THE CURVED BLADES (Part 2)

CHAPTER XIV

WHO GAVE THE POISON?

Though Fleming Stone’s acumen and quick perception had led to a swift apprehension of Bates, his next steps were not taken so rapidly. He spent much time in the boudoir of Miss Carrington, as if striving to make the walls tell what their traditional ears had heard.

The upset breakfast tray had been removed, but nothing else disturbed. Estelle had owned up, after Bates’ arrest, that she did drop the tray, in her fright at the sight of the dead lady, and that she afterward denied it lest she be suspected of wrong-doing.

The plate that had contained sandwiches was still on the bedside table, but the glass of milk, with bromide in, had been carried away.

Stone looked at the empty plate, and wondered. Had the poison been placed in the sandwiches? By Estelle? By anybody else? Who had had opportunity? Estelle had brought the sandwiches and milk to the bedroom, according to her usual custom, when she prepared the bed for the night. A tiny serviette had been over the sandwiches, and was still there beside the plate. Stone looked at it. A mere wisp of fine linen, with a monogrammed corner. The few wrinkles in it showed clearly to Stone’s sharp eyes the dainty touch of fingers that had held the caviare sandwich. It undoubtedly denoted that Miss Carrington had eaten the sandwich. Had any one merely removed it, the napkin would have been uncreased. He had been told that she rarely ate this night luncheon, though it was always placed for her. Why had she partaken of it on that particular night? Had some one advised her to? Or urged it? Had the Count really visited her in the boudoir, and having previously arranged the poisoned sandwich, made sure that it would perform its deadly mission? Could he have entered the room unknown to the rest of the household?

Stone went to the window. Yes, that matter was easy enough. A balcony outside the long French window was connected with the lower verandah by a spiral staircase. Any one could run up the steps and be admitted to the boudoir in perfect secrecy. Stone wondered for a moment why Bates hadn’t entered that way, and quickly realized that for a marauder to appear at the window would have frightened Miss Carrington and caused an outcry. The entrance of the Count, however, whether expected or not, would be easily effected.

If the Count were really guilty, the circumstances were all explicable. Suppose Miss Carrington had made the appointment. Would she not, in her vanity, have donned the beautiful boudoir gown and the jewels to appear attractive in his eyes? And, supposing she had playfully caught his glove as he removed it, and had half-unconsciously continued to hold it. Then the conversation alleged to have been overheard by Miss Frayne would have been addressed to him, and the remarks would be, at least, intelligible.

The snake? Ah, yes, the snake. As to that there was no hint, no clue of any sort. But then, the thing was so inexplicable, that the explanation must be easy. A clue so strange, so bizarre, must lead somewhere. That could be left to the future. Now, he must decide on his first steps.

The decision took him to call on Doctor Stanton, and the physician welcomed him warmly.

“Glad to see you, Mr. Stone,” he said; “sit down, sir, sit down. I’ve been wanting a talk with you ever since I heard of your arrival. So you’ve ferreted out the burglar already! Great work, great work indeed! And now for the real murderer. You see, sir, I’m up to the minute in my information regarding this case.”

“Glad to know it,” returned Stone. “Now, Doctor Stanton, I hope you can help me. I don’t mind admitting the thing has its baffling aspects. The burglar was easily traced, and easily disposed of. The real work, as you say, is just beginning. Will you, sir, tell me all you know of the poison that killed Miss Carrington?”

“Surely, Mr. Stone. The autopsy showed a fatal dose of aconitine. Aconite, as you of course know, is the herb, wolfsbane, of the Hellebore tribe, all the species of which are poisonous. Aconitine is an intensely poisonous alkaloid obtained from aconite. Taken in a moderate quantity, it acts as a powerful sedative, but the dose absorbed by Miss Carrington was undoubtedly fatal within half or three-quarters of an hour.”

“And she died at what time?”

“About two o’clock.”

“Proving she took the poison at about quarter or half after one.”

“Yes; thereabouts. It is not possible to fix these hours precisely, but the poison was administered positively between one and two.”

“Administered? You do not think then, that she took it herself?”

“Most certainly not! Miss Carrington has been in my care, professionally, for many years. I knew her very well, and I know nobody more opposed to medicine in any form or drugs of any sort. It was a most difficult task to persuade her to take even the simplest remedy, and then she had to be assured over and over again that it was harmless. No, Mr. Stone, nothing could have made her take that dose of her own accord, nor could any one have persuaded her to take it, consciously. It was, without doubt, given to her secretly, by the clever ruse of the murderer. Of course it could not have been an accident. The marvelous part is, to my mind, how any one secured the poison. It is not an easy matter to buy aconitine.”

“Then that ought to make it easier to trace. If the public could easily procure it at will, there would be greater difficulty in running down the purchaser.”

“That is so; and yet, I think your search will be a hard one. How shall you go about it?”

“By canvassing the drug shops of the city, and of the small towns as well.”

“It may be you can trace the sale. But if it was bought under promise of secrecy, and if that secrecy were well paid for——?”

“True, there is the difficulty. But what’s a detective for if not to find out secrets?”

“Quite right. May your quest succeed.”

“And now, a little more about the action of this poison. What are the immediate effects of a fatal dose?”

“In a few moments there occurs a tingling numbness of lip and tongue and pharynx. The numbness increases and affects all the muscles and death ensues inside of an hour. This paralyzing effect renders it impossible for the victim to cry out, and there are no convulsions. The body remains calm and undisturbed, and the eyes open. A dilatation of the pupil takes place, but the expression on the face remains as in life. This is why Miss Carrington continued to look happy and smiling—”

“And proves that when she took the poison she was happy and smiling, and therefore in no way terrorized or frightened into it.”

“Exactly so. And that indicates that she didn’t know she was taking it—”

“Or, that it was administered by some one she knew and loved and had all confidence in.”

“It would seem so,” and Doctor Stanton’s fine old face showed a sad apprehension.

“How was it taken—in what medium?”

“That we can’t tell to a certainty. There were traces of the sandwiches discovered at the autopsy, but, though the poison could have been given her, concealed in a sandwich filling, it is improbable.”

“Why?”

“Because the white granules or powder, which are soluble in water, would be more easily discerned in solid food.”

“But, on the other hand, it could be unostentatiously placed in a sandwich, with little fear of detection; but to prevail on her to swallow a solution—it is bitter, is it not?”

“Yes, slightly so. I admit, I cannot imagine any one inducing Miss Carrington to swallow such a draught. Therefore, it may well be, it was placed in a sandwich. The filling, they tell me, was caviare, which would disguise the bitterness.”

“And does not all this, if true, point to some one exceedingly familiar with all the details of Miss Carrington’s affairs? Some one who knew of her nightly sandwich? And, also, does it not imply the presence of some one who could and did insure her consumption of that sandwich?”

“It would indeed seem so, Mr. Stone; but when it comes to discussing such a question as that, I must ask to be allowed to retire from the field. It is my duty to tell all I know, from my medical experience, but further than that I am not obliged to express any opinions or voice any suspicions.”

“You know, however, that Count Charlier is held pending investigation?”

“Yes, I know it. I have no opinion to express.”

Fleming Stone rather admired this gentleman of the old school, whose courtesy was evident, but equally so his determination to say only what justice demanded of his profession.

And then, like a flash, the reason came to him. Doctor Stanton suspected, or at least feared to suspect some member of the Carrington household.

Of course, this was not a new idea to Fleming Stone. He had mentally gone over the possibility of every one in the family and all of the servants at Garden Steps, but so far he had held his mind open for impressions rather than to formulate theories himself.

“Then, to sum up, doctor,” he said, as he rose to go, “you assure me that you consider it out of the question that Miss Carrington took the aconitine herself, say, as a headache cure, or something, intending only a small curative dose?”

“Absolutely impossible, sir,” exclaimed the old gentleman, almost angrily; “to begin with, Miss Carrington never had headaches, and if she had she would have borne any amount of suffering from them before she would have touched a drug or a medicinal remedy of any sort. And, aside from all that, how could she get aconitine? It is not to be bought for the asking at any druggist’s! No, sir, my conscience makes me insist on that point, Miss Carrington never took that poison knowingly—either by accident or design. It was given to her, without her knowledge, by a very, very clever villain.”

“Again, then, could it have been given her innocently, by mistake? I mean, if some one, her maid, or any friend, had wanted to give her a sedative, and meant only a light dose, but by error in quantity—”

“No, sir! Not a chance! The amount given was too great to be an error. And every one in that house knows better than ever to have attempted to give medicine in any form or degree or for any purpose to Miss Lucy Carrington.”

“It was crime, then,” said Fleming Stone, “black crime. And as such, it must be discovered and punished.”

“Yes,” agreed Doctor Stanton, but he spoke with deep sadness and as one who feared where or toward whom such discoveries might lead.

From the doctor’s house Stone went to see the Count.

That elegant gentleman was highly irate at being detained against his will in such plain quarters as The Tombs furnished, but he was not as belligerent or vindictive as Stone expected to find him.

Hasty work on the part of the detectives from the District Attorney’s office had resulted in his imprisonment, but the later development of Bates’ share in the matter made it extremely probable that the Count might soon be released from custody.

Pleasantly enough the two men conversed, and Count Charlier gave the impression of one glad of help from an outside source.

“It is such absurdity,” he declared, “to think I would in any way wish harm to the lady. Why, I admired her above all, and it was my hope that she would do me the honor to accept my hand.”

“Honestly, Count Charlier?” and Stone looked at him with a man-to-man glance that caused the Count to hesitate in his protestations.

“Well, I was considering the matter in my own mind. You know, Mr. Stone, it is a great responsibility, this seeking a wife. And Miss Carrington was not—not in her first youth. Of a fact, her years outnumbered my own. So, I asked myself was it wise, was it altogether just to the lady to—”

“Never mind all that, Count,” said Stone, a little impatiently, “just give me a few details of that evening, so far as your actions were concerned. You were at the house till midnight?”

“Yes, Mr. Illsley and I left together. We had spent the evening there at cards and music.”

“You had had any private conversation with Miss Carrington during the evening?”

“Yes, we walked alone in the conservatory for a time—”

“You proposed marriage?”

“Not exactly that—but I may have hinted at such an event.”

“And the lady seemed agreeable?”

“Entirely so. If I may say it, she met my advances half-way, and I could not misunderstand her feeling toward my unworthy self.”

“She spoke to you of money matters? Of her will?”

“Yes, to my surprise, she told me she had bequeathed to me ten thousand dollars.”

“Was not this a strange bequest to a casual acquaintance?”

“Oh, we were more than casual acquaintances. I have known Miss Carrington for two or three months.”

“Which? two or three?”

“Perhaps nearer two,” and the Count showed a slight embarrassment.

“Do your friends often leave you large sums of money on such short acquaintance?”

“It has never happened before,” and now the Count’s dignity was touched and he spoke shortly and coolly.

“Then, of course, it struck you as peculiar,” and Stone’s smile assumed an acquiescence.

But the Count returned: “Not at all. Miss Carrington was an unusual woman, and I never expected her behavior to be entirely conventional. When she told me of this I was simply and honestly grateful, as I should have been to any one who showed me such a kindness.”

“You were glad to get the money, then?”

“Yes, indeed!” the Count exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, then realizing his slip, he hastily added: “that is, I was glad of the knowledge that it would come to me some day. Surely I did not want the lady to die, that I might receive it, but I was pleased to know she thought enough of me to make the direction.”

“What did she mean by saying ‘Tomorrow all will be different’?”

“That I do not know. Could she have meant—”

“She did say it, then? You admit she said it to you?”

Breathlessly, Fleming Stone waited the answer. Miss Carrington had said this to the person who was with her behind her closed door at one o’clock! Could the Count be going to incriminate himself?

“Not to me only. She said it to all who were present. It was while we were playing bridge.”

“She said it again to the man who killed her!”

“Of that I know nothing,” said Count Charlier, politely.

“Bother!” said Fleming Stone, inaudibly.

CHAPTER XV

PAULINE’S PURCHASE

Alone, Fleming Stone wrestled with the problem of the giving of that poison.

The library at Garden Steps had been turned over to him for a study and no one entered the room unless summoned. Stone sat at the mahogany table-desk, but his eyes rested unseeingly on the beautiful fittings of polished silver and glass. On a memorandum block he wrote down the names of possible and probable suspects. To be sure, he thought, every one in the house might be deemed possible, as well as some who were not in the house. But each one must be taken into consideration.

To begin with the most important, Miss Stuart. It was possible that she poisoned her aunt, but so improbable as to make it exceedingly unlikely. True, she was heir to half the fortune, but well-bred, well-nurtured young women do not commit crime to inherit their money sooner. Except for that conversation reported by Anita Frayne, there was not a shred of evidence against Miss Stuart. And Stone did not place implicit confidence in that story of the talk behind closed doors. He had discovered that the two girls were not friendly and he knew Anita capable of making up or coloring a tale to suit herself. Pauline had told him that she was in the hall-window-seat at one o’clock that night and had seen Anita coming from Miss Carrington’s room. Or, to put it more carefully, she had seen her with her hand on the door-knob, in the act of closing the door after her. This Pauline had told to Stone, with an air of such verity and truthfulness that he was fain to believe her. However, in all honesty, he had to admit to himself, that Miss Stuart could have given the poison in some secret way, had she so desired. The same was true, though, of Miss Frayne, of Haviland and of the various house-servants. But where could any of them get it?

Again there were the Count and Mrs. Frothingham to be considered. In fact, there were too many suspects to decide among, without further evidence.

“Any luck?” Stone asked of Hardy, who came in to report.

“No, Mr. Stone. I’ve raked the drug shops thoroughly, and there’s no trace of a sale of aconitine. It’s practically impossible to buy such a substance. I mean, for the ordinary customer.”

“Yet somebody did.”

“I suppose so. But doesn’t it limit the field of search to realize that it couldn’t have been a servant or either of the young ladies?”

“Why neither of the young ladies?”

“But how could they get it?”

“Why not as well as any one else? And somebody did.”

“Then somebody stole it. Nobody bought it. I’m positive of that, now I’ve learned how impossible it is to make such a purchase. And how could those girls steal it?”

“I don’t know, Hardy, but my point is, why couldn’t they steal it if anybody could? You’re denying their ability to steal the poison, because you don’t want to suspect them. And neither do I, but we must look this thing squarely in the face. Somebody managed to get that aconitine and administer it to Miss Carrington secretly, and it is for us to find out who did it—who could do it, in the face of almost insuperable obstacles. But it is futile to say this one or that one could or couldn’t do it. Now, since you’ve found no trace of the poison sale, let’s start from some other point. Surely, this case, with its unique circumstances, offers many ways to look for evidence. What strikes me most forcibly is the costume of the lady. Not so much the gown—I believe she was fond of elaborate boudoir robes—but the array of jewelry, the glittering scarf and the snake. Most of all, the snake. That, of itself, ought to point directly to the true solution, and I believe it does, only we’re too blind to see it. I’m going to work on that snake clue, and to help, I wish you’d go at once to all the possible shops where it might have been bought. It may not be traceable and then, again, it may. And, the strange fact of her sitting idly before the mirror when she died! Whoever gave her the poison was there on the spot, must have been—for it’s sure enough that she didn’t take it herself, according to the doctor’s statements. Well, if the murderer was right there with her, and she not only made no outcry but continued to look smiling and happy, it was surely some one she knew and in whom she had all confidence. Perhaps this person urged her to eat the sandwich—oh, pshaw, that’s all plausible enough—but, the snake! That’s the bizarre clue that must lead somewhere. And it shall! I’ll ferret out the mystery of that paper snake or my name’s not Stone! Go to it, Hardy! Rake the Japanese shops and department stores, but find out who bought it. It isn’t old. I observed it was fresh and new. Those flimsy paper things show handling mighty quickly. Find out who bought the thing, and we’ve a start in the right direction.”

Hardy went off on his errand and Stone went over to have a talk with Mrs. Frothingham.

The widow was amiable but non-committal. She was highly incensed at the arrest of the Count, but felt confident he would be liberated in a few days. She replied warily to Stone’s questions, but admitted her presence in the house on the fatal evening.

“You see,” she said, in a confidential way, “I was lonely. The Count had gone so often of late to Garden Steps, and I was never invited, that I think I was a little jealous.”

“Of Miss Carrington?” asked Stone, quickly.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Frothingham, frankly; “and of Miss Stuart, and of the Count’s intimacy over there. I had never even been in the house. So I went over there and looked in the windows. I saw them playing cards and later strolling about the rooms. The great door stood a little ajar and I cautiously stepped inside. It was vulgarly curious, but it was no crime. As I stood in the hall I saw some one approaching, and stepped up a few steps of the staircase. It was all so beautiful that I looked at the tapestries and decorations. I remember thinking that if any one challenged me, I should tell the truth, and say that I came in to look, as a neighbor ought to have a right to do.”

“Never mind the ethics of the case, Mrs. Frothingham, stick to facts. Did you go upstairs?”

“No, indeed, only up four or five steps, just to the turn of the staircase.”

“But Mr. Illsley saw you coming down.”

“Only those few steps. He couldn’t have seen me coming from the top of the stair, for I didn’t go up so far.”

“You spoke of being jealous of Miss Stuart. Why?”

“Because Count Charlier is in love with her.”

“With Miss Stuart?”

“Yes; he was making up to Miss Carrington for her money, but he is really in love with Miss Stuart.”

Mrs. Frothingham shook her head doggedly, as if determined to tell this, even though it should redound to the Count’s discredit. And it did.

“Then,” said Fleming Stone, “that adds motive to the theory of the Count’s guilt. If he is in love with Miss Stuart, might he not have been tempted to put Miss Carrington out of the way, that Miss Stuart should inherit the fortune, and be the bride of his choice?”

“Indeed, yes, that is a possibility,” and Fleming Stone saw at last, that this woman either suspected the Count’s guilt or wished to make it appear so.

Again, the sudden thought struck him, suppose she was so jealous of the Count’s attentions to Miss Carrington, that she went to Garden Steps with the intent of killing the lady. Suppose she did go upstairs, although she denied it, and put the poison in the sandwich. Surely, she had opportunity. Surely, she would now deny it.

Fleming Stone sighed. He hated a case where the principal witnesses were women. One never could tell when they were lying. A man, now, was much more transparent and his evidence more easily weighed.

However, if this woman desired to turn suspicion toward Count Charlier, it was either because she suspected him, or was implicated herself. In either case, her word was not worth much, and Stone soon took his leave to hunt a more promising field.

Returning to Garden Steps, he found that Pauline had received a letter from her cousin in Egypt.

