THE MAD DETECTIVE, by John D. Swain

CHAPTER I

THE VACATION

At the top of a little hill, Jed Hooper shut off the engine and brought his crazy flivver to a full stop. He turned in his seat and spoke to the two passengers, buried under a heap of luggage and parcels.

“Yonder’s the camp,” he said. “The white one, against the clump of cedars.”

Frank Weston and his wife gazed with tired eyes over a country well worth coming hundreds of miles to behold. Though fairly well settled, as the Maine countryside goes, it seems almost a primeval wilderness, with most of the farmhouses hidden by the green forest, and only here and there in a clearing, a glimpse of distant homes, with an occasional white spire piercing the treetops. A mile away Frenchman’s Bay glowed blue and gold in the afternoon sun, and in the offing Mt. Desert loomed like a huge purple jewel floating lightly on the breast of the Atlantic.

“Why, there’s smoke coming from our chimney!”

Jed Hooper looked through his windshield. “Yes, ma’am. My wife reckoned it’d seem homelike to you. She’ll have a pot of tea waiting for you, and mebbe some of her molasses cookies. Thoughtful about such things, Lizzie is.”

He slipped in the clutch, and the car started, coasting easily down the slope, crossing a noisy little brook, swinging in from the highway over a grass-grown road which brought them through a ragged orchard to the front door of a well-preserved, story-and-a-half frame house badly in need of paint. Half of an old grindstone formed the doorstep, and as the passengers dismounted stiffly, the door opened and a fat, smiling woman wearing a gingham apron beamed on them, and began to help them unload their bundles before the slower-moving Jed had heaved himself out of the car.

“Land sakes! That a cat you got there in that satchel with a little window in it?”

Annie Weston laughed. “Yes, Mrs. Hooper. We thought it wouldn’t be homelike without a cat; so we bought one from the animal shop in New York.”

Lizzie Hooper lifted the satchel and peered curiously at the alarmed creature which was faintly meowing within.

“Well,” she decided. “It ain’t much to look at! Got no tail, for one thing. Never could abide a tailless cat. They look sort of unfinished. If it was your own, one you’d got attached to, I could understand; but why on earth you should go buy one! Up here, we’re glad to give ’em away. Why, Jed has got to drown four kittens, right now. Pretty little things they be, too.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” Annie Weston cried. “I never could bear to do it!”

“Well, if you had about twelve a year, you’d have to, or the country’d be overrun with wild critters. We got four, right now; and whenever the count runs higher ’n that, there’s a drowning has to be tended to.”

The city couple entered through the wide doorway, and from its little entry passed into a pleasant, low-ceilinged room in whose far end burned a cheery, open fire. The furniture was simple but effective; little, old, low rockers, with gay chintz covers; a mellow cherry table; a horsehair sofa; a great hooked rug on the floor of wide boards, some samplers and dingy steel engravings on the walls. The table was set out with dishes, cups and saucers; and soon the Westons were devouring fresh molasses cookies, dishes of wild strawberries with cream, cups of strong tea, slices of home-baked bread thickly spread with fresh butter.

After eating, the question of the cat came up. The door was shut, and the animal released, its attention called to a saucer of rich milk. It ignored it and all the inmates with equal impatience and began to circle the room, the fur along its spine raised, whiskers twitching, eager only to find a way out of the room and house.

“That’s the way with cats in a strange place,” Jed remarked. “They won’t settle down till they’ve learned every nook and hole in the place. You got to butter their paws!”

“You—what?” Mrs. Weston gasped. “Butter their—”

“Yes’m. Never fails; you look and see.”

With some difficulty Jed succeeded in capturing the frightened, bobtailed gray creature, which he held despite its scratching and wriggling, while Lizzie, with the skill of long practice, took a spoonful of butter from the dish on the table, and thoroughly rubbed it into each one of the four paws. This done, Jed set the cat down.

Instead of running about as before, the cat looked slightly puzzled. It shook first one, then the other of its paws; seated itself, and carefully licked each one clean. The process took some time; and when done, the cat seemed for the first time to notice its saucer of milk. It sniffed daintily at it, found it good, and lapped up the very last drop, as well as another saucerful which Lizzie poured. Thereafter the city cat sat peacefully down beside the fireplace, blinked its eyes, washed its whiskers clean, and began to purr.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Weston. “How come?”

Jed chuckled. “Seems like the one thing a cat regards above all else, is to clean itself of anything that gits onto it; ’specially its feet. While it was licking off the butter, it forgot it was in a strange place; and the taste of butter made it remember it was hungry. So, having eaten in a place, why, that makes it seem like home. Same as I hope you folks do after eating ma’s molasses cakes and tea!”

Annie Weston laughed. “We certainly do, don’t we, Frank? You see, this is really our honeymoon! Yes, when we were married all that Frank could spare was just three days. Of course, we went to Atlantic City! And every year since then, we’ve promised ourselves a real honeymoon. And this is it; we’re going to stay two months, and forget business and everything. Going to wear old clothes, and go to bed with the chickens, and rise with the sun. Why, we haven’t even subscribed for a daily paper! We’ve put New York behind us, stock-market reports, theatrical reviews, divorces, crimes and all. It’s quiet we want, and just to be ourselves and get acquainted.”

Jed and Lizzie both nodded appreciatively.

“Well, you’ll git all the quiet you want! Nothing ever happens here more exciting than a hen stealing her nest, or a school of mackerel reported out in the bay, or the like of that. We ain’t even had a funeral for more’n a year. Folks live long, up in these parts, even if they don’t live very fast!”

While Jed showed Weston about the yard, and explained how to start the wooden pump if it got obstinate, and pointed out the ruinous chicken run and the bearing trees of what had once been a fine fruit orchard, his wife took Mrs. Weston all about the house, with which she fell in love at once. It was primitive to a degree the city woman had never dreamed of; no running water in the house, a wooden sink, scrubbed clean, great beds with queer contraptions of tauted ropes for springs, shelves of quaint old china and pewter, everything immaculately clean, and nothing lacking save modern plumbing and lighting. The latter consisted of old kerosene lamps, and tallow candles.

“It’s plain,” Lizzie admitted. “But it served old Miss Jarvis more’n fifty years. She was born and died right in this house, and her father before her. This chinaware and the furniture was hers. It all belongs to a niece, who lives out to Minnesota. We have the leasing of the house. An artist had it last summer. He spattered paint some; I cleaned it off as well as I could.”

The Hoopers rattled off in their car, cordially urging their tenants to call on them for any help needed. They could supply milk, butter, eggs, vegetables, salt pork, fresh-killed fowls, advice, and back numbers of a weekly newspaper, the Farmer’s Almanac, and the Rural Agriculturist.

Alone, for almost the first time in five years, the Westons looked at one another, laughed happily, took hands and executed an improvised dance about their living room, kitchen, and parlor. The cat, already entirely at home, was out in the yard clumsily attempting to catch grasshoppers, an exciting game which had not, in its brief life passed in a bird-and-animal shop, been called to its attention.

“Are you going to be contented, Frank?” his wife asked a little wistfully.

“Am I? Why, I’ve left everything in such shape that I don’t even want to see a newspaper; and only half a dozen people have my mail address. That’s our mail box, by the way; that galvanized tin out on the gate post, with the little red tin flag sticking up in it. I’m going to loaf and grow fat, and make love to you!”

“You may grow thin, on my cooking! It is years since I touched a frying pan; and then I had an electric range, a cookbook, and all sorts of devices to save labor. You’re going to suffer indigestion for a few days, old boy!”

“Well, I’ll work it off splitting kindling, and digging clams, and tramping through the woods!”

That evening they ate their first meal alone, with no servant to stand at their elbows, no cook to cater to their whims. And for the first time in long years, both were ravenously hungry. There was a cement-floored, stone-walled little cellar, with only narrow slits for ventilation, and a single door leading from the kitchen; a solid plank of oak, fastened by a hand-wrought iron staple. In the cellar were bins of clean white sand, containing vegetables. There was a keg of cider, and a swing shelf loaded with bottles and jars of jellies, pickles, preserves, relishes, fruits. A big ham swung from an iron hook; underneath stood a keg of salt pork, and a pail of salt mackerel. In the kitchen was flour, sugar, a bread and cake tin, a wood stove and a small oil one. Jed Hooper had caught and cleaned a mess of flounders for them, boiled two fat lobsters, and set a pail of clams by the sink.

Red, with a new burn on one white arm, but radiantly happy withal, Annie flitted back and forth from kitchen stove to table. They had decided to eat in the kitchen; it was large, extending the entire width of the house, and it had a fireplace, as had nearly every room in the house. They ate until they were more than satisfied, but no indigestion resulted, even though the fried potatoes were scorched, and the coffee was too strong.

With the setting of the sun, a chill descended; and they were glad to close the door and sit near the fireplace in the living room.

Romeo the cat, groggy from the amount of grasshoppers he had devoured, dozed at their feet. The wood crackled pleasantly; outside all was still save for the distant hooting of an owl, and once or twice a dry, sharp bark which they supposed to be uttered by a dog, but which was really a young fox out hunting in the moonlight. Then, suddenly and startling, a whip-poor-will began its weird song very near them; stealing to the window, they could just make out its body perched on the old wooden pump.

