THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT. In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market, and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue, or the stately respectable black and middle-aged skirt of the client whose husband has found an affinity partial to laces and fripperies, and has run off with her. All the wearers are ladies, and as such, announced by Hawes. In fact, he carries it to excess. He speaks of his wash lady, with a husband who is an ash merchant, and he announced one day, in some excitement, that the lady who had just gone out had appropriated all the loose change out of the pocket of his overcoat. So when Hawes announced a lady, I took my feet off my desk, put down the brief I'd been reading, and rose perfunctorily. With my first glance at my visitor, however, I threw away my cigar, and, I have heard since, settled my tie. That this client was different was born in on me at once, by the way she entered the room, she had poise in spite of embarrassment, and her face, when she raised her veil, was white, refined, and young. I did not send in my name, she said, when she saw me glancing down for the card, Hawes usually puts on my table. It was advice, I wanted, and I did not think the name would matter. She was more composed, I think, when she found me considerably older than herself. I saw her looking furtively at the graying places over my ears. I am only thirty-five, as far as that goes, but my family, although it keeps its hair, turns gray early. A business asset but a social handicap.  Every doctor and every lawyer knows that trick. As far as the name goes, perhaps you would better tell me the trouble first, then if I think it indispensable, you can tell me. She acquiesced to this, and sat for a moment silent, her gaze absently on the windows of the building across. In the morning light my first impression was verified, only too often the raising of a woman's veil in my office reveals the ravages of tears or rouge or dissipation. My new client turned fearlessly to the window, an unlined face with clear skin, healthily pale. From where I sat her profile was beautiful, in spite of its drooping suggestion of trouble. Her first embarrassment gone, she had forgotten herself and was intent on her errand. I hardly know how to begin, she said, but suppose, slowly, suppose that a man, a well-known man, should leave home without warning, not taking any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was coming home to dinner and he... she stopped as if her voice had failed her. And he does not come, I prompted. She nodded, fumbling for her handkerchief in her bag. How long has he been gone, I asked. I had heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a woman like that, hardly more than a girl and lovely. Ten days. I should think it ought to be looked into, I said decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit quietly. A lawyer who is worth anything is always partisan, I suppose, and I never heard of a man deserting his wife that I'm not indignant. The virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps. But you will have to tell me more than that. Did this gentleman have any bad habits? That is, did he drink? Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He plead bridge for money, but I believe he was rather lucky. She colored uncomfortably. Married, I suppose, I asked, casually. He had been. His wife died when I—she stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all. Oddly enough, the son came out just at that moment spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten scars. It is my father, she said simply. I was absurdly relieved. But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new angle. You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance? Absolutely. You have had no word from him? None. He never went away before for any length of time without telling you? No, never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find him. Her voice broke again, and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to reassure her. Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it's serious, I said. Sometimes the things that seem most mysterious have the simplest explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried, or even a slight accident would account. I saw I was blundering. She grew white and wide-eyed. But, of course, that's unlikely, too. He would have papers to identify him. His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that. She assented eagerly. Don't you think I ought to know his name, I asked. It need not be known outside of the office.  People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't think of telling the priest. Her color was slowly coming back, and she smiled. My name is Fleming. Marjorie Fleming, she said, after a second's hesitation. And my father, Mr. Allen Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox, what are we going to do? He's been gone for more than a week! No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity of the missing man, so Allen Fleming was lost. A good many highly respectable citizens would hope that he might never be found. State treasurer, delightful companion, polished gentleman, and successful politician of the criminal type. Outside in the corridor, the office boy was singing under his breath. Oh, once there was a miller! He sang, who lived in a mill! It brought back to my mind instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a year before, where for a few hours we had blown the feeble spark of protest against machine domination to a flame. We had sung a song to that very tune, and with this white-faced girl across from me its words came back, with revolting truth. It had been printed and circulated through the hall. Oh, once there was a capital that sat on a hill, as it's too big to steal away, it's probably there still. The ring-hands in the treasury and Fleming with a sack. They take it out, in wagon-loads, and never bring it back. I put the song out of my mind with a shudder. I am more than sorry, I said. I was, too. Whatever he may have been, he was her father. And of course there are a number of reasons why this ought not to be known, for a time at least. After all, as I say, there may be a dozen simple explanations, and there are exigencies in politics. I hate politics, she broke in suddenly. The very name makes me ill. When I read of women wanting to vote and all that, I wonder if they know what it means to have to be polite to dreadful people. People who have even been convicts and all that. Why, our last butler had been a prize-fighter. She sat upright with her hands on the arms of the chair. That's another thing, too, Mr. Knox. The day after father went away, Carter left, and he has not come back. Carter was the butler. Yes, a white man. Oh, yes. And he left without giving you any warning? Yes. He served luncheon the day after father went away, and the maid say he went away immediately after. He was not there that evening to serve dinner, but he came back late that night and got into the house using his key to the servant's entrance. He slept there, the maid said. But he was gone before the servants were up, and we have not seen him since. I made a mental note of the butler. We'll go back to Carter again, I said. Your father has not been ill, has he? I mean, recently? She considered. I cannot think of anything except that he had a tooth pulled. She was quick to resent my smile. Oh, I know, I'm not helping you, she exclaimed. But I have thought over everything until I cannot think any more. I always end up where I begin. You have not noticed any mental symptoms, any lack of memory? Her eyes filled. He forgot my birthday two weeks ago, she said. It was the first time he had ever forgotten, in nineteen of them. Nineteen. Nineteen from thirty-five leaves. Sixteen. What I meant was this, I explained. People sometimes have sudden and unaccountable lapses of memory, and at those times they are apt to stray away from home. Has your father been worried lately? He has not been himself at all. He has been irritable even to me, and terrible to the servants. He was never ugly to Carter, but I do not think it was a lapse of memory. When I remember how he looked that morning, I believe that he meant then to go away. It shows how he had changed when he could think of going away without a word and leaving me there alone. Then you have no brothers or sisters? None. I came to you. There she stopped. Please tell me how you happened to come to me, I urged. I think you know that I am both honoured and pleased. I didn't know where to go, she confessed. So I took the telephone directory, the classified part under attorneys, and after I shut my eyes I put my finger haphazardly on the page. It pointed to your name. I'm afraid I flushed at this, but it was a wholesome douche in a moment I laughed. And we'll take it as an omen, I said. And I'll do all I can, but I'm not a detective, Miss Fleming. Don't you think we ought to have one? Not the police, she shuddered. I thought you could do something without calling a detective. Suppose you tell me what happened the day your father left, and how he went away. Tell me the little things, too. They may be straws that point in a certain direction. In the first place, she began, we live on Monmouth Avenue. There are just the two of us, and the servants, a cook, two housemaids, a laundress, a butler, and a chauffeur. My father spends much of his time at the capital, and in the last two years, since my old governess went back to Germany, at those times I usually go to mother's sisters at Bellwood, Miss Letitia and Miss Jane Maitland. I nodded. I knew the Maitland ladies well. I had drawn four different wills for Miss Letitia in the last year. My father went away on the tenth of May. You say to tell you all about his going, but there's nothing to tell. We have a machine, but it was being repaired. Father got up from breakfast, picked up his hat, and walked out of the house. He was irritated at a letter he had read at the table. Could you find that letter, I asked quickly. He took it with him. I knew he was disturbed, for he did not even say he was going. He took a car, and I thought he was on his way to his office. He did not come home that night, and I went to the office the next morning. The stenographer said he had not been there. He is not in Plattsburg, because they have been trying to call him from there on the long-distance telephone every day. In spite of her candid face, I was sure she was holding something back. Why don't you tell me everything, I asked. You may be keeping back the one essential point. She flushed. Then she opened her pocketbook and gave me a slip of rough paper. On it, in careless letters, was the number 1122. That was all. I was afraid you would think it's silly, she said. It was such a meaningless thing. You see, the second night after father left I was nervous and could not sleep. I expected him home at any time, and I kept listening for his step downstairs. About three o'clock I was sure I heard someone in the room below mine. There was a creaking, as if the person were walking carefully. I felt relieved, for I thought he had come back. But I did not hear the