“But I must, Mrs. Temple. They’ve bought one of my machines.”

The old woman was struck silent for an instant.

“Be they goin’ to pay ye money for it?”

“Yes.”

“You mean money right down?”

“Yes,—it’s got to be that way.”

A pause. Then: “Mr. Haworth, there’s some trick! Ef them jailbirds pay you money down they’ll rob it away from ye! They’re a-goin’ to git you some way—they wouldn’t be here if they wasn’t. I’ve seen spellbinders like them be—yes, an’ had to do with ’em too! Don’t turn me away now. Wait till after I’ve got ’em out an’ then I’ll go! Not now—not now, Mr. Haworth. You ain’t no person to cope with such as them.”

The young man stood looking at Mrs. Temple’s face, unable to speak. Suddenly he turned away and uttering a broken “I can’t—I can’t——You must go!” he turned and fled from the room.

For the following few days Mrs. Temple’s anxiety concerning the unknown danger she considered Haworth to be in overshadowed the lacerated feelings that naturally followed the poor soul’s expulsion from the house. No particle of blame could attach to him, for was he not under the malign influence of a gang of criminals and in no way responsible for what he did? This she felt, and her heart harbored no bitterness—though it had been cruelly hurt. She must find out in some way what villainy these human sharks were planning, though for the present nothing was possible but to keep close watch on the house.

The very next night after her dismissal by Mr. Haworth she saw a young man who hadn’t been there before, emerge from the darkness into the faint light that fell from a front window across the portico (she was watching from behind bushes quite near), and after ringing the bell, pass in at the front door. The roller shades—cheap affairs that the second hand dealer had agreed to put in in place of the old velvet curtains he was taking away—hadn’t been pulled down since she left, so she could see in. The stranger was being shown about by Mr. Haworth, who had evidently expected him, and seemed to be given charge of things as though he was a servant. That was it! The scoundrels had got Mr. Haworth to send her away and take a man in her place. So now they had a confederate right there in the house with him!

The old woman, desperate in her helplessness, made up her mind to get assistance. She’d go to the police in the morning and they’d arrest this man. Wasn’t it their business to protect people? If not, what was their business, she’d like to know!

Early the next morning she hurried to the Jamaica Plain district, and as soon as she saw a patrolman, plunged into an excited account of the situation. But the old woman’s story seemed to border on the grotesque. From what he could gather the officer figured that she’d lost her job and they’d got a butler to take her place, with the result that the poor creature had gone dotty about it, thinking the man was some sort of a crook. He couldn’t find that she had any grounds for such a suspicion, but to quiet her he took down the address and said he’d keep an eye on the place. Mrs. Temple became almost hysterical, begging him not to stop with just keepin’ an eye on it, but to come over an’ arrest the man,—to please do somethin’ for mercy’s sake—if he didn’t there’d be some terrible thing happenin’ to some one. But the patrolman told her he couldn’t make an arrest until some crime or misdemeanor had been committed. She finally realized that it was useless to waste further time with him and hurried back to keep watch again from the outside, and do what she could alone. That’s what she did from then on.

During the day she hung about at some distance, keeping herself well out of sight, but always at places where she could see who entered the mansion and who left it. When darkness set in she stole to some overgrown shrubbery close to the house on the south side, and was able to see what was happening within, if the lights were on.

For a week the old woman remained on watch until late at night and returned to her vigil early in the morning, bringing with her in a paper bag what little food she needed. During this time she saw Mr. Haworth leave the place a number of times, which was a little unusual, but he doubtless had business in town or elsewhere; also men having the appearance of being mechanics drove up in a car one day and were in the house until nearly five o’clock; and she discovered, on reaching her nearer station in the evening, that a heavy piece of machinery was standing crated in the great entrance hall, presumably having been brought up from the basement. The butler fellow appeared to be taking care of Mr. Haworth in a surprisingly competent manner. What a relief, she thought, if the machine in the hall should be taken away and the crooked gang that bought it never show up again!

But this growing hopefulness on the part of Mrs. Temple served only to make the shock more violent when, on the morning of the tenth day after their former visit, the very bunch of swindlers she dreaded drove up to the mansion and were admitted to the house. She had known it would happen!

During the whole day, from the time they came, the old woman hardly took her eyes off the mansion, not even for long enough to open the little package of bread and cheese she’d brought. After they entered, nothing more could be seen of them until early in the afternoon, when Mr. Haworth appeared with Mr. Pentecost, walking around from the back and going across to the old barn in the rear. After that she saw Mr. Pentecost alone, making an examination of the windows, the grounds, even the old elm trees near the house. He finally disappeared into the mansion at one of the rear doors, and a short time after that the three came out at the front portico and drove away in the big car which had been waiting since their arrival in the morning.

The moment it was dark enough for her to approach the house she made haste to her place among the tangled shrubbery close under the side windows. The room on the left was absolutely dark, but by listening intently she could hear voices in a further room, and it was an unspeakable relief when she recognized Mr. Haworth’s among them. He seemed to be giving directions to the young accomplice (there wasn’t a doubt in her mind as to his being one) that the gang of scoundrels had got into the house as a butler.

She’d been there but a short time, close under one of the side windows of the room on the left, when the sound of carefully lightened footsteps reached her ears. Soon the forms of two men could be made out in the darkness coming along the flagged path from the rear and passing quite near her as they went toward the front of the house. They appeared to be carrying some heavy object and went around the corner with it to the front.

Mrs. Temple crawled cautiously through the high weeds and bushes to a place where she could see them again and more distinctly, for the light was on in the big entrance hall, and struck through the two narrow windows—one at each side of the door—across the front portico. This with its columns reflected enough light to enable her to make out what they were doing.

They had put a ladder (which must have been what they were carrying) against the vine-covered wall at one side of the front window of the room on the left, up which one of them had climbed, and were working at something which seemed to be under the thick growth of creeper, carefully disentangling the vines, unwinding, drawing out, and securing them at one side, never cutting or breaking. The leaves in particular they appeared to be handling with the utmost care, and it wasn’t until they had slowly and with all possible precaution pulled one of the window shutters out of the tangled mass that had covered it as it stood opened back against the wall, that she suddenly realized what it all meant.

They were closing the blinds! Closing them! Such a thing hadn’t been done in all the years she’d been there! It could mean but one thing—something was going to happen in the house that no one must see! She was horrified, aghast, unable to move.

It took the men a long time to free both shutters and tie the vines back so they’d be supported. But finally she saw they were coming down and gathering up some cords and tools from the ground. It would be the side windows next—the blinds there were open and overgrown in the same way as the front one—and she’d be directly in their path as they came around the corner. So she crawled out from among the bushes and hobbled away a little distance in the darkness. Her rheumatism was bad from her being out on the damp ground so much.