The cat, whose experience had been only with birds in cages, pricked up his ears and licked his chops. The song of the night warbler drowned the steady ticking of the wooden clock with its picture of a square-rigger on a very wooden sea.

“Sounds sort of lonesome, don’t you think?” whispered Annie.

Frank Weston laughed happily.

“Sounds good! Haven’t heard one since I was a ten-year-old. Don’t believe I’ve ever thought of one for twenty years. They used to say it is a good sign when one of them comes so near a house. They mostly cling to the deep woods. Guess this one is serenading us, welcoming us home!”

Tired from their long journey, and the excitement of arrival, they went early to bed. Upstairs, in a half-finished attic, were three small chambers, each with its big bed and old-fashioned bureau and washstand with bowl and pitcher. Fine linen towels, hemstitched by Jed Hooper’s wife, hung on the racks; new cakes of cheap soap were in their china dishes. Annie chose the rear room, which looked out over distant Frenchman’s Bay, now shimmering in moonlight, and separated from them by a heavy growth of cedars. Her husband took the front one which connected with it, the door having been removed from its hinges. The lamps were blown out. Romeo settled himself at the foot of Frank’s bed, and began a faint bedtime song. The whip-poor-will had ceased its welcome; it was intensely still now, outside. Listening closely, Annie could hear from the sea the deep respiration of the making tide as it flung itself against the rocky shore. Her thoughts drifted out on the tides of sleep.

Suddenly, appallingly loud in the quiet night, there came to her ears the heavy drumming of hard knuckles on wood. Downstairs, the front door vibrated to the sound of a knocking that would not be denied!

CHAPTER II

THE WARNING

There was something ominous in that urgent summons, heard in the night. Already the moon was sinking behind the cedar swamp; looking from his window, Frank Weston could make out only masses of shadow relieved by a pallid glimmer that revealed no details. Directly below him, and standing on the old grindstone by the front door, was a dark figure that looked too large to be a man. Who could have any business with them at such an hour, long after the countryside had retired to slumber, the oil lamps blown out in distant windows?

His voice, despite his efforts to control it, quavered a little as he leaned out into the cool night air, and called softly: “Yes? Who is it, and what do you want?”

The man below raised his head to the sound, his face showing as a whitish blur masked in a heavy beard and shaded by an old, floppy, black felt hat.

“Your name Weston? Just got here from the city, ain’t ye? Well, I’m Jason Hodge—your nearest neighbor down the road a piece. Come down so’s I can talk without hollerin’. Got something important to say, and there’s no telling who may be listenin’.”

“What is it, Frank? Is anything wrong?”

The anxious voice of his wife came from the adjoining room as Weston hastily slipped into trousers and shoes, not bothering to put on his stockings nor fasten the laces.

“Oh, nothing much, I guess,” he answered lightly, though his nerves still jumped a little after being roused so startlingly from profound sleep. “Only a neighbor; says his name is Hodge. Probably wants to borrow something; folks out in the remote country are always running out of matches or flour or something. It’s all right; tell you all about it soon as he’s got what he wants and gone home.”

He took a pocket torch from the bureau, and snapped on its cold, white beam as he stole down the narrow stairway with its carved mahogany railing, which some misguided tenant had long ago painted white. For just an instant he hesitated at the door, before slipping the heavy iron bolt; then with a smile at his timidity, which he realized came solely from the unfamiliar isolation of one accustomed to living packed in among teeming thousands, he threw open the door. It creaked loudly in the silence; and unconsciously he stepped back a pace, his hand tightening on the metal cylinder of the torch.

The strange caller blinked as the beam played about his rugged, homely face. “I won’t step in,” he said, his voice pitched cautiously low. “And sorry to wake ye up this time o’ night. But fact is, there’s trouble afoot. I knew you and your wife just got in today; we see ye pass with Jed Hooper. Wanted to warn ye to keep doors and windows locked tight, and it might not be a bad idee to have a gun handy. Have you got one?”

“I have an automatic,” Weston admitted a little sheepishly. “Thought I might amuse myself shooting at a mark. Had it a long time, and never got a chance to fire it off in the city.”

The bearded figure nodded. “Mebbe you’ll have a real mark to shoot at. Hope not, and tain’t likely. This neighborhood is very peaceable. Everybody knows everybody else, or at least, we cal’lated we did. But I just got a telephone message; we’ve all of us got telephones, but you. That’s why I came over to warn ye. Didn’t seem right, somehow, with you two city folks sleeping like as not with the door unlocked—which nobody down here ever bothers to lock up nights—”

Weston shivered a little. The chill night air was penetrating his thin shirt and ruffling his thin hair. “But what is it all about? What did you come to warn us about, if the village is as peaceable as you say?”

The bewhiskered man coughed. “That’s what I was coming to, mister. As I was saying, I got this telephone message from the sheriff over to Allsworth. That’s the county seat. Something terrible has happened at the Bronsons’, ten miles away on the Cranberry Beach road. A man—don’t know who, because he wore a mask—near killed Mrs. Bronson. This was along about sundown; she only managed to get word through to Allworth half an hour ago. Her husband, Elmer Bronson, was down at the beach, a mile away, floating off that big sloop of his. High tide tonight, and he’s been putting in some new strakes and painting her up. So the Bronson woman was all alone. Well, this stranger, he knocked on her door and asked for a drink of water. Soon as she opened the door and see he was masked, she tried to shut it in his face, but he was too quick for her. Set his foot in the opening and pushed on through. Then seems as if he struck her with something heavy; she was too upset to remember much of anything about it. Next thing she knew, she was trussed up hand and foot, and gagged with an old towel, and laying in her bathtub.

“The Bronsons had new plumbing put in only last summer. Mighty proud of their bathroom; there’s only two others in Fast Harbor! Well, that devil wasn’t satisfied with knockin’ her senseless, and then going through all her closets and bureaus and stealing what little money and jewelry he could find, but he’d left her helpless in the tub, flat on her back, and turned on the cold water faucet. He’d put in the plug, and when she come to the water had already riz high enough to reach her shoulders. It was only a matter of minutes when it’d reach her mouth and nose and drowned her! Somehow, she herself don’t know how she done it, she managed to work herself loose, just in time, and set up. Then she fainted; and when she came to again, the tub was full and runnin’ over. She says it’s gone through the floor and spoiled the kitchen ceiling,” finished Neighbor Hodge, with an anticlimax of which he was unconscious.

“Haven’t they any idea who did it?” asked Weston, his teeth chattering a little. “Seems as if she’d recognize something familiar about the assailant. You all must know one another pretty well around here!”

“She’s sure he don’t belong in these parts,” Hodge said. “And so far he hasn’t been caught up with. Of course, they’re out looking for him. Tomorrow soon as it gits light enough, they’ll try to track him. But anyhow, he’s got clear away. Bronson come home about an hour after his wife got herself free, and he telephoned right to the sheriff in Allsworth, and it was him notified me. And I dressed myself and come right on over to warn ye folks. It ain’t likely he’ll trouble you none; but you never can tell. Crazy, I says. No professional burglar would bother to do such a thing, when the woman was already helpless and he’d got all there was lying loose. Took about eleven dollars, and Mrs. Bronson’s best silver spoons and forks, and a string of gold beads that belonged to her grandmother. That’s all they’ve missed, so far.”

Jason Hodge turned aside, as if to go. Weston recollected himself, and stepped to one side. “Won’t you come in, and let my wife make you a cup of tea or something? I’m sure we are very grateful to you, and sorry for your trouble!”

Hodge shook his head. “Nope. Never drink tea late at night, much obliged. And as for the trouble, we folks out in the country always aim to be neighborly. Not like the city, where I’ve heard it said the dwellers in the same tenements live on for years without even having a bowing acquaintance, nor ’tending one another’s funerals! We ain’t like that, down here. Only a few of us, and we try to act human.”

Weston laughed. “That slam was deserved, I guess, Mr. Hodge! We do get sort of inhuman in the big cities. But that’s partly because families are always coming and going; and in emergencies there are always policemen and doctors to be had at a moment’s notice. But I certainly do thank you, and I’ll sleep with one eye open. If I can help track down the robber tomorrow, call on me! I want to do my share, too.”

Hodge was already moving down the path toward the gate. He turned and spoke over his shoulder. “Guess it’ll take somebody who can read signs to do that, mister! Somebody that knows the woods. A man could hide out for weeks in these deep cedar swamps. Pretty thinly settled! But we’ll root the varmint out, if he’s anywheres about. And when we ketch him, he’ll be lucky if he ever lives to be tried!”

A moment later the gate clicked in the darkness, and Weston rebolted his door. He also went over the rooms on the lower floor, closed and locked each window. He had bolted his door through sheer habit; all the windows had been left open, for the fresh air. They were screened against mosquitoes, but otherwise unprotected. He turned and mounted the stairs, to find Annie standing shivering on the top landing.

“How perfectly awful!” she exclaimed, “I heard all he said. And we supposed that up here we’d get away from all the lawlessness and assaults and murders and things our city papers are full of! I didn’t dream any worse crime was ever heard of up here in this lovely country than the theft of a watermelon, or the bootlegging of a little hard cider by some thrifty farmer! Oh, Frank, I don’t believe I’m going to like it here. Let’s go to some civilized resort, and give up our rental here!”

