New Richmond Record, Volume 17, Number 27, New Richmond, Montgomery County, 9 January 1913 — Page 4

Murphy had been discharged ffbm custody, for lack of evidence; and though there were some desultory efforts making to place the blame for the Celestial’s violent taklng-off, I doubted that they would have practicable result.

"And so you see, Cameron,” 1 said, speaking distinctly and with double purpose, the nurse being In ear-shot, "everything Is quite right. The matter you spoke of shall be attended to, at onoe, and I'll report to you, tonight—before ten o’clock, surely.” The reproach In his eyes stung me, and the pain of It followed me from the room and stabbed me at Intervals during dinner. And yet It was not tbe part of sanity to have acted otherwise than I did. The temptation had occurred to me to invent phrases and sentences expressive of satisfaction over the effort of the previous communications. But I doubted that. In my agitation, I should be successful In the deception. And so, my only course had been delay—stupid, bungling, palpable delay It was, I suppose, but after all It had served; and, though It left Cameron In doubt,. It gave me time and opportunity to arrange some plan for extracting the fangs of this epistolary adder before It could strike Its prey. Purposely I delayed reading the letter, myself, until after I had dined. I chose uncertainty as to Its contents as less likely noticeably to affect my demeanor than an exact knowledge of the minatory message which I felt sure It carried.

the face from the portrait, as pasted the reflection from the mirror, so you, physically, will pass from sight of men Into torment.” As I read my breath caught In my throat and my pulses paused. Evelyn pressed closer to my side, and I felt her shiver as with cold. The final words, solemn, admonitory, priestlike, were these:

naught If such things could be as that which had happened a month ago In Cameron's dressing room, how much further might the inexplicable carry? Of what use were precautions against an enemy who with apparent ease calmly defied all natural laws?

The precautions against surprise on the fourteenth, which I had outlined so briefly to Cameron, I carried out with added detail. For instance, I Instructed Romney to report to me every person who passed In or out of the gates guarded by his Lodge. I bad Kllgour, the superintendent of the Cameron acres, issue similar orders to his mep concerning any strangers seen on the estate that day. And, finally, when not fetching the mail from the post office, myself—and four times I made the trip—I sat on guard In Cameron’s study, waiting and expectant.

All the morning my thoughts bad been running In this line. Foolish thoughts they must seem to one who reads of them; worthy only to be classed with the idle, superstitious fears of young girls and old women, and impossible to a well-balanced, clear-headed man of twenty-nine. It may be that I was not well-balanced and clear-beaded. And yet the sequel would tend rather to a contrary conclusion.

“Say not Heaven. Is high above! Heaven ascends and descends about our deeds, daily inspecting us, wheresoever we are."

Instantly she turned to me, and I saw there were tears on her cheeks, and that her long dark lashes were wet

"You cannot tell him this, Philip,” she said, her voice low but unfaltering. "No,” I replied, "I cannot tall him. In his present condition. It might be fatal.”

Co/*r*iosir, /su, <f. C. At<ccu#(r V CO.

SYNOPSIS.

veyed this intelligence in aTireath, and then, laying hold upon me, a slender hand upon each coat sleeve, her big eyes pleading and anxious, she ran on:

Cameron was still reading the Herald, and I sat with a pair of binoculars at my eyes sweeping the waters for the trailing smoke of a liner or some object of lesser interest. Presently the silence was broken by my companion. "I see," he began, dropping the paper to bis knees, “that China is really Iq earnest in her anti-opium campaign. Two Peking officials have died from the effects of a too-hasty breaking of the habit. Men do not die in the attempt to obey mere paper reforms. The Chinese are a wonderful old people, Clyde." I lowered my glasses, all at once interested.

CHAPTER I.—Robert Cameron, capitalist. consults Philip Clyde, newspaper publisher. regarding anonymous threatening letters he has received. The Prat promises a sample of the writer’s power on a certain day. On that day the head Is mys(erlously cut from a portrait of Cameron while the latter is In the room.

But the day passed, it seemed, without the looked-for Incident. Every letter, by post or by hand, which came that day, inside the Cragholt limits was by me personally Inspected, and amongst them all there was no one which bore the faintest resemblance to those two baleful missives of the two preceding fourteenths.