door into his bedroom close, and I got more and more wakeful. Finally I got up and slipped along the hall to his room. The door was open a few inches, and I reached in and switched on the electric light. I had a queer feeling before I turned on the light that there was someone standing close to me. But the room was empty, and the hall, too. And the paper. When I saw the room was empty I went in. The paper had been pinned to a pillow on the bed. At first I thought it had been dropped or blown there. When I saw the pin I was startled. I went back to my room and rang for Annie, the second housemaid, who is also a sort of personal maid of mine. It was half past three o'clock when Annie came down. I took her into father's room and showed her the paper. She was sure it was not there when she folded back the bedclothes for the night at nine o'clock. Eleven twenty-two, I repeated. Twice eleven is twenty-two, but that isn't very enlightening. No, she admitted. I thought it might be a telephone number, and I called up all the eleven twenty-twos in the city. In spite of myself I laughed, and after a moment she smiled in sympathy. Oh, we're not brilliant, certainly, I said at last. In the first place, Miss Fleming, if I thought the thing was very serious I would not laugh. But no doubt a day or two we'll see everything straight. But, to go back to this eleven twenty-two, did you rouse the servants and have the house searched? Yes. Annie said Carter had come back and she went to wake in him, but although his door was locked inside he did not answer. Annie and I switched on all the lights on the lower floor from the top of the stairs. Then we went down together and looked around. Every window and door was locked. But in father's study on the first floor two drawers of his desk were standing open. And in the library the little compartment in my writing table where I keep my house money had been broken open and the money taken. Nothing else was gone? Nothing. The silver on the sideboard in the dining room, plenty of valuable things in the cabinet in the drawing room. Nothing was disturbed. It might have been Carter, I reflected. Did he know where you kept your house money? It is possible, but I hardly think so. Besides, if he was going to steal there were so many more valuable things in the house. My mother's jewels, as well as my own, were in my dressing room and the door was not locked. They were not disturbed? She hesitated. They had been disturbed, she admitted. My grandmother left each of her children some unstrung pearls. They were a hobby with her. Aunt Jane and Aunt Leticia never had their strung, but my mothers were made into different things, all old-fashioned. I left them locked in a drawer in my sitting-room, where I have always kept them. The following morning the drawer was unlocked and partly open, but nothing was missing. All your jewelry was there? All but one ring which I rarely removed from my finger. I followed her eyes. Under her glove was the outline of a ring, a solitary stone. 19 from—I shook myself together and got up. It does not sound like an ordinary burglary, I reflected, but I am afraid I have no imagination. No doubt you have told me what would be meat and drink to a person with an analytical turn of mind that I can't deduct. 19 from 35 leaves 16 according to my mental process, although I know men who could make the difference nothing. I believe she thought I was a little mad, for her face took on again its despairing look. We must find him, Mr. Knox, she insisted, as she got up. If you know of a detective that you can trust, please get him. But you can understand that the unexplained absence of the state treasurer must be kept secret. One thing I'm sure of—he is being kept away. You don't know what enemies he has, men like Mr. Schwartz, who have no scruples, no principle. Schwartz, I repeated in surprise, Henry Schwartz was the boss of his party in the state, the man of whom one of his adversaries had said, with the distinct approval of the voting public, that he was so low in the scale of humanity, that it would require a special dispensation of heaven to raise him to the level of total degradation. But he and Fleming were generally supposed to be captain and first mate of the pirate craft that passed with us for the ship of state. Mr. Schwartz and my father are allies politically, the girl explained with heightened color. But they are not friends. My father is a gentleman. The inference I allowed to pass unnoticed, and as if she feared she had said too much, the girl rose. When she left a few minutes later, it was with the promise that she would close the Monmouth Avenue house and go to her aunt's at Bellwood at once. For myself, I pledged a thorough search for her father, and began it by watching the scarlet wing of her hat through the top of the elevator cage until it had descended out of sight. I am afraid it was a queer hodgepodge of clues and sentiment that I poured out to Hunter, the detective, when he came up late that afternoon. Hunter was quiet when I finished my story. They're rotten clear through, he reflected. This administration's worse than the last, and it was a peach. There have been more suicides than I could count on my two hands the last ten years. I warn you, you'd be better out of this mess. What do you think about the 1122, I asked, as he got up and buttoned his code? Well, might mean almost anything. Might be that many dollars, or the time a train starts, or it might be the eleventh and twenty-second letters of the alphabet. K. V. K. V. I repeated. Why, that would be the elatin Kave, beware. Hunter smiled cheerfully. You'd better stick to the law, Mr. Knox, he said from the door. We don't use Latin in the detective business. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Reinhart This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, reading by Robert Kuiper. Chapter 2 Uneasy Apprehensions Plattsburgh was not the name of the capital, but it will do for this story. The state doesn't matter, either, you may take your choice. Like the story Mark Twain wrote with all kinds of weather at the beginning, so the reader could take his pick. We will say that my home city is Manchester. I live with my married brother, his wife, and two boys. Fred is older than I am, and he is an exceptional brother. On the day he came home from his wedding trip, I went down with my traps on a handsome, in accordance with a prearranged schedule. Fred and Edith met me inside the door. Here's your latch-key, Jack, Fred said, as he shook hands. Only one stipulation. Remember, we are strangers in the vicinity, and try to get home before the neighbors are up. We have our reputations to think up. There is no hour for breakfast, Edith said, as she kissed me. You have a bath of your own, and don't smoke in the drawing room. Fred was always a lucky devil. I had been there now for six years. I had helped raise two young noxes, bully youngsters, too. The oldest one could use boxing gloves when he was four. And the finest collie pup in our end of the state. I wanted to raise other things. The boys liked pets, but Edith was like all women. She didn't care for animals. I had a rabbit-hutch built and stocked in the laundry, and a dove coat on the roof. I used the general bath and gave up my tub to a younger alligator I got in Florida. And every Sunday the youngsters and I had a great time trying to teach it to do tricks. I've always taken it a little hard that Edith took advantage of my getting the measles from Billy to clear out every animal in the house. She broke the news to me gently, the day the rash began to fade, maintaining that having lost one cook through the alligator escaping from his tub and being mistaken in the gloom of the back stairs for a rubber boot and picked up under the same misapprehension, she could not risk another cook. On the day that Margaret Fleming came to me about her father, I went home in a state of mixed emotion. Dinner was not a quiet meal. Fred and I talk politics, generally, and as Fred was on one side and I on the other, there was always an argument on. What about Fleming, I asked at last when Fred had declared that in these days of corruption, no matter what the government was, he was against it. Hasn't he been frightened into reform? Bad egg, he said, jabbing his potato as if it had been a politician. And there's no way to improve a bad egg except to hold your nose. That's what the public is doing, holding its nose. Hasn't he a daughter, I asked casually. Yes, lovely girl too, Edith ascended. It is his only redeeming quality. Fleming is a rascal, daughter or no daughter, Fred persisted. Ever since he and his gang got poor butler into trouble and then left him to kill himself as the only way out, I have felt that there was something coming to all of them, Hanson, Schwartz, and the rest. I saw Fleming on the street today. What? I exclaimed almost jumping out of my chair. Fred surveyed me quizzically over his coffee cup. Hasn't he a daughter, he quoted. Yes, I saw him jack this very day in an unromantic four-wheeler and he was swearing at a policeman. Where was it? Chestnut Union. His cab had been struck by a car, badly damaged, but the gentleman refused to get out. No doubt you could get the details from the corner man. Look here, Fred, I said earnestly, keep that to yourself, will you? And you too, Edith?  As we left the dining room, Edith put her hand on my shoulder. Don't get mixed up with those people, Jack. She advised. Marjorie's a dear girl, but her father practically killed Henry Butler and Henry Butler married my cousin. You needn't make it a family affair, I protested. I've only seen the girl once. But Edith smiled. I know what I know, she said. How extravagant of you to send Bobby that enormous hobby horse. Boy has to learn to ride some time. In four years he can have a pony. And I'm going to see that he has it. He'll be eight by that time. Edith laughed. In four years, she said. In four years you will— And then she stopped. Ah, what? I demanded, blocking the door to the library. You'll be forty, Jack.  You'll be buying— I'll be thirty-nine, I said, with dignity. And as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do, if I do, it will be to some girl who turns and runs the other way every time she sees me. The oldest trick in the box, Edith scoffed. What's that thing, Fred's always quoting? A woman is like a shadow. Follow her, she flies. Fly from her, she follows. Upon my word, I said indignantly.  I'm different, she retorted. I'm only a wife and mother. In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. I can't think with you two whispering there, he said. I'm going into the den. As he slammed the door into his workroom, Edith picked up her skirts and scuttled after him.  You promised me— The door closed behind her. I went over and spoke through the panels. Follow her, she flies. Fly from her, she follows. Oh, wife and mother, I called. For heaven's sake, Edith, Fred's voice rose irritably. If you and Jack are going to talk all evening, go and sit on his knee and let me along.  