Weston put a reassuring arm across her shoulder and gently urged her back to her room.

“Shucks! Wait till tomorrow, and see how different you feel in the bright sunshine. I don’t believe there are any dangerous people living within twenty miles of us. This was the act of some tramp crazy with hooch, or dope. They’ll catch him; and nothing exciting will happen here again for fifty years more. But isn’t it queer that this should occur the very night we arrived to enjoy the simple life!”

Contrary to their expectations, both fell asleep within fifteen minutes, nor were they troubled with bad dreams. They were roused only when Romeo, the bobtailed cat, scandalized at the idea of lying abed after the sun was up, perched on Weston’s pillow and patted his face with imperative paws. He opened his eyes, grinned, and called out to Annie that it was a grand morning, and that he could do with a bit of breakfast!

As Weston had prophesied, his wife felt differently about their new home in the bright morning sunshine. Robins and bluebirds were singing, and selecting home sites. Down on the shore, crows were strutting up and down, their sharp beaks attacking periwinkles and mussels. The island of Mt. Desert stood out so clearly that one could make out automobiles crawling up its steep mountain roads. In the lilac bush at the corner of the kitchen, a peabody bird lighted and uttered its joyous song, which our northern cousins insist is a repetition of the word: “Canada.”

Annie sang too, as she wrestled with coffee, ham and eggs and toast, all at one time on her stove aflame with seasoned kindling. Frank surveyed his bristly chin in the mirror of his bureau, grinned, and decided not to shave that day. That was one of the petty tyrannies he had come up here to escape! No, and he wouldn’t wear any necktie, either. Just a flannel shirt open at the neck, the new corduroy trousers, and on his feet a pair of easy buckskin shoes. Bareheaded, he would wander about and get the lay of the land after breakfast. He too sang, discordantly, but none the less happily.

But before breakfast was fairly over, they had a caller, two of them, in fact; one remained outside, at the wheel of the stanch old touring car. The other, a determined-looking man with a square chin and sea-blue eyes, a man in his vigorous fifties and wearing loose blue serge and a slouch hat, knocked at the door. By daylight, there was nothing ominous about this knocking; it didn’t seem nearly as loud as the summons of Jason Hodge in the blackness of night.

He nodded at Frank as he answered the door, a piece of buttered toast in one hand and toast crumbs sprinkling his flannel shirt.

“Mr. Weston? From New York? Thought so. I’m Thomas, Joe Thomas from Allsworth—sheriff. Suppose you’ve heard about what happened last night?”

“Hodge came over to tell me,” Weston said. “He knew we have no telephone. Won’t you come in, Mr. Thomas? We can rustle up a cup of hot coffee—”

The sheriff interrupted him with a gesture of one hand.

“Much obliged; but this is my busy day. What time did Jason tell you about what happened at Bronson’s place?”

“Why—I don’t know exactly; I think I’d just fallen asleep, and we retired about ten o’clock. Couldn’t have been much later than ten thirty.”

“Then you really don’t know what all could have taken place afterward.”

“Why, no. We locked up tight, and then went to sleep again; and you’re the first one I’ve seen since I talked with Hodge.”

The sheriff nodded. “Just so. Well, there was another outrage along toward three o’clock. Same fellow, apparently; anyhow he was masked, and he had plenty of time to walk over to old man Tucker’s cabin. That’s beyond Cranberry Beach a few miles; nearest neighbor is a mile away. Tucker has always had the reputation of being a miser. I don’t know why; I doubt if he’s got ten dollars to his name. But anyhow, this bandit—whoever it was—broke into his shack, woke up the old man and tried to make him tell where his money was hid. Didn’t get nothing out of him. Not even when he tied him up and held lighted matches to the soles of his feet and did other devilish things I haven’t time to go into now. He left along about half past four, as well as Tucker can figure out. The poor old codger is in a bad way. They took him over to Allsworth, to the hospital. He’s hurt, some; but the shock to his nerves is worse, the doctors say. So, you see Hodge’s warning isn’t one to be taken lightly.”

Weston was genuinely shocked. Coming as he had from a city where atrocious crimes were the familiar headlines of his breakfast paper, he had expected to forget such things in the peaceful country of scattered farms, deep woods, and majestic ocean. They seemed worse, somehow, these brutal assaults, than they had back home. They seemed to desecrate the loveliness of nature; to make the bird songs and the fleecy clouds and warm sunshine a mockery.

He was seeking to find some expression of his feelings when Thomas spoke again.

“Just you and your wife here? So I understood. And you got in—when?”

“Yesterday, about four o’clock. Jed Hooper drove us over from Cherryville Junction in his car. We came up on the Down-Easter through train from New York.”

“Strangers here, I take it? How’d you come to learn about the place?”

Weston smiled. “I picked out about the location we desired, on a road map. Then I wrote the postmaster at Cherryville, and he sent me a number of names; Hooper’s was among them. So then I wrote him, and from his description I engaged the Jarvis house.”

He looked the sheriff steadily and a trifle quizzically in the eyes. “I guess you’re asking me to establish a sort of alibi, Mr. Thomas?”

The sheriff reddened slightly, then laughed. “There isn’t a chance in the world that you had anything to do with these two affairs, Weston. But one of the things I have to do is check up on every man, woman and grown child who lives hereabout and could by any chance, however remote, have been to the Bronson and Tucker places last night. That’s dry detail; but it has to be attended to, or I’ll get what-for from the district attorney!”

He turned to go; then paused for a final word.

“Don’t let this fret you and the missus too much. We’re bound to get that murdering dog. I’ve got men that know every mile of this district like it was their own woodpile. Besides which, the roads will be patrolled. I’m swearing in deputies today. You’ll see some of ’em before sundown. And if you hear or see anything suspicious, no matter how trivial it seems to you, be sure to notify one of my men right off. G’bye!”

Weston watched until he swung himself into the waiting car, and was driven rapidly down the sandy road towards Hooper’s place.

“That was the sheriff,” he explained to Annie when he returned to the kitchen for a final cup of coffee. “There was another holdup last night—an old man miles away up the beach somewhere. Nobody was killed or seriously hurt. And before night there’ll be someone on guard along the highway. If they don’t catch the fellow, they’ll at least make it too dangerous for him to attempt anything further around here.”

Annie tried to believe him; her common sense argued that he was right. But somehow, the warmth seemed to have gone from the sunshine. And the birds seemed to have stopped their song, this was natural enough, as their early chorus was over, and they were busy about their affairs. Only Romeo, the bobtailed cat, seemed oblivions of the dark cloud that had descended over the peaceful little hamlet of Fast Harbor. Promptly after he had lapped up his saucer of warm milk, he wandered forth to investigate the life and habits of the field mouse, as found in his dooryard.

When Weston would have imitated his cat to the extent of strolling away from the house, Annie entered a terrified protest.

“Where are you going with that pail, Frank?” she cried. To his reply that he was thinking of going down to the beach which lay just beyond a clump of cedars, to see if he could dig some clams, she objected: “But there’s nearly a peck of clams from those Mr. Hooper left here for us!”

He hesitated, glancing longingly at the short iron clam hook in his hand, “Well, I thought it would be rather good fun. And they will keep indefinitely, if I leave a little water in the pail and sprinkle some corn meal over them. I read that in a newspaper.”

Annie’s voice was a little sharp with terror as she answered him. “Yes, and first thing you know, you’ll be reading in a newspaper that Mrs. Frank Weston was found murdered in her summer camp, while her husband was amusing himself on the shore!”

Half vexed and half amused, he yielded. “If I’ve got to stick around the dooryard all the time, we might as well pull stakes and go to a hotel. One reason for coming up here was to get a lot of exercise and fresh air! If you’re worried, and I don’t wonder, why not put on your old shoes and come along with me?”

She shook her head, “No; I’ve got my housework to attend to. Beds to make, dinner to get started. Of course we’ll take walks all about the country together; but not right after breakfast. You said there’d be some guards posted nearby, didn’t you?”

“So the sheriff promised. All right, then. I’ll wait till they show up before I go out of sight of the house.”

He reluctantly set down his pail and clam hook, and pottered about the rough dooryard, pulling clumps of weeds, removing loose stones from the driveway, working up an appetite by splitting some kindling, although Jed Hooper had prepared a generous supply of fuel in advance of their coming.

The day dragged monotonously. Weston missed his daily papers and the mail he always looked over before going to his office. He hated to admit it, but he even missed the noise and bustle of the city, the throbbing of industry and pleasure and all that went to make up the ordered confusion of a metropolis. Nobody passed the house; lacking a telephone, he could not call up to inquire what progress, if any, had been made toward capturing the murderous unknown.

But directly after dinner, which they ate in an abstracted silence, big Jason Hodge appeared. He was leading a miserable-looking cur, whose pedigree would have puzzled a dog fancier. He hailed Weston with rough cordiality.

“Brought ye a watchdog! He ain’t much to look at, but he sure does make a row if he hears anybody prowling about the house. Thought the missus would feel easier at night with him tied up outside. If you don’t hear Tige yellin’, you can rest easy there’s nobody sneaking up on ye in the dark. Keep him till we’ve caught the miscreant.”

“Mighty good of you,” Weston thanked him, eyeing the dog dubiously. “Then I take it nothing has been found yet? No clues?”

