Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
dilyn Mack
Hugh Cosgro Weir, Page
Company, Colonial Press (Boston, Mass.)











MISS MADELYN MACK,
DETECTIVE








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Illustrated


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TO
MAHY HOLLAND
THIS IS YOUR BOOK. IT IS YOU, WOMAN DE-
TECTIVE OF REAL LIFE, WHO SUGGESTED MAD-
ELYN. IT WAS THE STORIES TOLD ME FROM
YOUR OWN NOTE - BOOK OF MEN'S KNAVERY
THAT SUGGESTED THESE EXPLOITS OF MISS
MACK. NONE SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN YOU
THAT THE RIDDLES OF FICTION FALL EVER SHORT
OF THE RIDDLES OF TRUTH. WHAT PLOT OF THE
NOVELIST COULD EQUAL THE GROTESQUENESS
OF YOUR AFFAIR OF THE MYSTIC CIRCLE, OR THE
SUBTLENESS OF YOUR CHICAGO UNIVERSITY
EXPLOIT OF THE EGYPTIAN BAR? I PRAY YOU.
HOWEVER, IN THE FULLNESS OF YOUR GENER-
OSITY TO GIVE MADELYN WELCOME — NOT AS
A RIVAL BUT AS A STUDENT. H. C. W.


The publishers wish to acknowledge the
courtesy of The Kalem Moving Picture Com-
pany in allowing the use as illustrations of the
photographs of Miss Alice Joyce in the char-
acter of " Madelyn Mack."


CONTENTS
PAGE
I. The Man with Nine Lives .... i
II. The Missing Bridegroom .... 58
III. Cinderella's Slipper . . . .101
IV. The Bullet from Nowhere . . . .157
V. The Purple Thumb 200





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"AS THE DOOR CLOSED, I SAW THAT MADELYN WAS
still balancing Raleigh's pipe" (See page
22) Frontispiece
"madelyn . . . stood staring out into the
darkness" 74
"as she spread it open in her lap, apparently
for the first time she recalled the
BUTLER" 79
"HE SPUN ABOUT WITH A CRY OF DISCOVERY" .124
"I SAW MADELYN STEP QUIETLY INTO THE ROOM WE
HAD VACATED" 185





MISS MADELYN MACK,
DETECTIVE
I
THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES
I
Now that I seek a point of beginning in the
curious comradeship between Madelyn Mack and
myself, the weird problems of men's knavery that
we have confronted together come back to me with
almost a shock.
Perhaps the events which crowd into my mem-
ory followed each other too swiftly for thoughtful
digest at the time of their occurrence. Perhaps
only a sober retrospect can supply a properly ap-
preciative angle of view.
Madelyn Mack! What newspaper reader does
not know the name? Who, even among the most
casual followers of public events, does not recall
the young woman who found the missing heiress,
1


2 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Virginia Denton, after a three months' disappear-
ance; who convicted "Archie" Irwin, chief of
the "fire bug trust;" who located the absconder,
Wolcott, after a pursuit from Chicago to Khar-
toom; who solved the riddle of the double Peterson
murder; who —
But why continue the enumeration of Miss
Mack's achievements? They are of almost house-
hold knowledge, at least that portion which, from
one cause or another, have found their way into
the newspaper columns. Doubtless those admir-
ers of Miss Mack, whose opinions have been
formed through the press-chronicles of her ex-
ploits, would be startled to know that not one in
ten of her cases has ever been recorded outside of
her own file cases. And many of them — the
most sensational from a newspaper viewpoint —
will never be!
It is the woman, herself, however, who has
seemed to me always a greater mystery than any
of the problems to whose unraveling she has
brought her wonderful genius. In spite of the
deluge of printer's ink that she has inspired, I ques-
tion if it has been given to more than a dozen
persons to know the true Madelyn Mack.
I do not refer, of course, to her professional
career. The salient points of that portion of her
life, I presume, are more or less generally known


The Man with Nine Lives
3
— the college girl confronted suddenly with the
necessity of earning her own living; the epidemic
of mysterious "shop-lifting" cases chronicled in
the newspaper she was studying for employment
advertisements; her application to the New York
department stores, that had been victimized, for a
place on their detective staffs, and their curt re-
fusal; her sudden determination to undertake the
case as a free lance, and her remarkable success,
which resulted in the conviction of the notorious
Madame Bousard, and which secured for Miss
Mack her first position as assistant house-detective
with the famous Niegel dry-goods firm. I some-
times think that this first case, and the realization
which it brought her of her peculiar talent, is
Madelyn's favorite — that its place in her memory
is not even shared by the recovery of Mrs. Niegel's
fifty-thousand-dollar pearl necklace, stolen a few
months after the employment of the college girl
detective at the store, and the reward for which,
incidentally, enabled the ambitious Miss Mack to
open her own office.
Next followed the Bergner kidnapping case,
which gave Madelyn her first big advertising broad-
side, and which brought the beginning of the steady
stream of business that resulted, after three years,
in her Fifth Avenue suite in the Maddox Building,
where I found her on that — to me — memorable


4 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
afternoon when a sapient Sunday editor dispatched
me for an interview with the woman who had made
so conspicuous a success in a man's profession.
I can see Madelyn now, as I saw her then — my
first close-range view of her. She had just re-
turned from Omaha that morning, and was plan-
ning to leave for Boston on the midnight express.
A suitcase and a fat portfolio of papers lay on a
chair in a corner. A young woman stenographer
was taking a number of letters at an almost in-
credible rate of dictation. Miss Mack finished the
last paragraph as she rose from a flat-top desk to
greet me.
I had vaguely imagined a masculine-appearing
woman, curt of voice, sharp of feature, perhaps
dressed in a severe, tailor-made gown. I saw a
young woman of maybe twenty-five, with red and
white cheeks, crowned by a softly waved mass of
dull gold hair, and a pair of vivacious, grey-blue
eyes that at once made one forget every other de-
tail of her appearance. There was a quality in the
eyes which for a long time I could not define.
Gradually I came to know that it was the spirit of
optimism, of joy in herself, and in her life, and
in her work, the exhilaration of doing things. And
there was something contagious in it. Almost un-
consciously you found yourself believing in her
and in her sincerity.


The Man with Nine Lives
5
Nor was there a suggestion foreign to her sex
in my appraisal. She was dressed in a simply em-
broidered white shirt-waist and white broadcloth
skirt. One of Madelyn's few peculiarities is that
she always dresses either in complete white or com-
plete black. On her desk was a jar of white
chrysanthemums.
"How do I do it?" she repeated, in answer to
my question, in a tone that was almost a laugh.
"Why — just by hard work, I suppose. Oh, there
isn't anything wonderful about it! You can do
almost anything, you know, if you make yourself
really think you can! I am not at all unusual or
abnormal. I work out my problems just as I would
work out a problem in mathematics, only instead
of figures I deal with human motives. A detective
is always given certain known factors, and I keep
building them up, or subtracting them, as the case
may be, until I know that the answer must be cor-
rect.
"There are only two real rules for a successful
detective, hard work and common sense — not un-
common sense such as we associate with our old
friend, Sherlock Holmes, but common, business
sense. And, of course, imagination! That may
be one reason why I have made what you call a
success. A woman, I think, always has a more
acute imagination than a man!"


6 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Do you then prefer women operatives on your
staff?" I asked.
She glanced up with something like a twinkle
from the jade paper-knife in her hands.
"Shall I let you into a secret? All of my staff,
with the exception of my stenographer, are men.
But I do most of my work in person. The factor
of imagination can't very well be used second, or
third, or fourth handed. And then, if I fail, I can
only blame Madelyn Mack! Some day," — the
gleam in her grey-blue eyes deepened, —" some
day I hope to reach a point where I can afford to
do only consulting work or personal investigation.
The business details of an office staff, I am afraid,
are a bit too much of routine for me!"
The telephone jingled. She spoke a few crisp
sentences into the receiver, and turned. The in-
terview was over.
When I next saw her, three months later, we
met across the body of Morris Anthony, the mur-
dered bibliophic. It was a chance discovery of
mine which Madelyn was good enough to say sug-
gested to her the solution of the affair, and which
brought us, together in the final melodramatic cli-
max in the grim mansion on Washington Square,
when I presume my hysterical warning saved her
from the fangs of Dr. Lester Randolph's hidden
cobra. In any event, our acquaintanceship crystal-


The Man with Nine Lives 7
lized gradually into a comradeship, which revolu-
tionized two angles of my life.
Not only did it bring to me the stimulus of
Madelyn Mack's personality, but it gave me ex-
clusive access to a fund of newspaper " copy" that
took me from scant-paid Sunday "features" to
a "space " arrangement in the city room, with an
income double that which I had been earning. I
have always maintained that in our relationship
Madelyn gave all, and I contributed nothing. Al-
though she invariably made instant disclaimer, and
generally ended by carrying me up to the "Ro-
sary," her chalet on the Hudson, as a cure for what
she termed my attack of the " blues," she was never
able to convince me that my protest was not
justified!
It was at the " Rosary " where Miss Mack found
haven from the stress of business. She had copied
its design from an ivy-tangled Swiss chalet that
had attracted her fancy during a summer vacation
ramble through the Alps, and had built it on a
jagged bluff of the river at a point near enough
to the city to permit of fairly convenient motoring,
although, during the first years of our friendship,
when she was held close to the commercial grind-
stone, weeks often passed without her being able
to snatch a day there. In the end, it was the grati-
tude of Chalmers Walker for her remarkable work


The Man with Nine Lives
9
reached me when I was in just the right receptive
mood.
It was late on a Thursday afternoon of June,
the climax of a racking five days for me under the
blistering Broadway sun, that Madelyn's motor
caught me at the Bugle office, and Madelyn insisted
on bundling me into the tonneau without even a
suitcase.
"We'll reach the Rosary in time for a fried
chicken supper," she promised. "What you need
is four or five days' rest where you can't smell the
asphalt."
"You fairy godmother!" I breathed as I snug-
gled down on the cushions.
Neither of us knew that already the crimson
trail of crime was twisting toward us — that within
twelve hours we were to be pitchforked from a
quiet week-end's rest into the vortex of tragedy.
II
We had breakfasted late and leisurely. When
at length we had finished, Madelyn had insisted on
having her phonograph brought to the rose-garden,
and we were listening to Sturveysant's matchless
rendering of " The Jewel Song " — one of the three
records for which Miss Mack had sent the harpist
her check for two hundred dollars the day before.


10 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
I had taken the occasion to read her a lazy lesson
on extravagance. The beggar had probably done
the work in less than two hours!
As the plaintive notes quivered to a pause, Susan,
Madelyn's housekeeper, crossed the garden, and
laid a little stack of letters and the morning papers
on a rustic table by our bench. Madelyn turned
to her correspondence with a shrug.
"From the divine to the prosaic!"
Susan sniffed with the freedom of seven years
of service.
"I heard one of them Dago fiddling chaps at
Hammerstein's last week who could beat that music
with his eyes closed!"
Madelyn stared at her sorrowfully.
"At your age — Hammerstein's!"
Susan tossed her prim rows of curls, glanced
contemptuously at the phonograph by way of re-
taliation, and made a dignified retreat. In the
doorway she turned.
"Oh, Miss Madelyn, I am baking one of
your old-fashioned strawberry shortcakes for
lunch!"
"Really?" Madelyn raised a pair of sparkling
eyes. "Susan, you're a dear!"
A contented smile wreathed Susan's face even to
the tips of her precise curls. Madelyn's gaze
crossed to me.


The Man with Nine Lives
11
"What are you chuckling over, Nora?"
"From a psychological standpoint, the pair of
you have given me two interesting studies," I
laughed. "A single sentence compensates Susan
for a week of your glumness!"
Madelyn extended a hand toward her mail.
"And what is the other feature that appeals to
your dissecting mind?"
"Fancy a world-known detective rising to the
point of enthusiasm at the mention of strawberry
shortcake!"
"Why not? Even a detective has to be human
once in a while!" Her eyes twinkled. "Another
point for my memoirs, Miss Noraker!"
As her gaze fell to the half-opened letter in her
hand, my eyes traveled across the garden to the
outlines of the chalet, and I breathed a sigh of
utter content. Broadway and Park Row seemed
very, very far away. In a momentary swerving of
my gaze, I saw that a line as clear cut as a pencil-
stroke had traced itself across Miss Mack's fore-
head.
The suggestion of lounging indifference in her
attitude had vanished like a wind-blown veil. Her
glance met mine suddenly. The twinkle I had last
glimpsed in her eyes had disappeared. Silently
she pushed a square sheet of close, cramped writing
across the table to me.


The Man with Nine Lives
13
nide of potassium in my favorite cherry-
pie!
"All of this, too, in the shadow of a
New Jersey skunk farm! It is high time,
I fancy, that I secure expert advice.
Should the progress of the mysterious
vendetta, by any chance, render me unable
to receive you personally, my niece, Miss
Muriel Jansen, I am sure, will endeavor to
act as a substitute.
"Respectfully Yours,
"Wendell Marsh."
"Three Forks Junction, N. J.,
June 16."
At the bottom of the page a lead pencil had
scrawled the single line in the same cramped
writing:
"For God's sake, hurry!"
Madelyn retained her curled-up position on the
bench, staring across at a bush of deep crimson
roses.
"Wendell Marsh?" She shifted her glance to
me musingly. "Haven't I seen that name some-
where lately?" ( Madelyn pays me the compliment
of saying that I have a card-index brain for news-
paper history!)


14 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"If you have read the Sunday supplements," I
returned drily, with a vivid remembrance of Wen-
dell Marsh as I had last seen him, six months
before, when he crossed the gang-plank of his
steamer, fresh from England, his face browned
from the Atlantic winds. It was a face to draw a
second glance — almost gaunt, self-willed, with
more than a hint of cynicism. (Particularly when
his eyes met the waiting press group!) Some one
had once likened him to the pictures of Oliver
Cromwell.
"Wendell Marsh is one of the greatest news-
paper copy-makers that ever dodged an inter-
viewer," I explained. "He hates reporters like an
upstate farmer hates an automobile, and yet has a
flock of them on his trail constantly. His latest
exploit to catch the spot-light was the purchase of
the Bainford relics in London. Just before that
he published a three-volume history on 'The
World's Great Cynics.' Paid for the publication
himself."
Then came a silence between us, prolonging it-
self. I was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to associ-
ate Wendell Marsh's half-hysterical letter with my
mental picture of the austere millionaire. . . .
"For God's sake, hurry!"
What wrenching terror had reduced the ultra-
reserved Mr. Marsh to an appeal like this? As I


The Man with Nine Lives
15
look back now I know that my wildest fancy could
not have pictured the ghastliness of the truth!
Madelyn straightened abruptly.
"Susan, will you kindly tell Andrew to bring
around the car at once? If you will find the New
Jersey automobile map, Nora, we'll locate Three
Forks Junction."
"You are going down?" I asked mechanically.
She slipped from the bench.
"I am beginning to fear," she said irrelevantly,
"that we'll have to defer our strawberry short-
cake!"
Ill
The sound eye of Daniel Peddicord, liveryman
by avocation, and sheriff of Merino County by elec-
tion, drooped over his florid left cheek. Mr. Peddi-
cord took himself and his duties to the tax-payers
of Merino County seriously.
Having lowered his sound eye with befitting of-
ficial dubiousness, while his glass eye stared guile-
lessly ahead, as though it took absolutely no notice
of the procedure, Mr. Peddicord jerked a fat, red
thumb toward the winding stairway at the rear of
the Marsh hall.
"I reckon as how Mr. Marsh is still up there,
Miss Mack. You see, I told 'em not to disturb the
body until —"


16 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Our stares brought the sentence to an abrupt
end. Mr. Peddicord's sound eye underwent a vio-
lent agitation.
"You don't mean that you haven't — heard?"
The silence of the great house seemed suddenly
oppressive. For the first time I realized the oddity
of our having been received by an ill-at-ease police-
man instead of by a member of the family. I was
abruptly conscious of the incongruity between Mr.
Peddicord's awkward figure and the dim, luxurious
background.
'Madelyn gripped the chief's arm, bringing his
sound eye circling around to her face.
"Tell me what has happened!"
Mr. Peddicord drew a huge red handkerchief
over his forehead.
"Wendell Marsh was found dead in his library
at eight o'clock this morning! He had been dead
for hours."
Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Through my daze beat
the rhythm of a tall, gaunt clock in the corner. I
stared at it dully. Madelyn's hands had caught
themselves behind her back, her veins swollen into
sharp blue ridges. Mr. Peddicord still gripped his
red handkerchief.
"It sure is queer you hadn't heard! I reckoned
as how that was what had brought you down. It
— it looks like murder!"


The Man with Nine Lives 17
In Madelyn's eyes had appeared a greyish glint
like cold steel.
"Where is the body?"
"Up-stairs in the library. Mr. Marsh had
worked —"
"Will you kindly show me the room?"
I do not think we noted at the time the crispness
in her tones, certainly not with any resentment.
Madelyn had taken command of the situation quite
as a matter of course.
"Also, will you have my card sent to the
family?"
Mr. Peddicord stuffed his handkerchief back
into a rear trousers' pocket. A red corner pro-
truded in jaunty abandon from under his blue coat.
"Why, there ain't no family — at least none but
Muriel Jansen." His head cocked itself cautiously
up the stairs. "She's his niece, and I reckon now
everything here is hers. Her maid says as how she
is clear bowled over. Only left her room once
since — since it happened. And that was to tell
me as how nothing was to be disturbed." Mr.
Peddicord drew himself up with the suspicion of
a frown. "Just as though an experienced officer
wouldn't know that much!"
Madelyn glanced over her shoulder to the end of
the hall. A hatchet-faced man in russet livery stood
staring at us with wooden eyes.


18 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
-Mr. Peddicord shrugged.
"That's Peters, the butler. He's the chap what
found Mr. Marsh."
I could feel the wooden eyes following us until
a turn in the stairs blocked their range.
A red-glowing room — oppressively red. Scar-
let-frescoed walls, deep red draperies, cherry-
upholstered furniture, Turkish-red rugs, rows on
rows of red-bound books. Above, a great, flat
glass roof, open to the sky from corner to corner,
through which the splash of the sun on the rich
colors gave the weird semblance of a crimson pool
almost in the room's exact center. Such was Wen-
dell Marsh's library — as eccentrically designed as
its master.
It was the wreck of a room that we found. Shat-
tered vases littered the floor — books were ripped
savagely apart — curtains were hanging in ribbons
— a heavy leather rocker was splintered.
The wreckage might have marked the death-
struggle of giants. In the midst of the destruction,
Wendell Marsh was twisted on his back. His face
was shriveled, his eyes were staring. There was no
hint of a wound or even a bruise. In his right hand
was gripped an object partially turned from me.
I found myself stepping nearer, as though drawn
by a magnet. There is something hypnotic in such


The Man with Nine Lives 19
horrible scenes! And then I barely checked a
cry.
Wendell Marsh's dead fingers held a pipe — a
strangely carved, red sandstone bowl, and a long,
glistening stem.
Sheriff Peddicord noted the direction of my
glance.
"Mr. Marsh got that there pipe in London,
along with those other relics he brought home.
They do say as how it was the first pipe ever
smoked by a white man. The Indians of Virginia
gave it to a chap named Sir Walter Raleigh. Mr.
Marsh had a new stem put to it, and his butler
says he smoked it every day. Queer, ain't it, how
some folks' tastes do run?"
The sheriff moistened his lips under his scraggly
yellow moustache.
"Must have been some fight what done this!"
His head included the wrecked room in a vague
sweep.
Madelyn strolled over to a pair of the ribboned
curtains, and fingered them musingly.
"But that isn't the queerest part." The chief
glanced at Madelyn expectantly. "There was no
way for any one else to get out — or in!"
Madelyn stooped lower over the curtains. They
seemed to fascinate her. "The door?" she haz-
arded absently. "It was locked?"


20 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"From the inside. Peters and the footman saw
the key when they broke in this morning. . . .
Peters swears he heard Mr. Marsh turn it when he
left him writing at ten o'clock last night."
"The windows?"
"Fastened as tight as a drum — and, if they
wasn't, it's a matter of a good thirty foot to the
ground."
"The roof, perhaps?"
"A cat might get through it — if every part
wasn't clamped as tight as the windows."
Mr. Peddicord spoke with a distinct inflection of
triumph. Madelyn was still staring at the curtains.
"Isn't it rather odd," I ventured, "that the
sounds of the struggle, or whatever it was, didn't
alarm the house?"
Sheriff Peddicord plainly regarded me as an out-
sider. He answered my question with obvious
shortness.
"You could fire a blunderbuss up here and no
one would be the wiser. They say as how Mr.
Marsh had the room made sound-proof. And, be-
sides, the servants have a building to themselves,
all except Miss Jansen's maid, who sleeps in a room
next to her at the other end of the house."
My eyes circled back to Wendell Marsh's knotted
figure — his shriveled face — horror-frozen eyes —
the hand gripped about the fantastic pipe. I think


The Man with Nine Lives 21
it was the pipe that held my glance. Of all incon-
gruities, a pipe in the hand of a dead man!
Maybe it was something of the same thought
that brought Madelyn of a sudden across the room.
She stooped, straightened the cold fingers, and
rose with the pipe in her hand.
A new stem had obviously been added to it, of a
substance which I judged to be jessamine. At its
end, teeth-marks had bitten nearly through. The
stone bowl was filled with the cold ashes of half-
consumed tobacco. Madelyn balanced it musingly.
"Curious, isn't it, Sheriff, that a man engaged
in a life-or-death struggle should cling to a heavy
pipe?"
"Why — I suppose so. But the question, Miss
Mack, is what became of that there other man? It
isn't natural as how Mr. Marsh could have fought
with himself."
"The other man?" Madelyn repeated mechan-
ically. She was stirring the rim of the dead
ashes.
"And how in tarnation was Mr. Marsh killed?"
Madelyn contemplated a dust-covered finger.
"Will you do me a favor, Sheriff?"
"Why, er — of course."
"Kindly find out from the butler if Mr. Marsh
had cherry pie for dinner last night!"
The sheriff gulped.


22 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Che-cherry pie?"
Madelyn glanced up impatiently.
"I believe he was very fond of it."
The sheriff shuffled across to the door uncer-
tainly. Madelyn's eyes flashed to me.
"You might go, too, Nora."
For a moment I was tempted to flat rebellion.
But Madelyn affected not to notice the fact. She
is always so aggravatingly sure of her own way!
— With what I tried to make a mood of aggrieved
silence, I followed the sheriff's blue-coated figure.
As the door closed, I saw that Madelyn was still
balancing Raleigh's pipe.
From the top of the stairs, Sheriff Peddicord
glanced across at me suspiciously.
"I say, what I would like to know is what be-
came of that there other man!"
IV
A wisp of a black-gowned figure, peering through
a dormer window at the end of the second-floor
hall, turned suddenly as we reached the landing.
A white, drawn face, suggesting a tired child,
stared at us from under a frame of dull-gold hair,
drawn low from a careless part. I knew at once
it was Muriel Jansen, for the time, at least, mis-
tress of the house of death.


The Man with Nine Lives
23
"Has the coroner come yet, Sheriff?"
She spoke with one of the most liquid voices I
have ever heard. Had it not been for her bronze
hair, I would have fancied her at once of Latin
descent. The fact of my presence she seemed
scarcely to notice, not with any suggestion of aloof-
ness, but rather as though she had been drained
even of the emotion of curiosity.
"Not yet, Miss Jansen. He should be here
now."
She stepped closer to the window, and then
turned slightly.
"I told Peters to telegraph to New York for
Dr. Dench when he summoned you. He was one
of Uncle's oldest friends. I — I would like him to
be here when — when the coroner makes his ex-
amination."
The sheriff bowed awkwardly.
"Miss Mack is up-stairs now."
The pale face was staring at us again with
raised eyebrows.
"Miss Mack? I don't understand." Her eyes
shifted to me.
"She had a letter from Mr. Marsh by this
morning's early post," I explained. "I am Miss
Noraker. Mr. Marsh wanted her to come down
at once. She didn't know, of course — couldn't
know — that — that he was — dead!"


24 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"A letter from — Uncle?" A puzzled line
gathered in her face.
I nodded.
"A distinctly curious letter. But — Miss
Mack would perhaps prefer to give you the
details."
The puzzled line deepened. I could feel her eyes
searching mine intently.
"I presume Miss Mack will be down soon," I
volunteered. "If you wish, however, I will tell
her —"
"That will hardly be necessary. But -— you are
quite sure — a letter?"
"Quite sure," I returned, somewhat impatiently.
And then, without warning, her hands darted to
her head, and she swayed forward. I caught her in
my arms with a side-view of Sheriff Peddicord
staring, open-mouthed.
"Get her maid!" I gasped.
The sheriff roused into belated action. As he
took a cumbersome step toward the nearest door,
it opened suddenly. A gaunt, middle-aged woman,
in a crisp white apron, digested the situation with
cold, grey eyes. Without a word, she caught
Muriel Jansen in her arms.
"She has fainted," I said rather vaguely. "Can
I help you?"
The other paused with her burden.
ItKII
ifoint


The Man with Nine Lives
25
"When I need you, I'll ask you!" she snapped,
and banged the door in our faces.
In the wake of Sheriff Peddicord, I descended
the stairs. A dozen question-marks were spinning
through my brain. Why had Muriel Jansen
fainted? Why had the mention of Wendell
Marsh's letter left such an atmosphere of bewil-
dered doubt? Why had the dragon-like maid —
for such I divined her to be — faced us with such
hostility? The undercurrent of hidden secrets in
the dim, silent house seemed suddenly intensified.
With a vague wish for fresh air and the sun on
the grass, I sought the front veranda, leaving the
sheriff in the hall, mopping his face with his red
handkerchief.
A carefully tended yard of generous distances
stretched an inviting expanse of graded lawn before
me. Evidently Wendell Marsh had provided a dis-
creet distance between himself and his neighbors.
The advance guard of a morbid crowd was already
shuffling about the gate. I knew that it would not
be long, too, before the press-siege would begin.
I could picture frantic city editors pitchforking
their star men New Jerseyward. I smiled at the
thought. The Bugle, the slave-driver that presided
over my own financial destinies, — was assured of
a generous "beat" in advance. The next train
from New York was not due until late afternoon.


26 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
From the staring line about the gate, the figure
of a well-set-up young man in blue serge detached
itself with swinging step.
"A reporter?" I breathed, incredulous.
With a glance at me, he ascended the steps, and
paused at the door, awaiting an answer to his bell.
My stealthy glances failed to place him among the
"stars " of New York newspaperdom. Perhaps he
was a local correspondent. With smug expectancy,
I awaited his discomfiture when Peters received his
card. And then I rubbed my eyes. Peters was
stepping back from the door, and the other was
following him with every suggestion of assurance.
I was still gasping when a maid, broom in hand,
zigzagged toward my end of the veranda. She
smiled at me with a pair of friendly black eyes.
"Are you a detective?"
"Why?" I parried.
She drew her broom idly across the floor.
"I — I always thought detectives different from
other people."
She sent a rivulet of dust through the railing,
with a side glance still in my direction.
"Oh, you will find them human enough," I
laughed, "outside of detective stories!"
She pondered my reply doubtfully.
"I thought it about time Mr. Truxton was ap-
pearing!" she ventured suddenly.


The Man with Nine Lives
27
"Mr. Truxton?"
"He's the man that just came — Mr. Homer
Truxton. Miss Jansen is going to marry him!"
A light broke through my fog.
"Then he is not a reporter?"
"Mr. Truxton? He's a lawyer." The broom
continued its dilatory course. "Mr. Marsh didn't
like him — so they say!"
I stepped back, smoothing my skirts. I have
learned the cardinal rule of Madelyn never to pre-
tend too great an interest in the gossip of a servant.
The maid was mechanically shaking out a rug.
"For my part, I always thought Mr. Truxton
far and away the pick of Miss Jansen's two steadies.
I never could understand what she could see in Dr.
Dench! Why, he's old enough to be her —"
In the doorway, Sheriff Peddicord's bulky figure
beckoned.
"Don't you reckon as how it's about time we
were going back to Miss Mack?" he whispered.
"Perhaps," I assented rather reluctantly.
From the shadows of the hall, the sheriff's
sound eye fixed itself on me belligerently.
"I say, what I would like to know is what be-
came of that there other man!"
As we paused on the second landing the well-
set-up figure of Mr. Homer Truxton was bending
toward a partially opened door. Beyond his


28 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
shoulder, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a pale face
under a border of rumpled dull-gold hair. Evi-
dently Muriel Jansen had recovered from her faint.
The door closed abruptly, but not before I had
seen that her eyes were red with weeping.
Madelyn was sunk into a red-backed chair before
a huge, flat-top desk in the corner of the library, a
stack of Wendell Marsh's red-bound books, from
a wheel-cabinet at her side, bulked before her. She
finished the page she was reading — a page marked
with a broad blue pencil — without a hint that she
had heard us enter.
Sheriff Peddicord stared across at her with a
disappointment that was almost ludicrous. Evi-
dently Madelyn was falling short of his conception
of the approved attitudes for a celebrated detective!
"Are you a student of Elizabethan literature,
Sheriff?" she asked suddenly.
The sheriff gurgled weakly.
"If you are, I am quite sure you will be inter-
ested in Mr. Marsh's collection., It is the most
thorough on the subject that I have ever seen. For
instance, here is a volume on the inner court life
of Elizabeth — perhaps you would like me to read
you this random passage?"
The sheriff drew himself up with more dignity
than I thought he possessed.


The Man with Nine Lives 29
"We are investigating a crime, Miss Mack!"
Madelyn closed the book with a sigh.
"So we are! May I ask what is your report
from the butler?"
"Mr. Marsh did not have cherry pie for dinner
last night!" the sheriff snapped.
"You are quite confident?"
And then abruptly the purport of the question
flashed to me.
"Why, Mr. Marsh, himself, mentioned the fact
in his letter!" I burst out.
Madelyn's eyes turned to me reprovingly.
"You must be mistaken, Nora."
With a lingering glance at the books on the desk,
she rose. Sheriff Peddicord moved toward the
door, opened it, and faced about with an abrupt
clearing of his throat.
"Begging your pardon, Miss Mack, have —
have you found any clues in the case?"
Madelyn had paused again at the ribboned cur-
tains.
"Clues? The man who made Mr. Marsh's death
possible, Sheriff, was an expert chemist, of Italian
origin, living for some time in London — and he
died three hundred years ago!"
From the hall we had a fleeting view of Sheriff
Peddicord's face, flushed as red as his handkerchief,
and then it and the handkerchief disappeared.


30 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
I whirled on Madelyn sternly.
"You are carrying your absurd joke, Miss Mack,
altogether too —"
I paused, gulping in my turn. It was as though
I had stumbled from the shadows into an electric
glare.
Madelyn had crossed to the desk, and was gently
shifting the dead ashes of Raleigh's pipe into an
envelope. A moment she sniffed at its bowl, peer-
ing down at the crumpled body at her feet.
"The pipe!" I gasped. "Wendell Marsh was
poisoned with the pipe!"
Madelyn sealed the envelope slowly.
"Is that fact just dawning on you, Nora?"
"But the rest of it — what you told the —"
Madelyn thrummed on the bulky volume of
Elizabethan history.
"Some day, Nora, if you will remind me, I will
give you the material for what you call a Sunday
'feature' on the historic side of murder as a fine
art!"
V
In a curtain-shadowed nook of the side veranda
Muriel Jansen was awaiting us, pillowed back
against a bronze-draped chair, whose colors almost
startlingly matched the gold of her hair. Her re-


The Man with Nine Lives 31
semblance to a tired child was even more pro-
nounced than when I had last seen her.
I found myself glancing furtively for signs of
Homer Truxton, but he had disappeared.
Miss Jansen took the initiative in our interview
with a nervous abruptness, contrasting oddly with
her hesitancy at our last meeting.
"I understand, Miss Mack, that you received a
letter from my uncle asking your presence here.
May I see it?"
The eagerness of her tones could not be mistaken.
From her wrist-bag Madelyn extended the square
envelope of the morning post, with its remarkable
message. Twice Muriel Jansen's eyes swept slowly
through its contents. Madelyn watched her with a
little frown. A sudden tenseness had crept into the
air, as though we were all keying ourselves for an
unexpected climax. And then, like a thunder-clap,
it came.
"A curious communication," Madelyn suggested.
"I had hoped you might be able to add to it?"
The tired face in the bronze-draped chair stared
across the lawn.
"I can. The most curious fact of your com-
munication, Miss Mack, is that Wendell Marsh did
not write it!"
Never have I admired more keenly Madelyn's
remarkable poise. Save for an almost impercepti-


32 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
ble indrawing of her breath, she gave no hint of
the shock which must have stunned her as it did
me. I was staring with mouth agape. But, then,
I presume you have discovered by this time that I
was not designed for a detective!
Strangely enough, Muriel Jansen gave no trace
of wonder in her announcement. Her attitude sug-
gested a sense of detachment from the subject as
though suddenly it had lost its interest. And yet,
less than an hour ago, it had prostrated her in a
swoon.
"You mean the letter is a forgery?" asked
Madelyn quietly.
"Quite obviously."
"And the attempts on Mr. Marsh's life to which
it refers?"
"There have been none. I have been with my
uncle continuously for six months. I can speak
definitely."
Miss Jansen fumbled in a white-crocheted bag.
"Here are several specimens of Mr. Marsh's wri-
ting. I think they should be sufficient to convince
you of what I say. If you desire others —"
I was gulping like a truant school-girl as Made-
lyn spread on her lap the three notes extended to
her. Casual business and personal references they
were, none of more than half a dozen lines. Quite
enough, however, to complete the sudden chasm at


The Man with Nine Lives
33
our feet — quite enough to emphasize a bold, ag-
gressive penmanship, almost perpendicular, without
the slightest resemblance to the cramped, shadowy
writing of the morning's astonishing communica-
tion.
Madelyn rose from her chair, smoothing her
skirts thoughtfully. For a moment she stood at
the railing, gazing down upon a trellis of yellow
roses, her face turned from us. For the first time
in our curious friendship, I was actually conscious
of a feeling of pity for her! The blank wall which
she faced seemed so abrupt — so final!
Muriel Jansen shifted her position slightly.
"Are you satisfied, Miss Mack?" .
"Quite." Madelyn turned, and handed back the
three notes. "I presume this means that you do
not care for me to continue the case?"
I whirled in dismay. I had never thought of
this possibility.
"On the contrary, Miss Mack, it seems to me an
additional reason why you should continue!"
I breathed freely again. At least we were not
to be dismissed with the abruptness that Miss Jan-
sen's maid had shown! Madelyn bowed rather
absently.
"Then if you will give me another interview,
perhaps this afternoon —"
Miss Jansen fumbled with the lock of her bag.