“I am afraid,” she said, as she handed Stone the letter to read, “that my cousin Carr will think we are not accomplishing much. Read the letter, Mr. Stone, and if you say so, I will ask Mr. Loria to come home.”

Glad to read the letter from this half heir to the Carrington fortune, Stone took the sheet. It ran:

Dear Polly:

The awful shock of Aunt Lucy’s death leaves me without words to tell you what I feel for you in your dark hours. What can I say in the face of such a horror? I wish I were there with you to help you bear it all. For on you comes the brunt of the publicity and all the harrowing details that must be attended to. If you say so, I will return to America at once. But unless I can be of definite assistance or real comfort to you, personally, I would rather not go over just now. I’m just starting on a wonderful piece of work here. No less than excavating—but I won’t take time to tell of it now. I’ll write you about it later, if I don’t go to you. This is a short note to catch the mail, and reach you as soon as possible. Remember, as I write, I have only your first two cables, and know nothing of details. I eagerly await your letters. Why don’t you follow out your plan of coming over here in February? Leave all business matters in Haviland’s hands, and get away from the scene of the tragedy. Of course, as I cabled Gray, get the best possible detective experts on the case. Spare no expense, and charge all to me. Surely, we want to find and punish the slayer of Aunt Lucy, and I repeat, if you, for any reason, want me to, I will come over at once. Cable, and I will take the next steamer. If you don’t do this, do write me long letters and tell me everything that is happening. Poor Aunt Lucy. I know your life with her wasn’t all a bed of roses, but I know how saddened you are now, and my heart goes out to you. Dear Polly, command me in any way. I am entirely at your service here or there. If you come over here, I advise Haviland to stay there and look after things. I know the bulk of Aunt Lucy’s fortune is divided between you and me, and I want Gray to see to all matters connected with my share. When he gets around to it, he can send me some money to further this work I am engaged on here. But let me know if you want me to come to you. With all loving sympathy and affection,

Carr.

Fleming Stone pondered over this letter. He had felt a certain curiosity concerning this absent cousin, who was heir to half the great fortune, and so would have had a possible motive for a crime that would secure his inheritance to him at once. But there was no possible way of connecting a man in Egypt with a deed committed in the victim’s boudoir. Vague thoughts of Loria’s employing somebody to do the deed for him formed themselves in Stone’s mind, but were soon dismissed as untenable. The man Bates could not be a tool of anybody, and beside, he didn’t kill the lady. The poison did that. The Count couldn’t be a tool of any one. He was too evidently his own master, and whether guilty or not, was entirely on his own initiative. Oh, the whole idea was absurd. The letter itself was sufficient exoneration for Loria. He was absorbed in his research work and though thoughtful enough of Pauline’s wishes, he was apparently not anxious to have his plans over there interrupted. He wrote like a good all round chap, and Fleming Stone could find no peg on which to hang a suspicion in his case.

“A good letter,” he commented, returning it to Pauline; “what’s your cousin like?”

“In looks? A little like me, but bigger and darker. He’s a fine-looking man, and a kind-hearted one. I shall advise him not to come home, for I know how interested he is in his work, and he can do no good here. Can he, Mr. Stone?”

“Frankly, Miss Stuart, I don’t see how he can. I may as well admit to you, the case seems to me a most baffling one. The assault with the black-jack is, of course, accounted for, but we have made no progress in the matter of discovering the poisoner. I feel that the solution of the mystery is closely connected with that paper snake. Can you give me any idea where the thing could have come from? Do you think Miss Carrington bought it herself?”

“I am sure she did not,” returned Pauline, but her voice and intonation were such that Stone turned quickly to look at her. She had gone pale, and her eyes looked frightened. “Oh, no,” she went on, hurriedly, “Aunt Lucy would never buy such a thing. She hated snakes.”

“I know that, but she must have gotten it somewhere. It is easier to think she put it round her throat herself than to think she let some one else do it.”

“Why do you say that?” and now Pauline looked angry. “It is incredible that she should have put that thing round her own neck! What could have induced her to do it?”

“There seems to be no theory to fit the facts,” said Stone, wearily, “so we must try to get some facts that may suggest a theory. You think, Miss Stuart, that you saw Miss Frayne leaving Miss Carrington’s room late that night?”

“I know I saw her with her hand on the door-knob,” returned Pauline steadily, and just then Anita herself burst into the room. “That is a falsehood!” she cried, and her big blue eyes flashed angrily; “how could you see me, when you were yourself in Miss Carrington’s room?”

This was what Stone had wanted, to get these two girls at variance; and he helped along by saying, “Were you, Miss Stuart?”

“Certainly not!” cried Pauline.

“You were!” Anita flung back. “Miss Carrington was talking to you! She said she wished her face was as beautiful as yours! To whom else could she have said that? Surely not to the Count! One doesn’t call a man beautiful. And we all know that Miss Carrington admired your looks and lamented her own lack of beauty.”

“All that applies equally well to yourself,” and Pauline gazed steadily at the blonde beauty of Anita. “Why wasn’t all that speech addressed to your own attractive face, and you repeat it to incriminate me?”

Here was an idea. Stone wondered if it could be that Anita was in the boudoir and to turn suspicion from herself tried to pretend she had heard Pauline in there.

“And she said you were fond of pearls!” went on Pauline. “Your admiration for my aunt’s pearls is an open secret!”

It was. Often had Anita said how much she preferred the soft lustre of pearls to the dazzling sparkle of other gems.

“And she left you ten thousand dollars in her will,” continued Pauline, more as if thinking these things over aloud than as if accusing Anita of crime.

“Wait, Miss Stuart,” cried Stone; “what are you doing? Implying that Miss Frayne had anything to do with the tragedy?”

“I am implying nothing. I am trying to see how far the accusations she makes against me will fit her own case. You remember she said my aunt proposed to leave my share of the fortune to some one else, but Carr’s share must remain untouched. Well, to whom else could she think of giving my share, but to this scheming girl who tried her best to get my portion, but did not succeed?”

Anita struggled to reply, but words would not come. So furious that she could not articulate, she gurgled hysterically, when into the room came Haviland and Hardy. Both looked exceedingly grave, and Gray went at once to Pauline and put his hand kindly on her shoulder. Then he suddenly caught sight of Anita and her evident distress, and leaving Pauline he went over to the other and put his arms gently round her.

“What is it, Anita?” he said. “What has upset you so?”

“Pauline!” was all Anita could say, when she was interrupted by Hardy.

“Let me speak first,” he said, for he saw there was dissension between the two girls. “I have made a discovery. At Mr. Stone’s directions I have been investigating shops where the paper snake might have been bought, and I have learned that one was bought at Vantine’s recently by Miss Stuart.”

“Ah,” said Fleming Stone gravely, “did you buy one, Miss Stuart?”

Pauline hesitated. She was white as chalk, and her lips quivered.

“Of course she did!” screamed Anita, greatly excited; “she did, and she was in there talking to Miss Carrington, just as I said! And she put that thing round her neck to frighten her! And then she gave her the poison, and then she came away and left her to die! All alone by herself! The fiend!”

“There, there, Anita, hush,” and Haviland tried to soothe the frantic exclamation of the girl.

Pauline stood waiting, in silence. At last she said, “When you remove that ranting woman, I will answer your question, Mr. Stone.”

“You’ll answer it now!” cried Anita. “In my presence, and at once.”

“I think you must answer, Miss Stuart,” said Stone, gently. “Did you buy a paper snake?”

“I did,” said Pauline, and added in a low tone, “A long time ago—this can’t be the same one.”

“The date of the sale is about a week before the death of Miss Carrington,” went on Hardy, merciless in his statements.

“For what purpose did you purchase it?” asked Stone, a little sternly.

Pauline now drew herself up, proudly. “I bought it,” she said, in clear, distinct tones, “because my aunt instructed me to get it for her.”

There was a silence; and then, “Oh, come now, Pauline, you can’t expect us to swallow that!” Gray Haviland said, with a tolerant smile at her. “Try again.”

“That’s the truth,” said Pauline, but her voice trembled, and with a half-stifled exclamation of despair, she ran out of the room.

“Stop, Pauline, where are you going?” cried Haviland as he ran after her.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “I’m going to cable Carr to come home! He’s the only one who can help me! You’re so wrapped up in Anita that you can’t tell truth from falsehood. Carr will know what to do—and I shall send for him.”

“Wait, Miss Stuart,” said Fleming Stone, gravely; “you may cable Mr. Loria, if you choose, but for a few moments I must claim your attention. It is, to my mind, of the greatest importance to learn the details of the purchase of that paper snake, and I must ask you to tell us the circumstances of your aunt’s request for it.”

“There is little to tell,” said Pauline, in a hesitant way. “It was one day when I was going over to New York that Aunt Lucy just said, casually, to get her one of those Japanese paper snakes from Vantine’s, and I did.”

“That’s enough!” cried Anita. “Miss Carrington never sent for a snake! never in the world! You’ll be saying next she told you to get her some aconite to poison herself with!”

CHAPTER XVI

THE TWO GIRLS

“Miss Stuart,” and Fleming Stone’s voice, though gentle, had a ring of decision, “if I am to go on with this case, I must insist on your entire confidence, and absolute—” he hesitated over the word, “truthfulness.”

The two were alone. After the altercation between Pauline and Anita, Stone had requested the others to leave them, and he determined to get at the truth of this marvelous statement about the purchase of the snake.

“I understand, and you are quite right,” murmured Pauline, her manner quiet, her tone even, but in the dark eyes raised to his Fleming Stone saw fear—definite, unmistakable fear.

“Then explain, for I am sure you can, why you suppressed the fact of your own purchase of that paper snake until forced to admit it.”

“I was afraid.” The beautiful face was of a creamy pallor and the scarlet lips quivered. But this evident agitation on Miss Stuart’s part did not deter Stone from his probing queries.

“Why were you afraid? Afraid of what?”

“Afraid that if you knew I bought the snake you would think I was in some way connected with—with the crime—”

“But don’t you see that to attempt to conceal the fact of your purchase makes any such suspicion more imminent?”

“You don’t think I would—would—”

“I don’t want to think anything about it, Miss Stuart. I want to know, and I want you to tell me all about your aunt’s strange request for you to buy a thing she so feared and abhorred.”

“I don’t understand it myself. But Aunt Lucy was full of vagaries and would often ask me to buy strange or outlandish things for her.”

“But not of a reptilian nature?”

“No, she had never done such a thing before.”

“Did she give no reason for the request? Make no apology or explanation?”

“No. I was just leaving her, when she called me back, and said, ‘Won’t you stop in at some Japanese shop, and get me a paper snake?’ and I exclaimed in surprise at the request. Then she lost her temper and said she supposed she knew what she wanted and for me to get it without further to-do. So I did.”

“And when you brought it to her?”

“She merely took it and laid it in a desk drawer, without even unwrapping the parcel. I never saw it again till I saw it round her neck.”

“And you do not think she placed it there herself?”

“I am sure she did not. The only reason I can ascribe for her wanting it, is that she might have thought her dread of them a foolish whim and determined to accustom herself to the sight of them by means of the harmless toy. That’s all I know about that snake, Mr. Stone. But the truth, as I have told it to you, is so strange, so almost unbelievable, that I knew it would only serve to attract suspicion to me, so I denied it. You know Miss Frayne is only waiting to pounce on it as complete evidence of my guilt.”

“You and she are not good friends?”

“We have never been really friendly, though always polite on the surface of things. But she is jealous of me, and tried in every possible way to undermine my aunt’s faith and trust in me, and even plotted to have me disinherited and my fortune bequeathed to herself.”

“An ambitious plan!”

“She is ambitious. She intends to marry Mr. Haviland, and she intended to have my half of the Carrington money.”

“You don’t suspect her of the crime!” and Fleming Stone looked up quickly.

“Suspect is too strong a word. But to me there seems room for grave inquiries. I was in the hall at the time she declares I was in my aunt’s room—”

“Wait a moment, Miss Stuart, isn’t this a sort of deadlock? You say you were in the hall, Miss Frayne says you were in the boudoir. Why should I believe one in preference to the other?”

There was infinite sadness in Pauline’s eyes as she looked at her questioner. “That is so,” she said, slowly; “why should you? I have only my unsupported word. Nor has Anita any witness. But, Mr. Stone, I thought a Detective always looked first of all for the motive. What reason could I have for—for killing my aunt?”

“You put it plainly, Miss Stuart, and I will reply in an equally straightforward vein. The first thing we detectives think of is, who will benefit by the crime? Naturally, money benefit is first thought of. The greatest money benefit comes to you and your cousin in Egypt. The nature of the crime makes it impossible that he could have committed it. There is, however, a possibility of your own connection with it, so we must question you. But there are others who benefit in a pecuniary way by the death of Miss Carrington, so they too must be questioned. You surely see the justice and the necessity of all this investigation?”

“Oh, yes, and it seems to me also justice that you investigate the story of Miss Frayne. She, too, has only her own unsupported word as to that conversation she relates. May she not have made it all up?”

“She has a witness, Miss Stuart, a credible witness. Mr. Haviland has told me that he saw Miss Frayne at the door of the boudoir at about quarter past one.”

“Gray saw her! He didn’t tell me this. Mr. Stone, I hate to speak ill of another woman, but Miss Frayne can really wind Gray Haviland round her finger, and I have no doubt she has persuaded him to give this evidence, whether—”

“Whether it is true or not?”

“Yes, that is what I meant, though I hated to say it.”

“Miss Stuart, it is often hard to tell when a man speaks the truth, but I have no reason to disbelieve Mr. Haviland’s statement. He told quite circumstantially of being up and down all night. He was restless and wandered about in several rooms during the small hours. You know he told of seeing the maid on the stairs. And he gives me the impression of a truthful witness who would not lie outright, even at the behest of a woman in whom he is interested.”

“Then they are going to suspect me?” Pauline’s voice was so full of despair that Fleming Stone caught his breath as he looked at her. Her great eyes were wide with fear, her hands were clenched and her whole body tense with horrified suspense.

“Give me some good reasons why you can not be suspected,” he cried, eagerly leaning forward in his chair. “Give me some proof that you were in the hall at that moment, or that you were in your own room, or—”

“That proves, Mr. Stone, that you do suspect me! Your assumption that I could have been in my own room shows that you do not believe I was in the hall—as I was.”

“Then why didn’t Miss Frayne see you there?”

“How do you know she didn’t? Why do you accept her words as truth, yet disbelieve mine?” Pauline had risen now and stood before him. Her tall slimness, her wonderful grace and her beautiful, angry countenance made an alluring picture. “I was not in favor of your taking this case, Mr. Stone, and I am even less so, now, that you refuse to believe what I say! I shall cable at once for my cousin to return. I do not wish Gray Haviland and Anita Frayne to arrange all this to suit themselves. I am mistress here, in Mr. Loria’s absence, and if my authority is doubted I want him here to stand up for me!”

“Just a moment, Miss Stuart. You are not entirely just to me. It is necessary for me to question you, but you must see that your innocence—of which I have no doubt—will be more easily established by a policy of frankness on your part, than by futile anger toward Miss Frayne or Mr. Haviland. The incident of the paper snake, as explained by you, is not necessarily incriminating, and if you will wait a few days before calling your cousin home, I think very likely you will prefer not to do so. I understand that you do not wish him to come home, unless he can be of assistance to you?”

“Yes, that is his desire, to stay over there unless I want him. But, Mr. Stone,” and now the lovely face was almost smiling, “if you mean what you said, that you do not doubt my innocence, then I will not send for Mr. Loria. I am content to let it all rest in your hands.”

The girl’s beauty now was dazzling. Color showed in her cheeks, her eyes shone, and the curve of her exquisite red lips was almost a smile. Stone looked at her in amazement. He had spoken truly, he had not doubted her innocence, but this sudden elation on her part puzzled him. What did it mean? Only, as she meant it to seem, that if he believed in her innocence it could be easily proved? Well, he would accept that diagnosis of her attitude, but he would move warily. This case was unlike any other he had ever engaged in, so he must attack it in a different way. And first of all, he must decide which of these two women was speaking the truth. Yet, how could he decide? If Pauline had been in that room when Anita listened at the door, she would, of course, try to prove that she was elsewhere. But, in such a case, why not say she was in her own room? It wasn’t plausible that she should confess to being in the hall, if she were really in the boudoir. That, then, was in Pauline’s favor. But the conversation detailed by Anita? That must be further analyzed.

These thoughts flew through Stone’s quick-moving brain as he stood looking at his beautiful hostess.

“Puzzling it out, Mr. Stone?” and Pauline’s smile was a full-fledged one now; “perhaps I can help you. If you’ll accept my assistance without doubting my word, I’m sure we can do wonders in a detective way.”

This was not in Pauline’s favor. It was too much like bargaining with him to believe her innocent. Then, too, though all unconscious of it, Stone was influenced by the wonderful charm of the girl. Though her lips were smiling a little, her great dark eyes still held that look of fear, that hunger for protection, that desire for some one on whom to lean.

“And I won’t send for my cousin just yet,” she went on. “It’s too bad to call him home when he’s so busy over there. You know, Mr. Stone, that Mr. Loria is a wonderful man. His achievements in excavation have brought him fame and glory. And you mustn’t think he’s heartless because he doesn’t return at once. You know it was all arranged for us to go over there next month and he had made all sorts of plans for us and for himself. He can’t leave his work at a moment’s notice, unless, as he says, I have need of him.”

“Was he fond of his aunt?” inquired Stone, casually.

“He was her idol. To Aunt Lucy the sun rose and set in Carr. She was perfectly crazy to go on this trip to Egypt, in order to be with him. He was fond of her, yes. More so than I was, because she was always kind and good-natured to him, while she was always unpleasant to me.”

“Why was she?”

“I don’t know. Well, I suppose I may as well tell you, one reason was because she was always envious of any one whom she considered better-looking than she was herself. This may sound strange to you, Mr. Stone, but it was the key-note of my aunt’s existence. She adored beauty in every way—pictures, clothes, everything—but she was so sensitive about her own plainness, that a younger or prettier face made her, at times, irritable and even cruel. She would never engage a servant with any pretensions to good looks. Therefore, as she chose to consider Miss Frayne and myself of comely personal appearance, she was unkind to us both.”

“And Mr. Loria? Is he not handsome?”

“Oh, yes, very. But Aunt Lucy liked handsome men. Carr Loria is like a picture. His father was of Italian descent, and Carr has the clear olive skin and dark beauty of that race. Gray Haviland is good-looking, too, but it was only feminine prettiness that stirred up Aunt Lucy’s ire.”

“Why did she ever engage such an angel-face as Miss Frayne?”