“And now he must get well," she declared, with decision. "He must be well enough In a few days to be moved. He shall not stop In this house any longer. He shall go where he can be protected, and these fiends, whoever they are, cannot, or will not dare to follow.”

“It Is shock, Dr. Massey says. Deferred shock, he called It. He says Uncle Robert ha# suffered from some sudden grief, fright, or other dreadful mental impression. His temperature Is way below normal and his pulse Is a sort of rapid feeble flutter. Oh, do tell me what you know about It. What shock has h© had? You were with him last evening. He was gay enough when you and he went from the music room- What happened afterward?”

CHAPTER—XI.—Clyde has a theory that the portrait was mutilated while the room was unoccupied and the head lat'-r removed by means of a string, unnoticed by Cameron.

CHAPTER III.—Evelyn Grayson. Cameron s niece with whom Clyde is in love, finds the head of Cameron's portrali nailed to a free, wnere ‘ hau been used as a target. Clyde pledges Evelyn to secrecy.

As she spoke an Inspiration came to me.

When I had made my last trip to the post office, finished my final Inspection, and was almost jubilant over the significant cessation of the threats which. In their ultimate fulfilment at least, had brought my friend so close to dissolution, I made haste to carry to Cameron the glad news. Oddly enough, his condition In the past forty-eight hours had materially Improved, and as Dr. Massey attributed this, in part at least, to the influence exerted by my brief visit, 1 was now permitted to repeat the ■ treatment at pleasure. It wanted but a few minutes of eight o’clock, and Checkabeedy seized tbe occasion to inform me. as I passed through the hall, that dinner had been waiting for nearly a half-hour; a fact which I knew quite as well as he, but when I had chosen to disregard In favor of more pressing and Important employment Nevertheless I had dressed before going for the last mail, and as a moment would suffice to assure Cameron that ! all was well, I relieved the mind of tbe distressed butler, by assuring him that dinner should not wait over five minutes longer, so far as I was concerned.

I think I fancied I should be able to conceal my real state of mind. Certainly I willed to do so. But 1 was very soon conscious that Evelyn bad divined my dissimulation. Her eyes became suddenly grave and questioning, her laughter quieted, and her conversation, which had been glad and gay, relapsed abruptly Into the serious. When the coffee and llquenrs had been brought on, Mrs. Lancaster asked to be excused, and left us alone together. There followed then a moment of silence between us, while I selected a cigarette and lighted It. She had edged her chair a little closer to me —she was sitting on my right, as usual —and leaned forward, her slender but divinely rounded forearms extended across the shining damask of the tablecloth.

“The yacht,” I said. Impulsively she laid hold upon my arm. In a way she had. "The Sibylla,” she agreed, delightedly. "Of course. It will do everything for him.” “But what am I to tell him about this?” I asked, In perplexity. For a second she was thoughtful. “We couldn’t imitate the writing, could we?” she asked. "Oh, yes,” I answered. "We could. I think I’d even guarantee to reproduce that hideous black thing, but—" “But what?”

IV.—Clyde learns that a Chinese boy employed by Phlletua Muran living nearby, had borrowed a rifle from Cameron't lodgekeeper.

Caressingly I rested my palms upon her shoulders.

“No, I haven’t,” was bia answer. 'Tve always meant to go; but when I was nearest. 111 news drew me home; and so I never got closer than Yokohama on one side, and Srinagar, in Kashmir, on the other.”

"You’ve been in China?” I asked.

CHAPTER V.—Clyde makes an excuse to call on Murphy and Is epulsed. He pretends to be Investigating alleged Inrractlons of the game laws and speaks of finding the bowl of an opium pipe under the tree where Cameron’s portrait was found. The Chinese boy la found dead next morning.

"My dear little girl," I said, soothingly. "I am sorry 1 can’t satisfy your very natural curiosity."

“But It Isn’t curiosity," she corrected, promptly. "It’s Interest.” “Well; Interest then. I’m sorry, I say. Something did happen; but to tell you just what It was, and why It was a shock to him, 1 am not able. Not now, at least. Maybe, some day, you’ll know all about It.” There never was a more reasonable young person than Evelyn Grayson. Most girls, I fancy, would have teased and grown peevish at being denied. But she seemed to understand. “Do you want to see uncle?” she asked me.