34 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
For the first time her voice lost something of its
directness.
"Have — have you any explanation of this as-
tonishing — forgery?"
Madelyn was staring out toward the increasing
crowd at the gate. A sudden ripple had swept
through it.
"Have you ever heard of a man by the name
of Orlando Julio, Miss Jansen?"
My own eyes, following the direction of Made-
lyn's gaze, were brought back sharply to the ve-
randa. .For the second time, Muriel Jansen had
crumpled back in a faint.
As I darted toward the servants' bell Madelyn
checked me. Striding up the walk were two men
with the unmistakable air of physicians. At Made-
lyn's motioning hand they turned toward us.
The foremost of the two quickened his pace as
he caught sight of the figure in the chair. Instinc-
tively I knew that he was Dr. Dench — and it
needed no profound analysis to place his companion
as the local coroner.
With a deft hand on Miss Jansen's heart-beats,
Dr. Dench raised a ruddy, brown-whiskered face
inquiringly toward us.
"Shock!" Madelyn explained. "Is it serious?"
The hand on the wavering breast darted toward
a medicine case, and selected a vial of brownish


The Man with Nine Lives
35
liquid. The gaze above it continued its scrutiny
of Madelyn's slender figure.
Dr. Dench was of the rugged, German type,
steel-eyed, confidently sure of movement, with the
physique of a splendidly muscled animal. If the
servant's tattle was to be credited, Muriel Jansen
could not have attracted more opposite extremes in
her suitors.
The coroner — a rusty-suited man of middle age,
in quite obvious professional awe of his companion
— extended a glass of water. Miss Jansen wearily
opened her eyes before it reached her lips.
Dr. Dench restrained her sudden effort to rise.
"Drink this, please!" There was nothing but
professional command in his voice. If he loved
the grey-pallored girl in the chair, his emotions
were under superb control.
Madelyn stepped to the background, motioning
me quietly.
"I fancy I can leave now safely. I am going
back to town."
"Town?" I echoed.
"I should be back the latter part of the afternoon.
Would it inconvenience you to wait here?"
"But, why on earth — "I began.
"Will you tell the butler to send around the car?
Thanks!"
When Madelyn doesn't choose to answer ques-


36 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
tions she ignores them. I subsided as gracefully
as possible. As her machine whirled under the
porte-cochere, however, my curiosity again over-
flowed my restraint.
"At least, who is Orlando Julio?" I demanded.
Madelyn carefully adjusted her veil.
"The man who provided the means for the death
of Wendell Marsh!" And she was gone.
I swept another glance at the trio on the side
veranda, and with what I tried to convince myself
was a philosophical shrug, although I knew per-
fectly well it was merely a pettish fling, sought a
retired corner of the rear drawing room, with my
pad and pencil.
After all, I was a newspaper woman, and it
needed no elastic imagination to picture the scene
in the city room of the Bugle, if I failed to send
a proper accounting of myself.
A few minutes later a tread of feet, advancing
to the stairs, told me that the coroner and Dr.
Dench were ascending for the belated examination
of Wendell Marsh's body. Miss Jansen had evi-
dently recovered, or been assigned to the ministra-
tions of her maid. Once Peters, the wooden-faced
butler, entered ghostily to inform me that luncheon
would be served at one, but effaced himself almost
before my glance returned to my writing.
I partook of the meal in the distinguished com-


The Man with Nine Lives
37
pany of Sheriff Peddicord. Apparently Dr. Dench
was still busied in his grewsome task up-stairs, and
it was not surprising that Miss Jansen preferred her
own apartments.
However much the sheriff's professional poise
might have been jarred by the events of the morn-
ing, his appetite had not been affected. His atten-
tion was too absorbed in the effort to do justice to
the Marsh hospitality to waste time in table talk.
He finished his last spoonful of strawberry ice-
cream with a heavy sigh of contentment, removed
the napkin, which he had tucked under his collar,
and, as though mindful of the family's laundry bills,
folded it carefully and wiped his lips with his red
handkerchief. It was not until then that our silence
was interrupted.
Glancing cautiously about the room, and observ-
ing that the butler had been called kitchenward, to
my amazement he essayed a confidential wink.
"I say," he ventured enticingly, leaning his elbow
on the table, "what I would like to know is what
became of that there other man!"
"Are you familiar with the Fourth Dimension,
Sheriff?" I returned solemnly. I rose from my
chair, and stepped toward him confidentially in my
turn. "I believe that a thorough study of that sub-
ject would answer your question."
It was three o'clock when I stretched myself in


38 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
my corner of the drawing-room, and stuffed the
last sheets of my copy paper into a special-delivery-
stamped envelope.
My story was done. And Madelyn was not there
to blue-pencil the Park Row adjectives! I smiled
rather gleefully as I patted my hair, and leisurely
addressed the envelope. The city editor would be
satisfied, if Madelyn wasn't!
As I stepped into the hall, Dr. Dench, the coroner,
and Sheriff Peddicord were descending the stairs.
Evidently the medical examination had been com-
pleted. Under other circumstances the three ex-
pressions before me would have afforded an inter-
esting study in contrasts — Dr. Dench trimming his
nails with professional stoicism, the coroner en-
deavoring desperately to copy the other's sang froid,
and the sheriff buried in an owl-like solemnity.
Dr. Dench restored his knife to his pocket.
"You are Miss Mack's assistant, I understand?"
I bowed.
"Miss Mack has been called away. She should
be back, however, shortly."
I could feel the doctor's appraising glance dis-
secting me with much the deliberateness of a surgi-
cal operation. I raised my eyes suddenly, and re-
turned his stare. It was a virile, masterful face —
and, I had to admit, coldly handsome!
Dr. Dench snapped open his watch.


The Man with Nine Lives
39
"Very well then, Miss, Miss —"
"Noraker!" I supplied crisply.
The blond beard inclined the fraction of an inch.
"We will wait."
"The autopsy?" I ventured. "Has it —"
"The result of the autopsy I will explain to —
Miss Mack!"
I bit my lip, felt my face flush as I saw that
Sheriff Peddicord was trying to smother a grin,
and turned with a rather unsuccessful shrug.
Now, if I had been of a vindictive nature, I
would have opened my envelope and inserted a re-
taliating paragraph that would have returned the
snub of Dr. Dench with interest. I flatter myself
that I consigned the envelope to the Three Forks
post-office, in the rear of the Elite Dry Goods Em-
porium, with its contents unchanged.
As a part recompense, I paused at a corner drug
store, and permitted a young man with a gorgeous
pink shirt to make me a chocolate ice-cream soda.
I was bent over an asthmatic straw when, through
the window, I saw Madelyn's car skirt the curb.
I rushed out to the sidewalk, while the young man
stared dazedly after me. The chauffeur swerved
the machine as I tossed a dime to the Adonis of
the fountain.
Madelyn shifted to the end of the seat as I clam-
bered to her side. One glance was quite enough to


40 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
show that her town-mission, whatever it was, had
ended in failure. Perhaps it was the consciousness
of this fact that brought my eyes next to her blue
turquoise locket. It was open. I glared accusingly.
"So you have fallen back on the cola stimulant
again, Miss Mack?"
She nodded glumly, and perversely slipped into
her mouth another of the dark, brown berries, on
which I have known her to keep up for forty-eight
hours without sleep, and almost without food.
For a moment I forgot even my curiosity as to
her errand.
"I wish the duty would be raised so high you
couldn't get those things into the country!"
She closed her locket, without deigning a re-
sponse. The more volcanic my outburst, the more
glacial Madelyn's coldness — particularly on the
cola topic. I shrugged in resignation. I might as
well have done so in the first place!
I straightened my hat, drew my handkerchief
over my flushed face, and coughed questioningly.
Continued silence. I turned in desperation.
"Well?" I surrendered.
"Don't you know enough, Nora Noraker, to
hold your tongue?"
My pent-up emotions snapped.
"Look here, Miss Mack, I have been snubbed by
Dr. Dench and the coroner, grinned at by Sheriff


42 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
alighted. The coroner and Sheriff Peddicord were
craning their necks from wicker chairs in the back-
ground. It was easy enough to surmise that Dr.
Dench had parted from them abruptly in the desire
for a quiet smoke to marshall his thoughts.
"Fill your pipe again if you wish," said Madelyn.
"I don't mind."
Dr. Dench inclined his head, and dug the mouth
of his meerschaum into a fat leather pouch. A
spiral of blue smoke soon curled around his face.
He was one of that type of men to whom a pipe
lends a distinction of studious thoughtfulness.
With a slight gesture he beckoned in the direc-
tion of the coroner.
"It is proper, perhaps, that Dr. Williams in his
official capacity should be heard first."
Through the smoke of his meerschaum, his eyes
were searching Madelyn's face. It struck me that
he was rather puzzled as to just how seriously to
take her.
The coroner shuffled nervously. At his elbow,
Sheriff Peddicord fumbled for his red handkerchief.
"We have made a thorough examination of Mr.
Marsh's body, Miss Mack, a most thorough exami-
nation —"
"Of course he was not shot, nor stabbed, nor
strangled, nor sand-bagged?" interrupted Madelyn
crisply.


The Man with Nine Lives
43
The coroner glanced at Dr. Dench uncertainly.
The latter was smoking with inscrutable face.
"Nor poisoned!" finished the coroner with a
quick breath.
A blue smoke curl from Dr. Dench's meerschaum
vanished against the sun. The coroner jingled a
handful of coins in his pocket. The sound jarred
on my nerves oddly. Not poisoned! Then Made-
lyn's theory of the pipe —
My glance swerved in her direction. Another
blank wall — the blankest in this riddle of blank
walls!
But the bewilderment I had expected in her face
I did not find. The black dejection I had noticed
in the car had dropped like a whisked-cff cloak.
The tired lines had been erased as by a sponge. Her
eyes shone with that tense glint which I knew came
only when she saw a befogged way swept clear
before her.
"You mean that you found no trace of poison?"
she corrected.
The coroner drew himself up.
"Under the supervision of Dr. Dench, we have
made a most complete probe of the various organs,
— lungs, stomach, heart —"
"And brain, I presume?"
"Brain? Certainly not!"
"And you?" Madelyn turned toward Dr.


44 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Dench. "You subscribe to Dr. Williams' opin-
ion?"
Dr. Dench removed his meerschaum.
"From our examination of Mr. Marsh's body,
I am prepared to state emphatically that there is no
trace of toxic condition of any kind!"
"Am I to infer then that you will return a ver-
dict of — natural death?"
Dr. Dench stirred his pipe-ashes.
"I was always under the impression, Miss Mack,
that the verdict in a case of this kind must come
from the coroner's jury."
Madelyn pinned back her veil, and removed her
gloves.
"There is no objection to my seeing the body
again?"
The coroner stared.
"Why, er — the undertaker has it now. I don't
see why he should object, if you wish —"
Madelyn stepped to the door. Behind her, Sher-
iff Peddicord stirred suddenly.
"I say, what I would like to know, gents, is what
became of that there other man!"
It was not until six o'clock that I saw Madelyn
again, and then I found her in Wendell Marsh's
red library. She was seated at its late tenant's
huge desk. Before her were a vial of whitish-grey


The Man with Nine Lives
45
powder, a small, rubber, inked roller, a half a dozen
sheets of paper, covered with what looked like
smudges of black ink, and Raleigh's pipe. I stopped
short, staring.
She rose with a &. »rug.
"Finger-prints," she explained laconically.
"This sheet belongs to Miss Jansen; the next to
her maid; the third to the butler, Peters; the
fourth to Dr. Dench; the fifth to Wendell Marsh,
himself. It was my first experiment in taking the
'prints' of a dead man. It was — interesting."
"But what has that to do with a case of this
kind?" I demanded.
Madelyn picked up the sixth sheet of smudged
paper.
"We have here the finger-prints of Wendell
Marsh's murderer!"
I did not even cry my amazement. I suppose
the kaleidoscope of the day had dulled my normal
emotions. I remember that I readjusted a loose pin
in my waist before I spoke.
"The murderer of Wendell Marsh!" I repeated
mechanically. "Then he was poisoned?"
Madelyn's eyes opened and closed without an-
swer.
I reached over to the desk, and picked up Mr.
Marsh's letter of the morning post at Madelyn's
elbow.


46 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"You have found the man who forged this?"
"It was not forged!"
In my daze I dropped the letter to the floor.
"You have discovered then the other man in
the death-struggle that wrecked the library?"
"There was no other man!"
Madelyn gathered up her possessions from the
desk. From the edge of the row of books she lifted
a small, red-bound volume, perhaps four inches in
width, and then with a second thought laid it back.
"By the way, Nora, I wish you would come back
here at eight o'clock. If this book is still where I
am leaving it, please bring it to me! I think that
will be all for the present."
"All?" I gasped. "Do you realize that —"
Madelyn moved toward the door.
"I think eight o'clock will be late enough for
your errand," she said without turning.
The late June twilight had deepened into a
somber darkness when, my watch showing ten
minutes past the hour of my instructions, I entered
the room on the second floor that had been as-
signed to Miss Mack and myself. Madelyn at the
window was staring into the shadow-blanketed
yard.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Your book is no longer in the library!" I said
crossly.


The Man with Nine Lives
47
Madelyn whirled with a smile.
"Good! And now if you will be so obliging as
to tell Peters to ask Miss Jansen to meet me in the
rear drawing-room, with any of the friends of the
family she desires to be present, I think we can
clear up our little puzzle."
VII
It was a curious group that the graceful Swiss
clock in the bronze drawing-room of the Marsh
house stared down upon as it ticked its way past
the half hour after eight. With a grave, rather
insistent bow, Miss Mack had seated the other occu-
pants of the room as they answered her summons.
She was the only one of us that remained standing.
Before her were Sheriff Peddicord, Homer
Truxton, Dr. Dench, and Muriel Jansen. Made-
lyn's eyes swept our faces for a moment in silence,
and then she crossed the room and closed the door.
"I have called you here," she began, "to explain
the mystery of Mr. Marsh's death." Again her
glance swept our faces. "In many respects it has
provided us with a peculiar, almost an unique
problem.
"We find a man, in apparently normal health,
dead. The observer argues at once foul play; and
yet on his body is no hint of wound or bruise. The


48 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
medical examination discovers no trace of poison.
The autopsy shows no evidence of crime. Appar-
ently we have eliminated all forms of unnatural
death.
"I have called you here because the finding of
the autopsy is incorrect, or rather incomplete. We
are not confronted by natural death — but by a
crime. And I may say at the outset that I am not
the only person to know this fact. My knowledge
is shared by one other in this room."
Sheriff Peddicord rose to his feet and rather
ostentatiously stepped to the door and stood with
his back against it. Madelyn smiled faintly at the
movement.
"I scarcely think there will be an effort at es-
cape, Sheriff," she said quietly.
Muriel Jansen was crumpled back into her chair,
staring. Dr. Dench was studying Miss Mack with
the professional frown he might have directed at
an abnormality on the operating table. It was
Truxton who spoke first in the fashion of the im-
pulsive boy.
"If we are not dealing with natural death, how
on earth then was Mr. Marsh killed?"
Madelyn whisked aside a light covering from a
stand at her side, and raised to view Raleigh's red
sand-stone pipe. For a moment she balanced it
musingly.


The Man with Nine Lives
49
"The three-hundred-year-old death tool of Or-
lando Julio," she explained. "It was this that
killed Wendell Marsh!"
She pressed the bowl of the pipe into the palm
of her hand. "As an instrument of death, it is
almost beyond detection. We examined the ashes,
and found nothing but harmless tobacco. The or-
gans of the victim showed no trace of foul play."
She tapped the long stem gravely.
"But the examination of the organs did not in-
clude the brain. And it is through the brain that
the pipe strikes, killing first the mind in a night-
mare of insanity, and then the body. That ac-
counts for the wreckage that we found — the evi-
dences apparently of two men engaged in a desper-
ate struggle. The wreckage was the work of only
one man — a maniac in the moment before death.
The drug with which we are dealing drives its
victim into an insane fury before his body suc-
cumbs. I believe such cases are fairly common in
India."
"Then Mr. Marsh was poisoned after all?"
cried Truxton. He was the only one of Miss
Mack's auditors to speak.
"No, not poisoned! You will understand as
I proceed. The pipe, you will find, contains appar-
ently but one bowl and one channel, and at a super-
ficial glance is filled only with tobacco. In reality,


50 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
there is a lower chamber concealed beneath the
upper bowl, to which extends a second channel.
This secret chamber is charged with a certain com-
pound of Indian hemp and dhatura leaves, one of
the most powerful brain stimulants known to sci-
ence — and one of the most dangerous if used above
a certain strength. From the lower chamber it
would leave no trace, of course, in the ashes above.
"Between the two compartments of the pipe is
a slight connecting opening, sufficient to allow the
hemp beneath to be ignited gradually by the burn-
ing tobacco. When a small quantity of the com-
pound is used, the smoker is stimulated as by no
other drug, not even opium. Increase the quantity
above the danger point, and mark the result. The
victim is not poisoned in the strict sense of the
word, but literally smothered to death by the
fumes!"
In Miss Mack's voice was the throb of the stu-
dent before the creation of the master.
"I should like this pipe, Miss Jansen, if you ever
care to dispose of it!"
The girl was still staring woodenly.
"It was Orlando Julio, the medieval poisoner,"
she gasped, "that Uncle described —"
"In his seventeenth chapter of 'The World's
Great Cynics,' " finished Madelyn. "I have taken
the liberty of reading the chapter in manuscript


The Man with Nine Lives 51

form. Julio, however, was not the discoverer of
the drug. He merely introduced it to the English
public. As a matter of fact, it is one of the oldest
stimulants of the East. It is easy to assume that
it was not as a stimulant that Julio used it, but as
a baffling instrument of murder. The mechanism
of the pipe was his own invention, of course. The
smoker, if not in the secret, would be completely
oblivious to his danger. He might even use the
pipe in perfect safety — until its lower chamber
was loaded!"
Sheriff Peddicord, against the door, mopped his
face with his red handkerchief, like a man in a daze.
Dr. Dench was still studying Miss Mack with his
intent frown. Madelyn swerved her angle abruptly.
"Last night was not the first time the hemp-
chamber of Wendell Marsh's pipe had been charged.
We can trace the effect of the drug on his brain
for several months — hallucinations, imaginative
enemies seeking his life, incipient insanity. That
explains his astonishing letter to me. . Wendell
Marsh was not a man of nine lives, but only one.
The perils which he described were merely fantastic
figments of the drug. For instance, the episode of
the poisoned cherry pie. There was no pie at all
served at the table yesterday.
"The letter to me was not a forgery, Miss Jan-
sen, although you were sincere enough when you


52 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
pronounced it such. The complete change in your
uncle's handwriting was only another effect of the
drug. It was this fact, in the end, which led me
to the truth. You did not perceive that the dates
of your notes and mine were six months apart! I
knew that some terrific mental shock must have
occurred in the meantime.
"And then, too, the ravages of a drug-crazed
victim were at once suggested by the curtains of
the library. They were not simply torn, but fairly
chewed to pieces!"
A sudden tension fell over the room. We shifted
nervously, rather avoiding one another's eyes.
Madelyn laid the pipe back on the stand. She was
quite evidently in no hurry to continue. It was
Truxton again who put the leading question of the
moment.
"If Mr. Marsh was killed as you describe, Miss
Mack, who killed him?"
Madelyn glanced across at Dr. Dench.
"Will you kindly let me have the red leather
book that you took from Mr. Marsh's desk this
evening, Doctor?"
The physician met her glance steadily.
"You think it — necessary?"
"I am afraid I must insist."
For an instant Dr. Dench hesitated. Then, with
a shrug, he reached into a coat-pocket and extended


The Man with Nine Lives 53
the red-bound volume, for which Miss Mack had
dispatched me on the fruitless errand to the library.
As Madelyn opened it we saw that it was not a
printed volume, but filled with several hundred
pages of close, cramped writing. Dr. Dench's gaze
swerved to Muriel Jansen as Miss Mack spoke.
"I have here the diary of Wendell Marsh, which
shows us that he had been in the habit of seeking
the stimulant of Indian hemp, or 'hasheesh' for
some time, possibly as a result of his retired, sed-
entary life and his close application to his books.
Until his purchase of the Bainford relics, however,
he had taken the stimulant in the comparatively
harmless form of powdered leaves or 'bhang,' as
it is termed in the Orient. His acquisition of
Julio's drug-pipe, and an accidental discovery of
its mechanism, led him to adopt the compound of
hemp and dhatura, prepared for smoking — in
India called 'charas.' No less an authority than
Captain E. N. Windsor, bacteriologist of the Bur-
mese government, states that it is directly responsi-
ble for a large percentage of the lunacy of the
Orient. Wendell Marsh, however, did not realize
his danger, nor how much stronger the latter com-
pound is than the form of the drug to which he
had been accustomed.
"Dr. Dench endeavored desperately to warn him
of his peril, and free him from the bondage of the


54 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
habit as the diary records, but the victim was too
thoroughly enslaved. In fact, the situation had
reached a point just before the final climax when
it could no longer be concealed. The truth was
already being suspected by the older servants. I
assume this was why you feared my investigations
in the case, Miss Jansen."
Muriel Jansen was staring at Madelyn in a sort
of dumb appeal.
"I can understand and admire Dr. Dench's ef-
forts to conceal the fact from the public — first, in
his supervision of the inquest, which might have
stumbled on the truth, and then in his removal of
the betraying diary, which I left purposely exposed
in the hope that it might inspire such an action.
Had it not been removed, I might have suspected
another explanation of the case — in spite of cer-
tain evidence to the contrary!"
Dr. Dench's face had gone white.
"God! Miss Mack, do you mean that after all
it was not suicide?"
"It was not suicide," said Madelyn quietly. She
stepped across toward the opposite door.
"When I stated that my knowledge that we are
not dealing with natural death was shared by an-
other person in this room, I might have added that
it was shared by still a third person — not in the
room!"


The Man with Nine Lives 55
With a sudden movement she threw open the
door before her. From the adjoining ante-room
lurched the figure of Peters, the butler. He stared
at us with a face grey with terror, and then
crumpled to his knees. Madelyn drew away
sharply as he tried to catch her skirts.
"You may arrest the murderer of Wendell
Marsh, Sheriff! " she said gravely. "And I think
perhaps you had better take him outside."
She faced our bewildered stares as the drawing-
room door closed behind Mr. Peddicord and his
prisoner. From her stand she again took Raleigh's
sand-stone pipe, and with it two sheets of paper,
smudged with the prints of a human thumb and
fingers.
"It was the pipe in the end which led me to the
truth, not only as to the method but the identity
of the assassin," she explained. "The hand, which
placed the fatal charge in the concealed chamber,
left its imprint on the surface of the bowl. The
fingers, grimed with the dust of the drug, made an
impression which I would have at once detected
had I not been so occupied with what I might find
inside that I forgot what I might find outside! I
am very much afraid that I permitted myself the
great blunder of the modern detective — lack of
thoroughness.
"Comparison with the finger-prints of the vari-


56 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
ous agents in the case, of course, made the next
step a mere detail of mathematical comparison. To
make my identity sure, I found that my suspect
possessed not only the opportunity and the knowl-
edge for the crime, but the motive.
"In his younger days Peters was a chemist's
apprentice; a fact which he utilized in his master's
behalf in obtaining the drugs which had become so
necessary a part of Mr. Marsh's life. Had Wen-
dell Marsh appeared in person for so continuous
a supply, his identity would soon have made the
fact a matter of common gossip. He relied on his
servant for his agent, a detail which he mentions
several times in his diary, promising Peters a gen-
erous bequest in his will as a reward. I fancy that
it was the dream of this bequest, which would have
meant a small fortune to a man in his position, that
set the butler's brain to work on his treacherous
plan of murder."
Miss Mack's dull gold hair covered the shoulders
of her white peignoir in a great, thick braid. She
was propped in a nest of pillows, with her favorite
romance, "The Three Musketeers," open at the
historic siege of Porthos in the wine cellar. We
had elected to spend the night at the Marsh house.
Madelyn glanced up as I appeared in the door-
way of our room.


The Man with Nine Lives
57
"Allow me to present a problem to your ana-
lytical skill, Miss Mack," I said humbly. "Which
man does your knowledge of feminine psychology
say Muriel Jansen will reward — the gravely pro-
tecting physician, or the boyishly admiring Trux-
ton?"
"If she were thirty," retorted Madelyn, yawn-
ing, "she would be wise enough to choose Dr.
Dench. But, as she is only twenty-two, it will be
Truxton."
With a sigh, she turned again to the swashbuck-
ling exploits of the gallant Porthos.


II
THE MISSING BRIDEGROOM
I
Two million dollars and the most beautiful girl
in the county were to be Norris Endicott's in
another twenty-five minutes.
He was emphatically in love with Bertha Van
Sutton, but cared nothing for her millions, in spite
of the remembrance of his own uncertain income
as a struggling architect. The next half hour was
to bring him all that a reasonable man could ask
in this uncertain world.
This was his position and outlook at the Van
Sutton home at seven-forty p. m. Some one has
said that a moment can change the course of a
battle. Also it can revolutionize a man's life —
perhaps end it altogether — and pitchfork him into
another. At five minutes past eight — the hour
that Endicott was to have made Bertha Van Sutton
his wife — he had vanished from "The Maples"
58


The Missing Bridegroom 59
as completely and mysteriously as though the balmy
earth outside had opened and swallowed him. The
expectant bridegroom literally had been whisked
into oblivion.
At twenty minutes before eight o'clock, Willard
White, glancing into his room, found Endicott
pacing the floor, his tall, closely knit figure showing
to excellent advantage in his evening clothes, a quiet
smile, as of anticipation, on his face as he held a
match to his cigarette.
"Nervous, old man?" White called banteringly,
holding the door a-jar.
Endicott turned with a laugh. "Nervous?
When the best girl in the world is about to be mine
— all mine? Of course I'm nervous, but it's because
I am so happy I can hardly keep my feet on the
ground!" (Which was a somewhat hysterical, but
thoroughly human remark, you would agree, had
you ever worshipped at the shrine of Bertha Van
Sutton!)
At five minutes past eight the orchestra shifted
the music of Mendelssohn's "Wedding March " to
their racks, the leader cleared his throat in expec-
tation of the signal to raise his baton, and the chat-
tering throngs of guests, scattered through the
lavishly decorated house from the conservatory to
the veranda, swept into the long red-and-gold
drawing-room, with the bower of palms and orchids


60 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
at the end drawing admiring exclamations even
from the most cynical dowagers. Adolph Van
Sutton's millions assuredly had set a fit stage for
the most talked-of wedding of the season.
Outside, Adolph, himself, was fumbling nerv-
ously with his cuffs as the bridal party ranged itself
in whispering ranks for the entry. Bertha Van
Sutton had just appeared with Ethel Allison, her
chief bridesmaid and chum since boarding-school
days. As she took the arm of her father, she made
a picture to justify the half-audible sighs of envy
from the bevy of attendants. With the folds of her
long veil reaching almost to the hem of her gown
and the sweep of her train, her figure looked almost
regal in spite of her girlish slenderness. Her dark
hair, piled in a great, loose coil, heightened the im-
pression, which might have given her the sugges-
tion of haughtiness had it not been for the mag-
netism of her smile.
The smile was bubbling in her eyes as she glanced
around with the surprised question, "Where's
Norris?"
Her father looked up quickly, but it was Ethel
Allison who answered, "Willard White has just
gone after him, Bert. Here he comes now!"
The best man came hurriedly through the door.
As he paused, he wiped his forehead with his hand-
kerchief.


The Missing Bridegroom 61
"Where's Norris, Willard?" Miss Allison asked
impatiently.
"He's gone!"
"Gone!" The bridesmaid's voice rose to a shrill
falsetto.
The best man shook his head in a sort of blind
bewilderment. "He's gone," he repeated, mechan-
ically.
The bride whirled. Adolph Van Sutton strode
forward and seized White by the arm.
"What, under Heaven, are you giving us, man?"
White stiffened his shoulders as though the sharp
grasp had awakened him from his daze.
"Norris Endicott is not in this house, sir!" he
cried, as if realizing for the first time the full im-
port of his announcement.
In the drawing-room, the orchestra-leader, with a
final look at the empty door, lowered his baton with
a snort of disgust and plumped sullenly back in his
chair. The jewel-studded ranks of the crowding
guests elevated their eyebrows in polite wonder. In
the corner, the palms that were to have sheltered
the bride beckoned impatiently.
On the velvet carpet, outside, lay a white, silent
figure. It was Bertha Van Sutton who had fallen,
an unconscious heap in the folds of her wedding
finery.
Up-stairs in the groom's apartment, a circle of


62 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
disheveled men were staring at one another in
tongue-tied bewilderment. Norris Endicott might
have vanished into thin air, evaporated. The man
who was to wed the Van Sutton heiress had been
blotted out, eliminated.
As the group edged uneasily toward the door, a
stray breeze, fragrant with the evening odors of
the flower-lined lawn below, swept through the open
window. A small object, half-buried in the curtain
folds, fell with a soft thud to the floor. The near-
est man stooped toward it almost unconsciously. It
was a silver ball, perhaps three-quarters of an inch
in diameter. With a shrug, he passed it to Adolph
Van Sutton. The latter dropped it mechanically
into his pocket.
II
The five o'clock sun was splashing its waning
glow down on to the autumn-thinned trees when I
pushed open the rustic gate of " The Rosary" the
next afternoon to carry the somber problem that
was beyond me to the wizard skill of Madelyn
Mack.
I was frankly tired after the day's bufferings.
And there was a soothing restfulness in the velvet
green of the close-cropped lawn, with its fat box
hedges and the scarlet splashes of its canna beds,


The Missing Bridegroom
63
that brought me to an almost involuntary pause lest
I break the spell. Madelyn Mack's rose garden
beyond was a wreck of shrivelled bushes, but my
pang at the memory of its faded glories was soft-
ened by the banks of asters and cosmos marshalled
before it as though to hide its emptiness. The
snake-like coil of a black hose was pouring a play-
ful spray into a circle of scarlet sage at the side
of the gravelled path, with the gaunt figure of An-
drew Bolton crouching, hatless, near it, trimming
a ragged line of grass with a pair of long shears.
With a sigh I turned toward the quaint chalet
nestling ahead. I might have been miles from the
rumble of the work-a-day world.
I smiled — somewhat cynically, I will confess —
as I pulled the old-fashioned knocker. There were
few persons yet who knew, as I did, the shadows
surrounding the wedding-night vanishing of Norris
Endicott. Could Madelyn solve the problem that
had already taken rank as the most baffling police
case of five years?
The sphinx-like face of Susan Bolton greeted me
on the other side of the door. She was dressed for
the street in her prim bonnet and black silk gown.
"Miss Madelyn said you would be here, Miss
Noraker," she greeted me. "I thought I might
meet you on my way to the Missionary Tea."
Crime and a Missionary Tea! I smiled at the


64 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
incongruity as I protested, "But I never told her I
was coming! How in the world —"
Susan threw up her mittened hands. "Law,
child, don't you know she has a way of finding out
things?"
A sudden laugh and the friendly bark of a dog
sounded from the end of the hall. A slight figure
in black stepped toward me with her two hands ex-
tended. At her heels, Peter the Great trotted
lazily.
"I am glad you came before six!" she said, as
she seized and held both of my hands, a distinctively
Madelyn Mack habit. "I was afraid you would
be delayed. The trolley service to the Van Sutton
place is abominable \"
"But why did you want me before six?" I cried.
"And how did you know I was coming at all?
And how —"
Madelyn released my hands with a smile.
"Really, you must give me time to catch my breath!
Come into the den with Peter the Great, and toast
yourself while we cross-examine each other."
It was not until she was drawn up before the
crackling log in the great open fireplace, with the
dog curled contentedly on the jaguar skin at her
feet, that she spoke again, and then it was in the
rapid-fire fashion that showed me she was "hot
on a winding trail," as she would express it.


The Missing Bridegroom
65
"I will answer your questions first," she began,
as she rested her chin on her left hand in her favor-
ite attitude and peered across at me, her eyes glow-
ing with the restless energy of her mood. "I tele-
phoned the Bugle office this morning and was told
that you had just left for ' The Maples.' Of course
I knew that Nora Noraker, the star reporter, would
be put on the Van Sutton case at once, and I had
a shrewd idea from past experience that you would
bring the problem to me before night. As I am
to meet Adolph Van Sutton here at six, I was
anxious to review the field with you before his
arrival. I was retained in the case this afternoon,
as I rather expected to be, after I had read the early
editions of the papers and saw that the police would
have to abandon their obvious theory."
I raised my eyebrows. "What is that?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Murder! I had
not read half a dozen paragraphs before I saw that
this, of course, was absurd, and that even the
police would have to admit as much before
night."
"But they haven't!" I cut in triumphantly.
"Detective Wiley gave out an interview just before
I left — said there was no doubt that Endicott had
been made away with!"
"Then the more fool he!" Madelyn stirred the
gnarled log in the fireplace until a shower of yellow


66 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
sparks went dancing up the chimney. "I could
show him his mistake in three sentences."
For a moment she sat staring at me, with her
long lashes veiling a slow smile.
"Do they use gas or electricity at 'The
Maples'?" she asked, abruptly.
I thought for a moment. "Both," I answered.
"Why?"
"Was either burning in Endicott's room at the
time of his disappearance?"
I shook my head with a helpless smile.
Madelyn rubbed her hands gently through the
long, shaggy hair of Peter the Great. We both sat
staring into the fire for quite five minutes. "Did
Endicott dress at 'The Maples' for the cere-
mony? " she demanded suddenly. "Or did he dress
before he appeared at the house?" I could feel
her eyes studying me as I pondered the ques-
tion.
I looked up finally with an expression of rueful
bewilderment.
"Oh, Nora! Nora I" she cried, with a little
stamp of her foot. "Where are your eyes and your
ears? And you at the house all day!"
"I rather flattered myself that I had found out
all there was to find," I answered somewhat petu-
lantly.
Madelyn reached over to the divan by her elbow


The Missing Bridegroom 67
and selected a copy of the Bugle from the stack
of crumpled papers that it contained. It was not
until she had read slowly through the five-column
report of the Van Sutton mystery — two columns
of which I had contributed myself — that she
looked up. "I presume you have mentioned here
everything of importance?"
I nodded. "Norris Endicott was above suspicion
— morally and financially. He had few friends —
that is, close friends — but no enemies. There
was absolutely no one who wished him ill, no
one who might have a reason for doing so,
unless —"
Madelyn noted my hesitation with a swift flash.
"You mean his defeated rivals for Miss Van Sut-
ton's hand?"
"You have taken the words out of my mouth.
There were two of them, and both were present at
the wedding — that didn't take place. Curiously
enough, one of the two was Endicott's best man,
Willard White. The other he also knew more or
less intimately — Richard Bainbridge, the civil
engineer." I gazed across at her as I paused. To
my disappointment, she was studying the carpet,
with her thoughts obviously far away. "That is
all, I think," I finished rather lamely.
The log in the fireplace fell downward with a
shower of fresh sparks. Peter the Great growled


68 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
uneasily. Madelyn took the dog's head in her lap,
and was silent so long I thought she had forgotten
me.
Suddenly she leaned back in her chair and her
eyes half closed.
"One more question, Nora, if you please. I be-
lieve you said in your report that, when the group
of searchers were leaving Endicott's vacant room,
a small, silver ball rolled from the sill to the floor.
Do you happen to know whether the ball is solid
or hollow?"
I smiled. "It is hollow. I examined it this af-
ternoon. But surely such a trivial incident —"
Madelyn pushed back her chair with a quick
gesture of satisfaction. "How often must I tell
you that nothing is trivial — in crime? That an-
swer atones for all of your previous failures, Nora.
You may go to the head of the class! No, not
another word!" she interrupted as I stared at her.
"I don't want to think or talk — now. I must have
some music to clear my brain if I am to scatter
these cobwebs!"
I sank back with a sigh of resignation and
watched her as she stepped across to the phono-
graph, resting on the cabinet of records in the cor-
ner. I knew from experience that she had veered
into a mood in which I would have gained an in-
stant rebuke had I attempted to press the case


The Missing Bridegroom
69
farther. Patiently or impatiently, I must await her
pleasure to reopen our discussion.
"What shall it be?" she asked almost gaily, with
her nervous alertness completely gone as she stooped
over the record-case. "How would the quartet
from 'Rigoletto' strike your mood? I think it
would be ideal, for my part."
From Verdi we circled to Donizetti's "Lucia,"
and then, in an odd whim, her hand drew forth a
haphazard selection from "William Tell." It was
the latter part of the ballet music, and the record
was perhaps half completed when the door opened
— we had not heard the bell — and Susan an-
nounced Adolph Van Sutton.
Madelyn rose, but she did not stop the machine.
Mr. Van Sutton plumped nervously into the seat
that she extended to him, gazing with obvious em-
barrassment at her radiant face as she stood with
her head bent forward and a faint smile on her
lips, completely under the sway of Rossini's match-
less music.
She stopped the machine sharply at the end of
the record. When she whirled back toward us,
"William Tell" had been forgotten. She was
again the sharp-eyed, sharp-questioning ferret, with
no thought beyond the problem of the moment. I
think the transformation astonished our caller even
more than the glimpse of her unexpected mood at


70 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
his entrance. I could imagine that his matter-of-
fact, commercial mind was floundering in the effort
to understand the remarkable young woman before
him.
Madelyn changed her seat to one almost di-
rectly opposite her nervous client. She was about
to speak when she noted his eyes turned question-
ingly in my direction.
"This is my friend, Miss Noraker, Mr. Van
Sutton," she announced formally. "I believe you
have met before."
Mr. Van Sutton polished his glasses with his
handkerchief as he responded somewhat dubiously.
"Miss Noraker is a — a reporter, I believe? Don't
you think, Miss Mack, that our conversation should
be, er — private?"
I had already risen when Madelyn motioned to
me to pause. "Miss Noraker is not here in her
newspaper capacity. She is a personal friend who
has accompanied me in so many of my cases that
I look upon her almost as a lieutenant. You can
rest assured that nothing which you or I would
wish kept silent will be published!"
Mr. Van Sutton's face cleared, and he bowed to
me as if in apology. "Very well, Miss Mack. I
am sure I can rely upon your discretion perfectly."
I resumed my chair at a sign from Madelyn, and
our visitor stared out into the grey dusk, with the


The Missing Bridegroom 71
lines of his clean-shaven face showing the uneasi-
ness and worry of the past twenty-four hours.
Madelyn was the first to speak. "Will you tell
me candidly, Mr. Van Sutton, why you objected so
persistently to your daughter's marriage?"
Our caller swung around in his chair as though
a shot had been fired at his elbow. "What do you
mean, young woman?"
Madelyn dropped her chin on to her hand and
the fleeting twinkle I know so well flashed into her
eyes. "Six months ago, you positively refused to
consider Norris Endicott as your daughter's suitor.
Three months ago he approached you again and
you refused him a second time. It was only four
weeks ago, that you gave your consent — a some-
what grudging one, if I must be plain — and the
date of the wedding was fixed almost immedi-
ately."
Adolph Van Sutton stared across at Madelyn
with widening eyes. The flush faded from his
cheeks, leaving them a dull white.
"I employed you, Miss Mack, to trace Norris
Endicott, not to burrow into my personal affairs!"
Madelyn stepped toward the door. "I will send
in the bill for my services within the week, Mr. Van
Sutton. Did you leave your hat in the hall?"
"Am I to understand that you are throwing up
the case?"