But the men didn’t stop at the side windows. Instead they went back to the rear of the house, passing along the flagged path by which they came, carrying the ladder and what tools they’d brought with them.

Shivering with dread, Mrs. Temple stood trying to think how she could get word to Mr. Haworth—how warn him—put him on his guard? Though after his telling her that she must not, she didn’t dare to go in, yet she would dare if there was no other way.

Before the poor old soul could decide what to do she heard the front door of the house close heavily and saw someone coming down the steps. As he turned at the bottom, the illumination from the hall windows fell upon him, and she saw it was Haworth.

At once she determined to speak to him—to warn him of his danger—to beg him to let her come into the house again so she could see that no harm came to him. She said to herself that if he’d do that, she’d sleep in front of his door at night—indeed, never let him out of her sight if she could help it.

All this came to her while she was hurrying with all her strength to overtake the young man as he went toward the gate; but he was walking fast, and, crippled by rheumatism as she was, she couldn’t come up with him. She called as loud as she dared—which was in a very subdued voice indeed, as it wouldn’t do for that butler scoundrel to know that she was warning him.

But Haworth either didn’t hear or wouldn’t stop; and finally, about halfway down the drive, the old woman gave it up.

Then she decided to wait in the drive until his return; she could speak to him there without disobeying his orders.

A little time after Charles Haworth disappeared in the darkness, leaving poor old Mrs. Temple standing in the driveway not far from the gate, he and Edith were together in the small living room of the Findlay cottage on Cherry Street. That afternoon about half-past four, a stranger had called on Mrs. Findlay—a mild-looking middle-aged man—and had told her that Mr. Haworth would be there that evening between seven and eight.

Edith had hesitated, whereupon the stranger muttered in a low voice, “Mr. Findlay won’t be home till quite late.”

“How—how do you know?” she asked.

“Some one’ll be taking him to supper, an’ they’re liable to be engaged in conversation for some little time.”

Before she could make any reply the man was gone.

And now Haworth was there—with her.

For a long time they scarcely spoke. A few endearing words whispered as they clung together—that was all.

Finally he lowered her hands from his lips, though still holding them. “Darling one—you know it already—that I’ve come with good news—don’t you?”

He could feel her head making little nods against his breast and heard a muffled “Yes” from down there.

“It happened—what I told you I was trying to do. Those people took the machine—bought it you know—and to-day they paid the money—and there’ll be other payments coming in later. So now all the trouble is over—there won’t be any more at all!”

She suddenly looked up in his face, but he gently drew her head down again, so then she couldn’t see his face any more but lay there resting, and hearing his voice saying how marvelous it was that this sale had come just in time—for it was in time. The doctors said it would be all right and a certain cure if she could get away at once. And now she could! They hadn’t definitely decided where she was to go, but would in a day or two. It would be the most beneficial place in the world for her—they’d make sure of that. And they’d send the best nurse they could find to take care of her on the journey and when she got there. And very soon—very soon—she’d be entirely cured and strong and well again.

When he stopped speaking she twisted around a little so that she could see his face.

“What is it?” she whispered. Her heart was suddenly beating with a vague alarm that she couldn’t understand.

He looked down and met her anxious gaze.

“But don’t you see, dear—it’s going to be so wonderful! We’ll have enough for everything—more than enough. Plenty to take care of you and plenty for me to go on with anything I want to do. I brought a little over for you to get along on just for now—see, that package on the chair there—where my hat is. Don’t mind what’s in it; remember there’s a lot more—thousands. They paid all that down, you see, and I’m to have so much a year to work for them—that is, after we’ve got you all right. That’s the first thing. I couldn’t do anything,—any work at all, if I—if I was afraid about you. And you know what you have to do for your part, don’t you, dear one? Wherever the doctors say, you must go, and whatever they tell you to do you’ll do, won’t you?”

Edith didn’t answer. She was lying quite motionless against him. He looked down at her.

“But—but you——” she began in a faint voice, and stopped, hesitating.

“Yes?” he encouraged her tenderly.

“I mean you——” (Quite a pause.) “Aren’t you coming too—if I—if I have to go a long way off?”

“Yes dear—as soon as I can! But to make this sale I had to agree to oversee the setting up of the machine—and the regulating and all that. It’s bound to take a little time—it’s bound to, dear—and it won’t do for you to wait—oh no!”

“But—don’t you think you can come soon?”

“Oh——I do!”

“You see, I”—she clung against him—“I wouldn’t care much about getting well if you weren’t there.”

“My dear!”

She seemed satisfied and nestled down. After a time she spoke again, a little mournfully. “I hoped we could do what we always thought we would as soon as you sold something. You know what we—what we planned.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Will there—will there be enough for that, too?”

“More than enough.”

“But I suppose this other”—with a little sighing breath—“I suppose it must come first.”

“It must, my precious one.”

“Yes, I know.”

She had referred to their plan of having her get a divorce as soon as there was money enough to do it.

After this they sat together, silent mostly.

Suddenly Haworth realized he ought to go. He knew some arrangement had been made for detaining Findlay, but had kept no track of the time. Now a strong feeling that the hour was late took possession of him. For Edith’s peace of mind the fellow mustn’t find him there. But he couldn’t leave without going upstairs to little Mildred, asleep in her crib.

As they approached the door of the bedroom he stopped and caught Edith to him, holding her close in his arms.

“My dear,” he whispered, and her lips, as she looked up in his face, moved in a soundless “Yes.”

After a moment they went on; but in that moment her heart began throbbing again with the same vague alarm she had felt before.

Haworth had stopped when just within the door of the room and stood there for a little, looking across at the sleeping child; then he suddenly turned away and hurried down the stairs into the room below. Edith, following, felt her hands caught, with a sort of desperation, in his, and heard his whispered, “Good night ... good night, my dear!”

He released her hands and was turning to leave her, when the front door, opening and closing again with a violent bang, shook the flimsy little house, and instantly thereafter Augustus Findlay plunged into the room. He was out of breath from running, and frenzied with precisely the right mixture of vindictive jealousy and vicious alcohol to produce perfect ignition.

“I thought so!” he shouted between his gasps for wind. “By God! I just got on to it they were trying to hold me back!” He glared across at Haworth. “What the hell you doing here in the house with my wife?” He was pulling something like a glove on his right hand as he spoke.

“I’m calling on Mrs. Findlay,” Haworth answered, quietly, and turned toward Edith as if to say a final word.

“Calling, were you?” Augustus was striding toward him. “Well if you’re calling I’ve got to show my hand—an’ here it is you —— —— ——!” Saying which he struck Haworth a savage blow in the face with the brass knuckles he’d been putting on his hand.

