was filled with newspapers and
magazines.

When Ferrars had carefully noted the appearance of the desk and its
contents, he swung slowly around in the swivel chair and gazed all about
him without rising. He had noted the books above him with a thoughtful
gaze, and he now fixed that same speculative glance upon those upon the
table. Then he got up.

"Oblige me by not so much as touching this desk yet," he said, and
crossed to the table. "Your brother was a magazinist, Mr. Brierly?" he
queried.

"Yes," replied Brierly.

Ferrars turned toward the inner room which the others had not yet
approached.

"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, and then, in an altered tone, "Here is Mrs.
Fry's missing lamp."

His two companions came to the door of the room, where Ferrars was now
looking down at the pillows of the bed.

"Brierly," asked Ferrars, as they paused in the doorway, "what had your
brother with him in the way of valuables, to your knowledge?"

The young man, who had been looking sharply about the room like one who
seeks something which should be there, started slightly.

"Why, he had a somewhat odd and valuable watch, which was given him by
our father upon our setting out for Europe. It was like this," and he
produced a very beautiful specimen of the watchmaker's art, and held it
out for inspection. "He also had a ring set with a fine opal, that was
once our mother's, and a locket with her monogram. There were also some
odd trifles that he had picked up abroad, saying that they would become
his future wife, no doubt."

"And you think these were still in his possession?"

"I do. In writing of Miss Grant not long ago he mentioned as a proof of
her refinement and womanly delicacy that she would accept no gifts from
him other than books or flowers."

"I think," said Ferrars, gravely, "that we had better have Mrs. Fry in
here now, and I want you to do the talking, Brierly. Doctor, if you
would ask her to come up, I'll post Mr. Brierly, meantime."

The doctor turned the key in the lock and then hesitated. "I dare say I
will not be needed here longer?"

"You!" Ferrars turned upon him quickly. "Is there anything urgent
outside?"

"Not especially so--only----"

"Only you fancy yourself _de trop_? If you can spare us the time, we
want you right here, doctor. Eh, Mr. Brierly?"

"By all means."

"Then of course I am at your disposal," and the doctor went out in
search of Mrs. Fry.

"I wish there were more men with his combined delicacy and good sense,"
grumbled Ferrars, and then he began to explain to Brierly what was
wanted from Mrs. Fry.

When that good woman entered, Ferrars was seated by the furthest
window, and Robert Brierly met her at the door.

"Mrs. Fry," he began, "will you kindly look about you, without, of
course, disturbing or changing things, and tell us if you see anything
that has changed? If you miss anything, or if anything in your opinion,
has been tampered with? Look through both rooms carefully, and then give
us your opinion."

Mrs. Fry, who had been expecting just such a summons and who fully
realised the gravity of the occasion, stood still in her place near the
door and looked slowly about her; then she began to walk about the room.
Once or twice Brierly, prompted by a glance from the detective, had to
warn her against putting a finger upon some object, but she went about
with firmly closed lips until she had reached the little sleeping room.
Then--

"Well, I declare!" she broke out. "If they haven't even been at the
bed!"

Brierly started forward, but Ferrars held up a warning finger.

"And there's that lamp!" she went on, "with the chimney all smoked!
Somebody's been carrying it around burning full tilt."

By this time Ferrars was so close beside Brierly that he could breathe a
low word in his ear, from time to time, unnoted by the woman as she went
peering about.

"You are sure the bed has been disturbed?" Brierly asked.

"Certain of it!"

"And can you guess why?"

"Well, he always kept his pistol under the bolster."

The men started and looked at each other. "What an oversight," murmured
the doctor.

"Do you mean," went on the enquiry, "that it was there yesterday morning
when you made the bed?"

"I can't say, sir. The fact is, I was awfully afraid of the thing, and
when I told him I was, he put it clear under the bolster with his own
hand, and said it should stay there, instead of on top, as it used to be
at first."

"You don't mean that he left it there during the day?"

"Yes, sir! This one. You see he had two. The one he used to practise
with--the one they found--was different. This one was bigger and
different somehow, and not like any pistol I ever saw. He told me 'twas
a foreign weapon."

"She is right," said Brierly. "My brother brought a pair of duelling
pistols from Paris. They were elaborately finished. He gave me one of
them." He looked anxiously toward the crushed and displaced pillows.
"Shall we not look," he asked, "and find out if anything is there? Will
you look, Mr. Ferrars? Or did you?"

Ferrars moved forward. "No, I did not look," he said. "But the weapon is
not there; I could almost swear to it. Come--see, all of you."

With a quick light hand he removed the pillows, turned back the sheets
and lifted the bolster. There was nothing beneath it, save the
impression where the weapon had laid upon the mattress.

The detective turned toward Mrs. Fry. "You are sure it was here
usually?" he questioned.

"I have lifted that bolster carefully every day, and have always seen
it," she declared. "When I wanted to turn the mattress he always took
away the pistol himself."

Ferrars turned away from the bed, and Brierly resumed his role of
questioner.

"What else do you miss or find disturbed, Mrs. Fry?"

She went back to the outer room after a last slow glance about the
chamber.

"There is the lamp, of course," she began. "That was taken from the
shelf to give them light. Then the writing-desk has been opened, as you
see, and the things on that table have been disturbed, the books shoved
about, and the papers moved. I think," going slowly toward the article,
"that even the waste basket and the paper holder have been rummaged."

"And do you miss anything here?"

Mrs. Fry shook her head. "I don't s'pose you've searched the
writing-desk yet?" she ventured.

"Not yet. And is that all you observe, Mrs. Fry? The bed, the lamp, the
desk, table, rack, and basket?"

She went back to the table and pointed out with extended forefinger a
couple of burned matches, one upon a corner of the table, one upon the
floor almost beneath it.

"They lit that lamp there!" she said. "And they brought their own
matches. I never use those 'parlour matches,' as they call 'em!" She
bent her head to look closer at the polished surface of the table, and
then walked to the open window, where the shutter still swung in the
breeze. "It has been awful dusty since yesterday, seems to me, for this
time of year. That boy's left his finger prints on this window, as
well's on the table there."

"Don't touch them!" It was Ferrars who spoke and so sharply that the
woman turned suddenly, but not soon enough to note the swift gesture
which directed his exclamation.

"Of course we may rely upon you to keep the fact that my brother's rooms
have been entered in this manner from every one, for the present. It
may be very important that we do not let it be known beyond the four of
us. You have not seen or spoken with any one as yet, I think you said?"

"I haven't, and I won't. I'd do more than that for the sake of your
brother, Mr. Brierly, and you've only to tell me what I can do."

"I intend to examine my brother's papers now, Mrs. Fry, before I leave
the house, and if we should need you again we will let you know." And
Mrs. Fry withdrew, puzzled and wondering much, but with her lips tightly
set over the secret she must and would help to preserve.

"She'll keep silent, never fear," said the doctor as the door closed
behind her. "And now, Brierly, I must remind you that you will need all
your strength, and that I don't like your colour this morning. If you
must investigate at once, get it over, for you, even more than Ferrars
or I, need your morning coffee and steak."

"That is true," agreed Ferrars. "Brierly, let me ask two questions, and
then oblige me by leaving certain marks, which I will point out to you,
just as you find them."

"Your questions." Brierly had already seated himself before his
brother's desk.

"I have an idea that this old oak writing-desk was not selected by our
friend, Mrs. Fry. Am I right?"

"It is my brother's desk; bought for its compact and portable
qualities."

"Good! Now, where did your brother usually keep these keepsakes and bits
of foreign jewellery?"

"In one of these drawers. He kept them in a lacquered Japanese box."

"Look for them. And, before you begin, oblige me by not touching that
letter file above the desk, nor the desk top just below it."

The letter file held only a few bits of paper, apparently notes and
memoranda; and upon the flat top of the desk was a bronze ink well, a
pen tray, a thin layer of dust and nothing more, except a tiny scrap of
paper hardly as big as a thumb nail, which lay directly beneath the
letter file. Brierly cast a wandering glance over the desk top and file
and set about his task.