72 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Yes, sir."
Adolph Van Sutton thrust his hands restlessly
into his pockets. "I — I beg your pardon, Miss
Mack! Please sit down, and overlook a nervous
man's excitability. You can hardly understand the
strain I am under. You were asking me — what
was it you were asking me? Ah, you were
inquiring into my relations with young Endi-
cott!"
Mr. Van Sutton rolled his handkerchief into a
ball between his hands as Madelyn coldly resumed
her chair. "There is really nothing to tell you.
You are a woman of the world, Miss Mack. I
objected to Mr. Endicott as a husband for my
daughter because, frankly, he was a poor man —
and Bertha has hardly been raised in a manner that
would teach her economy. Have I made myself
clear?" He dropped his handkerchief into his
pocket and his lips tightened. "Bertha had her
own way in the end — as she generally does — and
I gave in. Is there anything more?"
"I believe that personally you preferred Willard
White as a son-in-law. Am I right?"
"What of it?"
Madelyn gave a little sigh. "Nothing — noth-
ing! You have been very patient, Mr. Van Sutton.
I am going to ask you just one question more —
before we leave for 'The Maples.' Does the sec-


The Missing Bridegroom
73
ond story veranda under Mr. Endicott's window
extend along the entire side of the house?"
I think that we both stared at her.
"The second story veranda? " repeated Mr. Van
Sutton. "I thought you told me that you had
never been to my home!"
Madelyn snapped her fingers with a suggestion
of impatience. "I know there must be such a
veranda! There could be no other way —" She
bit her sentence through as though checking an un-
spoken thought. "Unless I am mistaken, it ex-
tends from the front entirely to the rear. Am I
correct?"
"You are, but —"
Madelyn pressed the bell at her elbow. "I see
you have brought your automobile. I will take the
liberty of asking you to share our dinner here.
Then we can start for 'The Maples' immediately
afterward. With luck we should reach there
shortly after eight. Is that agreeable to you?"
"Really, Miss Mack —"
But Madelyn waved her hand, and the matter
was settled.
Ill
The clock was exactly on the stroke of eight
when our machine whirled through the broad gate
of "The Maples," after an invigorating dash



MADELYN . . . STOOD STARING OUT INTO THE DARK-
NESS."





The Missing Bridegroom 75
was to have been performed — I take it, is on the
other side?"
There was a faraway note in her voice, which
told me that she hardly heard Mr. Van Sutton's
formal assent.
For perhaps three minutes she remained peering
out into the shadowy lawn, as oblivious to our pres-
ence as though she had been alone. Our host was
pacing back and forth over the polished floor when
she whirled.
"Will you take me up to Mr. Endicott's room
now, please?"
Mr. Van Sutton strode to the door with an air
of relief. "I, myself, will escort you."
Madelyn did not speak during the ascent to the
upper floor. Once Mr. Van Sutton ventured a
remark, but she made no effort to reply, and he
desisted with a shrug. She did not even break her
silence when he threw open the door of a chamber
at the end of the corridor, and we realized that we
were in the room of the missing bridegroom.
For a moment we paused at the threshold, as our
guide found the switch and turned on the electric
lights. It was a large, airy apartment, with a small
alcove at one end containing a bed, and a door at
the other end opening into a marble-tiled bathroom.
An effort had been made to preserve the contents
exactly as they had been found on the previous


76 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
evening. The dressing table was still strewn with
a varied assortment of toilet articles, as though
they had just been dropped. The curtain of one
window was jerked to the top, while its companion
hung decorously to the sill.
Madelyn darted merely a cursory glance at the
room. Stepping across to the writing-table, she
seized the waste paper basket leaning against its
side. It was empty. In spite of this fact, she lifted
it to the table and whipped out a small magnifying
glass from her hand-bag. For fully five minutes
she bent over it, studying the woven straw with as
much eagerness as a miner searching for gold
dust.
When she straightened, her eyes flashed uncer-
tainly around the walls. Directly opposite was an
asbestos grate of gas logs. She sank on to her
knees before it, the magnifying glass again to her
eyes.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Miss
Mack?" Mr. Van Sutton asked impatiently.
She did not even glance in our direction.
Rising to her feet, she stepped back to the writing-
table where two ash trays were resting. "Were
these Mr. Endicott's?"
"I — I suppose so. Why?"
Madelyn carried the trays nearer to the light.
One held a litter of ashes; the second tray both


78 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
let. Again I thought that I heard the strains of
"Traumerei." "I was once asked to name a de-
tective's first rule of guidance," she said irrele-
vantly. "I answered to remember always that
nothing is trivial — in crime." She paused.
"Every day I find something new to prove the cor-
rectness of my rule!"
"But surely you have discovered nothing —"
Madelyn gazed at the owner of "The Maples"
with her peculiar twinkle. "There are two per-
sons in this house with whom I would like a few
moments' conversation. They are the butler and
Miss Van Sutton's maid. Could you have them
sent to the library?"
"Certainly. Is there anything else?"
Madelyn reached absently across to the ash trays
again. There seemed a peculiar fascination for her
in their prosaic litter.
"Could I also have the honor of a short inter-
view with your daughter?"
Mr. Van Sutton inclined his head and stepped
into the hall. As I followed him, the door was
closed sharply behind us. I whirled around and
heard the key turn. Madelyn had locked herself in.
Mr. Van Sutton straightened with a frown.
Then, without a word, he spun about on his heels
and strode toward his daughter's boudoir. I de-
scended the stairs alone.



"AS SHE SPREAD IT OPEN IN HER LAP, APPARENTLY FOR
THE FIRST TIME SHE RECALLED THE BUTLER."


The Missing Bridegroom
79
It was almost a quarter of an hour later that
Madelyn rejoined me. She nodded briefly to the
butler, who was sitting on the edge of a chair as
stiffly erect as a ramrod. But she did not pause.
Hardly deigning a glance at me, she stepped over
to the long shelves of books, built higher than her
arms could reach, and her hand zigzagged along
the rich leather bindings and gilt letters. Selecting
a massive morocco volume from one of the central
rows, she dropped into the nearest seat. The book
was an encyclopedia, extending from the letter
"H " to the letter " N."
As she spread it open in her lap, apparently for
the first time she recalled the butler. She glanced
up.
"You will excuse me?"
"Yes, madam!"
"I will be through in a moment!"
"Yes, madam!"
Jenkins' face resumed its stolidness, and Made-
lyn's gaze dropped to her book. She could not
have read a dozen lines, however, when she closed
it and sprang to her feet. She paced across the
library, her hands behind her back.
"I have only one question to ask, Jenkins."
"Yes, madam!"
"I wish to know whether Mr. Endicott ordered
a tray of ashes brought up to his room last night?"


80 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Jenkins' eyes widened and his hands dropped to
his sides. "A tray of ashes?" he stammered.
"I believe that is what I said!"
With a visible effort Jenkins recovered his com-
posure. His twenty years' training had not been
in vain. "No, madam!" he answered in a rather
dubious tone.
"Are you absolutely sure? I may tell you that,
a great deal depends upon your answer!"
Jenkins' voice recovered its steadiness. "I am
quite sure 1"
"Is it possible that you would not know?"
"I am confident that I would know!"
Madelyn sank into the leather rocker by her side,
with an expression of the most genuine disappoint-
ment that I have ever seen her exhibit. In the
silence that followed, the ticking of the colonial
clock in the corner sounded with harsh distinctness.
Outside in the hall I fancied I heard a repressed
cough. Miss Van Sutton's maid evidently was
awaiting her turn. Madelyn's slight, black-garbed
figure had fallen back in her chair, and her right
hand was pressed over her eyes.
"Would you mind leaving the room for a few
moments, Nora? No, Jenkins, I wish that you
would stay. I find that I have another question
for you."
Annette, the maid, was walking back and forth


The Missing Bridegroom
81
in the hall as I opened the door. She glanced
toward me, but did not speak. I had hardly noted
the details of her figure, however, when the door
of the library opened again and the butler followed
me. Dull wonder was written on his face as he
nodded shortly to the girl to take his place.
My thoughts were broken by the swish of skirts
on the stairs. The next moment I faced Adolph
Van Sutton and his daughter. This was the first
time during the day that I had seen the latter. She
had remained locked in her room since morning,
denying all interviewers, and only giving Detective
Wiley a scant five minutes after his third request.
I had expected to find evidences of a pronounced
strain after her prostration of the previous evening,
but I was startled by her pallor as her father took
her arm and led her down the hall.
Of all the heart-broken women, whether of cot-
tage or mansion, with whom my newspaper career
has brought me in contact, there was no figure more
pathetic than that of the heiress of the Van Sutton
millions as she swayed toward me on that eventful
night.
Bertha Van Sutton crossed wearily into the li-
brary as the maid emerged, "I have one favor to
request, Miss Mack, and if you have ever suffered
in your life-time, you will grant it. Please be as
brief as possible!"


82 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Do you want me here?" her father asked.
Madelyn had walked over to the book shelves,
and was again delving into the pages of the morocco
encyclopedia. "I would prefer not!" she answered
without looking up.
It was well toward half-past nine (I had glanced
at my watch a dozen times) when the two women
in the library emerged. The form of Bertha Van
Sutton was bent even more than before, and it was
evident at a glance that the strain of the interview
had brought her almost to the point of a col-
lapse.
As I started forward, the light flashed for an in-
stant on a round gleaming object in Madelyn
Mack's hand. It was the small silver ball that had
been found in Norris Endicott's room.
At that moment, the front bell tinkled through
the house. There was a short conversation in the
vestibule, and then Jenkins ushered a tall, loosely
jointed figure into the hall. It was Detective Wiley
of the Newark headquarters. (Of course the affair
at "The Maples " had come under the jurisdiction
of the New Jersey police.)
The detective's ruddy face, with its stubble of
beard, was flushed with an unusual excitement, and
his stiff, sandy moustache stood out in two bristling
lines from his mouth. He received Madelyn's bow
with a short, half contemptuous nod, as he snapped


The Missing Bridegroom 83
out, "I'm right after all, Mr. Van Sutton! It's
murder — nothing more nor less!"
"Murder!" The gasp came from Bertha Van
Sutton. For an instant I thought she was about to
faint.
Wiley glanced around the group with a sugges-
tion of conscious importance which did not leave
him, even in the tension of the moment.
"We have found Mr. Endicott's clothes in
Thompson's Creek — and the coat is covered with
blood!"
Madelyn Mack gently led Bertha Van Sutton to
the chair I had vacated. One hand was stroking
the girl's temples as she turned.
"You are wrong, Mr. Wiley! " she said quietly.
"For the peace of mind of this household, I am
willing to stake my reputation that you are
wrong."
Detective Wiley whirled with a sneer. "Really,
you astound me, my lady policeman! May I
humbly inquire how your pink tea wisdom deduces
so much?"
Madelyn smoothed the folds of her coat as she
straightened. "I have promised Miss Van Sutton
that if she and her father will call at ' The Rosary'
to-morrow afternoon at four, I will give them a
complete explanation of this unfortunate affair!
You may call also if you are interested, Mr. Wiley


84 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
— and don't arrest the murderer in the meantime!
Will you kindly loan us your motor for the trip
back to town; Mr. Van Sutton?"
IV
I confess that I approached Madelyn Mack's
chalet the next day with pronounced skepticism.
The morning papers of both New York and New-
ark had been crammed with the discovery of Norris
Endicott's blood-stained garments, and were full of
hysterical praise for the "masterly work" of De-
tective Joseph Wiley.
Some one had found that Madelyn Mack had
also been retained in the case, and the reporters
had tried in vain to obtain an interview. In the
face of her silence, the applause for the police had
become even more emphasized.
She was alone when I entered; but, as I pointed
to the clock just on the verge of four, she held up
her hand. The bell sounded through the house,
and the next moment Susan conducted Adolph Van
Sutton and his daughter into the room.
In the confusion of the greeting, the signs of
nervous strain on Madelyn's face struck me sharply.
It did not need her weary admission to tell me that
she had spent a racking day, nor that she had had
frequent recourse to the stimulant of her cola ber-


The Missing Bridegroom 85
ries. Even her hair, about whose arrangement she
generally was precise to the point of nervousness,
was dishevelled, and once, when Peter the Great
thrust his nose into her lap, she ordered him im-
patiently away.
The Van Suttons had hardly seated themselves
when there was a step in the hall and the last guest
of the afternoon made his appearance. There was
not the slightest hint of ill humor in Madelyn's
greeting as Detective Wiley somewhat awkwardly
took the hand that she extended to him.
"Have you traced the murderer yet, Mr.
Wiley?"
"No, but I expect to have him in custody within
the next twenty-four hours!" Detective Wiley
dropped heavily into his chair and crossed his
knees.
"May I ask if you have found the body?"
"I can't say that we have, but we have certain
information which —"
Madelyn walked over to the end of the room
where she could face the entire group. She was
the only one of us who was standing.
"Then I am more fortunate than you are!"
The detective bounded from his seat, his sandy
moustache — the barometer of his emotions —
bristling. "I am not a man to trifle with, Miss
Mack. Do you mean to tell me —"


86 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"That I have discovered the body of Norris
Endicott? You have caught my meaning
exactly!"
Wiley stood staring at her in a sort of tongue-
tied amazement. A gasp recalled me to the other
occupants of the room. Bertha Van Sutton was
devouring Madelyn's face as though pleading with
her to end her suspense. Her father was stroking
her hand.
Madelyn stepped to the door and threw it open.
On the threshold stood a young man in a brown
tweed suit, with a purple lump showing just at the
edge of his hair. He stared at us as though he
were dazed by a sudden light.
Bertha Van Sutton darted across the room, with
a cry, and threw herself into his arms.
It was Norris Endicott.
Madelyn sprang to her side, with a query in-
tensely practical — and intensely feminine. "Has
she fainted?"
"I — I think so." Norris Endicott stood gazing
down at his burden helplessly.
"We must carry her into the next room then —
take hold of her shoulders, please! No, the rest
of you stand back! It needs a woman to take care
of a woman!"
Detective Wiley strode over to the desk telephone
and called police headquarters. He had just turned


The Missing Bridegroom 87
from the instrument when the door opened and
Madelyn returned.
"She is all right, I assure you!" she cried ha-
stily, as Adolph Van Sutton started from his chair.
"I have left her with Mr. Endicott. On the whole,
he is the best nurse we could find. Sit down, Mr.
Wiley. You will find that rocker more comfortable,
Mr. Van Sutton. It is not a long story that I have
to tell, but it contains its tragedy — and we
have to thank Providence that it isn't a double
one!"
She paused, as though marshalling her thoughts.
Detective Wiley surveyed her uneasily.
"I am sorry to inform you, Mr. Van Sutton, that
your daughter is a widow! Or perhaps — as I
wish to be entirely frank — I should say that I am
glad to convey this announcement to you!" Her
slight, black figure bent forward. "Your daugh-
ter's husband was one of the greatest scamps that
ever went unpunished!"
"But my daughter never had a husband, Miss
Mack! You forget —"
"I forget nothing! Has it ever occurred to you
that there might be a chapter in Miss Van Sutton's
life unknown to you? Pray keep your seat, my
dear sir! You are a man of the world and a father.
You have the knowledge of the one and the heart
of the other. When I tell you that during your


88 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
daughter's college days — Nora, will you kindly
pour Mr. Van Sutton a little of that brandy?
Thank you!"
Madelyn did not change her position as the owner
of "The Maples" gulped down the liquor. She
waited until he had finished, her chin still on her
hand, her eyes never shifting.
"Let me give you the explanation of our mys-
tery in a few words, Mr. Van Sutton. The wed-
ding ceremony of Wednesday night was not per-
formed— because your daughter was already a
wife! Norris Endicott disappeared from 'The
Maples ' — eliminated himself — to save her from
one of the most agonizing alternatives that ever
confronted a woman!"
Behind me, I heard Detective Wiley give a cry
of sudden comprehension.
"Incredible, impossible as it may seem, Miss Van
Sutton did not know of the barrier to her marriage
until the ceremony was less than an hour distant.
What she would have done under other circum-
stances I don't know. It was the man, who was
waiting to lead her to the altar, who came to her
rescue!"
Madelyn spoke in as emotionless a tone as though
she were discussing the weather. There was even
a bored note in her voice as though the glamour of
the problem had left her — with its solution.


The Missing Bridegroom
89
"To understand the situation, we must go back
quite five years. When Miss Van Sutton was a
senior at Vassar she fell in love with the matinee
idol of a New York stock company. Reginald
Winters was a man with a character as shallow as
his heart. Bluntly, he knew of your wealth, and
schemed to gain a part of it. You don't find the
situation unusual, do you? In the end, he per-
suaded Miss Bertha to elope with him. But he
made a slight error. He did not investigate your
disposition until after the marriage.
"He was too shrewd to risk an open avowal and
a paternal storm. Rather a canny villain, as a
matter of fact! He set on foot a series of in-
quiries which showed him, too late, that, rather
than accept him in your house, you would lose your
daughter.
"A disinherited heiress did not appeal to him.
Less than a week after the elopement, your daugh-
ter awoke to the fact that she was deserted. Mr.
Van Sutton, you must calm yourself! I warn you
I will not relate the sequel unless you do!
"Fate plays us queer pranks. Or is it Fate? I
come now to the first suggestion of the fantastic.
A year later, Miss Van Sutton read in a report of
a wreck — somewhere in the West, I believe —
that Reginald Winters had been killed. I don't
know what her emotions were. I imagine she was


90 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
like the prisoner who inhales his first breath of
freedom.
"I think you can guess the next chapter? Am I
verging too much on the lines of the woman novel-
ist? It was not until the evening which was to
have made her the bride of Norris Endicott, that
she discovered her ghastly mistake — which an-
other hour would have made still more ghastly.
"Reginald Winters not only was living, but he
had followed her to her father's door. To make
our melodrama complete, in a characteristic note he
reminded her of the disagreeable fact that she was
his wife."
Madelyn's eyes closed wearily. When she opened
them, the lines of strain on her face seemed more
intense than ever — in contrast to her light tone.
"In a novel, the bride, driven to desperation,
would have killed her Nemesis. But women of
real life seldom have the desperation of those of
romance. Bertha Van Sutton turned to the last
refuge in the world that the woman in the novel
would have sought. She carried her burden and
her problem to the man who was waiting to place
his wedding ring on her finger.
"She dismissed her maid, bolted the door of her
room, and stepped out on to the veranda below,
with a dark cloak thrown over her white dress.
Once at Norris Endicott's apartment, it was a


The Missing Bridegroom 91
matter of only an instant to bring him to the
window.
"He comprehended the situation in a flash. Of
course, it was obvious enough — after the first
shock. The marriage could not take place. But
how could it be prevented? The girl could have
told the truth, of course. Was there no other way?
And then Endicott made his decision. He must
disappear — until he could find and reckon with
the man who was threatening her. A Don Quixotic
plan? Could you have made a better one? He sent
Miss Van Sutton back to her room, and made his
preparations for flight.
"It was not until the clock struck eight, however,
that he nerved himself to the crucial step, and
swung out from the veranda to the lawn below. It
was a drop of perhaps twelve feet, and he made it
without accident. While Willard White was call-
ing his name through the room, he was watching
him from the shadows of the yard.
"Now we come again to the unkindness of Fate.
He was threading his way through the shrubbery
adjoining Thompson's Creek when his foot caught
in a vine and he was thrown to the ground. His
head struck on a stone and for nearly an hour he
lay unconscious. When he struggled to his feet,
his coat and collar were matted with blood.
"Without a thought of possible consequences, he


92 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
dropped them into the water. I believe that is
where you found them, Mr. Wiley. It was nearly
daylight when he reached his rooms, almost ex-
hausted.
"He had but one coherent thought. He must
find Reginald Winters — without delay and with-
out publicity. The note, which the actor had writ-
ten to Miss Van Sutton, contained the address of
his hotel — an obscure Fourth Avenue boarding-
house in New York. It was easy enough to find
the hotel — but the man was out.
"All of that day and night he watched the build-
ing, like a hungry dog watches a bone. It was not
until this morning that Winters returned. Then he
reappeared in the street so quickly that Endicott
had no time to follow him up to his room.
"The actor swung off toward Broadway, with
Endicott stubbornly following him. At Thirty-
fourth Street and Sixth Avenue, there was a tie-up
of the surface cars, and the crossing was jammed.
I see you are anticipating what followed! Well —
the wheel of fortune turned abruptly. Winters
plunged into the swarm of vehicles, absorbed in his
thoughts. Just before he reached the curb, a dray
swayed before him. He dodged — too late. The
rearing team crushed him to the pavement.
"When they picked him up he was quite dead.
"It was over his body that Norris Endicott and


94 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Aren't we veering from the subject, Miss
Mack?" Detective Wiley broke in impatiently.
"Do you think so?" Madelyn's eyes rested on
his florid face. "I was particularly interested,
Nora, in your account of the bride's coiffure. I
agree with you that it was decidedly becoming. I
remember that you mentioned that her point d'esprit
veil was fastened by two long pins, each with a
sterling silver ball as a head."
A sudden light broke over me. "And the silver
ball that was found in Norris Endicott's room was
one of those, of course!"
Madelyn smiled. "Your penetration amazes me!
It was your own report of the case that gave me
my first and most important clue before we left
this house.
"I think you will agree that my inference was
plain enough. Miss Van Sutton had visited Norris
Endicott's room after she was dressed for the cere-
mony — and consequently just before his disap-
pearance. She had kept the fact secret — and she
was so agitated that she did not miss the loss of a
valuable hair ornament. Why?
"There was another question that I put to my-
self. How had she reached the room? The dis-
covery of the silver ball on the sill suggested, of
course, the window. What was under the window?
Here I found that a second-story veranda extended


The Missing Bridegroom 95
along the entire side of the house. Miss Van Sutton
then had only to step out of her own window to find
a channel of communication ready made for her.
You see I had a fairly good working foundation
before we entered 'The Maples.'
"You may recall that I found much interest in
Endicott's ash trays. Have you ever studied the
relation of tobacco to human emotions, Mr. Wiley?
You will find it a singularly suggestive field of
thought, I assure you.
"The number of cigarette-ends impressed you,
perhaps, as it did me. I don't know whether you
noticed that, in nearly every case, the cigarette had
only been half consumed — and was so torn and
crushed as to suggest that it had been thrown aside
in disgust. What was the natural conclusion? Ob-
viously, that a man in an extreme state of nervous
excitement had been smoking. Now, what could
agitate Norris Endicott so remarkably? Not his
approaching wedding, surely! Then what? How
about the sudden necessity of eliminating himself
from that wedding?
"In the closet, you may remember, I found a
pair of the bridegroom's shoes. In their way, their
presence was exceedingly remarkable. On the
hooks, above, was the street suit which Endicott
had taken off in preparing for the ceremony. The
shoes, however, were the thin-soled, expensive foot-


96 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
wear that a man would use only on dress occasions.
What had become of the street shoes that you would
expect to find in the closet? My course of reason-
ing was simple. After Endicott had dressed for the
wedding, something had occurred which forced him
to change back to his heavier boots. What? The
knowledge, of course, that he was about to leave
the house on a rough trip. We now have the con-
clusion that he vanished of his own volition, that
he knew where and why he was going, and that he
made certain plans for leaving.
"It was the next point which I found the most
baffling — and which led me into my first error."
Madelyn came to a pause by the rug of Peter the
Great. The dog rose, yawning, to his feet and
thrust his nose into her hand.
"Perhaps you are wondering, Mr. Van Sutton,
why I locked myself into the room after you and
Miss Noraker had left? Frankly, I was not satis-
fied with my investigation — and I wanted to be
alone. For instance, there was an object on Mr.
Endicott's dressing table that puzzled me greatly.
Under ordinary circumstances I might not have
noticed it. It was the second tray of ashes.
"They were not tobacco ashes. It didn't need
a second glance to tell me that they had come from
a wood fire. Certainly there had not been a wood
fire in that room — and, if there had been, why the


The Missing Bridegroom
97
necessity of preserving so small a part of the
ashes?
"I will admit frankly that I was about to give
up the problem in disgust when I remembered my
examination of the waste paper basket and the
grate. I had reasoned that Mr. Endicott's flight
had been made necessary after he entered the house.
By what? What more likely than a message, per-
haps a note, perhaps a telegram? In nine cases out
of ten, a nervous man would have burned or des-
troyed such a message; but, in spite of my closest
search, I found no traces of it. It was not until I
was moving away from my saucer of ashes that my
search was rewarded. In the tray was a single
torn fragment of white paper.
"There were no others. Either the shreds had
been carefully gathered up after the message was
destroyed — which was hardly likely — or the
fragment before me had been torn from a corner
in a moment of agitation. But why had I found
it in the ashes?"
Madelyn glanced up at Mr. Van Sutton with an
abrupt turning of the subject. "Do you ever read
*Ovid'?"
The owner of "The Maples " gazed at her with
a frown of bewilderment.
"Really, you are missing a decided treat, Mr.
Van Sutton. There is a quaint charm about those


98 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
early Greek poets for which I have looked in vain
in our modern literature. Ovid's verses on love,
for instance, and his whimsical letters to maidens
who have fallen early victims to the divine pas-
sion —"
"Are you joking or torturing me, Miss Mack?"
Madelyn's face grew suddenly grave.
"I am sorry. Believe me, I beg your pardon!
But — it was Ovid who showed me the purpose of
the tray of ashes! In one of his most famous
verses there is a recipe for sympathetic ink, de-
signed to assist in the writing of discreet love let-
ters, I believe.
"It is astonishingly simple. No mysterious
chemicals, no visits to a pharmacist. Instead of
ink, you write your letters in — milk! Of course,
the words are invisible. Apparently you are leaving
no trace on the paper. Rub the sheet with wood
ashes, however, and your message is perfectly leg-
ible! I don't know where Ovid found the recipe.
It has survived, though, for seventeen hundred
years. There is only one caution in its use. Make
sure that the milk is not skimmed!
"A letter in invisible ink, you will admit, was
thoroughly in keeping with the other details of our
mystery. The encyclopedia in the library con-
vinced me that I had made no mistake in my recipe
— and then I turned to the butler, and my theory


The Missing Bridegroom 09
received its first jar. Mr. Endicott had ordered
no saucer of ashes. Moreover, no note, no tele-
gram, not even a telephone call had come for him.
"For a moment, I was absolutely hopeless. Then
I sent you from the room, Nora, so that Jenkins
would not feel constrained to silence — and put the
question which solved the problem.
"It was not Jenkins, however, who gave me my
answer. It was Miss Van Sutton's maid. The
tray of ashes had not been ordered by the groom.
It had been ordered — by the bride.
"I may as well add here that Miss Van Sutton
explained to me later that this had been the method
of communication between her and Reginald Win-
ters. She had suggested it herself in her college
days when Ovid was almost her daily companion.
It was Winters' custom to scribble his initial on the
corner of the paper. This was her clue, of course,
that the apparently blank sheet contained a com-
munication."
Madelyn stooped over the shaggy form of Peter
the Great, and his tongue caressed her hand.
"It was at this juncture that Miss Van Sutton
was ushered into the library. I did not ask her for
the note. I was well enough acquainted with my
sex to know that this would be useless. I told her
what was in it — and requested her to tell me if
I was wrong."


100 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Madelyn walked back to her chair, and, for the
first time during her recital, the lines in her face
relaxed.
"She gave me the note — I believe that is all.
Of course, Winters' address told me where I would
find Norris Endicott, and I located him this morn-
ing. Is there anything else?"
There was no answer.
"Nora," said Madelyn, turning to me. "Would
you mind starting the phonograph? I think that
Rubinstein's 'Melody in F' would suit my mood
perfectly. Thank you!"
Early in the following week the postponed wed-
ding of Norris Endicott and Bertha Van Sutton
was quietly performed, and the couple departed on
a tour of Europe. The bride did not see the body
of Reginald Winters. Months afterward, however,
I learned that she had bought a secluded grave-lot
for the man who had so nearly brought disaster to
her life.
In Madelyn Mack's relic case to-day, there are
two objects of peculiar interest to me. One is a
small, silver ball, perhaps three-quarters of an inch
in diameter. The other is an apparently blank
sheet of paper — except for a bold, dashing "W"
in the upper right-hand corner.


Ill
CINDERELLA'S SLIPPER
I
Raymond Rennick might have been going to
his wedding instead of to his — death.
Spick and span in a new spring suit, he paused
just outside the broad, arched gates of the Duffield
estate and drew his silver cigarette case from his
pocket. A self-satisfied smile flashed across his face
as he struck a match and inhaled the fragrant odor
of the tobacco. It was good tobacco, very good
tobacco — and Senator Duffield's private secretary
was something of a judge!
For a moment Rennick lingered. It was a day
to banish uncomfortable thoughts, to smooth the
rough edges of a man's problems — and burdens.
As the secretary glanced up at the soft blue sky, the
reflection swept his mind that his own future was
as free from clouds. It was a pleasing reflection.
Perhaps the cigarette, perhaps the day helped to
deepen it as he swung almost jauntily up the wind-
ing driveway toward the square, white house com-
manding the terraced lawn beyond.
101


102 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Just ahead of him a maple tree, standing alone,
rustled gaily in its spring foliage like a woman call-
ing attention to her new finery. It was all so fresh
and beautiful and innocent! Rennick felt a tingling
thrill in his blood. Unconsciously he tossed away
his cigarette. He reached the rustling maple and
passed it. . . .
From behind the gnarled trunk, a shadow darted.
A figure sprang at his shoulders, with the long blade
of a dagger awkwardly poised. There was a flash
of steel in the sunlight. . . .
It was perhaps ten minutes later that they found
him. He had fallen face downward at the edge
of the driveway, with his body half across the velvet
green of the grass. A thin thread of red, creeping
from the wound in his breast, was losing itself in
the sod.
One hand was doubled, as in a desperate effort
at defense. His glasses were twisted under his
shoulders. Death must have been nearly instanta-
neous. The dagger had reached his heart at the
first thrust. One might have fancied an expression
of overpowering amazement in the staring eyes.
That was all. The weapon had caught him squarely
on the left side. He had evidently whirled toward
the assassin almost at the instant of the blow.
Whether in the second left him of life he had
recognized his assailant, and the recognition had


Cinderella's Slipper 103
made his death-blow the quicker and the surer, were
questions that only deepened the horror of the
noon-day crime.
As though to emphasize the hour, the mahogany
clock in Senator Duffield's library rang out its
twelve monotonous chimes as John Dorrence, his
valet, beat sharply on the door. The echo of the
nervous tattoo was lost in an unanswering silence.
Dorrence repeated his knock before he brought an
impatient response from beyond the panels.
"Can you come, sir?" the valet burst out.
"Something awful has, happened, sir. It's, it's —"
The door was flung open. A ruddy-faced man
with thick, white hair and grizzled moustache, and
the hints of a nervous temperament showing in his
eyes and voice, sprang into the hall. Somebody
once remarked that Senator Duffield was Mark
Twain's double. The Senator took the comparison
as a compliment, perhaps because it was a woman
who made it.
Dorrence seized his master by the sleeve, which
loss of dignity did more to impress the Senator with
the gravity of the situation than all of the servant's
excitable words.
"Mr. Rennick, sir, has been stabbed, sir, on the
lawn, and Miss Beth, sir —"
Senator Duffield staggered against the wall. The
valet's alarm swerved to another channel.


104 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Shall I get the brandy, sir?"
"Brandy?" the Senator repeated vaguely. The
next instant, as though grasping the situation anew,
he sprang down the hall with the skirts of his frock
coat flapping against his knees. At the door of the
veranda, he whirled.
"Get the doctor on the 'phone, Dorrence —
Redfield, if Scott is out. Let him know it's a matter
of minutes! And, Dorrence —"
"Yes, sir!"
"Tell the telephone girl that, if this leaks to the
newspapers, I will have the whole office dis-
charged!"
A shifting group on the edge of the lawn, with
that strange sense of awkwardness which sudden
death brings, showed the scene of the tragedy.
The circle fell back as the Senator's figure ap-
peared. On the grass, Rennick's body still lay
where it had fallen — suggesting a skater who has
ignominiously collapsed on the ice rather than a
man stabbed to the heart. The group had been
wondering at the fact in whispered monosylla-
bles.
A kneeling girl was bending over the secretary's
body. It was not until Senator Duffield had spoken
her name twice that she glanced up. In her eyes
was a grief so wild that for a moment he was held
dumb.


Cinderella's Slipper 105
"Come, Beth," he said, gently, " this is no place
for you."
At once the white-faced girl became the central
figure of the situation. If she heard him, she gave
no sign. The Senator caught her shoulder and
pushed her slowly away. One of the woman-
servants took her arm. Curiously enough, the two
were the only members of the family that had been
called to the scene.
The Senator swung on the group, with a return
of his aggressiveness.
"Some one, who can talk fast and to the point,
tell me the story. Burke, you have a ready tongue.
How did it happen?"
The groom — a much-tanned young fellow in his
early twenties — touched his cap.
"I don't know, sir. No one knows. Mr. Ren-
nick was lying here, stabbed, when we found him.
He was already dead."
"But surely there was some cry, some sound of
a scuffle?"
The groom shook his head. "If there was, sir,
none of us heard it. We all liked Mr. Rennick, sir.
I would have gone through fire and water if he
needed my help. If there had been an outcry loud
enough to reach the stable, I would have been there
on the jump!"
"Do you mean to tell me that Rennick could


106 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
have been struck down in the midst of fifteen or
twenty people with no one the wiser? It's ridicu-
lous, impossible!"
Burke squared his shoulders, with an almost un-
conscious suggestion of dignity.
. I am telling you the truth, sir!"
The Senator's glance dropped to his secretary's
body and he looked up with a shudder. Then, as
though with an effort, his eyes returned to the hud-
dled form, and he stood staring down at the dead
man, with a frown knitting his brow. Once he
jerked his head toward the gardener with the curt
question, "Who found him?"
Jenkins shambled forward uneasily. "I did,
sir. I hope you don't think I disturbed the
body?"
The Senator shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
He did not raise his head again until the sound of
a motor in the driveway broke the tension. The
surgeon had arrived. Almost at the same moment
there was a cry from Jenkins.
The gardener stood perhaps a half a dozen yards
from the body, staring at an object hidden in the
grass at his feet. He stooped and raised it. It was
a woman's slipper!
As a turn of his head showed him the eyes of the
group turned in his direction, he walked across to
Senator Duffield, holding his find at arm's length,


Cinderella's Slipper 107
as though its dainty outlines might conceal an
adder's nest.
The slipper was of black suede, high-heeled and
slender, tied with a broad, black ribbon. One end
of the ribbon was broken and stained as though it
had tripped its owner. On the thin sole were cakes
of the peculiar red clay of the driveway.
It might have been unconscious magnetism that
caused the Senator suddenly to turn his eyes in the
direction of his daughter. She was swaying on the
arm of the servant.
Throwing off the support of the woman, she took
two quick steps forward, with her hand flung out
as though to tear the slipper from him. And then,
without a word, she fell prone on the grass.
II
The telephone in my room must have been jan-
gling a full moment before I struggled out of my
sleep and raised myself to my elbow. It was with
a feeling of distinct rebellion that I slipped into my
kimono and slippers and shuffled across to the sput-
tering instrument in the corner. From eight in the
morning until eight in the evening, I had been on
racking duty in the Farragut poison trial, and the
belated report of the wrangling jury, at an hour
which made any sort of a meal impossible until


108 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
after ten, had left me worn out physically and men-
tally. I glanced at my watch as I snapped the re-
ceiver to my ear. It lacked barely fifteen minutes
of midnight. An unearthly hour to call a woman
out of bed, even if she is past the age of sentimental
dreams!
"Well?" I growled.
A laugh answered me at the other end of the wire.
I would have flung the receiver back to the hook
and myself back to bed had I not recognized the
tones. There is only one person in the world, ex-
cepting the tyrant at our city editor's desk, who
would arouse me at midnight. But I had thought
this person separated from me by twelve hundred
miles of ocean.
"Madelyn Mack!" I gasped.
The laughter ceased. "Madelyn Mack it is!"
came back the answer, now reduced to a tone of
decorous gravity. "Pardon my merriment, Nora.
The mental picture of your huddled form —"
"But I thought you in Jamaica!" I broke in,
now thoroughly awake.
"I was — until Saturday. Our steamer came
out of quarantine at four o'clock this afternoon.
As it develops, I reached here at the psychological
moment."
I kicked a rocker to my side and dropped into it
with a rueful glance at the rumpled sheets of the


Cinderella's Slipper 109
bed. With Madelyn Mack at the telephone at mid-
night, only one conclusion was possible; and such
a conclusion shattered all thought of sleep.
"Have you read the evening dispatches from
Boston, Nora?"
"I have read nothing — except the report
of the Farragut jury!" I returned crisply.
"Why?"
"If you had, you would perhaps divine the reason
of my call. I have been retained in the Rennick
murder case. I am taking the one-thirty sleeper
for Boston. I secured our berths just before I
telephoned."
"Our berths!"
"I am taking you with me. Now that you are
up, you may as well dress and ring for a taxicab.
I will meet you at the Roanoke hotel."
"But," I protested, " don't you think —"
"Very well, if you don't care to go! That set-
tles it!"
"Oh, I will be there!" I said with an air of
resignation. "Ten minutes to dress, and fifteen
minutes for the taxi!"
"I will add five minutes for incidentals," Made-
lyn replied and hung up the receiver.
The elevator boy at " The Occident," where I had
my modest apartment, had become accustomed to
the strange hours and strange visitors of a news-


110 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
paper woman during my three years' residence. He
opened the door with a grin of sympathy as the car
reached my floor. As though to give more active
expression to his feelings he caught up my bag and
gave it a place of honor on his own stool.
"Going far?" he queried as I alighted at the
main corridor.
"I may be back in twenty-four hours and I may
not be back for twenty-four days," I answered cau-
tiously — I knew Madelyn Mack!
As I waited for the whir of the taxicab, I appro-
priated the evening paper on the night clerk's desk.
The Rennick murder case had been given a three-
column head on the front page. If I had not been
so absorbed in the Farragut trial, it could not have
escaped me. I had not finished the head-lines, how-
ever, when the taxi, with a promptness almost un-
canny, rumbled up to the curb.
I threw myself back against the cushions,
switched on the electric light, and spread my paper
over my knee, as the chauffeur turned off toward
Fifth Avenue. The story was well written and had
made much of a few facts. Trust my newspaper
instinct to know that! I had expected a fantastic
puzzle — when it could spur Madelyn into action
within six hours after her landing — but I was
hardly anticipating a problem such as I could read
between rather than in the lines of type before ma


Cinderella's Slipper 111
Long before the "Roanoke" loomed into view, I
had forgotten my lost sleep.
The identity of Raymond Rennick's assassin was
as baffling as in the first moments of the discovery
of the tragedy. There had been no arrests — nor
hint of any. From the moment when the secretary
had turned into the gate of the Duffield yard until
the finding of his body, all trace of his movements
had been lost as effectually as though the darkness
of midnight had enveloped him, instead of the sun-
light of noon. More than ten minutes could not
have elapsed between his entrance into the grounds
and the discovery of his murder — perhaps not more
than five — but they had been sufficient for the
assassin to effect a complete escape.
There was not even the shadow of a motive.
Raymond Rennick was one of those few men who
seemed to be without an enemy. In an official ca-
pacity, his conduct was without a blemish. In a
social capacity, he was admittedly one of the most
popular men in Brookline — among both sexes.
Rumor had it, apparently on unquestioned authority,
that the announcement of his engagement to Beth
Duffield was to have been an event of the early
summer. This fact was in my mind as I stared
out into the darkness.
On a sudden impulse, I opened the paper again.
From an inside page the latest photograph of the
*


112 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Senator's daughter, taken at a fashionable Boston
sfudio, smiled up at me. It was an excellent like-
ness as I remembered her at the inaugural ball the
year before — a wisp of a girl, with a mass of black
hair, which served to emphasize her frailness. I
studied the picture with a frown. There was a sense
of familiarity in its outlines, which certainly our
casual meeting could not explain. Then, abruptly,
my thoughts flashed back to the crowded courtroom
of the afternoon — and I remembered.
In the prisoner's dock I saw again the figure of
Beatrice Farragut, slender, fragile, her white face,
her somber gown, her eyes fixed like those of a
frightened lamb on the jury which was to give her
life — or death.
"She poison her husband?" had buzzed the
whispered comments at my shoulders during the
weary weeks of the trial. "She couldn't harm a
butterfly!" Like a mocking echo, the tones of the
foreman had sounded the answering verdict of
murder — in the first degree. And in New York
this meant —
Why had Beatrice Farragut suggested Beth Duf-
field? Or was it Beth Duffield who had suggested
— I crumpled the paper into a heap and tossed it
from the window in disgust at my morbid imagina-
tion. B-u-r-r-h! And yet they say that a New
York newspaper woman has no nerves!