You hear that, Jack? Good night, Edith, I called. I have left you a kiss on the upper left panel of the door. And I want to ask you one more question. What if I fly from the woman and she doesn't follow? Thank you, lucky star, Fred called in a muffled voice and I left them to themselves. I had some work to do at the office. Work that the interview with Hunter had interrupted. And half-bast eight that night found me at my desk. But my mind strayed from the papers before me. After a useless effort to concentrate, I gave it up as—well, useless. And by ten o'clock I was on the street again. My evening wasted. The papers in the libel case of the star against the eagle untouched on my desk. And I, the victim of an uneasy apprehension that took me almost without volition to the neighborhood of the Fleming House on Monmouth Avenue. For it had occurred to me that Miss Fleming might not have left the house that day as she had promised, might still be there, libel to another intrusion by the mysterious individual who had a key to the house. It was a relief consequently when I reached its corner to find no lights in the building. The girl had kept her word. A short of that I looked at the house curiously. It was one of the largest in the city, not wide, but running far back along the side street. A small yard with a low iron fence and a garage completed the property. The street lights left the back of the house in shadow, and as I stopped in the shelter of the garage, I was positive that I heard someone working with a rear window of the empty house. A moment later the sounds ceased and muffled footsteps came down the cement walk. The intruder made no attempt to open the iron gate. Against the light I saw him put a leg over the low fence, follow it up with the other, and start up the street, still with peculiar noiselessness of stride. He was a short, heavy-shouldered fellow with a cap, and his silhouette showed a prodigious length of arm. I followed, I don't mind saying, in some excitement. I had a vision of grabbing him from behind and leading him or pushing him under the circumstances in triumph to the police station, and another mental picture not so pleasant of being found on the pavement by some passer-by with a small puncture mark ending my sentence of life. But I was not apprehensive. I even remember wondering humorously if I should overtake him and press the cold end of my silver-mounted fountain-pen into the nape of his neck, if he would throw up his hands and surrender. I had read somewhere of a burglar held up in a similar way with a shoehorn. Our pace was easy. Once the man just ahead stopped and lighted a cigarette, and the odor of a very fair Turkish tobacco came back to me. He glanced back over his shoulder at me and went on without quickening his pace. We met no policeman, and after perhaps five minutes walking, when the strain was growing tense, my gentleman of the rubber-sold shoes swung abruptly to the left and entered the police station. I had occasion to see Davidson many times after that during the strange development of the Fleming case. I had the peculiar experience later of having him follow me, as I had trailed him that night, and I had occasion once to test the strength of his long arms when he helped to thrust me through the transom at the white cat. But I never met him without a recurrence of the sheepish feeling with which I watched him swagger up to the night sergeant and fall into easy conversation with the man behind the desk. Standing in the glare from the open window, I had much the lost, fried, and self-contempt of a wet cat sitting in the sun. Two or three roundsmen were sitting against the wall, lazily, helmets off, and coats open against the warmth of the early spring night. In a back room others were playing checkers and disputing noisily. Davidson's voice came distinctly through the open windows. The house is closed, he reported, but one of the basement windows isn't shuttered and the lock is bad. I couldn't find shields. He'd better keep an eye on it. He stopped and fished in his pockets with a grin. This was tied to the knob of the kitchen door, he said, raising his voice for the benefit of the room and holding aloft a piece of paper. For shields, he explained, and signed Delia. The men gathered round him. Even the sergeant got up and leaned forward his elbows on his desk. Read it, he said lazily. Shields has got a wife and her name ain't Delia. Dear Tim. Davidson read in a mincing falsetto, We are closing up unexpected, so I won't be here tonight. I am going to Mamie Brennan's, and if you want to talk to me, you can get me by calling up Anderson's drugstore. The clerk is a gentleman friend of mine. Mr. Carter, the butler, told me before he left, he would get me a place as parlor made, so I'll have another situation soon. Delia. The sergeant scowled. I'm going to talk to Tom, he said, reaching out for the note. He's got a nice family and things like that are bad for the force. I lighted the cigar, which had been my excuse for loitering on the pavement, and went on. It sounded involved for a novice, but if I could find Anderson's drugstore I could find Mamie Brennan. Through Mamie Brennan I would get Delia, and through Delia I might find Carter. I was vague from that point, but what Miss Fleming had said of Carter had made me suspicious of him. Under an arclight I made the first note in my new business of manhunter, and it was something like this. Anderson's drugstore. Ask for Mamie Brennan. Find Delia. Advise Delia that a policeman with a family is a bad bet. Locate Carter. It was late when I reached the corner of Chestnut and Union Streets where Fred had said Alan Fleming had come to grief in a cab, but the corner man had gone, and the night man on the beat knew nothing, of course, of any particular collision. Oh, yes, there's plenty of them every day at this corner, he said cheerfully. The department sends a wagon here every night to gather up the pieces, automobiles, mainly. That trolley pole over there has been sliced off clean three times the last month. They say a fellow ain't a graduate of the automobile school till he can go around it on the sidewalk without hitting it. I left him looking reminiscently at the pole and went home to bed. I'd made no headway. I had lost conceit with myself in a day and evening at the office, and I had gained the certainty that Marjorie Fleming was safe in Bellwood in the uncertain address of a servant who might know something about Mr. Fleming. I was still awake at one o'clock, and I got up impatiently and consulted the telephone directory. There were twelve Andersons in the city who conducted drug stores. When I finally went to sleep I'd dreamed that I was driving Marjorie Fleming along a street in a broken taxi cab and that all the buildings were pharmacies and numbered 1122. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Reinhart This Libberbox recording is in the public domain, reading by Robert Kuiper. Chapter 3 98 Pearls After such a night I slept late. Edith still kept her honeymoon promise of no breakfast hour, and she had gone out with Fred when I came downstairs. I have great admiration for Edith for her tolerance with my uncertain hours, for her cheery breakfast room, and the smiling good nature of the servant she engages. I have a theory that show me a sullen servant, and I will show you a sullen mistress. Although Edith herself disclaims all responsibility and lays credit for the smile with which Katie brings in my eggs and coffee to largesse on my part. Be that as it may, Katie is a smiling and personable young woman, and I am convinced that had she picked up the alligator on the back stairs and lost part of the end of her thumb, she would have told Edith that she cut it off with a bread knife, and thus have saved to us Bessie the Beloved and her fascinating trick of taking the end of her tail in her mouth and spinning. On that particular morning Katie also brought me a letter, and I recognize the cramped and rather uncertain writing of Miss Jane Maitland. Dear Mr. Knox, Sister Letitia wishes me to ask you if you can dine with us tonight, informally. She has changed her mind in regard to the colored orphan's home and would like to consult you about it. Very truly yours, Susan Jane Maitland. That's a very commonplace note, and I had had one like it after every board meeting of the orphan's home. Miss Maitland being on principle an aggressive minority, also having considerable mind, changing it became almost as ponderous an operation as moving a barn, although not nearly so stable. Fred accuses me here of a very bad pun and reminds me quite undeservedly that the pun is the lowest form of humor. I came across Miss Jane's letter the other day when I was gathering the material for this narrative, and I sat for a time with it in my hand, thinking over again the chain of events in which it had been the first link, a series of strange happenings that began with my acceptance of the invitation, and that led through ways as dark and tricks as vain as Bret Hart's heathen Chinese ever dreamed of, to the final scene at the White Cat. With the letter I had filed away a half-dozen articles and I ranged them all on the desk in front of me. The letter, the bit of paper with 1122 on it that Marjorie gave me the first time I saw her, a notebook filled with jerky characters that looked like Arabic and were newspaper shorthand, a railroad schedule, a bullet the latter slightly flattened, a cube-shaped piece of chalk which I put back in its box with a shutter and labeled poison, and a small gold buckle from a slipper which I at which I did not shutter. I did not need to make the climaxes of my story. They lay before me. I walked to the office that morning, and on the way I found and interviewed the corner man at Chestnut and Union, but he was small assistance. He remembered the incident, but the gentleman in the taxi cab had not been heard and refused to give his name, saying he was merely passing through the city from one railroad station to another and did not wish any notoriety. At eleven o'clock Hunter called up. He said he was going after the affair himself, but that it was hard to stick a dip net into the political puddle without pulling out a lot more than you went after, or that it was healthy to get. He was inclined to be facetious and wanted to know if I had come across any more KVs. Whereupon I put away the notes I had made about Delia and Mamie Brennan and I heard him chuckle as I rang off. I went to Bellwood that evening. It was a suburban town a dozen miles from the city, with a picturesque station, surrounded by lawns and cement walks. Street cars had so far failed to spoil its tree-bordered streets, and it was exclusive to the point of stagnation. The Maitland Place was at the head of the main street, which, at one time, had been its drive. Miss Letitia, who was seventy, had had sufficient commercial instinct some years before to cut her ancestral acres there, ancestral acres, although Miss Jane hardly counted, into building-lots, except perhaps an acre which surrounded the house. Thus the Maitland ladies were reputed to be extremely wealthy, and as they never spent any money no doubt they were. The homestead, as I knew it, was one of impeccable housekeeping and unmitigated gloom. There was a chill that rushed from the old-fashioned center hall to greet the newcomer on the porch, and that seemed to freeze up