There was quite a litter of papers, letters mostly, together with some
loose sheets that contained figures, dates, or something begun and cast
aside. Below some of the pigeon holes, letters lay as if hastily pulled
out, and from one of these little receptacles three or four envelopes
protruded, half out, half in--one, a square white envelope, projecting
beyond the others. These Brierly pulled forth, and turning them over in
his hand, scrutinised their superscriptions. Then slowly he took the
square white wrapper from among the others, and drew out the letter it
contained. As he began to scan the page of closely lined writing he
started, frowned, flushed hotly, and then with a look of fierce anger he
thrust the sheet back into its envelope, and turned toward the
detective.

"Take that!" he said with a curl of the lip. "Unless I am greatly at
fault, it's a document in the case."

Ferrars took the letter from him, and asked, as he thrust it into the
pocket of his loose coat without so much as glancing at it, "Do you mind
my running over the papers in this rack, Brierly? and looking into the
waste basket?"

"Do it, by all means," was the reply as Brierly pulled open the topmost
drawer; and then for some time there was silence, save for the rustle of
paper or the rasping of a hinge or turning knob.

When Brierly had finished his silent search of the two drawers, he
approached the detective with a small lacquered box in his hand.

"The watch and the foreign jewels are gone," he said, holding out the
open box. "And what do you think of this? Here are my mother's
keepsakes, wrapped in tissue paper, and labelled in my brother's hand,
'Mementos. From my mother.' The thief has spared these."

The detective, who was now seated beside the table, holding a folded
newspaper in his hand, took the box, looked at the tiny packet within,
nodded and passed it silently to the doctor.

"And now," went on Robert Brierly, and there was a new ring of
resolution and menace in his voice. "I turn the rooms and all they
contain over to you, Mr. Ferrars, and I await your opinion, when you
have read that letter in your pocket."

Ferrars drew forth the envelope and looked at it for the first time. It
was only a fragment, for a large corner of its face was missing, the
corner, in fact, which should have borne the postage stamp and the
postmaster's seal.

Without a word he held this side towards the two men, extending it first
to one, and then to the other.

"You see!" he said, and then to Brierly. "Was it your brother's habit to
tear his letters open in such a reckless manner?"

"No. He was almost dainty in all his ways."

"Is there another letter in that desk torn as this is?"

Without a word Brierly took the letter and went back to the desk,
catching the letters from their pigeon holes by the handful.

"I understand," he said, when he came back to them. "No, there is not a
torn envelope there."

"Then," said the detective, "I think I may venture to give an opinion
even before I look at this letter."




CHAPTER X.

THIS HELPS ME.


The three men were now standing grouped about the table with its
scattered books and manuscripts, and Ferrars bent toward Robert Brierly,
putting a hand upon his shoulder.

"Brierly," he said, "sit down; this thing is using up your strength. I
will tell you what I think of all this, and then we must lock up this
place for a little while just as it is." And as Brierly obediently
dropped into the chair which the doctor quickly placed beside him, the
detective resumed.

"Since yesterday half a dozen theories have suggested themselves to my
mind as possible explanations of this very daring murder, for I am now
fully convinced that it is nothing less; but I make it a rule never to
accept, much less announce, a belief, until I have established at least
a reasonable series of corroborative circumstances. This I have not
done entirely to my satisfaction, and so we will not go into the theory
of the case, but will see what facts we have established; and fact
number one, to my mind, is this: Your brother, Mr. Brierly, was most
certainly shot down with malice aforethought. He could not have shot
himself, and no one, in that open place, could have killed him by
accident. He may have been entirely unaware of it, but he had an enemy;
and the deed of yesterday was planned, I believe, long ago, and studied
carefully in every detail."

Robert Brierly flushed and paled. He opened his lips as if to speak, but
the detective's eyes were steadfastly turned away, and he resumed almost
at once.

"I blame myself that I did not establish myself here last night, as I at
first thought of doing. But it is too late for useless regret. And now,
about this boy. Have you, either of you, a thought, a suspicion, as to
his identity?"

The doctor shook his head.

"You can't suspect one of the pupils, surely?" hazarded Brierly.

"Be sure that Mrs. Fry knows every pupil in Glenville, by sight, at
least; and this lad was a stranger, remember. It was a clever lad who
first secured the key to these rooms and then decoyed Mrs. Fry half way
across the town perhaps. How long must it have taken her, Doc, to go and
come, in haste?"

"Quite half an hour, I should think."

"Well, we will assure ourselves of that later. Now we will suppose that
this strange boy was acquainted with these rooms to some extent, and
that he was, I fully believe. When Mrs. Fry is out of sight--and we
know, from her story, that he was careful that she should be before he
left his station upon the front porch--he slips indoors and evidently
knows where to look for a lamp, which he does not light until he is
inside this room." And Ferrars put a finger upon the match remarked upon
by Mrs. Fry. "Now, as Mrs. Fry observed, there has been quite a film of
dust in the air for the past twenty-four hours, so that, in spite of the
good woman's tidy ways, it has accumulated upon this dark and shining
wood." And he put down his finger and called their attention to its
prints upon the table at his side.

"When we entered this room," he went on, "and I took it upon myself to
look at that window with the swinging blind, under pretence of opening
the shutters, I first noted that the visitor had left us a clue to his
identity--several clues, indeed. Before seeing these I had thought that
the boy was only an advance guard for some one else, but I see I was
wrong. It was the boy, and a very keen and clever boy, who entered here
alone. See upon this table, upon the window sills, and upon the desk,
the prints of one, two, and sometimes all four, small slender fingers."

Ferrars paused a moment, while they examined the dust prints, faint but
yet clear, upon the dark wood, and making lines of clearer colour upon
the painted brown of the window sills.

"And what," asked Brierly, speaking for the first time since the
detective began his explanation--"what was his real object?"

"His real object! Ah, I see you have been observant, and if I am not
much mistaken he has left something; but the things he took were taken
solely to cover up the real reason of his coming. Mr. Charles Brierly's
pistol, his watch, and the foreign bijouterie were so little wanted by
this remarkable boy that he will no doubt get rid of them in some way at
the first opportunity. All but one thing."

"And that?" asked Brierly, breathlessly.

Ferrars walked over to the writing-desk and signed them to follow.
"Observe that letter file!" he said. "There is not much upon it, bills
for school books, two or three circulars, and so on, but observe that
this file hangs over the top of the desk, so that anything falling from
it would touch just here. He moistened the tip of a forefinger, and,
touching with it a small bit of paper lying upon the top of the desk and
just below the letter file, he lifted it deftly, and they all saw
beneath it the dust of the previous day upon the polished surface.

"This," said Ferrars, holding out the bit of paper upon the palm of his
hand, "was torn from something pulled from this file since Mrs. Fry
dusted the furniture here yesterday morning, after Charles Brierly left
the house. See, as the paper was pulled from the file this bit came off,
because it was attached at the corner, as you see. It is a fragment from
a newspaper. If it had been a letter the paper would not have parted so
readily; it would merely have torn through."

It was, indeed, a tiny scrap of newspaper, not of the best quality, and
not half an inch from the smoothly-cut corner to the ragged edge, where
the file had perforated it.

"The slip of printed paper from which this was torn," said Ferrars, "was
the one thing which was taken from this room because it was wanted! The
rest were merely carried away as a blind."

"But," asked the doctor, "why did he make this search among the books
and papers?"

"To find perhaps this very thing," replied Ferrars. "But his first and
most important errand was this." He drew forth the letter given into his
hands by Robert Brierly, and held it toward them. "Witness the thing
itself. It bears no post-mark, it never did bear one, and it is thrust
into the most conspicuous place, doubtless, after some looking about, in
search of a better. I do not know its contents but I guess."

A gesture from Brierly cut short his speech. "Read it, both of you," he
said, with something like a groan. "And tell me what it means."

Ferrars drew forth the sheet of note paper and slowly unfolded it. For a
moment he scrutinised the page with a frown, and then began to read--


     "Mr. Charles Brierly: I don't know why I should be drawn into your
     love affair any further, and I have said my last word about your
     friend, Miss G----. One would think that the proofs you have
     already had would be more than enough. She is not the first woman,
     with a pretty face and an innocent way, who has fooled and tricked
     a man. Why don't you ask her and have it out? You'll find she can
     scratch as well as the rest of her sex. One word more, when you
     have had it out with her, beware! Especially if she weeps and
     forgives you. Remember the 'woman scorned.'