114 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
1 nodded. "I imagine that you can add consid-
erable."
"As a matter of fact, I know less than the re-
porters!" Madelyn threw open the door of her
room. "You have interviewed Senator Duffield on
several occasions, have you not, Nora?"
"You might say on several delicate occasions if
you cared to!"
"You can tell me then whether the Senator is
in the habit of polishing his glasses when he is in
a nervous mood?"
A rather superior smile flashed over my face.
"I assure you that Senator Duffield never wears
glasses on any occasion!"
Something like a chuckle came from Madelyn.
"Perhaps you can do as well on another question.
You will observe in these newspapers four different
photographs of the murdered secretary. Naturally,
they bear many points of similarity — they were all
taken in the last three years — but they contain one
feature in common which puzzles me. Does it im-
press you in the same way?"
I glanced at the group of photographs doubtfully.
Three of them were obviously newspaper "snap-
shots," taken of the secretary while in the company
of Senator Duffield. The fourth was a reproduc-
tion of a conventional cabinet photograph. They
showed a clean shaven, well built young man of


Cinderella's Slipper 115
thirty or thereabouts; tall, and I should say inclined
to athletics. I turned from the newspapers to Made-
lyn with a shrug.
"I am afraid I don't quite follow you," I ad-
mitted ruefully. "There is nothing at all out of
the ordinary in any of them that I can catch."
Madelyn carefully clipped the pictures and placed
them under the front cover of her black morocco
note-book. As she did so, a clock chimed the hour
of one. We both pushed back our chairs.
As we stepped into the taxicab, Madelyn tapped
my arm. "I wonder if Raymond Rennick polished
his glasses when he was nervous?" she asked
musingly.
Ill
Boston, from the viewpoint of the South Sta-
tion at half-past seven in the morning, suggests to
me a rheumatic individual climbing stiffly out of
bed. Boston distinctly resents anything happening
before noon. I'll wager that nearly every import-
ant event that she has contributed to history oc-
curred after lunch-time!
If Madelyn Mack had expected to have to find
her way to the Dufheld home without a guide, she
was pleasantly disappointed. No less a person than
the Senator, himself, was awaiting us at the train-


116 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
gate — a somewhat dishevelled Senator, it must be
confessed, with the stubble of a day-old beard
showing eloquently how his peace of mind and the
routine of his habits had been shattered. As he
shook hands with us, he made an obvious attempt
to recover something of his ease of manner.
"I trust that you had a pleasant night's rest,"
he ventured, as he led the way across the station
to his automobile.
"Much pleasanter than you had, I fear," replied
Madelyn.
The Senator sighed. "As a matter of fact, I
found sleep hopeless; I spent most of the night
with my cigar. The suggestion of meeting your
train came as a really welcome relief."
As we stepped into the waiting motor, a leather-
lunged newsboy thrust a bundle of heavy-typed
papers into our faces. The Senator whirled with
a curt dismissal on his tongue when Madelyn thrust
a coin toward the lad and swept a handful of flap-
ping papers into her lap.
"There is absolutely nothing new in the case,
Miss Mack, I assure you," the Senator said im-
patiently. "The reporters have pestered me like
so many leeches. The sight of a head-line makes
me shiver."
Madelyn bent over her papers without comment.
As I settled into the seat by her side, however, and


Cinderella's Slipper 117
the machine whirled around the corner, I saw that
she was not even making a pretence of reading.
I watched her with a frown as she turned the pages.
There was no question of her interest, but it was
not the type that held her attention. I doubted if
she was perusing a line of the closely-set columns.
It was not until she reached the last paper that I
solved the mystery. It was the illustrations that
she was studying!
When she finished the heap of papers, she began
slowly and even more thoughtfully to go through
them again. Now I saw that she was pondering
the various photographs of Senator Duffield's fam-
ily that the newspapers had published. I turned
away from her bent form and tapping finger, but
there was a magnetism in her abstraction that
forced my eyes back to her in spite of myself. As
my gaze returned to her, she thrust her gloved hand
into the recesses of her bag and drew out her black
morocco notebook. From its pages she selected the
four newspaper pictures of the murdered secretary
that she had offered me the night before. With a
twinkle of satisfaction, she grouped them about a
large, black-bordered picture which stared up at
her from the printed page in her lap.
Our ride to the Duffield gate was not a long one.
In fact I was so absorbed by my furtive study of
Madelyn Mack that I was startled when the chauf-


118 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
feur slackened his speed, and I realized from a
straightening of the Senator's bent shoulders that
we were nearing our destination.
At the edge of the driveway, a quietly dressed
man in a grey suit, who was strolling carelessly
back and forth from the gate to the house, eyed us
curiously as we passed, and touched his hat to the
Senator. I knew at once he was a detective.
(Trust a newspaper woman to "spot" a plain
clothes man, even if he has left his police uniform
at home!) Madelyn did not look up and the Sen-
ator made no comment.
As we stepped from the machine, a tall girl with
severe, almost classical features and a profusion of
nut-brown hair which fell away from her forehead
without even the suggestion of a ripple, was await-
ing us.
"My daughter, Maria," Senator Duffield an-
nounced formally.
Madelyn stepped forward with extended hand.
It was evident that Miss Duffield had intended only
a brief nod. For an instant she hesitated, with a
barely perceptible flush. Then her fingers dropped
limply into Madelyn Mack's palm. (I chuckled in-
wardly at the ill grace with which she did it!)
"This must be a most trying occasion for you,"
Madelyn said with a note of sympathy in her voice,
which made me stare. Effusiveness of any kind


120 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
members of the domestic circle whom I have al-
ready indicated, my attention was at once caught
by two figures who entered just before us. One
was a young woman whom it did not need a second
glance to tell me was Beth Duffield. Her white face
and swollen eyes were evidence enough of her over-
wrought condition, and I caught myself speculating
why she had left her room.
Her companion was a tall, slender young fellow
with just the faintest trace of a stoop in his shoul-
ders. As he turned toward us, I saw a handsome,
though self-indulgent face, to a close observer sug-
gesting evidences of more dissipation than was good
for its owner. And, if the newspaper stories of the
doings of Fletcher Duffield were true, the facial in-
dex was a true one. If I remembered rightly,
Senator Duffield's son more than once had made
prim old Boston town rub her spectacled eyes at the
tales of his escapades!
Fletcher Duffield bowed rather abstractedly as he
was presented to us, but during the eggs and chops
he brightened visibly, and put several curious ques-
tions to Madelyn as to her methods of work, which
enlivened what otherwise would have been a rather
dull half hour.
As the strokes of nine rang through the room,
my companion pushed her chair back.
"What time is the coroner's inquest, Senator?"


Cinderella's Slipper
121
Mr. Duffield raised his eyebrows at the change in
her attitude "It is scheduled for eleven o'clock."
"And when do you expect Inspector Taylor of
headquarters?"
"In the course of an hour, I should say, perhaps
less.- His man, Martin, has been here since yester-
day afternoon — you probably saw him as we
drove into the yard. I can telephone Mr. Taylor,
if you wish to see him sooner."
"That will hardly be necessary, thank you."
Madelyn walked across to the window. For a
moment she stood peering out on to the lawn. Then
she stooped, and her hand fumbled with the catch.
The window swung open with the noiselessness of
well-oiled hinges, and she stepped out on to the
veranda, without so much as a glance at the group
about the table.
I think the Senator and I rose from our chairs at
the same instant. When we reached the window,
Madelyn was half across the lawn. Perhaps twenty
yards ahead of her, towered a huge maple, rustling
in the early morning breeze.
I realized that this was the spot where Raymond
Rennick had met his death.
In spite of his nervousness, Senator Duffield did
not forget his old-fashioned courtliness, which I
believe had become second nature to him. Stepping
aside with a slight bow, he held the window open


122 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
for me, following at my shoulder. As we reached
the lawn, I saw that the scene of the murder was in
plain view from at least one of the principal rooms
of the Duffield home.
Madelyn was leaning against the maple when we
reached her. Senator Duffield said gravely, as he
pointed to the gnarled trunk, "You are standing
just at the point where the woman waited, Miss
Mack."
"Woman?"
"I refer to the assassin," the Senator rejoined a
trifle impatiently. "Judging by our fragmentary
clues, she must have been hidden behind the trunk
when poor Rennick appeared on the driveway. We
found her slipper somewhat to the left of the
tree — a matter of eight or ten feet, I should
say."
"Oh!" said Madelyn listlessly. I fancied that
she was somewhat annoyed that we had followed
her.
"An odd clue, that slipper," the Senator con-
tinued with an obvious attempt to maintain the
conversation. "If we were disposed to be fanciful,
it might suggest the childhood legend of Cinder-
ella."
Madelyn did not answer. She stood leaning back
against the tree with her eyes wandering about the
yard. Once I saw her gaze flash down the driveway


Cinderella's Slipper 123
to the open gate, where the detective, Martin, stood
watching us furtively.
"Nora," she said, without turning, "will you
kindly walk six steps to your right?"
I knew better than to ask the reason for the re-
quest. With a shrug, I faced toward the house,
and came to a pause at the end of the stipulated
distance.
"Is Miss Noraker standing where Mr. Rennick's
body was found, Senator?"
"She will strike the exact spot, I think, if she
takes two steps more."
I had hardly obeyed the suggestion when I caught
the swift rustle of skirts behind me. I whirled to
see Madelyn's lithe form darting toward me with
her right hand raised as though it held a weapon.
"Good!" she cried. "I call you to witness, Sen-
ator, that I was fully six feet away when she
turned! Now I want you to take Miss Noraker's
place. The instant you hear me behind you — the
instant, mind you — I want you to let me know."
She walked back to the tree as the Senator reluc-
tantly changed places with me. I could almost pic-
ture the murderess dashing upon her victim as
Madelyn bent forward. The Senator turned his
back to us with a rather ludicrous air of bewilder-
ment.
My erratic friend had covered perhaps half of the


124 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
distance between her and our host when he spun
about with a cry of discovery. She paused with
a long breath.
"Thank you, Senator. What first attracted your
attention to me?"
"The rustle of your dress, of course!"
Madelyn turned to me with the first smile of sat-
isfaction I had seen since we entered the Duffield
gate.
"Was the same true in your case, Nora?"
I nodded. "The fact that you are a woman
hopelessly betrayed you. If you had not been ham-
pered by petticoats —"
Madelyn broke in upon my sentence with that
peculiar freedom which she always reserves tc her-
self. "There are two things I would like to ask
of you, Senator, if I may."
"I am at your disposal, I assure you."
"I would like to borrow a Boston directory, and
the services of a messenger."
We walked slowly up the driveway, Madelyn
again relapsing into her preoccupied silence and
Senator Duffield making no effort to induce her to
speak.
IV
We had nearly reached the veranda when there
was the sound of a motor at the gate, and a red








Cinderella's Slipper 125
touring car swept into the yard. An elderly, clean-
shaven man, in a long frock coat and a broad-
brimmed felt hat, was sharing the front seat with
the chauffeur. He sprang to the ground with ex-
tended hand as our host stepped forward to greet
him. The two exchanged half a dozen low sen-
tences at the side of the machine, and then Senator
Duffield raised his voice as they approached us.
"Miss Mack, allow me to introduce my colleague,
Senator Burroughs."
"I have heard of you, of course, Miss Mack," the
Senator said genially, raising his broad-brimmed
hat with a flourish. "I am very glad, indeed, that
you are able to give us the benefit of your experi-
ence in this, er — unfortunate affair. I presume
that it is too early to ask if you have developed
a theory?"
"I wonder if you would allow me to reverse the
question?" Madelyn responded as she took his
hand.
"I fear that my detective ability would hardly
be of much service to you, eh, Duffield?"
Our host smiled faintly as he turned to repeat
to a servant Madelyn's request for a directory and
a messenger. Senator Burroughs folded his arms
as his chauffeur circled on toward the garage.
There was an odd suggestion of nervousness in the
whole group. Or was it fancy?


126 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Have you ever given particular study to the
legal angle in your cases, Miss Mack?" The ques-
tion came from Senator Burroughs as we ascended
the steps.
"The legal angle? I am afraid I don't grasp
your meaning."
The Senator's hand moved mechanically toward
his cigar case. "I am a lawyer, and perhaps I
argue unduly from a lawyer's viewpoint. We
always work from the question of motive, Miss
Mack. A professional detective, I believe, — or at
least, the average professional detective, — tries to
find the criminal first and establish his motive after-
ward."
"Now, in a case such as this, Senator —"
"In a case such as this, Miss Mack, the trained
legal mind would delve first for the motive in Mr.
Rennick's assassination."
"And your legal mind, Senator, I presume, has
delved for the motive. Has it found it?"
The Senator turned his unlighted cigar reflec-
tively between his lips. "I have not found it!
Eliminating the field of sordid passion and insan-
ity, I divide the motives of the murderer under
three heads — robbery, jealousy, and revenge. In
the present case, I eliminate the first possibility at
the outset. There remain then only the two latter."
"You are interesting. You forget, however, a


128 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Also, I would like to look at his clothes — the
suit he was wearing at the time of his death, I
mean — and, when I am through, I want twenty
or thirty minutes alone in his room. If Mr. Tay-
lor should arrive before I am through, will you
kindly let me know?"
"I can assure you, Miss Mack, that the police
have been through Mr. Rennick's apartment with
a microscope."
"Then there can be no objection to my going
through it with mine! By the way, Mr. Rennick's
glasses — the pair that was found under his body
— were packed with his clothes, were they not?"
"Certainly," the Senator responded.
I did not accompany Madelyn into the darkened
room where the corpse of the murdered man was
reposing. To my surprise, she rejoined me in less
than five minutes.
"What did you find? " I queried as we ascended
the stairs.
"A five-inch cut just above the sixth rib.
"That is what the newspapers said."
"You are mistaken. They said a three-inch cut.
Have you ever tried to plunge a dagger through
five inches of human flesh?"
"Certainly not."
"I have."
Accustomed as I was to Madelyn Mack's eccen-


Cinderella's Slipper
129
tricities, I stood stock still and stared into her
face.
"Oh, I'm not a murderess! I refer to my dis-
secting room experiences."
We had reached the upper hall when there was
a quick movement at my shoulder, and I saw my
companion's hand dart behind my waist. Before
I could quite grasp the situation, she had caught
my right arm in a grip of steel. For an instant I
thought she was trying to force me back down the
stairs. Then the force of her hold wrung a low
cry of pain from my lips. She released me with a
rueful apology.
"Forgive me, Nora! For a woman, I pride my-
self that I have a strong wrist!"
"Yes, I think you have!"
"Perhaps now you can appreciate what I mean
when I say that even I haven't strength enough to
inflict the wound that killed Raymond Rennick!"
"Then we must be dealing with an Amazon."
"Would Cinderella's missing slipper fit an
Amazon?" she answered drily.
As she finished her sentence, we paused before
a closed door which I rightly surmised led into the
room of the murdered secretary. Madelyn's hand
was on the knob when there was a step behind us,
and Senator Duffield joined us with a rough bundle
in his hands.


130 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Mr. Rennick's clothes," he explained. Made-
lyn nodded.
"Inspector Taylor left them in my care to hold
until the inquest."
Madelyn flung the door open without comment
and led the way inside. Slipping the string from
the bundle, she emptied the contents out on to the
counterpane of the bed. They comprised the usual
warm weather outfit of a well-dressed man, who
evidently avoided the extremes of fashion, and she
deftly sorted the articles into small, neat piles.
She glanced up with an expression of impatience.
"I thought you said they were here, Mr. Duf-
field!"
"What?"
"Mr. Rennick's glasses! Where are they?"
Senator Duffield fumbled in his pocket. "I beg
your pardon, Miss Mack. I had overlooked them,"
he apologized, as he produced a thin paper parcel.
Madelyn carried it to the window and carefully
unwrapped it.
"You will find the spectacles rather badly dam-
aged, I fear. One lens is completely ruined."
Madelyn placed the broken glasses on the sill,
and raised the blind to its full height. Then she
dropped to her knees and whipped out her micro-
scope. When she arose, her small, black-clad
figure was tense with suppressed excitement.


Cinderella's Slipper 131
A fat oak chiffonier stood in the corner nearest
her. Crossing to its side, she rummaged among
the articles that littered its surface, opened and
closed the top drawer, and stepped back with an
expression of annoyance. A writing table was the
next point of her search, with results which I
judged to be equally fruitless. She glanced uncer-
tainly from the bed to the three chairs, the only
other articles of furniture that the room contained.
Then her eyes lighted again as they rested on the
broad, carved mantel that spanned the empty fire-
place.
It held the usual collection of bric-a-brac of a
bachelor's room. At the end farthest from us,
however, there was a narrow, red case, of which
I caught only an indistinct view when Madelyn's
hand closed over it.
She whirled toward us. "I must ask you to
leave me alone now, please!"
The Senator flushed at the peremptory com-
mand. I stepped into the hall and he followed me,
with a shrug. He was closing the door when
Madelyn raised her voice. "If Inspector Taylor
is below, kindly send him up at once!"
"And what about the inquest, Miss Mack?"
"There will be no inquest — to-day!"
Senator Duffield led the way down stairs with-
out a word. In the hall below, a ruddy-faced man,


132 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
with grey hair, a thin grey beard and moustache,
and a grey suit — suggesting any army officer in
civilian clothes — was awaiting us. I could read-
ily imagine that Inspector Taylor was something of
a disciplinarian in the Boston police department.
Also, relying on Madelyn Mack's estimate, he was
one of the three shrewdest detectives on the Amer-
ican continent.
Senator Duffield hurried toward him with a sug-
gestion of relief. "Miss Mack is up-stairs, Inspec-
tor, and requested me to send you to her the
moment you arrived."
"Is she in Mr. Rennick's room?"
The Senator nodded. The Inspector hesitated
as though about to ask another question and then,
as though thinking better of it, bowed and turned
to the stairs.
Inspector Taylor was one of those few police-
men who had the honor of being numbered among
Madelyn Mack's personal friends, and I fancied
that he welcomed the news of her arrival.
Fletcher Duffield was chatting somewhat aim-
lessly with Senator Burroughs as we sauntered out
into the yard again. None of the ladies of the
family were visible. The plain clothes man was
still lounging disconsolately in the vicinity of the
gate. There was a sense of unrest in the scene,
a vague expectancy. Although no one voiced the


Cinderella's Slipper
133
suggestion, we might all have been waiting to
catch the first clap of distant thunder.
As Senator Duffield joined the men, I wandered
across to the dining-room window. I fancied the
room was deserted, but I was mistaken. As I
faced about toward the driveway, a low voice
caught my ear from behind the curtains.
"You are Miss Mack's friend, are you not? No,
don't turn around, please!"
But I had already faced toward the open door.
At my elbow was a white-capped maid — with her
face almost as white as her cap — whom I remem-
bered to have seen at breakfast.
"Yes, I am Miss Mack's friend. What can I
do for you?"
"I have a message for her. Will you see that
she gets it?"
"Certainly."
"Tell her that I was at the door of Senator Duf-
field's library the night before the murder."
My face must have expressed my bewilderment.
For an instant I fancied the girl was about to run
from the room. I stepped through the window
and put my arm about her shoulders. She smiled
faintly.
"I don't know much about the law, and evi-
dence, and that sort of thing — and I am afraid!
You will take care of me, won't you?"


Cinderella's Slipper
135
Madelyn Mack and Inspector Taylor had appeared.
At the sound of their voices, the girl broke from
my arm and darted toward the door.
Through the window, I heard the Inspector's
heavy tones, as he announced curtly, "I am tele-
phoning the coroner, Senator, that we are not ready
for the inquest to-day. We must postpone it until
to-morrow."
V
The balance of the day passed without incident.
In fact, I found the subdued quiet of the Duffield
home becoming irksome as evening fell. I saw
little of Madelyn Mack. She disappeared shortly
after luncheon behind the door of her room, and
I did not see her again until the dressing bell rang
for dinner. Senator Duffield left for the city with
Mr. Burroughs at noon, and his car did not bring
him back until dark. The women of the family
remained in their apartments during the entire day,
nor could I wonder at the fact. A morbid crowd
of curious sight-seers was massed about the gates
almost constantly, and it was necessary to send a
call for two additional policemen to keep them
back. In spite of the vigilance, frequent groups of
newspaper men managed to slip into the grounds,
and, after half a dozen experiences in frantically


136 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
dodging a battery of cameras, I decided to stick to
the shelter of the house.
It was with a feeling of distinct relief that I
heard the door of Madelyn's room open and her
voice calling to me to enter. I found her stretched
on a lounge before the window, with a mass of
pillows under her head.
"Been asleep?" I asked.
"No — to tell the truth, I've been too busy."
"What? In this room!"
"This is the first time I've been here since
noon!"
"Then where —"
"Nora, don't ask questions!"
I turned away with a shrug that brought a laugh
from the lounge. Madelyn rose and shook out her
skirts. I sat watching her as she walked across to
the mirror and stood patting the great golden
masses of her hair.
A low tap on the door interrupted her. Dor-
rence, the valet, stood outside as she opened it,
extending an envelope. Madelyn fumbled it as she
walked back. She let the envelope flutter to the
floor and I saw that it contained only a blank sheet
of paper. She thrust it into her pocket without
explanation.
"How would you like a long motor ride,
Nora?"


138 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
stationed to prevent his escape? I stumbled across
to the bed and to sleep, with the question echoing
oddly through my brain.
When I opened my eyes, the sun was throwing
a yellow shaft of light across my bed, but it wasn't
the sun that had awakened me. Madelyn was
standing in the doorway, dressed, with an expres-
sion on her face which brought me to my elbow.
"What has happened now?"
"Burglars!"
"Burglars?" I repeated dully.
"I am going down to the library. Some one is
making news for us fast, Nora! When will it be
our turn?"
I dressed in record-breaking time, with my curi-
osity whetted by sounds of suppressed excitement
which forced their way into the upper hall. The
Duffield home not only was early astir, but was
rudely jarred out of its customary routine.
When I descended, I found a nervous group of
servants clustered about the door of the library.
They stood aside to let me pass, with attitudes of
uneasiness which I surmised would mean a whole-
sale series of "notices" if the strange events in
the usually well regulated household continued.
Behind the closed door of the library were Sen-
ator Duffield, his son, Fletcher, and Madelyn Mack.
It was easy to appreciate at a glance the unusual


Cinderella's Slipper
139
condition of the room. At the right, one of the
long windows, partly raised, showed the small,
round hole of a diamond cutter just over the latch.
It was obvious where the clandestine entrance and
exit had been obtained. The most noticeable
feature of the apartment, however, was a small,
square safe in the corner, with its heavy lid swing-
ing awkwardly ajar, and the rug below littered
with a heap of papers, that had evidently been torn
from its neatly tabulated series of drawers. The
burglarious hands either had been very angry or
very much in a hurry. Even a number of unsealed
envelopes had been ripped across, as though the
pillager had been too impatient to extract their
contents in the ordinary manner. To a man of
Senator Duffield's methodical habits, it was easy
to imagine that the scene had been a severe wrench.
Madelyn was speaking in her quick, incisive
tones as I entered.
"Are you quite sure of that fact, Senator?" she
asked sharply, as I closed the door and joined the
trio.
"Quite sure, Miss Mack!"
"Then nothing is missing, absolutely nothing?"
"Not a single article, valuable or otherwise!"
"I presume then there were articles of more or
less value.in the safe?"
"There was perhaps four hundred dollars in


Cinderella's Slipper 141
at a huge leather chair, and sank into its depths with
a sigh.
"You say nothing has been stolen, Senator, that
the burglar's visit yielded him nothing. For your
peace of mind, I would like to agree with you, but
I am sorry to inform you that you are mistaken."
"Surely, Miss Mack, you are hasty! I am con-
fident that I have searched my possessions with the
utmost care."
"Nevertheless, you have been robbed!"
Senator Duffield glanced down at her small, lithe
figure impatiently. "Then, perhaps, you will be
good enough to tell me of what my loss consists?"
"I refer to the article for which your secretary
was murdered! It was stolen from this room last
night."
Had the point of a dagger pressed against Sena-
tor Duffield's shoulders, he could not have bounded
forward in greater consternation. His composure
was shattered like a pane of glass crumbling.
He sprang toward the safe with a cry like a man
in sudden fear or agony. Jerking back its door, he
plunged his hand into its lower left compartment.
When he straightened, he held a long, wax phono-
graph record.
His dismay had vanished in a quick blending of
relief and anger, as his eyes swept from the cylinder
to the grave figure of Madelyn Mack.


142 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"I fail to appreciate your joke, Miss Mack —
if you call it a joke to frighten a man without cause
as you have me!"
"Have you examined the record in your hand,
Senator?"
Fletcher Duffield and I stared at the two. There
was a suggestion of tragedy in the scene as the
impatience and irritation gradually faded from the
Senator's face.
"It is a substitute!" he groaned. "A substi-
tute! I have been tricked, victimized, robbed!"
He stood staring at the wax record as though
it were a heated iron burning into his flesh. Sud-
denly it slipped from his fingers and was shattered
on the floor.
But he did not appear to notice the fact as he
burst out, "Do you realize that you are standing
here inactive while the thief is escaping? I don't
know how your wit surprised my secret, and don't
care now, but you are throwing away your chances
of stopping the burglar while he may be putting
miles between himself and us! Are you made of
ice, woman? Can't you appreciate what this
means? In the name of heaven, Miss Mack —"
"The thief will not escape, Mr. Duffield!"
"It seems to me that he has already es-
caped."
"Let me assure you, Senator, that your missing


Cinderella's Slipper 143
property is as secure as though it were locked in
your safe at this moment!"
"But do you realize that, once a hint of its
nature is known, it will be almost worthless to
me?"
"Better perhaps than you do, — so well that I
pledge myself to return it to your hands within the
next half hour!"
Senator Duffield took three steps forward until
he stood so close to Madelyn that he could have
reached over and touched her on the shoulder.
"I am an old man, Miss Mack, and the last two
days have brought me almost to a collapse. If I
have appeared unduly sharp, I tender you my
apologies — but do not give me false hopes! Tell
me frankly that you cannot encourage me. It will
be a kindness. You will realize that I cannot blame
you."
Senator Duffield's imperious attitude was so
broken that I could hardly believe it possible that
the same man who ruled a great political party,
almost by the swaying of his finger, was speaking.
Madelyn caught his hand with a grasp of assurance.
"I will promise even more." She snapped open
her watch. "If you will return to this room at
nine o'clock, not only will I restore your stolen
property — but I will deliver the murderer of Ray-
mond Rennick!"


144 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Rennick's murderer?" the Senator gasped.
Madelyn bowed. "In this room at nine o'clock."
I think I was the first to move toward the door.
Fletcher Duffield hesitated a moment, staring at
Madelyn; then he turned and hurried past me
down the hall.
His father followed more slowly. As he closed
the door, I saw Madelyn standing where we had
left her, leaning back against her chair, and staring
at a woman's black slipper. It was the one which
had been found by Raymond Rennick's dead
body.
I made my way mechanically toward the dining-
room, and was surprised to find that the members
of the Duffield family were already at the table.
With the exception of Madelyn, it was the same
breakfast group as the morning before. In an-
other house, this attempt to maintain the conven-
tions in the face of tragedy might have seemed
incongruous; but it was so thoroughly in keeping
with the self-contained Duffield character that,
after the first shock, I realized it was not at all
surprising. I fancy that we all breathed a sigh of
relief, however, when the meal was over.
We were rising from the table, when a folded
note, addressed to the Senator, was handed to the
butler from the hall. He glanced through it hur-
riedly, and held up his hand for us to wait.


Cinderella's Slipper 145
"This is from Miss Mack. She requests me to
have all of the members of the family, and those
servants who have furnished any evidence in con-
nection with the, er — murder " — the Senator
winced as he spoke the word —" to assemble in
the library at nine o'clock. I think that we owe
it both to ourselves and to her to obey her instruc-
tions to the letter. Perkins, will you kindly notify
the servants?"
As it happened, Madelyn's audience in the library
was increased by two spectators she had not named.
The tooting of a motor sounded without, and the
tall figure of Senator Burroughs met us as we were
leaving the dining-room. Senator Dufneld took
his arm with a glance of relief, and explained the
situation as he forced him to accompany us.
VI
In the library, we found for the first time that
Madelyn was not alone. Engaged in a low con-
versation with her, which ceased as we entered,
was Inspector Taylor. He had evidently been
designated as the spokesman of the occasion.
"Is everybody here?" he asked.
"I think so," Senator Duffield replied. "There
are really only five of the servants who count in
the case."


146 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Madelyn's eyes flashed over the circle. "Close
the door, please, Mr. Taylor. I think you had
better lock it also."
"There are fourteen persons in this room," she
continued, "counting, of course, Inspector Taylor,
Miss Noraker and myself. We may safely be said
to be outside the case. There are then eleven per-
sons here connected in some degree with the trag-
edy. It is in this list of eleven that I have searched
for the murderer. I am happy to tell you that my
search has been successful!"
Senator Dufneld was the first to speak. "You
mean to say, Miss Mack, that the murderer is in
this room at the present time?"
"Correct."
"Then you accuse one of this group —"
"Of dealing the blow which killed your secre-
tary, and, later, of plundering your safe."
Inspector Taylor moved quietly to a post between
the two windows. Escape from the room was
barred. I darted a stealthy glance around the
circle in an effort to surprise a trace of guilt in the
faces before me, and was startled to find my neigh-
bors engaged in the same furtive occupation. Of
the women of the family, the Senator's wife had
compressed her lips as though, as the mistress of
the house, she felt the need of maintaining her
composure in any situation, Maria was toying with


Cinderella's Slipper 147
her bracelet, while Beth made no effort to conceal
her agitation.
Senator Burroughs was studying the pattern of
the carpet with a face as inscrutable as a mask.
Fletcher Duffield was sitting back in his chair, his
hands in his pockets. His father was leaning
against the locked door, his eyes flashing from
face to face. With the exception of Dorrence, the
valet, and Perkins, the butler, who I do not think
would have been stirred out of their stolidness had
the ceiling fallen, the servants were in an utter
panic. Two of the maids were plainly bordering
on hysterics.
Such was the group that faced Madelyn in the
Duffield library. One of the number was a mur-
derer, whom the next ten minutes were to brand
as such. Which was it? Instinctively my eyes
turned again toward the three women of the Duf-
field family, as Madelyn walked across to a por-
tiere which screened a corner of the apartment.
Jerking it aside, she showed, suspended from a
hook in the ceiling, a quarter of fresh veal.
On an adjoining stand was a long, thin-bladed
knife, which might have been a dagger, ground to
a razor-edge. Madelyn held it before her as she
turned to us.
"This is the weapon which killed Mr. Rennick."
I fancied I heard a gasp as she spoke. Although


150 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Otherwise, the stratagem of wearing a woman's
slippers and leaving one of them near the scene of
the crime to divert suspicion from himself, would
never have occurred to him!"
Again I thought I heard a gasp behind me, but
its owner escaped me a second time.
"There was a third marked feature among the
physical characteristics of the murderer. He was
near-sighted — so much so that it was necessary
for him to wear glasses of the kind known tech-
nically as a 'double lens.' Unfortunately for the
assassin, when his victim fell, the latter caught the
glasses in his hand and they were broken under
his body. The murderer may have been thrown
into a panic, and feared to take the time to recover
his spectacles; but it was a fatal blunder. Fortune,
however, might have helped him even then in spite
of this fact, for those who found the body fell
into the natural error of considering the glasses
to be the property of the murdered man. Had it
not been for two minor details, this impression
might never have been contradicted."
Madelyn held up a packet of newspaper illustra-
tions. Several of them I recognized as the pic-
tures of the murdered secretary that she had shown
me at the " Roanoke." The others were also photo-
graphs of the same man.
"If Mr. Rennick hadn't been fond of having his


Cinderella's Slipper 151
picture taken, the fact that he never wore glasses
on the street might not have been noticed. None
of his pictures, not even the snap-shots, showed a
man in spectacles. It is true that he did possess
a pair, and it is here where those who discovered
the crime went astray. But they were for reading
purposes only, the kind termed a .125 lens, while
those of his assailant were a .210 lens. To clinch
the matter, I later found Mr. Rennick's own spec-
tacles in his room where he had left them the
evening before."
Madelyn held up the red leather case she had
found on the mantel-piece, and tapped it musingly
as she gave a slight nod to Inspector Taylor.
"We have now the following description of the
murderer — a slenderly built man, with an unusual
wrist, possibly an athlete at one time, who pos-
sesses a foot capable of squeezing into a woman's
shoe, and who is handicapped by near-sightedness.
Is there an individual in this room to whom this
description applies?"
There was a new glitter in Madelyn's eyes as she
continued.
"Through the co-operation of Inspector Taylor,
I am enabled to answer this question. Mr. Taylor
has traced the glasses of the assassin to the optician
who gave the prescription for them. I am not sur-
prised to find that the owner of the spectacles tallies


152 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
with the owner of these other interesting arti-
cles."
With the words, she whisked from the stand at
her elbow, the long, narrow-bladed dagger, and a
pair of soiled, black suede slippers.
There was a suggestion of grotesque unreality
about it all. It was much as though I had been
viewing the denouement of a play from the snug
vantage point of an orchestra seat, waiting for the
lights to flare up and the curtain to ring down. A
shriek ran through my ears, jarring me back to the
realization that I was not a spectator, but a part,
of the play.
A figure darted toward the window. It was
John Dorrence, the valet.
The next instant Inspector Taylor threw him-
self on the fleeing man's shoulders, and the two
went to the floor.
"Can you manage him?" Madelyn called.
"Unless he prefers cold steel through his body
to cold steel about his wrists," was the rejoinder.
"I think you may dismiss the other servants,
Senator," Madelyn said. "I wish, however, that
the family would remain a few moments."
As the door closed again, she continued, "I
promised you also, Senator, the return of your
stolen property. I have the honor to make that
promise good."


