Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1901 — THE IVORY QUEEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE IVORY QUEEN

A Detective Story Of a Chicago Suburb. The Murder at The Grange and Hew Its Mystery Wac Solved by Darrent. the Amer* lean Lecoq.

BY NORMAN HURST.

~ CHAPTER I. THE MURDER AT THE GRANGE. “Half an hour late! Of course she is. What can you expect? It wouldn’t have surprised me if she had been an hour. There must be three feet of snow between here and Chicago.” “Yep, it be a mortal bad winter. Never had' such a stiff one since ’Bl. That was the year as I had 20 cows froze to death in one night ” “Yes ; I’ve heard all about those cows before ” “It was a most strordinary affair. I said to myself as I went to bed the night afore, ‘Now, I shouldn't be s’prised if some of them cows ain’t froze in the mornin. ’ ” “She’s whistling.” “And I said to myself just as I was goin to sleep, T shouldn’t be s’prised if some of them cows ain’t froze to death in the mornin.’ ” “And you got up in the morning, and 20 were dead?” “Yes, but the strordinary part of the thing is I said to myself, ‘I shouldn’t be s’prised if some of them cows ain’t froze. ’ ” “Well, never miiid the cows. Here she comes. Are you taking any one?” “One gent to Norcombe; that’s all. Things ain’t a bit like they was when I was young, and when they gets the new railroad I s’pose I shall have to go into the poor house. ’ ’ -A rumble in the distance growing nearer and londer gives warning of the approaching train, and in a few seconds the express from Chicago comes to a standstill in Barnstaple depot, and a solitary passenger alights and stamps his feet vigorously upon the platform. The station master, forsaking the individual whose sole conversational powers seemed to he ’ confined to reminis-

cences uuon the untimely death of his

20 cows, enters into a lively conversation with the engineer as to the state of the road between Barnstaple and the end of the jonrney. The few passengers in the train gaze anxiously out of the steamy windows and growl disconsolately. Then the engine gives a mournful hoot, a disconsolate and fatigued kind of pull, and slowly they leave the station and issue forth into the night. The lights are lowered, and Barnstaple relapses into slumber. “Well, that’s a bad journey over, ” soliloquizes the traveler left upon the platform as he endeavors to restore his circulation by a variety of ingenious adaptations of the cellar flap. “Now for the worst part—seven miles along country roads in some ramshackle conveyance, I suppose. ” “Be you the gent as wants to go to Norcombe?” “Yes. Have you got a carriage?” “It would be no matter of use a- tryin to get four wheels to Norcombe, so I’ve brought a dogcart,. and I don’t s’pose we'll get there in that. It be a mortal bad night.” “Well, we’ll try, eh?” “Yep, we’ll try,” the man answers in a "melancholy voice as he clambers into the high dogcart, while the passenger takes a seat by his side and, glancing at the horse, estimates that the driver is not very far wrong and that they are not likely to get to Norcombe after all. But in two seconds he has altered his opinion altogether and arrived at the conclusion that he does not know a horse from a tenpenny naih “Old man,” he would often say afterward in recounting the incident to some particnlar chum, “if you want a sure cure for ennui or a sluggish liver try a seven mile ride on a frosty night, with the roads like a sheet of glass, behind a Kentucky nag. Tobogganing in Canada’s a fool to it. If you’d seen that horse, that looked as if he couldn’t raise enough energy to drag a hearse, take a slippery hill, nearly as steep as the side of a house, at an easy trot, without so much as winking, you’d have gasped, and when he got to the top and went full speed down the other side your only regret would have been that you hadn’t doubled the amount of your accident insurance: Of all horses in the world give me a Kentucky horse, as fast as a railroad train and as sure footed as a mule. Imagine, my boy, a seven mile drive on a frosty moonlight night behind a quadruped that treated the whole affair as a joke, and then imagine a jay, with the reins in his hand, who did nothing but say: ‘He can't go like he used to. He’s gettin old and lazy It was a drive I’ve never forogtten and one I’m never jk*=’” to forget.' “It's a mortal bad winter <be driver again observes as they over the frost bound road, “mortal bad ” “Yes; it’s a bit severe.” “Ah, we've never had such a winter since ’Bl, when I had 20 cows all froze to death in one night. “ “Ah?”

