Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1916 — The THOUSANDTH WOMAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The THOUSANDTH WOMAN

by ERNEST W.HOMING

Author of “SheAMALEUR QACKSMANr RAFFLES. Etc. __

BYNOPBIB. CUSMt 6ri tn* ateameV Kals«r Fritz, homeward bound from Australia, criea out tn hi* sleep that Henry Craven, who ten years before had ruined his father and himself, is dead, and finds that Hilton Toy*, who shares the stateroom with him. knows Craven and also Blanche Macnalr. a former neighbor and playmate. When the daily papers come aboard at Southampton Toye reads that Craven has been murdered and calls Caaalet’s dream second sight. He thinks of doing a little amateur detective work on the case himself. In the train to town they discuss the murder, which was committed at Caaalet’s old home. Toye hears from Cazalet that Scruton. who had been Cazalet’s friend and the scapegoat for Craven's dishonesty, has been released (torn prison. Cazalet goes down the river and meets Blanche. Toye also comes to see her and tells Cazalet that Scruton has been arrested, but as he doesn't bslleve the old clerk Is guilty he Is going to ferret out the murderer. Cazalet and Blanche go to Cazalet’s old home and meet Mr. Drinkwater of Scotland Yard. Casalet goes with PrlnkwaY*r to the library where the murder was committed, shows him a secret passage he knbw as a boy. and leads tne way through it. In town Toye. talking with Cazalet about the murder, suggests finger prints on the weapon found In the secret passage as a means of trapping the murderer and succeeds In securing a print of Cazalet’s £and. +

CHAPTER Vlll—Continued. Cazalet excused himself with decision. He had a full morning in front iof him. He was going to see Miss Macnair’s brother, son of the late head of his father's old firm of solicitors, and now one of the partners, to get them either to take up Scruton’s case themselves, or else to recommend a firm perhaps more accustomed to icrimlnal practice. Cazalet was always •apt to be elaborate in the first person singular, either in the past or in the future tense; but be was more so than usual In explaining his considered intentions 1q this matter that lay so very near his heart. _ “Going to see Scruton, too?" said Toye. “Not necessarily,” was the short reply. But it also was elaborated by Cazalet on a moment's consideration. The fact was that he wanted first to know if it were not possible, by the intervention of a really influential lawyer. to obtain the prisoner’s immediate release, at any rate on bail. If impossible, be might hesitate to force himself on Scruton in the prison, but he would see. "It’s a perfect scandal that he should be there at all,” said Cazalet, as be rose first and uahered Toye out into the lounge. “Only think: our old gardener saw him run out of the drive •at half past seven, when the gong went, when the real murderer must 'have been shivering in the MichaelAngelo cupboard, wondering how the devil he was ever going to get out again.” "Tiiien you think old man Craven — begging his poor pardon—was getting out some cigars when the man. whoever he was, came in and knocked him on the head?" Cazalet nodded vigorously. “That's the likeliest thing of all!" he cried. gong wrMtt—there may even have come a knock at the door —and there was that cupboard standing open at his elbow.” “With a hole In the floor that might have been made for him?” “As it happens, yes; he’d search every inch like a rat in a trap, you see; and there it was as I’d left it twenty years before." ' "Well, It’s a wonderful yarn! ” exclaimed Hilton Toye. and he lighted the cigar that Cazalet had given him. “I think it may be thought one if the police ever own how they made their find.” agreed Cazalet, laughing and looking at his watch. Toye had never beard him laugh so often. “By the way. Drinkwater doesn’t want any of all this to come out until he’s dragged his man before the beak again.”