Cinderella's Slipper
153
From her stand, which was rapidly assuming
the proportions of a conjurer's table, she produced
a round, brown paper parcel.
"Before I unwrap this, have I your permission
to explain its contents?"
"As you will, Miss Mack."
"Perhaps the most puzzling feature of the
tragedy is the motive. It is this parcel which sup-
plies us with the answer.
"Your secretary, Mr. Duffield, was an excep-
tional young man. Not only did he repeatedly
resist bribery such as comes to few men, but he
gave his life for his trust.
"At any time since this parcel came into his
possession, he could have sold it for a fortune.
Because he refused to sell it, he was murdered for
it. Perhaps every reader of the newspapers is
more or less familiar with Senator Duffield's inves-
tigations of the ravages of a certain great Trust.
A few days ago, the Senator came into possession
of evidence against the combine of such a drastic
nature that he realized it would mean nothing less
than the annihilation of the monopoly, imprison-
ment for the chief officers, and a business
sensation such as this country has seldom
known.
"Once the officers of the Trust knew of his evi-
dence, however, they would be fore-armed in such


Cinderella's Slipper 155
Rennick, and the second of Cinderella's slippers.
The pair was stolen some days ago from the room
of Miss Beth Duffield."
The swirl of the day was finally over. Dorrence
had been led to his cell; the coroner's jury had re-
turned its verdict; and all that was mortal of Ray-
mond Rennick had been laid in its last resting
place.
Madelyn and I had settled ourselves in the
homeward bound Pullman as it rumbled out of
the Boston station in the early dusk.
"There are two questions I want to ask," I said
reflectively.
Madelyn looked up from her newspaper with a
yawn.
"Why did John Dorrence bring you back a blank
sheet of paper when you dispatched him on your
errand?"
"As a matter of fact, there was nothing else for
him to bring back. Mr. Taylor kept him at police
headquarters long enough to give me time to carry
my search through his room. The message was
a blind."
"And what was the quarrel that the servant
girl, Anna, heard in the Duffield library?"
"It wasn't a quarrel, my dear girl. It was the
Senator preparing the speech with which he in-


156 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
tended to launch his evidence against the Trust.
The Senator is in the habit of dictating his speeches
to a phonograph. Some of them, I am afraid, are
rather fiery."


IV
THE BULLET FROM NOWHERE
I
Louder and louder, as though the musician had
abandoned himself to the wild spirit of his crashing
climax, the pealing strains of the "storm scene"
from " William Tell" rolled out from the keys of
the mahogany piano, through the closed doors of
Homer Hendricks' music-room, and down the stairs
to the waiting group below.
The slender, white fingers of the musician quiv-
ered with feverish energy. Into his thin, pale face,
white with the pallor of midnight studies, crept two
dull spots of hectic color. His eyes glistened with
the gleam of the inspired artist, who behind the
printed music sees the soul of the composer.
Save only for his short, pompadoured red hair,
bristling above his forehead like a stiff, wiry brush,
and his chin, too square and stubborn for a dreamer,
Homer Hendricks, who made the law his profession
and music his recreation, presented all of the char-
acteristics of the picturesque genius.
157


158 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
The group in the library had crowded close to
the hall door, as though fearing to miss a note in
the rolling climax from the piano above. Montague
Weston, tossing his neglected cigarette aside, was
the first to break the spell.
"He's a wonder!" he breathed.
The girl in white at his elbow glanced toward
him with swift enthusiasm.
"Doubly so! To think that a man who can make
music like that is also rated as the leading corpora-
tion lawyer in the State!"
Weston shrugged. "Yes, he calls his piano only
his plaything."
The girl lowered her voice. "Is it true — you
know this is my first visit here — that he is as
eccentric as we read in those sensational newspaper
articles?"
A slow smile broke over Weston's face. "That
depends on your idea of eccentricity, Miss Morri-
son. Some persons, for instance, might deem his
present performance the height of oddity. Hen-
dricks never plays except when he is alone in his
own music-room with the door closed!"
"Really!" The girl's eyes were wide with her
amazement.
"And again " — Weston was evidently enjoying
the other's naive curiosity — "the fact that Mr.
Hendricks has condescended to join our theater


The Bullet from Nowhere 159
party to-night suggests another of his peculiarities.
I believe this is the first evening in ten years that
he has left his piano before midnight! But then
this is a special occasion."
"Hilda Wentworth's birthday?" the girl inter-
jected.
Weston nodded.
"All of the affection of a lonely bachelor without
a domestic circle of his own is bound up in Homer
Hendricks' love for his niece. And I happen to
know, Miss Morrison, how very much alone such
a man can be!"
At the wistful note in Weston's voice, the viva-
cious Miss Morrison glanced away quickly.
"I should not think that would apply to your
case!" she said lightly. "If all reports are true,
Monty Weston has won almost as great a reputa-
tion as a heart-breaker as he has as a trust-
breaker!"
"You flatter both my social and my legal abil-
ity!" Weston laughed. He glanced at his watch.
"By Jove, it's after eight! Where are Hilda and
Bob Grayson?"
He turned so suddenly as he put the question that
his companion gazed at him in surprise. The second
of the two women in the group, Muriel Thornton,
smiled shrewdly.
"Hilda went up-stairs a moment ago," she vol-


160 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
unteered. "As for Bob," she paused significantly
as the shadow deepened on Weston's face. "Where
is Bob?" she added artlessly.
The rivalry of Weston and Grayson, the strug-
gling young architect, for the favors of Hilda Went-
worth had toe? long been a matter of gossip for
the point of the question to pass unnoticed.
Wilkins, the fourth member of the group, es-
sayed an eager answer in the pause that followed.
"Bob had a business engagement in his rooms,
I believe, and left directly after dinner. He was
to have been back by eight, though."
Up-stairs, the music still continued. Homer
Hendricks had reached the finale of the overture,
and Rossini's majestic strains were rolling out with
the sweep of a lashing surf.
Weston strolled to the door.
"' William Tell' is nearing the end, I fancy.
Listen!"
The speaker was right. It was the end — but not
the end that either the musician or his audience
were expecting.
Above the crash of the music rang out the sud-
den, muffled report of a revolver!
From the piano came a long, echoing discord,
as though the player's arm had fallen heavily to
the keys.
And then silence — a silence so intense that the


The Bullet from Nowhere 161
low breathing of the group in the library, stricken
suddenly motionless, sounded with strange distinct-
ness!
For a moment the quartet stood staring at one
another, helpless, dumb, under the spell of an over-
whelming bewilderment.
Miss Morrison fell back against the wall, panting
like a frightened deer, her eyes staring up the wind-
ing stairway as though they would pierce the closed
door above and see — what?
Of the two men, Weston was the prompter to
act.
Jerking his companion by the elbow as though
to arouse him to the necessity of the situation, he
sprang out of the doorway, taking the steps to the
second floor two at a bound.
John Wilkins, glancing hesitatingly at the women,
followed more slowly at his shoulder.
From the end of the upper hall came the sound
of running steps as the men reached it. A tall,
slight, fair-haired girl, in a green satin evening
gown, clutched Weston's arm with a wild, ques-
tioning stare.
For the first time Wilkins sensed the spell of
tragedy. In the girl's eyes was a gleam of undis-
guised terror.
"The shot?" she burst out. "It came from —"
Weston nodded shortly, even curtly, as he jerked


162 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
his head toward the door of the music-room, still
closed, and followed the motion with a quick step.
Wilkins reached forward and touched the girl's
shoulder awkwardly.
"Don't you think I had better escort you below,
Miss Wentworth?"
The girl shook off his fingers impatiently.
Weston's hand was on the knob of the music-
room door. He turned it abruptly. A puzzled
frown swept his face, and he turned it again more
violently. The door was locked.
Hilda Wentworth darted to his side, tearing his
hand away almost fiercely and beating the panels
sharply with her knuckles.
"Uncle! Uncle! It is I, Hilda!"
The silence was unbroken.
The girl redoubled her efforts, tearing at the
wood with her fingers and raising her voice almost
to a shriek.
Then of a sudden she stepped back, turned with
a low, gasping wail, and sank into the arms of a
tall, broad-shouldered young man with the build
of an athlete, who sprang up the stairs past Wil-
kins' hesitating figure just in time to catch her.
Weston glanced at the newcomer with a swift
hardening of his lips. "Lend a hand here, Gray-
son!" he jerked out. "We've got to break in this
door!"


The Bullet from Nowhere 163
"In Heaven's name, why?"
"No time for questions, man!" Weston's tones
were curt. "Hendricks is in there. We heard a
shot. We don't —"
"A shot?"
The words might have been a spur. The speaker
lowered the body of the fainting girl to the floor,
and sprang to the door with a vigor that made the
others stare in spite of the tension of the moment.
Poising himself for an instant, he launched his
body toward the oaken panels. There was a sharp
splintering of wood.
Weston muttered a low cry of satisfaction and
joined him in a second assault. The door shivered
on its hinges.
The girl on the floor raised herself on her elbow
and watched the two with a white, strained face.
The men drew back with muscles taut and hurled
themselves a third time toward the barrier.
II
This time the attack was successful. The door
fell inward so abruptly that they were thrown to
their knees.
Before they could rise, a satin-clad figure sprang
past them from the hall and threw itself with a cry


The Bullet from Nowhere 165
at the body on the floor, and suffered him to take
her arm without resistance.
There was a certain suggestion of intimacy in
the action, which brought a sudden scowl to Wes-
ton's features, as he said crisply:
"Of course, Grayson, you will "explain to the
ladies. As for the rest of it, you had better have
them remain until —"
"The police?" Grayson finished inquiringly.
"Shall I telephone?"
Weston hesitated, with a glance at Wilkins. The
latter was still maintaining his position in the door-
way as though fearing to enter.
"The police?" he repeated huskily. His eyes
were riveted on the body of Hendricks as though
held by a magnet. "I — I suppose so. This is
awful, gentlemen!"
The attitude of the three men in the face of the
sudden tragedy was curiously suggestive of their
characters — Weston, with the crisply directing
demeanor of the man accustomed to leadership;
Grayson, frankly bewildered, with his attention
centered on the girl's distress rather than the harsher
features of the situation; Wilkins, passively con-
tent to allow another to direct his actions.
Hilda Wentworth gathered up her skirts and
gently released herself from Grayson's hand.
In her face was a forced calmness, to a close


166 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
observer more expressive of inward suffering than
even her first outburst of grief.
As Grayson made a move to follow her, she
turned with a low sentence. "I would prefer that
you stay here, Bob!"
Her inflection, and the glance which accompan-
ied it, brought another swiftly veiled scowl to Wes-
ton's face. He strode to the end of the room and
did not turn until Wilkins had led Miss Wentworth
to the stairs.
Grayson, in the center of the apartment, had dug
his hands into his trousers-pockets and was watch-
ing him curiously.
"A beastly bad business, Bob!" Weston spoke
nervously, in odd contrast to his former curt tones.
Grayson jerked his head almost imperceptibly
toward the motionless body on the carpet.
"What on earth made him do it?"
"Him do it?" There was an obvious note of
'surprise in Weston's voice. "Heavens, Bob, can't
you see it's not — not that?"
Grayson recoiled as from a blow.
"Not suicide?" His tone raised itself with a
shrill suddenness. "Why, man, it must be! You
don't mean, you can't mean —"
Weston lifted his eyebrows questioningly. "Do
men shoot themselves without a weapon, Bob?"
Grayson sprang abruptly past the other, stooped


168 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
They were all locked, and neither the glass nor the
curtains showed a mark of disturbance.
Weston followed his movements with folded
arms.
"There is still the door, Bob. And remember
that is the only other possible exit." He hesitated.
"If you will take the trouble to raise it from the
floor, you will discover a fact which I learned some
minutes ago. The key was turned from the inside
and not from the outside!"
Grayson glanced at the other for a long moment
in silence; then, stepping across the carpet with the
resolution of a man determined to accept only the
evidence of his own eyes, he raised the shattered
panels until the lock was exposed.
The key, bent by the force of the fall, was still
firmly fixed on the inward side of the door!
Grayson rose from his knees like a man groping
in a brain-whirling maze.
"Sit down, Bob!" Weston pushed across a
chair and forced the other into it. "We've got
to face this thing coolly."
"Coolly!" Grayson's voice rose almost to a
hysterical laugh. "Good Heavens! Are you a
man or a machine? You tell me that Hendricks did
not kill himself —"
"Could not!" Weston corrected in a level
tone.


The Bullet from Nowhere 169
"And now," Grayson burst on unheeding, "you
show me that he was not —"
"Murdered?" Weston completed calmly. "That
is where you are wrong. I have shown you no
such inference!"
Grayson passed his hand wearily over his brow.
"We are not dealing with spirits, man! You
forget that the windows are fastened, the door
locked —"
"I forget nothing!" said Weston coldly.
Grayson kicked back his chair impatiently.
"Then, if Hendricks' murderer has not vanished
into thin air, how —"
"That, my dear boy," said Weston softly, "is
a question which these gentlemen may be able to
answer for us!"
As he spoke, he motioned toward the hall.
Wilkins had appeared at the head of the stairs
with two newcomers, both of whom were obviously
policemen, although only one was in uniform.
Wilkins paused awkwardly at the door, with his
hand on the shoulder of the man in civilian clothes.
"Lieutenant Perry, of headquarters," he an-
nounced formally, "Mr. Weston and Mr. Gray-
son!"
Weston extended his hand with a subtle sugges-
tion of deference which brought a gratified flush to
the officer's face.


170 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
He was a short, stocky, round-headed man with
all of the evidences of the stubborn police bulldog,
although the suggestion of any pronounced mental
ability was lacking.
His eyes swept the body of the dead man and
the details of the room with professional stoicism.
Motioning to his companion, he knelt over Hen-
dricks' stiffening form.
"Bullet entered at the left ear," he muttered.
"Death probably instantaneous!" He straight-
ened with the conventional police frown. "Where's
the weapon, gentlemen?"
Grayson was silent, content that Weston should
act as spokesman. The latter flung out his hands.
"We thought you could find it for us!" he an-
swered shortly.
"Then you have not found it?" There was a
flash of suspicion in the lieutenant's voice.
"We have not!"
The lieutenant jotted down a scrawling line in
his note-book.
"Are we to believe this murder, then?" he
rasped.
"I should prefer that you draw your own con-
clusions, Lieutenant!"
For an instant the officer's pencil was poised in
the air, then he closed his note-book with a jerk,
thrust his pencil into his pocket, and walked quickly


The Bullet from Nowhere 171
to the closed windows, and then to the door. A
growing coldness was apparent in every movement.
"Help me here, Burke!" he snapped to his sub-
ordinate. "Stand back, gentlemen!" he continued
with almost a growl as Weston made a motion as
though to assist.
The next moment the broken door was raised
slowly back against the wall. The lieutenant's eyes
fell on the lock with the twisted key. With a grim-
ness he did not attempt to conceal, he whirled on
the two men behind him.
"What kind of a yarn are you trying to give
me?" His hand pointed first to the locked door
and then to the fastened windows. "Do you think
I was born yesterday? Come, gents, out with the
truth!"
"The truth?" said Weston curtly.
The lieutenant bristled. "Just so — and the
sooner you let me have it the better for all parties
concerned! First you tell me there is no weapon,
and would have me infer that Mr. Hendricks did
not kill himself. Then I find that the room is locked
as tight as a drum and there is no possible way for
any one else to have fired the shot — and escape.
Do you think I am blind? You are either covering
up the fact of suicide, or trying to shield the mur-
derer!"
Lieutenant Perry paused, quite out of breath,


172 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
with his face very red and his right hand clenched
with the violence of his emotions.
The turn of affairs was so abrupt and unexpected
that Grayson stood speechless. Weston had made
an angry step forward, with his eyes flashing, when
a low exclamation from the policeman, Burke, broke
the tension.
In his right hand he was holding out a woman's
white kid glove, with its thumb stained with a
ragged splotch of still fresh blood.
"Found it down by the wall, sir! It was covered
up by the door!"
Lieutenant Perry snatched the glove from the
other's hand and held it toward the light. On the
wrist was a delicately embroidered monogram in
white silk.
Grayson with difficulty smothered a sharp cry.
Then his eyes sought Weston's face, grown sud-
denly cold and hard. Both men had recognized
the object on the instant. The glove was the prop-
erty of Hilda Wentworth!
"H. W." The lieutenant deciphered the letters
slowly. "And pray, gentlemen," he said mock-
ingly, nodding toward Weston with a grin of exul-
tation, "what person do these interesting initials
fit?"
"I think I can answer that question, sir!"
The words came in a clear, cold tone from the


The Bullet from Nowhere 173
doorway, and Hilda Wentworth, pressing her way
past Wilkins' resisting arm, stepped into the room.
"The glove is mine, officer!"
She held out her hand, but the lieutenant, with a
low laugh that brought the blood flaming to the
girl's face, thrust the glove into his pocket.
His eyes flashed from Weston to Grayson sig-
nificantly.
"I fancy, gentlemen, I have found the explana-
tion of your cock and bull story! " he said slowly.
Grayson sprang forward with a growl.
"You will take those words back or — or —"
Weston caught his shoulder sternly. "Gently,
Bob! You are only making a bad matter worse!"
The lieutenant turned to his man, Burke, ignoring
Grayson's threatening attitude. "Clear the room
and telephone the coroner! As for you, Miss Went-
worth, I am sorry, but —"
"What? " asked the girl steadily. Reversing the
situation of a few moments before, she seemed the
calmest member of the group.
"I am compelled to ask you not to leave the
house until I give you permission!" the officer fin-
ished brusquely.
A sudden pallor swept Hilda Wentworth's face
and for an instant her eyes closed; but she fought
back the weakness resolutely. With a curt nod she
stepped to the door.


174 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"I am at your service!" she said simply.
Wilkins offered her his arm, and Weston fol-
lowed the two without a backward glance. Gray-
son hesitated, still scowling at the lieutenant's
stocky figure. The officer was glaring from the
face of the dead man to the polished surface of the
piano, with his nerves plainly on a feather edge.
Grayson shrugged, and had made a step toward
the hall when his gaze was arrested almost mechan-
ically by a glitter of green on the red carpet, near
the wall at his right. He had taken a second step
when a curious impulse — was it the factor of
chance? — caused him to turn swiftly. Lieutenant
Perry was bending over the body of Homer Hen-
dricks with his face for the moment averted. Gray-
son's hand felt hurriedly over the carpet and closed
about a small greenish object at his feet. Straight-
ening, he walked rapidly through the doorway.
In the hall, he glanced at the object in his hand.
It was a green jade ball, whose diameter was per-
haps that of a quarter. Dropping it into his pocket,
the young man ran down the stairs.
Ill
"I have earned a vacation, Nora, and I intend
to take it."
Madelyn Mack elevated her arms in a luxurious
yawn, as she pushed aside the traveling-bag at her


The Bullet from Nowhere 175
feet. The eight o'clock train had just brought her
back from Denver, and six weeks in the tortuous
windings of the Ramsen bullion case. I had re-
ceived her telegram from Buffalo just in time to
meet her at the Grand Central station, and we had
driven at once to her Fifth Avenue office. As I
noted the tired lines under her eyes, and the droop
of her shoulders, I could appreciate something of
the strain under which she had been laboring. I
nodded slowly.
"Yes, you need a vacation," I agreed.
Madelyn impatiently pushed aside a stack of un-
opened letters. "And I intend to take it!" she
repeated almost belligerently. "Business or no
business!"
"With a ten thousand dollar fee for six weeks'
work," I laughed somewhat enviously, "you should
worry!"
Madelyn tossed her accumulated correspondence
recklessly into a corner of her desk, and drew down
its roll top with a bang.
"I feel like dissipating to-night, Nora. Are you
up to a cabaret? A place with noise enough to
drown out every echo of work!"
At her elbow the telephone shrilled suddenly.
Mechanically Madelyn took down the receiver.
Almost with the first sentence over the wire, I could
see her features contract.


176 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Yes, Mr. Grayson, this is Miss Mack talking.
What is that?" In a moment she clapped her hand
over the transmitter, and turned a wry face to me.
"Was I foolish enough to talk about a rest, Nora?
Homer Hendricks has just been shot — murder or
suicide!"
Her next sentence was directed at the telephone.
"Never mind what Lieutenant Perry says, Mr.
Grayson! I'll be over at once. Yes, I said at
once!"
She hung up the receiver, and sprang to her feet.
"Come on, Nora! I'll give you the details on
the way!" Her weariness had vanished as though
it had never existed.
She slammed the door of the office, leaving her
bag where she had tossed it, and jabbed the bell
for the elevator. Not until we were in her car,
that had been waiting at the curb, and speeding up
the Avenue, did she speak again.
"You know of Hendricks, the lawyer, of course,
and his niece, Hilda Wentworth —"
"You don't mean to say that he has been killed,
and the girl is suspected —"
Madelyn shrugged. "The police seem to think
so!"
She drew over to her end of the seat, and sub-
sided into an abstracted silence, as we swerved
across toward the Drive. I knew that it was hope-


The Bullet from Nowhere 177
less to expect her to volunteer further information,
and, indeed, doubted if she possessed it.
When the car whirled up to our destination Mad-
elyn was out on the walk before the last revolution
of the wheels had ceased.
We were not more than half-way up the steps of
the Hendricks residence when the door flew open,
and a young man, who had evidently been stationed
in the hall awaiting our arrival, sprang forward to
meet us.
Madelyn smiled as she caught his impulsively
extended hand.
"Any new developments, Mr. Grayson?"
"None, except that Coroner Smedley is here.
He is up-stairs now with the police."
Madelyn led us to the farther end of the veranda.
"Before we go in, it will be just as well if you
give me a brief summary of what has happened."
Grayson walked back and forth, his hands
clenched at his sides, talking rapidly. Madelyn
heard him in silence, the darkness concealing her
expression.
"Is that all?" she queried at length. For a
moment she stood peering out over the veranda
railing. "Miss Wentworth lived with her uncle,
I take it?"
"Yes."
"And inherits his property?"


178 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Grayson growled an affirmative.
"Suppose I change my angle, and ask if you are
prepared to explain your own whereabouts at the
time of the crime?"
"I have done so!"
Madelyn's eyes hardened.
"We won't mince matters, Mr. Grayson. From
the police standpoint, Miss Wentworth and your-
self, as her probably favored suitor, are the two
persons most likely to profit by Mr. Hendricks'
death. It may be awkward, perhaps exceedingly
awkward, that you were the only two in the
house not accounted for at the moment of the
shot!"
"I have told you the truth!" Grayson dug his
hands into his pockets sullenly.
Madelyn turned abruptly toward the door, and
then paused. "Was Mr. Hendricks aware of your
sentiments toward his niece?"
Grayson hesitated. "Certainly."
"And was not enthusiastic on the subject?"
"Well, perhaps not — er — enthusiastic." Gray-
son's stammer was obvious. "To be quite frank,
he preferred —"
"Yes?"
"Monty Weston; but, of course —"
"I think that is enough," said Madelyn quietly.
"Will you kindly lead the way in?"


The Bullet from Nowhere 179
Grayson's hand, fumbling in his pockets, was
suddenly withdrawn.
"By the way, here is something I almost forgot.
I picked it up on the floor of Hendricks' room as
we were leaving."
He extended the curious green jade ball he had
found in the music-room.
Madelyn's eyes narrowed. Then she said cas-
ually, "Quite an interesting little ornament," and
dropped it into her bag.
The hall of the Hendricks house was empty.
The members of the tragically disrupted theatre
party had retreated to the library, and were en-
deavoring nervously to maintain the semblance of
a conversation. The police were still busy up-
stairs.
"You had better join your friends," said Mad-
elyn to Grayson. "We will be down presently."
And she ran lightly up the broad stairway, as I
followed.
The music-room of Homer Hendricks presented
a scene of confusion shattering all the precedents
of its peaceful history, and almost sufficient, one
was tempted to think, to call back its late master
to resent the intrusion on his cherished sanc-
tum.
The body of Mr. Hendricks was still stretched
on the carpet where it had fallen. It, and the mass-


180 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
ive piano, were the only objects in the room that
had been left unchanged.
Madelyn gave a shrug of disgust as we paused
in the doorway and surveyed the scene of ravage.
"Are you expecting to find gold pieces concealed
in the furniture, gentlemen?"
Lieutenant Perry whirled sharply. "May I in-
quire, Miss Mack, since when have you been in
charge of this case?"
The officer essayed a wink toward his compan-
ions, who had been increased by two plain-clothes-
men and the coroner since Grayson's telephone call.
Madelyn smiled. "Your powers of humor, Lieu-
tenant, are exceeded only by your powers of deduc-
tion!"
Her glance wandered over the torn-up room,
with its chairs turned upside down, its rugs rolled
up from the floor, and even its few objects of bric-
a-brac removed from their places, and deposited in
a corner. The search for the missing weapon that
had done Homer Hendricks to death had been
thorough — if nothing else.
Madelyn's eyes rested for a second time on the
piano of the dead man. The instrument seemed
to exert a peculiar fascination for her. With her
glance fixed on the keyboard, which no one had
seen fit to close, she bowed to the grinning lieu-
tenant.


The Bullet from Nowhere 181
"Will I be trespassing if I take a glance
around?"
"Oh, help yourself! I reckon we have found
about all there is to find!"
"Have you?" said Madelyn lightly.
The police officer righted a chair and sat down
heavily on its cushioned seat, watching Madelyn's
lithe figure as she walked across to Hendricks' body.
As a matter of fact when she dropped to her knees,
and held a pocket magnifying lens close to the
white, rigid face of the dead man, she had the un-
reserved attention of every occupant of the room.
The lieutenant, realizing the fact, shrugged his
shoulders. "Miss Sherlock Holmes at work!" he
said in a tone loud enough to reach Madelyn's
ears.
"I beg your pardon," said Madelyn, without
shifting the position of her lens, "have you any
information as to when Mr. Hendricks visited this
room last, that is, previous to this evening?"
Lieutenant Perry hesitated.
"Why, er —"
"He had not been here for ten days, Miss Mack,"
spoke up one of his subordinates, and then contin-
uing, before he became aware of the scowl of his
superior, "He and his niece were out of town on
a visit, and only arrived home to-day."
"Thank you," said Madelyn, rising, and leaning


The Bullet from Nowhere 183
"Then, if I might make a suggestion, I would
return it to the young lady."
"Oh, you would, would you?" exploded the lieu-
tenant. "What do you think of that, men? That
is the richest joke I have heard for a month!"
Madelyn sauntered to the door.
"I may have the pleasure of seeing you below,
Lieutenant," she said as she joined me.
The moment she had disappeared from the view
of the men in the music-room her assumption of
careless indifference vanished. Her lips closed in
a tense line, as she paused at the head of the stairs.
"If those imbeciles had only left that room as
it was!" Her hands were clenched as though
every nerve was a-quiver. "Nora, I have got to
have ten minutes alone in there! I must manage
it!" She turned abruptly. "Will you kindly give
Lieutenant Perry Miss Wentworth's compliments,
and tell him she desires an immediate interview
with him and the coroner in the library?"
"But," I stammered, "she doesn't!"
Madelyn glared, and then continued as though I
had not interrupted her. "They will probably take
two of the policemen down-stairs with them. That
will leave only one behind. If you can inveigle
him outside, Nora, the obligation won't be forgot-
ten!"
"You speak as though I was a siren!" I snapped.


184 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Promise him you will publish his picture in
The Bugle in the morning," said Madelyn impa-
tiently.
She opened the nearest door, and disappeared
behind it, as I returned to the music-room in my
role of assumed messenger. I managed to repeat
Madelyn's instructions without so much as a quiver
at Lieutenant Perry's sudden scowl. With a nod
to the coroner, he brushed past me at once.
Madelyn's calculation proved uncannily correct.
The two plain-clothesmen followed Coroner Smed-
ley silently down the stairs in the lieutenant's wake.
Only a red-faced roundsman was left twirling his
stick disconsolately in the littered room.
"Good evening! " I smiled.
He glanced up with obvious welcome at the pros-
pect of companionship.
I plunged directly to the point. "This is a big
case, Mr. Dennis," I began, noting with relief that
he was a professional acquaintance of mine. "It
ought to mean something to you, eh?"
He grunted non-committally.
"I say, have you a good picture of yourself at
home?"
Mr. Dennis looked interested. -
"That is, one which would be good enough for
publication in The Bugle?"
Mr. Dennis looked more interested.



"I SAW MADELYN STEP QUIETLY INTO THE ROOM WE HAD
VACATED."





The Bullet from Nowhere 185
"Because if you have," I continued enticingly,
"and will do me a favor, I will see that it is given
a good position in to-morrow's story."
"What is the favor?"
"Oh, merely that you let me talk to you for
ten minutes in the hall! A friend of mine wants
a chance to look over this room without disturb-
ance."
"You mean Miss Mack?" asked Dennis, sus-
piciously.
I smiled. "That picture of yours would look
mighty nice, with a quarter of a column write-up
under it. I expect Mrs. Dennis would be so tickled
that she would appreciate a present from me of
twenty-five copies of the paper to send to her
friends!"
Dennis walked abruptly into the hall. "Come
on!" he snapped.
As we reached the end of the corridor, I saw
Madelyn step quietly into the room we had va-
cated.
I wondered curiously if Hilda Wentworth
would rise to the occasion sufficiently to hold the
attention of the suspicious Mr. Perry, and specu-
lated grimly what would be the result if the lieu-
tenant should return unexpectedly to the upper
floor. My fears, however, proved unfounded.
Before the ten minutes were over, Madelyn reap-


186 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
peared, beckoned to me pleasantly, and slipped a
crumpled bill into Dennis' hand as she passed
him.
"I'll look for that picture at the office, Mr.
Dennis," I said cordially. And then I turned anx-
iously to Madelyn. "Did you find anything?"
"Is it fate, or Providence, or just naturally
Devil's luck that traps the transgressor?" returned
Madelyn irrelevantly. She was tapping a slender
blue envelope. "Exhibits A and B in the case of
Homer Hendricks," she continued. "A small jade
ball, and a spoonful of tobacco ashes. They sound
commonplace enough, don't they?" And she
thoughtfully descended the stairs.
At the door of the library she faced the group
inside with a slight bow. The hum of conversation
ceased. From an adjoining alcove, Miss Went-
worth, nervously facing a battery of questions from
Lieutenant Perry and the coroner, noted our ar-
rival with an expression of hastily concealed relief.
It was evident that the task of keeping the gentle-
men of the law occupied had taxed the girl's nerves
to the utmost.
Grayson had taken a position as near the alcove
as he could venture, and was glowering at her in-
quisitors, apparently not caring whether they saw
his scowls or not.
"I will be obliged for a few moments' conversa-


The Bullet from Nowhere 187
tion, gentlemen!" said Madelyn pleasantly. "A
very few moments, I assure you. I will talk to Mr.
Wilkins first, if I may."
John Wilkins rose from his chair, as I found a
vacant seat in the library, and joined Madelyn in
the hall. In less than two minutes he returned,
with his face wearing an expression of almost
laughable bewilderment.
"Evidently the famous Miss Mack does not be-
lieve in lengthy cross-examinations," commented
Miss Morrison as he resumed his chair.
"She asked me just four questions," said Wil-
kins dubiously, "and only two of them had to do
with the affair up-stairs. She cut me short when I
started the account of our finding the body."
Lieutenant Perry, as though to show his disdain,
deepened the rasp in his examination of Miss Went-
worth as he saw Weston take Wilkins' place in the
hall.
Weston glanced at his watch as he returned. "It
took me just one minute more than you to pass
through the ordeal, old man," he confided to Wil-
kins, with something like a grin.
Lieutenant Perry stepped out of the alcove with
a gesture of finality.
"Have you a version of the case to give to The
Bugle, Lieutenant?" I asked, as a ring at the door-
bell and a shuffling of feet on the veranda an-


188 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
nounced the belated arrival of other members of
the newspaper fraternity.
The lieutenant darted a sullen glance in the di-
rection of Hilda Wentworth. "You may say for
me," he said acidly, "that, whether suicide or
murder, a certain near relative of the dead man is
holding back the truth, and, and —" his eyes trav-
eled slowly around the room, " the police expect to
find measures very shortly to make that person
speak!"
A low cry broke from Hilda Wentworth.
Darting across the room, she caught the lieuten-
ant's arm imploringly.
"Oh, please, sir, don't — don't —"
"I hardly think you need alarm yourself, Miss
Wentworth!"
Madelyn was smiling quietly from the doorway.
"I trust, Miss Noraker," she continued, addressing
me, "that The Bugle will do Miss Wentworth the
justice, and myself the favor, of announcing that I
am prepared to prove that no relative of Mr. Hen-
dricks had any connection with his death, or pos-
sesses any knowledge of how it was brought about!
And furthermore, for Lieutenant Perry's peace of
mind, you may add that it is a case not of suicide —
but of murder!"
The lieutenant's face went a sudden, pasty yel-
low. Madelyn slowly drew on her gloves.


The Bullet from Nowhere 189
"By the way, Lieutenant, if you and the coroner
have time to meet me here at ten o'clock to-
morrow morning, I will take pleasure in corrobo-
rating my statements!"
She bowed to the other occupants of the room.
"I will also include in that invitation Miss Went-
worth and the gentlemen who were present at the
time of the murder."
She stepped back, and, adroitly skirting the group
of newly arrived newspaper men, ran lightly across
the pavement to her car.
At the steps of the motor I caught her. "Made-
lyn, just one question, please! How in the name
of Heaven could the murderer shoot, and then es-
cape through a locked door?"
Madelyn drew down her veil wearily.
"He didn't shoot! " she said shortly.
IV
Hilda Wentworth, haggard-faced after a fe-
verishly tossing night, was toying with her break-
fast grapefruit and tea, which the motherly house-
keeper had insisted on bringing to her room, when
the bell of the telephone tinkled sharply.
Miss Wentworth took down the receiver wear-
ily; but, at the sound of the voice at the other end
of the wire, she brightened instantly.