“There’s a posse out now beating up the woods and swamps. Soon as I learn anything I’ll come right over and tell you.”

He looked about, selected a juniper bush whose scrubby boughs formed a shelter close to the ground, dragged the slinking mongrel to it and made fast his rope. “He don’t need no kennel this warm weather,” he explained. “Just feed him twice a day; any scraps left over from the table. Tige ain’t particular. And see that he has plenty of water. Soon as we catch our man, I’ll come over and fetch him home.”

Weston thanked him as cordially as he was able, the dog circled his tree two or three times, winding himself up in his rope, then sniffed resignedly and laid himself down on the sunny side and went to sleep. Hodge strode with long-legged steps back toward his farm, and life at the old Jarvis place went on as before.

The westering sun was sending the long, thin shadows of the cedars and spruces across the yard when two strange men heaved in sight from up the road. There was something grim and businesslike about their look, dressed as they were in rough shooting coats, with breeches tucked into their boots, and rifles under their arms. One of them turned in through the gate and approached Weston, who was feeding the guardian dog.

“Seen any strangers about?” he asked.

Weston shook his head. “You are all strangers to me; all but the sheriff, Hodge and Hooper. But nobody else has been near us; or at least, I have seen no one. You one of the guards Thomas spoke of?”

“That’s me. Name of Larkin. I trap, winters, and do a little lobstering summers. Got a string of pots out in the cove now. Thomas told me to take over a mile or two of the road about here. Nights, that means. Don’t allow there’ll be any daylight assaults.”

“Well, that’s certainly fine! And if you want anything, don’t hesitate to call on us. My wife will be glad to get up in the middle of the night and make you a cup of coffee, or rustle a lunch.”

Larkin grinned. “I’ve tromped the wilderness too long to pamper myself that way, mister! My own wife sees to it I start out with a full stomach, and I’ve more’n once hit the trail for two days with no more than a handful of crackers and a drink of melted snow. But if you see or hear anything unusual, tip me off, will you? The selectmen have offered a reward for the capture, and I could use it.”

Twice that night, Weston rose from his bed and peered out into the darkness; and once he made out the shadowy figure of Larkin as he stole cautiously down the road, making no more noise than an Indian, and keeping to the edge of the road where the cedars cast a protecting gloom.

Neither Frank nor his wife slept well, although greatly eased in their minds by the presence of alert watchers, armed to kill. It was Jason Hodge’s dog which was responsible for their insomnia. Every little while he broke into astonishing howls and ululations, sounds that it did not seem as if his wizened body could give voice to. The animal was uneasy in a strange place, irked by being tied up, and doubtless aware of the passing guards. There was less reassurance in his warning bark than there was annoyance to the would-be sleepers, Both were tired and irritable when they sat down for breakfast next morning; and Annie insisted that the dog be led back to its owner that very day.

“Every time he wakes me up I jump a foot!” she declared. “I might as well be murdered, as scared to death!”

Hodge ambled past during the forenoon; and Weston returned the dog with thanks and explanations.

“He keeps my wife awake with his howling. And now that there are guards posted—man named Larkin has this section to cover—we don’t really need the dog.”

Hodge nodded understandingly.

“Guess that’s right. Tige would warn ye if the bandit come near; but he’s bound to make just as much fuss over a passing guard, or a rabbit, or a skunk. He means well, but he talks too much. If he wan’t such a good coon dog, I’d shoot him. He’s spoiled a deal of sleep for me, too!”

CHAPTER III

A STRANGER

Before dusk fell that afternoon, there was plenty of evidence that the countryside was astir. Where hitherto there had been almost complete isolation, the road was now alive with men on foot, in rackety secondhand cars, and on horseback. Here and there an expensive make of automobile drove past, filled with those whom curiosity had drawn from Allsworth, and even as far away as Bangor. There were reporters and camera men among the rest. The sandy highway began to take on the aspects of a thriving town street.

Weston reflected that almost any one of the men who straggled past, some of them pausing to gape at him as he lounged smoking a pipe in his doorway, might be the murderous bandit who had strangely enough chosen this quiet, law-abiding and by no means wealthy neck of the woods for his assaults and depredations. They were all strangers to him, save the three or four men and one woman he had come to know. But there was comfort in their very numbers; and although toward twilight they thinned out, and finally disappeared save for the solemnly parading sentry, Larkin, Weston and Annie both retired that night without any fears. They were careful to lock everything fast downstairs, and the loaded automatic rested under Frank’s pillow. He wished that he might practice with it a little; but the sound of shots would certainly bring a lot of excited and inquisitive men to their little house. He believed that he had mastered the mechanism, and that he wouldn’t in an emergency forget to slip the safety catch. But there wouldn’t be any emergency; of this he felt sure. With morning, word would probably come that the bandit had been captured.

Instead of which, morning brought Jed Hooper and his wife, Lizzie, with news of a fresh outrage. The masked man, eluding all the trackers, had broken into an unoccupied summer cottage five miles down the shore, ransacking it. The owner had been notified; until he arrived, it was impossible to say just how much had been stolen. Lacking any human victim, the bandit had sated his bad temper on the furnishings. A costly radio set had been wrecked; rugs and pictures were slashed, glass and china broken.

“Course, we don’t know for sure that it’s the same man,” Hooper admitted, “but it’s reasonable to s’pose it is. ’Tain’t likely there’s two sech wild men runnin’ loose about Fast Harbor! He’s a loony, says I, and cunning as a weasel, like crazy folk is apt to be. A criminal lunatic. Sheriff Thomas has found some faint footprints at two of the places, and measured ’em; but that don’t amount to nothing till we find some shoes to fit ’em to—and some feet in the shoes! It looks like he hid out in the cottage a night or two. One of the beds has been slept in, and some tinned grub opened, and water boiled on an oil stove.”

“If you folks are nervous,” Lizzie invited, “you’re more’n welcome to come over and stop with us till they catch him. You’d feel easier where there’s four of us, than just you two, being as you’re strangers here. There’s plenty of room, and folks say they never get up hungry from my table!”

“That is awfully dear of you, Mrs. Hooper; but truly, Frank and I are not alarmed. He has his revolver ready, and we are careful about our doors and windows. Nobody could get in without making a lot of noise, and Frank will give them a warm welcome! Besides, Larkin is on guard near by; and soon as he heard a shot he’d hurry to us with his rifle.”

“Well, that’s sensible,” Lizzie Hooper agreed. “But I didn’t know just how you’d feel about it, and wanted you to know we feel sort of responsible for getting you up here, where you expected to have a good rest!”

The good woman stayed for an hour or so and helped Annie with advice about certain details of cooking; and Frank chatted pleasantly enough with Jed, over a couple of mugs of the smooth cider from the keg in the cellar. There was less passing along the road, today; but quite a number had been identified by Jed during his call, and there were others who were strangers to him.

“I reckon I know by sight every man within fifteen mile,” he declared. “So there must be some who have come from quite a ways off. Cats ain’t all the critters that are pestered by curiosity! Well, we got into the city papers, anyhow; Portland, and even Boston. Your name’s mentioned, too. ‘Mr. Frank Weston and wife, of Riverside Drive, New York, are summering in Fast Harbor, which is just now the center of an unknown bandit’s activities.’ That’s what it said; I memorized it to tell ye.”

Weston laughed. “I don’t know as this sort of publicity does any of us much good!”

Hooper pondered over this. “I’ve heard say that it don’t matter so much what they say about ye, if only they say something!”

“That has been the motto of some famous characters,” Weston admitted. “Anyhow, the more publicity, the harder it will be for the bandit to escape capture. There must be a hundred men looking for him, right now.”

“We’re a leetle mite slow getting started,” Jed said. “But the whole county will be on his trail before the week’s out. The reward will fetch him, I know I could use that five hundred easy! And so could a lot of others. Guess likely you’re the only resident that don’t need it.”

After the Hoopers had left, and with the potatoes boiling for dinner, Annie joined her husband, sitting beside him on the doorstep. There seemed nothing better to do than to watch the passersby. But of these, there seemed only a scattered few. There was nothing to attract them to this particular spot; those who passed were on their way to the Bronson house or old man Tucker’s shack, or the looted cottage. And by noon, the road was as deserted as usual. Larkin wouldn’t come on till dark.

Suddenly, and without warning, a small gray body hurtled between them, shot out into the yard, and made for a clump of junipers. It was Romeo, his hair erect, whiskers twitching, and spitting as he went. His tail would have been ruffed up had it been anything but the mere stump it was!

Weston’s pipe had dropped from his surprised lips. Annie screamed a little, then laughed. “Well, what do you know about that! He was asleep by the kitchen stove when I came out. What do you suppose—”

Her words died away as a slight noise from the rear of the house caught her ear. She rose and turned toward the kitchen.

“Wait! Let me go first,” Frank cried; and thrusting her aside almost brusquely, he hurried through the living room and into the kitchen. At the door, he paused uncertainly. A man—a stranger—stood in the middle of the floor, regarding him with a faint grin.

He was a slightly built, pleasant-faced man of about thirty-five, dressed neatly and almost fastidiously in well-fitting clothes, and wearing a pearl-gray felt hat which he removed as he caught sight of Weston’s wife standing at his shoulder. He set down a small traveling bag as he spoke.

