Viola twisted in her slender hands a sofa cushion, and then threw it violently from her.

"I'll see Colonel Ashley at once!" she decided.

Inquiry of a maid disclosed the fact that the colonel was still fishing, and from Patrick, the gardener, she learned that he had gone to try his luck at a spot in the river at the end of the golf course where Patrick himself had hooked more than one fish.

"I'll follow him there," said Viola. "I suppose he won't want to be interrupted while he's fishing, but I can't help it! I must talk to some one—tell somebody what I think."

She donned a walking skirt and stout shoes, for the way to the river was rough, and set out. On the way she thought of many things, and chiefly of the man pacing his lonely walk back and forth behind windows that had steel bars on them.

Viola became aware of some one walking toward her as she neared the bend of the river whither Patrick had directed her, and a second glance told her it was the faithful Shag.

He bowed with a funny little jerk and took off his cap.

"Is the colonel there?" and she indicated what seemed to be an ideal fishing place among the willows.

"He was, Miss Viola, but he done gone now."

"Gone? Where? Do you mean back to the house?"

"No'm. He done gone t' N'York."

"New York?"

"Yes'm. On de afternoon train. He say he may be back t'night, an' mebby not 'twell mornin'."

"But New York-and so suddenly! Why did he go, Shag?"

"I don't know all de 'ticklers, Miss Viola, but I heah him say he got t' git a book on poisons."

"A book on poisons?" and Viola started.

"Yes'm. He done want one fo' de case he's wukin' on, an' he can't git none at de library, so he go to N'York after one. I'se bringin' back his tackle. De fish didn't bite nohow, so he went away, de colonel did."

"Oh!"

Viola stood irresolute a moment, and then turned back toward the house, Shag walking beside her.



CHAPTER XIV. THE PRIVATE SAFE

Divided as she was among several opinions, torn by doubts and sufferings from grief, Viola Carwell found distinct relief in a message that awaited her on her return to the house after her failure to find Colonel Ashley. The message, given her by a maid, was to the effect:

"The safe man has come."

"The who?" asked Viola, not at first understanding.

"The safe man. He said you sent for him to open a safe and—"

"Oh, yes, I understand, Jane. Where is he?"

"In the library, Miss Viola."

Viola hastened to the room where so many fateful talks had taken place of late, and found there a quiet man, beside whose chair was a limp valise that rattled with a metallic jingle as his foot brushed against it when he arose on her entrance.

"Have you come from the safe company?" she asked.

"Yes. I understood that there was one of our safes which could not be opened, and they sent me. Here is the order," and he held out the paper.

He spoke with quiet dignity, omitting the "ma'am," from his salutation. And Viola was glad of this. He was a relief from the usual plumber or carpenter, who seemed to lack initiative.

"It is my father's private safe that we wish opened," she said. "He alone had the combination to it, and he—he is dead," she added softly.

"So I understood," he responded with appreciation of what her grief must be. "Well, I think I shall be able to open the safe without damaging it. That was what you wanted, was it not?"

"Yes. Father never let any one but himself open the safe when he was alive. I don't believe my mother or I saw it open more than ten times, and then by accident. In it he kept his private papers. But, now that he is—is gone, there is need to see how his affairs stand. The lawyer tells me I had better open the safe.

"When we found that none of us knew the combination, and when it was not found written down anywhere among father's other papers, and when his clerk, Mr. Blossom, did not have it, we sent to the company."

"I understand," said the safe expert. "If you will show me—"

Viola touched a button on the wall, a button so cleverly concealed that the ordinary observer would never have noticed it, and a panel slid back, revealing the door of the safe.

"It was one of father's ideas that his strong box was better hidden this way," said Viola, with a little wan smile. "Is there room enough for you to work? The safe is built into the wall."

"Oh, there is plenty of room, thank you. I can very easily get at it. It isn't the first safe I've had to work on this way. Many families have safes hidden like this. It's a good idea."

He looked at the safe, noted the manufacturer's number, and consulted a little book he carried with him. Then he began to turn the knob gently, listening the while, with acute and trained ears, to the noise the tumblers made as they clicked their way, unseen, amid the mazes of the combination.

"Will it be difficult, do you think?" asked Viola. "Will it take you long?"

"That is hard to say."

"Do you mind if I watch you?" she asked eagerly. She wanted something to take her mind off the many things that were tearing at it as the not far distant sea tore at the shore which stood as a barrier in its way.

"Not at all," answered the expert. Then he went on with his work.

In a way it was as delicate an operation as that which sometimes confronts a physician who is in doubt as to what ails his patient. There was a twisting and a turning of the knob, a listening with an ear to the heavy steel door, as a doctor listens to the breathing of a pneumonia victim. Then with his little finger held against the numbered dial, the expert again twirled the nickel knob, seeking to tell, by the vibration, when the little catches fell into the slots provided for them.

It was rather a lengthy operation, and he tried several of the more common and usual combinations without result. As he straightened up to rest Viola asked:

"Do you think you can manage it? Can you open it?"

"Oh, yes. It will take a little time, but I can do it. Your father evidently used a more complicated combination than is usually set on these safes. But I shall find it."

Viola's determination to open the safe had been arrived at soon after the funeral, when it was found that, as far as could be ascertained, her father had left no will. A stickler for system, in its many branches and ramifications, and insisting for minute detail on the part of his subordinates, Horace Carwell did what many a better and worse man has done—put off the making of his will. And that made it necessary for the surrogate to appoint an administrator, who, in this case, Viola renouncing her natural rights, was Miss Mary Carwell.

"I'd rather you acted than I," Viola had said, though she, being of age and the direct heir, could well and legally have served.

Miss Carwell had agreed to act. Then it became necessary to find out certain facts, and when they were not disclosed by a perusal of the papers of the dead man found in his office and in the safe deposit box at the bank, recourse was had to the private safe. LeGrand Blossom knew nothing of what was in the strong box-not even being entrusted with the combination.

"There! It's open!" announced the expert at length, and he turned the handle and swung back the door.

"Thank you," said Viola. Then, as she looked within the safe, she exclaimed:

"Oh, there is an inner compartment, and that's locked, too!"

"Only with a key. That will give no trouble at all," said the man. He proved it by opening it with the third key he tried from a bunch of many he took from his valise.

That was all there was for him to do, save to set the combination with a simpler system, which he did, giving Viola the numbers.

"Was it as easy as you thought?" she asked, when the expert was about to leave.

"Not quite—no. The combination was a double one. That is, in two parts. First the one had to be disposed of, and then the other worked."

"Why was that?"

"Well, it is on the same principle as the safe deposit boxes in a bank. The depositor has one key, and the bank the other. The box cannot be opened by either party alone. Both keys must be used. That insures that no one person alone can get into the box. It was the same way with this safe. The combination was in two parts."

"And did my father set it that way?"

"He must have done so, or had some one arrange the combination for him."

"Then he—he must have shared the combination with some one else!" There was fright in Viola's eyes, and a catch in her voice.

"Yes," assented the expert. "Either that or he set it that way merely for what we might call a 'bluff,' to throw any casual intruder off the track. Your father might have possessed both combinations himself."

"And yet he might have shared them with—with another person?"

"Yes."

"And the other—the other person"—Viola hesitated noticeably over the word—"would have to be present when the safe was opened?" She did not say "he" or "she."

"Well, not necessarily," answered the expert. "He might have had the combination in two parts, and used both of them himself. It is often done. Though, of course, he could, at any time, have shared the secret of the safe with some one else."

"That would only be in the event of there being something in it that both he and some other person would want to take out at the same time; something that one could not get at without the knowledge of the other; would it not?"

"Naturally, yes. But, as I say, it might be the other way—that the double combination was used merely as an additional precaution."

"Thank you," said Viola.

She sat for several minutes in front of the opened safe after the expert had gone, and did not offer to take out any of the papers that were now exposed to view. There was a strange look on her face.

"Two persons!" she murmured. "Two persons! Did he share the secrets of this safe with some one—some one else?"

Viola reached forth her hand and took hold of a bundle of papers tied with a red band-tape it was, of the kind used in lawyers' offices. The bundle appeared to contain letters—old letters, and the handwriting was that of a woman.

"I wonder if I had better get Aunt Mary?" mused the girl. "She is the administrator, and she will have to know. But there are some things I might keep from her—if I had to."

She looked more closely at the letters, and when she saw that they were in the well-remembered hand of her mother she breathed more easily.

"If he kept—these—it must be—all right!" she faltered to herself. "I will call Aunt Mary."

The two women, seeing dimly through their tears at times, went over the contents of the private safe. There were letters that told of the past—of the happy days of love and courtship, and of the early married life. Viola put them sacredly aside, and delved more deeply into the strong box.

"It was like Horace to keep something away from every one else," said his sister. "He did love a secret. But we don't seem to be getting at anything, Viola, that will tell us where there is any more money, and that's what we need now, more than anything else. At least you do, if LeGrand Blossom is right, and you intend to keep on living in the style you're used to."

"I don't have to do that, Aunt Mary. Being poor would not frighten me."

"I didn't think it would. Fortunately I have enough for both of us, though I won't spend anything on a big yacht nor a car that looks like a Fourth of July procession, however much I love the Star Spangled Banner.

"Oh, no, we mustn't dream of keeping the big car nor the yacht," said Viola. "They are to be sold as soon as possible. I only hope they will bring a good price. But here are more papers, Aunt Mary. We must see what they are. Poor father had so many business interests. It's going to be a dreadful matter to straighten them all out."

"Well, LeGrand Blossom and Captain Poland will help us."

"Captain Poland?" questioned Viola.

"Yes. Why not? He is a fine business man, and he has large interests of his own. Have you any objection?"

"Oh, I don't know. Of course not!" she added quickly, as she caught sight of a rather odd look on her aunt's face. "If we have to—I mean if you find it necessary, you can ask his advice, I suppose."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Why, yes, I believe I would—just as a matter of business."

Viola's voice was calm and cool, but it might have been because her attention was focused on a bundle of papers she was taking from the safe. And a casual perusal of these showed that they had a bearing on subjects that might explain certain things.