"Which you mean to prevent?** "If only I can! 1 more or less promised not to talk, however, and I’m sure you won’t. You knew so much already, you may Just as well know the rest this week as well as next, if you donT mind keeping it to yourself." Nobody could have minded this particular embargo leas than Hilton Toye. He saw Cazalet off with a smile that was as yet merely puzzled, and not unfriendly until be had time to recall Miss Blanche’s part in the strange of the previous afternoon. Say, weren't they rather intimate. - those two. even if they had known each other all their lives? He bad it froraßlahobe (with her second refusal) that she was not. and never had been, engaged. And a fellow who only wrote to her once m a year—.still, they must have been darned intimate, and this funny affair would String them together again quicker than anything. Say, what a funny affair it was when ■ yon came to thing of it! Funny all through. it begtn■ing on board ship with that dream of Cazalet's about the murdered man, leading to all that talk of the old (grievance against him. and culminating in his actually finding the Implements of the crime in his inspired efforts to save the man of innocence be was go positive Say. if

that Cazalet had not been on his way home from Australia at the time! Like man jTdeliberate speakerirToyer thought like lightning, and bad reached this point before he was a hundred yards from the hotel; then he thought of something else, and retraced his steps. He retraced them even to the table at which he had sat with Cazalet not very many minutes ago; the waiter was only jnow beginning to clear away. "Say, waiter, what have you done with the menu that was in that toastrack? There was something on It that we rather wanted to keep.” “I thought there was, sir,” said the English waiter at that admirable hotel. Toye, however, prepared to talk to him like an American uncle of Dutch extraction "You thought that, and you took it away?” “Not at all, sir. I ’appened to observe the other gentleman put the menu in his pocket, behind your back as you were getting up, because I passed a remark about it to the head waiter at the time!”

CHAPTER IX.

gr Fair Warning. it was much more than a map of the metropolis that Toye carried In his able head. He knew the right places for the right things. He gazed critically at his boots He was not so dead sure that he had struck the only man for boots. There had been a young fellow aboard the Kaiser Fritz, quite a little bit of a military blood, who had come aßhore in a pair of cloth tops that had rather unsettled Mr. Toye’s mind just on that one point. Captain Aylmer had said he would like to have Toye see his club any time he was passing and cared t® look in for lunch. He had said bo as though be would like it a great deal, and suddenly Toye had a mind to take him at his word right now. The idea began with those boots with cloth tops, but that was not all there was to it; there was something else that had been at the back of Toye’s mind all mornttrg, and ’ now took" charge in front Aylmer had talked some about a Jobin the war office that enabled him to lunch daily at„thfi. Jaag^_i)iil-.wlial„ML

job had been aboard a German steamer Toye did not know and was not the man to inquire. It was no business of his, anyway. Reference to a card, traded for his own in Southampton Water, and duly filed in his cigarettecase, reminded him of the Rag’s proper style and title. And there he was eventually entertained to a sound, workmanlike, rather expeditious meal. ‘‘Say, did you see the cemetery at Genoa?” suddenly inquired the visitor on their way back through the hall. A martial bust had been admired extravagantly before the question. “Never want to see it again, or Genoa either." said Captain Aylmer. “The smoking-room’s this way.” “Did you say you were there two days?” Toye was cutting his cigar as though it were a corn. “Two whole days, and we’d had a night in the Bay of Naples just before.” “Is that so? I only came aboard at Genoa. I guess I was wise,” added Toye, as though he was thinking of something else. There was no sort of feeling in his voice, but be was sucking his left thumb. “I say, youve cut yourself!” “I guess it’s nothing. Knife too suarp; please don’t worry* Captain Aylmer. I was going to say I only got on at Genoa, and they couldn’t give me a room to myself. I had to go in with Cazalet: that*s~lrow 1 saw so much of him.”

It was Toye’s third and separate independent attempt to introduce the name and fame of Cazalet as a natural topic of conversation —Twiee We host had listened with adamantine politeness; this time he was enjoying quite the second-best liqueur brandy to be had at the Rag; and he leaned back in his chair "You were rather impressed with him, weren’t you?” said Captain Aylmer. "Well, frankly. 1 wasn’t, but it may have been my fault." “I was only going to ask you one thing about Mr. Cazalet.” Toye said, “and I guess I’ve a reason for asking, though there’s no time to state it now. What did you think of him. Captain Aylmer, on the whole?” •■Ah, there you have me. ’On the whole’ is Just the difficulty.” said Aylmer. answerlng-the straight question readily enough. *T thought he was a very good chap as far as Naples, but after Genoa he was another being. I’ve sometimes wondered what happened in his three or four days ashore.” “Three or four, did you say?’* And at the last moment Toye would have played Wedding Guest to Aylmer’s Ancient Mariner. "Yes; you see. he knew these German boats waste a couple of days at Genoa, so he landed at Naples and did ~ •,*,.» -