190 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Good morning! This is Miss Mack. I am not
going to ask you if you had a restful night."
"Restful night!" the girl cried hysterically.
"Two of those odious policemen have been patrol-
ling the house constantly, and watching my room as
though I would steal away with the family spoons
if I had a ghost of a chance!"
Miss Mack's exclamation was only partly audible,
but the girl smiled wanly.
"I shall be detained perhaps a half an hour
longer than I expected this morning, Miss Went-
worth. If you will explain this to Lieutenant
Perry, and the other gentlemen, I will appreciate
it."
Miss Mack hung up the receiver abruptly. It
was obvious that she was in a hurry. But there
was an inflection in her tones that brought a new
color to Hilda Wentworth's face, and she was sur-
prised to find herself return to her breakfast with
almost a relish.
For a moment, after she had finished the call,
Madelyn sat with a pen poised thoughtfully over
a pad of writing paper. Then, tossing the pen
aside, she turned to the telephone again.
"Hello! Bugle office?" she snapped, as a be-
lated click answered her call. "Oh, is that you,
Nora? Can you give me a few moments? Good!
I wish you would call at the office of Ambrose


The Bullet from Nowhere 191
Murray, the president of the Third National Bank,
and tell him that you were sent by Miss Mack. He
may, or may not, have certain information to give
you. You will deliver his message to me at the
Hendricks home at a quarter after ten. Wait for
me outside. Do you understand — outside?"
As the tall, old-fashioned clock in the library of
the late Homer Hendricks rang out the stroke of
half past ten, it gazed down on a group of six per-
sons, whose attitudes presented an interesting study
in contrasting emotions.
In the corner nearest the door stood Lieutenant
Perry and Coroner Smedley. The lieutenant had
refused the offer of a chair, and the coroner, who
worshipped at the Perry shrine for political rea-
sons, essayed to copy the other's majesty of de-
meanor, his smile of supreme boredom, and even his
very attitude.
Grayson had drawn Hilda Wentworth's chair
thoughtfully into the shadow of a huge palm, and
was bending over her in an effort to buoy her
spirits, which was apparently so successful that
Weston, seated with Wilkins on the opposite side
of the room, scowled savagely.
"Ten thirty!" snapped Mr. Perry, ostentatiously
consulting the gold repeater, which the members of
the detective department had presented to him on


192 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
the occasion of his silver wedding anniversary. "I
will give Miss Mack just five minutes more. I have
work to do!"
"The five minutes will hot be necessary, Lieu-
tenant," said a quiet voice from the hall, as Made-
lyn and I paused in the doorway.
"Quite dramatic!" came from Mr. Perry.
Madelyn's eyes swept the room. Her graceful
serenity had disappeared in a sudden tenseness.
"You will please follow me up-stairs," she said,
moving back.
"Up-stairs?" growled Mr. Perry.
Madelyn turned to the stairway without answer.
Miss Wentworth and Grayson were the first to
comply, and the lieutenant, observing that the
others were joining them, brought up a sullen rear,
with the coroner endeavoring to copy his appear-
ance of contempt.
Madelyn paused at the door of the music-room,
and waited silently for us to enter. The shattered
door had been temporarily repaired, and placed on
a new set of hinges. Madelyn closed it, and stepped
to the center of the room. She stood for a moment,
staring abstractedly up at a brightly colored Tur-
ner landscape. A silence crept through the apart-
ment, so pregnant that even Lieutenant Perry
squared his shoulders.
"I am going to tell you the story of a tragedy,"


The Bullet from Nowhere 193
began Madelyn, with her eyes still fixed on the land-
scape as though studying its bold coloring.
"In all of my peculiar experience I have never
met with a crime so artistically conceived and so
diabolically carried out. From a personal stand-
point, I may even say that I owe the author my
thanks for one of the most interesting problems
which it has been my fortune to confront. In
these days of bungled crime, it is a relief to cross
wits with one who has really raised murder to a
fine art!"
Her left hand mechanically, almost uncon-
sciously, dropped a small round object into the
palm of her right hand. It was a green jade
ball. From somewhere in the room came a sud-
den low sound like the hiss of a trampled
snake.
Madelyn's eyes dropped to the ball almost ca-
ressingly. "I am now about to re-enact the drama
of Mr. Homer Hendricks' murder. I hardly think
it will be necessary to caution silence until I am
quite through!"
She stepped to the piano at the other end of the
room, twirled the music stool a moment, and, care-
fully inspecting its height like a musician critical
of trifles, took her seat at the keyboard.
Her hands ran lightly over the keys with the
touch of the born music-lover. Then, without pre-


194 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
amble, she broke into the storm scene from "Will-
iam Tell."
Miss Wentworth was gazing at Grayson with a
sort of dumb wonder. The young man pressed her
arm gently.
The expression of superior boredom had entirely
left Lieutenant Perry's ruddy features.
Madelyn's fingers seemed fairly to race over the
keys. The thundering music of Rossini rolled
through the apartment. Madelyn was reaching the
climax in that superb musical painting of the war
of the elements.
Again that low sibilant sound like a serpent's hiss
sounded from somewhere in the taut-nerved audi-
ence, to be drowned by the sharp, clear-cut report
of a revolver!
Madelyn's fingers wavered, her elbow fell with
a sharp discord on the keys, and she staggered back
from the stool. In the front of the piano, at a point
almost directly opposite her left temple, a small
hole, perhaps the diameter of a quarter, had opened
in the elaborate carving, and from it curled a thin
spiral of blue smoke!
With a jagged splotch of powder extending from
her temple to her cheek, Madelyn sprang to her
feet. From the rear of the room, a man, crouching
forward in his chair, darted toward the door. Lieu-
tenant Perry's hand flashed from his pocket with


The Bullet from Nowhere 195
the instinct of the veteran policeman. At the end
of his outflung arm frowned the blue muzzle of a
revolver.
"You may arrest Mr. Montague Weston for the
murder of Homer Hendricks!" came the quiet
voice of Madelyn.
The words, instead of a spur, acted with much
the effect of a sledge-hammer on the agitated figure
of Weston. For an instant he gazed wildly about
the room like a man confronted with a ghastly
specter. The steady coolness of purpose, that had
marked his brilliant rise at the bar, had shriveled in
the heart-stabbing moments of Madelyn's demon-
stration. As Lieutenant Perry stretched a hand
toward him, he fell in a sobbing heap at the officer's
feet.
Madelyn jerked her head significantly from the
white, drawn face of Hilda Wentworth to Weston's
moaning form. The lieutenant fastened his hand
on the man's collar and dragged him to his feet as
the coroner flung open the door.
The suddenness of it all had gripped us as by a
magnet. The creaking of a chair sounded in the
tension with a sharpness that was almost painful.
The denouement had occurred with the swiftness of
a film from a moving picture machine — and was
blotted out as swiftly as the lieutenant closed the
door behind his cowering prisoner.


196 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Grayson breathed a long, deep sigh.
"How, how in thunder, Miss Mack, did —"
Madelyn had resumed her toying with the green
jade ball. With a gesture almost like that of a
schoolmistress addressing a dense student, she
stepped across to the piano, and inserted the ball in
the small, round hole in the heavy carving, through
which had floated the blue curl of smoke. It ex-
actly matched six other balls of green jade, set into
the panels in a fantastic ornamentation.
"Before this instrument is used again," said
Madelyn, as she turned, "I would recommend a
thorough overhauling. Just behind the opening
which I have filled is the muzzle of a revolver —
loaded with a blank cartridge for this morning's
purpose, but which has not always been so harmless.
"From its trigger, you will find — as I assured
myself last night — a wire spring connecting with
one of the treble D flats on the keyboard. When
Mr. Hendricks struck it in the overture of 'Will-
iam Tell,' and again when I repeated his action
just now, the pressure of the key released the trig-
ger of the weapon, and it was automatically ex-
ploded.
"When Weston attached the apparatus — your
ten days' absence from the house, Miss Wentworth,
giving him ample time — he used a paper substi-
tute for the jade ball he had removed, and probably


198 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
will have to supply the details of his betrayal of the
trust of Homer Hendricks. It was not until Miss
Noraker brought me, just before I entered the
house this morning, certain confidential information
as to the financial condition of Weston, that I was
absolutely certain of this link in my chain of evi-
dence.
"Under an assumed name, he has been engineer-
ing certain questionable mining companies, and had
even persuaded the man who was his life-long
friend to invest a considerable share of his fortune
in one of his projects. Faced by the imminence of
exposure, and ruin, and unable to conceal longer
the truth from Homer Hendricks, Weston's devil-
ish ingenuity suggested the death of the man who
had trusted him — and the means of carrying it
out."
Madelyn walked slowly to the door, and then
turned.
"I have forgotten the second of the two mo-
tives that I referred to. Of course, it is the factor
of jealousy, or perhaps love. May I mention your
name, Miss Wentworth?
"Goaded by the fear of losing you, he pilfered
one of your gloves, and dropped it where a school-
boy was bound to see its connection with the crime.
I daresay that he would have offered to establish
your innocence on your promise to marry him. He


The Bullet from Nowhere 199
could have done it in any one of a dozen ways, of
course, without implicating himself."
Madelyn gave a sudden glance toward Wilkins
and myself.
"I think that Mr. Grayson wishes to discuss that
factor of love somewhat further with Miss Went-
worth!"
As we stepped into the hall after her, she softly
closed the door of the music-room.


The Purple Thumb 201
Peter P. Peterson deepened his twinkle until it
over-shadowed the flash of his diamond-stud as
the forty girls on the stage broke their rear rank
in a gliding side movement. Through the aper-
ture, a dozen chorus-boys, dressed in old Dutch
burgher style, staggered on to the stage, bearing
on their padded shoulders a black-lettered barrel,
labeled "Lager."
With a crash, the orchestra burst into the chorus
of "That Old Milwaukee Brew." The forty girls
swung forty steins above their heads in the excess
of forty different thirsts — and charged the barrel
like an army at an enemy's ramparts.
From its top, a tall stein slowly raised itself.
For a moment it stood poised, and then its sides
gradually dissolved — revealing within, in a soft
golden brown glow, the face of a young woman,
smiling at the audience for all the world as though
she were a bewildering fantasy of the brew.
The orchestra glided into the popular strains of
"I'll Drink to the Girl Who Drinks With Me,"
the mellow baritone of Archibald Clavering, the
leading man, caught up the words, and the refrain
was answered by the rich soprano of the girl in
the stein — Ariel Burton, the "star," who had
sprung into the Broadway horizon six months
before — and out-dazzled all the other dazzling
stars in that earthly firmament ever since.


202 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Five times the curtain rose and fell. It was a
record-breaking hit. Peter P. Peterson waddled
contentedly back to the box-office to receive the
congratulations of the critics, and double his ad-
vertising space in the morning papers, and arrange
for the announcement — " Sold Out for a Solid
Five Weeks in Advance."
In the theatre, the applause was still continuing,
rising and falling like surf. Still imprisoned in the
stein, Miss Burton had tried to throw a kiss with
her cramped hands; but the bored first-nighters,
with their palates, for once, thoroughly tickled,
were not satisfied.
The curtain ascended again, with the flushing
"star," released from her imprisonment, stepping
toward the footlights, with one of her jerky, char-
acteristic bows. An usher was extending a huge,
satin-tied bouquet.
"White orchids!" gasped a dowager, with her
pearl lorgnette riveted to her eyes.
"Worth every cent of a hundred dollars!"
br-eathed the wide-eyed debutante at her side. "I'll
wager she bought them herself for an advertise-
ment!"
The dowager glared in scorn, and pointed a fat
finger, almost imperceptibly, toward the occupants
of an opposite box.
"Bought it herself! It came from Sewell Col-


The Purple Thumb 203
lins! Can't you see her smiling up at him? Fancy
an old man like that! They say he is idiotic over
her!"
"But, surely, Auntie, there is nothing serious
between them?"
"Serious? The old fool is going to marry her
— and they say he is to settle a cool million on her
the day of the wedding! Why, he gave her a ten-
thousand-dollar car last week, and celebrated the
occasion with a champagne supper that Bobby
Waters said was a disgrace even to Broadway!
But, then, that is what all those show-girls are
looking for — a millionaire, the older the better!"
"She is pretty, Auntie — very pretty — and
young — and — and she doesn't look like a bad
woman!"
The debutante sighed. She, also, was very
young, and pretty — and innocent.
On the stage, Ariel Burton was stepping back,
with the orchids held close to her bosom. The cur-
tain was already descending. The girl's eyes
dropped carelessly to her bouquet, and then of a
sudden her face went white — white as the nestling
orchids.
Even under her rouge, her emotion was apparent
to those in the boxes. The curtain reached the
stage with a thud. Behind it, Ariel Burton had
crumpled to the floor. One hand was clenched


204 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
about the stem of the orchids until her nails had
entered her palm.
Madelyn Mack pillowed her head against the
back of her chair, drawn into the most shadowy
corner of our box, and smiled a trifle wearily. Her
hands toyed aimlessly with the handle of her ebony
opera glasses, that matched her rather severely
tailored black evening gown, and, when I glanced
curiously toward her, I saw that her eyes had
closed.
I knew the symptoms. In spite of the record-
breaking applause sweeping through the theatre,
she was — bored. My question was politely per-
functory.
"And how is your Royal Highness enjoying the
evening?"
She opened her eyes far enough to send me one
of those quizzical, half-veiled glances, which al-
ways made me feel like a pig-tailed school-
girl.
"That blue silk of yours, Nora, is unusually be-
coming! Mr. Preston should feel decidedly com-
plimented!"
"I asked how the play was appealing to you?"
I retorted, severely.
Her eyes closed again. The contrast between
the dark, curling lashes and the masses of golden-


206 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"But he hasn't!" And then I added hastily,
"and, if he has, why should I care?"
"Exactly!" said Madelyn easily. "Then why
have you been allowing it to torment you for the
last two weeks?"
"Because it's an outrage!" I flared. I am al-
ways a volcano — when the spark is applied in the
right place!
"There is absolutely nothing between Mr.
Thorndyke Preston and myself, except a good-
fellow comradeship. You know the kind — where
a woman meets a man on a man's basis — takes
long walks with him, and talks over his work —
and closes her eyes and stops her ears whenever
she thinks of a home and kiddies! Oh, I'm not
blaming Thorny! But the way that Burton woman
is throwing herself at him is nothing short of
scandalous — and you know it as well as I do!
She is keeping old Sewell Collins dangling at her
apron-strings for the benefit of his money bags,
and at the same time is trying to inveigle Thorny
Preston into making a fool of himself!
"Oh, I mean just that, Miss Madelyn Mack —
and I won't take back a word! But then, she is
only twenty-one, and has a smile like Cleopatra —
and I am twenty-eight, with crow's feet, and grey
hairs — I found five last night! — And — Thorny
is just like other men, I suppose, where a pretty


The Purple Thumb 207
face is concerned. And — and — a good-fellow
comradeship isn't so very satisfying — to a man —
is it?"
I finished, gasping, with a dart at my handker-
chief, and my face that awfully vivid red, like
pickled beets, which I have never been able to sub-
due whenever I pass a certain degree of excite-
ment.
For a moment, I felt Madelyn's steady eyes sur-
veying me, with just a hint of wonder at my out-
break, and — and — yes, — pity! I hate sympa-
thy — from a woman!
'Twas then that the curtain rolled up again on
the incident of the white orchids.
We were both leaning over the railing when the
descending canvas hid Ariel Burton's swaying
form.
Madelyn slipped back into her chair. Above her
eyes a single deep line had appeared, like the swift
course of a pencil across a blank paper. Her eyes
closed again; but I knew that her nerves had
sprung to a sudden tension, and I could guess that
she was trying to supply the other half of the
incident which the curtain had blotted from
us.
There came a low knock at the door of our box.
I gave a muffled invitation to enter, for my sixth
sense — how many senses does a woman have? —


208 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
told me who it was. Thorndyke Preston stood
staring down at us with a flush.
He tried to conceal his emotion, but Thorny
never could hide anything, and the effort only
served to emphasize his nervousness.
"I have a commission for you, Miss Mack, if
you will accept it. Mr. Peterson would like to see
you on the stage!"
Madelyn Mack's eyes wandered over his face,
and his flush deepened. "Is it — Miss Bur-
ton?"
"It is in connection with Miss Burton. You
saw her faint, of course. Peterson fancies there is
something queer. He is very excitable anyway,
you know, and —"
"But I fail to see where my services come in.
Miss Burton is recovering, is she not?"
"Yes — but — oh, hang it all! — please go
back, Miss Mack! Peterson is getting on my
nerves!"
Thorny's eyes turned to me pleadingly. "You
ask her, Nora!"
I smiled indifferently. "I fancy that Miss Mack
can make up her mind without my assistance!"
I turned, with a shrug, to gaze over the audience;
but, out of the corner of my eye, I could see
Thorny's lips tighten. If he had been alone, I
know he would have sworn — and a woman who


The Purple Thumb 209
can make a man swear has not quite lost her power
over him!
Madelyn rose with a gesture of submission. "If
you will accompany me, Nora —"
I felt Thorny's eyes again appealing to me, but
I kept my gaze steadily averted. I smoothed down
my skirts, and caught Madelyn's arm. Thorny led
the way down the thick-carpeted corridor which
led behind the boxes to the stage door.
He was a good-looking chap, with a grave, stu-
dious expression — which I always accused him of
cultivating for effect — and the snugness of his
evening clothes showed off his athletic shoulders to
excellent advantage. His bearing radiated that
indefinable suggestion of success after heart-grip-
ping failures, for Thorny had fought long and hard
for every dollar of the Niagara-stream of royalties
now flooding him. Our own acquaintance had
begun in the days when he was doing i. "Man
About Town" column for the Sun, at a very
modest salary, and I'll do him the justice to say
that his success had not turned his head.
It had not even brought him the luxury of a
valet! Once he had cautiously broached the sug-
gestion to me, when he had received twenty-five
thousand dollars from "Mademoiselle Satan;"
but, after my stony silence, he had never repeated
it, and, at the next bachelor dinner in his rooms,


210 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
I noticed that the valet had not made his appear-
ance. Fancy Thorny with a valet — when I had
to press my skirts with an electric iron, attached
to my single socket, when the suspicious landlady
was away, and burning my hands at every step on
the stairs in the fear of discovery!
Thorny held open the stage-door, and waited
until both of us had preceded him into the clatter
of scene-shifting. With a side glance, I saw him
linger behind, and felt a tug on my sleeve.
"I am glad you came to-night, Nora!"
"Are you?" I said coldly, with my eyes on a
shirt-sleeved carpenter nailing into place the grey
pillar of a Swiss hotel. "By that, you mean I'll
give your old play a nice send off in the Bugle, I
suppose?"
I'll own it was nasty, but I was in the mood for
nastiness. I tried hard to look away.
"You'll regret those words, Nora."
I was already beginning to, then! If I had only
missed that glimpse of him in the park in Ariel
Burton's new car, bending over her furs like a
school-boy lover!
"Save your tragedy for your plays!" I said
crossly. "Do you realize that you are letting Miss
Mack take care of herself?"
He strode toward the little, lithe figure ahead of
us. For an instant, my better nature swept to the


The Purple Thumb 211
front. I had already opened my lips to do humble
penitence, when he whirled with two little red
spots, hardly larger than quarters, burning his
cheeks.
"So you are jealous of Ariel Burton, are you?
And I had thought you the one woman above such
emotions — who could look under the surface, and
know a man for what he is! Funny, isn't it, how
blind a chap can be — and what a bump it takes
to make him see light?"
I could have screamed. I knew the tears were
in my eyes, and I clenched my hands to force them
back. Jealous! And Thorny Preston actually
with the nerve to throw it in my teeth! For one
rioting moment I meditated a swift flight from the
stage, leaving him and Madelyn to their own de-
vices. And then I stumbled chokingly after them.
After all, I was possessed of the full measure of
a woman's curiosity.
But I would make Mr. Thorndyke Preston re-
pent, never fear! I could picture him on his knees
already! A stage-hand crashed into me, and I
ducked barely in time to save my new blue silk
opera cap, and, incidentally, my head, from a de-
scending plank.
When I recovered my balance, and readjusted my
cap, my blood was somewhat cooled — and Made-
lyn Mack and Thorny had reached the stocky fig-


The Purple Thumb 213
these details, apparently so trivial. We were to
find that nothing was trivial or unworthy of notice
in the amazing puzzle into which we were all so
soon to be plunged.
With much nervous rubbing of his hands, and
much nervous clearing of his throat, Peterson was
beginning the statement of his purpose in the sum-
moning of Madelyn, when I came in earshot of
the trio.
"I am not a fanciful man, Miss Mack — I have
made my success because I wasn't! But there is
something deucedly queer in it all — deucedly
queer! And Ariel Burton toppling over like a
sixteen-year-old school-miss, on top of everything
else, and throwing us all into a panic, and —"
"Will you please start at the beginning, Mr.
Peterson, and put what you have to say in a busi-
nesslike way?" interrupted Madelyn impatiently.
"That is what I am trying to do!" said Peter-
son, scowling at Thorny, who was walking nerv-
ously back and forth behind us. "The first of those
letters came last week, just after dress-rehearsal.
It simply told her that she would never finish her
first performance in the piece!"
Madelyn's eyes narrowed. "Typewritten?"
Peterson nodded. "And unsigned. It was
worded rather oddly, as though there had been
other letters to the same effect; but Miss Burton


214 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
said not. It impressed me that the writer was
hinting at blackmail; but he didn't say how or
why. I am assuming that it was a man, although
I don't know why I should, except that it didn't
sound like a woman, you know!" Peterson paused,
still rubbing his red hands together.
"There was another letter a good deal like the
first — and then that fainting spell to-night."
Peterson's little, round eyes fixed themselves sud-
denly on Madelyn's face. "That girl was scared
when she fell over on the stage — scared! I know
the signs!"
"Have you any of those letters with you?"
"I'll get them for you later. There was one
funny thing, though, in both of them. At the
bottom of each a thumb had been drawn — an
ordinary thumb — and just a little of its top edged
with purple ink. There was nothing under it —
just the thumb, with the purple edge." Peterson
broke off abruptly. "I want you to stay back here
on the stage the rest of the show, Miss Mack — and
sort of keep an eye on Miss Burton — you know
how — and, of course, she needn't know! I'll pay
you whatever you ask! It's probably a crank, and
I am foolish to pay any attention to it — and all
that — but I have a lot at stake in this show — and
I'm nervous — nervous as an old woman! Now,
please don't say you won't do it!"


The Purple Thumb 215
"Was there anything in Miss Burton's bouquet
to-night — a note of any kind, I mean?" asked
Madelyn abruptly.
"A note?" Peterson considered. "I can find
out easily enough, I suppose. The flowers came
from Sewell Collins, you know. They say there
is a certain florist over on the Avenue that he keeps
busy supplying Miss Burton, without regard to the
size of the bills. Ten-dollar-a-dozen roses by the
dray-load, and so on!" The padded shoulders of
Peterson's evening coat shrugged expressively.
"But, I say," he continued suddenly, "Preston
there can tell you about any note, though. He was
the first to reach her when she fainted."
Thorny stopped in his nervous pacing.
"What was that you were saying, Peterson?"
Peterson stared, and repeated his suggestion.
Thorny shrugged. "No, Miss Mack, there was
nothing in the bouquet — nothing, I assure you!
I picked it up, myself!"
He resumed his nervous patrol. Madelyn turned
with another question to Peterson. A call-boy
knocked at Ariel Burton's door, and, beyond the
curtain, we could hear the orchestra swinging into
action.
I stooped to fasten my slipper — but the bow
was never more secure. On the floor I ,had seen
a narrow white card that had fluttered from


The Purple Thumb 217
other end of the stage, conversing in whispers. I
saw Thorny bow as her cue came, and then, turn-
ing, take her hand again and press it — yes, actu-
ally press it! — while she lingered, keeping the
whole scene waiting.
He saw my eyes fixed on him as he stepped
back toward her dressing-room, and he grinned
cheerfully, without even the grace to blush. I
turned with a contemptuous shrug, and plunged
into a conversation with Peterson so lively that
that gentleman's little eyes opened wide. We had
not been on congenial terms since that day when
my signed article in the Bugle had flayed him for
ticket-scalping.
A slow, heavy step on the planks of the stage
behind us interrupted me in the midst of a par-
ticularly inane witticism. A fat-jowled, double-
chinned man, with a monocle dangling from under
the lapel of his evening coat, stared at us, with a
very slight, very stiff-necked inclination of his
head.
Peterson's cordiality, however, could not have
been exceeded had the other salaamed to the dusty
boards. It was my first good view of Sewell
Collins at close range, and I improved the oppor-
tunity as Peterson seized the other's fish-cold hand
and swung it up and down like a pump-handle.
Some biographer had once said that Sewell


The Purple Thumb
219
marry her millions if he had to imprison her in his
little, old, two-by-four castle to do so!
Collins wrenched away from Peterson's grasp,
and hastened to meet her, with a fawning grin that
would have promptly convinced any fair minded
judge of his lunacy. (Why is it that an actress,
with just one belladonna smile, can reduce the
whole masculine sex, from the college rah-rah boy
to the old man, with a foot-and-a-half in the grave,
to abject senility?)
Thorny Preston was something like a yard
ahead of him, however. I saw Collins' heavy-
lidded eyes gleam as Thorny blocked his path —
and then Miss Burton turned away from Mr.
Preston as coolly as though he had been a post,
and caught both of Sewell Collins' hands! Thorny
stood as motionless as a statue.
I knew that in another minute I would be snick-
ering out loud, and, even as I turned my head, I
realized that Thorny had seen my convulsed fea-
tures, and was biting his lips. Turned down for
a stage-door "John," with a few dozen millions!
It was — delicious!
Ariel Burton dismissed Sewell Collins at her
dressing-room, and softly closed the door behind
her. The much-millionaired Mr. Collins seated his
Midas-form on a ninety-eight-cent pine chair,
without a back, and stared at the door like a


222 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
and the maid swept a pair of puzzled eyes in our
direction.
"Mademoiselle Burton has already gone on ze
stage? Oui?"
"Certainly not!" Peterson snapped.
The girl's bewilderment deepened.
"Tell her she must hurry!" the manager added.
"But, Messieur, where ees she? She ees not in
ze dressin'-room!"
"Ridiculous!" Peterson brushed past the
maid's figure, and stepped into Miss Burton's
littered sanctum.
Even to a novice it was apparent that the stage
was unusually quiet. The call-boy appeared again,
dishevelled.
"Say, Mr. Clavering can't make up lines all
night! Where's Miss Burton?"
Peterson's head jerked out of the dressing-room.
He raised a limp hand, and beckoned as though he
could not speak.
Madelyn caught his arm. "What is wrong?"
Peterson found his voice, in a curious mumble.
"She is — gone — gone!"
The manager's knees sagged, and he gripped the
wall.
"Say, Mr. Clavering can't make up lines all
night!" the call-boy repeated shrilly.
Madelyn pushed past Peterson, and her eyes


The Purple Thumb 223
swept the ten-foot-square room behind him — the
bird's-eye maple toilet-table, the chair before it,
-with the blood-red silk kimono tossed over its
back, the huge trunk in the corner, the little wri-
ting desk and rocker, the long line of gowns
across two sides.
There was no ceiling. The walls had been
erected a height of perhaps ten feet above the
stage, and an electric wire strung over them, with
two hanging bulbs, one over the toilet table and
another over the desk. A square Navajo rug cov-
ered the center of the floor. Despite the temporary
nature of the apartment and the board walls, Miss
Burton had succeeded in giving it several home-
like touches.
There was but one door — that before us,
through which we had seen the actress enter the
room. Other form of exit was, of course, out of
the question. An agile person, by standing on the
trunk, might have scrambled over the walls, and
dropped. But such a proceeding would have been
in plain view of all of us.
Peterson drew a moist hand over his eyes, and
gripped Madelyn Mack's shoulders, still in a daze.
"She's not here!"
"That is evident!" said Madelyn, impatiently.
"But we saw her come in!" Peterson was
mouthing his words. "And she did not go out!"


224 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Quite so!" agreed Madelyn.
Peterson blinked violently, and made a gurgling
sound in his throat as though he were choking.
Behind me, Sewell Collins and Thorny Preston
were wedged into the doorway. The face of Col-
lins was blanched an ash-grey, even to the little,
pudgy bags under his eyes. Drops of perspiration
were beading Thorny's forehead.
Over their shoulders, the French maid was peer-
ing at us with terror-widened eyes. One of her
hands had caught Collins' arm, although neither
appeared conscious of the fact.
Madelyn stepped toward the heavy trunk. It
was not locked, and the cover swung easily back.
I caught hold of one end of the upper tier of com-
partments, and we lifted it to the floor. Below
was a mass of neatly folded gowns, dozens of them,
it seemed to me, reaching clear to the top. We
dumped them out rather ruthlessly — but there was
nothing beneath.
We stared at one another, with the same un-
spoken thought. It was the only possible place of
concealment the room afforded! Why, it was —
uncanny! I caught myself glancing fearfully
around us, as though I, too, would be caught up
into thin air, and whisked into some strange realm
of the Fourth Dimension, for instance! (Wher-
ever and whatever that is!)


The Purple Thumb 225
I turned my bewildered eyes above me. The
huge flies of the theatre, far up under the roof,
were swaying lazily, perhaps twenty-five feet away.
Through the intervening space there was absolutely
no connection with the thin-partitioned room
below.
Madelyn seized the end of the rug, jerked it
back, and scrutinized the planks beneath. Peter-
son, still in his uncertain daze, staggered to the
trunk, and tugged it aside. But the floor showed
no hint of opening from wall to wall. Not a board
was disturbed.
"We saw her come in!" Peterson stuttered
again. "And she did not go out!"
His eyes wavered toward each of us in turn, but
saw nothing but a blankness as utter as his own.
He tottered to the trunk, sank down on to it — a
wilted rag of a man.
The call-boy shoved his head under Thorny's
arm with his staccato refrain. "I say, Mr. Claver-
ing can't be making up lines all night!"
"Shut up!" Thorny growled.
Madelyn turned. "Has Miss Burton an under-
study?"
"Of course — that is, I suppose Miss Hunt —
but surely you don't mean —"
"You'd better get her — if you intend to finish
the show!"


The Purple Thumb 227
the dropped card, knew that she had cast it in our
midst with deliberate purpose.
Sewell Collins stirred, stooped mechanically.
"I believe this fell from your bag, Miss Mack."
The pudgy lines of his features were unchanged.
His heavy-lidded eyes blinked rather listlessly.
"Thanks," said Madelyn perfunctorily.
In the background, Thorny Preston's face had
gone chalk-white. His right hand flashed to a
side pocket of his coat, apparently felt an empty
lining, and dropped to his side.
Abruptly he turned to the door, pushed it open,
and, without a word to us, strode out on to the
stage.
A cry cut the silence, and ended in a choke. The
French maid had fallen to her knees, gasping
hysterically.
Ill
It was Peterson who first spied the golden but-
terfly.
Crouched on the edge of the trunk, his stare had
probably swept the glittering ornament on the floor
a dozen times before he mustered sufficient interest
to slip down from his seat and close his fingers
over it.
We saw him turn it over absently. Then he


The Purple Thumb 229
Thorny's voice trailed to a pause; he shifted his
feet awkwardly. "The police — you think per-
haps we ought to — why don't some of you say
something?"
Sewell Collins raised his heavy eyebrows.
"Don't you think you are — hasty? The po-
lice?" He shrugged.
"But the girl may be dying — murdered!"
"Do you charge then that Miss Burton's disap-
pearance is not due to natural causes?"
I realized that Thorny was flushing unjustifi-
ably; or so it seemed to me.
The strained silence fell again. Thorny paced
back and forth in front of the door, showing us
occasional glimpses of his face, with his lips set
in a tight line. Collins fumbled in his pocket, pro-
duced a gold cigarette case, and then, remembering
himself, returned it with a sigh.
We could hear the orchestra in the midst of the
liveliest number on the program. I wondered
vaguely if Thorny's explanation of Ariel Burton's
illness had been accepted, if rumors of the real
situation had yet crept out. It was only a matter
of minutes, of course, before the truth would be
known — must be known.
Thorny thrust himself abruptly through the
doorway. His eyes flashed around the room, and
ended at Collins' morose face.


230 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"If one of you won't call the police, I will!"
His voice was sharp, challenging.
"You seem to take a great deal for granted, Mr.
Preston!" Collins' eyes narrowed almost angrily.
"Don't beat about the bush, man! Say what
you mean! You are afraid of the reporters, the
publicity — you, whose town-painting exploits
have given the newspapers copy for years!"
For a moment I thought Collins would strike
him. Thorny laughed in his face.
"Oh, I know you are confoundedly cautious!
But / haven't any tenderloin record to cover up!
I am going to put this matter in the hands of the
law without any more nonsense! You can hike
for Europe in the morning, if you are afraid of
the red fire!"
Collins' eyes were like burning coals under his
heavy lids, and a zig-zagging vein over his fore-
head swelled into a purple ridge.
"Miss Burton is my promised wife!" His
voice snapped. "And I rather fancy that I have
more interest in this matter even than you — her
rejected suitor!"
"You lie!"
Peterson's bulk intervened before Thorny's
crooked arm just in time. "Gentlemen, you for-
get yourselves!"
Thorny gripped Peterson's shoulder, pivoted


The Purple Thumb
231
him about, then lunged toward Collins' fat throat.
Madelyn glided between the two as easily as
though she were offering the explosive Mr. Preston
a cup of tea.
"If you would really serve Miss Burton," she
said quietly, "you are scarcely offering us a con-
vincing demonstration!"
Thorny's arm dropped limply, and he breathed
sharply.
"I — I beg your pardon, Miss Mack!"
Odd, isn't it, how swiftly the primitive passions
can burst through the starched shirt-front of
civilization — and yet how abruptly they can be
checked!
Collins swept his handkerchief over his forehead.
"As I was about to say when I was interrupted,
if the majority favor the police, so far from op-
posing the action, I will —"
Our eyes were riveted on him like a magnet. He
paused, thrust the handkerchief back into his
pocket.
"Pay twenty thousand dollars for the return of
Miss Burton uninjured — or a similar amount for
the conviction of any who have dared to offer her
harm!"
It was splendidly done — no pompousness. (I
am bound to say that much for him!) And he
was in cold earnest. The deliberate inflection of


232 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
his voice could not be denied. But — twenty thou-
sand dollars! I glanced involuntarily toward
Madelyn Mack. She had picked up the golden
butterfly I had dropped, and was balancing it with
the same abstraction with which she had toyed
with the hair-brush.
Peterson shook himself, smoothed his toupee,
and glanced toward the door. He was slowly re-
turning to his old aggressiveness. Collins' offer
was at least something tangible — something more
practical and earthly than spirit-abducted ladies!
— And Peterson began and ended everything with
the dollar mark!
"Shall I telephone headquarters?" The man-
ager addressed the question directly to Madelyn.
"I presume you will have to — sooner or later,"
she said indifferently.
Peterson weighed her words silently, let his eyes
circle the room again, and strode through the door-
way. I imagine that he was not at all reluctant to
leave!
Sewell Collins turned heavily, and walked out on
to the stage in his wake. The maid was still
crouched in the corner, her eyes following us like
those of a frightened fawn I had once seen quiver-
ing under the lash of its keeper.
Through the wings, a zig-zagging file of chorus-
girls, their rouged cheeks glaring in the near-


234 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
ever, he was awaiting the police. I looked at my
watch, suddenly remembering my duties as a news-
paper-woman. I was half-tempted to communi-
cate with the office, and had even taken a step
toward the door, when it opened to admit Peterson,
flanked on either hand by a stiffly solemn plain-
clothes man. Just behind them peered the lean,
hatchet-face of Lieutenant Byron, with his lank
form attired in — I rubbed my eyes unbelievingly
— yes, an evening suit! And it fitted him! His
hands, folded behind his back, as though to escape
comment, were encased in white gloves, and he was
limping in a pair of tight patent leathers. And
this was grizzled, old Byron, the slouchiest man of
the Central Office! I gasped at the metamor-
phosis.
Byron grinned sheepishly as he caught my eye;
but the next moment his professional calm had
masked his face, and he was again the inscrutable
police officer.
He nodded gravely to Madelyn Mack, and she
at once held out her hand. Byron was one of the
very few Central Office Detectives who had a place
in her esteem!
"Shall we leave?" she asked briskly.
Peterson glanced awkwardly at Byron. "Cer-
tainly not!" the lieutenant said heartily. "That
is — yourself. As for the others," his eyes wan-


The Purple Thumb 237
stuffy court-room, and talk to a judge in a black
robe, and have the horrible prosecuting attorney
scowl at you, and rake up the story of your life,
and read it in the papers, with a fearful snap-shot
of yourself, the next day?"
"Perhaps not quite so bad as all that." Made-
lyn was smiling rather impatiently.
Gwendolyn Calvert glanced over her shoulder
again, stepped closer to us until we could breathe
the perfume on her bodice, and lowered her voice
like a tattling child, telling secrets out of school.
"I understand that something awful has hap-
pened to Miss Burton, and — and — there is
something I ought to tell you! You are sure you
will protect me?"
"Yes, yes — of course!"
"Well, then, last night I heard a man threaten
to kill her to-day!"
Madelyn glanced across the stage with an as-
sumption of indifference.
"Indeed?"
"He was very much excited!" The girl raced
on, evidently piqued at her failure to awaken more
pronounced interest. "Told her, if she didn't
marry him to-day, he would put her out of the
reach of any man!"
"And who was this interesting individual?"
"Thorny Preston!"


238 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Madelyn's eyes still remained fixed languidly on
a distant piece of scenery.
"Why do you tell me this?"
"Because I thought Mr. Preston was one of my
best friends — my best friend — and he had prom-
ised to marry me! There is no man living who can
double-cross little Gwendolyn — and get away with
it!"
I whirled so sharply that I knocked her elbow.
I could feel myself growing almost livid. Another
love-tangle of Mr. Thorndyke Preston! And I
had fancied myself the only woman in the world
for him! Blinded fool that I had been! I could
see that Madelyn was watching me out of the
corner of her eye, and I tried to walk away — but
I couldn't! I was rooted to the spot.
Gwendolyn Calvert stiffened her shoulders. "I
don't know if what I have told you is of any use to
you; but, if Thorny Preston has brought harm to
Ariel Burton, I shall never be content until he
answers for it! She may have a temper like a
wild-cat when she is crossed; but she was a friend
to me when I would have hit the gutter if it hadn't
been for her!"
Her face was very hard and cold and set. Even
her blondined ringlets seemed to tingle viciously.
But I scarcely heard her, or the detailed story
that followed of Thorny's melodramatic interview


240 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
riddle of recent years, a riddle without
parallel in criminal annals.
"With a packed audience awaiting her
reappearance behind the footlights, Miss
Burton closed the door of her dressing-
room at the Metropolitan Theatre at
nine forty-five o'clock last night to make
her change of costume for the last half of
the second act — and vanished as com-
pletely and suddenly as though the ground
had closed over her. With the shutting
of her door, she stepped from mortal
view.
"A slight exception must be made to
this statement — which tends, however,
to deepen the mystery even further. For
perhaps five minutes after her entrance
to her room, Miss Burton's French maid
attended her at her toilet, leaving her mis-
tress half-dressed, to carry a message to
Miss Wordsworth, the ingenue of the
company, in regard to a slight change
which Miss Burton intended to make in
the manner of her entrance on the stage.
"Miss Burton was in her usual spirits,
and proceeding with the details of her
make-up. The maid was the last person
to see the actress.