"Look, Aunt Mary!" the girl exclaimed. "Father seems to have kept a diary. It tells—it tells about that trouble he had with Harry—Rather, it wasn't with Harry at all. It was Harry's uncle. It's that same old trouble father so often referred to. He always declared he was cheated in a certain business deal, but I always imagined it was because he didn't make as much money as he thought he ought to. Father was like that. But see-this puts a different face on it."

Together they looked over the papers, and among them-among the memoranda, copies of contracts and other documents—was a diary, or perhaps it might be called a business man's journal. Both Viola and her aunt were familiar enough with business to understand the import of what they read.

It was to the effect that Mr. Amos Bartlett, Harry's paternal uncle, had been associated with Mr. Carwell in several transactions involving some big business deals. Mr. Bartlett had been smart enough, by forming a directorate within a directorate and by means of a dummy company, to get a large sum to his credit, while Mr. Carwell was left to face a large deficit.

"And Harry Bartlett acted as agent for his uncle in the transactions!" exclaimed Miss Carwell as she looked over the papers.

"But I don't believe he knew anything wrong was being done!" declared Viola. "I'm positive he didn't. Harry isn't that kind of a man."

"These papers don't say so."

"Naturally you wouldn't expect father to say a good word for one he considered his business rival, not to say enemy. I don't believe Harry had anything more to do with it than he had with—with poor father's death."

Miss Carwell said nothing. She was busy looking over some other papers which the opening of the private safe had revealed. And then, while her aunt was engaged with these, Viola found a little bundle that had on it her name.

For a moment she debated with herself whether or not to open it. The handwriting was that of her father, and it seemed as though something stayed her. But she broke the string at last and there tumbled into her lap some photographs of herself, taken at different ages, a number of them—in fact, most of them—amateur attempts, some snapped by her mother and some by her father, as Viola knew from seeing them. She recalled some very well—especially one taken on the back of a little Shetland pony. On the reverse of this picture Mr. Carwell had written: "My dear little girl!"

Viola burst into tears, and her aunt, seeing the cause, felt the strings of her heart being tugged.

"Well, one thing seems to be proved," said the older woman, when they were again going over the papers, sorting out some to be shown to the lawyer who was advising them on the conduct of the estate, "and that is that your father didn't think very much of Harry Bartlett."

"That was his fault—I mean father's," retorted Viola. "He had no reason for it, even with what this paper says. I don't believe Harry would do such a thing."

"Do you suppose the quarrel could have been about this?" and Miss Carwell held out the journal.

"I don't know what to think," said Viola. "But here is another memorandum. We must see what this is."

Together they bent over the remaining documents the safe had given up—secrets of the dead.

As they read a strange look came over Viola's face.

Miss Carwell, perusing a document, recited:

"Memo. of certain matters between Captain Poland and myself. And while I think of it let me state that but for his timely and generous financial aid I would have been ruined by that scoundrel Bartlett. Captain Poland saved me. And should the stock of the concern ever be on a paying basis I intend to repay him not only all he advanced me but any profit I may secure shall be divided with him in gratitude. That there will be a profit I very much doubt, though this does not lessen my gratitude to Captain Poland for his aid."

There was a little gasp from Viola as she heard this.

"Captain Poland saved father from possible ruin," she murmured, "and I—I treated him so! Oh! oh!"



CHAPTER XV. POOR FISHING

"Have a drink, Colonel?"

"Eh?"

"I said—Here, boy! A Scotch high and a mint julep."

Colonel Ashley, roused from his reverie as he sat in his club, gazing out on the busy, fashionable, hurrying, jostling, worried, happy, sad, and otherwise throngs that swept past the big Fifth avenue windows, shifted himself in the comfortable leather chair, and looked at his cigar. It had gone out, and he decided that it was not worth relighting.

"Cigars, too!" ordered Bruce Garrigan.

"Oh, were you speaking to me?" and the colonel seemed wholly awake now.

"Not only to you, but in your interests," went on Garrigan, with a smile. "Hope I didn't disturb your nap, but—"

"Oh, no," the colonel hastened to assure his companion with his usual affability. "I had finished sleeping."

"So I inferred. Do you know how many hours, minutes and seconds the average human being has passed in sleep when he reaches the age of forty-five years?" and Garrigan smiled quizzically.

"No, sir," answered Colonel Ashley, "I do not."

"Neither do I," confessed Mr. Garrigan as he sank down in a chair beside the colonel and accepted the glass from a tray which the much-buttoned club attendant held out to him. "I don't know, and I don't much care."

Then, when cigars were glowing and the smoke arose in graceful clouds, an aroma as of incense shrouding the two as they gazed out on the afternoon throngs, Garrigan remarked:

"I didn't know you were here. In fact, I didn't know you were a member of this club."

"You wouldn't know it if my attendance here were needed to prove it," said the colonel with a smile. "I don't get here very often, but I had to run up on some business, and I found this the most convenient stopping place."

"Are you going back to Lakeside?"

"Oh, yes!" There was prompt decision in the answer.

"Then you haven't finished that unfortunate affair? You haven't found out what caused the death of Mr. Carwell?"

"Oh, yes, I know what killed him."

"But not who?"

"Not yet."

"Do you hold to the suicide theory?"

"I don't hold to anything, my dear Mr. Garrigan," answered the colonel, who was in a sufficiently mellow mood to be amused by the rather vapid talk of his host—for such he had constituted himself on the ordering of the drinks and cigars. "That is I haven't such a hold on any theory that I can't let go and take a new one if occasion warrants it."

"I see. And so you came up to get away from the rather gruesome atmosphere down there?"

"Not exactly. I came up on business—I have a business in New York you know, in spite of the fact that I am here," and the colonel smiled as he looked about the room where were gathered men of wealth and leisure, who did not seem to have a care or worry in the world.

"Oh, yes, I know that," agreed Garrigan. "Well, has your trip been satisfactory?"

"I can't say that it has. In fact it's pretty poor fishing around here, and I'm thinking of going back. I want to hear the click of the reel and the music of the brook. I wasn't cut out for a city man, and the longer I stay here the worse I hate the place, even if I do have a business here."

"Then you don't care for—this," and Garrigan waved his hand at the congestion of automobiles and stages which had come to a halt opposite the big windows of the exclusive and fashionable club.

It was four in the afternoon, just when traffic both of automobiles and pedestrians is at its height on the avenue. Of horse-drawn equipages they were so few as to be a novelty.

"I care so little for it that I am going back to-night," the detective responded.

"Then you have found what you came looking for?"

"I told you the fishing was very poor," said the colonel with a smile. "My friend Mr. Walton, were he alive now, would never forgive me for deserting the place I left to come here. When did you come up?"

"Last night. They insisted I had to put in an appearance at the office merely to take away the salary that's been accumulating for me—said it cluttered up the place. So I obliged. Do you know how many automobiles pass this window every twenty-four hours?" Garrigan asked suddenly.

"I do not."

"Neither do I. It would be interesting to know, however. I think I shall count them, when I have nothing else to do. I understand there is a checking or tabulating machine made for such purposes. But perhaps I am keeping you from—"

"You are merely keeping me from ordering another portion of liquid refreshment," interrupted the colonel with a smile. "Boy!"

And once again there was diffused the aroma of mint and the more pronounced odor of the Scotch.

"Yes, it's pretty poor fishing," mused the colonel, when Garrigan had gone off to engage in a game of billiards with some insistent friends, whose advent the detective was thankful for, as he wanted to be alone. He was gregarious by nature, but there were times when he had to be alone, and it was because of this trait in his nature that he had taken up with the rod and reel, becoming a disciple of Izaak Walton.

Until dusk began to fall, changing the character of the throngs on the avenue, the colonel lingered in his easy chair before the broad, plate windows. And then, as the electric lights began to sparkle, as had the diamonds on some of the over-dressed women in the afternoon, he arose and started out.

"Will you be dining here, sir?" asked one of the stewards.

"Mr. Garrigan asked me to inquire, sir, and, if you were, to say that he would appreciate it if you would be his guest."

"Thank him for me, and tell him I can't stay." And the colonel, tossing aside the cigar which had gone out and been frequently relighted, soon found himself making a part of the avenue's night throng.

It was a warm summer evening-altogether too warm to be in New York when one had the inclination and means to be elsewhere, but the colonel, in spite of the fact that he had been in a hurry to leave the club, seemed to find no occasion for haste now.

He sauntered along, seemingly without an object, though the rather frequent consultations he made of his watch appeared to indicate otherwise. Finally, he seemed either to have come to a sudden decision or to have noted the demise of the time he was trying to kill, for with a last quick glance at his timepiece he put it back into his pocket, and, turning a corner where there was a taxicab stand, he entered one of the vehicles and gave an order to the chauffeur.

"Columbia College-yes, sir!" and the driver looked rather oddly at the figure of the colonel.

"Wonder what he teaches, and what he's going up there this time of night for?" was the mental comment of the chauffeur. "Maybe they have evening classes, but this guy looks as though he could give em a post-graduate course in poker."

Colonel Ashley sat back in the corner of the cab, glad of the rather long ride before him. He scarcely moved, save when the sway or jolt of the vehicle tossed him about, and he sat with an unlighted cigar between his teeth.

"Yes," he murmured once, "pretty poor fishing. I might better have stayed where I was. Well, I'll go back to-morrow."

Leaving the taxicab, the colonel made his way along the raised plaza on which some of the college buildings front, and turned into the faculty club, where he stayed for some time. When he came out, having told his man to wait, he bore under his arm a package which, even to the casual observer, contained books.

"Pennsylvania station," was the order he gave, and again he sat back in the corner of the cab, scarcely glancing out of the window to note the busy scenes all about him.

It was not until he had purchased his ticket and was about to board the last Jersey Shore train, to take him back to the 'scene of the death of Horace Carwell, that Colonel Ashley, as he caught sight of a figure in the crowd ahead of him, seemed galvanized into new life.

For a moment he gazed at a certain man, taking care to keep some women with large hats between the object of his attention and himself. And then, as he made sure of the identity, the colonel murmured:

"Poor fishing did I say? Well, it seems to me it's getting better."