Edith, uttering a subdued cry, tried to run in between the two, but Haworth put out his hand and held her back. He was standing quite unconcerned, though the blood was running down the left side of his face from an ugly cut just under the eye.

Turning to Edith as though nothing out of the way had occurred, Haworth raised her hand to his lips, looked deeply into her eyes, and huskily murmuring “Good-bye,” walked out of the room and out of the house without so much as a glance at Findlay.

For an instant the two left there stood silent; then Augustus recovering himself made for the stairs, up which he rushed with stumbling feet. When he came pounding down again a moment later he found Edith blocking the way. “You shan’t go!” she called out, breathlessly. “You shan’t go with that!”

“What?” he demanded, stopping before her.

“You’ve got it there under your coat!”

“What if I have?” (Trying to pass her.)

“You shan’t take it with you! No—no—no!” She was holding to his arm and trying to reach the gun.

He shoved her violently aside and strode toward the door. “You think I’m going to stop for you, you —— ——! No, by God! an’ you’ll damned well get it yourself when I come back!” And he was gone before she had time to recover herself.

Augustus knew the streets Haworth would be likely to take to get home, and started after him on a run—an unsteady one, owing to the load of booze he was carrying, but he got over the ground. He had the gun gripped in his hand and was muttering threats and foul names as he plunged along.

But Haworth, realizing that his appearance would attract attention—for, though he continually wiped his face, it went on bleeding—turned off the most direct route through the well-lighted business district of Egleston Square and Jamaica Plain, into some of the quiet streets to the south. Even at that he had to pass through one of the lesser business neighborhoods where there were shops with lighted windows and people about on the sidewalks.

It was just along here that Findlay, not finding Haworth on the route he’d expected him to take and turning off into side streets running parallel thereto, came up with him. Shouting threats and menacing him with his revolver, he strode along unsteadily by his side, attracting the attention of everybody within hearing. Quite a few who happened to be close at hand ran into shops or behind trees. Haworth’s bleeding face added to the general alarm.

The young man suddenly turned on Findlay with a low-voiced warning.

“Keep away from me or you’ll get into trouble!” he said, and instantly turned and walked as before.

“Trouble!” Augustus screamed. “You talk to me about trouble do you, you —— —— ——! What in hell d’ye suppose you’re going to get? I’ve been waiting for this chance for a year, by God! for more’n a year, by God! an’ now we’ll see where you get off, you —— —— ——!” And on he went, letting out the foulest language he could lay his tongue to, with Haworth paying no further attention to him; and the two disappeared down a poorly lighted road which took them in the direction of Franklin Park.

After this extraordinary and rather terrifying scene had shifted itself well past the little area of shops and light, several of those who had witnessed it came out from their places of refuge and a hurried consultation was held, the result of which was a telephonic report of the affair to police station 13 in Jamaica Plain, and assurance from that quarter that a couple of men would be sent over.

One man who’d been a spectator, had sufficient curiosity to follow Haworth and Augustus at a safe distance, and was joined later by another who saw them pass a couple of blocks further on.

Haworth, dogged by the foul-mouthed nephew of old Michael Cripps, turned in at the mansion gate and went up the dark and weed-grown drive to the house. They mounted the steps of the front portico together, but when Augustus made as if to follow him in, Haworth suddenly turned on him. “You can’t come in here,” he said.

“We’ll see whether I can or not!” Findlay shouted, and began to fight his way past.

“Very well, we will.” Saying which in his quiet way Haworth gripped Augustus by the collar and gave him a shove that sent him back across the portico nearly to the steps, and then turned and entered the house. Findlay rushed back toward the door, which, as he reached it, was slammed violently in his face and bolted inside. With an outburst of the most malignant profanity he sprang against it like a maniac, making frantic efforts to get it open, pounding and shouting and screaming threats until exhausted and out of breath. After panting and fuming there for a while the crazy idea took hold of him that he might get in at a window—or at least get a look in, which was all he wanted. One look—that was all! And he stumbled and felt his way along the east wall until he found himself under the large front window of the room on the left. The shutters were closed, but at the bottom of one of them, which was about on the level of his eyes as he stood on the ground, there were two or three broken slats, and with the frenzied fit of rage still shaking him like an ague he peered avidly in.

Although Mrs. Temple had waited nearly two hours in the darkness about halfway down the drive, hoping to intercept Mr. Haworth on his return, she wasn’t there—as you’ve already gathered—when he finally did come. She’d been sitting for a long time in the grass at the side of the drive, her poor old heart beating the very life out of her with anxiety, when she suddenly became aware that a peculiar mechanical sound was coming from the direction of the mansion. She’d heard it before while Mr. Haworth had been working in the basement. He must have got home by some other way than the drive, and she’d missed him.

Limping back to the house, she got into the shrubbery near the side windows and tried to see into the room on the left, but it was still in darkness. She tried the other windows on that side with the same result. The entrance hall seemed to be the only place in the house where there was a light. The sounds in the house had now ceased. All was quiet.

Then she heard a strident voice down the Torrington Road. Faint it was at first, but gradually growing louder as the man doing the shouting approached. Quarreling with some one he seemed to be. Oaths were screamed out, and a great quantity of blackguardly language along with them.

As the abusive and threatening clamor became more distinct Mrs. Temple realized that the parties concerned were turning in at the gate and coming up the drive.

Intensely alarmed, she moved through the shrubbery to the front corner of the house, where she could get a view of the dimly lighted portico.

It was only a moment before Haworth, closely hounded by Augustus, appeared out of the darkness of the drive, and the old woman caught the metallic glint of something that Findlay had in his hand. Without an instant’s hesitation she hobbled toward him; if she could have got there she’d have torn the gun away from him or been shot in the attempt. But before she’d gone halfway the two had mounted the steps, and a second later Augustus was staggering back, with the door slammed in his face.

Owing to Findlay’s outcries and his fierce beating against the door, Mrs. Temple could at first hear nothing else, but when his hammering and shouting subsided a little she began to notice again those strange noises from within. Upon this she hurried back along the side of the house, still avoiding the footpath and keeping in the bushes. Determined now to get in, even though against Mr. Haworth’s wishes, she made for the kitchen door, but couldn’t open it, and another rear door giving into the back hall was also locked. Then she remembered the basement entrance at the bottom of the stone steps. She found the door there fastened, as she’d expected, but there was a secret way to slide the bolt back by reaching in through an aperture in the side and finding a cord to pull.

The cord was there, but she couldn’t make it work. It was tied in some way, and after desperate attempts she had to give it up.