The Purple Thumb 243
of the actress uninjured — or, in the
event of foul play, a similar amount for
the conviction of her assailants.
"It is the largest reward of its kind on
record, and yet even its unusual amount
has not resulted in the least progress in
the untangling of the mystery.
"It has been learned that Miss Burton
and Mr. Collins were to have been quietly
married the latter part of next week, al-
though she intended remaining on the
stage the remainder of the season.
"Miss Isabelle Hunt, Miss Burton's
understudy, finished the performance last
night, and, for the present, will retain the
position of leading woman of the com-
pany."
I read over my article in The Bugle in the Sub-
way. Very cold and matter-of-fact, it looked in
type, and utterly stripped of all the weirdness and
uncanniness which had shrouded the event last
night, and which had thrilled me when I sat down
to the keys of my typewriter. Now, if Edgar
Allan Poe had written The Bugle account, he
would have built a masterpiece of shivers and
quivers, and would have made the most wooden
reader tingle with every thrill and near-thrill.


244 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
I realized abruptly that I was not a genius!
Indeed, as I surveyed my article, the whole thing
seemed absurd and ridiculous, rather than tinged
with the suggestion of the supernatural that had
seemed so vivid.
It sounded like the plot of a French detective
story. Why — such things couldn't be in real life!
It was well enough for a magician's illusion of the
Vanishing Lady, or a trick for a spiritualistic
seance, with false doors, and swinging mirrors, and
subdued lights, and all that sort of thing. But we
were not dealing either with magicians or spirit-
ualists!
The next thing they would suggest would be
that Ariel Burton's fairy godmother had given
her an invisible cloak!
I could fancy that the whole town was snicker-
ing in its sleeve at us, and wondering whether we
were confederates in some daring advertising hoax
— or just plain dupes!
All of the papers, of course, mentioned, more or
less sensationally, the incident of Ariel Burton's
faint at the close of the first act. Most of them
assigned the rather vague reason of over-strain
from the tension of a " first night." None of them
appeared to glimpse a deeper cause. In fact, with
the climax that followed, the episode as a whole
was dismissed rather lightly.


246 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
hours of distorted sleep, in spite of the bromide the
bell-boy had brought me from the all-night drug
store.
To be quite truthful, I couldn't escape Thorny's
face, staring at me from out of the darkness, with
hateful, little blondined hussies scampering all
about, and the enticing, black eyes of Ariel Burton
bending over it!
I had spent most of the night with the wreck
of my dreams. I had never realized before
how precious they were, nor how much of my-
self had been crying out for them to come
true!
If he had only given me some hint — instead of
deliberately cementing our relations!
Why, only last Sunday we had stolen away, just
we two, and had trudged five miles through the
Westchester snows to the "Maison Blanc" — the
quaint, little French inn, which we had always
called our own discovery — and found its doors
bolted, and its chimneys cold, and Madame gone,
and had to stumble back to the traction without
our dinner, and the memory of the fried chicken
and Muscatelle we used to get aggravating our
hunger. But we had laughed at it all, and Thorny
had built a snow-man on the roadside and put a
cigar in its mouth, and we had snow-balled each
other like a couple of sky-larking kids, and he had


The Purple Thumb 247
promised me the best meal in town when we got
back — and — now this!
Once I even climbed out of bed, and snatched
Thorny's picture from the dresser, and held a match
to it; but I only let the match burn my fingers!
I hadn't the courage to do anything else — and
then it was the only picture I had!
When I left the car at the suburban station,
with a half a mile walk between me and "The
Rosary," I was in a far from amiable mood. And
the hour and a half ride in the Subway and Ele-
vated had not improved it.
But the snap of the winter air could not be re-
sisted. It was as tingling as champagne. — I
sometimes think that a winter wind, chilled like
wine to just the right temperature, is filled with
celestial nectar for the benefit of just such harassed
individuals as I was!
A lifeless sun was trying half-heartedly to com-
bat the January blasts, which shrilled in from the
cold, grey ice-mirror of the river. The naked line
of maples flapped their leafless arms dismally at
the edge of the long yard, which terraced gently
back to the Swiss chalet, which Madelyn Mack
termed "The Rosary."
Its gables looked drear enough against the slate
sky. The ivy masses, clinging clear to the roof,
were a rusty yellow. It could not have appeared


248 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
more bleak had it been set down in the hollow of
the Alps, where Madelyn had found the design
from which she had copied it.
I pictured the rose garden in its rear a wind-
swept square of shapeless bushes — with no hint
of the gay masses of June bloom that were one of
Madelyn's chief delights.
It was all very sweet, and gladsome, and en-
chanting enough against a summery background,
but in the winter — ugh! But then Madelyn pos-
sessed the eccentricities of genius — and one of
these, I presume, was in remaining by the skeletons
of her summer glories.
The Quaker-like figure of Susan Bolton, Made-
lyn Mack's only companion, opened the door al-
most at once.
At my first glance behind the oaken portals, I
forgot the bleakness outside. From the merrily
bobbing streamers of Susan's cap to the merrily
dancing flames in the open hall fireplace there was
a sense of welcome so penetrating that I stood
stock-still, breathing it in. The very warmth of
it quickened my chilled blood. I was content just
to stand there, smiling foolishly — and feel the
spirit of the place go dancing up and down and
into every crevice of my being.
Desolate? Why, the ice and the wind and the
snow were just what was needed to form the set-


The Purple Thumb 249
ting for the picture, and make one appreciate
it!
Susan Bolton pulled me, with a little, motherly
tug, toward a wide, high-backed seat, heaped with
the softest, cosiest cushions imaginable — and just
near enough the fire to allow you to put your feet
out comfortably before the crackling logs.
She was not content until she had divested me
with her own hands of coat, and hat, and furs.
Then, stepping back to a bubbling alcohol heater,
she inverted its squat, little brass kettle, and poured
me a huge cup of chocolate, so rich, and creamy,
and mouth-watering that it made me gasp.
"Three lumps of sugar?" she smiled. "You
see, I have a good memory, Miss Noraker!"
I glanced up from my cup — one of the hundred-
and-fifty-year-old set of Delft that Madelyn Mack
had brought from Amsterdam — and let my eyes
rest again on Susan's beaming face.
It was one of those old-fashioned, grand-
motherly faces, all smiles from the little, precise
grey ringlets, peeping from under the frill of her
cap, to the sunshiny eyes, looking as if they were
wells of mother-love, deep enough to cover the
whole world.
I put down my cup suddenly, sprang to my feet,
and, throwing my arms around her neck, kissed
her full on her astonished, cherry-red lips.


250 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"I just couldn't help it!" I said, stepping back.
"Ah — that was good! I have been heart-
hungry for months, and I didn't know what
for!"
She studied my face for a moment silently.-
Those kindly grey eyes seemed suddenly very
shrewd. She laid one of her soft, white hands on
my shoulder. It was like velvet.
"Nora, girl, what is it?"
My first emotion was overwhelming surprise. I
stood blinking, and choking, and thinking very
fast — and then, well, I found my head pillowed
on her shoulder, and sobbing as I had not sobbed
for years.
I guess that my feverish night had worn my
nerves more than I appreciated. Anyway, I real-
ized that I was gasping out the whole wretched
story of Thorny to her; that a pair of wonderful,
grey eyes were holding mine like magnets; that
a cool, soft hand was caressing my cheek — and
that Nora Noraker, veteran newspaper woman of
twenty-eight, was pouring out her heart like a
love-sick girl of sixteen!
I should have been ashamed, I suppose; but I
wasn't — a bit. And then my story came to an
end, and the hand on my cheek slipped down on
my shoulder, and for a long moment we stood
silent.


The Purple Thumb 251
Susan gently turned me about, picked up my cup,
and watched me until I drained it all.
"You feel better, don't you?"
I nodded, smiling in spite of myself.
A door at the end of the hall opened softly, and
a small lithe figure, all in white, from her white
buckskin shoes to her tailored, white serge skirt,
and white India-silk blouse, stepped toward us,
with a shaggy, brown Scotch collie at her heels, as
under-sized as its mistress.
"This is the third time I have looked in on you
two!" she said gaily. "Have you been to con-
fessional, Nora?"
"Yes — to my mother-confessor," I smiled.
"And she has given you absolution? I knew
she would. That is why I left you alone!"
Madelyn reached over and caressed Susan Bol-
ton's wrinkled face, and then stooped down and
patted the head of Peter the Great, the Collie.
She straightened, her mood abruptly hardening.
"I want your brain clear, Nora! I need you!"
She turned. "Will you come into the den?"
Madelyn's arm slipped through mine. I glanced
at her face, which scarcely reached to my shoulder,
and realized that it was very tired, and worn, and
that — yes, the abnormal sparkle in her eyes was
too obvious!
My gaze dropped to the amethyst locket, dan-


252 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
gling from a slender gold chain about her neck —
her only ornament.
"You've been taking those horrid cola-berries
again!" I charged.
"Don't be absurd, Nora! I needed them! I
haven't been to bed for twenty-four hours!"
"You'll go to bed for good one of these days,
if you keep up on stimulants like that!"
She shrugged wearily.
"Do you happen to know whether Ariel Burton
was left-handed?"
"I wish you had never made that trip to South
America," I said crossly, determined not to change
the subject. "Then perhaps you would never
have heard of the cola stimulant!"
Madelyn sighed.
"But was she?" she persisted in her turn.
"I don't know. Why?"
Madelyn curled down on the huge jaguar-skin
before the den fireplace. — I think she had an open
fire in nearly every room in the chalet.
Her arms circled about her knees, and she sat
staring into the red and yellow flames, without
reply.
My eyes roamed around the long, high-ceilinged
room, its floor and walls littered with a collection
of bric-a-brac to which the four corners of the
earth had contributed, for, during her long vaca-


The Purple Thumb 253
tions, Madelyn Mack gave full play to her wander-
lust, and had zig-zagged around the world a half
a dozen times, always as far from the beaten paths
of travel as she could penetrate. One year I had
heard from her from the interior of China — it
had taken three months for her dozen lines to reach
me — and the next summer she had written me
from the northern coast of Labrador.
But there was the touch of a woman's hand in
the disorderly order of the room, in spite of the
grim suggestiveness of certain of its prominent
ornaments — the revolver with which the notorious
Rudolph Morton had so nearly ended her life in
underground Chinatown — the Indian bow-string,
which had choked to death Peter Foxham — the
stuffed cobra, whose fangs had come within an inch
of Madelyn's arm in the Punjaub hills.
Nor was suggestion of our present problem lack-
ing. On Madelyn's desk were the two anony-
mously threatening letters that had come to Ariel
Burton, each with the purple-edged outlines of a
human thumb below its typewritten lines. I started
somewhat as I saw that the ornament of the golden
butterfly, that we had found in the dressing-room,
was being used as a paper-weight for them.
Although I had read the communications when
Peterson entrusted them to Madelyn the night
before, I picked them up again. To a newspaper


The Purple Thumb 255
Unless you assure me of a favorable an-
swer, you will never finish it alive."
A favorable answer to what? I scanned the two
letters in vain for some hint of light. There was
no inkling of their purpose or why they were
written. And there was neither signature nor ad-
dress!
But for the curiously sketched outline of the
human thumb, there were no marks of pen or pen-
cil on either page. Both letters had been written
by a black-ribboned typewriter. The envelopes
bore the New York postmark of Madison Square
Station, with dates a week apart.
When I turned, Madelyn had stepped to the
telephone.
"Hello!" she called. "Is this the Lenox?
Will you kindly connect me with Miss Ariel Bur-
ton's apartment? I know she's not there! Yes,
her maid or her housekeeper will do."
She tapped the 'phone impatiently.
"Hello," she repeated. "Is this Miss Burton's
housekeeper? This is Miss Mack — yes, Miss
Madelyn Mack. I wish to ask you two questions.
Was Miss Burton left-handed. . . . She was
not! One thing more. Did she smoke cigar-
ettes?"
Madelyn caught her breath suddenly.


256 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"You are quite sure she did not? Thank you.",
She hung up the receiver, frowning.
I stared across at her.
"Are you going to explain?"
"Explain what?"
"Those absurd questions, of course!"
"Maybe, you are right, Nora." Madelyn
shrugged. "Perhaps they were absurd!"
I walked across the room, and then veered my
queries to another angle.
"Well, how was it done?"
"How was what done?"
"How was Ariel Burton spirited from her
dressing-room?" I snapped..
"My dear girl, there are three ways in which it
could have been accomplished!" She stirred the
logs in the fireplace.
"Three!" I gasped.
"But I am not going to explain until I know
which of the three was used!"
I sighed resignedly. "What have you been do-
ing all night?" I demanded.
She jerked her head toward the Circassian-
walnut phonograph at her shoulder.
"Spending most of the time with half a dozen
new records that Bartolli, the violinist, has just
made for me. It took him about three hours, but
he charged me six hundred dollars!"


The Purple Thumb 257
"What would you do if you didn't have all
the money you could spend?" I asked cynic-
ally.
"Make more!" she responded promptly. She
turned. "There is a stack of morning papers on
the floor, Nora. Would you mind reading me their
accounts of the case? The only article I have read
is your own. If you would tone down your adjec-
tives, you might write something worth while
some day!"
I picked up the heap of folded papers submis-
sively.
"Of course, you don't mean every word?" I
laughed. "The papers have devoted as much
space to the affair as to a presidential mes-
sage!"
Madelyn stretched herself on the jaguar- skin,
her hands under her head, her eyes staring at the
ceiling.
"Yes, Nora — every line, if you don't mind!
I fancy I have about an hour to spare!"
She closed her eyes, and I began my task with
a wry face. I had always humored her through
the five years of our curious friendship.
If Madelyn found any interest, however, either
in the newspaper speculations or their heavy-
leaded details of what was variously termed "The
Riddle of the Vanishing Lady," "The Dressing-


The Purple Thumb 261
"I thought you would be here by three at the
latest!" she said quietly.
Jacqueline caught her breath, and I could see
her fingers knot about the arms of her chair.
"But I have not received any more Purple
Thumb communications," Madelyn continued.
The maid's gaze was riveted on the suddenly
grave face of Miss Mack. Madelyn leaned for-
ward.
"Don't you think you will save time if you take
me into your confidence concerning what you know
about Miss Burton, — that is, the things which you
have not told the police?"
"What do you mean?"
"Simply that I can be of service — now! If
you choose to wait, it will probably be too late."
Jacqueline swept her hand over her eyes.
"Suppose you begin," suggested Madelyn
briskly, "by telling me the meaning of the Purple
Thumb!"
With a moan Jacqueline slipped from her chair
to her knees.
"Merci, Madame, Merci! You mistake! It
ees not that! It ees ze locked room I came to you
about, her room!"
Madelyn almost roughly gripped her shoulder.
"If you are going to have hysterics, we will
defer this interview until later."


262 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Jacqueline caught a handkerchief from her
sleeve, penetrating with some heavy French scent,
brushed it over her face, and somewhat sullenly
resumed her seat. Her shoulders were shivering
as if with cold.
"That is better," said Madelyn approvingly.
"And now, if you will talk calmly, we shall help
one another much sooner."
Jacqueline huddled back in her chair, evidently
trying to collect her thoughts. In spite of her
agitation, perhaps because of it, she made a stri-
king picture in black and white, her pale features
standing out hauntingly against the background of
her somber gown and hair. And yet there was a
curious underlying suggestion of piquancy, too, as
though her French effervescence could not be en-
tirely eliminated. — I verily believe that even in
the tension of the situation, the minx never forgot
that she looked well in black!
She looked up suddenly.
"It ees ze nerves, Madame! You — you must
pardon. It has been one terrible nightmare —
with ze door of Mademoiselle's room, ze locked
door staring, staring at me all through ze night,
and morning. I thought I would go mad! I won't
go back! I can't go back!"
"And what has the door to do with it all?"
demanded Madelyn curtly.


264 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
did not return until late. But Martha is old and
wrinkled, and twelve of the night is as twelve of
the noon to her! Once ze police came and asked
ze impossible questions, and again this morning
with more questions. But they are not like our
gendarmes of ze boulevards! No, Madame. Red-
faced and stupid they are —"
I think I saw the yellow face at the window at
the same instant as Jacqueline. It was pressed
against the frost-dimmed panes like a ghastly blur.
Only for a flash it showed, a flash of black, boring
eyes and scowling lips, and then it was gone, like
a face swallowed in the fog. Madelyn's lithe fig-
ure leaped past my shoulders, and then, as she
flung up the window and we peered into the yard,
we were conscious of two facts.
Behind us, Jacqueline had crumpled to the floor
as though felled by a physical blow. Ahead of us,
across the snow-sheeted yard, a man was darting
like a frightened rabbit, a slightly built man, rather
under the average height, with a black felt hat
crushed low over his face, and the skirts of a
brown overcoat flapping about his legs. Even as
we sighted him, he crashed through the winter
skeleton of Madelyn's fat English hedge, and dis-
appeared.
Madelyn sprang back from the window, her eyes
gleaming.


The Purple Thumb 265
"Quick, Nora! This is a time when minutes
count!"
"You are going to follow him?"
"Don't be absurd! We have a more important
call to answer! Tell Susan to attend to Miss
Jacqueline. I dare say she has only fainted. And
have Andrew bring my car to the door. We'll
have to chance the roads. It is the quickest way
we can get to town!"
On occasions, Madelyn can muster an executive
ability that seems to galvanize those about her like
an electric battery. Even calmly moving Susan
Bolton, and her slow-thinking husband, Andrew,
respond to its thrill. In something under five
minutes Madelyn's car was waiting, and we were
springing into it. In the den, Susan's ministrations
were already bringing Jacqueline back to returning
consciousness. But we did not await the final
result.
"I will telephone you within the hour — an
hour and a half at the latest," called Madelyn from
the door. "In the meantime, I shall depend
on you to keep the young woman under your
eye."
"But, if she wants to leave?" protested Susan.
"Tell her she does so at her peril! And now,
Andrew, get us to Riverside Drive in thirty min-
utes if you have to smash the car!"


266 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Riverside Drive!" I echoed. And then I
knew. "We are going to Ariel Burton's apart-
ments?" I cried.
"We are going to the rose-chamber and its
locked door," said Madelyn as she settled herself
in her seat. And that was the last word she spoke
during our thirty-five minutes of zig-zagging
through the crunching snow, bumping over ice-
crusted ruts, and grazing crumbling ditches.
Twice we skirted disaster so close that my breath
stopped, but Madelyn sat buried in her robes with-
out the slightest sign that she had noticed the fact.
It was not until the straggling outskirts of the city
grew into close-packed blocks that she roused, and
then it was only to give the direction to Andrew.
We swerved our course across to the Drive, and
brought up finally before the brown stone front of
the Lenox apartment building, in one of whose
five-thousand-dollar suites Miss Ariel Burton made
her home.
Madelyn was out of the dazzlingly upholstered
elevator almost before the liveried attendant
opened the door at the third floor. Miss Burton's
apartment was a front corner suite, obviously one
of the most expensive and desirable in the building.
Madelyn's finger came away impatiently from the
entrance bell. She was about to repeat her sum-
mons, when the door opened, and a rather grim-


The Purple Thumb 267
visaged woman of perhaps sixty stood staring at
us.
Madelyn thrust out one of her cards and el-
bowed unceremoniously past her.
"You are Martha, I take it! Which is Miss
Burton's bedroom?"
It was a tribute to the personality of Miss Mack
that no sign of protest answered her. The house-
keeper fell back.
"The last room to the right!" she gasped.
A long hall extended from the front to the rear
of the suite with a series of three rooms on either
side. Not only the hand of wealth, but of art, was
apparent even in our first swift survey. If Ariel
Burton's judgment had dictated the furnishings of
her home, she was quite apparently a connoisseur.
Through a blue-and-gold music-room, and a
white-and-gold library and living-room combined,
we made our way. In the farther wall was a door,
almost concealed by overhanging tapestries.
Madelyn paused, and, with a tightening of her
lips, stepped forward.
"Will it have to be broken in?" I asked, start-
led at the hoarseness of my voice.
"Unless the lock is a patent one, I fancy I can
manage."
Madelyn stooped, and caught the knob. I could
hear her breath quicken as she fumbled with the


268 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
handle and then bent toward the keyhole. She
straightened again, and from her hand-bag pro-
duced an oddly curved bit of wire. For two or
three minutes she twisted it to and fro in the lock.
With a sigh of surrender she stepped back.
There was silence as she gazed at the panels re-
flectively.
"I'm afraid, Nora, we will have to use force
after all!" She whirled toward the housekeeper.
"Get the janitor and tell him to come up at once,
and bring a man with him!"
The servant stumbled toward the hall. Madelyn
picked up a book on the library table and toyed
with it mechanically. We were rather evading one
another's eyes. The suggestion of impending evil,
of strange, hidden things, had fallen on the room
like a blanket. I moved my gaze from the locked
door, only to find it drawn back again like a mag-
net. In the back of my mind I saw again the pic-
ture of the hysterical French maid, heard again
her gasping voice:
"But as I watched, ze door seemed to speak, to
call to me, to command that I should find ze little
key! Always it was calling! It was as though
the Evil One, himself, was ordering that I should
obey!"
From the hall came the tramping of feet, a
heavy voice. But it was not the janitor and his


270 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
still swaying from the impact of the fleeing figure
that had dashed through them almost at the mo-'
ment of our entrance.
Madelyn tore aside the draperies, caught the
knob. The routed occupant of the rose-chamber
had turned the key!
Lieutenant Byron brushed her aside, hurled him-
self against the panels. The plain-clothes man
joined him in the second assault. In the din of
the wreckage, we sprang over the falling door into
a rear corridor, ending in a winding flight of back
stairs, obviously for the servants' use.
As we rushed to the stairs, a girlish, blue-skirted
figure, with a loosened coil of blond hair, under
a white fur toque, whisked from the landing below.
When we reached the second floor corridor it was
empty.
Six locked doors confronted us — and the last
flight of the stairs. A glance was sufficient to
eliminate this latter exit. The girl in blue had
found haven behind one of the series of doors.
Lieutenant Byron's knuckles beat an angry sum-
mons on each in turn. An icy-faced butler, and a
maid-servant, holding a curling-iron to her scanty
bangs, replied to two of the calls with a wonder-
ment too obvious to be counterfeited. Silence
answered at the remaining four panels. A contin-
uation of our strenuous tactics above was, of


The Purple Thumb 271
course, out of the question. For the time, at least,
we were balked.
Lieutenant Byron's curt order to his assistant to
watch the lower entrance, and to telephone head-
quarters for a second man at the other side of the
building, was more of a formality than a hope.
The Lenox probably contained a dozen blonde
women of girlish figures.
We made a gloomy quartette as we re-traced the
path of our precipitate chase. I think Lieutenant
Byron took the escape of our quarry as a personal
affront. There was a suggestion of grimness even
in the measured tread of his steps as we came again
to the splintered door, and to the gaping figure of
the housekeeper, still staring as though she had not
changed a muscle since she had seen us disap-
pear.
I caught Madelyn's arm as the lieutenant tugged
at the door. She smiled quizzically at the question
in my eyes, with a finger to her lips. I had not
been alone, then, in my recognition of Miss Gwen-
dolyn Calvert as she plunged down the back stairs!
I shrugged helplessly, as Lieutenant Byron
leaned the wrecked door against the wall. What
had brought our garrulous, chorus-girl friend to
the chamber of Ariel Burton? What motive had
inspired her wild flight before our approach? I
was floundering in a mental quagmire. Most em-


272 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
phatically our riddle was deepening rather than
clearing.
The lieutenant brought the matter-of-fact ele-
ment back to the situation with a movement typical
of the unemotional police-angle of view. Striding
across the room, he jerked up the half-lowered
window shades to their full height. i
Madelyn had paused by the side of the bed, her
gaze slowly digesting the details of the chamber.
Now, with the flood of light, we could see that its
luxury was not so heavy nor so glaring as to
smother its suggestion of cosy cheeriness. It was
just such a nook as I had occasionally allowed my-
self to dream of in my fanciful moments.
It was with something like a start that I found
my thoughts circling back to the cloud of presenti-
ment that had shadowed us as the police shoulders
forced an entrance for us. Soberly I tried to diag-
nose its cause. And then, quite suddenly, it came
to me that none of us would have been surprised
if the room had shown us the trail of tragedy —
if the chamber had revealed the murdered body of
Ariel Burton!
The curt interrogations of Lieutenant Byron in-
terrupted my thoughts.
"The back hall, then, was the only means by
which an intruder could have entered Miss Bur-
ton's room?" he snapped at the housekeeper.


The Purple Thumb 273
"Yes, sir!" she returned dully. "I have been
here since last night, that is, in the other part of
the flat. I never had a key to Miss Burton's own
chamber. I — I hope you don't think, sir, that
I —"
The lieutenant bent over the lock of the rear
door. Even from a distance, I could see that it
was of the same peculiar pattern as the first lock
which had balked Madelyn — a peculiar design
which few experts could have forced. And there
were no signs that it had been forced!
There came a lull as we slowly filed back to Miss
Burton's white-and-gold living-room. In one cor-
ner bulked a heavy, square theatrical trunk, plas-
tered with criss-crossing labels, jarringly conspic-
uous against the luxurious background.
"Miss Burton's trunk, the one she sent from the
theatre last night," explained the housekeeper, in
answer to Madelyn's inquiring glance.
I stared as I recalled the two men staggering
from the dressing-room with their burden shortly
before the star had made her appearance for the
second act.
"Oh, we have examined it thoroughly, Miss
Mack!" said the lieutenant with a flash, as Made-
lyn tapped its edge. "If you are trying to connect
it with the case, though," he added with a laugh,
"I am afraid you have struck a blind lead! Your


274 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
own evidence shows that Miss Burton was in the
theatre long after the trunk had left!"
Madelyn smiled faintly. "And you will find my
evidence quite correct! Our vanished friend was
not hidden in the trunk, I assure you!" There
was a hint of suppressed raillery in her voice.
"You examined it anyway, notwithstanding my
testimony?"
"That was one of the first things I did when I
reached the flat last night. It was filled with
gowns enough to stock a store. There wasn't a
quarter inch of space left! Lord, Miss Mack, that
woman certainly does have clothes! If Mrs. Byron
ever sighted the contents of that trunk, I couldn't
get her away with a yoke of oxen. If you want
to take a look yourself —"
"No, thank you." With an air of detachment,
Madelyn turned to a telephone in the opposite
corner.
A book-strewn stand was drawn up before a
grate of gas-logs at the side of one of those fat,
old-fashioned arm-chairs, which seem a constant
invitation to procrastination. It was my own par-
ticular Nemesis which led me at this juncture to
the stand, and a magazine turned down in the
center. An illustrated article on "Successful
American Playwrights" rewarded my curiosity.
From the very first page the face of Thorny Pres-


The Purple Thumb 275
ton grinned up at me. It was the same picture he
had given me, the snap-shot made during an Octo-
ber afternoon gallop the autumn before. Under-
neath was the staring caption:
"This picture was taken by Miss Ariel Burton,
the leading lady, who has scored such a pronounced
success in Mr. Preston's productions."
I flung the magazine savagely back, conscious
that Lieutenant Byron was staring at me. I could
understand now why Mr. Preston had called it his
favorite picture! Doubtless there was a presenta-
tion copy in the most intimate corner of his own
room, more than likely with some such inscription
as, "Lovingly Yours, Ariel "!
A gradual deepening in the tension of the room
made itself felt even through my bitterness. Mad-
elyn was still at the telephone. She was see-
sawing the hook of the receiver savagely.
"There must be a mistake, Central! You are
sure you have the number right? And there is no
answer?"
Madelyn whirled from the instrument.
"Ring the elevator, Nora! Quick! If we are
too late —" She broke off, her nails cutting into
her palms, and then burst out again, "If they have
dared to injure so much as a hair of her head, I
call you all to witness that I shall make them pay
— pay dearly! Oh, I have been blind, blind!"


276 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Lieutenant Byron gripped her arm.
"Calm yourself, Miss Mack! What is it?"
Madelyn darted after me.
"It means," she flung back, "that I have fallen
for the first simple bait dangled before my eyes!
And I call myself a detective!"
One glance at Madelyn's face sent Andrew jump-
ing toward the crank-shaft. Madelyn sprang into
the car, and then leaped to her feet again.
"Are your fingers made of wood, man? Susan
— Susan, your wife, is in peril!"
Andrew fell back, choking.
"God, Miss Mack! What — what is it?"
"I don't know! That's the worst!"
A sullen chugging broke from the engine. An-
drew jumped to the wheel, the car swerved sharply,
and we were dashing down the frozen pavement
of the Drive.
I clutched Madelyn's shoulders as we grazed a
taxicab and passed it, with the driver cursing after
us.
"Is it the yellow-faced man we saw at the
window?"
Madelyn glared.
"Nora, I believe you have been as blind as I
was! Can't you see yet the game Jacqueline was
playing? Haven't your eyes been opened to the
wild-goose chase she gave us — and its purpose?"


The Purple Thumb 277
"No," I said glumly, "they haven't!"
"Then," retorted Madelyn, with a touch of
grimness, "your eye-opening will have to wait!"
And she dropped the conversation. Occasionally
I stole a glance at her slight, drawn-faced figure;
but there was no further hint of confidences — or
apprehensions. There are times when Madelyn's
silence is glacial!
I huddled back in the robes and closed my eyes
in an effort to concentrate on the kaleidoscope of
the past three hours. And then I opened them in
the hope that the sun would dispel something of
my mental daze. Jacqueline's visit — her terror-
stricken story — the yellow face at the window —
our dash to the Lenox — the assault on the locked
door — the intruder in the rose-chamber — our
unsuccessful pursuit — and now this last climax!
And apparently we were drifting farther and
farther from the heart of the riddle!
With a reckless disregard of skidding, Andrew
whirled the car into the snow-crusted driveway of
"The Rosary." We .made a dishevelled trio as we
plunged into the long front hall, already darkened
by the late afternoon shadows. A dying log in the
grate fell apart with a crackle of sparks — and
then, in the circle of its momentary radiance, we
saw that which told us our wild ride had not been
for nothing.


278 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Madelyn had Susan's head in her lap before
Andrew and I could cross the room. From the
position of her body, it was evident that the house-
keeper had slipped down from a rocker, drawn into
the glow of the fire. A stocking, wrapped about
an old-fashioned darning-gourd, lay on the floor
at her side. Around her hung the odor of chloro-
form.
Madelyn's curt order for water was not neces-
sary. The bluish lips were already twitching, as
Andrew's match caught the hall gas.
With a sigh of relief, Madelyn thrust a cushion
under Susan's head, motioned Andrew to remain
at her side, and darted into the den. In the door-
way we stumbled over the second evidence of the
drug-trail. Peter the Great lay stiffly on his side,
breathing with a heaviness which it was apparent
that nothing for the present could break.
In the room, beyond, the purpose of the chloro-
form assailant was obvious. An impatient hand
had torn open drawers, and file cases, strewn the
floor with papers, and even jerked pictures from
the walls and books from their shelves. A desper-
ate search had been made of Miss Mack's sanctum
for — what?
Madelyn's lips tightened as her hand reached
into her waist and produced a long, unsealed en-
velope.


The Purple Thumb 279
"I had thought Miss Jacqueline might be inter-
ested in the letters of the Purple Thumb — but I
didn't fancy her interest was so deep!"
She surveyed the littered room with a shrug.
"On the whole, I should say, though, that she
has rather overbalanced the damage to my papers
by the service she has rendered me!"
"Service!" I cried.
Madelyn shrugged again.
"I fear I had not been giving the Purple Thumb
its proper importance in our little tangle!"
VII
Susan Bolton's story, when a half hour later
saw the haze of the drug somewhat diminished,
was the narration of an absurdly simple stratagem.
Melodramatic features in Miss Jacqueline's meth-
ods were signally lacking.
Recovering from her swoon shortly after our
departure, the maid had gratefully accepted Susan's
suggestion of a cup of chocolate. The hospitality
gave her an opportunity which she used to swift
advantage. As Susan returned the emptied cup to
the stand, a pair of lithe arms encircled her neck.
For a moment, she had a glimpse of a soaked
sponge and a pair of dark eyes. The drugging of
Peter the Great had probably been accomplished


280 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
quite as easily. It was an hour after Susan's re-
covery that he staggered dazedly back to his favor-
ite rug in the den.
I have often wondered since if that final scene
in our drama, toward which unconsciously we
were already rushing, would have been quite the
same had Jacqueline, the burglarious, given the
canine bodyguard of "The Rosary" a fatal whiff
of her drugged sponge — if, for instance, Madelyn
would have ventured her last, supreme risk in that
life-or-death climax with the same readiness! It
was obvious, at once, that our crafty visitor had
made a clueless retreat. Doubtless she had taken
her time in her futile search, perhaps made an un-
concerned departure through the front door!
Nor was there further trail of the prowler of the
yellow face. The shadows had already veiled the
trail of his footsteps across the snow when Made-
lyn circled her flashlight from the window where
we had glimpsed his blurred features. There was
evidence in plenty to show where he had stood.
Evidently he had maintained his vigil for some
minutes before discovery, but there were no signs
of returning steps, either here, or elsewhere in the
yard, although we rounded the chalet twice.
On our return from our fruitless exploration,
Madelyn cleared her desk with a rather ruthless
sweep, rummaged for a magnifying lens, and pro-


282 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
elusions: the communications possess a hidden
message which we have not yet discovered, or their
point is supplemented in some other fashion. In
either event, we have not found their true signifi-
cance — and it is not intended that we should!
"But it is equally evident that, if we are in ig-
norance of their concealed meaning, there are sev-
eral who have a closer knowledge. There is the
maid, Jacqueline, the yellow-faced gentleman at the
window, and, finally, the show-girl, Gwendolyn
Calvert. And, I should say, each is acting inde-
pendently of the others. We have then three dis-
tinct lines of convergence. That is our most hope-
ful fact, Nora. Those lines are bound to meet,
sooner or later!"
"Then one of those factors must have been in-
strumental in Miss Burton's disappearance!" I
broke in.
"You are assuming too much!" said Madelyn
testily. "You forget that Miss Burton's vanish-
ing could have been voluntary as well as involun-
tary. Grant that there were certain menacing ele-
ments directed against her, elements which may
even have conspired for her removal. They may
have been successful in their purpose — or they
may have failed. Miss Burton may have disap-
peared of her own accord — to elude them!"
"And in that event —"


The Purple Thumb 283
"Her escape has been successful, so successful
that the forces she has evaded are as interested in
finding her as we are!"
"And they are seeking to destroy the letters of
the Purple Thumb because they contain a clue to
their purpose!" I interjected.
"Perhaps!" said Madelyn drily. "And per-
haps there is another explanation. Mis"s Jacqueline
may have been acting not for the writer — but for
the recipient! If Ariel Burton disappeared of her
own accord, you must remember that she disap-
peared from her friends, as well as from her ene-
mies— and she may not desire either to locate
her!"
I stared. "Then the letters — "I burst out.
"Contain a guide to the solution of the riddle,
which we have not yet found," answered Madelyn
wearily. She turned. "Nora, will you kindly
start the phonograph for me? Put on the ballet
music from 'Faust.' Thank you! I believe you
have your article yet to write for The Bugle,
haven't you? You will find a comfortable table
and an excellent light in the living-room!"
"Which means bluntly — "I retorted.
"That I want to be alone for the next hour!"
I found that Susan had been assisted up to her
own chamber. The living-room was deserted. I
drew a chair to its table, moved a pad of paper


284 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
over to my elbow, and then sat uncertainly, tapping
my fountain pen. From the closed door of Made-
lyn's den rippled the ballet strains of "Faust," a
pause, and then the melody continuing. Madelyn
had evidently started the record over again.
With an effort, I tried to throw off the suggestion
that persisted in intruding into my thoughts. Miss
Mack had enumerated three persons interested in
the riddle of the Purple Thumb. She had over-
looked a fourth. Had she forgotten Thorny Pres-
ton — and the card in the white orchids?
It was seven when I finished my last paragraph.
I glanced up with a sigh to see Madelyn facing me,
with hat and coat on.
"It is twenty minutes over the hour I mentioned.
Are you ready for another trip to town?"
"Where, this time?" I demanded. "Dinner?"
"Perhaps," she returned drily.
At the door, she turned back and dropped into
her pocket an object that gleamed coldly in the
light. Most emphatically it was a curious dinner
that called for the accompaniment of a revolver!
As we settled into a seat in the Subway-train,
Madelyn spread out a copy of The Bugle which
she drew from her bag, and her face disappeared
behind its pages. I stared through the window for
perhaps ten minutes, and then I broke the silence
with an ironical grin.