He looked at his watch, made a rapid calculation that showed him he had about five minutes before the train's departure, and then he hurried off to his right and down the stairs that led to the lavatories.

It was Colonel Robert Lee Ashley, as Bruce Garrigan had seen him at the Fifth Avenue club, who entered one of the pay compartments where so many in-coming and out-going travelers may, for the modest sum of ten cents, enjoy in the railroad station a freshening up by means of soap, towels and plenty of hot water.

But it was a typical Southern politician, with slouch hat, long frock coat, a moustache and goatee, who emerged from the same private wash-room a little later, carrying a small, black valise.

"I don't like to do this," said Colonel Ashley, making sure the spirit gum had set, so his moustache and goatee would not come off prematurely, "but I have to. This fishing is getting better, and I don't want any of the fish to see me."

Then he went down the steps to the train that soon would be whirling him under the Hudson river, along the Jersey meadows, and down to the cool shore. He passed through the string of coaches until he came to one where he found a seat behind a certain man. Into this vantage point the colonel, looking more the part than ever, slumped himself and opened his paper.

"Yes, the fishing is getting better—decidedly better," he mused. "I shouldn't wonder but what I got a bite soon."



CHAPTER XVI. SOME LETTERS

When Jean Forette, whose month was not quite up and who had not yet completed arrangements for his new position, alighted from the Shore Express at Lakeside and made his way-afoot and not in a machine—to the Three Pines, the picturesque figure of the Southern gentleman followed.

"I wonder," mused Colonel Ashley, "whether he takes Scotch Highballs or absinthe, and what dope he mixes with it? Absinthe is rather hard to get out here, I should imagine, but they might have a green brand of whiskey they'd sell for it. But that Frenchman ought to know the genuine stuff. However, we'll see."

Carrying his limp, leather bag, which had served him in such good stead when he entered the lavatory, the colonel slouched silently along the road. It was close to midnight, and there would be no other trains to the shore that day.

The lights of the Three Pines glowed in pleasant and inviting fashion across the sandy highway. Out in front stood several cars, for the tavern was one much patronized by summer visitors, and was a haven of refuge, a "life-saving station," as it had been dubbed by those who fancied they were much in need of alcoholic refreshment.

Jean Forette entered, and Colonel Ashley, waiting a little and making sure that the "tap room," as it was ostentatiously called, was sufficiently filled to enable him to mingle with the patrons without attracting undue notice, followed.

He looked about for a sight of the chauffeur, and saw him leaning up against the bar, sipping a glass of beer, and, between imbibitions, talking earnestly to the white-aproned bartender.

"I'd like to hear what they're saying," mused the colonel. "I wonder if I can get a bit nearer."

He ordered some rye, and, having disposed of it, took out a cigar, and began searching in his pockets as though for a match.

"Here you are!" observed a bartender, as he held out a lighted taper.

The colonel had anticipated this, and quickly moved down the mahogany rail toward the end where Jean Forette was standing. At that end was a little gas jet kept burning as a convenience to smokers.

"I'll use that," said the colonel. "I don't like the flavor of burnt wood in my smoke."

"Fussy old duck," murmured the barkeeper as he let the flame he had ignited die out, flicking the blackened end to the floor.

And, being careful to keep his face as much as possible in the shadow of his big, slouch hat, Colonel Ashley lighted his cigar at the gas flame.

And, somehow or other, that cigar required a long and most careful lighting. The smoker got the tip glowing, and then inspected it critically. It was not to his satisfaction, as he drew a few puffs on it, and again he applied the end to the flame.

He sent forth a perfect cloud of smoke this time, and it seemed to veil him as the fog, blowing in from the sea, veils the tumbling billows. Once more there was a look at the end, but the "fussy old duck" was not satisfied, and, again had recourse to the flame.

All this while Colonel Ashley was straining his ears to catch what Jean Forette was saying to the attendant who had drawn the frothing glass of beer for him.

But the men talked in too low a tone, or the colonel had been a bit too late, for all he heard was a murmur of automobile talk. Jean seemed to be telling something about a particularly fast car he had formerly driven.

"The fishing isn't as good as I hoped," mused the colonel.

Then, as he turned to go out, he heard distinctly:

"Sure I remember you paying for the drink. I can prove that if you want me to. Are they tryin' to double-cross you?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Well, you leave it to me, see? I'll square you all right."

"Thanks," murmured Jean, and then he, too, turned aside.

"There may be something in it after all," was the colonel's thought, and then he, too, hurried from the Three Pines, passing beneath the big trees, with their sighing branches, which gave the name to the inn.

On toward The Haven, through the silence and darkness of the night, went the detective. And at a particularly dark and lonely place he stopped. The pungent, clean smell of grain alcohol filled the air, and a little later a man, devoid of goatee and moustache, passing out into the starlight, while a black, slouch hat went into the bag, and a Panama, so flexible that it had not suffered from having been thrust rather ruthlessly into the valise, came out.

"I don't like that sort of detective work," mused the colonel, "but it has its uses."

Viola Carwell, alone in her room, sat with a bundle of letters on a table before her. They were letters she had found in a small drawer of the private safe—a drawer she had, at first, thought contained nothing. The discovery of the letters had been made in a peculiar manner.

Viola and Miss Carwell, going over the documents, had sorted them into two piles—one to be submitted to the lawyer, the other being made up of obviously personal matters that could have no interest for any but members of the family.

Then Miss Carwell had been called away to attend to some household matters, and Viola had started to return to the safe such of the papers as were not to go to the lawyer.

She opened a small drawer, to slip back into it a bundle of letters her mother had written to Mr. Carwell years before. Then Viola became aware of something else in the drawer. It was something that caught on the end of her finger nail, and she was stung by a little prick-like that of a pin.

"A sliver-under my nail!" exclaimed Viola. "The bottom of the wooden drawer must be loose."

It was loose, as she discovered as soon as she looked in the compartment. But it was a looseness that meant nothing else than that the drawer had a false bottom.

It was not such a false bottom as would have been made use of in the moving pictures. That is to say it was very poorly made, and an almost casual glance would have revealed it. All that had been done was to take a piece of wood the exact size and shape of the bottom of the drawer, and fit it in. This extra piece of wood covered anything that might be put in the drawer under it, and then, on top of the false bottom other things might be placed so that when they were taken out, and the person doing it saw bare wood, the conclusion would naturally follow that all the contents of the drawer had been removed.

But such was not the case. Beneath the smooth-fitting piece of wood, which had sprung loose and been the means of driving a splinter under Viola's nail, thus apprising her of the fact that there was something in the drawer she had not seen, had been found some letters. And Viola had not told her aunt about them.

"I want to see what they are myself, first," the girl decided.

Now they were spread out on her dressing table in front of her. She sat with her glorious blue-black hair unbound, and falling over her shoulders, which gleamed pink through the filmy thinness of her robe.

"I wonder if I shall be shocked when I read them?" she mused.

That was what Viola had been living in continual fear of since her father's death—that some disclosure would shock her—that she might come upon some phase of his past life which would not bear the full light of day. For Horace Carwell had not stinted himself of the pleasures of life as he saw them. He had eaten and drunk and he had made merry. And he was a gregarious man—one who did not like to take his pleasures alone.

And so Viola was afraid.

The letters were held together with an elastic band, and this gave some hope.

"If they were from a woman, he wouldn't have used a rubber band on them," reasoned Viola. "He was too sentimental for that. They can't be mother's letters—they were in another compartment. I wonder—"

Viola had done much wondering since her mother's death, and considerable of it had been due to the life her father led. That he would marry again she doubted, but he was fond of the society of the men, and particularly the women of their own set, and some sets with which Viola preferred to have nothing to do.

And if Mr. Carwell had no intentions of marrying again, then his interest in women—

But here Viola ceased wondering.

With a more resolute air she reached forth hand to the bundle of letters and took one out. There was distinct relief in her manner as she quickly turned to the signature and read: "Gerry Poland."

And then, quickly, she ascertained that all the letters comprised correspondence between her father and the yacht club captain.

"But why did he hide these letters away?" mused Viola. "They seem to be about business, as the others were—the others showing that Captain Poland perhaps saved my father from financial ruin. Why should they be under the false bottom of the drawer?"

She could not answer that question.

"I must read them all," she murmured, and she went through the entire correspondence. There were several letters, sharp in tone, from both men, and the subject was as Greek to Viola. But there was one note from the captain to her father that brought a more vivid color to her dark cheeks, for Captain Poland had written:

"You care little for what I have done for you, otherwise you would not so oppose my attentions to your daughter. They are most honorable, as you well know, yet you are strangely against me. I can not understand it."

"Oh!" murmured Viola. "It is as if I were being bargained for! How I hate him!"

Almost blinded by her tears she read another letter. It was another appeal to her father to use his influence in assisting the captain's suit.

But this letter—or at least that portion of it relating to Viola—had been torn, and all that remained was:

"As members of the same lo—"

"What can that have meant?" she mused. "Is it the word 'lodge'?"

She read on, where the letter was whole again:

"I must ask you to reconsider your actions. Let me hear from you by the twenty-third or—"

Again was that mystifying and tantalizing tear. Viola hastily searched among the other letters, hoping the missing pieces might be found.

"I simply must see what it meant," she said. "I wonder if they can be in another part of the safe? I'm going to look!"

She started for her bath robe, and, at that moment, with a suddenness that unnerved her, there came a knock on her door.



CHAPTER XVII. OVER THE TELEPHONE

Viola's first movement was of concealment—to toss over the scattered letters on her desk a lace shawl she had been wearing earlier in the evening. Then satisfied that should the unknown knocker prove to be some one whom she might admit—her Aunt Mary or one of the maids—satisfied that no one would, at first glance, see the letters which might mean nothing or much, Viola asked in a voice that slightly trembled:

"Who is it?"

"I did not mean to disturb you," came the answer, and with a sense of relief Viola recognized the voice of Colonel Ashley. "But I have jus returned from New York, and, seeing a light under your door, I thought I would-report, as it were."

"Oh, thank you-thank you!" the girl exclaimed, relief evident in her voice.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" the colonel went on, as he stood outside the closed door. "Has anything happened since I went away?"