Fleming Stone watched closely for a sign of irritation at this speech, and saw it. Pauline’s smile faded, and she said, abruptly:

“Do you think her so beautiful?”

“She has the perfect blonde fairness usually typified by the celestial white-robed creatures on the old canvases.”

“Yes, Anita is a perfect example of a blonde. Why, she is the daughter of an old school-mate of my aunt’s, and so that’s why Aunt Lucy took her, and then she proved such an efficient secretary and such a patient, meek thing to scold, that she kept her position.”

“Miss Frayne doesn’t seem so extraordinarily meek to me.”

“No, indeed! She’s not meek at all. But she always was to Miss Carrington. That, of course, to keep the position, which was both easy and lucrative. Easy, that is, except for my aunt’s temper. That was vented on poor Anita, morning, noon and night.”

“That, then, might give us a motive for Miss Frayne’s desire to be rid of her cruel mistress and to get the inheritance that she knew would come to her at Miss Carrington’s death.”

Pauline shuddered. “I can’t think of such a thing, Mr. Stone, but, if anybody in this house is to be suspected of the awful thing, it can be no one but Anita. She tried, I know, to supplant me in my aunt’s affection, and to have my inheritance, or part of it, transferred to herself.”

“You know this?”

“Yes. For some time she has been making insinuations and telling my aunt tales about me—untrue ones—that would make Aunt Lucy angry at me. I tell you this, Mr. Stone, because I want you to know Anita Frayne as she really is.”

There was the ring of sincerity in the tone, there was a look of truth in the big, dark eyes, and there was a most appealing expression on the lovely face that gazed into his own, but Fleming Stone turned from the speaker with a polite but decided gesture of dismissal, saying, “Please ask Miss Frayne to come here a few moments.”

CHAPTER XVII

THE OVERHEARD CONVERSATION

Awaiting the arrival of Anita Frayne, Stone thought rapidly. Forming his judgments, as always, more by impressions than by words, he found himself believing in Pauline Stuart. She had bought the paper snake, she had lied about it, but many women would have done the same. Knowing that the purchase of the toy meant definite suspicion, wouldn’t any innocent girl have feared and dreaded that exposure? If she had been guilty, she would scarcely have dared deny the facts of buying it, lest it be proved against her, and make matters worse. Again, it was impossible to connect that magnificent woman with crime! If she were connected with it, it could only be as the criminal herself. There was no theory that admitted of her being an accomplice, or a tool. Stay, there was that Loria man. Stone couldn’t rid himself of a vague idea of implicating the distant nephew by means of an accomplice on the spot. But the notion was not logical. If Pauline had killed her aunt under her cousin’s instructions, she was just as much a murderer as if she had done it entirely of her own initiative. And if the two cousins had conspired or worked in collusion, it was Stone’s duty to fasten the deed on Pauline, as the available one of the pair. Stone ran over in his mind the letter from Loria. It gave no hint of greed or cupidity in his nature. He was engrossed in the pursuit of his hobby, archæology, and was only willing to leave his work if that would definitely please his cousin, on whom, he fully appreciated, the responsibilities of the occasion would fall. He fully trusted Gray Haviland to look after all business affairs, so he was not a suspicious or over-careful nature. He asked no immediate money and only desired some, in the course of time, to further his work. Whatever might be the truth, there was no reason to cast a glance of suspicion toward Carrington Loria. His opinion of Pauline’s possible guilt Stone held in abeyance, and Miss Frayne entering, he greeted her with punctilious politeness and a confidential air, tending to put her at ease.

“Miss Frayne,” he began, “the situation is a grave one. I am forced to the conclusion, tentatively at least, that Miss Carrington was deliberately poisoned by some one in her own household. It may have been a servant, but it is difficult to imagine how or why a servant could accomplish the deed. At any rate, I must first consider the members of the family, and in so doing, I must request absolute truth and sincerity from all.”

“I’m sure I’ve no reason to equivocate, Mr. Stone,” and Anita’s voice was almost flippant. “All I’ve told about what I heard at Miss Carrington’s door is absolutely true, and I can repeat it word for word.”

“It seems strange you have it so accurately at your tongue’s end.”

“Not at all. I went to my room and wrote it down as soon as I heard it. I often make such memoranda. They are frequently useful later.”

Fleming Stone mused. This seemed a strange thing to do, at least in view of the later events, but then, if Miss Frayne had been the guilty one, and had made up all this story of overheard conversation, surely she would not have done anything so peculiar as to make that detailed memorandum; or if she did, would not have told of it.

“I have, of course, a copy of that memorandum,” continued Stone; “what I want is for you to tell me again why you think it could not have been entirely a soliloquy on the part of Miss Carrington.”

“For two reasons. First, I have lived with the lady for four years, and never have I known her to talk to herself or soliloquize aloud. Of course, this does not prove that she never did so, but I know it was not her habit. Second, nobody in soliloquy ever would use that definite intonation which is always used in speaking to a person. You know yourself, Mr. Stone, that a soliloquy is voiced slowly, mumblingly, and usually in disjointed or partially incoherent sentences. The talk I heard was in clear concise speeches unmistakably addressed to somebody present. She could not in a soliloquy use that direct form of address, even if talking to some one in her imagination. She would not keep it up, but would go off in a reverie or drop into impersonal thought. I wish I could make this more clear to you.”

“You do make it clear, Miss Frayne. I know just what you mean. I quite agree that one could easily tell the difference between a spoken soliloquy and remarks addressed to a hearer. But you heard no replies?”

“None at all. But I hold that is not peculiar, for while Miss Carrington’s voice was especially high and carrying, an ordinarily low voice would not be audible through that closed door. You can prove that by simple experiment.”

“I have,” said Fleming Stone. “I have tried it, and as you say, an ordinary voice in a low tone is not audible. But Miss Carrington’s must have been raised unnecessarily, to allow of its being heard.”

Stone watched Anita’s face as she listened to this. But she only replied, with a shrug of indifference, “I can’t say as to that. I heard every word clearly, that’s all I can tell.”

“Suppose she had been talking to a picture of some one, say a photograph of Miss Stuart or of Mr. Loria, or of Count Charlier, would her tone of voice then be explicable?”

“Perhaps. But she would have had to imagine vividly the person there before her. And, again, Miss Carrington had no such photographs in her rooms. All her family photographs are in this library, in frames or cases. She was methodical in such matters. She has series of pictures of Miss Stuart and of Mr. Loria from their childhood to now, but they are all in order in the cases over there.” Anita made a slight motion of her hand toward a mahogany cabinet. “No, Mr. Stone, whomever or whatever Miss Carrington was talking to, it was not a photograph of any of her relatives or friends. As you know, there was none discovered in her room, so what could she have done with it?”

“That’s true, Miss Frayne. But hasn’t the theory of a living person in there also inexplicable points? If somebody was there, it was, of course, some one well known and whose presence in the house was unquestionably correct. But her remarks, as I read them from your notes, imply different auditors. Granting for a moment that Miss Stuart was there, why would Miss Carrington say, ‘Henri, Henri, you are the mark I aim at’?”

“I admit that must have been a soliloquy, or an apostrophe to the man she wanted to marry, though he was not present.”

“You have no thought, then, that Count Charlier was present?”

“Certainly not! The idea is absurd. Miss Stuart was in there with her aunt, and I’m sure it was some remark of Pauline’s, which I, of course, did not hear, that made Miss Carrington speak of the Count as if to him.”

“How, then, do you account for the presence of Count Charlier’s glove?”

“Miss Stuart put it there as a blind.”

“And how did Miss Stuart get it?”

“Easily. The Count had been spending the evening here. He may have left his glove by mistake—or—”

“Or——?”

“Or Pauline may have abstracted it purposely from his coat-pocket during the evening with a prearranged plan to do all just as she did do.”

“Miss Frayne! you can’t mean to assert your belief that Miss Stuart so far planned the crime as to intend to cast suspicion on Count Charlier by means of that glove!”

“Why not? If Pauline Stuart is responsible for her aunt’s death, I assure you, Mr. Stone, she is quite clever enough to prearrange all details, and to plan so adroitly that suspicion should fall on some one else. Miss Stuart is far more crafty and deep than you can have any idea of! I have known her for four years, and I can tell you she is far from ingenuous!”

“Suppose we leave the question of Miss Stuart out of the discussion, and continue our first line of thought. Had Miss Carrington ever spoken to you of changing her will?”

As was his frequent experience, Fleming Stone’s quick question caught his witness unaware, and she stumbled a little in her speech, as she replied: “N—no. Why should she?”

“Only because her frequent quarrels with Miss Stuart might have made her wish to leave less of her fortune to her niece. And in the conversation you overheard, Miss Carrington touched on this subject.”

“Yes, she did. But except for that reference, spoken to her unknown companion, I have never heard anything of such an intention on her part.”

“You’re fond of pearls, Miss Frayne?”

“Oh, I know what you’re getting at now. That speech Miss Lucy made about fondness for pearls. Of course, I am. Who isn’t? I often told Miss Carrington that I admired her pearls far more than all her diamonds or other glittering stones. But I wouldn’t commit a crime for all the pearls in the world! And, if I had, why didn’t I steal the pearls?”

Anita’s voice rang out triumphantly as she put this question, but Fleming Stone said quietly: “I haven’t accused you of crime, Miss Frayne, but since you ask that, let me remind you, that if the crime were done with intent of robbery, the reason that the robbery was never accomplished is the same that kept the man Bates from stealing. Few people can bring themselves to take valuables from a dead body. However, I cannot think the poisoning was done with any idea of direct robbery, but for the gain that would come by the bequests of the will.”

“Then your search is limited by the list of inheritors?”

“It is, Miss Frayne.”

“Then, Mr. Stone, how can you overlook or undervalue the weight of evidence against Pauline Stuart? Remember, she bought that snake herself. Miss Lucy never told her to buy it, never in this world! Pauline feared her aunt would disinherit her—”

“How do you know that?” the question was shot at her, and Anita fairly jumped as she heard it.

“Why—why, you know I heard reference made to it that night when—”

“When you overheard that conversation; yes, go on.” Fleming Stone had gained his point, which was to prove that Anita did know of the proposed change in the will before that time, and to his own belief he had proved it.

“Yes, I cannot doubt now that Pauline knew her aunt intended to change her will, and so she was so desperate at the idea of losing her fortune, she—I cannot bear to put it in words—”

“She poisoned the lady,” said Fleming Stone, very gravely.

“Yes.” Anita’s voice choked, but she enunciated the word. “Mr. Stone, you must think me dreadful to hold these suspicions, but you asked me to be frank—”

“And I wish you to be so. I am here, Miss Frayne, to discover the poisoner of Miss Carrington. It is my duty to get all possible light on the matter from any one I can. It is the duty of those whom I question to tell all they know, truthfully and straightforwardly. If these truths implicate or seem to implicate a member of the household, none the less must the investigation be carried on and the case be pushed to its inevitable conclusion. The great danger lies in mistaking opinions or imaginations for facts. Now you are telling facts as to the words you overheard, but you are giving only opinions as to whom those words were addressed.”

“That is so,” and Anita’s gaze was a wondering one. “But, Mr. Stone, since the fact of that person in the room is undiscoverable, one can’t help forming an opinion. Haven’t you one?”

“I have.”

“Oh, what is it?”

“I think those words were spoken to some inanimate object, not to a person. Suppose the remark thought to be said to Count Charlier was addressed to his glove, which she was undoubtedly holding at the time.”

“I never thought of that, because I have assumed that Pauline put that glove in her hand after—after it was all over, to implicate the Count. And, any way, that’s only that one remark—or two. To what inanimate object was she talking when she said ‘To-morrow all these jewels may be yours’?”

“That I cannot answer. That whole conversation is most mysterious.”

“Indeed it is, Mr. Stone, under any other hypothesis than that of the presence of Pauline Stuart in her aunt’s room at the time!”

“May I come in?” and Gray Haviland’s good-natured face appeared, as he knocked and opened the door almost simultaneously.

“Yes,” said Stone, “and I will ask you, Miss Frayne, to leave us. I am getting to work in earnest now, and I want to push things a little.”

Stone watched the effect of this speech on Anita and was not surprised to see her look at him with startled eyes, as she unwillingly went through the door he held open for her.

“What’s doing?” asked Haviland, in his breezy way; and Stone replied, frankly: “Lots. Those two girls are sworn foes, aren’t they?”

“Of late they have seemed to be. The break came a month or more before Miss Carrington died. Two beauties never can remain friends.”

“They are both beautiful women,” agreed Stone. “Which do you think had a hand in the tragedy?”

“Good Lord! Neither of them! What are you talking about? That Count man is responsible for the whole thing, Bates and all.”

“I know you think so, Mr. Haviland, but I can’t agree with you. Now, look here, we’ve got to face things squarely. Take the story Miss Frayne tells, about that mysterious conversation. If it were all a figment of her brain—”

“What! Man, you’re crazy! Anita Frayne make that all up out of the solid! Never, in a thousand years! If she said that talk was talked, it was talked, and that’s all there is about that! Why or by whom it was talked, is another matter, and as I understand it, that’s what you’re here to find out. And, between you and me and the arc light, I don’t believe you ever will find out.”

“No?”

“No! And this is no aspersion on your powers. I believe that fool Count was in there, and as he’ll never admit it, and you’ll never believe it, how can it be proved?”

“Never mind that, now. Prepare yourself, Mr. Haviland, for some unwelcome questions. You don’t want to, but I must insist on your answering them. Which do you consider the more truthful and honest of the two young women I’ve just been talking to?”

“Nixie! You can’t get an answer to that question out of me! Why, I’d be a cad to say anything but that they are both impeccably truthful and honest.”

“So you would, in ordinary circumstances. But you must realize, Mr. Haviland, that I’m here for the definite purpose of solving the mystery of a terrible crime, and I can only do it by inquiry and investigation. If you really refuse to help me I must learn what I want to know in other ways.”

“But, hang it, man,” and Haviland, impressed by Stone’s manner, considered the question; “I do think they’re both truthful—that is, one of them—Oh, I can’t say it! I can’t talk against a woman!”

“You’ll be obliged to tell all you know, sooner or later. If you tell me now, I truly believe it will be better all round.”

“Well, then—now wait, I’ve got to think this thing out; I believe—why, blessed if I don’t believe either of them would lie if she was in a tight place! There! you’ve made me say a nice, honorable thing, haven’t you?” and Haviland looked utterly disgusted with Stone and with himself too.

CHAPTER XVIII

FLED!

The days went by, leaving the mystery unsolved. Count Charlier was released from custody, there not being sufficient evidence to hold him. Bates was in jail awaiting the action of the Grand Jury, but it was recognized that he was not the murderer of Miss Carrington.

Search for the poisoner had so far been fruitless, and the newspapers were clamoring for the arrest of somebody. But the Police Detectives were at their wits’ end, and even Fleming Stone was baffled.

For hours, Stone sat thinking over the many peculiar features of the case. It was not in embarrassment that he felt himself unable as yet to trace the criminal, it was rather with a sensation of curiosity that he wondered what point he had overlooked. There must be some clue, some definite indication of what way to look, but so far he had not perceived it.

So interested was he in the search that he took no note of the passing of time or the growing impatience of those who watched him.

“It’s this way, Hardy,” he would say to the younger detective, “the mystery centres about that paper snake. When we find out the reason for Miss Carrington’s sending for that thing, we’ve the whole story.”

“You believe, then, that she did send for it?”

“Of course; why not?”

“We’ve only Miss Stuart’s word for that; and it doesn’t seem as if Miss Carrington would—”

“Nonsense! It doesn’t seem, you mean, as if Miss Stuart would—Why, man, what possible sense could there be in Miss Stuart’s buying that snake on her own account? If she set out to poison her aunt—which she didn’t—she could have managed it in a dozen ways without lugging in that paper reptile. In fact, it never would have occurred to her to do so. Why would she do it?”

“In an attempt to frighten the lady to death?”

“Rubbish! The first effect of such a fright would be a fearful outcry on Miss Carrington’s part, and immediate discovery of the plot. Moreover, if Miss Stuart bought that snake for any such purpose, she would have bought it secretly; at some little, obscure shop, not at a well-known emporium. No, sir, the snake is the key to the puzzle, but how? That is the question. You see, the doctors are pretty sure that the thing was put round the lady’s neck before she died. Therefore she was either unconscious at the time, or—she was willing.”

“Never! Everybody says her fear of the things would never let her have it put on her willingly.”

“I know they say so, but they may be mistaken. I’m beginning to evolve a theory that will fit the facts, queer as they are. But my theory needs a whole lot of other facts to back it up, and those facts I can’t seem to find.”

“Does your theory implicate Miss Stuart?”

“It does not.”

“I thought not.”

“You thought quite right. It does not implicate Miss Stuart, because she is in no way responsible for her aunt’s death. But she may have knowledge, or she may think she has, that is leading her to shield somebody else.”

“Whom?”

“I don’t know. She is rather a puzzling creature. Is she—is she in love with that cousin of hers?”

“Haviland?”

“No, the one in Egypt.”

“Oh, Loria. I don’t know, I’m sure. You read his letter to her, it wasn’t in any sense a love-letter.”

“No, but it was evidently a letter written with the idea of other people reading it, because of the circumstances. Of course, he wouldn’t put any intimate talk in it. And it was typewritten, so I couldn’t judge anything of the man from his chirography.”

“Does handwriting mean much to you?”

“Yes, indeed. It is a wonderful expression of character. But I don’t suppose it would declare his adoration of a lady, unless he put it in words also.”

“You don’t connect Loria with the crime in any way, do you?”

“I don’t see how I can, unless in collusion or through the assistance of Miss Stuart. And I’m not ready to do that. I’m working now on that conversation overheard by Miss Frayne.”

“You accept that whole, then?”

“Yes, for the simple reason that she would not have invented all that talk. Even if she were in the room herself, and the remarks were addressed to her, she might be trying to lay the blame elsewhere; to create that conversation out of her own brain is too preposterous. You see, Hardy, these things must be weighed in the balance of probability. If Miss Frayne had set out to invent a lot of stuff which she merely pretended to overhear, she would have had two sides to the conversation. It is that unusual effect of one voice only that gives her story the stamp of truth.”

“But there must have been another voice, even though inaudible to her.”

“That’s just the point. There may have been—probably was. But if the story was her own invention, she never would have thought of representing that second voice as inaudible. Now, either she did hear Miss Carrington say those things, or she didn’t. I believe she did, because if she hadn’t, she must have invented the tale, and if she had invented it, it would have been different. Likewise, Miss Stuart’s snake story. If it were not true that her aunt asked her to buy that snake, Miss Stuart must have made up that yarn. And if she had made it up, it would have been different. That’s always my test for the truth of an amazing statement. If the teller were falsifying, would he tell it that way? If so, then it is probably a lie: if not, then probably it is a true bill. Now they say Miss Carrington had a high, shrill voice. Did you ever hear it, Hardy?”