“I knocked, but I fancy you didn’t hear me.”

His voice was agreeable and low pitched. “And I seem to have scared your cat into a fit! Sorry.”

“What did you do to Romeo?” Annie asked, her courage returning

“Not a thing, I assure you! The truth is, cats sort of have it in for me. I rather like them; but they don’t reciprocate. Down at the office they poke a lot of fun at me about it. But let me introduce myself properly.”

From an inside breast pocket he look a black leather case, and from it removed a business card which he handed to Weston It read: “Sanford Teller, Detective. Representing the Wallis Detective Agency. Boston.”

“I may also add that I have full credentials in this pocket case, and a real, shiny new badge,” the stranger added. In proof of the latter assertion he unbuttoned the top of his vest and showed on the under side an oval silver shield, bearing the title of detective and a number.

“Well, I declare!” said Annie. “You don’t look one bit like a detective! Of course, I never saw one before, to know him.”

Mr. Teller bowed gracefully. “You flatter me, madam! The one man I don’t want to look like is a detective. And so, your words are balm to my spirit.”

He turned to Weston. “Your name I know. I read of your arrival in a Boston daily; and I already knew more or less of your financial position in New York. Now, Mr. Weston, it is urgent that I have a few words in private with you. Will Mrs. Weston think me too rude, if—”

Annie colored slightly. “Certainly not! But if you two will use one of the front rooms, I’ll finish getting dinner ready. For after all, this is my domain, Mr. Teller!”

The urbane sleuth bowed gallantly. “Granted, Mrs. Weston! And I’ll explain to your husband how I came to call at the back door, instead of the front. And he has my permission to tell you as much as he chooses, of what I tell him.”

He stooped over and picked up his grip, and followed his host to the front of the house, while Annie gingerly stuck a fork into one of the bubbling potatoes, as Lizzie Hooper had told her to do. She wasn’t at all sure whether they were done or not; the fork seemed to go in easily enough. She set them farther back on the stove, and began to cut thin slices from a ham.

The two men meanwhile had seated themselves in the parlor, a room the Westons had not had any occasion to use so far. To Weston’s suggestion that they sit on the doorstep, the detective objected. Not only that, but he carefully closed the door, and took pains to sit far back in the room, out of range of the window.

“All this seems very mysterious, and stagy,” he said. “But it is dictated by strict common sense. I am afraid your well-earned privacy is about to be invaded, sir! Almost overnight your little village has become unhappily notorious. And that is why I am here.”

He leaned forward, his quiet voice pitched still lower.

“I have been lurking in the cedar grove behind your house for half an hour,” he confessed. “When I was as certain as I could be that the coast was clear, I hustled across the backyard; and when you didn’t answer my knock, I didn’t waste a moment. It may have been impolite, but I simply came right on in!”

Once more he took out his pocket case, glanced over a number of papers, selected one. “Here is a copy, on our official paper, of a letter received by Mr. Wallis—my employer—from the assistant district attorney, Mr. Frothingham. You will note that he requests that an agent be sent as soon as possible from Boston. The truth is, Mr. Weston, that the district attorney knows as well as I do—and as you probably do—that this case is a little out of the ordinary experience of country constables! While Thomas, the sheriff, is a good man as far as he goes, shrewd and energetic, he has never handled anything more intricate than chasing down an illicit still, or helping the fish warden stop the destruction of short lobsters, or lock up the village cut-up occasionally. Something a little more up-to-date than the hick constable is needed right now, and that is why I am here. Got in this morning, early, and have kept out of sight.

“My experience has been almost entirely with bank men and loft workers in the cities; and the only reason for sending me up here is that I was pretty familiar with the country, because as a boy my father used to rent a summer place at Bar Harbor year after year. I’ve hunted and fished for miles up and down the coast.”

“But just why have you called on me?” Weston asked. “I’m probably the one man within twenty miles who is least fitted to give you the slightest information or advice! We have only just moved in, and were never here before.”

Teller smiled, fished in his pockets again, and this time took out a handsome pigskin cigar case. He offered it to Weston, who accepted a panatela. Teller held the match, lighted one himself. When it was drawing, he spoke again.

“You’ve answered your own question! The one thing I don’t want is advice, or alleged information! And I’d be swamped with it if I were to approach anybody else. They’re great gossips in these parts; and just now, everybody is bursting with theories and rumors. It is vital for my success, that my presence be not so much as suspected. At my suggestion, Mr. Wallis wrote the district attorney not to notify Sheriff Thomas, or any one else, that our agency is interested in the case. We work alone, sir, and in the dark. And now I come to the gist of the matter. The truth is, and much as I regret to do so, I am obliged to make an awkward request, the decision on which must, of course, rest with you and Mrs. Weston. If I am to work in secret, my presence unsuspected by the local police, and my work unhampered, where am I going to stay? And here is where you come in, if you will!”

Weston looked startled. “You mean, you want to stay here? To eat and sleep in this house?”

Teller nodded and blew a beautiful smoke ring.

“Sounds nervy, doesn’t it? Of course I needn’t say that you may send the Wallis Agency a bill in full, and you don’t need to be too modest about the amount, either! This county is paying all the expenses. But I also realize that is isn’t a question of money, but the interruption of what was intended to be a restful, quiet vacation. Well, as to that, let me remind you that this rest and quiet has already been somewhat upset by the events of the past two nights. And furthermore, I shall be here only by day. I must got some sleep and have a place in which to hide out, and make my reports to Wallis. As soon as it is dark, I shall be off on my investigations. I am as good as a cat for seeing in the dark! Maybe that is one reason why cats dislike me. We are rival night prowlers, in the estimation of puss! But joking aside, I should sleep forenoons, require only the plainest of food, and not much of that; work at my reports and the assembling of any clues I may dig up through the afternoon, and be off and away as soon as night falls.

“Forget me; think only of your duty as a citizen. This law-abiding little community is terrorized by a nameless peril. The chances are ten to one against its solution by the local constabulary. The chances are about that in my favor; I have a pretty good record for getting my men! But in order to work unhampered, I must have a hangout. All I need is a shake down and a blanket; I’m used to roughing it. That, and some food.”

Weston pondered for some moments, his brow furrowed. Then it cleared, and he spoke up. “Of course, Teller, I can’t decide a thing like this without speaking to my wife!”

“By all means! I wouldn’t stay here for a moment unless she sanctioned it. Be perfectly frank with her. I trust you both.”

Frank went back to the kitchen, where the ham was already sizzling, and a bowl of fresh eggs stood ready to be dropped into the hot fat. Briefly he told Annie the situation as Teller had outlined it. Rather to his relief, she insisted that the detective must be sheltered.

“Aside from it being our plain duty,” she said as she turned a slice of ham without spattering too much hot grease, “think what a protection he will be! You can have your walks, and dig clams, and fish or anything, because he will be here all day. Then at night, you will be home. I’ll have a big, strong man at hand to protect me twenty-four hours a day! And now, ask him to have dinner with us. It will be ready in a jiffy.”

It was a jolly meal, even though Romeo sulked and would not come inside for his food, which had to be set outside the door for him. To both Weston and his wife, it was quite an experience to talk familiarly with a real detective. They had read many mystery stories, but never before had they seen a detective; they might have, of course, but at least they had not recognized him as one. And the Wallis Agency was internationally known. It never handled any dirty cases; and it frequently cooperated with the police of many cities, and even of countries abroad. Wallis, the founder, had at one time been a Boston police chief.

Teller laughingly refused to discuss the present case.

“I only just arrived, and I don’t allow myself to do any theorizing until I’ve looked over the ground. But I promise you this: you are my partners now, and whatever I learn, I’ll disclose to you. We will work the case over together. It happens more often than you think, that an outsider, one with no connection whatever with the forces of law and order, furnishes us professionals with a priceless suggestion! You are a sound business man, sir, and I grant Mrs. Weston a full share of woman’s intuition!”

Teller slept for quite a while after dinner. His long night journey, taken at such short notice that he had been unable to obtain a sleeping berth, had tired him. Toward dusk, he awakened, and had supper with them; but he seemed preoccupied with the hour drawing near when he must set forth on the hunt for clews.

Annie had fixed up a comfortable cot for him on the sofa in the parlor; at his request, the blinds were drawn, all the windows closed. He placed his grip in a little cupboard, and carefully removed all traces of his presence.

“Not a word to the sheriff, if he calls, nor to anyone else!” he warned, “You won’t have to lie, for nobody suspects my presence, and nobody but the district attorney knows that we are in on the case at all. I have made arrangements to communicate with him, and to forward my reports to Boston.”

Shortly after darkness had fallen, Sanford Teller, with the furtiveness that delighted Annie as the proper attitude of a sleuth, crept from the house by the kitchen door, and after peering up and down for some moments, darted across the strip of rough ground and was lost to sight in the cedar grove.

“It isn’t the simple life we expected, but isn’t it just too thrilling?” Annie chattered as they climbed the narrow stairway to their chambers. “Like one of these mystery plays, only lots more real!”

CHAPTER IV

GOLD BEADS

Annie was awakened by a sunbeam which found its way in through a chink in the blinds and struck her full in the eye. Her first thought was of their strange guest.

“Good gracious! And he wanted to get into the house unseen. We never thought to leave the kitchen door unlocked, nor to give him the key!”