"No—no," said Viola, rather hesitatingly. "There is nothing new to tell you. I was sitting up—reading."

Her glance went to the desk where the letters were scattered.

"Oh," answered the colonel. "Well, don't sit up too late. It is getting on toward morning."

"Have you anything to tell me, Colonel Ashley?" asked Viola. "Did you discover anything?"

There was silence on the other side of the door for a moment, and then came the answer, given slowly:

"No, nothing to report. I will have a talk with you in the morning."

And then the footsteps of the detective were heard, lessening in their sound, as he made his way to his room.

Viola, perplexed, puzzled, and bewildered, went back to her desk. She took up the letters again. The torn one with its strange reference: "As members of the same—"

What could it be? Was it some secret society to which her father and Gerry Poland belonged, the violation of the secrets of which carried a death penalty?

No, it could not be anything as sensational as that. Clearly the captain was in love with her—he had frankly confessed as much, and Viola knew it anyhow. She was not at all sure whether he loved her for her position or because she was good to look upon and desirable in every way.

As for her own heart, she was sure of that. In spite of the fact that she had tried to pique him that fatal day, merely to "stir him up," as she phrased it, Viola was deeply and earnestly in love with Harry Bartlett, and she was sure enough of his feeling toward her to find in it a glow of delight.

Then there was in the letter the hint of a threat. "Let me hear from you by the twenty-third, or—"

"Oh, what does it mean? What does it mean?" and Viola bent her weary head down on the letters and her tears stained them. Puzzled as she was over the contents of the letters—torn and otherwise—which she had found hidden in the drawer of the private safe, Viola Carwell was not yet ready to share her secret with her Aunt Mary or Colonel Ashley. These two were her nearest and most natural confidants under the circumstances.

"I would like to tell Harry, but I can't," she reasoned, when she had awakened after a night of not very refreshing slumber. "Of course Captain Poland could explain—if he would. But I'll keep this a secret a little longer. But, oh! I wonder what it means?"

And so, when she greeted Colonel Ashley at the breakfast table she smiled and tried to appear her usual self.

"I did not hear you come in," said Miss Carwell, as she poured the coffee.

"No, I did not want to disturb any one," answered the colonel. "I saw a light under Miss Viola's door, and reported myself to her," he went on. "But I don't imagine you slept much more than I did, for your eyes are not as bright as usual," and he smiled at the girl.

"Aren't they?" countered Viola. "Well, I did read later than I should. But tell me, Colonel Ashley, are you making any progress at all?"

He did not answer for a moment. He seemed very much occupied in buttering a piece of roll—trying to get the little dab of yellow in the exact center of the white portion. Then, when it was arranged to his satisfaction, he said:

"I am making progress, that is all I can say now."

"And does that progress carry with it any hope that Harry Bartlett will be proved innocent?" asked Viola eagerly.

"That I can not say—now. I hope it will, though."

"Thank you for that!" exclaimed Viola earnestly.

Miss Carwell said nothing. She had her own opinion, and was going to hold to it, detectives or no detectives.

"Will you send Shag to me?" the colonel requested a maid, as he arose from the table. "Tell him we are going fishing."

"Isn't there anything you can do—I mean toward—toward the—case?" faltered Viola. "Not that I mean—of course I don't want to seem—"

"I understand, my dear," said the colonel gently. "And I am not going fishing merely to shirk a responsibility. But I have to think some of these puzzles out quietly, and fishing is the quietest pastime I know."

"Oh, yes, I know," Viola hastened to add. "I shouldn't have said anything. I wish I could get quiet myself. I'm almost tempted to take your recipe."

"Why don't you?" urged the colonel. "Come along with me. I can soon teach you the rudiments, though to become a finished angler, so that you would be not ashamed to meet Mr. Walton, takes years. But I think it would rest you to come. Shall I tell Shag to fit you out with one of my rods?"

Viola hesitated a moment. This might give her an opportunity for talking with the colonel in secret and confidence. But she put it aside.

"No, thank you," she answered. "I'll go another time. I must stop at the office and leave some bills that have come here to the house. Mr. Blossom attends to the payment."

"Let me leave them for you," offered the colonel. "I have to go into town for some bait, and I can easily stop at the office for you."

"If you will be so good," returned Viola, and she got the bundle of bills—some relating to Mr. Carwell's funeral and others that had been mailed to the house instead of to the office.

The colonel might have sent Shag to purchase the shedder crabs he was going to use for bait that day in fishing in the inlet, and the colored servant might have left the bills. But the colonel was particular about his bait, and would let none select it but himself. Consequently he had Jean Forette drive him in, telling Shag to meet him at a certain dock where they would drop down the inlet and try for "snappers," young bluefish, elusive, gamy and delicious eating.

"You have not yet found a place?" asked the colonel of the chauffeur, as they rolled along.

"No, monsieur—none to my satisfaction, though I have been offered many. One I could have I refused yesterday."

"You liked it with Mr. Carwell, then?"

"Truly the situation was in itself delightful. But I could not manage the big car as he liked, and we had to part. There was no other way."

The detective narrowly observed the driver beside whom he sat. Jean did not look well. He had much of the appearance of the "morning after the night before," and his hand was not very steady as he shifted the gear lever.

"How much longer have you to stay here, Jean?"

"About two weeks. My month will be up then."

"And then you go—"

"I do not know, monsieur. Probably to New York. That is a great headquarters."

"So I believe."

"If monsieur should hear of a family that—"

"Yes, I'll bear you in mind, Jean. You are steady and reliable, I presume?" and the colonel smiled.

"I have most excellent letters!" he boasted, and for the moment he seemed to rouse himself from the sluggishness that marked him that morning.

"I'll bear it in mind," said the colonel again.

But as they drove on, and Colonel Ashley noted with what exaggerated care Jean Forette passed other cars—giving them such a wide berth that often his own machine was almost in the ditch—the impression grew on the detective that the Frenchman was not as skillful as he would have it believed.

"He drives Like an amateur, or a woman out alone in her machine for the first time," mused the colonel. "He'd never do for a smart car. Wonder what ails him. He wasn't drunk last night by any means, and yet—"

They reached the town, and paused at the only place where there was any congestion of traffic—where two main seashore highways crossed in the center of Lakeside. Jean held the runabout there so long, waiting for other traffic to pass, that the officer who was on duty called:

"What's the matter—going to sleep there?"

Then Jean, with a start, threw in the clutch and shot ahead.

"That's queer," mused the colonel. "He seems afraid."

The purchase of the shedder crabs was gone into care fully, and having questioned the bait-seller as to the best location in the inlet, the detective again got into the machine and was driven to the office of the late Horace Carwell. It was a branch of the New York office, and thither, every summer, came LeGrand Blossom and a corps of clerks to manage affairs for their employer.

Colonel Ashley, who by this time was known to the office boy at the outer gate, was admitted at once.

"Mr. Blossom is at the telephone," said the lad, "but you can go right in and wait for him."

This the colonel did, having left Jean outside in the car.

The telephone in LeGrand Blossom's private office was in a booth, put there to get it away from the noise of traffic in the street outside. And, as the boy had said, Blossom was in this booth as Colonel Ashley entered.

It so happened that the chief clerk was standing in the booth with his back turned to the main door, and did not see the colonel enter. And the latter, coming in with easy steps, as he always went everywhere, heard a snatch of the talk over the telephone that made him wonder.

Though the little booth was meant to keep sounds from entering, as well as coming out, the door was not tightly closed and as LeGrand Blossom spoke rather loudly Colonel Ashley heard distinctly.

"Yes," said the head clerk over the wire, "I'll pay the money tonight sure. Yes, positive." There was a period of waiting, while he listened, and then he went on: "Yes, on the Allawanda. I'll be there. Yes, sure! Now don't bother me any more."

Colonel Ashley, through the glass door of the telephone booth, saw LeGrand Blossom make a move as though to hang up the receiver. And then the detective turned suddenly, and swung back, as though he had entered the room at the moment Blossom had emerged from the booth.

"Oh!" exclaimed the head clerk, and, for a second, he seemed nonplused. But Colonel Ashley took up the talk instantly.

"I will keep you but a minute," he said. "Miss Viola asked me to leave these bills for you. I came in to town to buy some bait. There they are. I'm going fishing," and before LeGrand Blossom could answer the colonel was saying good-bye and making his way out.

"I wonder," mused the colonel, as he started for the car where Jean awaited him, "what or who or where the Allawanda is? I must find out."

He found further cause for wonder as he started off in the car with the French chauffeur for the boat dock, at the conduct of Jean himself.

For the man appeared to be a wholly different person. His face was all smiles, and there was a jaunty air about him as though he had received good news. His management of the car, too, left nothing to be desired. He started off swiftly, but with a smoothness that told of perfect mastery of the clutch and gears. He took chances, too, as he dashed through town, cutting corners, darting before this car, back of the other until, used as the colonel was to taxicabs in New York, he held his breath more than once.

"What's the matter—in a hurry?" he asked Jean, as they narrowly escaped a collision.

"Oh, no, monsieur, but this is the way I like to drive. It is much more—what you call pep!"

"Yes," mused the colonel to himself, "it's pep all right. But I wonder what put the pep into you? You didn't have it when we started out. Some French dope you take, I'll wager. Well, it may put pep into you now, but it'll take the starch out of you later on."

Jean left the colonel at the dock, whither Shag had already made his way, coming in a more prosaic trolley car from The Haven, and soon they were ready to row down the inlet in a boat.

"Shall I call for you?" asked Jean, as he prepared to drive back.

"No," answered the colonel, "I can't tell what luck I'll have. We'll come home when it suits us."

"Very good, monsieur."

And so the colonel went fishing, and his thoughts were rather more on the telephone talk he had overheard than on his rod and line.

Contrary to the poor luck that had held all week, so the dockman said, the colonel's good luck was exceptional. Shag had a goodly string of snappers of large size to carry back with him.

"How'd you do it?" asked the boatman, as he made fast the skiff.

"Oh, they just bit and I hauled 'em in," said he colonel. "By the way," he went on, "is there a place around here called Allawanda?"

"Yes, there's a little village named that, about ten miles back in the country," said the boatman.