She was utterly terrified, for that drunken beast might get into the house with his knife or pistol and do Mr. Haworth some fearful injury. In addition to this danger something alarming was going on inside. She could hear hurried footsteps and what seemed to her strange menacing sounds.

She started back toward the front of the house, hobbling and stumbling through the shrubbery, thinking she might find somebody down in Torrington Road who’d come to her assistance.

But as she came toward the side windows of the room on the left, she was amazed to see that, instead of the darkness that had prevailed, an unusually brilliant light was shining out in narrow beams below the roller shades. At both windows these shades had now been pulled down, but as is quite commonly the case, they weren’t quite long enough to reach the bottom of the windows. She hurried to the one nearest to the front of the house and looked in through the narrow slit.

At once she saw Mr. Haworth seated by the large table, reading a book. She watched him intently as he sat there occasionally turning the pages. He seemed entirely at ease and untroubled. There was nothing about him that gave the idea of anything being wrong or out of the way. It amazed her that he could recover entire equanimity so soon after the frightful time he’d been having with Augustus Findlay.

As she watched him he began to feel in his pockets in the absent-minded way she knew so well, bringing out his pipe and tobacco pouch; then he stopped reading and began to fill the pipe. It looked so safe and commonplace after her frightful imaginings and premonitions, that she hesitated about calling out to him, as she’d fully intended to do.

Now he rose and got a box of matches from the mantel, returning with it to the table. She had a momentary impulse to speak to him through the glass, but his singularly calm and reassuring behavior made her hesitate. Could it be that she was mistaken after all?

Quite suddenly something peculiar startled her—a moving shadow on the floor it seemed to be, and she realized that the whole room couldn’t be seen from where she was: the back part, where the doors to the breakfast room and the butler’s pantry were, was out of sight. This was behind Haworth as he stood at the table lighting his pipe, and a wave of horror swept over her as she started for the window farther back which would give her a view of it.

The aperture below the shade at this window was very narrow, but she twisted round, and looking sideways was able to see through into the room.

At last! The frightful thing had come! Standing there behind Mr. Haworth and aiming a terrible black thing straight at his head, a man, his face hidden by a cloth or bandage, his clothes clinging to him as though soaking wet.... She didn’t stop to see any more, but screamed out a frantic warning, at the same time starting back for the other window where she could see Haworth.

As she turned she saw dimly by the light sifting out under the shades, that a man carrying a stepladder was hurrying down the walk toward the front of the house, and she called to him as she ran, but didn’t stop to see whether he heard or not. In an instant she was back at the other window and looking in. Haworth was standing close to the table, half leaning on it and holding a lighted match to his pipe, emitting quick puffs of smoke as he drew on it. She shrieked out his name and beat on the glass with her hands. But she’d no more than begun this when two shots rang out—one close after the other and with reports so deafening that they seemed to shake the house.

The old woman was unable to move, frozen, paralyzed, seeing Haworth spin round as he was hit, and after a weak attempt to hold to the table for support, sink to the floor. Almost at the same time her own trembling legs gave way and she sank down, lying half on the ground and half against the low-growing bushes beneath the window. But only for the briefest moment was she there, for she’d hardly more than gone down when she was struggling to her feet again. And as she did so she saw by the light still shining through under the roller shade, that the man who’d been running along the path must have stopped and dropped the ladder, for he was picking it up; and as she stumbled blindly through the bushes toward the rear of the house he started running toward the front, dragging the ladder after him along the walk.

The doors of the kitchen and back hall were still locked, but she found that some one had opened the basement entrance and she got in there.

Two policemen arriving shortly after—smashing a side window to get in, as there wasn’t time to fumble with the doors—found the old woman on the floor holding Haworth’s limp body in her arms, his head fallen back against her breast.

The patrolmen who smashed their way into the house some twenty-six minutes after the firing of the shots, were sent from Station 13. The desk sergeant got the phone call from citizens in Jamaica Plain, describing the terrifying progress through that district of the two quarreling men with revolvers—blood streaming down the face of one of them. He sent a man from the station, and also the patrolman on the nearest beat as soon as his call came in. These two had no difficulty in picking up the trail of consternation left along the route that Haworth and Findlay had taken. But when they’d followed it a short distance beyond Jamaica Plain the two citizens whose curiosity had led them into trailing the quarreling men in order to see what happened, came sprinting down the road in a frantic effort to get away, for they’d been close to the mansion when the shooting took place and knew that if someone was shot suspicion might light on them.

The patrolmen took these men for the ones they were after and grabbed them. But in a minute they saw there was something else to it; and after a bit of time wasted in sharp questioning they got at the truth and made a run for the Cripps mansion, bringing the two citizens along with them. Material witnesses at least, and a good chance they’d had a hand in it—whatever it was. After smashing one of the kitchen windows these two citizen chaps were shoved in first and stood back against the wall with orders not to move. Then the officers, working with their electric torches (for all the lights were now off) ran through the butler’s pantry, guided by the pungent smell of gunpowder, and an instant later found what they were looking for.

A quick glance at Haworth was all they needed. One took charge; the other ran for the nearest patrol box and reported to his station. The station notified headquarters, and down came a department automobile with the chief inspector and three plain-clothes men and after that the medical examiner (called coroner in most places) and two more uniformed men. (They need a few uniforms in a case like this so people won’t think it’s a hold-up.)

The medical examiner came in his own car, bringing his stenographer and a surveyor with him, as was his custom. I don’t think it’s the usual thing to run a surveyor in, outside of Boston. Of course there were photographers and all that, and it wasn’t any time at all before newspapermen were swarming about.

Mrs. Temple hardly noticed anything—excepting that the lights went suddenly on—until she found herself being urged back by one of the policemen—he was gentle enough with the old woman—toward the swing door of the butler’s pantry. James Dreek was standing just within the door, looking pale and frightened, with a sort of wild-eyed blankness on his face. The officer told them they’d have to go back into the kitchen, and Dreek disappeared in that direction, but Mrs. Temple tried to resist, looking back to where men were bending over Haworth—the surveyor making measurements of positions and distances, working by compass; the medical examiner cutting away parts of his clothing. She made an effort to push past the policeman and get back to the body, but he prevented her, speaking with rough kindness: “Now, now, ma’am, you won’t be allowed over there!” But as he looked at the old woman he saw it wasn’t an ordinary case.

“One o’ the family, ma’am?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes. Let me by!”

“You can’t do anything, lady—he’s past help.”

“I can be there with ’im, can’t I?”

“Not now, ma’am—but if you’re one o’ the family they’ll let you in afterwards.”