"You’ve seen something of them in this country, I suppose?”

CHAPTER VX—While visiting Cameron In his dressing room a Nell Gwynne mirror Is mySterlou ly shattered.

"No, very little. I attended a dinner once at which U Hung Chang was the guest of honor; and I’ve eaten chop suey in one of those Chinese eating palaces they have in Chicago. That’s about the extent of my personal Chinese experience. But I have always been interested in the country and Its people. I have read about everything that has been published on the subject. By the way, did they ever find out who killed that boy of Murphy’s?"

"We can’t Imitate the papef. The paper Is as characteristic - as any of the other features. If not indeed more so. And he knows that paper.” "Then you must Just lie to him," she decided. "You must tell him the envelope was empty; and yon must make him believe 1L"

CHAPTER VII.

“From Sight of Men Into Torment.” Seldom have I passed a more miserable hour than that which followed upon the seeming phenomenon I have described. Cameron was nervously In tatters and my own poise was something more than threatened. The sight of a usually brave, strong, selfcontained person of stolidly phlegmatic temperament transformed Into a relaxed, nerveless, apprehensive creature Is enough of Itself to try one’s fortitude, even with the most favorable collateral conditions. And the collateral conditions here were quite the reverse. That which had affected Cameron had exerted an Influence upon me as well, knowing, as I did, all the circumstances and being Interested, as I was, In my friend’s problem. And so while his plight > tore at my heartstrings, my own in- 1 ability to grapple with the mystery ! contributed an added mental dls-, tress.

As I dropped my match upon the tiny silver tray which the Inimitable Checkabeedy had placed conveniently at my elbow I turned to her and saw her question in her imploring gaze and attitude even before she voiced it.

CHAPTER VIII.

“I don’t believe It would be wise,” I answered. "Probably I, being a reminder, might do him harm. Tell me how he seems? He Isn’t unconscious?”

The Sibylla under stress of her powerful turbines was racing easily, reeling off her thirty knots with no seeming effort and scarcely a perceptible -vibration. There had been a stiff breeze during the night, but It had died down at sunrise, and now, at neon, the sea was calm as the bosom of a nun. The sun blazed on the yacht’s polished brasses. Intensifying the snowy whiteness of her glossy paint, and turning to jewelled showers the spray which fell away from her sharp prow and caressed her long, sleek sides. It was wonderful weather for late October. On the nineteenth the temperature bad risen to ninety In New York, breaking all records for that date; and now, two days later, here at the meeting of sound and ocean, with Point Judith Just coming into view over our port bow, and Block Island a blur abaft our starboard beam, we sat, Cameron and I, shaded by spread awnings, on the after-deck, as though it were midsummer. For he had been convinced by my righteous untruth, after repeated and emphatic dinning, and had dally grown stronger; readily agreeing at length to a cruise along the coast, with Bar Harbor as objective. "That Is precisely what I had the Sibylla built for,” he told me, when my suggestion found acceptance. “Did you ever notice the inscription on the brass tablet over the fireplace in the saloon? No? Well, it’s this; 'Sibylla, when thou seest me faynte, address thyselfe the gyde of my complaynte.’

Somewhere East of Nantucket.

“Not yet,” I answered. “They’ve had some of his own kind under surveillance, but no more arrests have been made.” "Murphy was released?" "Yes.”

“No. He answers questions. But he never says anything for himself. And. Philip, he looks so pinched and old and pale! And his hands are so cold. The nurse has taken away his pillows and raised his feet, and— It’s gruesome, that’s the only word that describes it.”

"Tell me!” was what she said. And although I knew that she would demand it I was unprepared. To gain time rather than information 1 bade her bo more explicit. "Everything,” she pursued, inclusively, with a peremptory emphasis which indicated her determination not to be denied.

A very light tap on the chamber door was answered by Miss Collins, who came out into the passage and closed the door behind her.