"Nothing there, though, but a few houses and one store."

"Oh, I thought it might be quite a place."

"No, and nobody'd know it was there if there wasn't a boat around here named after it."

"Is there a boat called that?" asked the colonel, and he tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

"Yes. The ferryboat that runs from Lakeside to Loch Elarbor is named that. Seems that one of the men in the company that owns it used to live at Allawanda when he was a boy, and he called the boat that. It's an old tub of a ferry, though, about like the town itself, I guess. Well, you sure did have good luck!"

"Yes, indeed," agreed the colonel, and his luck was better than the boatman guessed, and of a different kind.

It was in pursuance of this same luck that caused the colonel, later that day, when the shadows of evening were falling, to take his limp satchel and slip out of the house. He went afoot to the ferry dock, and when the Allawanda floundered in like a porpoise he went on board. It was his first visit to this part of the inlet that separated Lakeside from Loch Harbor, and this means of getting to the yachting center was seldom used by any guests of The Haven. They went around by the highway in automobiles.

"Well," mused the colonel, as he went to the men's cabin with his limp valise, "I hope Mr. Blossom keeps his promise and comes here to-night. I shall be interested in noting to whom he pays the money."

Then, seeing that the little cabin of the ramshackle boat was deserted at that hour, the colonel went to a dark corner, and from it emerged, a little later, with a beard on that would have done credit to the most orthodox inhabitant of New York's Ghetto.

Still the colonel did not look like a Jew, and he was not going to attempt that character. He made his way to the stern of the craft, where he could watch all who came aboard, and finding a deck hand who was sweeping, said:

"I'm not feeling very well. Thought maybe a ride back and forth across the inlet would do me good if I stayed out in the air. So if you see me here don't think I'm trying to beat my fare. Here's a dollar, you may keep the change."

"Thanks—ride all you like," said the man. At five cents a trip, with the boat stopping at midnight, there would still be a good tip in it for him. The colonel ensconced himself in a dark corner and waited.

The first two trips over and back were fruitless as far as his object was concerned. But just as the Allawanda was about to pull out for her third voyage across the inlet, there came on board a woman, with a shawl so closely wrapped about her that her features were completely hidden. There were only a few oil lamps on the old-fashioned craft, and the illumination was poor.

The colonel thought there was something vaguely familiar about the figure, but he was not certain. He tried to get near enough to her, in a casual walk up and down the deck, to view her countenance, but, either by accident or design, she turned away and looked over the rail. He was close enough, however, to note that the shawl was of fine texture and of a peculiar pattern.

Retiring again to his corner in the stern of the boat, and noting that the woman kept her place there, Colonel Ashley waited in patience. And he had his reward.

The Allawanrda was whistling to tell the deck hands to cast off the mooring ropes, when LeGrand Blossom came running down the inclined gangway and got on board. He seemed in a hurry and excited, and, apparently unaware of the presence of the detective in the dark corner, he went directly to the woman in the shawl. The boat began to move from her slip.

"Did you think I was never coming?" asked LeGrand Blossom.

"No, I was detained," the woman answered, and at the sound of her voice Colonel Ashley started and uttered a smothered exclamation. "I but just arrived," the woman went on. "Did you bring it?"

"Hush! Yes. Not so loud. Some one may hear you."

"There is no one here. One man, with a heavy beard, passed by me as I came on board. At first I thought it was you, disguised, but when I saw it was not I kept to myself. There is no one here."

"I hope not," murmured LeGrand Blossom, as he looked cautiously around. The after deck was but dimly lighted.

For a time the woman and man talked in tones so low that the detective could hear nothing, and he dared not leave his hidden corner to come closer.

But, just as the Allawanda was nearing her slip on the other side, the man spoke in louder tones. "And so we come to the end!" he said.

"No, please don't say that!" begged the woman.

"I must," Blossom answered. "We can't go on this way any longer. Here is what I promised you. It is all I can raise, and I had a hard time doing that. Every one is suspicious, and that detective is all eyes and ears. It is the best I can do. You must not bother me any more."

The lights from a passing boat fell on the couple as they stood close to the rail, and, from his vantage point in the darkness, the colonel saw LeGrand Blossom hand the woman in the shawl a package. She took it eagerly, and thrust it into her bosom. Then, turning to the man, she said reproachfully:

"You say this is the end. Then you don't love me any more?"

LeGrand Blossom did not answer for a moment.

"You don't—do you?" the woman insisted.

"No," was the slow reply. "I might as well be brutally frank about it, and say I don't. And you don't care either."

"Oh, I do! I do!" she eagerly protested.

"No, you only think you do. It is better for both of us to have it end this way. But let us make sure that it is an end. There must be no more of it. I have given you all I can. You must go away as you promised."

"Yes, I suppose I must," and her voice was broken. "Oh, I wish I had never met you!"

"Perhaps it would have been better that way," was Blossom's cold response. "However, it's too late for that now. Good-bye," he added, as the boat was grating her way along the Loch Harbor slip. "I'm not going to get off. Don't telephone me again. This is all I can ever give you."

"Oh, yes, I suppose, now you've finished, you can get rid of me. Well, let it be so," she said bitterly. And then, as the boat bumped to a landing she cried: "If I could only find—"

But the rattle of the chains and the clatter of the wheels on the ferry bridge drowned her voice. She rushed away from LeGrand Blossoms's side and, clutching her shawl close around her as if to make sure of the package the man had given her, she disappeared into the interior of the ferryboat.

Colonel Ashley started to follow, but as LeGrand Blossom remained on board he decided to watch him instead of the woman, though he was vaguely disquieted trying to remember where he had heard her voice before.



CHAPTER XVIII. A LARGE BLONDE LADY

Reaching The Haven, Colonel Ashley, who had trailed LeGrand Blossom to the latter's boarding place without anything having developed, was met by Shag, who was up later than usual, for it was now close to midnight.

"What now, Shag!" exclaimed the colonel. "Don't tell me there are any more detective cases for me to work on. I simply won't listen. I wish I hadn't to this one. It's getting more and more tangled every minute, and the fish are biting well. Hang it all, Shag, why did you let me take up this golf course mystery?"

"I didn't do it, Colonel, no, sah!"

"What's the use of talking that way, Shag! You know you did!"

"Yes, sah, Colonel. Dat's whut I did!" confessed Shag with a grin. When the colonel was in this mood there was nothing for it but to agree with him.

"And it's the worst tangle you ever got me into!" went on Shag's master. "There's no head or tail to it."

"Den it ain't laik a fish; am it?" asked Shag, with the freedom of long years of faithful service.

"No, it isn't—worse luck!" stormed the colonel. "I never saw such a case. The diamond cross mystery was nothing like it."

"But I thought, Colonel, sah, dat de mo' of a puzzle it were, de bettah yo' laiked it!" ventured Shag.

Colonel Ashley tried to repress a smile.

"Get to bed, you black rascal!" he said with an affectionate pat on Shag's back. "Get to bed! What are you staying up so late for, anyhow?"

"To gib yo' a message, Colonel, sah," answered Shag. "Miss Viola done say I was t' wait up, an', when yo' come in, t' tell yo' dat she wants t' see you."

"Oh, all right. Where is she?"

"In de liberry, Colonel, sah!"

The detective made his way through the dimly-lighted hall, and, on tapping at the library door, was bidden by Viola to enter.

"Still up?" he asked. "It was time for you to be asleep long ago if you want your eyes to keep as bright as they always are."

"They don't feel very bright," she answered, with a little laugh. "They seem to be full of sticks. But I wanted to ask you something—to consult with you—and I didn't want to go to sleep without doing it. I want you to read these," and she spread out before him the letters she had found hidden in the drawer of the safe.

Colonel Ashley, in silence, looked over one document after another, including the torn ones. When he had finished he looked across the table at Viola.

"What do you make of it?" she asked. "I don't know," he frankly confessed. "But we must find out if your father owed the captain anything—for money advanced in an emergency, or for anything else. Who would know about the money affairs?"

"Mr. Blossom. He has full charge of the office now, and access to all the books. Aunt Mary and I have to trust to him for everything. It is all we can do."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed the detective. And he did not speak of the scene of which he had recently been a witness.

"Then if you will come with me, we will go the first thing in the morning to father's office and see LeGrand Blossom," decided Viola. "We will ask Mr. Blossom if he knows anything about the debt between my father and Captain Poland."

"It would be wise, I think."

And as the colonel retired that night he said, musingly:

"Another angle, and another tangle. I must read a little Izaak Walton to compose my mind."

So he opened the little green book and read this observation from the Venator:

"And as for the dogs that we use, who can commend their excellency to that height which they deserve? How perfect is the hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his first scent, but follows it through so many changes and varieties of other scents, even over and in the water, and into the earth."

"Ah," mused the colonel, "I think I must cling to my first scent, and follow it through or over the water or into the earth."

Then, laying aside the little green book, with its atmosphere of calm delight, he picked up a little thin volume, which bore on its title page "The Poisonous Plants of New Jersey."

And in that he read:

"The water hemlock (Cicuta maculata L.) is the most poisonous plant in the flora of the United States, and has probably destroyed more human lives than all our other toxic plants combined. As a member of the parsley family (Umbellifera) it resembles in general appearance the carrot and parsnip of the same group of plants. It grows in swampy land. The poisoning of the human is chiefly with the fleshy roots.

"The active principle of this cicuta is the volatile alkaloid canine, common also to the poison hemlock (Conium macula turn L.) The symptoms of the poisoning are many, including violent contraction of the muscles, dilated pupils and epilepsy... No antidote for canine poisoning is known... The active canine... was the poison employed by the Greeks in putting prisoners to death, Socrates being one of its illustrious victims."

And having read that much, Colonel Ashley looked at a little slip in the book. It bore the penciled memorandum "58 C. H.—~I6I*."

"I wonder—I wonder," mused the colonel, and so wondering, and with fitful dreams attending his slumbers, he passed the night.

Jean Forette drove the colonel and Viola to the office. They arrived rather early. In fact LeGrand Blossom was not yet in, and when he did enter, a few minutes later, he was plainly surprised to see them.