She said no more, but went where he directed. There were a number of persons waiting in the kitchen—all exits from which were guarded—but she didn’t notice them, nor had she any idea of what was going on—that the detectives were searching every part of the house and going over the grounds outside with electric torches; that a couple of plain-clothes men were out after the man who’d followed Haworth through the streets, threatening him with a revolver; that the people waiting there in the room with her were being taken into another room one by one, to be questioned.

Some time later she found herself in the great entrance hall, standing before a man at an improvised desk of rough boarding. There were police about and a plain-clothes man was writing things on sheets of paper. Two or three others not in uniform were standing near, apparently uninterested, but in reality watching her like cats. The old woman glanced at the various people in the room, hardly aware that they were real. It might just as well have been a dream. After a time she thought she heard some one speaking to her.

“What?” she asked, looking about vaguely.

An officer came to her and explained that she must answer the questions.

“What questions?” she inquired.

It appeared there was curiosity as to her name, age, and occupation. She gave the information in a low mumbling voice, speaking absently.

That out of the way, the inspector, noticing that she was inattentive, began with sharp emphasis:

“Mrs. Temple, you knew the deceased, did you not?”

The old woman turned to him, startled, and stood looking at him a moment. Then she looked away, glancing rather vaguely about the room. She was beginning to realize where she was and what was going on.

“Well, are we going to hear anything from you this evening?”

“Are you the perlice?” she asked with a sharpness of her own.

“You’re here to answer questions—not to ask them.”

“I’d like to know if you’re the perlice, that’s all!”

“This is a police investigation, if that’s what you mean. We’re taking testimony throwing light on the crime just committed here. You may be able to help us.”

“No——” Mrs. Temple shook her old gray head. “I won’t be able to help ye none.”

“You mean you don’t know anything about it?”

“I mean what I told ye—that I won’t be able to help ye none.”

“You don’t seem to realize your position, madam. We can compel you to answer questions here. But you ought to be willing to give us any information you can without that, so we can find the guilty man and bring him to the punishment he deserves.”

“What good’ll punishment do, I’d like to know? What’s the good o’ that to—to the poor dear man lyin’ there—shot down like a dog he was—doin’ no harm to no one—juss standin’ there lightin’ his pipe—and shot down like a dog!” She was unable to go on for a moment; but having caught what she said about Haworth lighting his pipe, the inspector waited for her. He would give her plenty of time and nurse her along, for it looked very much as though she’d been a witness to the actual shooting.

“A nice lot of folks you be,” the old woman finally went on in a broken voice but with deep indignation back of it. “What was ye doin’ before, I’d like to know, asettin’ around offices an’ paradin’ up and down the streets! When I went an’ warned ye more’n a week ago that we was in danger over here, I was told there warn’t nothin’ you could do—not till somebody done somethin’. Well, now some one’s done somethin’ an’ ye come hurryin’ around askin’ us all about it! But ye needn’t take no trouble askin’ me. I’ve told ye all I’ve got to tell. I told it to one of yer perlice a-strollin’ up an’ down Centre Street in a nice uniform with brass buttons on it!”

The inspector made no attempt to interrupt or cut short Mrs. Temple’s somewhat fervent remarks, and when she’d quite finished he spoke to her in a carefully softened tone.

“You’re certainly right, Mrs. Temple,” he said, “as to its being too late to do anything now for the—the unfortunate victim in this case. His murder was, as you indicate, a most cold-blooded crime. Every additional particular that is brought out adds to its cruelty and brutality. And was it really a fact, as I think you intimated, that the poor fellow was lighting his pipe as the shots were fired?” He looked sympathetically and inquiringly at the old woman.

But Mrs. Temple’s mouth was shut and there were no signs visible that she had any intention of opening it.

“Rot in jail before she’d talk if she didn’t want to,” was the inspector’s unspoken comment. Well, they’d have to make her want to, that was all. So she was excused, almost with apologies, and allowed to go where she pleased. But wherever that was a detective would be on the job and not lose track of her for an instant.

All available information was in, but the plain-clothes men were still working through the house and grounds. No weapon of any kind had yet been found, and no bullet marks discovered in the room. The theory regarding the latter was that the bullets (it was taken for granted they’d been fired through the front window) struck against the masonry of the fireplace or chimney and left no noticeable mark. In that case, however, they should have been found where they dropped—and the search for them was still going on.

Notwithstanding there were any number of witnesses to the following of Haworth home by an infuriated man using the most abusive language and threatening him with a revolver, no one could be found who had any idea who this person was. Nor had anyone seen him make an attack on Haworth that would result in the cut and bruise which had been found on his face. The two Jamaica Plains citizens who’d followed the quarreling couple to the house gave as good a description of him as could be expected. But their statement that the instant before the shots were fired he was peering in through the large window at the left of the entrance portico and had his revolver gripped in his hand, was positive and unshaken. Also that he stayed there a few seconds after the firing,—though they could not make out what he was doing,—and then turned suddenly and dashed madly down the drive into Torrington Road. Everything pointed to this person as the man they wanted, and the inspector had detectives out after him when the taking of testimony had hardly begun.

The report of the medical inspector with the “survey” attached, showing all distances, positions, heights, measurements of everything in the room, as well as all particulars relating to the body of the murdered man, had been turned in. Out of this technical mass of information a few facts adapted to the limited intelligence of the layman could be extracted. Charles Haworth’s tragic death resulted from whichever of the two gunshot wounds found upon him was inflicted first. Either would have caused it instantly. The shots were discharged from a distance of from fifteen to twenty feet. No chance therefore existed of the wounds being self-inflicted. The distance of the weapon or weapons at the instant of discharge, the locality of the wounds and the course of the projectiles through the body, made such a feat impossible. Both missiles had come from behind the victim, one entering at the back of the head and drilling the brain, the other striking near the middle of the spine and passing through the heart. There were no burns or powder marks on the clothing nor on the head or body, where the projectiles went in.

The upward course of the bullets demonstrated two things—and you can see from both of them how nicely the services of a surveyor came in: first, Haworth must have been standing when he was shot, for otherwise the assailant couldn’t have got low enough down to fire at the angle shown; second, even with Haworth standing, the weapon must have been held well down to give the bullets their upward course; but as accurate aim (which had evidently been taken) would have been difficult if not impossible while holding the gun down within two or three inches of the floor, the probability was that the assailant had been standing outside of one of the windows and had fired into the room from near the bottom of it.

The detectives had a fresh filled pipe—the tobacco on top hardly more than singed; a book fallen open on its face, crumpling the leaves; a box of matches; one partly burned match—all from the floor close to the body. The exact position of each article was given in the survey.

Haworth had evidently been reading and had stopped to fill and light his pipe as the first of the two bullets made an end of him. No evidence of a struggle with anyone—none that he had an idea of what was about to happen.