“Yes, and the strordinary thing was that I said to myself as I went to bed, ‘Now, I shouldn’t be s’prised if some of them was froze in the mornin. ‘ That’s what 1 said the night afore. ” “Then why didn’t you get up and try to make them warmer?’’ The driver turns a look of blank astonishment on Herbert Darrent It is the first time that such a reasonable ! suggestion has been offered to him, and its novelty is a bit bewildering “City folks don’t understand cattle,” he grumbles at last and falls to ruminating why he didn ’ t get np and do something for those 20 cows, but as he cannot arrive at any satisfactory solution he presently breaks the silence again. “You’ve just come up from Chicago, eh?” “Yes.” “Ah! What do they think of us?” “Think of you?” “Yep. What do they think of our murder?” he explains, with a ghoulish appreciation of the unenviable notoriety that Norcombe had suddenly achieved. “Have you heard about it, sir?” “Oh, yes; I saw something in the papers—Mr. Marsden, the old Britisher, at the country place he called The Grange.” “Yep;- that’s right—old Marsden, close fisted old Marsden. He was a great miser, he was, sir. If young Marsden comes into the property, things will be better, but he’s a wild devil” “Son?” A “Eh?” “Marsden’s son?” “No; picked him up somewhere. Perhaps he is. vYttu,never-Jaiow.” “Who murdered him ?” “Dunno. Like to shake hands with him. ’ ’ “Indeed! You seem an amiable kind of individual,” “Bah! Good riddance to bad rubbish. I was goin along all right till he raised my rent so that I couldn’t make both ends meet, and it’s hard times, sir, with such a bad winter. I mind me, sir, that we never had such a winter since ’81.” “Yes, yes; yon told me about that and the cows. Now, as to this murder. Have the police no clew?” “No; can’t have any. It was done by ghosts. The Grange is haunted.'’ “Oh, indeed 1 Then you d like to shake hands with a ghost?”

The driver shivered and glanced half apprehensively over his shoulder. Then, sinking his voice to a mysterious key, he continued, ‘"Some one went into the house and murdered old Marsden and never came out again, and he’s not there now, and no one but a ghost could do that.” “Really?” “And I expect we’ll have one of them clever detectives comin down from Chicago, but he won’t find out anything, ’cause it was done by a ghost, and no detectives can catch ghosts. Whoa!” The horse is pulled up with a sudden jerk. * ‘This is Norcombe. The Palace hotel, eh, sir?” “Yes.” l “If you’d like to have a look at The Grange, it’s about a quarter of a mile up on the right.” “Thanks. I’ll stroll up in the morning. Good night. ’ ’ “Good night. ” Herbert Darrent climbs out of the dogcart, and the driver gathers up the reins, sets the horse’s head homeward, and the animal canters off as lively as ever. The man stands at the door of the village hotel in the ruddy light streaming through its short crimson curtains until the vehicle is out of sight and then turns and walks thoughtfully down the main street until he reaches a cottage dignified by the legend “Police Station” inscribed in large black letters on a white board—primitive abode of the law as represented in the person of a young policeman in a very badly fitting uniform who is just quitting the house and smartly salutes as he opens the gate. “Are you Mr. Dobson?” “No, sir; he’s inside.” “Off duty?” “Yes; it’s my round.” “Then I won’t detain you, but I shall want to see you in the morning, early. ” “Very good, sir. I’ll be here at 9 sharp. Good night. ’ ’ “Good night. ” fro BE CONTINUED. J

“Be you the gent as wants to go to Norcombe?"