     "Don't write me again. I shall not answer any more questions. And,
     remember your promise, don't let her dream that you ever heard of
     me. I shall feel safer. So good-bye and good luck. Yours, J. B."


Ferrars folded up this strange letter slowly, saying:

"This document has no date and no post office address." He held it in
his hand for a moment in silence, looking at it thoughtfully, then. "I
should like to retain this," he said, looking at Brierly, "as one of the
documents in the case." And as Brierly silently bowed his assent, he
added: "Have you formed an opinion concerning this letter?"

"I believe it is a shameful trick," declared Robert Brierly, hotly. "An
attempt on the part of some person or persons to injure Miss Grant, who
stands to me as a sister henceforth. If I am any judge of womankind, she
is as good as she is lovely, and I believe that she mourns my brother's
awful death as only a good, true and loving woman can. I wish you could
and would say the same, Mr. Ferrars."

"I can say that you have said the only right and manly thing, in my
opinion. You don't want to know what I think, however, but what can be
done? And, first, this affair must be kept between ourselves. This
letter makes it all the more important. If it has been put here to
mislead justice and to make trouble, perfect silence regarding it will
be the most baffling and perplexing course we can pursue. And it may
lead to some further manifestation. The word must go out at once that
Mr. Brierly has desired these rooms closed for the present, with
everything to remain untouched. Meantime I consider that we have got our
hands upon some strong clues, if we can find the way to develop them
aright. Don't ask me anything more now, gentlemen. I want time to study
over this morning's discoveries, and Mr. Brierly, it is time you
breakfasted."

At this moment there came a quick tap at the door, and Mrs. Fry's voice
was heard without. At a signal from Ferrars, Doctor Barnes opened the
door.

"Gentlemen," began the little woman in eager explanation, "I don't want
to interrupt."

"We are just going," said the doctor politely.

"Oh, well, I got to thinking, after I went downstairs, and it came into
my mind that I didn't see Miss Grant's picture on the top of the
writing-desk up here. Mr. Brierly had had it three weeks or so, and he
showed it to me himself and says, 'Mrs. Fry, this picture is in its
proper place here in my room. You and Nellie both know and love Miss
Grant, and so I may tell you that she is to be my wife some day, God
willing.'" The woman's voice broke at the last word, and Robert Brierly
made a quick stride back toward the desk. But Ferrars said,
unconcernedly, "Thank you, Mrs. Fry; we shall find it in the desk, I
fancy," and then he explained to her Mr. Brierly's desire that the rooms
remain closed to all curious visitors until further notice, adding that
they would close the outside blinds and be downstairs directly; then,
shutting the door upon the woman's retreating form, and softly turning
the key in the lock again, Ferrars went to the desk, and, catching back
Brierly's extended hand, said, "Wait!"

He came closer to the desk and bent to scan at the top shelf.

"Look," he said after a moment, "do you see that line, close to the
back, where the dust is not quite so apparent? The picture has been
taken from there." He took hold of the back and pulled the desk from the
wall a few inches.

"Ah," he exclaimed, "I thought so!" and dropping upon one knee he drew
out two pieces of cardboard. "I thought so," he repeated as he arose,
and there was a steely gleam in his eyes as he held out to view the two
halves of a fine picture of Hilda Grant, torn across the middle as if by
a firm and vindictive hand. "This helps me," he said, with a touch of
triumph in his voice. "It helps me more than all the rest."

He made a movement as if to put the picture together with the letter
which he had put down upon the desk-top, into a capacious inner pocket,
and then suddenly withdrew his hand and bestowed them elsewhere, for,
thrust into that safe side pocket, so convenient and capacious, was a
folded newspaper, from which a "clipping" had been carefully cut, a
paper which he had found in the rack near the desk, and had secreted, as
he thought, unseen, at his earliest opportunity.




CHAPTER XI.

DETAILS.


During the day that followed the discoveries in Mrs. Fry's upper
chamber, Mr. Ferrars did a variety of things that surprised the brother
of Charles Brierly; yes, and the doctor as well, and he said some things
that seemed quite incomprehensible. For the detective was somewhat given
to half-uttered soliloquy when he knew himself among "safe" people, and
could therefore afford to relax his guard. Likewise he failed to say the
things which Brierly, at least, expected, and much desired to hear.

His first movement after the three had breakfasted, was to ask for the
keys of the cottage chambers, for they had been handed over to Brierly
somewhat ostentatiously in the presence of Mrs. Fry and at the foot of
the cottage stairs, by the doctor.

"I want to spend another half-hour in those rooms," he said, "and to so
leave them that I shall know at once if a human foot has so much as
crossed the threshold."

This was all the explanation he chose to make then or upon his return.

Indeed, when he came back he spent all of the remaining time until high
noon, smoking alone upon the doctor's neat lawn and along the shady side
of the house, excusing himself and guarding against possible intrusion,
by remarking that he felt the need of a little solitary self-communion.

At luncheon the question of the burial was discussed, and afterward
Brierly announced his intentions to call upon Miss Grant, if the doctor
thought her able to receive him.

"I have told Mrs. Marcy to keep the gossips out," Doctor Barnes said
gravely, "she's too sensitive, Miss Grant I mean, to hear unfeeling or
curious discussions of the case. But a friend who is in sympathy--that's
another thing. She'll be better with such company than alone."

When Brierly had set out, the detective threw away his after-dinner
cigar.

"Were you called to see the little lady who was taken ill here
yesterday, after the close of the inquest?" he asked carelessly. "I
forgot to inquire, in my desire to keep Brierly occupied."

The doctor shook his head. "I fancy she only needed time to recover
from the effect of her gruesome position. It was a blunder, putting her
in plain sight of that shrouded corpse. Those little blue-eyed women are
masses of nerves and fine sensibilities--often. I don't see how it came
about."

"If you mean the 'blunder' of putting those ladies where they were, it
was I who blundered. I arranged to place them there."

"You!" the doctor's eyes opened wide in astonishment. "Then I retract.
It was I who have blundered."

"Um--I am not so sure," Ferrars replied slowly, and then the subject as
by mutual consent was ignored between them. Ferrars, who seemed for the
time at least to have done his thinking, wrote several letters at the
doctor's desk, and then prepared to go out.

"I asked permission to call and inquire after Mrs. Jamieson's health,
yesterday," he said to the doctor, "and as she has not required your
services she may be able to receive me now."

"There is another Esculapius in Glenville," reminded Doctor Barnes.

"So I have heard; but the lady is a person of good taste. She would have
called you in if any one." He bowed and went out with a gleam of humour
in his eyes.

"It's sometimes hard to guess what Ferrars means when he speaks with
that queer look and tone," mused the doctor. "And who would have thought
he would care or think of a formal call like this just now! And yet,
that little woman is pretty enough to attract a man, I'm sure; and a
detective may be as susceptible, I suppose, as another."

Ferrars waited for a few moments in the reception-room of the Glenville
House, and was then conducted to the pretty suite occupied by Mrs.
Jamieson. He found her half reclining in a long, low chair, with her
friend, Mrs. Arthur, still in attendance. She wore a soft, loose robe of
black, with billowy gauze-like ruffles, and floating ribbons of the same
sable hue, relieved only by a knot of purple wood violets at her throat.
Her face was very pale and her eyes, with their changing lights of
greyish green and glinting blue, looking larger and deeper than usual
because of the dark shadows beneath them, and the waves of her plentiful
fair hair falling low and loose upon her forehead.

She welcomed her visitor with a faint half smile, and thanked him again
for his kindness of the previous day. She blamed herself for her want of
nerve and courage. She inquired after Miss Grant and expressed her
sympathy for the bereaved girl, and her desire to see her again, to
know her, and serve her if possible; she had shown herself so brave, yet
so womanly that day--and then the little lady told of her encounter with
Miss Grant in the unfortunate character of messenger or bearer of bad
news. She was glad there would be no lack of staunch friends to support
the sweet girl in her time of need and trouble, and she finished by
sending a pretty message to Hilda, and then without further question or
comment concerning the murder or the progress of the case, she let the
talk slip into the hands of her friend, and leaned back in her chair
like one too weak for further effort, seeing which Ferrars soon
withdrew.