"Is anything the matter?" asked the confidential clerk, as he quickly opened his desk. "I am sorry I was late this morning. But I had some matters to look after—"

"No apology necessary," said Colonel Ashley, quickly. "We have not been waiting long. We have discovered something."

If his life had depended on it LeGrand Blossom could not, at that moment, have concealed a start of surprise.

"You mean you have found out who killed Mr. Carwell?" he asked, and his tongue went quickly around his dry lips.

"Not that," the colonel answered. "But we have found some letters that seem to need explaining. Here they are."

Then when Viola had told how she discovered them, she asked:

"Did my father ever owe Captain Poland any money?"

"Yes," answered LeGrand Blossom, frankly, "he did."

"How much?"

"Fifteen thousand dollars."

"Was it ever paid back?" asked Colonel Ashley.

"That I cannot say," replied the head clerk. "The papers in that particular transaction are missing. I looked for them the other day, but failed to find them. I was intending to ask you, Miss Carwell, if you knew anything about them. Now, it seems you do not. The fact remains that your father was at one time indebted to the captain for fifteen thousand dollars. Whether it was repaid I can not say."

"Who would know?" asked Colonel Ashley.

"Why, Captain Poland, of course," answered Mr. Blossom. "One would think that it would be paid by check, but in that case the canceled one would come back from the bank, which it has not. It is possible that Mr. Carwell had an account in some other bank, or he may have paid the captain in cash. In either case a receipt would be given, I should say. Captain Poland is the only one who now would know."

"Then we had better see him," suggested Colonel Ashley. "Shall we call on him, Viola?"

She hesitated a moment before answering, and then replied in a low voice:

"I think it would be better. We must end this mystery!"

They left LeGrand Blossom and again entered the car. Jean Forette was driving, and the detective again noticed the strange and sudden change in his manner. Whereas he had been morose and sullen the first part of the trip, timid and watchful of every crossing and turning, now he put on full speed and drove with the confidence of an expert.

"He must have had another shot of dope," mused the colonel. "I'll have to keep an eye on you, my Frenchie, else you may be ramming a stone wall when you're feeling pretty well elated."

They were half way to the home of Captain Poland when Viola suddenly changed her mind.

"I—I don't believe I care to go to see him," she said. "Can't you go without me, Colonel Ashley? You can find out better than I can. I—I really don't feel equal to it."

"Of course, I can," was the ready answer. "Drive Miss Carwell home, Jean, and then I'll go on to see Captain Poland myself."

The car was swung around, and was soon in front of The Haven. The colonel, with his usual gallantry, walked with Viola to the steps. As the maid opened the door she said to her mistress:

"There is a lady to see you."

"A lady to see me?" exclaimed Viola, in some surprise.

"Yes. She is in the library, waiting. I said I did not know how long you would be away, but she said she was a friend of the family and would wait."

"Who is she?" asked Viola.

"I don't know. But she is a large, blonde lady."

"I can't imagine," murmured Viola. "Won't you come in, Colonel Ashley? It may be some one I would want you to see, also."

As Viola, followed at a little distance by the colonel, entered the library, a large, blonde woman arose to meet her.

"I am so glad to see you, my dear Miss Carwell," began the woman, and then Colonel Ashley had one of his questions answered. The voice was the same as that of the shawled woman LeGrand Blossom had met on the ferryboat the night before, and it was the voice of Annie Tighe, alias Maude Warren, alias Morocco Kate, one of the cleverest of New York's de luxe crooks.

"So you have a hand in the game, have you, my dear?" mused the colonel, as he caught the now well-remembered tones. "Well, I guess you don't want to see me right away, and I don't want you to."

He had kept behind Viola during the walk down the hall, and the large blonde had not noticed him, he hoped. He whispered to Viola, who stood just at the entrance to the room:

"Learn all you can from her. I'll be back pretty soon—as soon as she has gone. Find out where she's stopping. Don't mention me."

The hall was dimly lighted, and he had a chance to say this to Viola without getting into full view of the caller, and without her overhearing. Then, turning quickly, Colonel Ashley hurried out of the house.

"Morocco Kate," he mused as he got into the car again, and told Jean to drive to Captain Poland's. "Morocco Kate! I wonder if she is just beginning her game, or if this is merely a phase of it, started before Mr. Carwell's death? Another link added to the puzzle."

He was still pondering over this when he reached the captain's home. It was a rather elaborate summer "cottage," with magnificent grounds, and the captain's mother kept house for him. But there was a curious deserted air about the place as Jean drove up the gravel road. A man was engaged in putting up boards at the windows.

"Is the captain here?" asked the colonel.

"The place is being closed for the season, sir," answered the man, evidently a caretaker.

"Closed? So early?" exclaimed the colonel, in surprise.

"The captain has gone away," the man went on. "I got orders yesterday to close the place for the season. Captain Poland will not be back."

"Oh!" softly exclaimed the colonel. And then to himself he added: "He won't be back! Well, perhaps I shall have to bring him back. Another link! There may be three people in this instead of two!"



CHAPTER XIX. "UNKNOWN"

"So sweet of you to see me, Miss Carwell, in all your grief, and I must apologize for troubling you."

Miss Tighe, alias Morocco Kate, fairly gushed out the words as she extended a hand to Viola in the library. The first glance at the "large blonde," as the maid had described her, shocked the girl. She could hardly repress a shudder of disgust as she looked at the bleached hair. But, nerving herself for the effort, Viola let her hand rest limply for a moment in the warm moist grip of Miss Tighe.

"Won't you sit down?" asked Viola.

"Thank you. I won't detain you long. I called merely on business, though I suppose you think I'm not a very business-like looking person. But I am strictly business, all the way through," and she tittered. "I find it pays better to really dress the part," she added.

"I was so sorry to hear about your dear father's death. I knew him—quite well I may say—he was very good to me."

"Yes," murmured Viola, and somehow her heart was beating strangely. What did it all mean? Who was this—this impossible person who claimed business relations, yes, even friendliness, with the late Mr. Carwell?

"And now to tell you what I came for," went on Miss Tighe. "Your dear father—and in his death I feel that I have lost a very dear friend and adviser—your dear father purchased many valuable books of me. I sell only the rarest and most expensive bindings, chiefly full morocco. Your father was very fond of books, wasn't he?"

Viola could not help admitting it, as far as purchasing expensive, if unread, editions was concerned. The library shelves testified to this.

"Yes, indeed, he just loved them, and he was always glad when I brought his attention to a new set, my dear Miss Carwell. Well, that is what I came about now. Just before his terrible death—it was terrible, wasn't it? Oh, I feel so sorry for you," and she dabbed a much-perfumed handkerchief to her eyes. "Just before his lamented death he bought a lovely white morocco set of the Arabian Nights from me. Forty volumes, unexpurgated, my dear. Mind you that—unexpurgated!" and Morocco Kate seemed to dwell on this with relish. "As I say, he bought a lovely set from me. It was the most expensive set I ever sold—forty-five hundred dollars."

"Forty-five hundred dollars for a set of books!" exclaimed Viola, in unaffected wonder.

"Oh, my dear, that is nothing. These were some books," and she winked understandingly.

"It isn't everybody who could get them! The edition was limited. But I happened on a set and I knew your father wanted them, so I got them for him. He made the first payment, and then he died—I read it in the papers. Naturally I didn't want to bother you while the terrible affair was so fresh, so I waited. And now I'm here!"

She seemed to be—very much so, as she settled herself back in the big leather chair, and made sure that her hair was properly fluffed around her much-powdered face.

"You are here to—" faltered Viola. "To get the balance for the books—that's it, dear Miss Carwell. Naturally I'm not in for my health, and of course I don't publish books myself. I'm only a poor business woman, and I work on commission. The firm likes have all contracts cleaned up, but in this case they didn't press matters, knowing Mr. Carwell was all right; or, if he wasn't, his estate was. I've sold him many a choice and rare book—books you don't see in every library, my dear. Of course there were—ahem—some you wouldn't care to read, and I can't say I care much about 'em myself. A good French novel is all right, I say, but some of 'em well, you know!" and she winked boldly, and dabbed her face with the handkerchief which was quickly filling the room with an overpowering odor.

"You mean my father owes you money?" faltered Viola.

"Well, not me, exactly—the firm. But I don't mind telling you I get my rake-off. I have to so I can live. The balance is only three thousand dollars, and if you could give me a check—"

"Excuse me," interrupted Viola, "but I have nothing to do with the business end of my father's affairs."

"You're his daughter, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"And you'll get all his property?" Morocco Kate was getting vindictive now.

"I cannot discuss that with you," said Viola, simply. "All matters of business are attended to at the office. You will have to see Mr. Blossom."

"Huh! LeGrand Blossom! No use seeing him. I've tried. But I'll try again, and say you sent me." The voice was back to its original dulcet tones now. "That's what I'll do, my dear Miss Carwell. I'll tell LeGrand Blossom you sent me. He needn't think he can play fast and loose with me as he has. If he doesn't want to pay this bill, contracted by your father in the regular way—and I must say he was very nice to me—well, there are other ways of collecting. I haven't told all I know."

"What do you mean?" demanded Viola hotly. "Oh, there's time enough to tell later," was the answer. "I haven't been in the rare edition business for nothing, nor just for my health. But wait until I see LeGrand Blossom. Then I may call on you again!" And with this rather veiled threat Morocco Kate took her leave.

"What horrible person was that?" asked Miss Mary Carwell, who met Viola in the hail after her visitor's departure. "She was positively vulgar, I should say, though I didn't see her."

"Oh, she was just a book agent. I sent her to Mr. Blossom."

"To Mr. Blossom, my dear! I didn't know he was literary."

"Neither was this person, Aunt Mary. I think I shall go and lie down. I have a headache."

And as she locked herself in her room shed bitter tears on her pillow. Who was this person who seemed to know Mr. Carwell so well, who boasted of how "good" he was to her? Why did Colonel Ashley want to gain all the information he could about her?

"Oh, what does it all mean?" asked Viola in shrinking terror. "Is there to be some terrible—some horrible scandal?"

She put the question to Colonel Ashley a little later.

"Who is this woman?"