his Italy overland Rather a good idea I thought, especially as he said be had friends in Rome; but we never heard of ’em beforehand, and I should have let the whole thing strike me a bit sooner if I’d been Cazalet. Soon enough to -take a hand-bag and a toothbrush, eh? And I don’t think I should have run it quite so fine at Genoa, either. But there are rum birds In this world, and always will jMkglx— : Li—ji..... . ~ Toye felt one himself as he picked bis way through St. James’ square. If it had not been Just after lunch, he would have gone straight and had a cocktail, for of course he knew the only place for them. What "he did waß to slue round out of the Bquare, and to obtain for the asking, at another or<T'liaunt7“oh““Cbckspur^streelT _ "tse latest little time-table of continental trains. This he carried, not on foot but in a tail, to the Savoy Hotel, where it kept him busy in his own room for the best part of another hour But by that time Hilton Toye looked more than an hour older than on sitting down at his writing-table with pencil, paper and the little book of trains; he looked horrified, he looked distressed, and yet he looked crafty, determined and Immensely alive. He proceeded, however, to take some of the life out of himself, and to add still more to his apparent age. by repairing for more inward light to a Turkish bath Now the only Turkish bath, according to Hilton Toye’s somewhat exclusive code, was not even a hundred yards from Cazalet’s hotel; and there the visitor of the morning again presented himself before the afternoon; now merely a little worn, as a mav

will look after losing a stone an hour on a warm afternoon, and a bit blue again about the chin, which of course looked * little deeper and stronger on that account. Cazalet was not tn; his friend would wait and In fact waited over an hour in the little lounge. An evening paper 'wwn nffwnA-zn.hTnn; Jie took It listlessly, scarcely looked at it at ftEBLzJbeB tore it in his anxiety to find something he had quite forgotten—from the newspaper end. But he was waiting as stoically as before when Cazalet arrived in tremendous spirits. “Stop and dine!" he cried out at once. “Sorry I can’t; got to go and see somebody,” said Hilton Toye. “Then you must have a drink.” “No, I thank you.” said Toye, with the decisive courtesy of a total abstainer.

- “You look -as H-you wanted onei-you don’t look a bit lit.” said Cazalet, most kindly. “Nor am I. sir!” exclaimed Toye. **l guess London’s no place for me in the fall. Just as well, too, I Judge, since I’ve got to light out again straight away.” “You haven’t!" “Yes. sir. this very night. That's the wotst of a business that takes you to all the capitals of Europe in turn. It takes you so long to flit around that you never know when you ve got to start in again.” “Which capital is it this timer said Cazalet. His exuberant geniality had been dashed very visibly for the moment. But already his high spirits were reasserting themselves; indeed, a cynic with an ear might have caught the note of sudden consolation in the question that Cazalet asked so briskly “Got to go down to Rome.” said Toye, watching the effect of his words. “But you’ve Just come back from there!” Cazalet looked no worse than puzzled. “No. sir. I missed Rome out; that was my mistake, and here’s thiß situation been developing behind my back.” “What situation?”., “Oh. why. it wouldn’t interest you! But I’ve got to go down to Rome, whether I like it or not. and 1 don’t like it any. because I don’t have any friends there. And that’s what I’m doing right here. I was wondering if you’d do something for me. Cazalet?’ “If i can,” said Cazalet, “with pleasBut bis smiles were gone. * “| was wondering N Jf you d give me an introduction to those friends of yours in Rome!” There was a little pause, and Cazalet’s tongue Just showed between his lips, moistening them. It was at that moment the only touch of color la his 1 tell—J®u I’d any friends there?” . 1. The sound of his voice was perhaps kH torn tn.o puKled. himself chuckle as be sat looking up out of somber eyes. “Well, if you didn’t, be. " rues* 1 must have dreamed it" (TO BK CONTINUKD.J

"Did I Tell You I’d Any Friends There?”