whatever in him was spontaneous and cheerful. I had taken dinner at Bellwood before, and the memory was not hilarious. Miss Letitia was deaf, but chose to ignore the fact. With supreme indifference she would break into the conversation with some wholly alien remark that necessitated a reassembling of one's ideas, making the meal a series of mental gymnastics. Miss Jane, through long practice, and because she only skimmed the surface of conversation, took her cerebral flights easily, but I am more unwieldy of mind. Nor was Miss Letitia's dominance wholly conversational. Her sister Jane was her creature. Alternately snubbed and bullied. To Miss Letitia Jane, in spite of her sixty-five years, was still a child, and sometimes a bad one. Indeed, many a child of ten is more sophisticated. Miss Letitia gave her expurgated books to read and forbade her to read divorce court proceedings in the newspapers. Once a recreate housemaid presented the establishment with a healthy male infant. Jane was sent to the country for a month, and was only brought back when the house had been fumigated throughout. Poor Miss Jane. She met me with fluttering cordiality in the hall that night, safe in being herself for once, with the knowledge that Miss Letitia always received me from a throne-like horse-air sofa in the back parlor. She wore a new lace cap and was twitteringly excited. Oh, our niece is here! She explained, as I took off my coat. Everything was ours with Jane, mine with Letitia, and we're having an ice at dinner. Oh, please say that ices are not injurious, Mr. Knox. My sister is so opposed to them, and I had to beg for this. On the contrary. The doctors have ordered ices for my young nephews, I said gravely, and I dot on them myself. Miss Jane beamed.  Perhaps it was the new lace cap. Later I tried to analyze her manner to recall exactly what she had said to remember anything that could possibly help, but I could find no clue to what followed. Miss Letitia received me as usual in the back parlor.  There was no time for conversation. Miss Letitia launched at once into the extravagance of both molasses and butter on the colored orphan's bread, and after a glance at me and a quick comprehension from my face that I had no news for her, the girl at the window bent over her sewing again. Molasses breeds worms, Miss Letitia said decisively. So does pork. And yet these children think heaven means ham and molasses three times a day. You have no news at all? Miss Fleming said cautiously, her head bent over her work. None, I returned, under cover of the table linen to which Miss Letitia's mind had veered. I have a good man working on it. As she glanced at me questioningly, it needed a detective, Miss Fleming. Evidently another day without news had lessened her distrust of the police, for she nodded acquiescence and went on with her sewing. Miss Letitia's monotonous monologue went on, and I gave it such attention as I might, for the lamps had been lighted, and with every movement of the girl across I could see the gleaming of a diamond on her engagement finger. If I didn't watch her, Jane would ruin them, said Miss Letitia. She gives them apples when they keep their faces clean, and the bills for soap have gone up double. Soap wants a day's enough for a colored child.  I sniffed and lied, whereupon Miss Letitia swept her black silk, her colored orphans, and her majestic presence out of the room. As the door closed, Miss Fleming put down her sewing and rose. For the first time I saw how weary she looked. I do not dare to tell them, Mr. Knox. She said they are old and they hate him anyhow. I couldn't sleep last night. Suppose he should have gone back and found the house closed. He would telephone here at once, wouldn't he? I suggested. I suppose so, yes. She took up her sewing from the chair with a sigh. But I'm afraid he won't come. Not soon. I have hemmed the tea towels for Aunt Letitia today until I am frantic. And all day I've been wondering over something you said yesterday. You said you remember that you were not a detective, that some men could take 19 from 35 and leave nothing. What did you mean? I was speechless for a moment. The fact is, you see, I blundered. It was merely a figure of speech. A speech of figures is more accurate. And then dinner was announced and I was saved. But although she said little or nothing during the meal, I caught her looking across at me once or twice in a bewildered, puzzled fashion. I could fairly see her revolving my detestable figures in her mind. Miss Letitia presided over the table in garrulous majesty. The two old ladies picked at their food and Miss Jane had a spot of pink in each withered cheek. Marjorie Fleming made a brave pretense but left her plate almost untouched. As for me, I ate a substantial, masculine meal and half apologize for my appetite. But Letitia did not hear. She tore the board of managers to shreds with a roast and denounced them with a salad. But Jane was all anxious hospitality.  I made the salad myself and I know what it takes to keep a big man going. Harry eats more than Letitia and I together. Doesn't he, Marjorie? Harry, I asked.  I said if they elected her president, I'd not leave a penny to the home. That's why I sent for you, Knox. And to the maid. Tell Heppy to wash those cups in lukewarm water. They're the best ones. And not to drink a coffee out of them. She let her teeth slip and bit a piece out of one the last time. Miss Jane leaned forward to me after a smiling glance at her niece across. Harry Wardrop, a cousin's son, and she padded Marjorie's hand with its ring soon to be something closer. The girls' face colored, but she returned Miss Jane's gentle pressure. They put up an iron fence. Miss Letitia reverted somberly to her grievance, when a wooden one would have done. It was extravagance, ruinous extravagance. Harry stays with us when he's in Manchester. Miss Jane went on nodding brightly across at Letitia, as if she too were damning the executive board. Lately he's been almost all the time in Platsburg. He is Secretary to Marjorie's father. It is a position of considerable responsibility, and we are very proud of him. I had expected something of the sort, but the remainder of the mail had somehow lost its savor. There was a lull in the conversation while dessert was being brought in. Miss Jane sat quivering, watching her sister's face for signs of trouble. The latter had subsided into muttered grumbling, and Miss Fleming sat one hand on the table, staring absently at her engagement ring.  What's for dessert? Ice cream, called Miss Letitia over the table. Well, you needn't, snapped Letitia. I can hear you well enough.  I said ice cream, and you said it would be all right. Poor Jane shrieked. If you drink a cup of hot water after it, it won't hurt you. Piggle! Letitia snapped, unpleasantly. I'm not going to freeze my stomach, and then thaw it out like a drain pipe. Tell Happy to put my ice cream on the stove. So we waited until Miss Letitias had been heated, and was brought in, sickled or with pale hues, not of thought, but of confectioner's dyes. Miss Letitia ate it resignedly. Like us not, I'll break out, I did last time, she said gloomily. I only hope I don't break out in colors. The meal was over, finally, but if I had hoped for another word alone with Marjorie Fleming that evening, I was for doomed to disappointment. Letitia sent the girl, not un-gently, to bed, and ordered Jane out of the room with a single curt gesture toward the door. You'd better wash those cups yourself, Jane, she said. I don't see any sense anyhow in getting out the best China unless there's real company. Besides, I'm going to talk business. Poor meek, spiritless Miss Jane. The situation was absurd in spite of its pathos. She confided to me once that never in her sixty-five years of life had she bought herself a gown or chosen the dinner. She was snubbed with painstaking perseverance and sent out of the room when subjects requiring Frank Handling were under discussion. She was as unsophisticated as a baby, as well as poor Miss Jane, again. When the door was closed behind her, Miss Letitia listened for a moment, got up suddenly and crossed the room with amazing swiftness for her years, pounced on the knob, and threw it open once again, but the passage was empty. Miss Jane's slim little figure was disappearing into the kitchen. The older sister watched her out of sight and then returned to her sofa without daining explanation. I didn't want to see you about the will, Mr. Knox. She began without prelude. The will can wait.  But although I think you'd look a heap better and more responsible if you wore some hair on your face, still in most things I think you're a man of sense. And you're not too young. That's why I didn't send for Harry Wardrop. He's too young. I winced at that. Miss Letitia leaned forward and put her bony hand on my knee. I've been robbed, she announced in a half whisper, and straightened to watch the effect of her words. Indeed, I said, properly thunderstruck. I was surprised. I had always believed that only the use of the fourth dimension in space would enable anyone not desired to gain access to the Maitland house. Of money? Not money, although I had a good bit in the house. This I also knew. It was said of Miss Letitia that when money came into her possession it went out of circulation. Not the pearls, I asked. She answered my question with another. When you had those pearls appraised for me at the jewelers last year, how many were there? Not quite a hundred. I think, yes. Ninety-eight. Exactly, she corroborated in triumph. They belonged to my mother. Marjorie's mother got some of them. That's a good many years ago, young man. They are worth more than they were then. A great deal more. Twenty-two thousand dollars, I repeated. You remember, Miss Letitia, that I protested vigorously at the time against your keeping them in the house. Miss Letitia ignored this. But before she went on she repeated again her cat-like pouncing at the door only to find the hall empty as before. This time when she sat down it was knee to knee with me. Yesterday morning, she said gravely, I got down the box. They have always been kept in the small safe at the top of my closet. When Jane found a picture of my niece, Marjorie Fleming, in Harry's room, I thought it likely there was some truth in the gossip Jane heard about the two, and if there was going to be a wedding, why, the pearls were to go to Marjorie anyhow. But I found the door of the safe unlocked and a little bit open. And ten of the pearls were gone. Gone, I echoed. Ten of them. It's ridiculous. If ten, why not the whole ninety-eight? How do I know? she replied with asperity. That's what I keep a lawyer for. That's what I sent for you. For the second time in two days I protested the same thing. But you need a detective, I cried. If you can find the thief, I will be glad to send him where he ought to be, but I couldn't find him. I will not have the police, she persisted inflexibly. They will come around asking impertinent questions and telling the newspapers that a foolish old woman had got what she deserved. Then you are going to send them to a bank? You have less sense than I thought, she snapped. I am going to leave them where they are and watch. Whoever took the ten will be back for more, mark my words. I don't advise it, I said decidedly. You have most of them now and you might easily lose them all, not only that, but it is not safe for you or your sister. Stuffin' on sense, the old woman said with spirit. As for Jane, she doesn't even know they're gone. I know who did it. It was the new housemaid, Bella Mackenzie. Nobody else could get in. I lock up the house myself at night and I'm in the habit of doing a pretty thorough job of it. They went in the last three weeks, for I counted them Saturday three weeks ago myself. The only persons in the house in that time except ourselves were Harry, Bella, and Hepseba, who's been here for 40 years and wouldn't know a pearl from a pickled onion. Then what do you want me to do, I asked? Have Bella arrested and her trunk searched? I felt myself shrinking in the old lady's esteem every minute. Her trunk, she said scornfully. I turned it inside out this morning, pretending I thought she was stealing the laundry soap. Like as not, she has them buried in the vegetable garden.  