She hastily threw on a loose robe, and pattered into the front room where her husband still slept. She shook his shoulder impatiently, and as his eyes opened lazily, she cried: “Oh, Frank! That poor Mr. Teller must be hiding out in the cedar grove, waiting for us to let him in!”

But the resourceful Teller was doing nothing of the sort. When Weston had hastily donned some clothes and slipped downstairs, he heard through the parlor door the deep respirations of a sleeping man; and, cautiously peering within, he beheld the detective reposing on his couch, the blanket drawn up to his eyebrows. Leaving him in peace, Weston passed on to the kitchen and tried the door. It was locked; as were all the windows. Returning to the upper floor, he told Annie what he had found.

Both now dressed fully, and Annie set the coffeepot on and got out the eggs and began to toast bread. Weston meanwhile knocked at the parlor door. And at the first tap of his knuckles, Sanford Teller sat abruptly up in his bed, his eyes wide awake and alert. Weston grinned.

“We were afraid we’d locked you out, and overslept! How on earth did you manage to get in?”

Teller laughed cheerily, and rose in a pair of sky-blue pajamas, stretching his arms luxuriously. “Getting into locked houses is the easiest part of my profession, Weston! Truth is, we have a lot of tricks in common with crooks. I forgot to speak about leaving the kitchen key where I could find it when I returned about half past three; but that didn’t matter. I judge that I didn’t disturb you or Mrs. Weston when I came in and very quietly went to bed?”

“No, but you disturbed her when she awoke and remembered that you wanted to come back here in the dark, before any one passing by could see you! You hurry up and get washed and dressed; breakfast is ’most ready. And while we’re eating it you can tell her how you managed to get in.”

Teller grinned. “I don’t know about that! It don’t do to tell too much. Got to hold some things back, or there won’t be anything mysterious about me. And that would be fatal to the reputation of a detective, you know!”

But under the mellow influence of hot coffee and fresh-boiled eggs and buttered toast that wasn’t burned the least little bit, he yielded, and showed them a long, slim skeleton key, one of a bunch he kept on a ring.

“There are probably some doors and drawers in this county that this collection wouldn’t open,” he admitted. “But I doubt if there are any in Fast Harbor! Better watch out for your spoons and jewelry, Mrs. Weston!”

“The spoons go with the house, and are guaranteed to be silver plated,” Annie assured him. “And as for jewelry, you’ll have to go to New York and pick the lock in my safety-deposit box to get that. Unless my wedding ring tempts you.”

Teller bowed gallantly. “Only to the extent of wishing it might have been given to you by me, madam!”

“Why, how perfectly sweet of you! Frank never says such nice things to me.”

“No, but Frank bought the wedding ring!” her husband reminded her.

It was a cheerful meal and, after it was finished, Teller insisted that it had waked him up so thoroughly that he didn’t feel inclined to finish his nap, which he would postpone until later in the day.

When the dishes were done, they gathered about the table in the parlor, careful to keep the windows shut. Weston himself sat where, through a crack in the blinds, he could observe any one approaching the house.

“Of course, I haven’t anything to report as yet,” Teller stated. “I devoted last night to looking over the sites where the crimes took place. And let me tell you, the woods were swarming with amateur detectives! Everybody but the bedridden—that is, every man—in this neck of the woods is out for that five hundred dollars’ reward! Some carry lanterns, a few have pocket torches, and one or two of the local constables go without any lights at all; they are the only ones that worried me. They really do know a lot about tracking; they don’t make much noise as they move about, and most of them can shoot fast and straight. But I managed to get what I wanted without being seen or heard; although once or twice I almost brushed elbows with some silent patrol.”

He spread out on the table a large road map of the country. Taking from his vest pocket a soft red pencil, he began to mark certain crosses and arrows and lines upon the map.

“Here, you will note, is the location of the Bronson place; and this, a few miles beyond Cranberry Beach, is old Tucker’s cabin. Here is the cottage that was broken into; nobody living there, you remember. It was while scouting about it that I had my narrowest escape. Cautious as I was, some guard must have caught a glimpse of me; anyhow, first thing I knew a gunshot raised the hair on my head! Buckshot, the fellow was using; it pattered onto the cottage wall not a foot above my head. I was scared stiff, but not hurt. Dropped flat, and crawled off to a great lilac bush, and from there gained the road. I never saw the man who shot at me, but could hear him thrashing about hunting for me.”

Annie drew her breath sharply. “But you run terrible risks! Wouldn’t it be better to let the sheriff know who you are, rather than be killed through an error?”

The little man shook his head vigorously. “That’s a risk I’ve got to take. It’s all in the day’s work, or rather, the night’s work! Once I am known, my usefulness ends. Everybody will be tagging me about, and the criminal will know I am coming a mile before I’m in sight, Might as well hire a brass band to accompany me! No, my only chance of capturing lies in my remaining incognito. But, look!”

He pointed to the map. “By setting down every single site connected with the crimes, we get the first necessary layout of the field of battle. This map, revised from day to day, shows the precise range of the bandit’s activities. This is the sort of thing the postal agents work out when there is an epidemic of stolen mail. Every time a loss is reported, a mark is made on the map; and in time, by an intricate system of geometrical cross-lines, we manage to locate the headquarters of the gang. That is something I hope to do with this lone ruffian, if he remains undetected long enough to commit a series of crimes.”

He refolded the map, and pocketed it.

“And that is absolutely all I have to tell you,” he said. “Can’t expect definite results the first night! This sort of chase is likely to prove a long, stern one. But I don’t mind telling you this purely theoretical notion of mine: when found, the bandit will prove to me a man known to a good many residents hereabouts. You see, it is always hard for us to believe that anybody we have known well and for a long time, is an actual criminal. We may detest him, admit that he is mean, selfish, unpopular, a tax evader, even a chicken thief, but a murderer? No! Because the very instinct of self-preservation keeps us from admitting that we could possibly live within sight of the home of a murderer!”

“You mean,” Weston asked, “that this bandit actually lives within sight of where we are?”

“Not quite that; but I do feel that the perfectly natural instinct of attributing any atrocious crime to a stranger, somebody from far away, is not to be trusted too far. Without hampering myself by any preconceived ideas, I shall, among other things, scrutinize our neighbors pretty closely. Who had the best opportunity to terrorize the Bronson woman, and old Tucker? Who knew that the summer cottage down the shore was unoccupied? Who knows the wilderness about here well enough to so far evade trained guides? Who is able to hide out and obtain food without being detected? Certainly, no stranger, who would be lost within half an hour of the time he entered the great cedar swamp! And more certainly yet, no city-bred man. No, I shall make it one of my first duties to look over the local peasantry! Some queer characters live in lonesome little hamlets like this. The very isolation preys on their minds; they become abnormal. And everything indicates that the man I am after is not normal; he is the victim of some overwhelming homicidal mania. I hope I am wrong; but I never allow sentiment to interfere with my professional duty.”

Nothing of further interest occurred that day, save a brief visit from Sheriff Joe Thomas, who alighted from his car and came to the door for a brief word. He looked worn and drawn, and as if he had sacrificed a lot of sleep.

“Heard or seen anything, Mr. Weston? No? Well, I don’t expect you will. Did you happen to hear a gunshot last night? Doubt if it would carry this far; wind was in wrong direction. One of my men thought he saw something moving about the Barnard cottage; the one that was broken into. He was taking no chances, so he let a charge of double-b’s at it. Heard nothing, and didn’t see anything more. But this morning I found some broken twigs and the faintest impression of foot tracks around the cottage. Ground is hard there, and I couldn’t get any impressions. Reckon it might have been some curiosity seeker. Don’t think the bandit would be fool enough to return, especially since he had time enough to take anything he wanted the first trip. Must be on my way, now. Sorry your vacation is being knocked galley west this way!”

Sanford Teller had listened to the sheriff with quiet amusement. When he had gone, he emerged from the parlor and spoke.

“Your sheriff would be surprised to learn that the man his deputy tried to pot, is about to sit down to dinner with you and your wife, wouldn’t he?”

“He’d be more than surprised,” Weston mumbled. “He’d certainly give me a fine bawling-out for not telling him!”

“You’ll never be really popular with Thomas,” Teller decided. “When I nail my man—if I do—the sheriff will be sore as a pup to think that it was done over his head. But such are the dark and devious ways of the Wallis Agency!”

There followed two highly exciting days for the Westons and indeed for the entire countryside. On two successive nights, fresh outrages occurred. Fortunately, there were no deaths; but this was not owing to any clemency on the part of the marauder. In one case, the chance arrival of a visitor interrupted him as he was tying up a crippled fisherman and his wife, after laying the former low with a stout chair swung about his head; in the other instance, he waylaid a motorist who had got lost, and run out of gas in an abandoned wood road. This man, who was young and vigorous though unarmed, did not suspect the friendly-appearing stranger who appeared afoot, and paused to inquire if he could be of assistance. However, the stranger without warning struck him a terrible blow on the head with a stout cudgel he was using as a walking stick. Dazed, and unable to put up a fight, the man’s pockets were rifled, and when some time toward dawn one of the sheriff’s men found him, these were all the details he was able to give. Yes, the man wore a handkerchief about his neck, but it was not used as a mask. And the sudden blow, which had just failed to cause a fracture of the skull, left him in too confused a state to give any clear description of his assailant.