He took up his paper again and once more 1 applied myself to seagazing. Far away to the northeast I made out what appeared to me to be a seagoing tug or pilot boat, steaming, I thought, with rathe* unusual speed for a vessel of her class. It was not much of a discovery, but the wafers had been very barren that morning, especially for the last two hours, and Insignificant as this object was I felt In a manner rewarded for my vigil. Half an hour later she had slipped out of sight and I was busy in an effort to pick her up again, when a cry from the lookout forward directed my attention to a floating speck possibly two miles or more dead ahead, and not more than a point off our course. "Come,” I said to Cameron, "let’s go up on the bridge and have a look!”

“I fear it Is not advisable for you to see him, now, Mr. Clyde,” she said. “He has suddenly had a return of some of his worst symptoms, and I am sure Dr. Massey would object to his being at all excited.” “But I shan't excite him,” I expained. "I have the very best of news for him. It Is his anxiety over a certain matter, no doubt, which has brought about the symptoms you speak of. I know I can relieve his mind, which I have reason to believe has been all day under an unusual strain.”

"But he’ll soon be better? The doctor said that, didn’t he?” "Yes. He said that."

My hesitation resulted In some amplification on her part. She was Impatient as well as resolved, and resented what she Interpreted as my reluctance to gratify her. “Everything,” she repeated. “Everything that you have been hiding from me from the first. I am entitled to know. What about the head that was cut from the portrait? What was it that caused the shocks which brought on Uncle Robert’s Illness? Why did you go for the mall four times today, and sit all the rest of the time in Uncle Robert's study? What has happened to make him worse this afternoon? What is troubling you, now? I’m not a child, I’m a woman, and 1 refuse to be kept in ignorance any longer.” She was glorious as ahe thus formulated her demands, her cheeks blazing, her eyes brilliant, her voice a crescendo. She must have seen my admiration. Certainly I made no attempt to hide it; and before she had quite finished I had possessed myself of her clasped hands, and was bestowing upon them an applauding pressure.

But the reaction which usually follows shock was only partial in Cameron’s case, and for days his life was In danger. Then followed a period of slow, general recovery. As the month of October progressed I feared the liability to relapse. I knew, Instinctively, with what dread sensations he must be awaiting the fourteenth of the month. He had been forbidden, of course, to receive any mall, just as he had been denied visitors; but I felt that In an uncertainty that must of necessity prove injurious. And so I took Dr. Massey, In a measure. Into my confidence, and gained from him permission to see Cameron for a brief moment.

To my dismay I found Cameron quite Incapable of anything approaching a calm, common-sense discussion of the matter, and realized to the full the mischief which this last performance, coming as a climax upon a week of more or less disquietude, had effected. He sat most of the time with head bent forward and knees doubled, his toes touching the floor but bis heels raised and In constant vibrating movement, as though stricken with palsy. The fingers of one hand toyed Incessantly, too, with the fingers of the other, in a variety of twisting, snakelike involutions. In vain I endeavored to arouse him; to stir In him a spirit of retaliation Some one was playing tricks upon him, and that some one must be discovered and brought to justice. Common sense told us that, however mysterious these happenings appeared, they could not have occurred without human agency It was our task to discover the agent and punish him. This was my line of argument; but through it all. Cameron sat unmoved and unresponsive And then there came to me again, that unwelcome suspicion that all along he bad been hiding something from me; that he divined the cause and the source of the persecution, but for some reason of his own would not divulge them.

But still this efficient-looking, ■white-clad woman was not wholly convinced. “It must bo only for a minute then," she finally allowed. "You can go In alone. But at the end of sixty seconds,” she added, as she glanced at the little gold watch she wore pinned to her spotless waist, "I shall interrupt you; and then you must leave." Yielding, perforce, to her condition, I entered. And as I did so, Cameron half rose on his elbow, regarding me with what I thought was anxiety for my report.

“And have our trouble for our pains?” he returned, incredulously. “It's probably some bit of wreckage, a box or a cask."

“Very -well," X agreed, starting off alone. “Even a box or a cask is worth while as a variation.”

“He has been asking for you,” the physician informed me, "but I fancied It better to make no exceptions. Now, however, I see that you may be a help instead of a hindrance.” Despite the more or less circumstantial reports as to his condition and appearance which had filtered to me from the sick room, through the medium of Evelyn, Miss Collins, the nurse, and Dr. Massey and his assistant, Dr. Thorne, I was not altogether prepared for the marked change which less than three weeks had wrought In my friend. He was peaked and bloodless and tired and old. And his voice was little more than a whisper.