“No. I never knew the lady. But I’ve heard a record of it on the phonograph, and it is high, and rather thin.”

“On the phonograph? How does that happen?”

“Gray Haviland is a dabster at that sort of thing, and he has people sing for him and make records frequently. And once I heard that they had a record of the dead woman’s singing, and I asked to hear it, merely out of curiosity or a general interest. And it contained some spoken words too, and her speaking voice is high and shrill, just such as would carry through a closed door. You can, of course, hear the record, if you care to.”

“I do care to. I’ll make a note of that. Now, here’s another thing. Miss Stuart has declared that she obliterated a footprint which was noticeable in that powder scattered by the dressing-table.”

“Yes, I know it. And Haviland states that it was he who wiped out that print! What do you make of that?”

“That Haviland did do it, and Miss Stuart fibbed about it to shield Haviland.”

“Oh, so it’s Haviland you think Miss Pauline is shielding?”

“I think it may be; at any rate, she suspects some one dear to her and—”

“You’re ’way off, Mr. Stone! If you’ll excuse my saying so, Miss Stuart has pulled the wool over your eyes until you don’t know where you’re at.”

Fleming Stone gasped. Pulled wool over his eyes! Over the eyes, the gimlet eyes, the all-seeing eyes of Fleming Stone! What could the man mean? And this so-called wool pulled by a woman! What unheard-of absurdity!

“Mr. Hardy—” he began.

“Yes, yes, I know. Nothing of the sort, and all that. But it’s true, Mr. Stone. Miss Stuart is a siren from Sirenville. She can make any man think black is white if she chooses. And she has been bullied and cowed by that old aunt of hers for years, and for my part, I don’t blame her for getting to the end of her rope. If she—”

“Stop! Mr. Hardy, I know you think you’re right, but you are not! Do you hear, you are not! And I’ll prove it to you, and that soon! I’ll ferret out this thing, and I’ll do it on this new theory of mine whether you believe it or not!”

Hardy looked at the man in amazement. He had expected a different mode of procedure from this talented sleuth. He had looked for a quiet, even icy, demeanor, and magical and instantaneous solution of all mystery. And here was the great man, clearly baffled at the queerly tangled web of evidence, and, moreover, caught in the toils of a woman whom Hardy fully believed to be the criminal herself.

But he only said quietly, “What way does your theory point, Mr. Stone? I may be able to help you.”

“You can’t, Hardy, because you’re so determined to find Miss Stuart guilty that you couldn’t see it as I do. You consider the strange features of this case—and Lord knows they are strange!—separately, whereas they must be looked at as a whole. The gown, the quantity of jewelry, the smiling face, the glove, the overheard conversation—all these points are to be considered as of one import—as leading to one conclusion. And you think of them as implicating—separately, mind you—Miss Stuart, Miss Frayne, and the noble Count. Now, all those queer points are not only connected, but identical in their significance. But never mind that. Here’s the place to begin. Miss Carrington was poisoned. She didn’t poison herself. Who did?”

“Mr. Stone, you have put it tersely. I entirely agree that all we are seeking is the answer to that last question of yours.”

“I will yet give it to you,” and Fleming Stone spoke solemnly rather than boastingly. “The poison, the aconitine, was taken by Miss Carrington as she sat there at her own dressing-table. She took it willingly, smilingly—”

“Yes, because she didn’t know she was taking it. When she ate the sandwich—”

“The poison wasn’t in the sandwich. She took that poison in water. The tumbler and spoon that were used are even now on the glass shelf in her bath-room.”

“You know this?”

“I know that in the glass that now stands there a chemist has found a slight trace of aconite. I took the glass myself to be tested, with that result. This is not a great discovery, it merely proves that the poison was administered in water, not in a sandwich.”

“But it also means that it was given to her by some one who could persuade her to take the solution, unquestioningly—not under compulsion.”

“It would seem so.”

“And that points to Miss Stuart.”

“Not necessarily. Hardy, I refuse to discuss these things with you if you avow everything to condemn her. Why does what I have just told you point to Miss Stuart any more than any one else in the house? Why not Miss Frayne? Or Haviland?”

“Pshaw! Nobody suspects Gray Haviland.”

“But why not? If you’re merely suspecting here and there without definite reason, why not include him on your list? And here’s another thing. Whoever mixed that poison in the glass of water, afterward rinsed the glass and returned it to its place in the bath-room? This was either done at the time, that is, before the lady died, or later on, after death had ensued. In either case, it opens up a field of conjecture.”

“It doesn’t with me,” said Hardy, bluntly. “There’s no room for conjecture. It simply piles up the proof against Miss Stuart, and all your skill and even your will can’t get her off.”

A low moan was heard and a sound as of a falling body. Stone sprang to the door, and flinging it open, disclosed Pauline lying on the floor where she had just fallen. With a low exclamation, Stone picked her up and carried her to a couch. In a moment she sat up and cried, “What do you mean, Mr. Hardy? Do you think I killed Aunt Lucy?”

“There, there, Miss Stuart, don’t ask foolish questions,” and Hardy, deeply embarrassed, stood at bay. It was one thing to assert his suspicions to Fleming Stone, and quite another to have them overheard by this beautiful and indignant girl.

“How dare you!” Pauline went on. “I was at the door and I heard all you said. No, I am not ashamed of listening, I’m glad I did. Now I know what I have to fight against! And you, Mr. Stone, do you think me a murderer?”

Pauline cringed not at all. She looked more like an avenging goddess, as she confronted the two men, and her blazing eyes and frowning face challenged their replies.

“I do not, Miss Stuart,” said Stone, quietly, but Pauline responded, “How do I know? If you did, you’d say you didn’t! I have no friend, no one to stand up for me. I shall send for Carr. He will defend me.”

With a disdainful glance round, she left the room. The two men looked at one another.

“Guilty,” said Hardy.

“Never!” said Stone, and then the two went their different ways.

Hardy’s way led to the Police Headquarters, and his report there, which included Stone’s story of the tested glass, was heard with interest.

He demanded Miss Stuart’s immediate arrest, claiming that only she could have persuaded her aunt to swallow the poisoned draught.

Inspector Brunt was not quite willing to order arrest, but he set machinery at work which he hoped would bring decisive results of some sort.

It did.

That same evening, Pauline went to Fleming Stone. The two were alone. Standing before him, in all her somewhat tragic beauty, Pauline asked: “You don’t think me guilty, Mr. Stone?”

He looked deep in the great, dark eyes that seemed to challenge his very soul, and after a moment’s steady glance, he replied, “I know you are not, Miss Stuart.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I hope to.”

“That means nothing. Are you sure you can?”

Fleming Stone looked troubled. Never before in his career had he been unable to declare his surety of success; but with those compelling eyes upon him he couldn’t deny a present doubt.

Shaking himself, as if to be freed from a spell, he said, at last, “Miss Stuart, I am not sure. I am convinced of your innocence, but the only theory of guilt that I can conceive of is so difficult, so almost impossible of proof, and so lacking in plausibility, that it seems hopeless. If determination and desperate effort can do it, you shall be exonerated. But there are many circumstances not in your favor. These I shall overcome, eventually. But, to be honest, until I can get a clue or a link of some sort to join my purely imaginative theory to some tangible fact, I can do little. I am working day and night in my efforts to find this connection I seek, but it may take a long time. Meanwhile—”

“Meanwhile, I may be arrested?” Pauline’s voice was a mere whisper; her face was drawn and white with fear. To Stone she did not look like a guilty woman, but like an innocent girl, frightened at thought of unjust suspicion and terrorized by imagination of the unknown horrors that might come to her.

“Oh, help me!” she moaned, “Mr. Stone, can’t you help me?”

“Pauline!” he exclaimed, taking her hands in his; “Pauline! Go!” he cried, tensely: “I will save you, but until I do, keep away from me! You unnerve me! I cannot think!”

“I understand!” and Pauline slowly drew her hands from his. “I will keep away from you.”

Stone let her go. He closed the door after her, locked it, and threw himself into a chair. What had he done? Full well he knew what he had done. Hardy was right. He had fallen in love with Pauline Stuart! He realized it, quietly, honestly, as he would have realized any incontrovertible fact. His subconsciousness was that of a deep, still gladness; but, strangely enough, his surface thought was that since he had fallen in love with her, so undeniably, so irrevocably, she must be innocent.

Then on the heels of this thought, came another, equally logical: if he deemed her innocent, was it not only because he loved her?

It was only after an hour of deep thought that Fleming Stone pulled himself together and realized with a conquering assurance, that he could go on with the case, and do his duty. If, as he was confident, he could prove his vague theory to be fact, then his love for Pauline would help him to good work and triumphant conclusions. If, instead, his further investigations showed his theory to be false, then he must push on, and if—it couldn’t be, but if—well—he could always drop the case. But—and of this he was certain—his heart should not only be kept from interfering with the work of his head but it should help and encourage such desperately clever work that success must come.

Pauline did not appear at dinner that night, and on inquiry, Stone was told she had gone over to New York for a day or two.

This, then, was what she had meant when she said, “I will keep away from you.”

The next day came District Attorney Matthews to interview Miss Stuart. Her absence from home annoyed him and he asked for her New York address. This no one knew, as she had not informed any of them where she was staying in the city, and Mr. Matthews went off in a state of angry excitement. But the household at Garden Steps was even more excited.

For this was the first sign of a definite action against Pauline. What it meant or how far it would go, no one could say.

And then, that afternoon, came a letter from Pauline herself. It had been mailed in New York that morning and contained the surprising news that Pauline had sailed at noon that day for Alexandria.

“Get her back!” roared Haviland, as he read the letter. “Wireless the steamer and make her get picked up by some incoming ship! Don’t think of expense! She musn’t run off like that! It’s equivalent to confession of the crime!”

“Hush!” demanded Fleming Stone. “How dare you say that?”

“It’s true!” cried Anita. “Why else would Pauline run away? She knew she was on the verge of arrest and she fled to Carr Loria. He will hide her from her pursuers.”

“He can,” said Haviland, thoughtfully: “maybe it’s as well she’s gone there. Of course, she did it.”

“Of course, she didn’t!” and Fleming Stone’s voice trembled in its very intensity. “And I shall prove to a lot of dunder-headed police that she didn’t, but it will make my work much harder if you two insist on Miss Stuart’s guilt. Why do you want to railroad her into conviction of a crime she never dreamed of?”

“Then who did it?” demanded Anita. “To whom was Miss Lucy speaking when she said those things I heard?”

“If you harp on that string much longer,” said Stone, looking at her, “one might almost be justified in thinking she said them to you.”

“No,” said Anita, in a low, awed voice, and looking straight at Fleming Stone, “no, she did not say them to me.”

And Stone knew she spoke the solemn truth.

But she had not spoken the truth when she said she saw Pauline Stuart coming from the boudoir of her aunt.

CHAPTER XIX

LETTERS FROM THE FUGITIVE

Pauline’s flight was deemed by many a confession of guilt. The District Attorney declared his intention of cabling a command to hold her for examination at Alexandria. Or, he said, perhaps it would be better to intercept her course at Gibraltar or Naples.

The people at Garden Steps paid little attention to these suggestions, so absorbed were they in planning for themselves.

“Poor child,” said Haviland, “she ran away in sheer panic. You don’t know Pauline as we do, Mr. Stone; she is brave in the face of a present or material danger. When a gardener’s cottage burned, she was a real heroine, and saved a tiny baby at risk of her own life. But always a vague fear or an intangible dread throws her into a wild, irresponsible state, and she loses her head utterly. Now, I may as well own up that I do think Polly committed this deed. I think that she had stood Aunt Lucy as long as she possibly could, and you’ve no idea what the poor child had to put up with. I think that when Lady Lucy threatened to send Pauline away, homeless and penniless, this panic of fear overcame her and she gave that poison, on an impulse—”

“But,” interrupted Stone, “that would imply her having the poison in readiness. She couldn’t procure it at a moment’s notice.”

“That’s so,” agreed Haviland, thoughtfully; “but, even so, it’s my belief that that’s the way it all happened. How Pauline got the stuff I’ve no idea, but there’s no other explanation that fits the facts. Aunt Lucy’s aversion to drugs or medicines could have been overcome by few people, but Pauline could have wheedled her into taking it by some misrepresentation of its healing qualities or something like that.”

“It must have been under some such misapprehension that she took it,” said Stone. “For I’m convinced she took it dissolved in a glass of water, and therefore, was conscious of the act, though not of the nature of the dose. But couldn’t Miss Stuart have given it innocently by mistake, as a headache powder, or—”

“Miss Carrington never had headaches,” returned Anita, “and, any way, Pauline couldn’t make such a mistake. It isn’t as if Miss Carrington had a medicine cabinet like other people, where drugs might get mixed up. No, Mr. Stone, there was no mistake.”

“You think Miss Stuart administered the poison purposely, to kill her aunt?”

It would have been a brazen soul indeed, that could have spoken falsely under the piercing gleam in Fleming Stone’s eyes then.

“I am forced to think that,” replied Anita, quietly. “And you know I was present when Miss Carrington denounced Pauline and told her to leave this house the next day. And I also heard Miss Carrington when she said, later, that half her fortune should not go to a niece who treated her as Pauline did—”

“Would she have used those words in speaking to Miss Stuart?” asked Stone, pointedly.

“Surely she would. Why not?”

“Never mind all that, ’Nita,” said Haviland. “Polly’s gone—run away—and it’s up to us to do all we can to help her. If her flight means she’s guilty, never mind, we must stand up for her, and deny anything that incriminates her. If she did poison Aunt Lucy, we don’t want her convicted of it. She’ll go straight to Loria, and he’ll look out for her all right. But if we find anybody’s going to head her off at Naples, or anywhere, we must warn her and help her to thwart their plans.”

“Accessory after the fact—” began Stone.

“Sure!” said Haviland. “You bet we’ll be accessories after the fact, to help Polly out! Why, Mr. Stone, if she did this thing, the best possible plan for her was to vamoose, just as she did do. Carr Loria can hide her in Egypt, so nobody can find her, and after a while—”

“Mr. Haviland,” and Stone’s eyes gleamed, “I am surprised at your attitude. How can you so easily take Miss Stuart’s guilt for granted?”

“No other way out. Now, look here, Mr. Stone, neither Miss Frayne nor I did this thing. We weren’t tied to Miss Carrington’s apron strings. We could walk off and leave her if we chose. But Miss Stuart couldn’t. Her life was a perfectly good hell on earth. I know all about it, a lot more, even, than Miss Frayne does. I don’t quite say I don’t blame Polly, but I do say I quite understand it. She is an impulsive creature. She’ll stand an awful lot and then fly all to pieces at some little thing that sets her nerves on edge. She’s clever as the Devil, and if she procured that aconite, long ago, say, it was in anticipation of some time when she—well, when she just reached the limit. And it happened to come that night. That’s all.”

“Wrong, Mr. Haviland, all wrong!” and Stone’s face was positively triumphant. “I’ve found an additional hint, in what you’ve just said, and I’m convinced I’m on the right track! One more question, Miss Frayne, about that conversation you so luckily overheard.”

“Luckily?” said Anita, her great blue eyes showing alarm in their startled gaze.

“Surely! Most fortunate, to my mind. Indeed, it may well be that that carefully exact memorandum of yours may be the means of clearing Miss Stuart of all suspicion. Now, tell me this. You heard only Miss Carrington’s voice, as if speaking to somebody. Did it sound as if she spoke always to the same person, or to more than one at the different times?”

“Well, it did sound as if she spoke to different persons, but it couldn’t have been so. Surely, if there had been more than one I must have heard some other words than her own.”

“Never mind your own surmises. You say, it seemed as if she addressed more than one person. Why?”

“Because she used a different intonation. At times angry, at times loving. But this is only an impression, as I now look back in memory. I haven’t thought about this point before.”

“Nor need you think of it again. You have told me all I want to know, and I assure you it will be of no use for you to mull this over or give it another thought.”

“But I don’t want you to think, Mr. Stone,” and Anita began to cry, “that I want to suspect Pauline—”

“I am not considering your wishes in the matter,” said Stone, coldly. “If you do not want to think Miss Stuart implicated in this matter, your words and actions are unintelligible to me, but they are equally unimportant, and I have neither time nor thoughts to waste on them.”

With this somewhat scathing speech, Stone went away, leaving the angry Anita to be comforted by Haviland.

“What did he mean?” she cried, her cheeks pink with anger, and her blue eyes shining through tears. “Gray, does he suspect me?”

“No, Anita, of course not. But he’s on a trail. Perhaps it wasn’t Polly after all.”

“But it had to be! It was somebody in the house, and it wasn’t you or me or any of the servants.”

“Well, you listen to me, girl. If they quiz you any more about that talkfest you butted into, don’t you color the yarn to make it seem against Polly. I won’t have it!”

“How cross you are! But I never did, Gray. I never made it seem to be evidence against Pauline.”

“You never did anything else!”

“Don’t you love me any more?” and the soft lips quivered as an appealing glance was raised to his face. Her eyes, like forget-me-nots in the rain, were so beautiful, Haviland clasped the lovely face in both his hands, and said as he held it: “I won’t love you, ’Nita, if you go back on our Polly. I’m surprised at your attitude toward her just now, and I warn you I won’t stand any more of it. I’m forced to think she did this thing, but I intend to admit that to nobody but you and Stone. If he can find the real criminal, and it isn’t Polly, I’ll bless him forever. But you know, as well as I do, why he is clinging to that forlorn hope. It’s because he’s—”

“Of course, I know! Because he’s in love with her.”

“Yes; and it’s a remarkable thing for him to fall head over heels in love at first sight, like that.”

“Well, of course, she is handsome,” and Anita’s grudging admission was real praise.

“You bet she is! And old Stone fell for her in a minute! Now there’s the old adage of ‘Love will find a way,’ and if Fleming Stone has any magic ability, or whatever these wizard detectives claim, he’s going to work it to the limit to prove Polly innocent. And I hope to goodness he succeeds. Great Scott! I wouldn’t suspect the girl if there was a glimpse of a gleam of any other way to look. But, you hear me, Anita! Don’t you say a word, true or false, that will help on the case against Pauline Stuart! I won’t stand for it! And don’t you say you saw her coming from that room, when you know you didn’t!”

The postman came just then, and brought with him two letters addressed in Pauline’s dashing hand.