When I catch the thief, I want my lawyer right by. It ended by my consenting, of course. Miss Letitia was seldom refused. I telephoned to Fred that I would not be home, listened for voices, and decided Marjorie Fleming had gone to bed. Miss Jane lighted me to the door of the guest room and saw that everything was comfortable. Her thin gray curls bobbed as she examined the water-pitcher, saw to the towels, and felt the bed linen for dampness. At the door she stopped and turned around timidly. Has anything happened to disturb my sister? She asked. She has been almost irritable all day. Almost. She is worried about her colored orphans, I evaded. She does not approve of fireworks for them on the Fourth of July. Miss Jane was satisfied. I watched her little old black-robed figure go lightly down the hall. Then I bolted the door, opened all the windows, and proceeded to a surreptitious smoke. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Reinhardt This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Robert Kuiper Chapter 4 A Thief in the Night The windows being wide open it was not long before a great moth came whirring in. He hurled himself at the light and then dazzled and singed, began to beat with noisy thumps against the barrier of the ceiling. Finding no egress there he was back at the lamp again, whirling in dizzy circles, until at last worn out he dropped to the table, where he lay on his back, kicking impotently. The room began to fill with tiny winged creatures that flung themselves headlong to destruction, so I put out the light and sat down near the window with my cigar and my thoughts. Miss Letitia's troubles I dismissed shortly. While it was odd that only ten pearls should have been taken still, in every other way it bore the marks of an ordinary theft. The thief might have thought that by leaving the majority of the gems he could postpone discovery indefinitely. But the Fleming case was of a different order. Taken by itself, Fleming's disappearance could have been easily accounted for. There must be times in the lives of all unscrupulous individuals when they feel the need of retiring temporarily from the public eye. But the intrusion into the Fleming home, the ransacked desk and the broken money drawer, most of all the bit of paper with eleven twenty-two on it. Here was a hurdle my legal mind refused to take. I had finished my second cigar and was growing more and more wakeful when I heard a footstep on the path around the house. It was black outside. When I looked out, as I did cautiously, I could not see even the gray white of the cement walk. The steps had ceased, but there was a sound of fumbling at one of the shutters below. The catch clicked twice, as if some thin instrument was being slipped underneath to raise it, and once I caught a muttered exclamation. I drew in my head and puffing my cigar until it was glowing, managed by its light to see that it was a quarter to two. When I listened again, the housebreaker had moved to another window and was shaking it cautiously. With Miss Letitia's story of the pearls fresh in my mind, I felt at once that the thief finding his ten apprise had come back for more. My first impulse was to go to the head of my bed where I am accustomed to keep a revolver. With the touch of the tall corner-post, however, I remembered that I was not at home and that it was not likely there was a weapon in the house. Finally, after knocking over an ornament that shattered on the hearth and sounded like the crash of doom, I found on the mantle a heavy brass candlestick, and with it in my hand I stepped into the gloom of the hallway and felt my way to the stairs. There were no nightlights, the darkness was total. I found the stairs before I expected to and came within an ace of pitching down headlong.  Once down the stairs I was on more familiar territory. I went at once into the library, which was beneath my room, but the sounds at the window had ceased. I thought I heard steps on the walk going toward the front of the house. I wheeled quickly and started for the door. When something struck me a terrific blow on the nose, I reeled back and sat down, dizzy and shocked. It was only when no second blow followed the first that I realized what had occurred. With my two hands out before me in the blackness I had groped one hand on either side of the open door, which of course I had struck violently with my nose. Afterward I found it had bled considerably, and my collar and tie must have added to my ghastly appearance. My candlestick had rolled under the table, and after crawling around on my hands and knees I found it. I had lost, I suppose, three or four minutes, and I was raging at my awkwardness and stupidity. No one, however, seemed to have heard the noise. For all her boasted watchfulness Miss Letitia must have been asleep. I got back into the hall from there to the dining room. Someone was fumbling at the shutters there, and as I looked they swung open. It was so dark outside, with the trees and the distance from the street, that only the creaking of the shutter told it had opened. I stood in the middle of the room with one hand firmly clutching my candlestick, but the window refused to move. The burglar seemed to have no proper tools. He got something under the sash, but it snapped, and through the heavy plate glass I could hear him swearing. Then he abruptly left the window and made for the front of the house. I blundered in the same direction, my unshod feet striking on projecting furniture and causing me agonies, even through my excitement. When I reached the front door, however, I was amazed to find it unlocked, and standing open, perhaps an inch. I stopped uncertainly. I was in a peculiar position. Not even the most ardent admirers of antique brass candlesticks endorse them as weapons of offense or defense. But there seemed to be nothing else to do. I opened the door quietly and stepped out into the darkness. The next instant I was flung heavily to the porch floor. I'm not a small man, by any means, but under the fury of that onslaught I was a child. It was a porch chair, I think, that knocked me senseless. I know it folded up like a jackknife, and that was all I did know for a few minutes. When I came to, I was lying where I had fallen, and a candle was burning beside me on the porch floor. It took me a minute to remember and another minute to realize that I was looking into the barrel of a revolver. It occurred to me that I had never seen a more villainous face than that of the man who held it, which shows my state of mind, and that my position was the reverse of comfortable. Then the man behind the gun spoke. What'd you do with that bag, he demanded, and I felt his knee on my chest. What bag, I inquired feebly. My head was jumping, and the candle was a volcanic eruption of sparks and smoke.   I haven't seen any bag, I said stupidly. What sort of bag? I heard my own voice, drunk from the shock. Paper bag? A laundry bag? You've hidden it in the house, he said, bringing the revolver a little closer, with every word. My senses came back with a jerk, and I struggled to free myself. Go in and look, I responded. Let me up from here, and I'll take you in myself. The man's face was a study, an amazement, an anger. You'll take me in, you! He got up without changing the menacing position of the gun. You walk in there, here. Carry the candle, and take me to that bag. Quick! Be here! I was too bewildered to struggle. I got up dizzily, but when I tried to stoop for the candle, I almost fell on it. My head cleared after a moment, and when I picked up the candle, I had a good chance to look at my assailant. He was staring at me, too. He was a young fellow, well-dressed, and haggard beyond belief. I don't know anything about a bag, I persisted, but if you will give me your word, there was nothing in it belonging to this house. I will take you in and let you look for it. The next moment he had lowered the revolver and clutched my arm. Who in that devil's name are you? he asked wildly. I think the thing dawned on us both at the same moment. My name is Knox, I said coolly, feeling for my handkerchief. My head was bleeding from a cut over the ear. John Knox. Knox! Instead of showing relief, his manner showed greater consternation than ever. He snatched the candle from me and holding it up, searched my face. Then, good God, where's my traveling bag? I have something in my head where you hit me, I said. Perhaps that is it. But my sarcasm was lost on him. I am Hurry Wardrop, he said, and I've been robbed, Mr. Knox. I was trying to get in the house without waking the family, and when I came back here to the front door where I had left my police, it was gone. Now, I thought you were the thief when you came out, and oh, we've lost all this time. Somebody has followed me and robbed me. What was in the bag, I asked, stepping to the edge of the porch and looking around with the help of the candle. Valuable papers, he said shortly. He seemed to be dazed and had a loss what to do next. We had both instinctively kept our voices low. You're certain you left it in here, I asked. The thing seemed incredible in the quiet and peace of that neighborhood. Where you are standing? Once more I began a dussel-tory search, going down the steps and looking among the canis that boarded the porch. Something glistened beside the step and stooping down I discovered a small brown leather traveling bag, apparently quite new. Here it is, I said, not so gracious as I might have been. I had suffered considerably for that traveling bag. The sight of it restored Wardrop's poise at once. His twitching features relaxed. By Jove, I'm glad to see it, he said. I can't explain, but tremendous things have depended on that bag, Mr. Knox. I don't know how to apologize to you. I must have nearly brained you. You did, I said grimly, and gave him the bag. The moment he took it I knew there was something wrong. He hurried into the house and lighted the library lamp. Then he opened the traveling bag with shaking fingers. It was empty. He stood for a moment, staring incredulously into it. Then he hurled it down on the table and turned to me as I stood beside him. It's a trick, he said furiously. You've hidden it somewhere. This is not my bag. You've substituted one just like it.  