Two persons concerned in this tragic affair got away from the mansion and its vicinity before the arrival of the police—Hugo Pentecost from within, slipping out quietly through the basement entrance, proceeding through the rear of the property and coming into town by way of Brookline,—thus avoiding Torrington Road and Roxbury altogether; and Augustus Findlay from the front, rushing blindly down the drive like a wild man pursued by seven devils.

After one fearful moment when he’d stood, stunned and paralyzed, looking through the broken slats near the bottom of the shutters of the front window—the booze suddenly swept from his system—the crashing reports of the shots ringing in his ears and Haworth lying there in a crumpled heap on the floor, Findlay was suddenly recalled to himself by feeling the weight of something dragging down his right arm; and raising it into a bar of light coming through the chinks in the shutter, he saw his revolver gripped in his hand, his forefinger still hooked to the trigger. He knew—hazily, but he knew it—that he’d been following Haworth and threatening him with the gun.... And so at last he’d done it! In a drunken frenzy he’d killed a man! Murder—murder—that was it! The crime they hang people for or sizzle the life out of them, strapped in an electric chair! They’d have him for that if he stayed there. Flight was his only chance, yet he couldn’t move. He saw the lights suddenly go off in the house—somebody already there! A moment later he heard a loud voice within calling out something, yet still his feet were weighted with lead. Then came the sound of quick footsteps from around the southeast corner. Some one was coming down the path at the side of the house and dragging some heavy wooden thing—he heard it grating along the stone flagging. Wheeling about with a desperate jerk, he fled madly down the drive.

Findlay had been running only a few minutes (he was out on the Torrington Road by this time) when he suddenly thought of his gun. It mustn’t be found on him! Looking frantically about, he saw a thick clump of shrubbery on one of the front lawns and quite near the road. No one would look for it there! But as he stopped to pitch the weapon over the fence he discovered that he was being followed! He mustn’t be seen throwing the thing away—that alone would convict him! There was nothing to do but run with the gun in his hand. Perhaps he could see a hole or drain where he could drop it without a noticeable motion as he ran.

Somewhere about the time the homicide squad arrived at the Cripps mansion an individual whose clothing set him down as a laboring man and who was evidently carrying a load of something with more than one-half of one percent alcoholic content, walked a trifle unsteadily into the South Station by the Atlantic Avenue entrance, looked blankly about, and then stopped a man who was hurrying past and asked where there was a telephone. On having the booths pointed out to him, he mumbled a thick “much obliged” and made his way to them, getting into No. 19 and occupying it for some little time. Then he reappeared in the concourse, and after further inquiries of various persons, found the gate for the 11:35 P.M. train for New York (“Advanced” time). With much fumbling in his pockets and boozy mutterings as a running accompaniment thereto, he produced a ticket, and after passing in at the gate tried to give it up to the Pullman and train conductors seated at a table just inside; they, however, refusing to take it—as only Pullman passengers gave their tickets there—he went on toward the train, and eventually climbed aboard one of the day coaches.

Walking bravely down the aisle, finding not a little assistance from the friendly arms and backs of the seats on each side, he half fell into an unoccupied seat—the next to the last at the extreme forward end. It might have been observed (but it wasn’t) that this seat gave a person the advantage of having all the lights of the car at his back, leaving his face in comparative obscurity.

Not long after the train passed the Back Bay station this man was half asleep, his head bobbing about; and the conductor took his ticket from the band of his cap where he had stuck it, and passed on without getting a view of his face.

On arrival at the Grand Central a few minutes before six in the morning (a few minutes before five, standard) he was left snoozing in his seat after the rest of the passengers had filed out. A moment or two later the head end trainman, running through the coaches to see that all was clear, stopped and shook him, not altogether gently, into consciousness, yelling as he did so, “All out—all out—Grand Central!... You get out here!”

The drowsy chap, coming to himself and doubtless being considerably hazy, conceived that he was being attacked, and hit out in all directions. The result was a scuffle of wrestling and pulling, all the more eagerly entered into by the trainman because of having had a lot of trouble during the night trying to keep the fellow’s muddy boots off the seat in front of him, throwing them off by main force a number of times. The present struggle ended in the enraged passenger falling in the aisle and being dragged out by his feet to the station platform.

On this same morning the steamer North Land, from the stern of which Mr. Pentecost had rather skillfully disembarked a few hours after she left Boston, came down the Sound and through Hell Gate, emerging into the East River at about eight o’clock, daylight-saving time. Half an hour later she was rounding the Battery into the North River, and not long after that was backing into her berth alongside Pier 18.

By this time most of the passengers were massed in the saloon lobby of the hurricane deck, their small luggage in their hands, ready to go ashore through the starboard door of that lobby as soon as the steamer was made fast and the gangplank run out from the wharf. Nearly every officer and steward and deckhand was on duty on the starboard side, which was the landing side in this instance, as the steamer slowly backed in alongside her wharf.

A small rowboat had been lying close up under the stringpieces at the shore end of the pier. There were three men in it, apparently of the deckhand order, and they had mops and pails in the bottom of the boat and across the seats. They had rowed in there some time before the arrival of the steamer, coming along the south side of the slip among the barges and scows of the New York Central Railroad Company which, at this time, occupied the pier on that side as a freight terminal.

As the North Land came slowly gliding in stern first, the men in the rowboat pulled out into the middle of the slip and waited there. A moment after she was made fast and the crew on the fantail had gone forward, a man in the uniform of a ship’s officer stepped out of the passageway near the stern on the port side (the passengers were to disembark on the starboard) and motioned to the men in the rowboat, upon which they pulled up close under the guard and began to make an examination of the hull near the water line. Soon after this they had mops out and appeared to be swabbing off something on the ship’s side, the officer overlooking the job from the rail above them. A moment later there were two others watching them, not in the ship’s uniform, one from some distance forward on the port outside passageway, and the other from near the stern end of it where it opens into the fantail. These men each had a movie camera focused on the party in the rowboat, and when one of the swabbers was trying to get at a place that was too high to reach and the officer dropped him a rope ladder, the two men kept their cameras trained on him as he clambered up and stepped over the rail into the passage, and still followed him as he was reaching down the ship’s side with his mop in one hand while clinging to the rail with the other.

This man—the deckhand or swabber who had come aboard by the rope ladder—got somehow mixed with one or two others of his kind who came out into the passage, but eventually he could be seen climbing down the ladder again and into the boat; and very soon after that the three rowed lazily away with their buckets and mops. The officer hauled the rope ladder aboard and disappeared through the “emergency exit” into the ship’s cabin, and the men with the cameras were already gone, one walking forward along the port passageway, and the one who had been near the stern passing round to the starboard side by way of the fantail. Everything was smoothly and rapidly done, the whole thing occupying scarcely four minutes from the time the rowboat came up to the ship’s side.