The colonel considered a moment before replying. Then, with a shrewd look at Viola, he replied:

"Well, my dear, she isn't your kind, of course, but I've known her, and known of her, for several years. She, and those she associates with, work the de luxe game."

"The de luxe game? What is it?"

"In brief, it's a blackmailing scheme. A woman of the type of Miss Tighe, to give her one of her names, associates herself with some men. They arrange to have a set of some books—usually well known enough and of a certain value—bound in expensive leather—full morocco—hand tooled and all that. They call on rich men and women, and induce them to buy the expensive and rare set, of which they say there is only one or two on the market.

"Sometimes the sales are straight enough—particularly where women are the buyers—but the books, even if delivered, are not worth anything like the price paid.

"But, in the case of wealthy men the game is different."

"Different?"

"Yes, particularly where a woman like Morocco Kate is the agent. They are not satisfied with the enormous profit made on selling a common edition of books, falsely dressed in a garish binding, but they endeavor to compromise the man in some business or social way, and then threaten to expose him unless he pays a large sum,—ostensibly, of course, for the books.

"Morocco Kate, who called on you, has more than one killing to her credit in this game, and she has managed to keep out of jail because her victims were afraid of the publicity of prosecuting. And it was so foolish of them for, in most cases, it was just mere foolishness on their part, and nothing criminally, or even morally, wrong, though they may have been indiscreet."

"And you think my father—"

"I don't know anything about it, Viola, my dear!" was the prompt answer. "Your father may have dealt in a legitimate way with this woman, buying books from her because she cajoled him into it, though he could have done much better with any reputable house. As I say, he may have simply bought some books from her, and not have made the final payments on account of his death. Whether the contract he entered into is binding or not I can't say until I have seen it."

"But I found nothing about books among his papers!"

"No? Then perhaps it was a verbal contract. Or he may have been—" The colonel stopped. Viola guessed what he intended to say.

"Do you think he was—Do you think this woman may make trouble?" she asked bravely.

"I don't know. We must find out more about her. If she comes again, hold her and send for me. I didn't want her to see me to-day to know that I was on this case. But I don't mind now."

"Oh, suppose there should be some—some disgrace?"

"Don't worry about that, Viola. But now, I have some rather startling news for you."

"Oh, more—"

"Not exactly trouble. But Captain Poland has gone away—his place is closed."

"The captain gone away!" faltered the girl.

"Yes. I wondered if you knew he was going. Did he intimate to you anything of the kind?"

The colonel watched Viola narrowly as he asked this question.

"No, I never knew he contemplated ending the season here so early," Viola said. "Usually he is the last to go, staying until late in October. Is there anything—"

"That is all I know—he is gone," said the detective. "I wanted to ask him about that fifteen-thousand-dollar matter, but I shall have to write, I suppose. And the sooner I get the letter off the better."

"Please write it here," suggested Viola, indicating the table where pens, ink and stationery were always kept. "I am going to look again among the papers of the private safe to see if there was anything about books—the Arabian Nights, she said it was."

"Yes, that's her favorite set. But don't worry, my dear. Everything will come out all right."

And as Viola left him alone in the library, the detective added to himself:

"I wonder if it will?"

Colonel Ashley wrote a brief, business-like letter to Captain Poland, addressing it to his summer home at Lakeside, arguing that the yachtsman would have left some forwarding address.

Then, lighting a cigar, the colonel sat back in a deep, leather chair—the same one Morocco Kate had sat in and perfumed—and mused.

"There are getting to be too many angles to this," he reflected. "I need a little help. Guess I'll send for Jack Young. He'll be just the chap to look after Jean and follow that French dope artist to his new place, provided he leaves here suddenly. Yes, I need Jack."

And having telephoned a telegram, summoning from New York one of his most trusted lieutenants, Colonel Ashley refreshed himself by reading a little in the "Compleat Angler."

Jack Young appeared at Lakeside the next day, well dressed, good looking, a typical summer man of pleasing address.

"Another diamond cross mystery?" he asked the colonel.

"How is your golf?" was the unexpected answer.

"Oh, I guess I can manage to drive without topping," was the ready answer. "Have I got to play?"

"It might be well. I'll get you a visitor's card at the Maraposa Club here, and you can hang around the links and see what you can pick up besides stray balls. Now I'll tell you the history of the case up to the present."

And Jack Young, having heard, and having consumed as many cigarettes as he considered the subject warranted, remarked:

"All right. Get me a bag of clubs, and I'll see what I can do. So you want me to pay particular attention to this dope fiend?"

"Yes, if he proves to be one, and I think he will. I'll have my hands full with Blossom, Morocco Kate and some others."

"What about Poland and Bartlett?"

"Well, Harry is still held, but I imagine he'll be released soon, Jack."

"Nothing on him?"

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. You know my rule. Believe no one innocent until proved not guilty. I can keep my eye on him. Besides, he's pretty well anchored."

"You mean by Miss Viola?"

"Yes."

"How about the captain?"

"He's a puzzle, at present. But I wish you'd find out if that chauffeur has a girl. That's the best way to do, or undo, a man that I know of. Find out if he has a girl. That'll be your trick."

"All right—that and golf. I'm ready."

And Jack Young worked to such good advantage that three days later he had a pretty complete report ready for his chief.

"Jean Forette has a girl," said Jack; "and she's a little beauty, too. Mazi Rochette is her name. She's a maid in one of the swell families here, and she's dead gone on our friend Jean. I managed to get a talk with her, and she thinks he's going to marry her as soon as he gets another place. A better place than with the Carwells, she says he must have. This place was pretty much on the blink, she confided to me."

"Or words to that effect," laughed the colonel.

"Exactly. I'm not much on the French, you know. Still I got along pretty well with her. She took a notion to me."

"I thought you might be able to get something in that direction," said the colonel with a smile. "Did you learn where Jean was just prior to the golf game which was the last Mr. Carwell played?"

"Yes, he was with her, the girl says, and she didn't know why I was asking, either, I flatter myself. I led around to it in a neat way. He was with her until just before he drove Mr. Carwell to the links. In fact, Jean had the girl out for a spin in the new car, she says. She's afraid of it, though. Revolutionary devil, she calls it."

"Hum! If Jean was with her just before he picked up Carwell to go to the game—well, the thing is turning out a bit different from what I expected. Jack, we still have plenty of work before us. Did I tell you Morocco Kate was mixed up in this?"

"No! Is she?"

"Seems to be."

"Good night, nurse! Whew! If he fell for her—"

"I don't believe he did, Jack. My old friend was a sport, but not that kind. He was clean, all through."

"Glad to hear you say so, Colonel. Well, what next?"

They sat talking until far into the night.

There was rather a sensation in Lakeside two days later when it became known that the coroner's jury was to be called together again, to consider more evidence in the Carwell case.

"What does it mean?" Viola asked Colonel Ashley. "Does it mean that Harry will be—"

"Now don't distress yourself, my dear," returned the detective, soothingly. "I have been nosing around some, and I happen to know that the prosecutor and coroner haven't a bit more evidence than they had at first when they held Mr. Bartlett."

"Does that mean Harry will be released?"

"I think so."

"Does it mean he will be proved innocent?"

"That I can't say. I hardly think the verdict will be conclusive in any case. But they haven't any more evidence than at first—that he had a quarrel with your father just before the fatal end. As to the nature of the quarrel, Harry is silent—obstinately silent even to his own counsel; and in this I can not uphold him. However, that is his affair."

"But I'm sure, Colonel, that he had nothing to do with my father's death; aren't you?"

"If I said I was sure, my dear, and afterward, through force of evidence and circumstance, were forced to change my opinion, you would not thank me for now saying what you want me to say," was the reply. "It is better for me to say that I do not know. I trust for the best. I hope, for your sake and his, that he had nothing to do with the terrible crime. I want to see the guilty person discovered and punished, and to that end I am working night and day. And if I find out who it is, I will disclose him—or her—no matter what anguish it costs me personally—no matter what anguish it may bring to others. I would not be doing my full duty otherwise."

"No, I realize that, Colonel. Oh, it is hard—so hard! If we only knew!"

"We may know," said the colonel gently.

"Soon?" she asked hopefully.

"Sooner than you expect," he answered with a smile. "Now I must attend the jury session."

It was brief, and not at all sensational, much to the regret of the reporters for the New York papers who flocked to the quiet and fashionable seaside resort. The upshot of the matter was that the chemists for the state reported that Mr. Carwell had met his death from the effects of some violent poison, the nature of which resembled several kinds, but which did not analyze as being any particular one with which they were, at present, familiar.

There were traces of both arsenic and strychnine, but mingled with them was some narcotic of strange composition, which was deadly in its effect, as had been proved on guinea pigs, some of the residue from the stomach and viscera of the dead man having been injected into the hapless animals.

Harry Bartlett was not called to the stand, but, pale from his confinement, sat an interested and vital spectator of the proceedings.

The prosecutor announced that the efforts of his detectives had resulted in nothing more. There was not sufficient evidence to warrant accusing any one else, and that against Harry Bartlett was of so slender and circumstantial a character that it could not be held to have any real value before the grand jury nor in a trial court.

"What is your motion, then?" asked the coroner.

"Well, I don't know that I have any motion to make," said Mr. Stryker. "If this were before a county judge, and the prisoner's counsel demanded it, I should have to agree to a nolle pros. As it is I simply say I have no other evidence to offer at this time."

"Then the jury may consider that already before it?" asked Billy Teller.

"Yes."

"You have heard what the prosecutor said, gentlemen," went on the coroner. "You may retire and consider your verdict."

This they did, for fifteen minutes—fifteen nerve-racking minutes for more than one in the improvised courtroom. Then the twelve men filed back, and in answer to the usual questions the foreman announced:

"We find that Horace Carwell came to his death through poison administered by a person, or persons, unknown."

There was silence for a moment, and then, as Bartlett started from his seat, a flush mantling his pale face, Viola, with a murmured "Thank God!" fainted.



CHAPTER XX. A MEETING

Harry Bartlett walked from the court a free man, physically, but not mentally. He felt, and others did also, that there was a stain on him—something unexplained, and which he would not, or could not, clear up—the quarrel with Mr. Carwell just before the latter's death. And even to Viola, when, in the seclusion of her home, she asked Harry about it after the trial, or rather, the verdict, he replied:

"I can not tell. It was nothing that concerns you or me or this case. I will never tell."