The Purple Thumb 287
so, whether the danger she eluded is still threaten-
ing her!"
A curious exhilaration was sweeping through my
blood. It was the wild throb of the man-chase.
Again I could see the blurred, yellow face at the
window, the fainting form of the French maid.
What sinister trail were we following, and where
would it end? Had Miss Mack read the message
of the Purple Thumb? And what had it told her?
With an order to the chauffeur to wait, Madelyn
sprang across the walk toward the brown-stone
front of the Lenox, only slightly slackening her
steps as we passed into the marble and gilt splendor
of its hall. Martha answered our bell with a swift
change of expression, ludicrous under other cir-
cumstances. It was as though she viewed our ar-
rival as the forerunner of another climax like that
of the afternoon!
It was easy enough to see, as we passed in the
white-and-gold living-room, that the housekeeper
was regarding us with scant favor. Her suspicion
almost turned to open protest with Madelyn's first
action.
Darting across the room, Miss Mack pressed the
electric switch in the wall and plunged us into
darkness.
"That is better!" she said. "And now, Martha,
will you kindly extinguish the other lights?"


288 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
The housekeeper bridled.
"Really, ma'am, you —"
"Are you going to do as I ask you?" snapped
Madelyn. The superior will won. A moment
later, Miss Burton's flat showed no signs of occu-
pancy. As the lights of the hall disappeared,
Madelyn's electric search-lamp sent a flickering
circle into the shadows of the living-room,
swerved across the apartment, and focused on
the gaunt bulk of the theatrical trunk in the
corner.
"By the way, Martha, I believe you told me this
afternoon that Miss Burton is right-handed. She
had trained herself, however, to use either hand
on occasion, had she not?"
"Why, er, come to think of it, ma'am, she had.
Why do you ask?"
Madelyn made no answer, as she thrust the tube
of the flashlight into my hands.
"I'll leave the illumination with you, Nora. I
can manage our next task more expeditiously than
you can!"
Thrusting back the heavy tfunk-cover, she began
a ruthless removal of the close-packed garments
within. I could hear Martha's unheeded protest
as the finery of one of the most expensive theatrical
wardrobes on Broadway was sent into a pell-mell
heap on the floor. Paris and London gowns fol-


The Purple Thumb 291
A man in a light overcoat and black felt hat was
plunging through the farther doorway into the
rear hall. To his right arm was clinging the frail
form of Miss Mack. He turned snarlingly, re-
vealing a pair of close-set, gleaming eyes and, below
them, the yellow face that had peered at us
through the window of "The Rosary "!
For an instant the two swayed, and then Madelyn
was flung back against a chair, and the skirts of
the overcoat disappeared like a brownish streak.
Before I could reach her side, Madelyn was spring-
ing into the hall in unshaken pursuit.
It was then that I became aware of another oc-
cupant of the room. A disheveled young man in
evening clothes was leaning dazedly against the
opposite wall. On the tip of his ear twisted a
thread of blood like a red raveling.
"The beggar almost winged me!" gasped
Thorny Preston, half turning. "Another fraction
of an inch —"
His sentence dwindled in the middle as he recog-
nized me. For a moment we stood staring at one
another. I knew that my face had gone white, and
that I was reaching out mechanically to find some-
thing to steady myself, as though the feel of a solid
surface under my hand would steady also the whirl
of my thoughts. Thorny Preston added to the
marauders of Ariel Burton's apartments! Thorny


294 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
Ariel Burton's welfare depended upon prompt and
secret action. By the way, was Miss Calvert's
friend on the second floor, who came to her assist-
ance, the butler or —"
"She was using the apartment of her cousin,
who is in Europe," snapped Thorny, "number
eight! She found accidentally that the same keys
fitted the doors up here."
"That explains, then, her prompt disappear-
ances. As to what happened after you reached
Miss Burton's apartments, the details are fairly
obvious — your grapple with your unseen assailant,
Miss Calvert's flight — I regret, Mr. Preston, that
you did not have opportunity to complete your
mission! We will retire, if you desire to finish it
now!"
Thorny staggered to his feet.
"Then, for God's sake, tell me how!"
Even Madelyn stared.
"You mean —"
"I mean that we were to find in this room that
which would explain Ariel Burton's vanishing, but
what it was I have no more idea than you have!
Gwen Calvert knew. I guess she had been here
before. Just as she was opening her lips to ex-
plain to me — well, you know what happened. I
was seized from behind, and she was running back
into the corridor, screaming!" Thorny moistened


296 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"Then what about the card in Miss Burton's
bouquet that you concealed from us?"
Thorny flushed.
"I saw only the blank side when I picked it up!
I was as much surprised as you at what was on the
other side!" He hesitated. "Gwen Calvert over-
heard me reading aloud the letter that came to Miss
Burton at our last rehearsal. It threatened to kill
her unless she married the writer without delay.
Gwen even thought I was making the threat on my
own account!" He broke off. "This is awful,
Miss Mack! Surely something can be done — it
must be done! Gwen Calvert was in white earnest
when she called me to-night. The explanation of
the riddle is in this apartment, and we have got to
find it!"
"But it is apparent, Mr. Preston, that we cannot
make a search until we know what we are seeking.
You must locate Gwendolyn Calvert and force her
to tell me her story!"
» But —"
Madelyn gripped his arm.
"No woman in New York is facing a more
genuine peril than Ariel Burton to-night! If, for
any reason, Miss Calvert cannot, or will not, talk,
our last chance of aiding her is gone!"
Through the silence of the flat pealed the hall
bell. We could hear Martha answering the sum-


298 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
sort of dazed bewilderment still showing through
the film of death.
"She was shot down on the walk at the corner
of the building!" jerked out Lieutenant Byron.
"Tall, dark man in a light overcoat fired the bullet.
He has made a clean get-a-way — so far!"
VIII
I have often questioned whether any one but
Madelyn Mack could have accomplished what fol-
lowed. Lieutenant Byron maintains that she did
it because she was a woman. I differ with him.
Feminine psychology may have been a factor, but
it was nothing less than genius in the final analysis.
The lieutenant held us for a moment on the edge
of the group.
"It happened right under our eyes, Miss Mack!
If we —"
"I can guess how it happened!" said Madelyn.
She thrust past him, and caught the arm of a man,
evidently a physician, at the divan.
"We must keep her alive for sixty seconds
longer, Doctor! We must!"
"She is gone now!"
The physician gave a professional shrug. And
then, as though to belie his words, the girl's staring
eyes trembled, and her lips partly opened.


The Purple Thumb 299
"If I had an electric battery," the doctor hesi-
tated, "I might do what you ask, madam; but
without it, it is impossible!"
Madelyn bent lower over the white face. And
then, as the doctor drew back with a suggestion of
tolerance, occurred the miracle.
"Gwen, girlie! Gwen, I say!"
It was not Madelyn Mack, the inquisitor, plead-
ing with a witness; but a show-girl appealing to
one of her kind. Had Miss Mack spent an appren-
ticeship in a Broadway chorus, her voice could not
have acquired more perfectly the vibrant, metallic
tones of the footlights. Even phlegmatic Lieuten-
ant Byron was staring incredulously.
"Gwen, I say, don't you hear the call-bell? Let
the rest of your make-up go! Do you want the
stage-manager to fine you?"
At Madelyn's shoulders we were bent forward,
our eyes held to the face on the divan. Would
the daring expedient of psychology win over
death? Would the old, familiar call of the stage
re-animate the dying will of the show-girl when
medical stimulants had failed?
Again the grey lips moved, again the eyes trem-
bled, and then a wave of animation, like the spurt
of a fading fire, illumined their depths. Madelyn
had won! I could see her muscles stiffen as
she stooped still lower. It was as though she


300 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
would hold death at bay by sheer physical
strength.
With measured distinctness, she spoke again.
"Help me save Ariel Burton, Gwen! Tell me
now!"
The grey film fell a second time like a sinister
shadow. I tried to turn my face away. Death
would not be cheated. And then, even as the
thought framed itself, Gwendolyn Calvert's hand
fluttered to her waist, and her lips murmured the
words like a far-off voice on a defective telephone
wire:
"The broken fan! Find other half! It —
it —"
I wonder if the sentence was finished in eternity?
One could almost fancy that the dead lips were still
moving. . . .
I saw Madelyn's hand slip under the white
shirtwaist, fumble near the red blot on its bosom,
and emerge with the jagged half of an ivory fan.
On its surface was scribbled in a hurried pencil
scrawl the beginning of a notation, which had obvi-
ously been finished on the missing section:
"2156 Sy
"Yo"
Madelyn snapped the fan shut, and darted across
the hall to the stairs. Even Lieutenant Byron's call


The Purple Thumb 301
did not make her pause. When I drew my eyes
back from her disappearing figure, the tension in
the lobby had broken. The first of the halted
groups was already moving through the swinging
doors into the street. The unexpected eddy in the
life of the Lenox had passed. Doubtless, in a few
minutes, the faces that had blanched at the shadow
of death would be convulsed by the buffoonery of
the vaudeville. I could hear a querulous lady ex-
claim indignantly that she would be late for the
opera!
In a corner of Lieutenant Byron's mouth an
unlighted cigar had been thrust nervously all
through the short drama. With a mechanical
movement, he tossed it to the floor and ground it
under his heel.
"Burke," he snapped to his assistant, "I'll leave
the rest of the details down here to you. If you
need me, you'll find me up-stairs."
"If they should bring our man in, sir —" sug-
gested Burke.
The words recalled me with a start to the fact
that we had learned nothing of the details of the
crime.
"You are searching for a man with a yellow
face, of a Spanish type?" I demanded.
The lieutenant nodded grimly.
"There are two witnesses of the shooting, who


302 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
might have caught the assassin on the spot if they
hadn't been so afraid of their own precious lives!
Why, our taxicab was turning into the block below
at the time. If we had come two minutes
sooner —" He broke off abruptly. "It seems to
me, Miss Noraker, that you have information to
give as well as receive!"
I gazed at Thorny. His forehead was beaded
with perspiration, his eyes swollen. On the heels
of his wound, the stress of the past five minutes
had brought his nerves to the snapping point.
"Oh, there is no occasion now to keep anything
back!" he said wearily. "God, to think that, while
we were talking up-stairs, Gwen was going to her
death, and we could have saved her!"
He glanced across at the still figure on the divan.
"If I ever lay my hands on the brute that killed
her, Lieutenant, the police and the courts need not
worry about justice!"
The lieutenant reached for a fresh cigar.
"Just now, it occurs to me, Mr. Preston, that
you could serve Miss Calvert more wisely by giving
me an account of what happened before my arrival
on the scene."
Thorny brushed his hair back from his eyes,
hesitated a moment, and began the narrative that
Madelyn had wormed from his unwilling lips. He
finished it as we stepped from the elevator at Miss


The Purple Thumb 303
Burton's floor. Lieutenant Byron made no com-
ment as he pressed the bell. There was no answer.
Again his finger pushed the disc, and then his hand
impatiently caught the handle of the door. It
swung open noiselessly. With a growing frown,
he led the way into the living-room. And there
we paused.
The rose-chamber beyond was flooded with all
of its available lights. In the glare, the room pre-
sented a curious scene. Drawers were piled on the
floor, and their contents dumped into a heap beside
them. Stands and mantel had been swept clear.
Even the garments of an adjoining closet, cun-
ningly concealed by the wall draperies, had not
escaped. The appearance of the room suggested
the scene of ravage we had found in Madelyn's
den at "The Rosary;" but this time Miss Mack,
herself, was responsible for the confusion.
In the center of the havoc, Madelyn was stand-
ing, her eyes shot with cold, glinting specks of
light. Martha was completing the despoiling of
the closet with much the enthusiasm of an unwilling
prisoner at the point of a gun.
At the sound of our steps, Miss Mack half
turned her head, snapping open her watch.
"Ten-forty! We have until ten-fifty to act,
Lieutenant, if we are to avert another trag-
edy!"


The Purple Thumb 305
"He hasn't been — yet!" said Madelyn grimly.
The lieutenant passed his hand wearily over his
eyes.
"This — this is getting on my nerves, Miss
Mack! What's the answer?"
Madelyn pointed to the broken fan in his hand.
"When we find the other half of that trinket,
we'll find Ariel Burton, and, likewise, Sewell Col-
lins! Martha tells me her mistress broke the fan
recently at the theatre, and lost part of it at the
time. Miss Calvert found the part that she lost.
We must locate the other section!" She jerked
her hand toward her watch. "Eight minutes left
to do it!"
"And we will find Ariel Burton at the address
on the fan?" demanded Lieutenant Byron.
"She has been there for nearly twenty-four
hours! Doubtless she engaged the place by tele-
phone at the theatre, and jotted down the notation
on the fan. Why we'll discover later!"
The lieutenant strode into the chamber, his brisk-
ness restored.
"And the fan is hidden in this room?"
"Not hidden!" retorted the enigmatic Miss
Mack. "If it were hidden, our task would be
simple!"
The lieutenant stooped toward a stack of the
heaped-up garments. At his side, Thorny was


308 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
ers must be our destination. That is the only
suburb which the first two letters, 'Y-o,' would
fit."
IX .
A cheery, old-fashioned house, with cosily-
blinking lights, met us at the end of a quiet, emi-
nently respectable block in one of the most quiet,
most eminently respectable streets of Yonkers.
There could be no doubt about the number. We
had reached "2156 Sycamore" — and the end of
our quest.
I had been picturing vaguely a dim-shadowed
dwelling in an obscure corner of town, or perhaps
a deserted mansion among sighing trees — the kind
you read about in a shivery detective story — as
the fitting goal for our search, with an entrance
obtained through a cellar window, an ascent of
creaking stairs, and a fight in the dark with an
unseen enemy. I was conscious of a certain sense
of disappointment.
"2156 Sycamore" was thoroughly common-
place, genially matter-of-fact. If there was one
thing it lacked, it was assuredly the atmosphere of
mystery.
And the manner of our approach could not have
been further removed from any suggestion of the
dramatic.


The Purple Thumb 309
Lieutenant Byron conducted us up the front
steps, even pausing to wipe his feet on a strip of
matting, and then quite deliberately rang the bell.
A serving-man, with a round, expectant face, an-
swered the summons without delay.
The lieutenant stepped past him into a wide hall,
motioning us to follow.
"I believe we are expected," he said quietly.
The servant bowed.
"Will you step into the library, sir? I think you
are just in time!"
I glanced at the man. Just in time — for what?
A moment later I knew! With his most affable
smile, he threw open an adjoining door, and waited
as eight pairs of eyes whirled toward us. After
all, it was an occasion for affable smiles even from
a newly hired servant!
I don't know whether we or those whom we had
interrupted were the more amazed.
Four persons were standing in the center of the
room; a gravely-spectacled gentleman, in a some-
what rusty frock coat, obviously a minister; Miss
Ariel Burton, in the most perfect of evening toi-
lettes; Sewell Collins, with his eyes blinking nerv-
ously in his pudgy face; and, slightly behind them,
the slimly petite figure of Miss Jacqueline.
For just an instant the tableau lasted, and then
Miss Madelyn stepped forward.


310 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
"I trust we are not intruding?"
My eyes were riveted on Ariel Burton. Her face
had gone white, but her eyes were blazing like two
coals. She spoke with a sort of suppressed
fury.
"It should be quite evident that you are intru-
ding! However, if you will be seated for a few
moments —"
Sewell Collins turned back to the minister, and
the latter, surveying us in mild disapproval, raised
a Bible from a stand at his elbow.
"Unfortunately," replied Madelyn, "we cannot
take advantage of your kind invitation."
She continued her advance until she reached the
quartet.
"Before the ceremony proceeds, there are cer-
tain statements I wish to make, which I feel are
necessary to the occasion."
The minister laid back his Bible with a dubious
sigh. Sewell Collins turned irritably. Ariel Bur-
ton's eyes lost something of their blaze. I fancied
she was swaying slightly. Madelyn caught her
arm as though to steady her, but later we knew that
her purpose was far different.
"Mr. Collins," she began directly, "are you
familiar with the history of this lady whom you
were about to make your wife?"
Sewell Collins glared.


The Purple Thumb 311
"Certainly!"
"You know, then, that you are not marrying
Ariel Burton, the actress, but —"
Madelyn held up Miss Burton's right arm. The
light played on the tapering fingers, the jeweled
rings which covered them, the slenderly rounded
thumb. We all stared. Under the thumb nail was
a dull, purplish line, indelibly printed on the pink
flesh. Even then we did not guess!
From her bag, Madelyn extended to Lieutenant
Byron a crumpled newspaper, with a blue-ringed
paragraph.
"Will you kindly read aloud the article I have
marked?"
In a mechanical tone, the lieutenant complied.
"Sebastian Amador, a planter from Haiti, is
registered at the Algonquin Hotel on a curious
mission. He is in search of his runaway wife,
whom, he charges, deserted him three years ago,
and fled from his home under an assumed name.
As he describes her, she is a remarkable young
woman, of an exceedingly curious history. Her
mother was a French woman, of great beauty, and
one of the popular actresses of the European stage
of a generation ago. At the height of her career
she fell in love with a wealthy young Spanish
planter of Haiti who was on a visit to Paris. The
two were married, and the favorite of the Parisian


312 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
footlights exchanged the stage for a tropical plan-
tation. Here a daughter was born to her, who in-
herited both her mother's beauty and dramatic
ability. It was this daughter whom Amador later
married, and who, as he alleges, fled from him
after less than a year of married life. After nearly
four years of silence from her, he has found a clue
to her whereabouts, which leads him to the belief
that, through her inherited talents, she has won a
spectacular success in the New York theatres.
With all the ardor of his Southern blood kindling
at the news, and thirsting for a reconciliation,
Amador, on receipt of the information, at once
sailed for this city.
"And now comes the strangest part of the nar-
rative, rivaling the plot of a sensational novel. The
mother of the runaway Senora Amador also fled
from her husband twenty-five years ago, leaving
behind her newly-born child. The motive of her
desertion was the discovery that the man to whom
she had given herself was not of pure Spanish
blood, as she had believed, but —"
Lieutenant Byron broke off, the balance of the
sentence in his throat, as he stared from Madelyn
to the swaying form of Ariel Burton.
With a little wrench, the latter slipped from
Madelyn's hand. For a moment she stood quiver-
ing. The blaze had quite gone from her eyes,


The Purple Thumb 315
judging! You played a clever game with your
mysterious vanishing act to escape me, and what
I might have to tell the man you wanted to marry;
but you might have known better than to match
yourself against me. So you were going to capture
a millionaire husband, and play the high lady, you
— you —"
"Don't!" The protest was wrung from Ariel
Burton like a dry groan.
One of the detectives clapped his hand over
Amador's lips.
"Shall we take him outside, Lieutenant?"
Lieutenant Byron nodded.
"And — Franklin, see that you don't cut your
margins so confoundedly close in future!"
Instinctively our gaze focused next on the figure
of Sewell Collins. I will own at once that my esti-
mate of his stamina had been sadly underrated. I
had looked to see him perhaps in a state of collapse.
Instead he had shaken off his stupor and was sur-
veying us with a glint in his eyes that I had never
thought to see there. Perhaps it was a flash of the
rugged will of the old steel foundry days, which
the emergency of the moment had awakened down
under the ravages of midnight Broadway.
He addressed the bewildered clerical gentleman
with a touch of business-like crispness which I'll
venture his voice had not held for years.


The Purple Thumb 317
"As a matter of fact, none — nor did I ask for
any. I — I loved Miss Burton honestly. When
I saw her I repeated my offer of the protection of
my name, a step which I had suggested for some
time, and urged an immediate marriage."
Madelyn glanced at the crumpled form beyond
Mr. Collins' shoulder, as she continued the story.
"I should say at the outset that Miss Burton
had divorced Amador, a fact unknown to him until
after his arrival in New York. She had dissolved
his legal claims to her.
"The secret of her life had been buried so deep
that it seemed impossible of resurrection. The
gulf between Ariel Burton, the petted theatrical
star, with her name in six-foot electric letters, and
the obscure mulatto girl of Haiti, appeared impas-
sable. She had made a new career for herself, had
succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, was flattered,
admired, feted. A millionaire had offered her mar-
riage. And then came the first of the letters of
the Purple Thumb.
"She saw her castle of cards crashing, the brand
of her birth exposed, herself dragged back to all
from which she had fled.
"Amador was shrewd enough to make his per-
sonal communications to her purposely vague, and
to supplement them through the newspapers. Only
her identity was hidden. But she lived in constant


318 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
terror that the next screaming 'Extra' would re-
veal it.
"We received a proof of Amador's desperation
when, furious at the disappearance of his victim, he
murdered his tool, Gwendolyn Calvert, in the be-
lief that she had betrayed him. Whether he was
animated by an insane jealousy, or coveted the
spoils of the blackmailer, or both, I am convinced
that, had the marriage to-night been consummated,
while he was at large, sooner or later Miss Burton's
life would have paid the forfeit. Incidentally, it
was this last consideration — we must not mince
words! — the knowledge that she was in imminent
danger of losing the position that, as Mrs. Sewell
Collins, she would hold, which completed her de-
spair, and determined her on the bold coup of her
disappearance."
A suggestion of weariness slipped into Madelyn's
voice.
"It was necessary not only to elude her Neme-
sis, but — and again we must speak frankly! —
allow herself opportunity for her marital ambition.
In other words, she must vanish — and yet still
remain in touch with her world. The theatre of-
fered the most effective background for her plans.
How was it possible to spirit herself away from a
crowded playhouse so that the manner of her dis-
appearance would not be detected?


320 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
with the announcement that the actress had van-
ished!
"As a matter of fact, while we searched fran-
tically for Ariel Burton, she was at our elbows!
"In the meantime, the trunk, containing the
obliging Miss Jacqueline, had arrived at the Lenox.
Miss Burton, leaving the theatre, still in the role
of her maid, returned to her apartments, released
Jacqueline, and with her aid packed the trunk, and
relocked it. Martha, the housekeeper, had been
given a convenient leave of absence. When the
task was finished, Miss Burton, leaving her maid
at the flat as a sort of scout in the enemy's coun-
try, made her way to the house she had rented in
Yonkers — and awaited developments. I think
that completes the statement you desired, Mr.
Collins."
Thorny had drawn a memorandum book from
his pocket during the latter portion of the re-
cital.
"If you don't mind, Miss Mack, there is one
other point. I will confess that I essayed the role
of amateur detective, myself — with the usual re-
sults. To aid me, I tried to make a chronological
table of everything that occurred on the stage dur-
ing the evening. I find that, contrary to your
statement, both Miss Burton and her maid were in
the dressing-room after the trunk had been sent


The Purple Thumb 323
"I wonder if she loved him after all?" I asked
softly.
"I should say that is just the question she is put-
ting to herself," said Madelyn drily.
It was not until we turned into the street for our
walk back to the station that the silence was broken
again, and then Lieutenant Byron spoke.
"You will understand my professional curiosity,
Miss Mack, when I ask how you did it!"
Madelyn laughed.
"I was wondering how long you would wait for
that question! It is when we drift away from the
ear-marks of the professional criminal, where the
card-index methods of headquarters are of no
avail, that the lack of imagination in the police de-
partment is evident.
"For instance, the first three clues in the riddle
of Miss Burton's dressing-room were a cigarette
stub on the dressing table, a hair brush, and the
ornament of the golden butterfly. The cigarette
and the brush were both on the left side of the
table, suggesting obviously that the last occu-
pant of the room was a left-handed woman who
smoked.
"When I found that it was not Miss Burton, but
her maid, who was the nicotine devotee, and when
I was told, later, that Miss Burton was right-
handed, and saw that the maid was left-handed,


324 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
my- half-crystallized theory received a set-back until
I was informed by the housekeeper that the actress
could on occasion use both hands with equal dex-
terity.
"There were three explanations which could ac-
count for Miss Burton's disappearance. One of
these was the substitution of herself in the charac-
ter of her servant. This involved the physical elim-
ination of the latter. How? The golden butterfly
gave the first suggestion. The most natural use
for the ornament was as the handle of a knife. If
this were the case, the blade had been snapped, evi-
dently in some violent test of its strength. What,
for example?
"If a trunk had entered into the affair, we
might fairly assume that the breaking of the knife
had occurred in the making or enlarging of a
breathing outlet for the imprisoned occupant.
"When I saw that the trunk at the Lenox con-
tained no evidence of such mutilation, I was at a
loss until, on a second examination this evening, I
found from an interior view that a luggage-label
had been neatly pasted over the hole that had been
made with augur and knife for Miss Jacqueline's
benefit. I infer that the trunk had been previously
prepared for the emergency, but that, in the mo-
ment of service, an enlargement of the air-hole was
found necessary."


326 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
This is evidently your property. I found it on the
back stairs of the Lenox in the trail of Gwendolyn
Calvert's flight."
She extended an unsealed envelope, addressed to
me at The Bugle office. There are those who say
that a crisis in one's life casts a preparatory
shadow. For my part, I opened the letter from
the dead without a suspicion of the message it held
for me.
"My dear Miss Noraker:
"I don't know why I am writing this.
Something stronger than my own will
tells me that I should do it — and do it
now, or it will be too late. Is it a hunch
that something is about to happen to me
— something different from anything
Gwen has yet found on the boards?
"When I told you that Thorny Preston
had promised to marry me, I did not tell
you the truth. Maybe, you can under-
stand the hysteria of a woman with a
hopeless love. I doubt it. Few women
can — who haven't been through it!
"And I know now, too, that Mr. Pres-
ton's conversation with Miss Burton had
a much different meaning than that which
I supposed. But this is not alone the rea-


The Purple Thumb 327
son for my writing you. It is to tell you
the name of the woman whom Mr. Pres-
ton does love.
"On second thought, however, I am
not going to do it! If you cannot guess
it for yourself, you do not deserve to
know.
"Gwendolyn Calvert."
A truant wind whisked the letter from my hand,
as I finished it under the glare of a corner light.
With a gasp I saw Thorny Preston spring forward
and rescue it from the Yonkers gutter. He
straightened to return it and then paused. His
glance had caught mechanically his name on the
crumpled page.
He raised his eyes inquiringly, saw my flaming
face under the arc-lamp, and then, without a word,
read the note deliberately. I gathered up my
skirts, and fled. I thought I heard him call after
me.
We were midway in our early morning ride
back to town when Thorny, swinging out of the
smoker, paused at my seat.
"By the way, Nora, who is the society editor of
The Bugle since Miss Williams left?"
"Why?" I asked, unsuspecting.
"I thought perhaps you might not like to write


328 Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective
the announcement of your own wedding. We are
to be married this afternoon!"
The world whirled about my ears, as I stared
back at him. And then —
"A proposal in a railroad car!" I flared.
Thorny grinned.
"My dear girl, I thought you had been a re-
porter long enough to appreciate the human inter-
est element!"
THE END.


MISS BILLY-MARRIED
A Sequel to " Miss Billy" and " Miss
Billy's Decision"
!By Eleanor H. 'Porter
Author of " Pollyanna:" The GLAD Bool (Trade Mark), "CrOM
Currents," "The Turn of the Tide," ate.
♦
/ 2mo, cloth decorative, with frontispiece In full color, decorative
jacket. &C't $ I -25; carriage paid $1.40
In which the gifted author of "Pollyanna," the most popular
book for the year 1913, scores another success and makes of
the married life of adorable Billy Neilson — the heroine of the
MISS BILLY books — and Bertram Henshaw a story of un-
usual tenderness and sweetness. There is a deal of delicious
humor and common sense, too, in the story, and happiness in
abundance, even in the trying days when the young bride finds
herself bereft of a cook and burdened with the care of a Bea-
con Street household. But whether the weather be fair or
threatening, she is "just Billy," happy when making someone's
burden lighter, happier still with the advent of Bertram, Jr.,
and happiest of all when her husband is able to use his strong
right arm again, even to paint the dreaded "face of a girl."
As is the case with all of Mrs. Porter's books, the story is
"always life," gracefully and sympathetically presented, carry-
ing with it a message of happiness.


2Jy eJKrs. Henry fBacktu
Author of "The Career of Dr. Wear
/ 2mo, cloth decorative, with frontispiece in full color
SftCet $1.25 ; carriage paid $1.40
A girl of unusual beauty, endowed with a singing voice of rare
quality, and possessor of that charm of person which men some-
times describe as magnetic, — this is Fraulein Antoinette
Kroger, whom Conrad Questenberg, a young American archi-
tect, visiting abroad, first meets in a Kaffee-haus in Bremen,
Germany, where the fair " Toni" entertains every evening.
Toni has ambitions which lean towards a career in Amerika,
as Questenberg learns at what he had intended to be his fare-
well meeting with the girl. Very generously he offers a chance
of a voyage to the land of the free if Toni will agree to "a
trial engagement." Impulsively, she accepts, and then — the
love game is on.
The author has achieved a thing unusual in developing a
love story which adheres to conventions under unconventional
circumstances. She has written a novel out of the ordinary
in every way and one of striking brilliance, — remarkable for
its unaffectedness and human interest appeal.


Selections from
The Page Company's
List of Fiction
WORKS OF
ELEANOR H. PORTER
POLLYANNA: The GLAD Book (170,000)
(trade mabk)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by Stockton Mulford.
Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40
"All unconsciously it teaches a simple, wholesome lesson,
which, if followed, would quickly transform this old world as a
place to live in." — Ex-Postmaster General John Wanamaker.
MISS BILLY (9th Printing)
Cloth decorative. With a frontispiece in full color from a
painting by G. Tyng $1.50
"The story is delightful, and as for Billy herself — she's all
right I " — Philadelphia Press.
MISS BILLY'S DECISION (6th Printing)
A sequel to " Miss Billy."
Cloth decorative. With a frontispiece in full color from a
painting by Henry W. Moore . Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40
"The story is written in bright, clever style and has plenty
of action and humor. Miss Billyws nice to know and so are her
friends." — New Haven Times Leader.
CROSS CURRENTS
Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.00
"To one who enjoys a story of life as it is to-day, with its
sorrows as well as its triumphs, this volume is sure to appeal."
— Book News Monthly.
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.25
"A very beautiful book showing the influence that went to
the developing of the life of a dear little girl into a true and good
woman." — Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio.


LIST OF FICTION
5
CAMERON OF L0CHD2L
Translated from the French of Philippe Aubert de Gaspl, with
frontispiece in color by H. 0. Edwards.
Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50
"Professor Roberts deserves the thanks of his reader for giving
a wider audience an opportunity to enjoy this striking bitoi
French Canadian literature." — Brooklyn Eagle.
THE PRISONER OF MADEMOISELLE
With frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill.
Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50
A tale of Acadia, —- a land which is the author's heart's delight,
— of a valiant young lieutenant and a winsome maiden, who first
captures and then captivates.
THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT WOOD
With six illustrations by James L. Weston.
Library 12mo, decorative cover ..... $1.50
"One of the most fascinating novels of recent days." — Boston
Journal.
"A classic twentieth-century romance." — New York Commer-
cial Advertiser.
THE FORGE IN THE FOREST
Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer,
Seigneur de Briart, and how he crossed the Black Abb6, and
of his adventures in a strange fellowship. Illustrated by Henry
Sandham, R. C. A.
Library 12mo, cloth decorative ..... $1.50
A story of pure love and heroic adventure.
BY THE MARSHES OF MINAS
Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . $1.50
Most of these romances are in the author's lighter and more
playful vein; each is a unit of absorbing interest and exquisite
workmanship.
A SISTER TO EVANGELINE
Being the Story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into
exile with the villagers of Grand Pr6.
Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50
Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep pas-
sion, and searching analysis characterize this strong novel.


6
THE PAGE COMPANY'S
WORKS OF
THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS
THE HARBOR MASTER
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a
painting by John Goss. Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40
The salt of the sea ia in every chapter. From start to finish
the story thrills with its action and clear presentation of life in
the open." — Kansas City Star.
RAYTON: A Backwoods Mystery
Cloth decorative, illustrated by John Goss.
Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40
"The story has plenty of action, breathes of the fresh fields
and forests of New Brunswick, and presents life in all its health
and vigor." — Boston Transcript.
A CAPTAIN OF RALEIGH'S
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a paint-
ing by John Goss $1.50
"A strong, straightforward tale of love and adventure, well
worth reading."—Springfield Union.
A CAVALIER OF VIRGINIA
Cloth decorative, illustrated by Louis D. Gowing . $1.50
"The action is always swift and romantic and the love is of
the kind that thrills the reader. The characters are admirably
drawn and the reader follows with deep interest the adventures
of the two young people." — Baltimore Sun.
HEMMING, THE ADVENTURER
Cloth decorative, with six illustrations by A. G. Lamed.
$1.50
"Its ease of style, its rapidity, its interest from page to page,
are admirable; and it shows that inimitable power — the story
teller's gift of verisimilitude." — The Reader.
BROTHERS OF PERIL
Cloth decorative, with four illustrations in color by H. C.
Edwards $1.50
A tale of Newfoundland in the sixteenth century, and of the
now extinct Beothic Indians who lived there.
"An original and absorbing story. A dashing story with a
historical turn. There is no lack of excitement or action in it,
all being described in vigorous, striking style." — Boston Tran-
script.


LIST OF FICTION y
WORKS OF
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS
Each one volume, library \2mo, cloth decorative . . $1.50
THE FLIGHT OF GEORGIANA
A Romance op the Days op the Young Pbetender. IUus-
trated<4>y H. C. Edwards.
"A love-story in the highest degree, a dashing story, and a
remarkably well finished piece of work." — Chicago Record-
Herald.
THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER
Being an account of some adventures of Henri de Launay, son
of the Sieur de la Tournoire. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
"Mr. Stephens has fairly outdone himself. We thank him
heartily. The story is nothing if not spirited and entertaining,
rational and convincing." — Boston Transcript.
THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT
(40th thousand.)
"This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done.
Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure
of this praise, which is generous." — Buffalo News.
CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW
Or, The Maid op Cheapside. (52d thousand.) A romance
of Elizabethan London. Illustrations by Howard Pyle and
other artists.
Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we
had anything so good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.
"The story proceeds with a rapidity which holds the attention
of the reader from the start to the finish. The characters are
well portrayed with a vividness only found in this well-known
author." — The Waterbury Democrat.
"It is a work of fiction well worth reading, and once read it is
not easily forgotten." — Common Sense Magazine, Chicago.
THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON
A Romance op Philipse Manor House in 1778. (53d
thousand.) lllustrated.by H. C. Edwards.
A stirring romance of the Revolution, with its scenes laid on
neutral territory.
"One of the most delightful stories we have had for many a
day." — Chicago Record-Herald.


8
THE PAGE COMPANY'S
PHILIP WINWOOD
(70th thousand.) A Sketch of the Domestic History of an
American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing
events that occurred between and during the years 1763 and
1785 in New York and London. Illustrated by E. W. D.
Hamilton.
AN ENEMY TO THE KING
(70th thousand.) Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
adventures of a young French nobleman at the court of Henry
III., and on the field with Henry IV.
THE ROAD TO PARIS
A Story op Adventure. (35th thousand.) Illustrated by
H. C. Edwards.
An historical romance of the eighteenth century, being an
account of the life of an American gentleman adventurer.
A GENTLEMAN PLAYER
His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Eliza-
beth. (48th thousand.) Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
The story of a young gentleman who joins Shakespeare's
company of players, and becomes a protege1 of the great poet.
CLEMENTINA'S HIGHWAYMAN
Illustrated by A. Everhart.
The story is laid in the mid-Georgian period. It is a dashing,
sparkling, vivacious comedy.
TALES FROM BOHEMIA
Illustrated by Wallace Goldsmith. _
These bright and clever tales deal with people of the theatre and
odd characters in other walks of life which fringe on Bohemia.
A SOLDIER OF VALLEY FORGE
By Robert Neilson Stephens and Theodore Goodridge
Roberts.
With frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill.
"The plot shows invention and is developed with originality,
and there is incident in abundance." — Brooklyn Times.
THE SWORD OF BUSSY
By Robert Neilson Stephens and Herman Nickerson.
With frontispiece by Edmund H. Garrett.
Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40
"The plot is lively, dashing and fascinating, the very kind
of a story that one does not want to stop reading until it is
finished." — Boston Herald.


10
THE PAGE COMPANY'S
WORKS OF
NATHAN GALLIZIER
THE SORCERESS OF ROME
Cloth decorative, with four drawings in color by "The Kin-
neys" $1.50
The love-story of Otto III., the boy emperor, and Stephania,
wife of the Senator Crescentius of Rome.
CASTEL DEL MONTE
Cloth decorative, with six drawings by H. C. Edwards.
$1.50
A romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in Italy.
THE COURT OF LUCIFER
Cloth decorative, with four drawings in color by "The Kin-
neys" $1.50
An historical romance woven around the famous Borgia
family.
THE HILL OF VENUS
Cloth decorative, with four drawings in color by Edmund H.
Garrett. Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
This is a vivid and powerful romance of the thirteenth century
in the times of the great Ghibelline wars.
WORKS OF
HELEN M. WINSLOW
THE PLEASURING OF SUSAN SMITH
Cloth decorative, illustrated by Jessie Gillespie.
Net, $1.00; carriage paid, $1.15
"One is glad to recommend this book to folk who care for
romance, humor and good sense, simplicity and brevity as
quite the sort of reading they are sure to like by way of enter-
tainment." — Chicago Inter-Ocean.
PEGGY AT SPINSTER FARM
Cloth decorative, illustrated by Mary G. Huntsman . $1.50
"Very alluring is the picture she draws of the old-fashioned
house, the splendid old trees, the pleasant walks, the gorgeous
sunsets, and — or it would not be Helen Winslow — the cats."
— The Boston Transcript.