How could I substitute an empty satchel for yours? Went up to fifteen minutes ago. I had never seen you or your grip, either. Use a little common sense. Some place tonight you have put down that bag, and some clever thief has substituted a similar one. It's an old trick.  It's impossible! He said after a pause, while he seemed to be going over minute by minute the events of the night, I was followed. As far as that goes in Plattsburg, two men watched me from the minute I got there on Tuesday. I changed my hotel and for all of yesterday Wednesday that is, I felt secure enough, but on my way to the train I felt that I was under surveillance again. And by turning quickly I came face to face with one of the men. Would you know him, I ask? Yes, I thought he was a detective. You know, I had a lot of that sort of thing lately with election coming on. He didn't get on the train, however. But the other one may have done so? Yes, the other one may. Thing I don't understand is this, Mr. Knox. When we drew in at Bellwood Station, I distinctly remember opening the bag and putting my newspaper and railroad schedule inside. It was the rock bag there and my clothing was in it and my brushes. I had been examining the empty bag as he talked. Where did you put your railroad schedule? I asked, in the leather pocket at the side. It is here, I said, drawing out the yellow folder. For a moment my companion looked almost haunted.  The whole thing is impossible, I tell you. That police was heavy when I walked up from the station. I changed it from one hand to the other because of the weight. When I got here I set it down on the edge of the porch and tried the door. When I found it locked... But it wasn't locked, I broke in. When I came downstairs to look for a burglar, I found it open at least an inch. He stopped in his pacing up and down and looked at me curiously. We both crazy, Dan. He asserted gravely. I tell you I tried every way I knew to unlock that door and I could hear the chain rattling. Unlocked. You don't know the way this house is fastened up at night. Nevertheless it was unlocked when I came down. We were so engrossed that neither of us had heard steps on the stairs. The sound of a muttered exclamation from the doorway caused us both to turn suddenly. Standing there, in a loose gown of some sort, very much surprised and startled, was Marjorie Fleming. Wardrop pulled himself together at once. As for me, I knew what sort of figure I cut. My collars stained with blood. A lump on my forehead that felt as big as a doorknob and no shoes. What is the matter? She asked, uncertainly. I heard such queer noises and I thought someone had broken into the house. Mr.  I don't think she quite believed me.  Then I think womanlike she remembered the two great braids that hung over her shoulders and the dressing gown she wore, for she backed precipitously into the hall. I'm glad that's all it is, she called cautiously, and we could hear her running up the stairs. You'd better go to bed, Wardrop said, picking up his hat. I'm going down to the station. There is no train out of here between midnight and a flag train at 4.30 a.m. It's not likely to be of any use, but I want to see who goes on that train. It is only half past two, I said glancing at my watch. We might look around outside first. The necessity for action made him welcome any suggestion. Reticent as he was, his feverish excitement made me think that something vital hung on the recovery of the contents of that Russia leather bag. I found a lantern somewhere in the back of the house, and together we went over the grounds. It did not take long, and we found nothing. As I look back on that night, the key to what had passed and to much that was coming was so simple, so direct, and yet we missed it entirely. Nor when bigger things developed and hunters' trained senses were brought into play, did he do much better. It was some time before we learned the true inwardness of the events of that night. At five o'clock in the morning Wardrop came back exhausted and nervous. No one had taken the 4.30. The contents of the bag were gone, probably beyond recall. I put my dented candlestick back on the mantle and prepared for a little sleep, blessing the deafness of old age which had enabled the Maitland ladies to sleep through it all. I tried to forget the queer events of the night, but the throbbing of my head kept me awake, and through it all one question obtruded itself. Who had unlocked the front door and left it open? End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Reinhart This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Robert Kuiper Chapter 5 Little Miss Jane I was almost unrecognizable when I looked at myself in the mirror the next morning, preparatory to dressing for breakfast.  I turned my back to the mirror and dressed in wrathful irritation, and my yesterday's linen. Miss Fleming was in the breakfast room when I got down, standing at a window, her back to me. I have carried with me during all the months since that time a mental picture of her as she stood there in a pink morning frock of some sort, but only the other day, having mentioned this to her, she assured me that the frock was blue, that she didn't have a pink garment at the time of this story opens, and that if she did, she positively didn't have it on. And thus having flouted my eye for color, she maintains that she did not have her back to me, for she distinctly saw my newly raised bridge as I came down the stairs. So I amend this. Miss Fleming, in a blue frock, was facing the door when I went into the breakfast room. Of one thing I am certain, she came forward and held out her hand. Good morning! she said.  It isn't mine, I replied makely. My own face is beneath these excrescences. I tried to cover the bump on my forehead with French chalk, but it only accentuated the thing like snow on a mountaintop. The purple peaks of Darien, she quoted, pouring me my coffee. Do you know I feel so much better since you have taken hold of things? Aunt Letitia thinks you are wonderful. I thought ruefully of the failure of my first attempt to play the sleuth, and I disclaimed any right to Miss Letitia's high opinion of me. From my dogging the watchman to the police station to Delia and her note was a short mental step. Before anyone comes down, Miss Fleming, I said, I want to ask a question or two. What was the name of the maid who helped you search the house that night? Annie. And what other maids did you say there were? Delia and Rose. Do you know anything about them? Where they come from or where they went? She smiled a little. What does one know about new servants? She responded. They bring you references, but references are the price most women pay to get rid of their servants without a fuss. Rose was fat and old, but Delia was pretty. I thought she rather liked Carter. Carter as well as Shields, the policeman. I put Miss Delia down as a flirt. And you have no idea where Carter went? None. Wardrip came in then, and we spoke of other things. The two elderly ladies it seemed had tea and toast in their rooms when they wakened, and the three of us breakfasted together. But conversation languished with Wardrip's appearance. He looked haggard and worn, avoided Miss Fleming's eyes, and after ordering eggs instead of his chop, looked at his watch and left without touching anything. I want to get the 9.30, Margie," he said, coming back with his hat in his hand. I may not be out to dinner. Tell Miss Letitia, will you?" He turned to go, but on second thought came back to me and held out his hand. I may not see you again, he began. Not if I see you first, I interrupted. He glanced at my mutilated features and smiled. I have made you a maitland, he said. I didn't think anything but a prodigal nature could duplicate Miss Letitia's nose. I'm honestly sorry, Mr. Knox, and if you do not want Miss Jane at that bump with a cold silver knife and some butter, you better duck before she comes down. Good-bye, Margie!" I think the girl was as much baffled as I was by the change in his manner when he spoke to her. His smile faded, and he hardly met her eyes. I thought his aloofness puzzled rather than hurt her. When the house door was closed behind him, she dropped her chin in her hand and looked across the table.  She said, I have never seen Harry look like that. Something has happened to him.  It's a humiliating experience, I believe. A man will throw away thousands or gamble them away with more equanimity than he'll see someone making off with his hairbrushes or his clean collars. His traveling bag, she repeated scornfully, Mr. Knox, something has happened to my father, and you and Harry are hiding it from me. On my honor it is nothing of the sort, I hastened to assure her. I saw him for only a few minutes, just long enough for him to wreck my appearance. He did not speak of father? No. She got up and crossed to the wooden mantel, put her arms upon it, and leaned her head against them. I wanted to ask him, she said rarely, but I'm afraid to. Suppose he doesn't know, and I should tell him. He would go to Mr. Schwartz at once, and Mr. Schwartz is treacherous. The papers would get it, too.  If he knows her well enough, he can go over and pat her on the shoulder and assure her it's going to be all right. If he does not know her, and there are two maiden ants likely to come in at any minute, he sits still, as I did, and waits until the storm clears. Miss Marjorie was not long in emerging from her handkerchief. Ah, I didn't sleep much, she explained, dabbing at her eyes, and I'm nervous anyhow. Mr. Knox, are you sure it was only Harry trying to get into the house last night? Only Harry, I repeated. If Mr. Wardrop's attempt to get into the house leaves me in this condition, what would a real burglar have done to me?  There was someone moving about upstairs, not long before I came down, she said slowly. You heard me. I almost fell down the stairs. Did you brush past my door and strike the knob? She demanded. No, I was not near any door. Very well, triumphantly. Someone did. Not only that, but they were in the storeroom on the floor above. I could hear one person, and perhaps two, going from one side of the room to the other, and back again. You heard a goblin quadril. First couple forward and back, I said facetiously. I heard real footsteps, unmistakable ones. The maid sleep back on the second floor, and don't tell me it was rats. There are no rats in my antleticious house. I was more impressed than I cared to show. I found I had a half hour before train time, and as we were neither of us eating anything, I suggested that we explore the upper floor of the house. I did it, I explained, not because I expected to find anything, but because I was sure we would not. We crept past the two closed doors behind which the ladies maitland were presumably taking out their crimps and taking in their tea, then up a narrow, obtrusively clean stairway to the upper floor. It was an old-fashioned sloping roof attic, with narrow windows and a bare floor. At one end a door opened into a large room, and in there were the family trunks of four generations of maitlands. One on another they were all piled there. Little hair trunks, squab-top trunks, huge saratogas, of the period when the two maiden-ladies were in their late teens, and there were handsome modern trunks, too. For misflemming satisfaction I made an examination of the room, but it showed nothing. There was little or no dust to have been disturbed. The windows were closed and locked. In the main attic were two stepladders, some curtains drying on frames, and an old chest of drawers with glass knobs and the veneering broken in places. One of the drawers stood open, and inside could be seen a red and white patchwork quilt, and a grayish thing that looked like flannel and smelled to heaven of camphor. We gave up finally and started down. Partway down the attic stairs Marjorie stopped. Her eyes fixed on the white scrubbed rail. Following her gaze I stopped, too, and I felt a sort of chill go over me. No spot or blemish, no dirty fingerprints marked the whiteness of that stair rail, except in one place. On it, clear and distinct, every line of the palm, showing, was the reddish imprint of a hand. Marjorie did not speak.  