"You will not consider this an example of my usual hospitality, I
trust," Mrs. Jamieson said, as he bent over her chair to say farewell.
"I fear I was not wise in refusing to let them call a physician, but I
do dread being in the hands of a doctor. I shall be pleased to hear how
this sad case progresses, Mr. Grant, and by the bye, has anything new
occurred since the inquest? Any new witnesses or discoveries of any
sort?"

But Ferrars shook his head, and murmuring something about time being
short, and not taxing her good nature and strength further, he bowed
low, and went away.

"It's very good of her," he mused, as he went, "to take such kindly
interest in my supposed relative, Miss Grant. But she certainly showed
scant interest in the chief actor in the drama, my friend Brierly."

The candles had just been lighted that evening, and Ferrars was once
more waiting at the doctor's desk, while Brierly, pale and heavy-eyed,
lounged by the long window near, when Dr. Barnes came in, hat in hand.

"As you felt some interest in Mrs. Jamieson's selection of a physician
this morning," the latter said, "I will inform you that I have just been
summoned to see that lady, professionally, of course," he added, as if
by an afterthought, and smiling slightly.

"Thank you. Mrs. Jamieson has vindicated my belief in her good
judgment," replied Ferrars, and then he wheeled about in his chair, and
put out a detaining hand.

"Don't think I doubt your reserve, doctor," he went on, "when I ask you
to avoid or evade, if needful, any discussion of this affair of ours.
That is, avoid giving any information, be it ever so trivial." He shot a
quick glance toward Brierly, and met the doctor's eye for one swift,
momentary glance.

"My visit will be purely professional, and doubtless brief," was the
reply, as the speaker passed from the room, and Ferrars smiled, knowing
that his friend understood the meaning behind the half jesting words.

A moment later Robert Brierly arose, yawned, and crossed the room to
take up his hat.

"This inaction is horrible," he said, drearily. "I must get out. I wish
I had walked down with Barnes. Won't you come out with me, Mr. Ferrars?"

The detective dipped his pen in the sand-box, and arose quickly. Then
when he had found his hat, and had lowered the light over the writing
table, he put a hand upon the other's shoulder.

"I'll go out with you, of course, Brierly," he said, and there was a
world of sympathy, as well as complete understanding in his tone. "But
first, I want to ask you to show yourself as little as possible upon the
streets, for a few days to come at least, and then only in the company
of the doctor or myself, and not to go out evenings at all unless
similarly attended. It will be irksome, I know, but I believe it
important, and I must ask this of you, too, without explanation, for the
present at least."

The young man looked at him for a moment, earnestly and in silence.

"Do you ask this for reasons personal to myself, or because it seems to
you to be for the interest of the investigation?" he asked slowly.

Ferrars smiled. "You're as able to take care of yourself as any man I
know, Brierly," he said, with frank conviction. "It's for the interest
of the case that we--and especially you--keep ourselves as much aloof as
possible from questions and curiosity. There is another reason which I
cannot give just yet."

"As you will. I have put myself and my brother's vindication in your
hands, Mr. Ferrars, and I shall do nothing, be sure, to hinder your
progress." As they passed out Brierly paused under the shadow of the
porch. "May I ask if you have put the same embargo upon Miss Grant?" he
questioned.

"I have, yes. Glenville must know what we wish it to know, and not a
syllable more."

"Ah! I like that."

"Why?"

"Because it sounds as if you had really found the end of your thread
here."

"Oh, yes. The beginning is here. Not of the case, mind; only of the
clues. But heaven only knows where it may lead us before we find the
end."

"What matters," said the brother of Charles Brierly, with a heavy sigh,
"so long as it brings us to the truth!"




CHAPTER XII.

"FERRISS-GRANT."


On the fourth day after Charles Brierly's untimely death, his body was
taken to the city and laid beside his parents in the beautiful cemetery
where love and grief had already prepared for him and his, a place of
final rest.

News of the burial had been sent ahead, and a crowd of friends had
assembled at the home of their father's oldest friend and family lawyer,
where the body was received as that of a son, and the last rites of
affection and respect were performed by the venerable rector who had
seen the brothers grow from boys to men.

Doctor Barnes and Hilda Grant, with Mrs. Marcy as chaperone, accompanied
the sad-hearted brother upon this journey, and they were somewhat
surprised when Ferrars, whom they had thought must go with them in his
character of sole relative to the young lady, explained that his
presence in Glenville just then was essential to the success of the work
he had been called there to do.

"There are so many little things which I want to learn," he said. "In
fact, I must know Glenville much better before I can go far in my
search, and during your absence I can find the time for making many new
acquaintances, and I mean to begin by cultivating your friend Doran,
doctor."

They were gone three days, and when they returned they were but a party
of three. "Poor Charlie Brierly," as his friends in the city had already
begun to call the dead, lay in his last, quiet earthly home, and Robert
had remained in the city.

"To settle up his brother's affairs, and put the matter of his death
into the hands of the detectives." At least this is what Mr. Doran
informed one of the loungers who, seeing the return of the doctor and
the two ladies, had remarked upon Brierly's absence.

"Of course he'll have to come back here," Doran had further added. "He
ain't touched the things in his brother's rooms yet, they say. But
they'll wait better than the other business."

"Umph!" the villager sniffed. "He's let three days slip by without
makin' much of a stir. Why on earth ain't they had one o' them fellers
down here long before this? They ain't seemed to hurry much."

"Well, you see, at first 'twas more than half believed that the shooting
must have been by accident; and then, this is just between you and me,
Jones; didn't you ever think that even after that jury's verdict, and
the doctor's testimony, they, Doc. and the brother, might have wanted to
make sure, by a sort of private and more thorough investigation of the
wound, eh?"

"By crackey! Now that you speak of it, I heard Mason say't they was up
an' movin' round at the doctor's that livelong night! Yes, sir, I reckon
you've hit it!"

"My!" mused Samuel Doran as he moved away from the gossip. "They bite at
my yarns like babies on a teethin' ring. Doc. knows his fellow critters,
sure enough, and my work's laid out for me, I guess."

For Doran, after due consultation, and upon the doctor's voucher, had
been taken a little way into the confidence of the three men, and
Ferrars began to foresee in him a reliable helper.

The above brief conversation took place between Doran and Mr. Jones,
professional depot-lounger and occasional worker at odd jobs, while the
doctor was putting Hilda and Mrs. Marcy into a waiting carriage, and
when he had seen it drive away up town, Doran came forward and
addressed him in a tone quite audible to the bystanders.

"You see, I didn't forget the carriage, Doc. Hope Miss Grant ain't none
the worse for her sad sort of journey." And then as the two walked away
from the platform together, and he saw the doctor's eyes glancing from
side to side, Doran went on. "Looking for Mr. Grant, Doc.? Well, I guess
you won't see him; not before supper-time, anyhow. Fact is, I guess he's
sort of fancy struck on that pretty-faced widow down at the Glenville
House, and he's taken her out behind my greys this afternoon. I don't
know as I blame him any; she is a dainty little wid."

The doctor stared at him in amazement at his first words, and then broke
into a hearty laugh over the last.

"Upon my word, Doran, you will be able to write a new dictionary of
abbreviations some day! Doran's Original! A dainty wid. is very good in
its way; only, is she a 'wid.'?"

"That's what they say at the Glenville. Widow and rich."

At the next corner Doran halted. "Have to tear myself away," he said,
amiably. "See you later," and the two men separated.

"Well, old man, how have you fared during the lull in your business?"
asked Doctor Barnes, as his man came to meet him. "You don't look
overworked."

"I ain't been, neither, sah. Your Mr. Grant or Ferrars, I ain't rightly
got his name, I guess, sir, he 'pears ter like the cooks down to the
Glenville better than me. I ain't had no bother with him since you left,
sir, 'cept to make up his bed."

"I know. He has found some friends there, I fancy, Jude. Any news or
messages?" and the doctor became at once absorbed in his neglected
business.