It’s hardly necessary to tell you that after this little performance was over, the man who climbed the rope ladder with his mop was still on board the steamer, and that the man with the same mop who went down the ladder into the rowboat was another person altogether. Nor is it of the least importance to mention names, for you gentlemen can hardly fail to be aware that it was Mr. Pentecost who thus came aboard and that it was one of his “trusties”—made up and dressed to appear in every way like him—who slid down into the rowboat; so that it might be seen, if anyone kept account of such things, that the number of men in it when it was rowed away from the steamer was not less than when it came up under the stern. And, as you can readily imagine—if you have not already done so—the entire scene was played, as one might say, for outside consumption only—that is, for whoever might be about in boats or barges or on the railway pier opposite. No one connected with the steamer could have any knowledge of it; a passenger approaching from either direction on one of the passages would have been begged, by whichever camera man blocked the way, to wait just a moment until the picture was taken; an officer or seaman would receive quite the same request, but with the added explanation that their film concern had obtained permission from the Eastern Steamship Lines, Inc., to photograph a bunch of seamen (which is to say, actors posing as such) swabbing blood off the steamer’s side.

No one would have recognized Pentecost in the confusion, even had he been seen; and it was perfectly true that such permission had been asked and granted. Indeed, the company had loaned an officer’s uniform to help it along. There seemed to have been a little misunderstanding as to dates, but that was a small matter. Back of it all, if it ever got to it, they’d have found a company and a scenario, and a couple of thousand feet of film already taken.

The passengers, herded in the saloon lobby of the hurricane deck, which was the one they were to disembark from, were growing impatient. Those nearest the open door on the starboard side had noticed a couple of men on the dock in conversation with a policeman, and the moment the gangplank was run out the latter had given a signal of some kind and the ship’s officers held everybody back. The two men came aboard at once and went with the Purser into his office, where they scanned the passenger list. A little later the Captain came to the door and the Purser asked him to step in a moment. Shortly after that the Steward and head waiter were sent for. Then (the whole affair had hardly taken five minutes) the two men went ashore with the Purser, and at once the ship’s officers who were blocking the way stood aside, the two ticket takers from the New York office took their places, and the passengers began to leave the steamer.

Near the foot of the gangplank in the vast dock building was a corner partition where the passengers coming ashore made a turn to the right. Back in this corner, which commanded a view of the people filing past the two ticket takers and down the gangplank, stood the Purser with the two men who had been looking over the passenger list in his office.

It was toward the end of the stream of disembarking passengers that Mr. Pentecost and the two Harkers, father and son, came into view at the top of the gangway, with one of the stewards carrying their luggage. As they came ashore and were approaching the right-hand turn, the Purser stepped out and shook hands with them, trusting they’d had a restful night after their strenuous day in Boston, and wishing them good luck with their new invention. All was in the most jovial manner, and the three passed on toward the street. But before they’d got there one of the stewards came running after them and said that if they had time the Purser would like to see them for just a minute. “Why, certainly,” Pentecost said. “Tell him we’ll be right along!”

Harker was alarmed and started to say something under his breath, but Pentecost growled in a half whisper, without looking at him, “Can’t you see everything they do stamps it!”

Alfred went on toward the street to get a taxi, and the two partners turned back.

The Purser was still on the dock near the gangplank, but the two men who’d been with him were gone—at least, not in sight. But don’t imagine that fooled Pentecost any.

“Didn’t mean to trouble you,” Mr. Lawson called out as the two came near.

“No trouble,” said Pentecost.

“Not at all,” added Harker. “What’s going?”

“Why, I’ve just heard something that might concern you gentlemen in a business way. Man came aboard a minute ago and was telling about a hell of a murder last night over in Boston.”

“Murder, eh?” said Harker, with the interest such news might naturally inspire—but no more.

“What makes you think we’d be concerned?” Pentecost inquired.

“Hardly a chance you are—only he said it was out in West Roxbury, and I remembered you told us your man——”

“What was the name—did he say?” Pentecost asked quickly and with awakening anxiety—just the right amount you know—not the merest trifle overdone.

“Why no, I don’t think he did.”

Pentecost glanced at Harker and Harker at him.

“A lot of things might happen in West Roxbury,” he said, turning back to the Purser.

“Sure they might,” assented that official; “but he said it was an inventor chap living out there alone.”

“Inventor!” exclaimed Pentecost. “Living out——By George! And all that money we——” He broke off, and suddenly turning to go was heard to say, “I’ve got to make a run for a train!”

Harker emitted a “My God!” and followed his partner up the dock. But Pentecost stopped suddenly a few yards away, where he could still be seen and heard by the Purser (or anyone concealed in the vicinity), and pulling out a N. Y., N. H. & H. Railroad folder, began looking for express trains to Boston.

“That’s right,” Harker said, coming up to him. “We’ll get the first train out!”

The Purser was approaching them.

“You stay here,” said Pentecost. “There’s a lot of business at the office. I can wire if I want you. Here”—looking at the folder—“‘New York to Boston’—I ought to get the nine o’clock.”

“No—” (from Harker) “half-past nine now!”

“That’s Daylight—railroad’s on Standard.”

“So it is—train’s ten our time—just make it!”

Pentecost seized the Purser’s hand. “Thank you very much, Mr. Lawson. You’ve done us a great favor.” And as he was turning to go: “We paid that man something like thirty thousand yesterday. A yegg’s run up on him—that’s what it is!” He hurried out to the street and jumped into the taxi that Alfred was holding, pushed a five-dollar bill into the driver’s hand with “Grand Central—make time!” and shouting out a few parting directions to Harker as the taxi started with a great jerk (the driver was earning his money) he was whirled away into the traffic.

The man who was following Augustus Findlay as he fled wildly away from the Cripps mansion a few seconds after the sound of the two revolver shots split the air, wasn’t by any means putting a shadow on him, but was running him close, never less than thirty yards behind, and a flash on him from his pocket torch whenever it was safe to throw a light. His name was Graham and he knew his business. He kept so near that Findlay didn’t get a chance to pitch his gun anywhere, and what’s more, I doubt if he could have done it if he’d got the chance, for the minute he realized he was being followed and the light flashed on him every few seconds, he was virtually on the scrap heap—which is to say, out of his head with terror.

It was in a quiet block of Collamore Street over near the railroad tracks that Graham ran up on him and bumped him against the iron post or column of a street light. This nearly knocked Findlay over, but Graham got him by the throat and shut off his wind before he had a chance to fall, and in his wild struggles to loosen Graham’s grip so he could get air, and Graham doing some extra thrashing about trying to hold him, it gave the idea there was the liveliest kind of a fight on; and a man in his shirt sleeves, who’d been sitting smoking a pipe at a second-story window nearly above, commenced to yell at them to quit.