But she was not faint. When the first revulsion had passed I reached over and touched the stain. It was quite dry, of course, but it was still reddish brown. Another hour or two would see it black. It was evidently fresh. Hunter said afterward it must have been about six hours old, and as things transpired he was right. The stain showed a hand somewhat short and broad, with widened fingertips. Marked in ink it would not obstruct me so forcibly, perhaps, but there, its ugly red against the white wood, it seemed to me to be the imprint of a brutal, murderous hand. Marjorie was essentially feminine. What did I tell you? she asked. Someone was in this house last night. I heard them distinctly. There must have been two, and they quarreled. She shuddered. We went on downstairs into the quiet and peace of the dining room again. I got some hot coffee for Marjorie, for she looked shaken, and found I had missed my train. I am beginning to think I am being pursued by a malicious spirit, she said, trying to smile. I came away from home because people got into the house at night and left queer signs of their visits, and now, here at Bellwood, where nothing ever happens, the moment I arrived things begin to occur. And, just as it was at home, the house was so well locked last night. I did not tell her of the open hall door, just as I kept from her the fact that only the contents of Harry Wardroft's bag had been taken. That it had all been the work of one person, and that that person, having in some way access to the house, had also stolen the pearls was now my confident belief. I looked at Bella, the maid, as she moved around the dining room. Her stolid face was not even intelligent, certainly not cunning. Happy, the cook, and the only other servant was partially blind, and her horizon was the diameter of her largest kettle. No, it had not been a servant, this mysterious intruder, who passed the maitland silver on the sideboard without an attempt to take it, and who floundered around the attic at night, in search of nothing more valuable than patchwork quilts and winter flannels. It was strange to look back and think how quietly we sat there, that we could see nothing but burglary, or an attempt at it, in what we had found. It must have been after nine o'clock when Bella came running into the room. Ordinarily a slow and clumsy creature she almost flew. She had a tray in her hand, and the dishes were rattling and threatening overthrow at every step. She brought up against a chair, and a cup went flying. The breaking of a cup must have been a serious offense in Miss Letitia Maitland's house, but Bella took no notice whatever of it. Miss Jane— She gasped. Miss Jane—she—she's— Hurt? Marjorie exclaimed, rising and clutching at the table for support. No! Gone! She's gone! She's been run off with! Nonsense! I said, seeing Marjorie's horrified face. Don't come in here with such a story. If Miss Jane is not in her room, she is somewhere else, that's all. Bella stooped and gathered up the broken cup, her lips moving, Marjorie had recovered herself. She made Bella straighten and explain. Do you mean she's not in her room? She asked incredulously, isn't she somewhere around the house? Go up and look at the room! The girl replied, and with Marjorie leading, we ran up the stairs. Miss Jane's room was empty. From somewhere near Miss Letitia could be heard lecturing Hepsiva about putting too much butter on the toast. Her high voice, pitched for Happy's old ears, rasped me. Marjorie closed the door, and we surveyed the room together. The bed had been occupied, its covering had been thrown back as if its occupant had risen hurriedly. The room itself was in a state of confusion.  Her shoes stood neatly at the foot of the bed, and a bottle of toilet vinegar had been upset, pouring a stream over the marble top of the dresser, and down onto the floor. Over the high wooden mantel, the maitland who had been governor of the state years ago, hung at a waggish angle, and a clock had been pushed aside and stopped at half past one. Marjorie stared around her in bewilderment. Of course it was not until later in the day that I saw all the details. My first impression was of confusion and disorder. The room seemed to have been the scene of a struggle. The overturned furniture, the clothes on the floor, the picture coupled with the print of the hand on the staircase, and Miss Jane's disappearance all seemed to point to one thing. And as if to prove it conclusively, Marjorie picked up Miss Jane's new lace cap from the floor. It was crumpled and spotted with blood. She has been killed, Marjorie said in a choking voice. Killed, and she had not an enemy in the world. But where is she, I ask stupidly. Marjorie had more presence of mind than I had. I suppose it's because a woman's courage is mental and a man's physical, that in times of great strain women always make the better showing. Yeah, while I was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the confusion around me, Marjorie was already on her knees looking under the high four-post bed.  It was undisturbed.  But there was nothing else in the room. Call Robert the Gardener, Marjorie said quickly, and have him help you search the grounds and cellars. I will take Bella and go through the house. Above everything, keep it from Aunt Letitia as long as possible. It takes a short time to search an acre of lawn and shrubbery. There was no trace of the missing woman anywhere outside the house. And from Bella, as she sat at the foot of the front stairs with her apron over her head, I learned in a monosyllable that nothing had been found in the house. Marjorie was with Miss Letitia and from the excited conversation I knew she was telling her not the harrowing details, but that Miss Jane had disappeared during the night. The old lady was inclined to scoff at first. Look in the fruit closet in the storeroom, I heard her say.   I did look. She's not there. Marjorie screamed at her. Then she's out looking for stump water. Take that ward off her neck. She said yesterday she was gone for some. But her clothes are all here. Marjorie persisted. We think someone must have got in the house. If all her clothes are there, she's been asleep walking, Miss Letitia said calmly. We used to have to tie her by a cord round her ankle and fasten it to the bed post. When she tried to get up the cord had pulled and wakered. I think after a time, however, some of Marjorie's uneasiness communicated itself to the older woman. She finished dressing and fumed when we told her we had locked Miss Jane's door and mislaid the key. Finally Marjorie got her settled in the back parlor with some peppermints and her knitting. And she had a feeling, she said, that Jane had gone off after the stump water and lost her way, and I told Marjorie to keep her in that state of mind as long as she could. I sent for Hunter that morning and he came at three o'clock. I took him through the back entrance to avoid Miss Letitia. I think he had been skeptical until I threw open the door and showed him the upset chair, the old lady's clothing, and the blood-stained lace cap. His examination was quick and thorough. He took a crumpled sheet of note paper out of the wastebasket and looked at it. Then he stuffed it in his pocket. He sniffed the toilet water, called Marjorie, and asked her if any clothing was missing, and on receiving a negative answer asked if any shawls or wraps were gone from the halls or other rooms. Marjorie reported nothing missing. Before he left the room, Hunter went back and moved the picture which had been disturbed over the mantle. What he saw made him get a chair and standing on it, take the picture from its nail. Thus exposed, the wall showed an opening about a foot square and perhaps 18 inches deep. A metal door opening in was unfastened and a jar, and just inside was a copy of a recent sentimental novel and a bottle of some sort of complexion cream. In spite of myself, I smiled. It was so typical of the dear old lady, with a heart of a girl and a skin that was losing its roses. But there was something else in the receptacle, something that made Marjorie Fleming draw in her breath sharply and made Hunter raise his eyebrows a little and glance at me. The something was a scrap of unruled white paper and on it the figures 1122. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 A Fountain Pen Harry Wardrup came back from the city at four o'clock while Hunter was in the midst of his investigation. I met him in the hall and told him what had happened, and with this new apprehension added to the shock of the night before, he looked as though his nerves were ready to snap. Wardrup was a man of perhaps twenty-seven, as tall as I, although not so heavy, with direct blue eyes and fair hair, altogether a manly and prepossessing sort of fellow. I was not surprised that Marjorie Fleming had found him attractive he had the blonde hair and offhand manner the women seemed to like. I am dark, myself. He seemed surprised to find Hunter there and not particularly pleased, but he followed us to the upper floor and watched silently while Hunter went over the two rooms. Besides the large chest of drawers and the main attic, Hunter found perhaps half a dozen drops of blood, and on the edge of the open drawer there were traces of more. In the inner room two trunks had been moved out nearly a foot, as he found by the faint dust that had been under them. With a stain on the stair rail, that was all he discovered, and it was little enough. Then he took out his notebook and there among the trunks we had a little seance of our own, in which Hunter asked questions and whoever could do so answered them. Have you a pencil or pen, Mr. Knox? he asked me, but I had none. Wardrop felt his pockets with no better success. I have lost my fountain pen somewhere around the house today, he said, irritably. Here's a pencil, not much of a one. Hunter began his interrogations. How old was Miss Maitland, Miss Jane, I mean? 65, from Marjorie. She had always seemed rational, not eccentric, or childish. Not at all, sanest woman I ever knew, this from Wardrop. Has she ever, to your knowledge, received any threatening letters? Never in on her life. From both of them promptly. You heard sound, you say, Miss Fleming, at what time? About half past one, or perhaps a few minutes later, the clock struck two while I was still awake and nervous. Well, this person who was walking through the attic here, would you say it was a heavy person, a man, I mean? Marjorie stopped to think. Yes, she said finally. It was very stealthy, but I think it was a man's step. You heard no sounds of a struggle, no voices, no screams? None at all, she said positively, and I added my quota. There could have been no such sounds, I said. I sat in my room and smoked until quarter to two. I heard nothing until then, when I heard Mr. Wardrop trying to get into the house. I went down to admit him, and I found the front door open about an inch. Hunter wheeled on Wardrop. A quarter to two, he asked. You were coming home from the city? Yes, from the station. Hunter watched him closely. The last train gets in here at 1230, he said slowly. Does it always take you an hour and a quarter to walk the three squares to the house? Wardrop flushed uneasily, and I could see Marjorie's eyes dilate with amazement. As for me, I could only stare. I did not come directly home, he said almost defiantly. Hunter's voice was as smooth as silk. Then will you be good enough to tell me where you did go? He asked. I have reasons for wanting to know.  