“Well, what do you know about that!” exclaimed Gray, half glad and half scared at the sight. “One for me, and one for F. S. Here, Anita, take Mr. Stone’s to him, while I eat up mine.”

“I won’t do it! I want to see what’s in yours, first,” and Anita stood by Gray’s side to look over his shoulder.

“All right, then,” and they read together:

Dear Gray:

I couldn’t help it. You see, I was so frightened at what you all said, that I didn’t know what to do. I came over to New York, with a vague idea of asking Mr. Price to help me. I stayed with Ethel all night, and somehow things seemed to look so black, I couldn’t think of anything but to go to Carr. I went down to the steamer office to see about changing my tickets for an earlier date, or something, and I found the Catalonia sailed to-day. I’m scratching this off to go back by the pilot. I had about two hours to get ready, so I bought a trunk and some clothes, went to the bank and got a letter of credit, and here I am. I don’t know yet whether I’m glad or sorry to be here. But I know I could not stand it at Garden Steps another minute, with you and Anita both against me! Mr. Stone doesn’t believe I did it, but he is doubtful of being able to prove my innocence, so I’m going to Carr, and you can address me in his care. He’s my nearest relative, and it’s right for me to go there. I cabled him from New York to expect me, and to meet me at Alexandria. I’d write more, but it’s most time for the pilot to go, and I want to send a word to Mr. Stone. Of course, you will look after all my bills and affairs till further notice.

Pauline.

“Good Lord!” said Gray, “Think of that poor child going off like that, because she thought you and I were against her!”

“Well, aren’t you?” asked Anita, an angry gleam in her eyes.

“No! never!” shouted Gray. “If Pauline is guilty a thousand times, I’m not against her! I’m for her, Anita, for her, first, last and all the time! Come on, now, let’s take Mr. Stone his letter.”

They found Stone in the boudoir, the room where the ghastly crime had been committed. He spent many hours here of late; it seemed necessary for the furthering of his theory, and yet, whenever any one was admitted to his presence there, he was found sitting staring at the room and its furnishings, as if waiting for the inanimate objects to speak.

“A letter? From Miss Stuart?” he said, eagerly. “I hoped for one, by the pilot.”

He opened it, and after a glance handed it over to Haviland.

It said, only:

My dear Mr. Stone:

Thank you for your belief in me, and forgive me for running away. And, please—oh, I beg of you, please drop the case entirely. Your further investigation and discovery can only bring sorrow and anguish to my already distracted soul. I have no time to write more, but assume that I have put forth any or every argument that could persuade you, and at once cease all effort to learn who is responsible for the death of my aunt.

Sincerely yours,

Pauline Stuart.

CHAPTER XX

IN THE BOUDOIR

Apparently, Fleming Stone paid little attention to this letter from Pauline. Really, every word engraved itself on his heart, as he read the lines, and when he gave the paper to Gray Haviland, it was only because he knew he would never need to refresh his memory as to the message Pauline had sent him.

Stone also read the letter she had written to Gray, and his deep eyes clouded with pain at some of the lines. But he returned it to Haviland without comment, and then courteously dismissed the pair.

“He’s bothered to death,” said Gray, as they went downstairs.

“So’m I,” responded Anita. “But nobody cares about me, it’s all Pauline—whether she’s a—”

“Let up on that, ’Nita!” and Gray spoke warningly. “Don’t you call Pauline names in my hearing!”

Anita, pouting, flounced away to her own room.

Fleming Stone remained in Miss Lucy Carrington’s boudoir. He sat on a window-seat, and looked out across the wide gardens and the innumerable steps. There was not much snow now. Merely great wind-swept stretches, dotted with evergreen trees, and the carved stone of the terrace railings and balustrades.

Long, Stone mused over Pauline’s letter. For a time, he gave himself up to thoughts of her in which consideration of crime had no part. He knew he loved her, loved her with all the strength and power of his great nature; with all the affection and devotion of his big heart; and with all the passion and adoration of his deep soul. He knew she was not averse to him. Knew almost, with his marvelous power of knowledge, that she cared for him, but he knew, too, that if he let his mind dwell on such alluring thoughts or visions, he could not work. And work, he must. Ay, work as he had never before, with an incentive he had never had before. And Fleming Stone’s mind was troubled to know whether this love for Pauline would help or hinder this work he must do. And he resolved, with all his mighty will-power, that it should help, that he would control this surging emotion, so new to him, and would force it to aid and assist his efforts, and to triumph over all doubts or obstacles.

Again he concentrated his whole mentality on the room and its contents. He swore to wrest from the silent witnesses the story of the crime. This was not his usual method of procedure. On the contrary, he almost invariably learned his points from questioning people, from observing suspects, or quizzing witnesses. But, he realized the difference in essence between this case and any other in which he had ever engaged. He had no more questions to ask. He knew all any one could or would tell him. He knew all the facts, all the theories, all the evidence, all the testimony. And none of it was worth a picayune to him, except negatively. This case must be, and should be, solved by the application of his highest mental powers, by the most intense thought and, doubtless, by most brilliant and clever deduction from hints not facts, from ideas, not visible clues. To work, then! To the work that must bring success!

Leaving the window-seat, Stone walked round the room, and finally drew up in front of the mirror the easy chair in which Miss Carrington had sat when she received the blow given by Bates. Whether she had sat here while taking the poison, no one knew. If Stone’s theory was right, she had not.

By referring to the photographs taken of Miss Carrington after her death, Stone was able to reconstruct the scene correctly.

He placed the easy chair just as it had been when she sat in it. He assumed the position she showed in the photographs, and gazed at himself in the mirror, as she must necessarily have done.

Slowly, he went over that conversation reported by Anita Frayne. Never, for a moment, had he doubted the truth of that report. He was sure Miss Carrington had really said all the things Anita repeated, and the clear and indubitable explanation of those remarks would mean, he was sure, the solution of the mystery.

By way of interviewing his silent witnesses, he endeavored to reconstruct, in thought, Miss Carrington’s movements that night. Pauline and Anita had left her, all three of them angry, at a little after twelve. Later, Estelle had left her—that was about quarter to one. Then she had on her embroidered robe and some jewels. She was not then sitting at the dressing-table. Nor had she then, presumably, taken the poison. For the doctors insisted that she had swallowed the poison very near the hour of one, but after it rather than before, and had placed the hour of her death at two. So, Stone reasoned, Miss Carrington must have taken that aconite at pretty nearly the very time Anita heard her talking. It seemed to Stone incredible that there could have been a person present to whom Miss Carrington could have addressed those remarks, and who could have given or allowed her to take the deadly draught.

The idea that Pauline could have been this person was not among Fleming Stone’s catalogue of possibilities.

Moreover, the fact of the one voice strongly impressed him. Another voice, however low, must have at some point of the conversation risen to an audible sound to a listener with normal hearing. Also, Anita had asserted that the speeches of Miss Carrington did sound as if addressed to different persons. It was not likely there were two or more intruders or visitors there at once, and slowly but surely Fleming Stone decided, once for all, that Miss Carrington was alone in that room at that time. This meant, not exactly soliloquy, the mode of address contradicted that, but it meant, to him, at least, that she was addressing some inanimate object or objects as if they were sentient.

His task was to discover those objects. His first thought was, as he sat in the easy chair before the mirror, that the lady had spoken to her own reflection. But the speeches, of which he had a memorandum, precluded this hypothesis. She would not say to herself “You are so fond of pearls,” or “You have a beautiful face.”

Abandoning that supposition, Stone methodically searched for something that might have been addressed.

Clearly—that is, if he were on the right track—the words “Henri, you are the mark I aim at!” could have been spoken to the Count’s glove, which she held in her hand. In the same vein, assuming that the glove, to her, represented the Count himself, might have been said the speech about the ten thousand dollars, and the remark that he loved pearls.

Accepting these possibilities as facts, Stone went on to discover more. His method was to repeat to himself her very words and strive to see or sense something to which they might have been addressed.

“You have the most beautiful face I ever saw,” he quoted softly and then, scanning the room, went on: “I only wish mine were as beautiful.”

His eyes lighted on the picture of Cleopatra, which hung above the mirror of the dressing-table.

“That’s it!” he cried, with instant conviction. “She looked at that beautiful face and then in the mirror, at her plain features, and she involuntarily cried out for the beauty denied her! Poor woman, to live all her lonely, hungry life, surfeited with wealth yet unable to buy the fairness she craved!”

Not doubting for an instant the truth of his conclusion, Stone checked off that speech and passed on to the next on his list. If he could account for them all, he would be sure Lucy Carrington met her death alone, and therefore by her own hand. Of course, she did not knowingly poison herself, but if persuaded that the prepared draught was some innocent remedy—oh, well, that was aside the point for the moment.

But, quoting the phrase, “To-morrow I shall be forever free from this curse of a plain face—to-morrow these jewels may all be yours,”—even his ingenuity could suggest no meaning but a foreknowledge of approaching death. What else could free her from her hated lack of beauty? What but death could transfer her fortune of jewels to another? Of course it might be that marriage with her would give the jewels to Count Charlier, but the two speeches were consecutive, and the implication was all toward the fate that was even then almost upon her.

The remark about ten thousand dollars was unimportant, as she had recently willed that sum to five different people, and the reference to a change in her will that should cut out Pauline might have been merely a burst of temper. At any rate, Stone ascribed little importance to it then. He felt that he had learned enough to assume positively that Miss Carrington was not talking to a human being when Anita Frayne heard her voice. Then, he conjectured, as the maid was free of all suspicion on the poisoning matter, and as the two girls had left the room at a little after twelve, the weight of evidence was in favor of the poison being self-administered, no matter for what reason or intent. Granting this, there must be some trace of the container of the aconite, before it was placed in the glass. This must be found. If not, it proved its removal by some one, either before or after the poisoning actually occurred.

Eagerly, almost feverishly, Stone searched. Exhaustive search had long ago been made, but again he went over all the possible places. The ornate waste-basket beneath the dressing-table still held its store of dainty rubbish. This had been ordered to remain undestroyed. Stone knew the contents by heart, but in hope of an overlooked clue, he again turned the contents out on a towel. Some clippings of ribbon, a discarded satin flower, two or three used “powder-leaves,” a couple of hairpins and a torn letter were the principal items of the familiar lot. Nothing that gave the least enlightenment.

Stone got up and wandered around. What had that poison been in before it was put in that glass?

The ever-recurring thought that some one might have brought it to the boudoir after preparing it elsewhere, he would not recognize. A sort of sixth sense convinced him that if he kept on looking he must find that clue.

He went into the bedroom. The beautiful appointments, replicas of Marie Antoinette’s, seemed to mock at his quest. “We know,” they seemed to laugh at him, “we know all about it, but we will never tell!”

Untouched since Estelle’s deft hand had turned back its silken coverlets, the bed seemed waiting for some fair occupant. With a sigh at the pathos of it, Stone suppressed an involuntary thought of the incongruity of that gilded, lace-draped nest, and its pitifully unbeautiful owner. There was a profusion of embroidered pillows, and across the satin puff lay a fairy-like night-robe of gossamer texture, and coquettish ribbons. A peignoir of pink crêpe lay beside it, and on the floor a pair of brocade mules waited in vain for feet that would never again slip into their furred linings.

There was nothing helpful here, and with a sigh Stone went on to the bath-room. Fit for a princess, the shining white and gleaming silver showed careful readiness. Embroidered towels, delicate soaps and perfumes were in place—all showed preparation, not use.

“If I were searching traces of Estelle, now,” groaned Stone, despairingly, to himself, “I could find thousands. But Miss Carrington didn’t come in here at all. But, whoever rinsed that glass did!” The thought caused Stone to start with eagerness. It was the fact of the glass being out of line with the other appointments of the wash-stand that had first attracted his attention to it. After the test, the glass had been returned to its place, now in strict position between a silver cup and a flask of violet water.

“Spoon in it,” mused Stone. “Shows carelessness on the part of whoever put it there. Don’t believe a spoon was in a glass, generally, in this celestial bath-room. If—”

His ruminations were cut short by a shock of surprise. Under the wash-stand was a small waste-basket. Had this been overlooked by the searchers? Not surprising, for thorough search had not been made in bedroom or bath-room, as in the room where death had taken place.

Stone mechanically looked over the contents of the little basket. There was only a scant handful of papers. But carefully spreading a towel on the floor he turned the basket upside down. Tremblingly he fingered the papers. The first was the wrapper that had contained a cake of French soap. At a glance, Stone saw the corresponding soap in its silver dish. Estelle had doubtless placed it there, casting away its paper.

But among the scraps was another paper—two more. They were—they surely were in creases like the folds of a powder paper!

With lightest touch, Stone unfolded them. There was one, about four inches square, that had been folded as if to contain a powder. This was white, and of a texture like writing paper. The other was of a paraffin paper, exactly the same size and shape, and in similar creases. Also there was a bunchy ball of tin-foil, that, when smoothed out, proved to be of identical shape and size with the other two.

There was no room for doubt. These were unquestionably the wrappers of the aconitine! Stone detected on the inside of the paraffin paper traces of the powder itself, and knew that a test would prove his discovery a true find.

Now, then, where did he stand? To his own mind, what he had found proved that Miss Carrington had herself gone to her bath-room, opened the powder, thrown the papers carelessly in the basket, and then, mixing the stuff with water, had taken it then and there and rinsed the glass and set it back on the shelf. It was all natural and plausible.

But, he well knew, others would say that, remembering her detestation of medicaments, Miss Lucy Carrington never did such a thing. Also, they would say, some one else, some one of whom Miss Lucy felt no fear, had mixed the draught, and had administered it, by means of some yet undiscovered but plausible misrepresentation.

And only too well he knew whose name would be associated with the deed!

Heavy of heart, he returned to the boudoir and sat in the easy chair, before the mirror.

New thoughts came surging. It was sure, now, that Miss Carrington took the aconitine in a glass of water, in her own apartments—one of them—and took it, if not knowingly or willingly, at least without any great objection or disturbance. Clinging to his theory that she was alone, Stone visualized her taking the draught by herself. Assume for the moment, an intended headache cure—but no! If she took the aconitine alone and voluntarily, she knew it was poison, for she said “To-morrow I shall be freed forever from this homely face.”

Did it all come back, then, to suicide? No, not with that glad face, that happy smile, that joyful look of anticipation. A suffering invalid, longing for death, might thus welcome a happy release, but not life-loving Lucy Carrington.

It was too bewildering, too inexplicable. Again and again Stone scanned the powder papers. They told nothing more than that they were the powder papers. That was positive, but what did it prove? To whom did it point?

Frowning, Stone studied his own face in the mirror before him. Desperately, he repeated again all the sentences on Anita’s list.

At one of them he paused, even in the act of repetition.

He stared blankly into his own mirrored eyes, a dawning light beginning to flame back at him. Then, a little wildly, he glanced around—up, down, and back to his almost frenzied, reflected face.

“Oh!” he muttered, through his clinched teeth, for Stone was not a man given to strong expletives, “it is! I’ve got it at last! The powder, the pearls—the snake! My Heavens! the snake! Oh, Pauline, my love, my love—but who? who? Have I discovered this thing only to lead back to her? I won’t have it so! I am on the right track at last, and I’ll follow it to the end—the end, but it shall not lead, I know it will not—to my heart’s idol, my beautiful Pauline!”

CHAPTER XXI

FLEMING STONE’S THEORY

Alone in the library, Fleming Stone and Detective Hardy were in counsel.

“I’m going to show you this thing as I see it, Mr. Hardy,” said Stone. “I frankly admit it’s all theory, I haven’t a particle of human testimony to back it, but it seems to me the only solution that will fit all points of the mystery. And I shall ask you to consider it confidential for the present, until I can corroborate it by unmistakable proofs.”

Hardy nodded assent, his eyes fixed on the speaker in a sort of fascination.

This young detective had not been at all idle of late, but his work had amounted to nothing definite, and though he was himself convinced that Pauline Stuart was responsible for her aunt’s death, he seldom exploited that view before Stone, having learned that it was an unwelcome subject.

“Here’s the theory in a very small nutshell,” said Stone, “but remember, you’re not to mention it to any one until I give you permission. Miss Lucy Carrington took that powder, thinking it a drug that would make her beautiful.”

“A charm? a philter?” Hardy’s eyes seemed to bulge in his excitement.

“I’m not sure whether it was a fake magic affair, say, from a clairvoyant or fortune-teller, or whether it was a plain swindle from a beauty doctor or something of that sort. You know such people play on the credulity of rich patrons and get enormous sums and a promise of secrecy for a so-called beauty producer.”

“But why would the beauty doctor or the clairvoyant person give a patient poison?”

“They didn’t. They gave a harmless powder, and some evil-minded person added the aconite, secretly, knowing of the beauty scheme.”

“Who did it?”

“That’s yet to be discovered, but it will be easier if we can trace the one who sold her the nostrum. Now, listen while I reconstruct the scene. Miss Carrington, having dismissed her maid, goes to her bath-room, and takes the powder dissolved in water. These powder papers, which I found in her bath-room waste-basket, carry out that idea.”

Hardy stared at the papers, but did not interrupt the speaker.

“Then, joyfully waiting the effect of the charm, she sits in front of the mirror to watch her features become beautiful. This is why she said to her own reflection, ‘To-morrow I shall be freed forever from this homely face!’ She gazed at the picture of Cleopatra above her dressing-table, and said ‘Yours is the most beautiful face I have ever seen. I wish mine were as beautiful.’ The remarks concerning Count Charlier were addressed to the glove which she held in her hand, a sentimental part of the whole performance.”

“Mighty interesting, Mr. Stone, but pretty fantastic, so far.”

Fleming Stone gave his slow, grave smile, that always betokened a surety of his own statements. “Wait a bit, Hardy, before you condemn this notion. I haven’t finished yet. Now Cleopatra figures pretty strongly in this scheme. Look at these photographs taken after death. They show the lady exactly as she looked when she sat there. See, she is gazing at the picture of Cleopatra, too intently to be merely a casual glance. And, what do you think of this? She gazed at Cleopatra, and, holding the Count’s glove, her mind and heart full of the Count, who would adore her when she achieved this looked-for beauty, she said, ‘You are the Mark I aim at!’ meaning, as Cleopatra had her Mark Antony, she, Lucy Carrington, aimed at the Mark of her choice—the Count.”

“If that’s true, Mr. Stone, you are the wizard of the ages! How did you dope it out? What—”

“Now, wait a minute. This isn’t the pipe dream you think it. But listen while I tell the rest in my own way.”

“Listen! I should think I would! Go on.”