When on nearer approach the drifting object proved to be a fisherman’s dory, with a man, either dead or unconscious, plainly discernible in the bottom, I should hardly have been human had I not experienced a degree of satisfaction over Cameron’s failure as a prophet. That, however, was the least abiding of my sensations. In an instant It had given way to anxiety concerning the boat's occupant and Interest In the business-like manner in which MacLeod, the stocky young executive officer of the Sibylla, was preparing to pick up our find. The engine room bad been signaled half-speed ahead, and already a sailor with a coil of rope in hand was stationed at the forward gangway. I have frequently seen river pilots make landings that were marvels of clever calculation, but I never saw any steering more accurately gauged than that by which MacLeod, here in the open sea, with the precarious swell and surge of ocean to combat, brought the yacht gliding within a bare three Inches of the rolling dory’s bow. I was leaning over the rail as we came thus upon the castaway, and raw clearly enough for Just a moment the huddled creature in oilskins, silent and motionless in the stern, with closed eyes and wet, dark hair matted upon his forehead. Then a sailor, dropping lightly into the boat, shut off my view for a little. There was a whir of flung line; an exchange of quick-spoken, and to me unintelligible, words between the sailor in the dory and a sailor standing beside me on the yacht’s deck; and then, the line was taut and straining, and the dory, which had sheered off astern, was being brought up slowly alongside.

"It’s all right," I said, quietly. "All right. Not so much as a line from the enemy. They have withdrawn, just as 1—" But he Interrupted me. "Here, quick!” he was saying. "Take this!” And I saw then that one hand was drawing something from beneath his pillow. The next moment he had given me a long envelope of that thin, waxy texture I had learned to loathe. For a heartbeat I stood appalled, transfixed.

And her argument prevailed. She knew too much not to know more. Cameron’s wishes In the matter could no longer he regarded. Just how tactfully I managed the disclosure. It Is not for me to judge. Perhaps I told more than I should. Possibly I revealed too little. I ■was guided solely by the wish not to alarm her, unduly. And yet, as nearly every feature of the affair was of necessity alarming. It became a vexing problem as to what to include and what to omit

“I found it in an old hook, published In 1563, a poetic induction to ‘Tho Mirror of Magistrates,’ written by Thomas Sackvllle. You can fancy how my application distorts the original Intention; but Sackvllle Isn’t likely to trouble me over It.” I repeat this explanation now mainly to indicate the improved temper of the speaker. His mind was placid once again, and with this recovered placidity had come a return of his quiet humor. For my own part 1 was not altogether happy. My delight over my friend’s recovery, and Evelyn’s pleasure thereat, was curdled by Self-reproach regarding the Instrument I had employed to bring it about. A lie is to me a most contemptible agent, and to make use of one has been always abhorrent. In this instance I had salved my conscience In a measure with the old excuse that the end justified the means, but It was only in a measure, and I was far from being as happy as 1 pretended. Moreover, I could not rid myself of an uneasiness—a misery, Indeed, la which I was now without company—concerning the day and Us menace. I say “without company,” for Cameron, of course, had quite dismissed the subject, and Evelyn, who previously was greatly perturbed, had seemed to put away all apprehension directly she saw us safe aboard the yacht There had been some talk of her accompanying us, but without signifying my real reason, I had managed to dissuade her.

He made a brave effort to smile, as I came In, but it resulted in a sad grimacing failure. I lifted one of his thin, clammy hands which lay inert on the coverlid, but it gave me only the feeblest answering pressure.

"Quick!” he insisted, excitedly. "Open It! Read It! She’ll not leave us long and I must know Its contents.”

1 rang for one of the footmen and

Cad some brandy brought, and forced Cameron to swallow a stiff drink of it, in which I joined him. But even this stimulant had small effect upon him. And when, finally, I reluctantly bade him good-night, I was overwhelmed by the pathos of his condition. So wrought and tortured, indeed, was I, by the sad picture of dethroned courage which followed mo home, that sleep fled me and left me wide-eyed until the dawn. The tidings which came to mo with my coffee that morning were more than half expected. Cameron was ill, and his physician had been summoned from New York.