Both of these incidents were recounted to Weston by Jason Hodge, who got them by telephone. Weston detailed them to the keenly interested Teller, who marked them with red crosses on his gradually developing map. Meanwhile, the detective himself had at last something of his own to relate.

Despite the fact that he could let himself in with his skeleton key, and did so noiselessly, promptly going to bed until breakfast time, neither Weston nor his wife was able to sleep well toward dawn. They were on the alert to hear some slight sound indicating the return of the little sleuth. There was something uncanny in lying upstairs wrapped in profound slumber, while this man entered their supposedly impregnable house, and went to bed, without making any noise about it, There was, too, the constant fear lest he be shot by one of the deputies during his nocturnal prowlings. Were this to happen, it would be Weston’s unpleasant duty to explain to the authorities who he was, and that he had been harbored by them. Not to speak of Weston’s liking for the pleasant, cheery little investigator, he foresaw himself as the center of most unpleasant inquiry and criticism.

But Sanford Teller seemed to bear a charmed life. He passed unscathed through a country thickly dotted with keen men, some of whom were professional guides, and all of whom had abnormally good eyes and ears. And despite his handicap of working alone, and in the night, he was making progress, He had, so he explained to the Westons, accumulated a number of finger prints in and about the various scenes of the outrages. He had found a crimson-stained handkerchief, with an initial, a mile from the Bronson place, and although this so far only indicated to him the route taken by the bandit, he had hopes of gaining more information from it. And most sensational of all, on the evening of the fourth day, just after supper and while he was waiting for darkness to mask his operations, he showed them something that sent the cold shivers up Annie’s spine, and even caused the little hairs to stir on the scalp of the more phlegmatic Frank,

“This is graveyard stuff,” whispered Teller when they had huddled about his parlor table. “I am really violating my obligations to Wallis in making this find public at all! Of course, I have written it all out fully in my daily report, which I shall mail as usual tonight. But I promised you that, in return for your kindness and hospitality, I would be frank with you; that we should, in a way, work together. So, once more let me warn you how terribly important it is that not a word of this shall get out.”

He dove into an inside pocket, and threw upon the table top something that glittered dully in the faint light that crept in through the shuttered windows. Annie touched it gingerly, picked it up and held it to the light. It was a tarnished string of gold beads.

“Why, this is very old!” she cried. “See the size of the beads, and how thin they are worn!”

Teller spoke softly. “It was a string of gold beads, belonging to her grandmother, that was among the things stolen from Mrs. Bronson, wasn’t it?”

Weston’s voice was sharp and nervous as he asked: “Where did these come from, Teller? Where did you find them?”

Teller smiled bleakly. “These beads were concealed very cunningly in the false drawer of an old writing desk in friend Hodge’s house. I took the liberty of entering it last night, while he and his wife were asleep. Little habit of mine, you know, to come and go unannounced!”

Annie gasped. “Why—but—you don’t suspect—”

Teller raised a deprecating hand. “Let us not deal with suspicions, Mrs. Weston, but with facts. That is where the beads were. In good time, I expect to have them identified and to show why they were hidden in Hodge’s writing desk. Meanwhile, forget that I showed them to you. All I can say now is, the trail grows warmer!”

CHAPTER V

IN THE CELLAR

On the morning following, Frank Weston started out on a longer hike than he had as yet undertaken. Ever since Teller had quartered himself at the old Jarvis place, he had been free to wander about and enjoy himself digging clams, or fishing for cunners, swimming in the bracing Atlantic, or simply taking a brisk walk. Annie no longer felt nervous, if his absences were not prolonged. She felt a little natural apprehension lest he meet up with the desperado in some lonesome spot; but so far he had committed all his outrages in the blackness of night.

On his tramps, Weston always carried his automatic; and when down on the beach, he had practiced with it, shooting at bits of driftwood. Teller also had a gun which he carried loose in the side pocket of his coat. There was no part of the twenty-four hours when Annie was not, as she and Weston both felt, adequately protected.

On this bright morning, Frank purposed to pay a visit to the looted cottage. This was several miles down the shore; and owing to the fact that the shore line was not straight, but wound in and out and was broken by many little estuaries, it took him some three hours to arrive.

There wasn’t much to see; a caretaker had been installed, the place had been cleaned up, and a list of the things stolen proved to be not very serious. Nothing of much value save the radio outfit and some good rugs and pictures had been left in the cottage over the winter. The caretaker welcomed him, the time dragging somewhat in this remote place; and he went over the house, but found little to interest him. So, after giving the man a handful of cigars, and thanking him, he started back for home, this time taking to the highway in order to save time and arrive for dinner.

He had proceeded less than half a mile when a swiftly driven touring car passed him. Directly after, it slowed down, and the man who was not driving turned and waved a hand at him.

Sheriff Thomas sat in the tonneau; Frank noticed that his face was grim and unshaven. He opened the door, beckoned. “Can I give you a lift? You’re a long way from home!”

“Took a notion to run down and look over the Barnard cottage,” Weston explained. “I like to get all the exercise I can these fine days.”

Thomas nodded gloomily. “I have some serious news which you probably haven’t heard,” he said as the driver started on again.

“Another assault?”

“Murder, this time. Just found the body early this morning. It was taken over to Allsworth about an hour ago.”

Weston paled. “Who was it? The victim, I mean?”

Thomas nervously rolled the unlighted cigar between his lips. “Man named Teller. Sanford Teller, a Wallis operative.”

Weston’s mouth opened soundlessly. It was a full moment before he could collect himself enough to speak. When he did so, his voice sounded harsh and dry like a gear that needed oiling. “H-how did you know who it was? Did you find identifying papers on him?”

Thomas turned in his seat, and looked at his passenger in surprise. “Why, no. As a matter of fact, his pockets had been turned inside out. There was nothing identifying on him; I knew who it was because Teller was sent up here to help run down the wild man! Matter of fact, outside of the district attorney and his assistant and myself, nobody knew he was up here at all. I hadn’t even told my deputy. He was working along his own lines.”

“And you say this—Teller was killed this morning?”

“I did not say so. I said his body was found this morning. The medical examiner stated that he had been dead not less than twenty-four hours.”

A darkness seemed to have closed in about Weston. In it his mind groped uncertainly. Not yet could he reason clearly; the nameless terror that stole upon him was still undefined, without logic. When he spoke again, his voice was hardly more than a whisper so that the sheriff had to lean toward him to catch what he said.

“Sanford Teller—the Wallis operative—he has been staying in my house four days; and—”

The unlighted cigar dropped from Thomas’ lips. “What’s that?” he cried sharply. “What are you saying?”

Weston roused himself with an effort, as a drugged man forces himself back to the realities of life. “He said that nobody was to know he had been called in, only the district attorney who sent for him. I was above all not to mention his presence to you. And he had papers, a card and a shield—but this other, the man you knew as Teller, have you really any clue as to who killed—”

Sheriff Thomas took from a pocket a small card bearing the photograph of a man in three sections, a full front, and two profiles. Below were a few lines of coarse print which danced before Weston’s groggy eyes. But the face that he gazed upon was that of the man who had been his guest for the past few days, the man who was even now in the same house with Annie, miles away—

He covered his face with his trembling hands, and called upon God to have mercy upon him, to permit him to arrive in time!

“Can’t your man drive faster?” he gasped. “My wife—alone there with—”

The sheriff interrupted him harshly. “With the man whose rogue’s gallery photograph I just showed you? And you took him in, and hid him, and never told me—”

“But I just said that he explained that it was imperative that his presence remain a secret! That you—the local police—”

“That we were a lot of hick cops, I suppose,” put in Thomas. “That we would fall down on the case, and if we knew he was here would crab his game! Was that it? I thought so! Well, Weston, let me tell you something. While you have been sheltering a dangerous maniac, the hick cops went quietly ahead, got fingerprints, sent them on to Boston, and just got this man’s full record. A lifer from the Bedford Asylum for the criminally insane; escaped a month ago; lived only a few miles away from Fast Harbor as a lad, but not under the name he has used since. True, we haven’t got him yet; but he can’t elude us much longer. No wonder he fooled us, with you sheltering him every night!”

“Days,” murmured the stricken Weston. “He never went out till after dark. And he told us what progress he was making. Only this morning showed us a necklace of gold beads—”

“Which he himself stole from the Bronson woman! Just as he stole Teller’s credentials after murdering him and concealing his body in the swamp where only by the barest chance it would ever have been found!”

“Don’t rub it in, now!” begged Weston. “Just hurry! If only God will let me find Annie alive—”

The harsh lines faded a little from Thomas’ face. He shook the other’s arm with rough kindliness. “Pull yourself together, man! He’s far too cunning to touch her. Why, you’re the best bet he has! Safe and snug at your place, he can sneak out nights and rob and assault and murder to his heart’s content. And we are already driving twice as fast as it’s safe to do.”

After a moment he added: “I must say, though, that you haven’t shown that sound judgment I gave you credit for! I’m a countryman, and there’s a lot about crooks that I don’t know. But after all, I’m sheriff of this county, and in full charge. Wallis wouldn’t dream of sending an operative up here without having him report to me. The fact that he didn’t report either to me or to headquarters yesterday, worried me; and my men have been looking for Teller as much as they have for Schmidt. That’s what your man calls himself when he is among friends.”