“You know, these fakers give out these charms with all sorts of fool directions to impress the duped customer. As I say, I’m not sure yet whether it was a professional of the clairvoyant type, or a regular beauty doctor. But in either case, I’ve no doubt that Miss Carrington paid him enough to compensate for giving up his practice and leaving for parts unknown. For after the charm failed to work, of course she would expose the fraud.”

“But the poison—”

“Never mind that for the moment, Mr. Hardy. Surely, if we can discover for certain how and why the dose was taken, it will go far to help us trace the criminal who added the deadly element to the powder. Now, continuing the Cleopatra idea, I am sure that the clever clairvoyante—we’ll assume that’s what she was—”

“She?”

“Merely to designate this faker person. Somehow I seem to see her as one of those crystal-gazing, frowsy-headed kimonoed females, who prey on the credulity of rich and foolish women—well, let’s call her that for the present, this clever clairvoyante somehow conceived the idea of offering to make Miss Carrington as beautiful as Cleopatra. Perhaps she had been here to see Miss Carrington on the subject, and that beautiful picture of Cleopatra put it into her head. But, assuming something of this sort, assume further that she directed Miss Carrington to robe herself, in a general way, like the queen in the picture. Note the pearls! Wouldn’t this explain Miss Carrington’s getting her pearls from the bank for this occasion? And wouldn’t it explain her speech, ‘You love pearls,’ as being addressed to Cleopatra, to whom she was talking!”

“Go on, Mr. Stone! Go on!”

“I will go on! Wouldn’t that explain, as nothing else on this green earth can, the purchase of a paper snake by the woman who feared and abhorred the reptiles! Supposing the fool clairvoyante had told her that to become like Cleopatra she must have a semblance of a snake at her throat, as Cleopatra had the asp!”

“Good Heavens!”

“I tell you, Mr. Hardy, nothing else would account for that snake! And any one of these things might seem the result of a lunatic imagination by itself, but taken all together, the theory holds water! Why think of the Oriental scarf, the embroidered robe, the mass of jewels in addition to the significant pearls, and the scarabs! All point to the type of Cleopatra. If there had been a picture on the wall, say, of Helen of Troy, and Miss Carrington had been rigged up in a Greek costume, with a fillet in her hair, and sandals on her feet—or if the picture had shown the Goddess of Liberty, and we had found Miss Carrington draped in an American flag, could any one have denied the significance? There can be no doubt—no doubt in this world, Hardy, that the costume, the jewels and the snake all point to a connection with the picture of Cleopatra, and if so, what other connection is possible than the one I’ve blocked out? Answer me that! And, finally, the speech to the Count, whose glove she fondled, ‘You are the Mark I aim at.’ A pleasantry of wording inevitably suggested by the thought of the man Cleopatra charmed and the man Miss Carrington desired to charm. And a play on words too, not at all unnatural to her, for I’m told she was both witty and clever in conversation.”

“Mr. Stone, I am carried away by your arguments. I can’t deny their plausibility, but I am bewildered. How did you fathom this remarkable plan?”

“Simply because there is no other plan that will fit the facts. I believe Miss Carrington did say all those things Miss Frayne relates. I believe she was alone in the room when she said them. Therefore, they must have had some meaning, and the meanings I have just ascribed to them must be the true ones.”

“They must be—”

“And I will further satisfy you that they are. Here is a memorandum I found in Miss Carrington’s desk. It is, as you see, a list of items. Read it.”

Hardy’s eyes stared more widely than ever as he read:

Green and gold boudoir robe.

Jewels, especially pearls.

Scarabs.

Scarf.

Snake.

Something belonging to H.

“Now, that,” and Fleming Stone spoke in low, even tones, without a hint of boasting or pride in his achievement, “is a list in Miss Carrington’s own writing, and is undeniably a list of things to be worn on the occasion which she hoped would mean a delightful change to the beauty she so desired to be, but which, instead, was a change to the cold stillness of death. I found that, after reaching my own conclusions about the Cleopatra business. If I had found it before, I would have known it must refer to her costume, but I couldn’t have gleaned from it the conclusions I had already come to. Now, Hardy, are you convinced?”

“I am, Mr. Stone. And I am also puzzled. From all this knowledge, we start fresh, as it were, and we—”

“Wait a minute, Hardy. Let’s go slowly. Now, here are two ways to look at this thing. I told you about the clairvoyante first, because that first came to my mind as the inevitable explanation. But, suppose, instead of a professional clairvoyante or beauty doctor, some friend or—” Stone set his teeth, but went on steadily, “or some one in the household, planned all this scheme, and pretended to get a powder that would accomplish this transformation, gave it to the unsuspecting lady to take by herself, and in reality this powder was the aconite.”

Hardy jumped. “Then Miss Stuart—” he began.

“Ah,” and Stone’s face was white and his voice like cutting steel, “Why Miss Stuart? Why not Miss Frayne, who listened at the door? Why not Estelle, who knew all her mistress’ secrets? Why not Haviland, who is openly enjoying his present responsible position as man of affairs? Why not Count Charlier, whose crafty cunning shows on his face? Of course, also, why not Miss Stuart, but why necessarily Miss Stuart?”

“Well, she has run away, you know—”

“So she has, because of unjust and unfounded suspicions! When clues point directly to her, I shall admit them, but when they may equally well point to half a dozen others, I shall patiently investigate them and learn the truth. Now, I ask of you, Hardy, as man to man, not to favor Miss Stuart unduly, but to give her a fair show, and remember her lonely position and her timid nature.”

Hardy looked furtively at Fleming Stone, whose eyes were downcast and fastened on some papers he was holding.

“Count on me, Mr. Stone. I am at your orders. I subscribe to your theories, and I will do exactly what you tell me, and no more or less.”

“Good, Hardy, and thank you. Now, look at these papers. They are the ones that contained the fatal powder. See, this paraffin one was inside; then one of tin-foil, then one of rather heavy writing-paper.”

“That doesn’t look altogether like a clairvoyante’s work.”

“Why not? It does to me. They are mighty careful to do up their goods in an elaborate manner to impress their customers. But, mind you, I don’t for a moment suspect this clairvoyante individual of intended murder. Either the aconite was added to the parcel from the clairvoyante, or the whole affair was concocted by the murderer and under pretense of its having come from the clairvoyante.”

“H’m,” Hardy was clearly beyond his depth.

“So,” went on Stone, “we must deduce what we can from these papers. What do you see peculiar about them?”

“Just plain little old nothing,” Hardy declared after a good scrutiny. “I see, as you remarked, three papers, folded similarly, and of nearly the same size. What do you see?”

“Not much more,” confessed Stone, gazing discontentedly at the papers. “And yet, there must be something to notice. Here’s one point. These papers, if tampered with, I mean if anything was added to their contents, were manipulated very carefully. You know how difficult it is to unfold and refold a powder-paper without making it look messy. These, I would be willing to assert, have never been refolded, or, as I say, if they were, it was done very carefully.”

“That isn’t much of a clue,” and Hardy smiled.

“It may be,” returned Stone. “It at least indicates a possible elimination of the clairvoyante and an indication of the murderer preparing the powder alone. At any rate, Hardy, I’ve told you all this in order to ask your help. Will you go and see what you can round up in the way of the clairvoyante of our dreams? Go to all you can find in New York City. That is the prominent ones. Get a line on beauty doctors, and generally look up this sort of thing. And keep it all under your hat.”

“All right, Mr. Stone,” and Hardy was off at once.

Fleming Stone put away the papers, and sat for more than an hour in a brown study. It must be admitted that a photograph of Pauline Stuart, which stood on a near-by table, held his eyes much of the time. And his gaze, as it rested on the lovely face, was now tender and now sad.

At last he rang for a servant. To the footman who replied, he made a request that a chamber-maid be sent to him.

The girl came, wondering.

“Mary?” said Fleming Stone, inquiringly.

“Jane, sir,” returned the maid, quietly.

“Good,” said Stone. “You have intelligence, Jane, as shown by your calm rejoinder. Now, I want you to go to the various bedrooms or dressing-rooms of all the members of the family and of all the servants, and bring me all the manicure scissors you can find. I assume that some of the servants might possibly have them?”

“Yes, sir, some of them.”

“Very well. Get all you can possibly find, and be very, very careful to remember which ones are whose. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then go. If anybody questions you, say Mr. Stone ordered it.”

Jane returned with many pairs of the kind of scissors asked for by the Detective. Absorbedly, Stone took them from her, and one by one he used them to snip at a sheet of paper from the library desk.

At each test, he asked Jane whose the scissors were, and sometimes he wrote the name beside the cut and sometimes not. One pair in especial seemed to interest him. “Whose are these?” he asked.

“Those, sir, I took from Miss Carrington’s dressing-table.” Jane gave a slight shudder as if at the recollection of the tragedy of that table.

“But these are of a different patterned handle from the rest of that dressing-table’s silver.”

“I don’t know, sir, as to that. They were there and I brought them.”

“Very well, Jane. Take them all back to their places. Mind now, don’t mix them.”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

A strange excitement seemed to seize upon Fleming Stone. Abruptly he left the room, and, flinging on his overcoat in the hall, he snatched his hat and went away, almost on a run. His steps took him to the garage and in a few moments he was in a swift little runabout being driven to the sanatorium where Estelle was still staying.

After a call there, he hurried to Police Headquarters. Thence, after a rather long call, to a telegraph office, to one or two shops and then back to Garden Steps.

Here he put several servants at work for him, packing his effects and such matters, then summoning Gray Haviland to the library, he said; “I’m sailing for Egypt this afternoon. May I ask you to make no further investigations till my return?”

“Egypt!” gasped Gray. “Good Heavens, man! what for?”

“In the interest of my work for you,” returned Stone, gravely.

“Rubbish! You’re chasing Pauline! We’ll never see either of you again!”

Fleming Stone smiled. “I do love her, Haviland, I make no denial of that fact. And I do hate to have her alone in a strange land. So, if I can be of any help to her, an ocean or two to cross shall not keep me from her.”

“And your detective work?”

“Will not suffer by my absence. I’ve been to the Police and to the District Attorney and they approve my plans as I’ve outlined them so far. The rest must wait my return.”

“Ah, and when will you be back?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I will keep you informed of my whereabouts. Say good-by to Miss Frayne for me, and please excuse me now, as I’ve heaps to do. By the way, where is that record of Miss Carrington’s song that I have heard of? Play it for me, will you?”

“Thought you were in such a hurry!” laughed Haviland, but granted the request.

“Wonderful!” commented the Detective, as he heard it on the phonograph. “It is a perfectly-made record. If you don’t mind, I’ll take possession of it.”

“All right,” said Gray, carelessly, and in another half hour Fleming Stone was on his way to the pier where the Macedonia was making ready to sail.

CHAPTER XXII

PAULINE IN CAIRO

On the first of March, about mid-afternoon, the Catalonia steamed into the harbor of Alexandria. Pauline, at the rail, watched the clearing outlines of mosques and minarets, as the beautiful city became visible. It was a glistening, dazzling strip, between the deep blue of the sea and the azure of the sky, and, breathless with delight, she gazed at the shining sunlit picture.

Then the Arab pilot came aboard, and soon Pauline found herself in a shore-boat, swiftly making for the quay. She knew Loria would meet her at Alexandria, she had had a telegram at Naples to that effect, and she thrilled with pleasure at thought of seeing wonderful Egypt with him. Landing, she was bewildered by the crowd of strange-looking people, natives, tourists, officials and porters, all shouting, running and getting in each other’s way. Luggage was everywhere, and the game seemed to be to present any piece of it to anybody except the owner. Pauline fell to laughing at the antics of a black man robed in white and a brown man robed in yellow fighting for possession of a small portmanteau, while its timid and bewildered owner desperately hung on to it herself.

Three or four Arabs gathered round Pauline herself, each asserting his claim to all the virtues of a perfect dragoman. In more or less intelligible English, each insisted he had been sent to her personally by Effendi This or That, of marvelous wealth and power. Greatly interested, she listened to their arguments, until, encouraged, they became so insistent that she was frightened. Seeing this, they waxed threatening, even belligerent, in their determination to be engaged, and just as one laid his brown, long fingers on her arm, and she drew back in a panic of fear, she saw Carr Loria’s smiling face coming to her through the crowd.

With a wave of his hand and a few short commands, he sent the bothersome Arabs flying, and greeted Pauline with affectionate enthusiasm.

“Polly, dear! but I’m glad to see you! Have you had a good trip? But such questions must wait a bit. Where are your checks? Do you see your boxes?”

“There’s only one, and some hand things. Here is—”

“All right,” and Loria took the little sheaf of papers she produced from her handbag. “Ahri, look after these.”

A tall Arab glided to Loria’s side, and took the checks. “Ahri is my dragoman and body-servant and general factotum,” said Loria, by way of introduction. “This lady, Ahri, is my cousin, Miss Stuart. Her word is law.”

“Yes, Mr. Loria. Miss Stoort is queen of all.”

The man made a salaam of obeisance and turned away to look after the luggage.

“He’s a wonder, that Ahri,” said Carrington Loria, looking after the retreating Arab. “But be very haughty with him, Polly. He presumes upon the least encouragement. Treat him like the dust under your feet, and he’ll adore you.”

“That’s easy enough,” and Pauline smiled. “I’m scared to death of these brown and black men. But your servant is so grand of costume.”

“Yes, he’s a very high-class affair. Handsome chap and fond of dress. But he’s invaluable to me. Speaks almost perfect English, and knows everything there is to know—and then some. Knows, too, everybody who has ever been in Cairo or ever thought of coming here. And he possesses the proud distinction of being the only dragoman here-abouts who hasn’t a letter of recommendation from Hichens. You haven’t that, have you, Ahri?” for the Arab had just reappeared.

A marvelous set of white teeth gleamed in the sunlight, as the response came quickly: “I had one, Mr. Loria, but I sold it. They are of use to others; Ahri needs none.” His self-conceit was superb, and he spoke with the air of a prince. But warned by Loria, Pauline gave him no answering smile, rather a patronizing nod, and Ahri’s respect for the newcomer went up several points.

“Come along, girlie,” commanded Carrington and he took Pauline’s arm as he hurried her to the boat-train.

Watchful Ahri showed them to the compartment he had secured for them, and soon they were on their way to Cairo.

“Now, tell me everything,” said Carr Loria, as they sat alone. “This is a three-hour trip and I want to know the whole story. Just think, Pauline, I’ve had only a few letters, and they were—well—they were almost contradictory in some ways. So tell me all, from the beginning.”

Pauline did, and by the time they reached Cairo, Loria knew as much as she of the death of their aunt and the subsequent search for the murderer.

“Wasn’t it strange,” he mused, “that that Bates person should go in to kill her, the very night somebody else had the same intention?”

“Well, but, Carr, Bates didn’t start out to kill her, you know; he went to steal the jewels, and he knew they were all in the house that night, because Estelle told him so. Now, of course, whoever gave her the poison, must have known it too—”

“Oh, I don’t know. Why didn’t somebody want to put her out of the way to get a bequest? Not necessarily the Count gentleman, but maybe one of the servants. Maybe that Estelle? Didn’t she receive a legacy in Aunt Lucy’s will?”

“Yes, but nobody has thought of suspecting her.”

“Don’t see why not. I thought of her first clip. I don’t think that Stone paragon amounts to much. Hey, what are you blushing about? Sits the wind in that quarter?”

“Don’t tease me, Carr. I do like him better than any man I ever saw, but—”

“And so you ran away and left him! Out with it, Polly. Tell your old Uncle Dudley the story of your life!”

“There’s nothing to tell, Carr, about Mr. Stone. But I came to you, because some people suspect me—ME—of—of killing Aunt Lucy—”

“Pauline! They don’t! Who suspects you?”

“All the police people, and Gray and Anita Frayne—”

“They do! You poor little girl! I’m glad you came to me. I’ll take care of you. But, Polly, whom do you suspect? Honest, now, who is in your mind?”

“I don’t know, Carr. I can’t seem to think. But when they fastened it on me, I was so frightened, I just flew. Why, just think, every one at Garden Steps was suspicious of me! I could see it even in the servants’ eyes. I couldn’t stand it, and I was afraid—”

“Yes, dear, go on—”

“Well, I was afraid Mr. Stone would think so, and I couldn’t bear that, so I just ran off on impulse. I regretted it lots of times on the trip over—and then at other times I was glad I came. Are you glad?”

“Sure, Polly. I wanted you to stick to your plan of coming over, you know. Yes, I’m glad you’re here. Now, we’ll soon be in Cairo, and you’ll love it—all the strange sights and experiences. You’ll live at Shepheard’s for the present. I’ve engaged a chaperon for you.”

“How thoughtful you are, Carr.”

“Oh, of course, a beautiful young woman can’t live alone in Cairo, and also of course, you couldn’t live with me. So, Mrs. MacDonald will look after you, but she won’t in any way bother you. Whenever you need a duenna, she’ll be right at your elbow, and when you don’t want her about, she is self-effacing. You’ll like her, too, she’s not half-bad as a companion.”

At Cairo, Ahri handed them from the train. Again Polly was impressed with the Arab’s dignified bearing and rich costume. His long galabeah, shaped like a well-fitting bathrobe, was of white corded silk, exquisitely embroidered. Collarless, it gave glimpses of other silken vestments, and over it he wore a correct English topcoat, short and velvet-trimmed. From his tarbush to his English shoes and silk hose, he was perfectly garbed and groomed, while the scarab ring on his little finger was the only bit of jewelry visible.

“That’s nothing,” laughed Loria, following her glance. “Wait till you see him in all the glory of his burnoose and other contraptions. Here, Ahri, take this duffel, too. And, now, Polly-pops, you’ll see Cairo.”

The ride to the hotel was like a moving picture in color. The street crowds were rushing by, a flare of bright-hued raiment and dark-skinned faces. Everywhere, baubles were for sale. Street vendors carried them on their heads, in their arms, or thrust them forth with eager hands.

Post-cards, jewelry, scarfs, and fans. Fly-whisks with dangling beads. Embroideries, carved ivories, brasses, sweetmeats, fruits and newspapers, all were successively and collectively offered for immediate, almost compulsory sale.

“And I want to buy every one!” declared Pauline, entranced at the sight of the catch-penny toys.

“All in good time, honey. To-morrow, Ahri shall take you to the bazaars, with or without Mrs. MacDonald, as you choose, and you can get a bushel of foolishness if you want to. Everybody has to cure that first mad desire to buy rubbish, by yielding to it. You soon get enough.”

“Then I may go alone with Ahri to the shops?”

“Yes, anywhere, by daylight, except to social affairs. There, or to any in-door entertainment, you must take her. But she’ll know all these things. Abide always by her decision.”