From that minute you could see that Graham was trying to get Findlay’s revolver away from him, twisting his arm, trying to bite his fingers loose, and all the while shouting out, “You damn dirty sneak, gimme that gun! Gimme the gun, I say! It’s the gun I want!” and things like that. And Augustus, who was terrified, thinking they were after the thing to prove murder on him, clung to it with the tenacity of an octopus.

The man at the second-story window, whose name it later appeared was Rathbun, finding yelling to the two scrappers was no good, came downstairs and out at the street door of the tenement building; but seeing—or, to be more accurate, hearing what it was they were fighting for, hesitated in the doorway, as he had an aversion to being shot up. In this instant of Rathbun’s hesitation Graham gave Augustus a smash in the face that made him loosen his hold, and then snatching the revolver out of his hands turned and raced up Collamore Street, carrying it by the muzzle; and Rathbun noticed, as the man swung into a street light, that the hand he was holding it with had a glove on it.

After Graham got safely away, Rathbun went out to Findlay, who was lying in the road, and tried to find out what it was all about and whether he was hurt. But he couldn’t get anything out of the fellow.

After a few moments Findlay got to his feet unsteadily, stared blankly at Rathbun for a second or two, then wheeled around and went limping down the street toward the railroad. A sorry-looking object he was, battered and torn and plastered with mud. But his mental condition was sorrier. Maudlin and devastating fright possessed him. He’d done a murder—murder—murder! Shot a man, killed a man, and they were hunting for him—they’d get him! Drunkenness no defense. He’d looked that up before, when he really thought of doing it! This time he didn’t think. And he’d done it!

He stopped. If he went home they’d get him there. But if he tried to get away it would be the same as a confession of guilt. If he went home he could deny everything—insist that he didn’t know what they were talking about—that he hadn’t left the house all that evening. Edith must back him up. That is, if anyone came for him. But after all, why should they? No one could possibly have seen him at the Haworth place. It was dark as pitch. And the shutters were closed, so no light shone on him. Yet who could the man have been who got his revolver? Just a plain hold-up, that’s what it was. Yet he thought he’d heard him following from way back near Torrington Road. But if he was a detective he’d have arrested him. And, anyway, a detective couldn’t have got on the job thirty seconds after Haworth was k——. Great God! He couldn’t say it even to himself.

With his mind seething, he stumbled up the two steps to his front door and stopped there with his hand on the knob and a quick glance up the street, thinking he heard some one following. He turned with a sudden terror and tried to open the door, but it was locked. He shook it and pounded on it, and the instant he heard Edith turn the key in the lock he burst in, closed the door frantically after him, and stood pushing against it as if trying to keep some one out.

Edith stood quiet, watching his feverish terror. When he finally ceased his violent pushing against the door she spoke.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Tell you what? Whad’ ye mean? I ain’t got anything to tell!”

“You have.”

“I have not! I been in a fight, that’s all. A hell of a dirty footpad jumped on me—just over the other side of the railroad—but he didn’t get any money—he only took my gun!”

“Your revolver?”

“Can’t you hear what I say?”

“What had you been doing with it?”

“What had——I just had it along. How could I be doing anything when he took it away from me!” The man was almost sobbing. “You ain’t got any right to talk to me like that! You’d ought to help me—that’s what you’d ought to do! I’m going to bed and you tell ’em I was here all this evening! You can do that much for me, I should think. I was here reading a book, that book over there on the stand—that’s all you got to say. What’s the harm o’that? Just tell ’em I was here reading that book?”

Edith shook her head.

Then followed begging and crying and protesting on his part, but with no response on hers. She didn’t speak again.

After Augustus had gone whining upstairs and locked himself in his bedroom, Edith opened the front door and looked out into the dismal night. She was hesitating. If it hadn’t been for leaving little Mildred alone in the house with the crazed brute (who had often threatened to kill the child) she’d have hurried through the dark streets to Torrington Road. She knew from her husband’s behavior that something fearful had happened, yet without an idea of how terrible it was.

Finally she sat on a chair in the small living room and waited. There was nothing else to do.

It was early morning when they came—still dark. Edith heard their feet on the wooden steps and then the heavy knock on the front door.

Two men stood there, dressed in ordinary clothes. And she could see a uniformed policeman moving back at the side of the house. It was the patrolman on the beat who’d been phoned from headquarters to keep an eye on the place till the Inspectors got there. Now they’d come and were sending him to cover the rear.

The men at the door were roughly polite. They were sorry to disturb her, but was Mr. Findlay at home?

“Yes.”

“We’d like to see him.”

“He’s in his room upstairs. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

But as she turned to go the man who’d been speaking called after her:

“If it’s all the same to you we’ll go——Which room is it?”

“The back one—farthest from the stairs.”

“Thank you ma’am.”

The men ran up, and she heard their loud knocking on the door and gruff orders to Findlay to open it.

Then came the crash of splintering wood (the door was a flimsy affair) and their heavy tread as they rushed into the room. A moment later there were more distant voices, and the men came hurrying down again.

“They got him outside, ma’am,” one of them said. “Sorry to make you all this trouble.” And the two passed out at the front door. Edith called:

“Oh, wait! I want to——”

One of the men turned in the doorway.

“I want you to—I want you to tell me if—if——Oh, what is it?”

“Some trouble in West Roxbury, ma’am. You can find out from headquarters.”

As the man passed into the street she could hear Augustus’s voice through the open door. He was whining and crying that he didn’t know anything about it—he was here at home all the evening reading a book—that was what he was doing—he never once left the house—ask his wife if they didn’t believe it—she was right there—just ask her; in the midst of which came a rough caution from one of the inspectors that he’d better keep his mouth shut—he could tell all that to the chief. A moment later came the clatter of a car driven up from somewhere, the slamming of its door, and the sound of its rapid departure up the street.

A number of things were happening along here that I’m not going to try to describe to you. My supposition is that I’m able to get away with plain facts so they’ll be understood, which is all I aim at. But when it comes to telling you about Edith Findlay through all this affair—her going over to the mansion as soon as she could get a neighbor to take care of little Mildred, and staying there with all that was left of poor Haworth as long as they’d let her; and later her being at the funeral; and after that sitting stunned and dry-eyed in her little parlor at home while she slowly came to the realization of what it meant—that the one person who was all there was in the world for her had gone forever, and that somehow it was through her that the terrible thing had come about—I’m out of it altogether. I can only briefly refer to it as I’ve just been doing.