Ferrars made his appearance at "supper time" as Doran had described the
evening meal, and the two men had much to discuss. When Jude had placed
the last dishes and retired, the detective, who thus far had been
listening to the doctor's account of the journey and the sad funeral
obsequies, looked up and said: "I suppose you have heard of my
wanderings, doctor, and how I have forsaken poor Jude? The fact is, I
have found plenty of leisure, and Mrs. Jamieson, when one comes to know
her a little, is a very ab--interesting woman. The sort of woman, in
fact, whose society I now and then enjoy. I have not neglected my duty,
however, but there is absolutely nothing new. And, by the bye, I must
see Miss Grant this evening; after that, if you are at liberty, we must
have a talk. I have decided upon a change of plan, of which you must
know."

He had left a note for Miss Grant, which advised her of his intended
call as soon as she should have become rested and refreshed. He was glad
to find her so strong and so composed, and he came at once to the
business in hand.

"Miss Grant," he began, "as I said in my note, I have something to
propose to you which has presented itself to me as the best course
during your absence; and, to begin, let me ask, have you still full
confidence in me as a detective, and as a man whom you may trust?"

She lifted her fine clear eyes to his face and kept them there while she
replied.

"I felt that I could trust you, Mr. Ferrars, when we first met. There
has been no change in that feeling unless it may be the change to a
larger measure of trust and confidence."

"Thank you." And now the cool detective flushed like a schoolboy. "I
shall try hard to deserve your good opinion, and it encourages me to
broach my singular proposal. I believe it will enable me to get on
easier and with more rapidity if you will permit me to continue for an
indefinite time in the role which I did not at first choose for myself,
and I ask you if I may still remain, in the eyes of Glenville, as now,
in the character of your cousin."

"To remain--in Glenville?"

"When Doctor Barnes sent for me, advising me that I might arrive in the
character of your cousin, it was, of course, with the idea that this
masquerade would be a brief one, and it was undertaken because the
doctor knew how it would hamper if not really balk, my attempts to
unravel this mystery if I were known as a detective. I cannot explain
now, but I ask you to believe that, being here, I am now convinced that
in laying aside this character I should put out of my hands my best
weapon, the most direct means of following up and ferreting out a crime
which I fully believe will prove to have been--that is, if we succeed in
finding out the truth--a crime with a far-reaching plot behind it, and
the cause of which most of us have not even remotely dreamed of."

"You have said enough. All is in your hands. Be what you will and must,
the better to prove to the world that Charles Brierly, my husband in the
sight of heaven, died as he lived, an upright gentleman and martyr, and
not the suicide or the victim of a righteous vengeance that most people
would for ever declare him if the truth is not made known."

"Understand," he urged, "that if you consent to this, you, as well as
myself, will have a part to play, and an active part, perhaps, in the
drama we are about to begin. Remember, you will have to keep up the
deception for weeks, possibly months; and to go and come at my desire."

"Do you mean," she asked, breathlessly, "that you may need my help?"

"I do need your help!"

"Oh!" she cried, letting go her splendid self-restraint for the moment.
"You don't know what you are doing for me! To be active, to do
something, instead of sitting still and eating my heart out in suspense.
It will save me from madness perhaps. What could a true relative do for
me more than you are doing and will do. You are my cousin!" And she put
out her two hands to him with a new look of energy and resolve in her
face. As he took the two slim hands in both his own and looked in her
eyes, suddenly so aroused and purposeful, he saw for the first time, the
full strength and force of will and nature behind that fair face and
gentle bearing, the high spirit and courage animating the slender frame.

"Thank you," he said, simply, as he released her hands. "I feel that I
can indeed rely upon you at need. You have the strength; can you have
the patience as well? At present I can tell you very little. You will
have to take much upon trust."

"I have anticipated that."

"For example, it is my inflexible rule never to reveal the name of a
suspected person until I have at least partial proof of guilt, enough to
warrant an arrest. But you have a right to such confidence as I can
give, and so, if you have a question to ask, and I think you have, let
me answer it if I can."

"Oh, I thank you." She came a step nearer. "I ask myself one question,
over and over; that there was no guilty secret in my poor boy's life and
death, I know. Where, then, can be the motive?"

"The motive, ah! When we know that, we shall be at the beginning of the
end of the matter. Sit down, Miss Grant, and I will put the case before
you as I now see it."

She sank into the nearest seat without a word.

"As to the manner of the murder," he went on, "this is my conclusion.
Some one, an enemy who hated or feared him, has informed himself of Mr.
Charles Brierly's habits, and made himself familiar with the woods along
the lake shore. Your friend, I learn, has practised target-shooting for
some time. Have you ever thought that he might have had a reason for so
doing?"

"Good heavens! No!"

"Well, that is only a suggestion. But this much is certain, the deed was
premeditated, and carefully planned. I have satisfied myself that the
assassin, approaching from the south, made almost the circuit of that
long mound, after making sure that no one was near, in order to reach
the point, scarcely twelve feet from the place where the body was found,
from which to fire the fatal shot."

"My God!"

"It was a bold venture, but not so dangerous as might at first appear. I
find that from a point half way to the top of the mound one might be
quite concealed from any one down by the lake shore while taking a long
look up and down the road. And, in case of approach, there is at the
south end of the mound a clump of bushes and young trees, where one
could easily remain concealed while awaiting the victim or the passing
of an interloper. From the town to a point not far south of the knoll or
mound, as your people call it, the ground between the road and lake has
been partially cleared of undergrowth for the comfort of picnickers and
fishing parties, I am told."

"Yes." She sighed wonderingly. "But beyond that, a person wishing to be
unseen from the lake or road could easily hide among the brush and
trees. I believe all this was carefully studied and carried out, and
that, five minutes after the shots were fired, the slayer was on his way
southward to some point where a confederate waited, with some means of
conveying themselves to a safe distance."

"Ah!" she whispered. "The boat?"

"Yes, the boat. It was a part of the plot, and rowed to that point by
the confederate, I believe, for the purpose of misleading justice.
Doran, who is an able helper, learned this morning that a farm hand, who
was driving his stock across the road to drink at the lake, saw a man in
a boat rowing up towards Glenville at half-past seven that morning."

"Oh! And can you follow them? Is the trail strong enough?"

"I think so. And there are other clues. There is much to be done here in
Glenville first of all. At the inquest the testimony was purposely left
vague and uncertain at some points."

"And why?"

"Because, somewhere, not far away, there is a person who is watching
developments, and who may leave some track unsevered if he can be made
to think we are off the scent. I mean to know my Glenville very well
before I leave it, and some of its people too. And here you can help me
as soon as you are strong enough."

"I am strong enough now. What more can I do?"

"You remember the foolish boy and his fright when questioned?"

"Of course."

"Well, as his teacher, can you not win his confidence until his fear is
overcome? That boy has not told all he knows."

"He is very dull, I fear. He said he saw a ghost."

"Well, we must know the nature of that ghost, and why it has closed his
lips so effectually. Seriously I hope much from that lad."

"Then be sure I will do my best."

"You see, I am taking you at your word. And there's one more thing. I
have been told that strangers go oftenest to the Glenville when in town.
Now it behoves me to know the latest comers, and the newcomers there,
and chance having given me opportunity to break the ice by being polite
to Mrs. Jamieson, I have improved the moments. I don't mean that I am
studying the lady for any sinister purpose, but one can see that she is
quite a social leader in the house, and through her I have already come
to know several of the other inmates. Mrs. Jamieson very much desires to
know you, and if you will allow her to call, as under the circumstances
she desires to do, and if you will return that call--in short, put
yourself upon the footing of an acquaintance--it will really help me
greatly."

For a long moment Hilda did not speak, then "I will do as you wish, of
course," she said, but the note of eager readiness had gone out of her
voice. "But I cannot even think of that woman without living over again
our first meeting and the awful blow her news dealt me. Will I ever
outlive the hurt of it?"

"It hurt her, too; I am sure of that. She is a keenly sensitive woman.
She went from your schoolroom really ill, so her friend has told me."

"I can well believe that. She looked ill when she came to me. And who
can wonder?" her tone softening. "Mrs. Jamieson is certainly kind, and
why should we not be friends? She is a lady, refined and charming. Don't
think me unreasonable, Mr. Ferrars. I shall be pleased to receive her,
of course."

"Thank you. And remember, that for the present Francis Ferrars becomes
Ferriss, Ferriss-Grant. You'll not forget your part!"