“But won’t you be with me, Carr? You speak as if I will be much without you.”

“I’m awfully busy, Pauline; I’ll tell you all about it this evening. Then you’ll understand. Here we are at Shepheard’s. Did you ever see such a horde of freaks?”

It was just about dusk. The last rays of the Egyptian sunset were lingering, as if for Pauline to get one glimpse of the picture by their rainbow lights. Many were at tea on the broad Terrace; the scarlet-coated band crashed their brasses; and Pauline entered the hotel, her whole being responding to the strange thrill that Cairo gives even to the most phlegmatic visitor or jaded tourist.

Later, at dinner, she met Mrs. MacDonald, a correct, tactful and diplomatic widow, who looked forward with pleasure to the chaperonage of the beautiful girl to whom she was introduced.

At Loria’s advice, Pauline had put on evening dress; and she made a striking picture, in black tulle, devoid of all jewelry or ornament save a breast-knot of purple orchids her cousin had sent to her rooms.

At dinner, conversation was general, and the trio was made a quartet by the addition of an English friend of Loria’s whom he ran across in the hotel lobby. Later, after they had had their coffee in the great hall, Mrs. MacDonald and the Englishman strolled away and the cousins were left alone.

“How beautiful you have grown, Pauline,” Carr said, his eyes resting on her piquant face, crowned with its mass of soft, dark hair.

“Speak for yourself, John,” she returned smiling up into the handsome, sunburned face of the man who scrutinized her. “You have acquired not only a becoming tan, but a new air of distinction.”

“Glad you think so, girlie. Thanks a whole lot. How do you like the MacDonald?”

“Very much so far. She won’t try to boss me, will she?”

“Not unless you make it necessary; but you must remember that English etiquette obtains in Cairo, and you mustn’t try to be unconventional, except as Mrs. MacDonald approves.”

“Oh, I won’t disgrace you, Carr, I’ve common sense, I hope. Now tell me about yourself.”

“I’m deep in a new project, Polly, a wonderful one. It’s an enormous undertaking, but I shall put it through all right.”

“What is it? Excavation?”

“In a way. But here’s the story. Mind, now, it’s a dead secret. Don’t mention it to Mrs. Mac. I trust you with it, but it must go no further. Well, in a word, I’ve come into possession of an old papyrus, that tells of a treasure—”

“Oh, Carr, are you a treasure-seeker?”

“Now, wait till I tell you. This papyrus is authentic, and it’s nothing more nor less than an account of a great hoard of jewels and gold sunk, purposely, by an old Egyptian king to save them from seizure. You wouldn’t understand all the reasons that prove this is a true bill, but it is, and so you must take my word for it. All right. The old duffer saw fit to sink this stuff in the Nile, at a certain spot, designated in this papyrus thing, and all I’ve got to do is to dig her up, and there you are!”

Carr Loria’s face lighted up with the enthusiasm of the true archæologist, and Pauline caught the spirit, too, as she exclaimed, “How splendid! How do you get down to it—if it’s under the Nile?”

“It’s a big scheme, Polly!” and Loria’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve got to have a coffer-dam, an enormous one—and, oh, and a whole lot of paraphernalia, and it will cost like fury, but the end justifies the expense—and then, think of the glory of it!”

“Have you got a right to do all this? Can anybody dig wherever he likes in Egypt?”

“No, you little goose! But I’ve managed all that part. I won’t tell even you about it, but I’ve—well, I’ve fixed it up. Now, listen here, Pollypops, you’re to tell just simply nobody a word of all this—not one, littlest, leastest mite of a word! See?”

“All right, Carr, of course I won’t tell, if you say not to. But will you be away from us? Out of Cairo?”

“Off and on. I’ll be back and forth, you know. This place is up the Nile a bit, and, of course, I have to be there much of the time. But you’ll be all right. I know heaps of people, jolly sort, too, and Mrs. Mac will take you round, and you’ll have the time of your sweet young life!”

“I’m sure I shall. But, Carr, have you forgotten all about America, and Aunt Lucy and—and Fleming Stone?”

“No, Pauline, I haven’t forgotten those things. But, I own up, aside from the awful circumstances, I’m not terribly wrought up over Aunt Lucy’s death. Poor old thing, she wasn’t so awfully happy, you know, and Lord knows, she didn’t make anybody else happy. Then, too, you must realize that as I wasn’t there, through the dreadful time, as you were, I can’t feel the same thrill and horror of it. In fact, I try to forget it all I can, as I can’t do anybody any good by mulling over it. So, if you want to please me, old girl, you’ll refer to it as little as you can.”

“But don’t you care who killed her? Don’t you want to find out the murderer and bring him to justice?”

“I want that done, Polly, but I don’t want to do it. That’s why I put it all in Haviland’s hands; that’s why I didn’t want to go to America, unless, as I told you at first, unless you needed me. I can’t pay proper attention to my work here if I have any such worriment as that on my shoulders. And I tell you, Pauline, this chance that has come to me is the chance of a lifetime, the chance of a century! It means fortune, fame and glory for me. It means—oh Pauline, it means everything!”

“All right, Carr, I won’t interfere in anyway with your work. I’ll do as you tell me, but—but if they continue to suspect me—”

“Suspect you! My dear girl! Let ’em try it! I’ll see to that! Don’t you fear. If anything bothers you, just leave it to me! Ah, here come our truants. Now, Polly, for my sake, leave all those subjects for the present, and be your own dear entertaining self.”

And Pauline granted his request, and was so attractive and charming that the Englishman straightway fell over head and heels in love and Mrs. MacDonald was torn between throes of admiration and envy.

CHAPTER XXIII

TWO WILLS

For a few days Loria staid in Cairo, and devoted all his time to the amusement and entertainment of Pauline. Together they visited the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids. Together they made trips to Old Cairo and to the Ostrich Farm. Together they saw the Little Petrified Forest. But the immediate sights of Cairo, the tombs, mosques and bazaars, Loria told her, she could visit with Mrs. MacDonald or with their dragoman, after he and Ahri had gone on their trip up the Nile.

Pauline was happy. At Carr’s request she had endeavored to put out of her mind the horrors she had been through. Frightened at the suspicions directed toward herself, fearing that she could not successfully combat them—and, for another reason—she had fled to Egypt, and her cousin’s protection. This other reason she had almost dismissed from her mind, and she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the novelty and interest of her present situation.

After their sight-seeing each day, they returned for tea on the Terrace at Shepheard’s or went to Ghezireh Palace for it, or to the house of some friend. Dinner was always a pleasant affair, and they had frequent guests and were often invited out.

As Pauline was wearing mourning, no large social affairs were attended, and under Mrs. MacDonald’s guidance the girl pursued her happy way.

Nearly a week after Pauline’s arrival, Loria told her that the next day he must leave her, and go up the Nile to attend to his work there. They were in the sitting room of Pauline’s pleasant suite at the hotel, and Mrs. MacDonald promised to cherish most carefully her charge in Loria’s absence.

“How long shall you be away, Carr?” asked Pauline.

“It’s uncertain, Polly. Perhaps only a few days this time, perhaps a week. I’ll be back and forth, you know, and you’re bound to find enough to interest you. Keep me advised of any news from America. You can always reach me by mail or wire, or telephone if need be. And, here’s another matter, Pauline. You know, this work I’m up against is more or less dangerous.”

“Dangerous, how?”

“Well, there’s blasting and danger of cave-ins and such matters—but don’t feel alarmed, I’ll probably come through all right. Only, I want to make my will, so if anything should happen, you’ll be my heir without any fuss about it.”

“Oh, don’t talk about such things, Carr. You frighten me.”

“Nonsense, don’t take it like that. Now, see here. You know my way. Touch and go is my motto. So, I’ve asked a lawyer chap to come here to-night and fix up things. Suppose you make your will, too. Then it will seem more like a business matter, and not as if either of us expects to die soon. Who’s your heir to be, Polly?”

“Why, I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.”

“But you ought to. You see, now you’re some heiress, and it isn’t right not to have a will made—on general principles. To be sure, you may marry—”

“Oh, I don’t think I ever will, Carr!”

“Nonsense, Pollypops, of course you will. But you must take your time and select a good chappie. Now, how does this strike you? Jeffries, my lawyer, is coming here, right away. Suppose we each make a will, leaving all our worldly goods to each other. Then, later, when you decide on your life mate, you can change and rearrange as you like.”

“But I haven’t any fortune yet. Aunt Lucy’s estate isn’t all settled, is it?”

“No matter about that. It will be, in course of time. I have every confidence in Haviland, he’s as honest a chap as ever breathed. He’ll fix up all our interests over there, in apple-pie order and don’t you forget it! Humor me in this thing, Polly, and believe I know more of business affairs than you do, and it’s best to do as I say.”

Pauline was easily persuaded, and as the arrangement was conceded to be merely temporary, she agreed. Jeffries came. The two wills were drawn, signed and witnessed, all in correct form. Loria, in his, bequeathed to Pauline all he might die possessed of, and except for a few charities and minor bequests, Pauline left her fortune to Carr. The business was soon over, and Loria took both documents, saying he would put them in his Safe Deposit box for the present, as Pauline had no place for valuable papers.

The next day, Loria, accompanied by the invaluable Ahri, went away to the site of his projected enterprise. This affair was conducted with such strict secrecy that even the location was not known to many. Actual work had not yet been begun, but negotiations and preparations of vast importance were being made, and secret conclaves were held by those most interested. Pauline had been emphatically adjured to give not the least hint to any one whatever of the project, and she had promised faithfully to obey Carr’s injunctions.

The next afternoon, a telegram from Fleming Stone announced his arrival at Alexandria and his immediate appearance in Cairo.

Addressed to her, in Loria’s care, Pauline received it duly, for her mail was brought to her at Shepheard’s, and Carr’s forwarded to him wherever he might be. She had had a cable from Haviland, but no American letters had yet reached her. Stone, having sailed just a week after Pauline’s departure from New York, was arriving eight days after her own advent at Cairo.

The girl’s first emotion was of joy. The thought of seeing Stone again, eclipsed all other thoughts.

“Oh, Mrs. Mac!” she cried, clasping that somewhat rotund matron round the waist and leading her an enforced dance. “Mr. Stone is coming! Will be here for tea! Oh, I am so glad!”

But her second thoughts were more disturbing. Why was he coming? What were his suspicions? Could he be tracking her down? Though Fleming Stone had never said a word of love to her, Pauline knew, by her own heart’s ‘detective instinct,’ that he cared. But, his sense of duty might make it necessary to follow where the trail of suspicion led, even at cost of his own affections. Then, too, could he suspect?—But Pauline’s irrepressible joy at thought of seeing him left her little time or wish to indulge in gloomy forebodings.

Singing, she ran off to dress for Stone’s reception.

“Which is prettier?” she asked of Mrs. Mac, holding up an embroidered white crêpe, of Cairo construction, and a black net gown, brought from New York.

“Wear the white, Miss Stuart. It’s most becoming to you.”

It was, and when arrayed in the lovely, soft, clinging affair, with a cluster of tiny white rose-buds at her belt, Pauline’s unusually pink cheeks and her scarlet flower of a mouth gave all the color necessary.

Her beautiful hair, piled in a crown atop her little head, was held by a carved ivory comb, and beneath their half-drooped lashes her great eyes shone like stars.

For the Terrace, she donned a large white hat, with black ostrich plumes, and flinging a white cape edged with black fur over her arm, she descended to meet her guest.

Though little given to emotional demonstration, Fleming Stone caught his breath with a quick gasp at sight of her, and advanced with outstretched hands and a smile of a sort no one had ever before seen on that always calm face.

“How do you do?” she said, smiling; for, though thrilled herself, she remembered the unfailing curiosity of the Terrace crowds.

But Stone, having taken her two hands in his, stood looking at her as if he intended to pursue that occupation for the rest of his natural life.

“Sit down,” she said, laughing a little nervously under his gaze; “this is our table. Will you have tea?”

“Tea, of course,” and at last Fleming Stone took himself in hand and behaved like a reasonable citizen. “And how are you? And your cousin, where is he?”

“Mr. Loria is out of Cairo just now,” and Pauline turned to give the waiter his order. “But we are three, as I am under most strict surveillance—” she paused, realizing what that phrase meant to a detective! “Of a perfect dragon of a chaperon,” she continued bravely, trying to control her quivering lip. “Here she comes now.”

The appearance and introduction of Mrs. MacDonald gave Pauline time to regain her poise, and a glance of pathetic appeal to Stone made him take up the burden of conversation for a few moments. And then, with the arrival of the tea, the chat became gayer, and, of course, impersonal.

The Englishman, Pitts, appeared, indeed, he inevitably appeared when Pauline was on the Terrace, and joined the group without invitation.

It was not Fleming Stone’s first visit to Egypt, and he noted with interest the changes, and looked with gladness on things unchanged, as the kaleidoscopic scene whirled about him.

Later, they all went up to Pauline’s sitting room, and viewed the street pageant from second-story windows.

And then, Mrs. MacDonald, after a short and losing battle between her conventions and her kind-heartedness, insisted that Mr. Pitts must take her across the street to buy some imperatively necessary writing-paper.

Outwardly courteous but inwardly of a rampageous unwillingness, Mr. Pitts acquiesced in her scheme, and Fleming Stone politely closed the door behind them.

He turned, to see Pauline looking at him, with a gaze, frightened, but—yes, surely—welcoming, and not waiting to analyze the intent of the gaze more deeply, Stone took a chance, and in another instant, held her in his arms so closely that the intent of her glance was of little importance to anybody.

“Pauline!” he breathed, “how I love you! My darling—mine! No, no, don’t speak—” and he laid his finger tips on her parted lips, “Just look at me, and so—tell me—”

The wonderful eyes raised themselves to his, and Stone’s phenomenal insight was not necessary for him to read the message they held.

“You do love me!” he whispered: “oh, my little girl!” and after a long, silent embrace, he cried jubilantly: “Now tell me! Now tell me in words, in words, Pauline, that you do!”

Unhesitatingly, without shyness, Pauline, radiant-faced, whispered, “I love you, dear,” and the vibrant tones filled the simple words to the brim of assurance.

Though it seemed to them but a moment, it was some time later that Mrs. MacDonald’s tap sounded on the door.

“Come,” cried Pauline, springing away from Stone’s side, while he sauntered to the window. “Oh, Mrs. MacDonald, you must know it at once! Mr. Stone is my fiancé!”

Mrs. Mac was duly surprised and delighted, and, after congratulations, sent Stone away to dress for dinner, and endeavored to calm down her emotional charge.

Later that evening, Stone and Pauline sat in the hall watching the people. Almost as much alone as on a desert island, they conversed in low tones, and Stone, between expressions of adoration, told her of his theory of the beauty charm.

With paling face, Pauline listened. “Who?” she whispered. “Who? Do you suspect anybody?”

“You don’t know of your aunt ever having consulted any beauty doctor or any such person?”

“Oh, no! I’m sure she never did. Never!”

“And you don’t know of any one who would give her poison, under pretense of its being a charm or beautifier?”

“Oh, don’t! Don’t ask me!” and, with a face white as ashes, Pauline rose from her chair. “You must excuse me, Mr. Stone. I am ill—I don’t feel well—. Really I must beg to be excused.”

Almost before he realized what she was doing, Pauline had left him, glided to the elevator, and he heard the door of the cage clang to, even as he followed her.

“Poor child!” he said to himself, “poor dear little girl!” and going in quest of Mrs. MacDonald, he asked her to go to Pauline.

“You will perhaps find her greatly disturbed,” he said, “but I assure you it is nothing that can be avoided or remedied. Please, Mrs. MacDonald, just try to comfort and cheer her, without asking the cause of her sadness.”

After a straightforward look into Stone’s eyes, which was as frankly returned, Mrs. MacDonald nodded her head and hastened away.

As Stone had predicted she found Pauline sobbing hysterically.

“What is it, dear?” she queried, “tell Mrs. Mac. Or, if you’d rather not, at least tell me what I can do for you. Don’t, don’t cry so!”

But no words could she get from the sobbing girl, except an insistent demand for a telegraph blank. This was provided, and Pauline wrote a message to Carr Loria telling him that Fleming Stone had come to Cairo. This she ordered despatched at once. Then she begged Mrs. MacDonald to leave her, as she wished to go to bed and try to forget her troubles in sleep.

Meantime, Fleming Stone left the hotel and proceeded straight to Carr Loria’s rooms. He expressed surprise when the janitor informed him of Mr. Loria’s absence.

“Well, never mind,” he said: “he’ll be back in a few days. But I’ll just go in and write a note and leave it on his desk for him.”

The janitor hesitated, but after a transference of some coin of the realm was effected, he cheerfully unlocked the door and Stone found himself in Loria’s apartment. It was a comfortable place, even luxurious, in a mannish way, and the Detective looked about with interest. As he had proposed, he went to the writing table and taking a sheet of paper from the rack, wrote a short note. But instead of leaving it, he put it in his pocket, saying to the watchful janitor that perhaps it would be better to mail it. Then, he stepped into Loria’s bedroom, but so quickly did he step out again, that the janitor hadn’t time to reprove or forbid him.

“All right,” he said, as he started to leave. “When Mr. Loria returns you can tell him I called.”

This permission went far to allay the janitor’s fears that he had been indiscreet; for Carr Loria was not a man who brooked interference with his affairs or belongings.

CHAPTER XXIV

CONFESSION

Carr Loria was at Heluan when he received Pauline’s telegram. For a few moments he studied it, and then going to a hotel office, he possessed himself of a telegram blank which he proceeded to write on, by the use of a type-writer near-by.

With a preoccupied look on his face, as if thinking deeply, he called Ahri and gave him a long and careful list of directions.

And it was in pursuance of these directions that the Arab presented himself at Shepheard’s at ten o’clock in the morning and asked for Miss Stuart.

“What is it, Ahri?” asked Pauline, as she received the dragoman in her sitting room.

“Miss Stoort,” and the Arab was deeply respectful, “Mr. Loria begs that you go with me to Sakkara to visit the Pyramids and Necropolis.”

“Now?” said Pauline, in surprise.

“Yes, my lady. Mr. Loria will himself meet you at the station. Will you start at once, please?”

“But I am expecting a caller—Mr. Stone—”

“Pardon, but Mr. Loria said if you hesitated for any reason, to implore you to go with me quickly, and he will explain all.”

Pauline paled a little, but she said, simply, “Very well, Ahri, I will go at once.”

Escorted by the silent, majestic-mannered Arab, Pauline was taken through the crowded streets to the station, and they boarded a train just as it was leaving.