Look here, Mr. Hunter. Do you think I would hurt a hair on that old lady's head?  And then went out and tried to get in again through the window? Not necessarily, Hunter said, unruffled. It merely occurred to me that we have at least an hour of your time last night while this thing was going on to account for. However, we can speak of that later. I'm practically certain of one thing Miss Maitland is not dead or was not dead when she was taken from this house. Taken away, Marjorie repeated. Then you think she was kidnapped? Well, it is possible. It's a puzzling affair all through. You are certain there are no closets or unused rooms where, if there had been a murder, a body could be concealed? I never heard of any, Marjorie said, but I saw Wardrobe's face change on the instant. He said nothing, however, but stood frowning at the floor, with his hands deep in his coat pockets. Marjorie was beginning to show the effects of the long day's strain. She began to cry a little, and with an error of proprietorship that I resented somehow, Wardrobe went over to her.  Miss Mellon will come over to the Aunt Leticia, and you must get some sleep. Sleep, she said with scorn as he helped her to her feet. Sleep when things like this are occurring. Father first, and now dear old Aunt Jane. Harry, do you know where my father is? He faced her, as if he had known the question must come, and was prepared for it. I know that he is all right, Marjorie, he's been out of town, and if it had not been for something unforeseen that happened within the last few hours, he would have been home today. She drew a long breath of relief. And Aunt Jane? She asked Hunter from the head of the attic stairs. You do not think she is dead? Not until we have found something more, he answered tactlessly. It's like where there's smoke, there's fire, and where there's murder, there's a body. When they both gone, Hunter sat down on a trunk and drew out a cigar that looked like a bomb. What do you think of it? I asked when he showed no disposition to talk. I'll be damned if I know, he responded, looking around for some place to expectorate and finding none. The window, I suggested, and he went over to it. When he came back he had a rather peculiar expression. He sat down and puffed for a moment. In the first place, he began, we can take it for granted that unless she was crazy or sleepwalking she didn't go out in her nightclothes, and there's nothing of hers missing. She wasn't taken in a carriage providing she was taken at all. There's not a mark of wheels on that drive newer than a week. Besides, you say you heard nothing. Nothing, I said positively. Then, unless she went away in a balloon where it wouldn't matter what she had on, she is still around the premises. Depends on how badly she was hurt. Are you sure it was she who was hurt, I asked? That print of a hand, that is not Miss Jane's. In reply, Hunter led the way down the stairs to the place where the stain on the stair rail stood out, ugly and distinct. He put his own heavy hand on the rail just below it. Suppose you grip something very hard. What happens to your hand? It spreads, I acknowledged, seeing what he meant. Now, look at that stain. Look at the short fingers. Why, it's a child's hand next to mine. The breadth is from pressure. It might be figured out this way. The fingers, you notice, point down the stairs. In some way, let us say, the burglar, for want of a better name, gets into the house. He used a ladder resting against that window by the chest of drawers. Ladder, I exclaimed. Yes, there's a pruning ladder there. Now then, he comes down these stairs and he has a definite object. He knows of something valuable in that cubby hole over the mantle in Miss Jane's room. How does he get in? The door into the upper hall is closed and bolted, but the door into the bathroom is open. From there, another door leads into the bedroom and it has no bolt, only a key. Now, that kind of lock is only a three minutes delay, or less. Now then, Miss Bateland was a light sleeper. When she wakened, she was too alarmed to scream. She tried to get to the door and was intercepted. Finally, she got out the way the intruder got in and ran along the hall. Every door was locked. In a frenzy, she ran up the attic stairs and was captured up there, which bears out Miss Marjorie's story of the footsteps back and forward. Good heavens. What an awful thing, I gasped. And I was sitting smoking just across the hall. He brings her down the stairs again, probably half dragging her. Once, she catches hold of the stair rail and holds desperately to it, leaving the stain there. But why did he bring her down, I asked, bewildered. Why wouldn't he take what he was after and get away? Hunters smoked and meditated. She probably had to get the key of the iron door, he suggested. It was hidden and time was valuable. If there was a scapegrace member of the family, for instance, who knew where the old lady kept money or needed it badly and knew all about the house and who— Fleming, I exclaimed, aghast. Or even our young friend, Waldrop. Hunter said quietly, he has an hour to account for. The trying to get in may have been a blind, and how do you know that what he says was stolen out of his satchel was not what he had just got from the iron box over the mantle in Miss Maitland's room? I was dizzy from trying to follow Hunter's facile imagination. The thing we were trying to do was to find the old lady, and, after all, here we brought up against the same impasse. Then where is she now, I asked. He meditated. He had sat down on the narrow stairs and was rubbing his chin with a thoughtful forefinger. Now, one-thirty, Miss Marjorie says when she heard the noise. One-forty-five when you heard Waldrop at the shutters. I tell you, Nox, it is one of two things. Either that woman is dead somewhere in this house, or she ran out of the hall door just before you went downstairs, and in that case, well, the Lord only knows where she is. If there is a room anywhere that we have not explored, I am inclined to think there is, I broke in, thinking of Waldrop's face a few minutes before. And just then, Waldrop himself joined us. He closed the door at the foot of the boxed-in staircase and came quietly up. You spoke about an unused room or secret closet, Mr. Hunter, he said, without any resentment in his tone. We have nothing so sensational as that, but the old house is full of queer nooks and crannies, and perhaps in one of them we might find— He stopped and gulped. Whatever Hunter might think. Whatever I might have against Harry Waldrop, I determined then that he had had absolutely nothing to do with little Miss Maitland's strange disappearance. The first place we explored was a closed and walled-in wine cellar, long unused, and to which access was gained by a small window in the stone foundation of the house. The cobwebs over the window made it practically an impossible place, but we put Robert, the gardener, through it, in spite of his protest. Well, there's nothing down there, I tell ya, he protested with one leg over the coping. God only knows what's down there after all these years. Now, I've been living here with Miss Maitland's for twenty years, and I ain't never been put going down into cellars at the end of a rope. He went, because we were three to his one, but he was up again in sixty seconds, with the announcement that the place was as bare as the top of his head. We moved every trunk in the storeroom, although it would have been a moral impossibility for anyone to have done it the night before without rousing the entire family, and were thus able to get to and open a large closet which proved to contain neatly tied and labeled packages of religious weeklies beginning in the sixties. The grounds had been gone over inch by inch without affording any clue, and now the three of us faced one another. The day was almost gone, and we were exactly where we started. Hunter had sent men through the town and the adjacent countryside, but no word had come from them. Miss Letitia had at last succumbed to the suspense and had gone to bed, where she lay quietly enough, as is the way with the old, but so mild that she was alarming. At five o'clock Hawes called me up from the office, and almost tearfully implored me to come back and attend to my business. When I said it was impossible I could hear him groan as he hung up the receiver. Hawes is of the opinion that by keeping fresh magazines in my waiting room and by persuading me to the extravagance of Turkish rugs, that he has built my practice to its present flourishing state. When I left the telephone Hunter was preparing to go back to town, and Wardrop was walking up and down the hall. Suddenly Wardrop stopped his uneasy promenade, and hailed the detective on his way to the door. By George, he exclaimed, I forgot to show you the closet under the attic stairs. We hurried up, and Wardrop showed us the panel in the hall, which slid to one side when he pushed a bolt under the carpet. The blackness of the closet was horrible in its suggestion to me. I stepped back while Hunter struck a match and looked in. The closet was empty. Better not go in, Wardrop said. It hadn't been used in years it's black with dust. I found it myself and showed it to Miss Jane. I don't believe Miss Letitia knows it's here. It hadn't been used for years, reflected Hunter, looking around him curiously. I suppose it's been some time since you were in here, Mr. Wardrop. Several years, Wardrop replied carelessly. I used to keep contraband in there, my college days, cigarettes, that sort of thing. I haven't been in it since then. Hunter took his foot off a small object that lay on the floor, and picking it up, held it out to Wardrop with a grim smile. Here is the fountain pen you lost this morning, Mr. Wardrop. He said quietly. End of Chapter 6