"I will not forget," she answered. And when he was gone she smiled a sad
little womanly smile. "After all, a detective is but a man, and that
petite, soft-spoken, dainty blonde woman is just the sort to fascinate a
big-hearted, strong man like Francis Ferrars."




CHAPTER XIII.

THE "LAKE COUNTY HERALD."


"Has Doran been here, doctor?"

These were the detective's first words when he entered the sanctum upon
his return from the Marcy cottage, and before his host could do more
than shake his head, Ferrars dropped into a seat beside him and went on
in a lower tone.

"The fact is, doctor, I've got myself interested in a thing which, after
all, may lead me astray. Do you take the _Lake County Herald_?"

"Upon my word!" ejaculated the doctor. "I do; yes. Want to peruse the
sheet?"

"I don't suppose you file them?" went on Ferrars.

"File the _Herald_! No, I fire them, or Jude does."

"I wish you had not. The fact is I want very much to get hold of a copy
dated November last, the 27th. Do you recall the bit of paper I took
from Charles Brierly's desk-top to demonstrate that something had been
hastily pulled from the letter file by that clever boy of whom Mrs. Fry
could tell so little?"

"Yes; surely." The doctor now began to look seriously interested.

"Well, the stolen paper was a newspaper clipping, cut from the _Herald_
of November 27th last."

"Upon my word! But there, I won't ask questions."

"You need not. Did you not observe me looking over the papers in the
rack?"

"Yes."

"Possibly you saw me with a paper in my hand soon after?"

The doctor stared and shook his head. "I've no eye for sleight-of-hand,"
he grumbled.

"Decidedly not, for I folded up that paper and thrust it in a breast
pocket before your very eyes. I kept that tiny bit, too, which I picked
up on my forefinger. It fitted into a column from which a piece had been
cut, and that's how I know that the stolen article came from that paper.
Very simple, after all, you see!"

"For you, yes."

"The fact that the clipping was thought worth stealing, makes me fancy
it worth a perusal. I tried for it here in town, in a quiet way, but
failed. Then I appealed to Doran, and he has written to Lake, to the
editor, whom he happens to know."

"It would be hard to find hereabouts a man of any importance whatever
whom Sam Doran does not know. He grew up in Lake County, and has held
half the offices in the county's gift."

"There may be a clue for us in that clipping. I discovered another thing
in that room. The dead man wrote, or began, a letter to his brother. I
learned this from a scrap, dated and addressed, which I found in the
waste basket, and I am led to believe the letter was re-written, or
rather begun anew, and sent, from the fact that a fresh blotter showed a
fragment of Brierly's name, and the city address. That letter, if
mailed, must have passed him as he came down. Did he mention getting
it?"

Doctor Barnes shook his head.

"He said nothing about such a letter," he replied. "Does he know about
this--this newspaper business?"

"Not a word. No one knows it but yourself. If it should prove to be a
clue in my hands, it may be better, it will be better, I am sure, to
keep it at present between us two. I think, however, that I may decide
to show Miss--my cousin--that anonymous letter, and tell her something
about that mysterious boy and his visit to her lover's rooms." And then
Ferrars turned from this subject to explain to the doctor his present
plans. How he had determined to continue his masquerade, and to remain
for a time in Glenville; and, though Mrs. Jamieson's name was not
uttered, the doctor found himself wondering, as had Hilda Grant, if the
detective had not found the place attractive for personal, as well as
business reasons; and if a detective's heart must needs be of adamant
after all.

Next morning Samuel Doran, who knew the detective only as "Hilda Grant's
cousin and a right good fellow," drove ostentatiously to the door to
take "Mr. Grant" for a drive.

"I've had a line from Joe Howlett," he began the moment they were upon
the road. "He was just setting out for a run out of town, but he says he
told the boys to look up that paper and send it along. So, I guess we'll
see it soon, if it's in existence." And Doran chirrupped to his team and
promptly changed the subject. He did not know why this man beside him so
much wished to obtain a six-months-old copy of a country newspaper, and
he did not trouble himself to worry or wonder. "It was none of his
business," he would have said if questioned, and Samuel Doran attended
to his own business exclusively and was by so much the more a reliable
helper when, his aid being asked, the business of his neighbour became
his own.

Ferrars was learning to know his man, and he knew that the time might
soon come when Doran would be his closest confidant and strongest
assistant in Glenville.

"We look for Brierly in a day or two," the detective said, casually, as
they bowled along. "He will bring a professional gentleman with him,"
and he turned his head and the eyes of the two met. Ferrars had found
that Doran could extract much meaning from a few words, at need.

"Something in the detective line, for instance? 'S that it?"

"That explanation will do for Glenville, Doran."

"Cert. Glenville ought to know it, too. We've been thinking 'twas about
time one of 'em appeared," and Doran grinned.

Ferrars smiled, well satisfied. He knew that the dignified family lawyer
and friend, who was coming to Glenville with Robert Brierly by his own
desire, would be promptly accepted as the tardy and eagerly looked for
"sleuth" who would "solve the mystery" at once and with the utmost ease.

And that is what happened.

The two men arrived a day earlier than they had been expected, and the
moment Robert Brierly found himself alone with Ferrars he drew from his
pocket a letter, saying, as he unfolded it with gentle, careful touch:

"This letter, Mr. Ferrars, is the last written me by my brother. It was
in the city, passing me on the way, before I had arrived here, and I
found it, among others, at the office. I have not spoken of it even to
the doctor. Read it, please."

Ferrars took the letter and read:


     "MY DEAR ROB.,--Since writing you, I have found in an old
     newspaper, quite by accident, something which has almost set my
     head to spinning. I know what you will say to that, old boy. It
     brings up something out of the past; something of which I may have
     to tell you and which should have been told you before. It's the
     only thing, concerning myself that is, which you do not know as
     well as I, and if I have not confided this to you, it was because I
     almost feared to. But then, why try to explain and excuse on paper
     when we are to meet, please God, so soon. Brother mine, what if
     that flood tide which comes, they say, to each, once in life, was
     on its way to you and to me? Well, it shall not separate us, Rob.;
     not by my will. But stop. I shall grow positively oracular if I
     keep on, (no one ever could understand an oracle, you know) and so,
     till we meet, adieu.

     "BROTHER CHARLIE."


When Ferrars had read this strange missive once, he sat for a moment as
if thinking, and then deliberately re-read it slowly, and with here and
there a pause; when at last he handed it back to Brierly, he asked:

"Do you understand that letter?"

"No more than I do the riddle of the sphinx, Ferrars," he leaned forward
eagerly as he put a question, and his eyes were apprehensive, though his
voice was firm. "Do you connect that letter in any way with my brother's
death?"

For a moment the detective was silent, thinking of the newspaper and the
missing clipping. Then he replied slowly as if considering between the
words.

"Of course it's possible, Mr. Brierly, but as yet I cannot give an
opinion. If you will trust that letter to me for a few days, however,
perhaps I may see more clearly. It's a surprise, I'll admit. I had fully
decided in my own mind that howsoever much the murderer may have
premeditated and planned, his victim was wholly unaware of an en-- of
his danger."

"You were about to say, of an enemy!"

"Yes. It is what I have been saying before seeing that letter." He put
out his hand, and as Brierly placed the letter in it, he added, "Let us
not discuss this further. Does your friend, Mr. Myers, know of it?"

"Not a word."

"Then for the present let it rest between us."

Two days after this interview Doran dropped in at the doctor's office,
and before he left had managed to put a newspaper, folded small, into
the hands of the detective, quite unperceived by the other occupants of
the room. For while since Brierley's return, accompanied by his friend,
these two had occupied together the rooms at Mrs. Fry's, the doctor's
cottage was still headquarters for them all, while Ferrars now had
solitary possession of the guest chamber, formerly assigned to Brierly.

Mr. Myers was a shrewd lawyer, as well as a faithful family friend. He
had felt from the first that there was mystery as well as crime behind
the death of Charles Brierly, who had been near and dear to him, as dear
as an own son, for the two families had been almost as one ever since
John Myers and the elder Brierly, who had been school friends and fellow
students, finally entered together the career of matrimony.

There had been no children in the Myers homestead, and the two lads
soon learned to look upon the Myers' house as their second home, and
"Uncle" John Myers had ranked, in their regard, only second to their
well beloved father. So that when the young men were left alone, in a
broken and desolate home, that other door opened yet wider, and claimed
them by right of affection.