“We did get the train, Miss Stoort,” said Ahri, with his sad smile, “Mr. Loria would be greatly mad if we had missed it. Yes.”

Pauline nodded at him, her thoughts full of the spoiled day, which she had hoped to spend with Stone.

Yet she longed to see Carr, she wanted to tell him what Mr. Stone had said about the beauty charm and——

“You said Mr. Loria would meet us at the station, Ahri; you put me on the train so quickly I had no chance to speak. Where is he?”

“Not the Cairo station, my lady. The station at Bedrashein.”

“Where is that?”

“Where we are going. We alight there to see the ruins of Memphis and the Pyramids of Sakkara.”

Pauline looked puzzled, but said no more and sat silently wrapped in her own thoughts, now of Stone, now of Carr, and again of herself.

At Bedrashein, they left the train. Pauline looked anxiously around but saw nothing of her cousin.

“I do not see him,” said Ahri, gravely, meeting her inquiring glance; “but I obey his orders. He said, if he be not here, we go to the desert to meet him.”

“To the desert? How? Where?”

“This way. Here are our carts.” Ahri led the way to where two sand-carts stood waiting, evidently for them. They were a little like English dog-carts and drawn by desert horses.

“You take that one, Miss Stoort, and I this,” directed Ahri, standing with outstretched hand, like a commanding officer.

Bewildered but knowing the responsibility of Carr’s servant, Pauline got into the cart he indicated. She did not at all like the looks of the gaunt black Moor who drove her, but thought best to say nothing. She had learned never to show fear of the native servants, and she held her head high, and gave the driver only a haughty stare. Ahri, after she was arranged for, sprang into the other cart, and they set off.

The road was through the village, through palm groves, past large expanses of water, and at last through desert wastes, among foot-hills that quickly cut off the view of the road just traversed.

Pauline’s cart was ahead of the other, and looking back she could not see the other one, in which Ahri rode.

A strange feeling began to creep into her heart. Covertly she glanced at her driver. The hard bony face was not turned her way, but she had an uncanny sense that the man was grinning at her. Sternly she bade him stop and wait for the other cart.

“No Ingleese,” he rejoined, with a dogged expression on his ugly countenance.

“I command you,” and Pauline laid hold of his arm, “I insist that you stop!”

“No Ingleese,” he repeated, and now he gave her a distinctly impudent look and spurred the horse to faster pace.

Pauline considered. She was frightened beyond words to express, but she knew she must not show fear. Haughtily she held her proud little head aloft, and tried to think what was best to do. Something was wrong, that she knew, but whether it was Ahri who was at fault, or this dreadful man beside her, or—or—she stifled back the thought of Loria.

He would save her, she knew he would, cried her worried brain, but in her heart was black doubt. All the unadmitted fears she had known of late, all the repressed suspicions, all the insistent doubts, these came flocking, clamoring for recognition.

On they went—where they might be she had no idea. Nothing could be seen but the never-ending hills, not high, but of sufficient height to cut off all view of anything but their sandy slopes. Miles and miles they traversed. The sun was under a cloud, and Pauline had no knowledge of the direction they were taking. But from the man’s grim, stony face, and cruel eyes, she knew she was in dreadful, even desperate danger. Courageously, she insisted over and over that they stop. The reply was only a shaken head and a reassertion that English was an unknown tongue. This Pauline knew to be a lie, from his intelligent expression at her words. At last, desperately trying to control her trembling hands, she offered her purse, if he would stop.

To her surprise, he consented, and jerked his horse to a stand-still. Pauline handed over the purse, and the driver got out of the cart, indicating by gestures that she should also alight, and rest herself.

The cart was small, and the ride had been uncomfortable, so after a moment’s thought Pauline jumped out. She reasoned that the man having her money, had no desire to prolong the trip, and in a moment they would go back to Bedrashein. Often had she heard of these robberies, and she felt that, cupidity satisfied, she had little to fear.

But no sooner was she on the ground, than the Moor sprang again into his cart, and whipping up his horse, sped away across the desert sand and in a minute rounded a hill and was out of sight.

Pauline looked after him an instant, and then, realizing to the uttermost what it meant—that she was abandoned to her fate in a trackless desert—fell in a little heap on the sands and fainted away.

It was about eleven o’clock on the morning of that same day, that Carr Loria went to Shepheard’s Hotel and asked for Fleming Stone.

The two men met, and eyed each other appraisingly. There was no light chat, each was of serious face and in grave mood.

Loria spoke first, after the short greeting. “I have a telegram from my cousin, Miss Stuart,” he said, drawing a paper from his pocket. “I know why you are here, Mr. Stone, and I think best to show you this. Frankly, I am glad of it.”

Stone took the message, and read:

I have run away again. I am afraid of F. S. Don’t try to find me, I am all right, and I will communicate with you after he goes back to U. S. I positively will not make my whereabouts known as long as he is in Cairo. Don’t worry.

Polly.

“We may as well be honest with one another,” Loria went on. “I gather, from your presence here, that you know my cousin is guilty of the death of her aunt; but you don’t know, you can’t know, what that poor girl had to put up with. I can’t blame her, that in a moment of—really of temporary insanity—she let herself be tempted—”

“I’m sorry to cut short this interview, Mr. Loria,” said Stone, in his quiet way, “but, truly, I’ve a most important engagement just now. If I could see you, say this evening, and talk these things over by ourselves—”

“Surely, Mr. Stone. I must return to my work to-morrow, but I’ll see you to-night. Will you come to my place?”

“Yes, I will. About nine?”

“Nine it is,” and Loria swung away, as Fleming Stone turned and hastened into the hotel.

Straight to Mrs. MacDonald he went and asked where Pauline was.

“She went to visit Memphis and Sakkara with her cousin,” said the smiling chaperon. “That is, she went with her cousin’s dragoman, and Mr. Loria met them at Bedrashein.”

“Oh, did he! Now listen, Mrs. MacDonald. Miss Stuart is in danger. I am sure of this. I am going to her aid, but I may not—” Stone choked, “I may not succeed soon. Tell me of this dragoman. What does he look like?”

Graphically, Mrs. MacDonald described the statuesque Ahri, and almost before she stopped speaking, Stone was flying along the corridor, down the stairs, and out at the door.

He caught a train to Bedrashein, and the first person he bumped into at the little station was Ahri himself waiting for the train to Cairo.

Fleming Stone went straight to the point. “Look here, Ahri,” he said to the astonished Arab, who had never seen him before, “what have you done with Miss Stuart?”

For once the phlegmatic Arab was caught off his guard.

“What do you mean?” he stammered. “I have not seen her to-day.”

“Don’t lie to me,” and Stone gave him a look that cowed him. “Now listen. You’re in Mr. Loria’s pay. All right. He paid you well for the job you’ve just done. Now, I’ll pay you twice—three times as well to undo it. Moreover, I’ll inform you straight that you’ll never work for Mr. Loria again. He’s a villain, a wicked man. Take my advice, Ahri, give him up and come over to me. By so doing, you’ll not only escape punishment for your work to-day, but get a fresh start toward a good position. I don’t believe you’re a bad man at heart, Ahri. At least, I don’t believe you’ll continue to be if you’re better paid to be good.”

Stone was right about this, and the talk ended in another expedition of two sand-carts into the desert. Ahri in one, with a native driver, Stone alone in the other, driving himself. Ahri’s cart was driven by the same Moor that had driven Pauline only two or three hours before. Stone followed them, the wicked driver easily bought over to betray the place where he had left Pauline.

And there they found her.

Crouched at the base of a small hill, worn out by weeping and despair, racked by fright and terror, she had fallen into a fitful slumber from sheer exhaustion. Jumping from his cart, Stone waved the others back and went to her. On her face were traces of tears. Her gloves and handkerchief were torn in strips by her agonized frenzies. Her shoulders were huddled as if in frantic fear, and her face was drawn and pinched with anguish. But in spite of all this, Stone thought he had never seen her look so beautiful. Stepping nearer he lifted her to her feet, and unheeding the observers, he clasped her closely in his arms, and whispered endearing words.

Pauline, her eyes still closed, murmured, “it’s only a dream. I must not wake, I must not!”

“No dream, darling,” said the strong, glad voice in her ear. “Does this seem like a dream?” and his lips met hers in a long, close kiss.

Then her eyes opened, wondering, and lest she should faint from very joy, Stone carried her to the cart and placed her in it. Jumping in beside her, he ordered the other cart to lead and they started back.

Neither Pauline nor Stone ever forgot that ride. At first, she was content to ask no questions, happy in his nearness and her own rescue from an awful fate. But, later, she inquired about Loria.

“You must know the truth soon, dearest,” said Stone, gently, “so I’ll tell you, in part now. Your cousin is a wicked man, Pauline, and you must grasp this fact before I go on.”

“Carr wicked?” and Pauline paled and trembled as if struck with a sudden blow.

“Yes, it was his hand, his will, that sent you to be lost in the desert. He showed me a false telegram, saying you had run away from me!”

“What? oh, I can’t believe it!”

“Well, don’t try now,” and Stone smiled at her. “It’s all I can do to manage this fiery steed without trying to tell you unbelievable things at the same time. Let me tell you something more easy of credulity.”

Pauline’s smile was permission, and Stone had no difficulty in convincing her of certain self-evident truths.

By the time the trio reached Cairo, Ahri was as staunch a follower and as true a slave of Fleming Stone as he had been of Carrington Loria. At Stone’s direction he returned to his former master, for the present, and gave no hint of the later development of the kidnapping scheme.

“All went off as planned?” said Loria, secure in his servant’s fidelity.

“Yes, master,” answered the devoted trusty, and Loria said no more on the subject.

That evening when Fleming Stone went to Carr Loria’s rooms, he was accompanied by Pauline and the Englishman, Pitts.

Loria started at sight of his cousin, but quickly recovered his poise and jauntily asked her where she had come from.

“No place like Cairo, for me,” she replied in the same light tone, and they all sat down in Loria’s den.

“More company than I expected,” he said, as he bustled about, seating them. “Ahri, another chair.”

Ahri obeyed the request, and then softly left the room.

“Mr. Loria,” said Stone, directly, “there is no use wasting words, we are here to accuse you of the murder of your aunt and the attempted murder of your cousin.”

Carr Loria’s face blanched, but he tried to put on a bold front.

“What do you mean by this nonsense? Is it a joke?”

“By no means; I have all the proofs of your crimes and I ask you if you will confess here, or to the Police?”

“Friend Pitts, I believe, is connected with the Police,” and Loria laughed grimly.

“Yes, he is. Have you anything to say?”

“Only to deny your accusations. Except that it’s too absurd even to deny such foolish talk. What do you mean anyway?”

“That you poisoned Miss Lucy Carrington, wilfully and purposely, by sending her a dose of powdered aconite, under the pretense of its being a beauty charm that would bring fairness and youth to her plain face.”

Carr Loria’s jaw dropped. He looked at Stone as if at something supernatural. “W—what?” he stammered.

“You did it to get her money, now, to go on with your work in the bed of the Nile. Then, in order to get your cousin’s share of the fortune, you sent her away to die in the desert, having first induced her to will you her money.”

“Ha, ha,” laughed Loria, feebly. “Poor joke, Stone, pretty poor joke, I say! Murdered my own aunt! Not much I didn’t!”

“Carr Loria, listen!” Impressively Stone held up his finger, to adjure silence, and at the same time he bent on Loria a glance of accusation that made him cringe. But, fascinated, he stared into Stone’s eyes, and in the death-like silence came a voice—the voice of Lucy Carrington—in a burst of ringing laughter! Loria’s eyes seemed to start from his head, and the sweat gathered in great drops on his forehead, as the voice of his aunt spoke: “This song is one of Carr’s favorites,” they heard, distinctly. “I’ll sing it for him.”

Then, in Miss Lucy’s high, clear notes, came the song, “Oh, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”

Before the last strains came, Loria was raving like a maniac. He had never heard of the phonograph records of his aunt’s songs, for they had meant to surprise him with them on his next trip home.

“Have mercy!” he cried: “stop her! Oh, my God! what does it all mean?”

“Confess,” ordered Fleming Stone.

“I will confess! I do confess! I did send her the powder, just as you say. I wrote her to dress up like Cleopatra, and put on her pearls, and scarabs, and fasten an asp, a paper one, at her throat, and take the stuff, and it would cause Cleopatra’s beauty to come to her. I told her to hold in her hand something belonging to the man she loved. It was a great scheme—a fine scheme—” Loria was babbling insanely now. “I don’t see how any one ever found it out. I was so careful! I made her promise to burn all my notes and letters about it, before I would send the powder. Who suspected it? I planned everything so carefully—so carefully—Made her promise to burn everything—everything—letters of instruction, powder-papers, everything must be burned, I said—everything—and she said, yes, Carr, everything. Over and over I wrote it. Told her that if she left anything unburnt the charm wouldn’t work, and it didn’t. Ha, ha,” with a demoniac chuckle, “it didn’t!”

“Take me away, I can’t stand it,” moaned Pauline.

Again there was a silence. The phonograph had ceased; Loria sat, with his head fallen forward on his hands, at his table. He was still, and Stone wondered if he were alive. Then, suddenly, he lifted his head, and cried out.

“Yes, I did it because I was crazy, wild over my Nile scheme. Ah, that wonderful work! It will never be done now. When I heard Stone was here I knew it was all up. I planned to lose Polly for a time—not forever, no, not forever—I would have found her some day—some day—all dead, in the desert, all dead—”

Pauline fainted and Stone flew to her side. But in a moment she revived, and he begged her to go home. She consented, and Ahri, dependable now, took her to the hotel.

Fleming Stone and Mr. Pitts attempted to get Loria to calm down and talk more coherently. Shortly he did so. He gave a full account of all the details of his crime, and though he denied the intention of leaving Pauline to die in the desert, his word was not believed by the two listeners.

Finally, he rose and walked across the room. “You see,” he said, a little wearily, but quite sane, now, “I’ve a bad streak in me. My father was a Spaniard and he killed his own uncle. The Loria line is a series of criminals. Aunt Lucy never knew this, for my parents lived always abroad. But blood will tell. And my father, after he killed my uncle, followed it up by taking his own life—like this—”

Though Stone caught the gesture and sprang to prevent it, Loria was too quick for him. He had snatched a dagger from the table, and plunged it into his heart.

Both men leaped at him, but it was all over in an instant. Carr Loria had himself dealt the punishment for his crimes.

“Perhaps it’s as well,” said Stone, musingly. “A trial, and all that, would have been awful for his cousin, and the family connections. Now the matter can be disposed of with far less notoriety and publicity.”

“Yes,” agreed Pitts.

Fleming Stone waited till morning to tell Pauline of her cousin’s death. She was wide-eyed and pathetically sad, but composed.

“It is all so dreadful,” she said, “but, Fleming, I knew it before I left New York. I didn’t know it, exactly, but I felt sure it must be so, and I had to come here to see. Then I found Carr so gay and light-hearted I thought I must be mistaken, and I was glad, too. Then when you came, I couldn’t make up my mind whether you suspected Carr, or whether—”

“Whether I came only to see you,” supplied Stone. “It was both, dear.”

“What made you think of Carr, in the first place?”

“Because there was no real evidence against any one else, though the police were making things dangerous for you, my little girl.” Stone held her close, as if even yet there might be a hint of danger. “And I made Miss Frayne confess that she didn’t really see you leave your aunt’s room that night, though she did honestly think that you were in there, and your aunt was talking to you. Nor you didn’t see her actually leaving the room, did you?”

“I only saw her with her hand on the door-knob. That was my first glimpse of her, and I thought she was coming out.”

“No; she thought of going in to apologize for her hasty temper. But, hearing a voice, she paused, and so thrilling was the talk she overheard, she waited there some minutes.”

“And then, you thought of Carr?”

“I sized up all the people who had motive, and Loria was surely in that category. And then I found the powder-papers. Dear, those would have gone sorely against you if any one else had discovered them. I resolved to wrest the secret from those papers, and I did!”

“You did? How?”

“By studying them for hours; with magnifying glasses, and without. I found at last a clue—a possible clue—in the fact that the edges of the papers had been cut with the curved blades of a pair of manicure scissors. I had Jane bring me all the manicure scissors in the house—thank Heaven, your scissors didn’t come within a mile of fitting the edges! You see, the papers were faintly scalloped on every edge. They must have been cut by the little curved blades, and rarely do two pairs of manicure scissors make the same scallop. The great discovery was that Miss Lucy’s own scissors did fit them! This, dearest, would have pointed to you in the eyes of these determined police, for you had access to your aunt’s toilet appointments.”

“So did Anita or anybody in the house!”

“Yes, but the police were hot on your track, and ready to bend any hint your way. Oh, thank God, that I could and did save you! Well, I further noticed that these scissors of Miss Carrington’s were of a different pattern from the brushes and mirrors of her set. I went to Estelle, and she told me that the last time Carr Loria was at home he took a great fancy to his aunt’s scissors and asked her to give them to him. She did, and when she tried to get another pair with that especial shaped blade, she could do so only by taking a different patterned handle! Do you wonder that I came straight over here?”

“No,” and the lovely eyes beamed with admiration of Stone’s cleverness, as well as with affection.

“Then, last night, I went to Loria’s rooms, and found not only the scissors that fitted exactly the scalloped papers, but found that the outside powder wrapper is undoubtedly a piece of his own writing-paper. It is the same color and texture. Moreover, as he confessed it all, there is no further room for doubt. Another hint I had was when I found some of Loria’s letters in your aunt’s desk. Not their contents, they were just such as any affectionate nephew might write his aunt, but the chirography. You know the letter from him that you showed me, was typewritten, and I judged nothing from it. But his handwriting—I have studied the science—gave evidence of criminal traits, and I felt sure then I was on the right track. I brought the phonograph record to frighten him into confession, and it did. Ahri started it, in the next room, at my signal.”

“I might have known you would do it. When I came here, you know, I wrote and asked you to drop the case. I feared your investigations would lead to Carr.”

“It had to be a question of his guilt or yours,” returned Stone gravely. “You don’t know, darling, how near you were to arrest! Let’s not think of it ever again. I’ll engage to keep your dear mind occupied with pleasant thoughts all the rest of our life. You don’t want to stay in Cairo, do you? Shall we try Algiers for a honeymoon spot? Or, if you don’t want Africa at all, how about Greece, or over to Algeciras? Whither away, my Heart’s Dearest?”

“Whither? Together, then what matter whither?” said Pauline, her eyes full of a love deep enough to drown the sorrows that had filled the past weeks.

“Together always,” he responded, holding her to him; “always, my Pauline.”