And Colonel Ashley, hearing this, pondered over it more and more.

The little green book was all but forgotten during these days, and as for the rods, lines, and reels, Shag arranged them, polished them and laid them out, in hourly expectation of being called on for them, but the call did not come. The colonel was after bigger fish than dwelt in the sea or the rivers that ran into the sea.

It was a week after the rather unsatisfactory verdict of the coroner's jury that Bartlett, out in his "Spanish Omelet," came most unexpectedly on Captain Gerry Poland, some fifty miles from Lakeside. The captain was in his big machine, and he seemed surprised on meeting Bartlett.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Then you are—"

"Out, at any rate," was the somewhat bitter reply. "Where have you been, Gerry?"

"Away. I couldn't stand it around there."

"I suppose you know they have been looking for you?"

"Looking for me? Oh, you mean Colonel Ashley wanted some information about certain business matters. Well, I didn't see that I owed him any explanation about private matters between Mr. Carwell and myself, so I didn't answer.

"You know what the imputation is, Gerry?" questioned Bartlett, as each man sat in his car, near a lonely stretch of woods.

"I don't know that I do," was the calm reply.

"Well, Viola has told me of the finding of the papers in her father's private safe. I told her I would see you, if I could, and get an explanation. I did not think I would find you so soon."

"I didn't know you were looking, Harry, or I would have come to you. What do you mean about papers in a private safe?"

"I mean those which indicate that Mr. Carwell owed you fifteen thousand dollars."

"Well, he did owe me that," said the captain calmly.

"He did?" and Harry Bartlett accented the last word.

"Yes, but it was paid. He did not owe me a dollar at the time of his death."

"That is astonishing news! There is no record of the money having been paid!"

"Nevertheless the debt is canceled," insisted the captain. "I sent the receipt and the canceled note to LeGrand Blossom."

"It's false!" cried Bartlett. "He hasn't any such documents!"

For a moment Captain Poland seemed about to leap from his car and attack the man who had given him the lie direct. Then, by an effort, he composed himself, and quietly answered:

"I can prove every word I say, and I will take immediate steps to do so. Mr. Carwell paid me the fifteen thousand dollars on the twenty-third, and I—"

"He paid you the money on the twenty-third? the very day he died?" cried Harry.

"Yes."

"Then—Why, good heavens, man! Don't you see what this means? It means you were with him just before his death, the same as I was. We're both in the same boat as far as that goes!"

"Yes, I admit that I was with him, and that he paid me the fifteen thousand dollars shortly before his unfortunate end," returned Captain Poland. "But our meeting was a most peaceful one, even friendly, and—"

"You mean that I—Oh, I see!" and Bartlett's voice was full of meaning. "So that's what you are driving at. Well, two can play at that game. I've learned something, anyhow!"

There was a grinding of gears, and the "Spanish Omelet" shot away. Captain Poland watched it for a moment, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, threw in the clutch and speeded down the road in the opposite direction.

Harry Bartlett lost no time in acquainting Colonel Ashley with the admission made by Captain Poland.

"So the wind is veering," the detective murmured. "I shall watch him. I wondered why he didn't answer my letters. Now we must see LeGrand Blossom."

"I'll come with you," offered Bartlett. "I want to see this thing through now. Shall we tell her?" and he motioned toward Viola's room.

"Not now. We'll see Blossom first."

If the head clerk was perturbed at all by the visit to the office of Colonel Ashley and Harry Bartlett, he did not disclose it. He welcomed the two visitors, and took them to his private room.

Colonel Ashley went bluntly into the business in hand.

"Have you any papers to show that Captain Poland acknowledged the receipt of the fifteen thousand dollars owed to him by Mr. Carwell?"

"I have not," was the frank answer. "I have been searching for something to prove that the debt was paid, as I knew of its contraction. It was not canceled as far as I can find."

"Yet Captain Poland says it was paid," said Bartlett, "and that he sent you the receipt."

"I never got it!" insisted LeGrand Blossom. Harry Bartlett and Colonel Ashley looked at one another, and then the detective, with an effort at cheerfulness which he did not feel, said:

"Oh, well, perhaps in the confusion the papers were mislaid. I shall ask Viola about them. Another search must be made."

And so the two went back to The Haven, not much more enlightened than when they left it.

"'What is to be done?" asked Bartlett. "Blossom says he knows nothing of it."

"Then I must know a little more about Mr. Blossom," mentally decided the colonel. "I think I shall shadow him a bit. It may prove fruitful."

And when two nights later LeGrand Blossom left his boarding place and met a veiled woman at a lonely spot on the beach, Colonel Ashley, who had been waiting as he so well knew how to do, hid himself on the sand behind some sedge grass and began to think that the game was coming his way after all.

"For a man who pretends to be open and above board, his actions are very queer," mused the detective, as he silently crawled nearer to where LeGrand Blossom and the woman stood talking in low tones on the lonely sands. "I don't see what object he could have in making away with Carwell, and yet it begins to look black for him. Maybe there is more than the fifteen thousand dollars involved. There are so many angles to the case now. I must find out who this woman is."

And when she spoke in louder tones than usual, drawing from LeGrand Blossom an impatient "Hush!" the colonel had his answer.

"Morocco Kate again! What's her part now?"

The detective was near enough now to hear some of the talk.

"Did you bring it?" asked the woman eagerly.

"Hush! can't you?" snapped LeGrand Blossom.

"Pooh! What's the harm? There's no one in this lonely place! It gives me the creeps. Li'l ole Broadway for mine!"

"You never know who's anywhere these days!" muttered LeGrand. "That infernal detective seems to be all over. He looks at me—oh, he looks at me, and I don't like it."

Morocco Kate laughed.

"Shut up!" ordered the head clerk. "Do you think this is funny?"

"It used to be," was the answer. "It used to be funny, when you thought you were in love with me. Oh, it was delicious!"

"I was a bigger fool than I ever thought I'd be!" growled LeGrand Blossom.

"You aren't the only one," was the consoling answer. "But what I'm interested in now, is—did you bring the mazumma—the cush—the dope?"

"All I could get," was the answer. "I'm in a devil of a mess, and the estate hasn't been settled yet. I may get some more out of it then, but you'll have to quit bleeding me. I'm through with you, I tell you!"

"But I'm not with you," was the sharp rejoinder. "I'll take this now, but I'll need more. The game isn't going as it used to. Mind, I'll need more, and soon."

"You won't get it!"

"Oh, won't I? Well, there are others that'll pay well for what I'm able to tell, I guess. I rather think you'll see me again, Lee. So-long now, but I'll see you again!"

She moved off in the darkness, laughing mirthlessly, and with muttered imprecations LeGrand Blossom turned in the opposite direction, passing within a few feet of the hidden detective. "Blackmail, or is it a division of the spoils?" mused Colonel Ashley. "I've got to find out which. Mr. Blossom, I think I'll have to stick to you until you fall into the sear and yellow leaf."

The next day as Colonel Ashley sat trying to fix his attention on a passage from Walton, a messenger brought him a note. It was from a young man who, at the colonel's suggestion, had been given a clerical place in the office of the late Horace Carwell. Not even Viola knew that the young man was one of the colonel's aides.

"Blossom just sent out a note to a Miss Minnie Webb," the screed, which the colonel perused, read. "He's going to meet her in the park at Silver Lake at nine to-night. Thought I'd let you know."

"I'm glad he did," mused the detective. "I'll be there."

And he was, skillfully though not ostentatiously attired as a loitering fisherman of the native type, of which there were many in and about Lakeside.

The fisherman strolled about the little park in the center of which was a body of fresh water known as Silver Lake. It was little more than a pond, and was fed by springs and by drainage. In the park were trees and benches, and it was a favorite trysting spot.

Up and down the paths walked Colonel Ashley, his clothes odorous of fish, and he was beginning to think he might have his trouble for his pains when he saw a woman coming along hesitatingly.

It needed but a second glance to disclose to the trained eyes of the detective that it was none other than Minnie Webb, whom he had met several times at the home of Viola Carwell. Minnie advanced until she came to a certain bench, and she stopped long enough to count and make sure that it was the third from one end of a row, and the seventh from the other end.

"The appointed place," mused the colonel as he sauntered past. And then, making a detour, he came up in the rear and hid in the bushes back of the bench, where he could hear without being observed—in fact the bench was in such shadow that even the casual passerby in front could not after darkness had fallen tell who occupied it.

Minnie Webb sat in silence, but by the way she fidgeted about the colonel, hearing the shuffling of her feet on the gravel walk, knew she was nervous and impatient.

Then quick footsteps were heard coming along through the little park. They increased in sound, and came to a stop in front of the bench on which sat the shrouded and dark figure of the girl.

"Minnie?"

"LeGrand! Oh, I'm so glad you came! What is it? Why did you send me a note to meet you in this lonely place? I'm so afraid!"

"Afraid? Lonely? Why, it's early evening, and this is a public park," the man answered in a low voice. "I wanted you to come here as it's the best place for us to talk—where we can't be overheard."

"But why are you so afraid of being overheard?"

"Oh, things are so mixed up—one can't be too careful. Minnie, we must settle our affairs."

"Settle them? You mean—?"

"I mean we can't go on this way. I must have you! I've waited long enough. You know I love you—that I've never loved any one else as I've loved you! I can't stand it any longer without you. I have asked you to marry me several times. Each time you have put it off for some reason or other. Now we must settle it. Are you going to marry me or not? No matter what your folks say about me and this Carwell affair. Do you—do you care for me?"

The answer was so low and so muffled that the colonel was glad he could not hear it.

"Confound it all!" he murmured, "that's the worst of this business! I don't mind anything but the love-making. I hate to break in on that!"

There was an eloquent silence, and then LeGrand Blossom said:

"I am very happy, Minnie."

"And so am I. Now what shall we do?"

"Get married as soon as possible, of course. I've got to wind up matters here, and as soon as I can I may take up an offer that came from Boston. It's a very good one. Would you go there with me?"