Mr. Myers had been taken to the scene of the murder, had visited Hilda
Grant, and by his own desire had examined the books, papers, and
manuscripts in Charles Brierly's rooms, and on the day of Doran's call,
a longer drive than he had yet taken had been arranged. He was going,
accompanied by Brierly and driven by Doran, to look at the skiff, still
unclaimed and waiting upon the lake shore below the town.

Ferrars, much to Doran's regret, had declined to accompany them from the
first, and when he found himself in possession of the coveted newspaper,
he joined the others in their desire that Doctor Barnes should take the
fourth seat in the light surrey behind Doran's pet span; and the day
being fine, and business by no means pressing, that gentleman consented.




CHAPTER XIV.

A GHOST.


When Ferrars found himself alone he lost no time in locking his chamber
door and beginning his study of ancient news.

Taking the newly arrived paper from beneath his pillow, where he had
hastily thrust it, he spread out the mutilated copy beside it and
speedily located the clipping which should explain, or interpret,
Charles Brierly's last letter.

Putting the perforated paper over the other, as the quickest means to
the end, he drew a pencil mark around the paragraph which appeared in
the vacant space, and then, without pausing to read it, he reversed the
two sheets and repeated the operation.

This done, he took up the marked paper and sat down to read and digest
the secret.

"It won't take long to tell which side of this precious square of paper
contains the thing I want, I fancy," he meditated, as he smoothed out
the sheet.

The printed paragraph outlined by his pencil was hardly three inches in
length, and he read it through with a growing look of comprehension upon
his face. "I wonder if that can be it?" he said to himself at the end.
And then he slowly turned the paper and read the pencil-marked lines
upon the other side.

When he had perused the brief lines over, his brow knit itself into a
frown, and he re-read them, with his face still darkened by it. Then he
uttered a short laugh, and laid the paper down across his knee.

"I wonder if the other fellow will know which side was which!" he
muttered. "I'm blest if I do!" He sat for half an hour with the paper
upon his knee, looking off into space, and wrinkling his brow in
thought. Then he got up and put the two papers carefully away.

"I'm very thankful that I did not speak of this to Brierly," he thought
as he went out and locked his door behind him. "It would be only another
straw--yes, a whole weight of them, added to his load of doubt and
trouble."

The two paragraphs read as follows, the first being an advertisement,
with the usual heading, and in solid nonpareil type:--


     "Charlie: A. has found you out. He will not give me your address.
     Be on guard at all times, for there is danger. All will be forgiven
     if you will come back, and F. will help you to avoid A. You are not
     safe where you are. The city is better, and we cannot feel at ease
     knowing the risk you are running. At least stay where you are. Your
     brother or some friend ought to know. For your own sake do not
     treat this warning as you did A.'s other threat. He means it. Still
     at G. Street.

     "M."


The second paragraph was in the form of a would-be facetious editorial
paragraph, and ran thus:--


     "Not to have a fortune is sad enough, but to go up and down in the
     land a millionaire and never know it is wretchedness indeed. Many
     are the foreign fortunes seeking American heirs, if we are to
     believe the advertising columns, and the heirs seeking fortunes are
     as the sands of the sea in number.

     "There have been the Frayles, and the Jans, and a long retinue of
     lost heirs to waiting estates, and now it appears that the great
     Paisley fortune rusts in idleness and shamelessly accumulates,
     while the heirs of a certain Hugo Paisley, an Englishman who was
     last heard from in the Canadas many years ago, are much to be
     desired now that the home supply of English bred Paisley stock is
     run out."


There was more to this screed below the line which marked the lower end
of the clipping, but it contained no further reference to the Paisleys,
merely dilating in a would-be humorous manner upon the degenerating
influence of the foreign legacy upon the American citizen. But the
advertisement upon the other side had been cut out in full, and exactly
at the beginning and end.

It was puzzling and disappointing in the extreme. Ferrars had really
looked upon this cut newspaper as his strongest card when he should have
found the missing fragment, and now----! He thought and wondered, and
re-read letter and clipping again and again, but to no good purpose, and
at last he locked away the puzzling documents and went out to make a
morning call upon Mrs. Jamieson.

That evening he talked first with Robert Brierly and then with the
family lawyer, and to both he put the same direct questions, "What could
they tell him of the early history of the Brierlys? of Mrs. Brierly's
family and ancestors? Had they any relatives in England or Scotland,
say? Were there any old family papers in the possession of either?"

Of Robert Brierly he also asked if, to his knowledge, his brother had
had at any time a love affair--not serious, but amusing, perhaps--a
student's flirtation, even. Also, when and for how long, if at all, had
the brothers been separated since their schooldays?

And Brierly had replied that he knew very little of his father's
ancestors, beyond the fact that his grandfather Brierly was a Virginia
gentleman, and his father an only son. The family, so far as he knew,
had been Virginians for three generations, and what more, pray, could an
American ask? As for his mother, she had been a Miss Louise Cotterrell
of Baltimore, her father a railway magnate of renown. In her desk, very
much as she had left it, in a closed-up room in the old house, were
bundles of old letters and ancient family papers, so his father had once
told him; he had meant to examine them some time, but had not yet so
done. If Ferrars desired it he would do this soon.

So far as his dead brother was concerned, Brierly was sure there had
never been a love affair of even the most ephemeral sort. In fact,
Charles had always been shy of women, and used to shirk his social
duties as much as possible. Hilda Grant was, without doubt, his first
and only love. As to their separations, there had been several. To
begin, Charlie had been in college a year after he (Robert) had been
graduated, and the following year, "because the boy had seemed run down
and in need of rest and change," he had spent a few months upon a ranch
in Wyoming with a college friend. Then the two had made their European
tour, and since, their only long separations had been when his work as
journalist had taken him away from the city, sometimes for weeks, until
Charlie had taken this school as a relief from his theological studies.

From Mr. Myers he could only learn that the father and mother of Robert
and Charles Brierly were of good families, well known in their
respective states, and both, he believed, "were as distinctly Americans
as the war of the Revolution could make any American citizen of English
descent." As to Charlie Brierly, Myers "didn't believe the boy had ever
looked twice at a girl until he met with that lovely, sad-eyed
sweetheart who, it was plain, was wearing out her heart in silent grief
for him."

Then Ferrars went to see his supposed cousin, and asked her to review,
mentally, her latest talks with her lover, and to see if she could not
recall some mention of a discovery, a surprise, a perplexity possibly,
which he wished to lay before his brother when he should come. But she
shook her head sadly.

"Was he, to her knowledge, in the habit of collecting odd things from
the newspapers?"

She shook her head. "He did not think very highly of our daily papers,
and seldom if ever read beyond the news of the day. The scandals and
criminal reports he abhorred," she said.

"And he never alluded in any way to his family history, you say? Think,
was there no mention of family facts or names?"

She looked up after some moments of thought. "I can only recall one
thing which, after all, does not contain information, except as regards
the two brothers. Charlie was speaking of the difference of their
temperaments. Robert, he said, was intensely practical, living in and
enjoying most, the present, and by anticipation, the future, while he
(Charlie) was a dreamer, loving the past, and idealising its history. To
illustrate, he told how, as boys, he loved to hear his mother, whom I
fancy he resembled, tell the tales she had heard at her grandmother's
knee, of the early days, the French convents, the Indians, the
colonists, the quaint living, the speech, which had for him such charms,
while Robert would only hear of the fighting and would run away from the
ancestral history."

Hilda, grown accustomed to his numerous queries and scant explanations,
was not surprised at Ferrars' hurried departure at the end of the
catechism, and he went back to the doctor's cottage with just one faint
little possibility as a reward for all this interviewing. He had known
Mr. Myers in the city, as a successful detective is apt to know an able
lawyer, well by reputation and personally a little, and he was glad to
find in him a friend to the Brierlys, dead and living.

Going back that night he said to himself:

"It's of no use to try to go on like this; a confidant will save me a
lot of time, and Myers is the man. I can't call upon the doctor; he's
got his profession, and he belongs here. Myers can make my business and
Brierly's his at need. Besides, he's a lawyer and won't be knocked
entirely out by my wild theorising, and he's the one man who can get
access to the ancestral documents at need."