Weston had no heart for a reply. What a cursed fool he had been! To swallow the story of a lunatic, and to aid and abet him at the very time he was carrying on his reign of terror! That story about finding the gold beads in Jason Hodge’s house; why, anybody with the slightest ability to estimate character would know that Jason was the salt of the earth! While Teller—Schmidt—he was too smooth, too plausible. At that, he seemed more the type who went in for phony stock promotions than for red-handed murder! Probably these spells came on him from time to time; perhaps between his outbreaks he was perfectly normal; didn’t even recall them! But Frank was in a state of frenzy meantime; for, suppose one of the attacks of homicidal mania would seize him this very day? Alone there, with Annie!

An exclamation from the sheriff caused him to open anguished eyes, to look up. Thomas was pointing far up the road, where a slim woman’s figure could be made out, running stumblingly toward them, waving her hands.

“There she is! That’s Annie now!” shouted Weston, and would have leaped from the fast-moving car had the sheriff not clamped an iron hand about his biceps.

“Think you can outrun us? Get a grip on yourself! We’ll be up with her in thirty seconds!”

The brakes were applied, and with a screech and a smell of hot rubber, they came to a stop beside the panting woman. She was bareheaded, breathless; but despite the look of terror in her eyes, she was unhurt.

“Where is he? Did he get away?” demanded Thomas, the instinct of the man-hunter uppermost.

“N-no! He’s locked up—” Annie had time for nothing more before Frank leaped to the roadside and crushed her in his arms, sobbing like a child.

Almost indignantly she pushed him away. “Frank! Behave yourself! This isn’t a petting party, and I’m all right! Let me answer Mr. Thomas!”

It was the big sheriff who pried her loose, lifted her into the tonneau, and almost before Weston had seated himself again, the car jumped forward.

“Now, Mrs. Weston! I begin to have hopes that you have more of a headpiece than your husband. You say Schmidt is locked up? In your house?”

She turned a troubled face to him. “Schmidt?” she repeated. “Is that his name? Well, it doesn’t matter. I just knew that he wasn’t a detective, and so I locked him up.”

“Yes, but how? He’s gone by this time, that’s a safe bet. But we’re right on his trail now, and I swear we’ll have the twisters on him before another day.”

Mrs. Weston smoothed her rumpled hair, “I don’t know just what it was that made me suspicious of him! I guess it was the cat, at first. Cats are psychic; everybody knows that! They sense things that we don’t. And Romeo never could endure him! Wouldn’t set foot—paw I mean—into the house while he was there, I had always to put its saucer of milk outside—”

The sheriff interrupted. “Never mind the cat, Mrs. Weston. We’ll see that it gets a medal, later on. Please proceed!”

“Well, he wasn’t one bit like what a real detective ought to be! Oh, I never met one, of course, but I’ve read heaps of detective and mystery stories in magazines! And this Sanford Teller, as he called himself, didn’t have one single trait like them! He didn’t wear a thick, glossy black mustache, or chew a big black cigar, nor stamp around in thick-soled, square-toed boots, nor anything. And no detective would talk so freely about his clues as this man did. Of course, I didn’t really suspect him at first; if I had, I should have told Frank. It was only that these things were sort of mulling in my mind. And this morning, with Frank going for such a long walk, I got to thinking of everything while I was washing the dishes; and suddenly, I saw that everything he had told us would fit the bandit just as well as it did him! Yes, even better. That gold chain; the bandit would have it, and he might show it and pretend that he found it in Mr. Hodge’s writing desk, just to throw us off the track. Besides, I had been in the Hodge house, and they haven’t got any old writing desk! And so it was with everything else that he called a clue; if he was the bandit, he’d have all these things on him; and as for the papers and things that seemed to prove he was a detective, why he might easily have forged them!”

Annie paused to draw breath. The car swerved to the right, and onto the road which, a mile ahead, passed the old Jarvis place. Thomas glanced at Weston. “Looks to me,” he said, “as if the little woman was the thinking partner in your concern!”

Weston had the grace to blush, but made no answer save to squeeze his wife’s hand.

“Well, it was just when I was beginning to work myself up into a real panic, that I heard a little noise behind me; and turning, there stood Teller—or whatever his name is—in the doorway! I thought he was sound asleep in the parlor, but there he stood, in his shirt sleeves, and with the queerest, the most awful look in his eyes as he stared at me! Oh! If I could have moved, I’d have run out of the house; but it seemed as if my legs had petrified, I just stood there and stared back. And then—I don’t know how ever I managed it—I smiled at him, as naturally as I could, and said: ‘Oh, Mr. Teller! My hands are all soapsuds; and would you mind just going down cellar and bringing up that ham that hangs from an iron hook? I want to parboil it for dinner!’

“Well, for a full minute—and it seemed years and years—he just stood there, staring at me; but little by little that strange light in his eyes died out, and he spoke as politely as could be. You know, Frank, he always was the politest thing? So unlike you, that it was suspicious in itself! And then he turned and went down the cellar stairs, and the minute I heard his feet on the cement floor, I rushed across the room and slammed the door and bolted it! And then I ran into his room, and took his pistol from his coat pocket, and ran and ran as fast as I could, down the road straight toward Jed Hooper’s!”

She was wearing a short kitchen apron; and from its wide pocket she removed a squatty .45 gun and handed it to the sheriff.

“Mrs. Weston,” he said solemnly, “my hat is off to you! If ever you need a job, you can be my deputy for life. But we certainly won’t find that bird in any common ordinary cellar, when we get there!”

“Oh, but you will, Mr. Thomas! Ours isn’t an ordinary cellar at all, is it, Frank? It hasn’t any windows, only little slits a cat would have to squeeze to get through; and it is all stone and cement, and that kitchen door is just one tremendous oak plank, with a staple that some village blacksmith must have made before the Mexican War! He never could get out without tools or dynamite; and there were neither in the cellar. But I do hope he hasn’t broken my lovely jars of pickles and peach plums and quince jelly and things. You know, Mr. Thomas, he is so destructive, that is, if he is the man you are hunting for?”

“He’s the man all right,” Thomas said, “And if he’s still in that cellar, I’ll see that the county replaces any pickles and jellies he’s wrecked! Far as that goes, the neighbors will swamp you with homemade goodies soon as they hear he’s a prisoner.”

Their house was already in sight; it looked peaceful in the full flood of noonday sunshine, and to add to the homey appearance, Romeo sat on the doorstep, washing his face.

As the car stopped, and the four piled out almost simultaneously, Annie spoke again. “I don’t hear him, and when I left he was yelling like a madman, and hammering on the door!”

Led by the sheriff, they entered the house. Not a sound greeted them save the ticking of the clock, and the friendly song of the teakettle. Peering cautiously around the door jamb, Thomas noted that the stout oak door leading down to the cellar still held. It was not even sprung. He crossed the floor; the iron staple was fast. He turned to speak to Frank, who was at his heels.

“Well, the door held! And unless he’s dug himself out, he’s still down there.”

He leaned his head close against the sturdy plank, and called: “It’s all up, Schmidt! Save yourself trouble by giving up quietly. You haven’t a chance!”

There was no reply from below.

Again, louder still, Thomas called, placing his lips to the crack by the stout hinges. “I’m opening the door, Schmidt! And you’re covered by three guns. The first false move, and we’ll drill ye like a sieve!”

Still no answer.

The sheriff turned his head again. There was a little pallor beneath his tan, but his voice was steady, “Take your wife out of the room, Weston! Don’t want any stray bullets to get her. And you might as well go, too. Your duty don’t call you to horn into this; mine does.”

Half reluctantly, but dragged by his wife, Weston stepped back over the line of possible fire, and into the living room. The sheriff’s man crossed the kitchen and took his place by his side. Both held heavy service revolvers cocked in their right hands.

“Give me your pocket torch, Jim,” Thomas said. “You throw the door wide open, and then cover it from the side.”

The man nodded. There was a harsh scrape as the rusty iron staple gave, and suddenly the door stood wide flung. Down the dark stairs flamed the beam from the sheriff’s flashlight.

After a moment, he spoke without turning his head.

“Nobody in sight. Well, I’m not exactly looking forward to this, but it’s all a part of a sheriff’s job!”

His heavy boot was planted on the topmost step. And, swinging his pocket torch in narrow arcs, illuminating every corner of the dark cellar as he advanced, his revolver held at the cock, he slowly; descended to the cement vault in which presumably, a maniac lurked ready to sell his life for the best price he could exact.

There came to those who waited above, their breaths held almost to suffocation, the pulses singing in their arteries, an astonished cry from Joe Thomas. “By thunder! Jim, come down here!”

Not only the deputy, but Frank Weston and his wife piled forward, something in the sheriff’s voice telling them that there was nothing more to fear.

Nor was there. In the center of the little, snug, dry cellar, a great shelf of preserves and jellies swung gently to and fro. At one side of the cellar, something else swayed slightly, turning ever so little from side to side. Something suspended from the iron hook to which, a half hour ago, a smoked ham had been made fast.

It was their genial guest of the past four days, who, finding himself a helpless prisoner, had removed his leather belt, and hanged himself!