"But how —’’ I began, as I tore the end of the envelope. “God knows,” he answered, before I had put my question into words. "I had been dozing; about an hour ago. I stretched out my hand, unconsciously, and that lay beneath It, on the counterpane. It crackled as I touched It; and I knew then, even before 1 recognized the feel of It.” Sixty seconds! Was there ever such an interminable period? Sixty long seconds befone that door would open with the interruption that would spare me. I fumbled with the devilish paper; let it slip through my fingers; tore a bit here and a bit there; finished the tearing; and then, dissembling, began tearing the other end. And still the seconds lagged; still the door remained stationary.

Eventually she heard the whole story, every phase of it. And so It is not altogether clear in my memory how much I conveyed that night and how qjuch was left for me to add ten days later.

“I'm so glad you’re better,” 1 told him, cheerily. "Fancy the doctor allowing me to see you! That shows what he thinks." “Yes,” he whispered, “I’m coming round, slowly. And I wanted to see you, Clyde. What day of the month is this?” “The twelfth.” “Day after tomorrow, it will come,” he said. “Don’t be too sure,” I replied. “I think they’ve done about enough to satisfy any ordinary villains.”

There Is no question, however, regarding that third letter which had been so mysteriously received that day. I drew it from the envelope, there, at the table, and we read It together, by the light of the pink-shad-ed candies; our chairs touching and her cool little left hand clasped hard in my sinewy right As I spread the sheet that sinister appearing black daub at the bottom smote me with a sense of ill as acutely poignant as a rapier thrust, and the heavy, regular, upright chirography, with its odd f’s and p’s, so awesomely familiar, was scarcely less disturbing.

He was silent for a moment Then, with Just the faintest turn of his head from side to side, he said; "But they are not ordinary villains.”

When I reached Cragholt the doctor had come and gone, and a trained nurse was In attendance. Evelyn, meeting me In the hall, con-

"Well," 1 said, "if It does come, I shall find out how it got here; and that will be a step towards bringing them to justice.” “You’ll find out?” he queried, incredulously. “Yes. I’ll get your mail that day, myself. I’ll tell that monument of pomposity, your butler, Mr. Checkabeedy, that I am to see every letter that comes to the house and know how and by whom it Is delivered. Letters can’t get here without hands, you know."

"My God, Clyde!” Cameron cried. In a frenzy of Impatience. "What's the matter with you tonight? Are you never going to get that thing open ?”

Silently the girl and I ran through the dozen lines.

FOR

Regular Meals and Short Orders ....go to the...

Like Its two predecessors the letter began with the sentence:

And then I, desperate, too, with eyes fixed imploringly on the door, was about to answer him with the truth—that I did not want to open it; that I would not, could not read the contents: that he must wait and trust me, absolutely—when, quite without design on my part, the envelope fell to the rug at my feet. And as I stooped to recover It, I heard the doorknob turn.

“That 'which you have wrought shall in turn he wrought upon you." No longer could this be regarded as idle boasting. It had become an edict cf grave significance. And what followed only emphasized the proven force behind this series of singular communications.

For my disquietude there was certainly no logical ground. I had taken the precaution of having the Sibylla searched from masthead to keelson before sailing. The coal was examined as carefully as that of a battleship in time of war; every locker and cupboard was Inspected; even the ventilators were metaphorically turned inside out and the record of every man of the crew was looked into with vigorous scrutiny. So I could see no loophole unguarded. But tbs past was an argument which set logic at

(To Be Continued.)

WANTED

NORTHERN CAFE

At once. Men to represent us liner locally or traveling. Now is the time to start. Money in the work for the right men. Apply at once and secure territory

"All having been performed as foretold, our power Is demonstrated." Then, simply, almost crudely, but of horrid poignancy, ran the words: “Know then, that beforo the morning of the Eighth Day bonce, as passed

"Other things seem to be done without hands,” was his conclusive comment; and I had no reply for him. Concerning Murphy and the murdered Chinaman, Cameron did not ask, and 1 was glad be did not. For

When I regained the upright, Misa Collins was entering, and the letter was In the pocket of my dinner jacket

WVl. ENDICOTT, Prop.

ALLEN NURSERY CO., Rochester N. Y.

Crawfordaville, Ind

m E. M«ln 5tre*