He found the lawyer still upon the doctor's piazza, and without the
least attempt at explanation invited him into his own room, where they
were still closeted when, at midnight, Robert Brierly went slowly toward
the Fry cottage, and the doctor, who never got his full quota of sleep,
went yawning off to bed.

Mr. Myers spent five days in Glenville, and then went back to the city,
taking Robert Brierly with him, "for a purpose," as he said to the
doctor and Ferrars. "He can come back in a day or two if he chooses,"
the lawyer added, "but in truth, Robert, unless you're needed here,
which I doubt, you'll be better at work. Mr. 'Ferriss-Grant,' here, will
summon you at need."

When they were on board the train, and the lawyer had exhausted the
morning paper, he drew close to his companion in that confidential
attitude travellers fall into when they do not converse for the
entertainment of all on board, and said:

"Robert, I want to tell you why I so insisted upon your company back to
the city. I want you to rouse yourself, to open your house, and when you
first have looked over your father's and mother's private and business
papers, I want you to turn over to me all such as are not too sacred for
other eyes than yours; all letters, journals--if there are such--all, in
fact, that deal in any way with your family, friends, and family
history."

Brierly turned to look in his face.

"This is some of Ferrars' planning," he said.

"It is, and it has my hearty endorsement. Don't ask questions. Frank
Ferrars knows what he is about."

"No doubt of it. I only wish I did."

"You'll know at the right time. And if it will be a comfort to you, I'll
admit that, while I am to a certain degree in his confidence, I know no
more what or whom he suspects than you do, for he won't accuse without
proof of guilt, however much he suspects or believes. But I know this,
Ferrars is convinced that the secret of your brother's death lies in the
past."

"And in whose past?"

"In his own, in that of your family, or of Hilda Grant."

At the beginning of the following week Hilda Grant resumed her duties as
school mistress, the place of Charles Brierly being filled by a young
student from the city.

Mrs. Jamieson, meantime, had called upon Hilda, the call had been
returned, and the two were now upon quite a friendly and sympathetic
footing; it was not long before the fair, black-robed little figure was
quite familiar to the children, to whom she gave generously sweets,
pleasant words and smiles.

Sometimes she met Ferrars, who would look in now and then at the recess
or noon hour to keep up his cousinly character, and Hilda Grant's clear
eyes saw, day by day, the blue eyes of the pretty widow taking on a new
look and noted that, while she was at all other times full of easy,
charming chat, the approach of "Mr. Grant," would close the pretty lips
and cause the white eyelids to quiver and fall.

The understanding between Hilda and the detective was now almost
perfect, and one day, Ferrars, having asked her if she had ever heard
Mrs. Jamieson speak of leaving Glenville, or name her place of
residence, Hilda replied--

"I have heard her express herself as well pleased with Glenville, and I
think she is in no haste to go. In truth, Mr. Ferrars, I am beginning to
feel that, in seeing this lady as a means toward a selfish end, we, or
I, have done wrong. That she is a woman of the world, and has seen much
of good society, is evident, but she has lived, of late, a lonely and
much secluded life, she tells me, her late husband having been a
somewhat exacting invalid for two years before his death; and forgive me
for my great frankness, I fear that because of your absorption in this
trouble of mine, you have not thought or observed, how 'much' your
acquaintance is becoming to Mrs. Jamieson. One woman can read another as
a man cannot, and I must not let you serve me at the cost of another's
happiness perhaps."

"Miss Grant, is this a riddle?"

"Mr. Ferrars, no. Must I say plainly, then, that you are making yourself
quite too interesting to this lady?"

Ferrars turned his face away for a moment. Then he replied slowly, as if
choosing his words with difficulty.

"My friend, I believe time will prove you the mistaken one. I cannot
take this flattering idea of yours to myself and venture to believe in
it, but should it have the smallest foundation in reality, rest your
conscience upon this candid declaration. The lady cannot feel more
interest in my unworthy self than I in her; from the first moment almost
I have taken an interest in Mrs. Jamieson, such as I have seldom felt
for any woman. Shall we let the subject rest here? Be sure I shall not
let any personal interest conflict with, or supersede, the work I came
here to do."

In later years Hilda remembered these words.

During the next two weeks the wheels of progress, so far as Ferrars'
work was concerned, moved slowly, and even rested, or seemed so to do.

To be baffled in a small town, and by a small boy, was something new and
surprising in the experience of detective Ferrars, but so it was. Work
as he would, finesse as he might, he could find no trace of the boy,
"about half grown, with dark eyes and hair, freckles, a polite way with
him, and a cap pulled over his eyes," and this was the best description
Mrs. Fry could give of the strange lad.

"If Mrs. Fry was not the honest woman she is," said the doctor, "I
should call that boy a myth. How could he come and go so utterly unseen
by all Glenville."

Samuel Doran, who still believed that "Mr. Grant" was Mr. Grant, and
thought it most natural that he should turn his attention to the
mystery surrounding the murder of "his cousin's lover," thought
otherwise.

"Pshaw!" he objected, "look at the raff of half-grown boys racing up and
down these streets from sunset to pretty late bedtime, for kids, and how
much different does one boy look from another in the dark? Mrs. Fry
herself only saw him out in the twilight."

Ferrars reserved his criticism and opinions for the time.

Doran had taken upon himself the investigation of the "boat puzzle," as
he called it, for the skiff remained, after many days, still drawn up,
unmoored and unclaimed, by the lake shore; and at last, by dint of much
driving up and down the lake shore road and interviewing of boat owners,
he brought to Ferrars this unsatisfactory solution.

Two weeks before the murder the skiff had been owned by a certain Jerry
Small, hunter and fisherman by choice, blacksmith by profession. On a
certain day a man dressed in outing costume had entered Small's shop,
asked about the boat, and made him such a liberal offer for it, that
Jerry had at once closed with him. The shop stood upon the outskirts of
the town and close to the lake. The man had said that he was coming out
from the city in a few days for a few weeks in the country, meaning to
secure board, if possible, near the lake shore. If Mr. Small did not
mind, the boat might stay where it was until his return; the money was
paid down, and Small engaged to care for the boat.

One day, after much agitation, Small decided that it must have been the
day of the murder that he missed the boat; and one of his "kids" told
him that "a gentleman with flannel clothes and whiskers" took away the
boat "right early," and neither boat nor man had ever reappeared.

Then Ferrars tore his hair and fumed at the long delay only to learn
that Jerry Small had left his house on the day after the murder to
attend a sick brother, and had returned just two days ago.

"It's of no use," fumed the detective to Doctor Barnes; "I shall put a
couple of fellows I know in the Jerry Small vicinity; it's right in
their line of work, and probably they'll find the man and boy
together--in Timbuctoo."

"And you will remain in Glenville, eh?" queried the doctor, grinning
openly.

"Yes," with an answering grin, which somehow the doctor did not quite
understand. "I'll stay--for a while longer."

As they sat at lunch next day a small boy brought Ferrars a note from
the teacher.

"Come to me at once.--H. G."

That was all it said, and Ferrars lost no time in obeying the summons.

"You may not see much in my news," Hilda said, as she closed the door
upon intruders. "But I have got Peter's story out of him at last."

"The foolish boy? Ah, that is something after all, at least, I hope it
will prove so. Well?"

"It was slow work, for the boy has been terribly frightened. His story
is most absurd."

"No matter, tell it in your own way."

"He says still that he saw a ghost--a live ghost. That it arose out of
the bushes and waved its arms at him. It was dressed 'all in white like
big sheets,' Peter said, and its face was black, with white eyes. It
spoke to him 'very low and awful,' and told him to lie down and put his
face to the ground until it went back into its grave. If he looked, or
even told that he had seen a ghost, the grave would open and swallow him
too. Then it held up a 'shiny big knife' and he tumbled over in sheer
fright. After a long time he began to crawl toward the road; and when he
at last looked around and saw no ghost anywhere, he ran as fast as he
could. I am afraid," Hilda added, "that you'll think as I do, that some
of the school boys have played the poor child a trick, or else that he
has imagined it all. It's too absurd to credit. Still, as you made a
point of being told at once of whatever I might learn from Peter, I kept
my promise. I'm afraid I've spoiled your luncheon." She finished wi

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